And if Innocent hadn’t stepped in to remove those tapes, Kirby and his smuggling operation would right now be plastered all over the pages of Trend magazine!
And Valerie? Would she be alive or dead?
No; Trend would not have come out in time to save her.
Kirby... Kirby... Kirby would already have killed her, in any event.
Hiram Farley continued, while Innocent’s thoughts went racing. Farley explained about the tape recordings, their being stolen at the airport, and went on, “My friends — they’re not the sort for intrigues like this, certainly not for anything dangerous — they’ve made it clear they don’t have the heart to go on with the investigation, particularly if those tapes are now in the hands of the smugglers, as they almost certainly are.”
Innocent’s mind was full of thoughts of Valerie and Kirby, but he managed to follow Hiram Farley well enough to say, “So now you’ll do it yourself?”
“Mister St. Michael, I still want that story for Trend. And I imagine you would like to help save your patrimony from the thieves and smugglers.”
“But of course, Mister Farley,” Innocent said, thinking, Is this fellow a pansy-boy, too, like his friends? Yes. More subtle about it, not noticeable at all if you aren’t looking for it, but yes. On the other hand, shrewder than his friends, tougher. Not an easy fellow to take advantage of.
Farley was saying, “Mister St. Michael, I’ll level with you. After my friends threw in the towel, I looked around, asked around, trying to find somebody else with a connection in Belize. Do you remember a man named Rodemeyer? William Rodemeyer?”
The name rang a distant bell, no more. Innocent frowned, saying, “I’m not sure...”
“This would be several years ago. You sold him a piece of land in Ladyville.”
Ladyville was the little community next to the International Airport. Its future was in fact quite promising for commercial properties, should Belize ever become a considerably larger and more bustling nation than it now was. Innocent had owned different parcels out there over the years...
Rodemeyer! It came back to him now, the man with the odd name. “The magazine man!”
“That’s right,” Farley said. “He wanted to found a weekly business magazine for the English-speaking Caribbean basin.”
“Yes, I remember that man,” Innocent said. “He wanted land out by the airport, to build offices and his own printing operation out there, distribute by air through the Caribbean. Very ambitious project.”
“Too ambitious, as it turned out,” Farley said.
“Bigger circus than this come to Belize,” Innocent told himself.
“Beg pardon?”
“Nothing. Seems to me that man went bust.”
“Yes, he was undercapitalized.”
“That’s the big trouble in the Caribbean,” Innocent agreed, nodding like a statesman.
“He’s back in New York now, Rodemeyer is,” Farley said. “Working for Barron’s.”
“Aristocrats pay pretty good, I hear,” Innocent said.
“I understand he sold the land back to you before he left, for rather less than he’d paid for it.”
“Very depressed real estate market, just at that moment,” Innocent murmured.
“Yes,” agreed Farley. “The point is, Bill Rodemeyer told me he met several people in Belize, but you were the one I should see. He said you were the shrewdest, toughest con man he ever met in his life, but you were important in the government, and if there was something in it for you I could probably get you to work with me on this smuggling story.”
“I have never had anything but the nicest remarks to make about Mister Rodemeyer,” Innocent said, putting on a faintly insulted air.
Farley laughed. “And why not? You made a pretty penny off him.” Becoming more serious, he said, “I’ll let you personally break the story in Belize, and I’ll feature you prominently in the write-up in Trend. We give each other an exclusive. My information plus your local contacts, and we expose these smugglers together.”
By now, Innocent’s mind was functioning simultaneously on two completely different levels. On the surface, operating out of long practice and engrained habit, he listened to Hiram Farley, heard his ideas, decided how to play this latest fish on his line. But underneath, his mind was full to overflowing with thoughts of Valerie Greene. And where the two thoughtstreams converged was at Kirby Galway.
Kirby the smuggler. And Kirby the murderer.
“So you want to expose these smugglers in your magazine,” he said. “You want to catch them in the act, you mean, with photographs and all.”
“That would be best,” Farley agreed. “I can handle all that part of it myself. What I need from you, if you think it’s a good idea, is help on the ground.”
“To catch the smugglers,” Innocent said, brooding. To catch Kirby the smuggler; yes, that would be a good thing, with this man Farley along to get the evidence that would stick. But what about Kirby the murderer?
Farley said, “Do we have a deal, Mister St. Michael?”
“Let me think about this, Mister Farley,” Innocent said. Kirby the murderer is up to me, he thought. Inexorably he was sliding toward a decision that was very unlike him, very out of character. And yet, there it was. And still he hung back from it.
Tomorrow, he promised himself. Tomorrow I’ll choose; Farley or Kirby. “I’ll get in touch with you by tomorrow afternoon, Mister Farley,” he said, “at the Fort George.”
Farley was surprised. “How do you know I’m staying at the Fort George?”
Innocent laughed, though his mind was full of Kirby the murderer. “Every American I do business with is at the Fort George, Mister Farley,” he said.
10
Total Recoil
“Seven,” said Kirby.
“Fourteen for two,” said Manny.
Kirby grinned, and laid down a third seven. “Twenty-one for six,” he said, and moved his back peg forward six spaces on the cribbage board. Only then did he look up to see every tooth gap in Manny’s head gleaming at him; the man smiled like a tunnel entrance. “No,” said Kirby.
“Yes,” said Manny, and gently placed the fourth seven on the table. “Twenty-eight for twelve.” He leaned forward to study the board. “And the game.”
It was true; the 12 points put Manny out. “At least it wasn’t a skunk,” said Kirby, whose lead peg was 11 spaces from victory.
“What’s the score now?”
Kirby turned the board over, where ink checkmarks in groups of five ran in battalions down two strips of masking tape, which were themselves laid over previous strips bearing previous battalions. Making another mark with his ballpoint pen, Kirby said, “You’re ahead, as you damn well know.”
“How much? How much?”
“Three hundred twenty-nine games to two hundred seventy-eight.” Shaking his head, Kirby turned the board over. “I should have taught you checkers instead.”
“Teach me now.”
“You sound too eager,” Kirby told him, and glanced over as a couple of the dogs — who had been peacefully watching Guatemalan television with Estelle and the kids — got up and turned around and looked at the door.
“Somebody coming,” Manny said.
“Could be Tommy.”
Manny liked Tommy Watson well enough, but Estelle always got purse-lipped when the Indian was around, as she did now, remaining silent but giving Kirby a quick look. “I’ll talk to him outside,” Kirby promised.
And in fact he had something to tell Tommy. Yesterday’s expedition to San Pedro had been a bust, at least from a business point of view, but when he’d flown in here just before noon today — not wanting to miss Estelle’s lunch — there had been a message waiting which Cora had brought down from Orange Walk. It was Witcher and Feldspan’s answer to his cable, and it assured him Sunday would be just fine for taking delivery on the first shipment. So Kirby’s message to Tommy would be, Produce some Zotzes! Let’s start these new customers off right, with a nice platoon of devil-gods. No more excuses about how everybody’s too superstitious and afraid to make the damn things.