Back in the main cabin, it was Creswel who thought to offer drinks, which the Major refused with thanks. Then Ashford said, “You’ve been here long, Major?”
Ho ho, young man, now you’re going to start pumping me. Well, no matter. “Just a few days,” the Major said. “Like yourselves, we came here for the festival.”
“And are you connected with the film world?”
“I have one or two friends in that business, but I myself am retired.”
No one asked the Major what he was retired from. No one ever did.
They stayed a few minutes longer, chatting about this and that, but the Major was sure by now there was nothing to learn here nor any cause for alarm. Just three rich and idle young men gadding without purpose around the Caribbean in a boat undoubtedly purchased for one of them by a doting parent. The glares and glowers of Nicholas IV probably indicated that he was the boat’s owner and was afflicted by the anti-social personality so frequently found in the offspring of the wealthy.
After a decent interval of conversation the Major and Adelaide made their departure. Back on their own boat, the Major said, “Well, they maybe boors, but at least they’re harmless.”
“I rather liked them,” said Adelaide.
“My dear,” said the Major, “you like everybody. You’ll probably even like Sassi Manoon.”
“Fish finder!” Kelly said savagely, and pounded his fist on a handy countertop. The awful flatulent Englishman had finally toddled off, towing his tug Adelaide behind him, and Kelly at last could release the pent-up violence he’d been holding in check. “Fish finder!” he yelled. “You called Starnap a fish finder?”
“What did you want me to call it?” Robby asked him. “A Selective Timed Abstract Reactional Neutronic Abduction Positioner?”
“I didn’t want you to call it anything. I didn’t want those people on this boat at all. And then you go and show them Starnap!”
Robby, calm in the face of Kelly’s storm, said, “It was the only thing we could do, Kelly. I’m sorry, but we were in a bind.”
“Robby’s right,” Frank said, adding fuel to the fire.
“What’s he so goddam right about?” Kelly demanded, not wanting to see their side of it. “Why’d we have to have them aboard at all? Who asked them here?”
“It was the natural thing to do,” Frank said. “Robby was smart enough to see that.”
“If we’d ignored them,” Kelly said, “they’d have gone away.”
“Sure they would,” Robby said. “They’d have gone away wondering what we’re so strange about, what have we got to hide. Then, when we kidnap Sassi Manoon—”
Frank said, “This way, they’ve been on our boat, they’ve seen we’re just a bunch of harmless young guys on vacation, they won’t give us another thought.”
“That’s right,” Robby said.
Kelly knew it was right, though he was still reluctant to admit it. “Fish finder,” he grumbled, turning away.
“It was all I could think of,” Robby said. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any disrespect.”
“I know,” Kelly said grudgingly. He shook his head. “All right, never mind. You were right, we had to let them come aboard. I just hope we don’t have any more Nosey Parkers like that.”
“Even if we do,” Frank said, “we’ve got the perfect cover. Three young guys taking it easy at Montego Bay.”
“I don’t like a lot of people on my ship,” Kelly grumbled. He looked at his watch, said to Frank, “You better get to the airport. She’s going to land pretty soon.”
“Right,” said Frank.
“Remember,” Kelly told him. “Pictures, facts, everything you can get.”
“Right, Chief,” Frank said, and saluted. Turning away, he began to gather his gear together — the camera, portable tape recorder, binoculars, light meter, each in its own leatherette case with its own strap to be put around his neck. When he was done, he had so many straps crisscrossing his chest he looked as though somebody had tried to cross him out.
Meanwhile, Kelly was saying to Robby, “Starnap wants background on Jamaica. Everything you can find. History, geography, laws, everything.”
Robby nodded. “I know.”
“Starnap also wants you to study the local citizens, learn to pass for one.”
Robby smiled. “You mean I’m going to pass for colored?”
Kelly, who had no sense of humor, told him, “You’re going to pass for Jamaican.”
“Right,” said Robby. “I’ll see you later.”
“I’ll be here,” Kelly said.
Frank and Robby left together, and at last Kelly was alone again on his ship. He felt irritable, the ship contaminated by so many presences for so long. Particularly the two snoops, that rotten Major and the woman with him. It would take him a while to get over that experience, no matter how necessary it had been to go through it.
In truth, Kelly knew that a lot of his edginess and irritability had nothing to do with Major Whatshisname and Miss Whosis at all, but were caused by the fact that the caper was actually under way. It was a frightening and exhilarating experience to move from the realm of theory to the realm of fact, so it seemed to him he could be forgiven if his reactions were a little extreme at the moment.
In a way he’d been disappointed when Robby and Frank had both agreed so readily to join him in this escapade. If one or both had refused, it would have necessitated a delay, perhaps of months. More planning, more waiting for a moment when Sassi Manoon would be vulnerable, more time spent searching for one or two partners. In a lot of ways Kelly would have preferred to be doing all that right now rather than sitting here in Montego Bay with two confederates actually out in the city at work on the plan.
Coming down here from Miami had been a kind of unexpected fun, though, the camaraderie of three contemporaries alone in the huge ocean, the sort of good time his college days had occasionally afforded, but the time since arrival had been nerve-racking in the extreme. And the unwanted visitors had been the last straw.
Well, he had some time to himself now, he could relax a bit, calm his nerves. He walked around Nothing Ventured IV, seeing all the familiar details of the ship, seeing that nothing was out of place, that the physical evidences of the extra two passengers were surprisingly slight. Robby and Frank had brought little luggage with them, and what possessions they had were now stowed mostly out of sight.
Kelly went last of all to the forward cabin. He switched on the light and gave Starnap a rueful smile. “My nerves are a wreck today,” he said. He sat down at the console, flipped all Starnap’s switches on, and the machine began to light up, banks of tiny bulbs flickering to life, a background hum beginning to fill the air.
“Well, now,” Kelly said. “How about a little kalah?”
Kalah was a game, African in origin. Starnap was not properly organized to play a game like chess, but kalah, a mathematical board game with simple rules but infinite permutations, was an ideal sport to be shared by man and machine. Kelly and Starnap had wiled away many idle hours trying to outwit each other in that way, and it was with a feeling of almost nostalgic anticipation that Kelly now got out the kalah board and the seventy-two pebbles. “Best two out of three,” he told Starnap, knowing full well they’d probably play half a hundred games before they were done.
(4)
Schweppervescence
Sassi Manoon, preceded by two golden Afghans on silver leads, stepped from the plane into the Jamaican sunlight and smiled beautifully down at all those camera lenses. “Stay out of the pictures, Benny,” she said without moving her lips, too low to be heard at the bottom of the steps but loud enough for Benny, just inside the plane’s doorway, to get every word.