Bluebell sighed. "Don't you see? That's why Chauncey had to come back and get Crompton the second time."
Hannah gave me a poke in the ribs with her elbow. "Which helps to explain, my dear Elliott, why we can't find those damn cylinders in the first place. Chauncey screwed it up."
"Precisely — just like the log book says. They were there, Packer couldn't get them out, tried to blast a hole in the Garl, and all he accomplished was blowing half the ship further down into the trench. But," I persisted, "that still doesn't explain why Packer was looking for them."
Mookie was leaning forward over the bar, listening intently. "You think this Packer guy killed Crompton?"
I finished off the Scotch, savored it for a fleeting moment and tried to think of a way to put what I really felt into words. "It's a distinct possibility," I hedged. "Chances are Packer sent Crompton packing after he located the Garl for him. That way Cromp wouldn't know what it was all about. Then when Packer screwed up, he needed Crompton a second time. That was too bad for Cromp. Packer more than likely waited until after Crompton had located the cylinders a second time — then killed him. What better way to hide the fact than to mug a guy eighty feet under the water and then leave him there to let the fish finish the dirty work?"
Nodding, Hannah was buying my theory.
"Wait a minute," Bluebell stammered, "you telling me Crompton is dead?"
"That's exactly what I'm saying. We found his body in the wreck of that ship your boyfriend was babbling about."
Bluebell Saint James suddenly looked very, very sad. Her long black lashes veiled her eyes, and she looked away. She stamped out her half-smoked stick in a heavy glass ashtray. "Know something?" she asked sadly. "That's too bad, really too damn bad. He had no money, but when he crawled between the sheets with a lady, she knew she was going first class."
In other times and under other circumstances, I might have joined in with the other merrymakers and applauded old Sol's final performance as it slipped into the fire-colored western waters of the Caribbean. Instead, I made sure Hannah enjoyed the spectacle while I negotiated a $5000 loan from Mookie to pay off one of Westmore's tainted finest. Poqulay greedily counted the money in a stall in the men's room and hastily assured me he was ready to offer other services if and when they were needed.
From there we hired a tired looking Vauhall to take us to Chicken Lavish. The washed-out looking blonde who claimed she was bedding down with the dearly departed Crompton was on duty. It's a good thing she was, because this wasn't the kind of news that a lady should read on a message board. In typical Wages fashion, I didn't even know the lady's name.
Hannah, bless her soul, did the dirty work. She took Crompton's self-proclaimed playmate into the ladies room and laid the news on her. The two of them were in there a good 20 minutes before Hannah emerged alone. I figured it would be a while before the stringy woman found the courage to come out and face the world. Daddy Harry said it best: It ain't no sin to be ugly, but it damn sure can make it lonely for someone. This washed-out lady was going to be lonely a long, long time. Her man had gone away for good.
We left Chicken Lavish, rented the same Vauhall taxi and threaded our way through the crowded, narrow streets of Negril toward the beach area. The holidays had brought the tourists out en masse. We passed a string of resort hotels and motels catering to American tastes and pulled into the parking lot of the Ciel. I glanced at my watch, ruefully noted that it was too late for the kitchen to be open and escorted Hannah into the tiny combination lobby and bar. I checked around and determined that neither Maggie nor Queet had shown up yet.
Leaving Hannah perched prettily on a barstool, I went hunting for a telephone. I opted for the one at the far end of the dining patio because it appeared to offer the most privacy. That decision cost me.
The guy that emerged from the shadows of the palms fit Bluebell's description to a T. He had a barrel chest and a mean set to his crooked mouth. Even more important than the muscles and the mouth, he had a Mauser, not exactly like the one tucked uselessly away in my survival kit, but enough alike to make identification a breeze. He jammed the Mauser into the pit of my stomach and began grunting out marching orders. Even though I hadn't had the opportunity to discuss good old Chauncey in any detail, after the first few minutes I had a pretty good idea what his dossier read like.
In a move that would have put a ballet dancer to shame, he side-stepped around me, deftly moved the steel persuader around to the tender area just above the kidneys and urged me out toward the darkened beach.
When Chauncey finally got around to talking, it turned out be a gravelly string of grunts and half-words that came at me. "We thought maybe you'd take our little message to heart, fart face."
He was punching the barrel of the Mauser in the small of my back, and I was already in the surf up to my ankles.
"Kneel down," he grunted.
I hesitated just long enough to hear him nervously pull the safety off of the gun. When he did that, I slumped to my knees and stared up into the muzzle of the Mauser.
"You're gettin' to be a real pain in the ass, fart face," Chauncey pontificated. "The way we figure it, you shoulda learned your lesson in Clearwater. Apparently Schuster didn't get through to you. Zercher says we can't have you screwin' things up down here. It makes our associates nervous, and nervous associates ain't good for business."
Without realizing it, Chauncey Packer was filling in a lot of the blank spots. Marshal Schuster had warned me to stay away from the Cluster, but he neglected to tell me it was because Zercher didn't want anybody poking around in his Deechapal base of operations.
I tried to ignore the gun and tried even harder to get words past the lump in my throat. ''Would you think me terribly retarded if I told you I don't know what the hell you're talking about?"
Even in the pale light of a quarter moon I could see a sick little smirk begin to curl around Chauncey's fleshy lips. "You got balls, fart face, squattin' there mouthin' off like that. Or maybe you're just stupid, poppin' off to a guy with a cannon aimed right in your face."
"Who the hell are you?" I shouted. Considering where I was in time and space, I figured what the hell, I may as well play the string out. "What's the connection with Marshal Schuster?"
Packer laughed, a sick, ugly little sound. "Well, you might say I'm one of his business associates." He strung out the word "associates" as though I needed time to assimilate it. Then he bent over, his fat, sweaty face just inches from mine. "Now listen — and listen good. You still got options. You can get your scrawny little ass out of here, or you can give me the pleasure of scattering parts of you all over our little paradise. And if I do, the only ones who'll know you've departed this earth will be the fish out there."
"I hate to throw cold water on a man who's trying so hard to do his job," I said sarcastically, "but you ding me and Bearing Schuster simply sends another good old country boy down here."
"I got some advice for you, fart face. Call yer boss and tell him what he's after don't exist."
By now it was painfully apparent Chauncey Packer was sent out to scare me, not to pull a trigger. The time for that had long since passed, but in order to get out of this, I still needed a miracle — and miracles on dark Caribbean beaches are a little hard to come by.
"I'm here to tell you this is your last warning, fart face. You're playin' out of yer league."
"Kiss off, Packer. Bearing Schuster sent me down here to do a job, and I intend to do it." The moment I said it I knew that once again I didn't know when to keep my mouth shut.
Packer's thin grin turned into something akin to a snarl. "I heard you was a smart ass, Wages, but I didn't figure anybody was dumb enough to keep shootin' off his mouth when the odds were a hundred to nothin'."