Old strips of sheet metal.
A crude but effective alarm system. I turned to the justice and whispered, “Do you have a handkerchief?”
He reached into his inside jacket pocket, pulled one out. As carefully as I could, I tied the white cotton around the fishing line so that Skink would find it on his climb, and then carefully stepped over the line. Straczynski did the same and we moved on.
It was another flight and a half to the deck from where the soft light leaked into the stairwell. We climbed more slowly, more carefully than before. There was another line a little farther up and this time I had the justice give me his tie to wrap around it.
“Why don’t you use your tie?” he whispered.
“Yours is silk,” I said. “One drip of gravy and it’s gone anyway. But polyester lasts forever.”
We stopped at the landing with the soft leaking light. I turned off the flashlight, put down the suitcase. The suitcase had grown heavier as I climbed. I moved my arm back and forth to ease the strain. We were at a dimly lit hallway. A muffled voice could be heard, a bright light came through an open doorway about forty yards off.
I turned to Straczynski, raised an eyebrow. He nodded. I picked up the suitcase, started down the hallway, stepped as softly as I could. The voice grew louder, grew more distinct, snatches of words came clear.
“…wouldn’t fancy getting caught in between… quick stop in Freeport maybe… after George Town we could… a mate told me about this here Ambergis…”
I recognized Colfax’s arrogant Cockney drawl, and I could tell what he was doing just by the gaps in the sound, the slowness of his voice. He was looking at a map, most likely tracing the possible routes with his finger, tossing out suggestions of where to go, where to hide. And I recognized the route too, a water route, which told me all I needed to know about their planned escape from the city. Kimberly had said she was going to buy a boat for her boss. Something comfortable, no doubt, maybe a sailboat or a small fishing vessel to take them down the coast, around Cuba, down to George Town, not the Georgetown in Washington, D.C., but the George Town in the Cayman Islands, where money travels when it wants to disappear.
We kept walking down the hall, closer and closer to the door with the light.
“What about Negril?” came a different voice, a woman’s voice. “I’ve heard wonderful things about Negril.”
A sharp breath from behind me, Justice Straczynski recognizing his wife’s voice as she plotted her escape from him.
“Yes, maybe, why not?” said a third voice, with a sharp Brockton accent. “Why not Negril?”
Something grabbed my arm. I almost jumped up and shouted, but I didn’t. I gained control, turned around, saw Straczynski with his eyes glistening. “That’s Tommy,” he said.
I nodded, looked down at my arm until he let go.
“Are you ready?” I said softly.
He waited for a moment, peered past me down the hallway as if he was peering into both his painful past and his uncertain future, and then nodded.
Slowly, silently we walked toward the open door. We had to be careful. I had wanted to surprise them, to catch them off guard, to learn what I could before they were aware of our presence and to give Skink the time he needed, but I didn’t want to surprise them so much that Colfax started shooting before he realized who we were. So it wouldn’t do to just appear at the doorway, no that wouldn’t do. I would be polite, I would knock.
I rapped once, twice.
“Hello,” I called out. “Anyone home? Victor Carl here, and I have a delivery.”
Chapter 72
THERE WOULD BE a sword fight, of course there would be a sword fight, how could there not? Isn’t that how all great revenge stories end, with a sword fight, and wasn’t Tommy Greeley aiming to make his revenge into a great story, casting himself in the leading role? So there would be the inevitable sword fight, yes, but before that stirring duel we had to deal with Colfax, who stepped out into the hallway, glowering, in his hand a gun, matte black with a wooden grip. Mr. Beretta, I assumed.
“What are you two doing ’ere?” he said.
“I didn’t want to wait,” I said and then jerked a thumb at the justice. “He came for his wife.”
“You want ’er back?” he said, his voice wide with astonishment. “I figured you were the only one making out ’ere.” He peered beyond us along the hallway and into the stairwell. “Who’s with you?”
“No one. We came alone.”
“You’re not really that stupid, are you?”
“Yes,” I said cheerfully. “Yes, I am.”
Colfax glanced down at the suitcase, glanced over at Straczynski. “You brought everything?”
“Everything I have.”
“Bring him in, Colfax,” called Tommy Greeley from the lighted room. “Don’t make us wait.”
Colfax looked at us for a long moment, checked again the hallway, and then shook his gun at us, indicating we should step through the doorway.
It was a large stark room, divided by white stanchions, and well lit from spotlights hanging from overhead steel girders and hooked up to a large battery on a table. The room was stripped like the rest of the ship, but with some homey touches remaining. The floor was black, with a few scattered linoleum tiles, and there were the remnants of a curved, art deco bar, posts of bar stools lined before it, some of the seats still in place. Standing by the bar was Alura Straczynski; sitting on one of the remaining stools was Tommy Greeley. He was dressed all in white, white shirt, pants, bucks, like some wax model of Gatsby that had been left out in the sun. His shiny face was too immobile to show interest, but his eyes behind the lifeless flesh were focused intently on the justice. On the bar were charts and maps and, off a bit to the side, a large black cloth.
“Ah, Jackson, Jackson, Jackson,” said Tommy. “You’ve gained some weight, I see.”
“Hello, Tommy,” said Justice Straczynski. “I thought you were dead.”
“I was. And I suppose Victor’s bringing you here means you were responsible. But after you killed me, as in all great stories, came the resurrection.”
“You always did have delusions of grandeur.”
“What are you doing here, Jackson?” said Alura Straczynski.
“I came to take you home.”
“By the hair?”
“If necessary.”
“Tell me, Jackson,” said Tommy Greeley. “How do you like my ship? Quite a thing, yes? I’ve been on the committee to save this old relic for years. I’ve always been one to conserve the past. Sorry about the condition, but they found a bit of asbestos and were forced to strip it bare. This was the tourist-class lounge. I prefer first-class accommodations, but this room still has its original floor, the original bar. How did you find us?”
Colfax waved his gun at Alura. “They followed ’er.”
“Ah, yes, of course. How careless of you, dear.”
“I did everything exactly as you said,” she complained. “I obeyed all your instructions. I checked repeatedly. There was no one.”
“See, the problem with birds like you,” said Colfax, “is you’re oblivious to anyone but yourselves.”
“Who are you again?”
“I’m the ’ired ’elp,” said Colfax. “All right now. Enough of our tender reunion. Let’s ’ave a look.”
He grabbed the suitcase out of my hand and hoisted it onto the bar. Then, standing to the side, as if afraid of a booby trap, he opened the latch and lifted the top. With the point of his gun, he rummaged around.
“Let’s see,” he said. “Old clothes, looks like they could use a wash, with plenty of bleach, mind you. Some old notebooks.”
“They’re mine,” said Alura Straczynski.
Colfax heard something in her voice, some sense of desperate longing. “Are they now? What’s in them? Something valuable?”