Key West Connection (20 page)

There was a mirror over her dresser. Carefully, I unwound the head bandage and, with the aid of a cheap little hand mirror, took a look at the back of my head. The blond hair was yellow and then rustcolored where Ellsworth had clubbed me. I touched the spot tenderly.

It still hurt. No doubt about that. But it was too late to worry about. And too unimportant.

 

I awoke when I heard the bedroom door open. All was darkness: not a light on in the house. I heard the tick-tock-ticking of the grandfather clock in the living room.

Still half asleep, I reached mechanically for my Randall knife. In Vietnam I had kept it under my pillow. Always. In my dream, that's where I was—back in Nam where a moment's hesitation could kill you just deader than hell. The knife wasn't there, of course. It was back on Cuda Key. And by the time I realized it, the approaching figure was upon me, beside the bed. I reached out, grabbed an arm, swung the adversary around, and pulled the body down on me, taking a strong cross-chest hold on it—and felt the firm heave of breasts.

“April!”

“Jesus Christ, man! You always wake up this way?”

I fumbled for the little desk lamp beside the bed and switched it on. She wore the same soft blue nightshirt she had worn the first night I arrived, and now it was hiked up above her bikini panties in disarray. She brushed stray ropen hair back over her shoulders, unconcerned with exposed tan legs and the dark bulge of hips.

“What are you—”

“Came to say goodbye, that's what! Lordy, you liked to mash me flat, the way you grabbed me!”

I settled back while she sat on the edge of the bed. I smiled and looked at her meaningfully. “Not much danger of that,” I said.

She blushed and slapped at me. “Well . . . at least you noticed. There for a while I thought all you saw when you looked at me was that barefooted little girl.”

“April, I'm sorry about this afternoon. I should have explained things to you. You have a right to know.”

So I told her. I told her everything, leaving out only names and my new involvement with Fizer's agency. And as she listened, I saw her face soften and the moisture fill her golden eyes.

“And that's it,” I finished. “And if you start getting weepy on me, I'll turn you over my knee. You're old enough to accept the fact that some people are just plain evil. But I'm going to get them. Every one of them.”

She looked away from me momentarily, gathering her composure, then turned back.

“You shoulda tol' me earlier,” she said.

“Had I known my rush to recovery was going to upset you, I would have.”

Her eye widened in brief anger. “It's not jus' that! Can't ya' see I . . . I . . . I
care
about you?”

She turned away, and I knew that she was crying now. Gently, I pulled her head down to my chest: warm raven hair, scented with perfume. I stroked her head and spoke softly. “April, if there was ever to be another woman, I would want her to be just like you. But you're too young, sweetheart. You have too much—”

“Too young!” She bolted upright, out of my arms. “Are ya blind or what? I'm a woman now, Dusky MacMorgan! Eighteen or forty-eight—a woman's a woman. An' all I'm wantin' now is a strong man and a bunch 'a strong babies, an' . . .”

She stared deep into my eyes, and I saw her face change; feeling, as I did, my own body come alive with the scent of her, the nearness of her, the love in her. April leaned down and kissed me softly. The sexuality in the kiss was as strong and tangible as summer musk. Her lips were hot and swollen, and I pulled her down on me, felt her legs and hips swing up, onto the bed, and press against my body, naked beneath the sheet. She trembled beneath my arms, her mouth open and wanting as I slid my hand gently up the undulations of stomach and ribs to the firmness of young, heavy breasts.

“Dusky, oh Dusky, I've wanted ta kiss you like this so bad. . . .”

It was all there, everything I could ever want to make my return to the world of the living. A good woman, a strong woman; an eighteen-year-old woman so aware of her wants that she had no time for coyness. I considered it. I really did. For a long, passionate minute, I knew that I could do no better than this April Yarbrough. But I wasn't ready to rejoin the living; not yet. What had I to offer her save a night of passion and whispered words of love? In a few more hours I would be on Cuda Key, and I could afford no attachments, no woman to live for, no love to inspire within me a fear of death.

I pulled her face down onto my shoulder, kissed her gently on the cheek and whispered, “April, I want you. You know that. But not now, not tomorrow, and not the next day. Now listen to me! I want you to experience a little of life first. Date. Have fun. Go off to college. And then . . . if you're still interested in a scarred-up old man, well . . . ”

She sat up. I expected her to cry. But she didn't. She brushed the hair away from my face, letting her hand linger on my cheek, and then she smiled. “Whew! Look at me, will you—the first man I didn't want to fight off, an' he turns
me
down.”

She began to laugh softly; a good laugh. I took her hand. “You understand, don't you?”

She nodded. “I do. An' I'm gonna hold you to what you said.” She allowed herself another chuckle, this time bashful. “An', from the feel of you, you're sure fire breeding stock—no doubt about that.”

I laughed with her; innocent, bawdy, bedroom laughter. And then I hugged her tenderly, fought to keep control of my own body, and allowed myself one last kiss.

“You're leavin' tonight, aren't you, Dusky?”

“That's right, April.”

“Well, I ain't the type to try an' stop a man from doin' what he has to do. So I'll wish you luck. An' make you promise you'll come back to see me sometime.”

“I'll do that, April. Promise.”

She smiled a girlish smile at me. “Couldn't use some help, could ya? I'm small but strong. We're part Indian, ya know.”

I smacked her on the rump. “No! And get out of here before I change my mind.”

And then she was gone: purposeful wiggle of pantied hips, vampish flash of perfect breasts from beneath the blue nightshirt, and soft laughter as she disappeared down the hallway.

I sighed heavily and lay back on her pillow. The room was still scented with her. Any attempt to sleep, I knew, would be useless. Goodbye, April Yarbrough. I hope we meet again. When you are ready, and when I am ready. Soon.

 

I gave it a few minutes, hardening myself for my upcoming mission, refreshing the memories within me that would bring to surface the stoic anger I would need to succeed.

It didn't take much effort.

By my Rolex, it was nearly midnight. I climbed out of bed, did ten minutes of stretching exercises, then dressed. Black sweater, dark British commando pants, black watch cap. The cap was tight on my head, and it hurt momentarily.

Outside, the wind had freshened; heavy, late-August storm wind, thunderheads bruised and anvilshaped in the flare of distant lightning. I walked out of the house, across the dirt yard, down to the dock. Someone was standing there, hands on hips, watching the approaching storm.

It was Hervey.

“Looks like you're in for some weather, cap'n,” he said when he heard my footfall.

“Southeast wind. Probably swing around and hit out of the northwest.”

“Yep.”

The
Sniper
strained and rolled against her lines like a nervous horse. There was another flash of lightning, a distant rumble, and I could see green pustules of feathering waves on the open sea. The damp storm wind roared and receded in the high palm trees and leached a strange ozone and protein odor from the water.

“I didn't even hear you get up, Hervey.”

“Well, you was sorta busy at the time.”

“Oh.”

So he knew. And what can you say to a friend who knows you were with his daughter?

“She's a good girl, Hervey. It wasn't what you might think.”

He chuckled quietly and produced his Red Man. “Chew?”

“Don't mind if I do.”

I took the moist leaves, rolled them, and pushed the wad back into my cheek, feeling the sweet taste move across my tongue.

“Funny thing,” Hervey said. “You raise a young'un an', after a time, you stop seein' them grow. April there has always been jes' a little girl ta me. Guess I was blin' not to see that she'd growed into a woman.”

“A good woman, Hervey.”

“No doubt 'bout that. Always been kinda different, that one. Not like the other young'uns ya see gallivantin' around in cars an' drinkin' wild an' such. Like she was born old or somethin'. An' probably too smart for her own good—straight A's in school an' never really had to work at it.”

“Hervey . . . ”

He turned to me and smiled; a strange, sad smile. “You got nothin' to apologize to me for, Dusky. If nothin' happened between you an' April, that's fine. An' if somethin' did, well, it's business 'tween you an' her. Sorta hope it did, really. Girl's first time oughta be nice.”

“I wish I could have, Hervey. But I couldn't.”

“Well, 'least you finally seed how tha' pretty little thing feels 'bout you. Obvious ta me an' the ol' woman all along. We was wonderin' if you was blin' or somethin'. You lost you one good woman, Dusky. And ya need another—not a woman to replace her; jes' a different one. A woman to he'p ya get goin' again. To give ya some babies and he'p ya make it through the resta your life. No shame in needin'—when you're ready. An' when tha' time comes . . . well, I'd be proud to let you court my daughter.” He shook his head and chuckled again. “God knows, she
needs
a strong man. She's some kinda hell on wheels, tha' girl. I can't handle her; ain't smart enough or strong enough. I ain't ashamed to admit it, neither.”

I slapped him gently on the back. “And I would be proud to date April, Hervey. And I might show up at your doorstep some evening. But I'm not ready yet. And neither is she—and she understands that.”

We both stood silent for a few minutes, feeling the warm blow of storm in our faces. Finally, Hervey said, “Got some hot coffee up ta the house. Let me put some in a thermos for ya. You're gonna need it.”

“I'll walk up with you.”

And I did.

In the waning moonlight, I switched off my running lights. Cuda Key was a mile or two ahead of me; a black hump of foliage and fortress on the gray sheen of roiled two-a.m. storm sea.

It had taken me about an hour and a half to get to Bahia Honda, running up on the rough Atlantic side, the
Sniper
ramming through the heavy roll of ocean like a country-boy fullback. I had run without lights until I got to the big bridge, letting the green bleep of the Si-Tex radar system lead me through the night. Just off Sugarloaf, the radar had picked up something big moving two miles or so off to starboard. I had shut the engines down, drifting, and took a good look through the Bushnell zoom scope. It sucked in all the available night light, revealing to me a big white cruiser heading shoreward from open sea. Like the
Sniper,
it ran without lights.

One more drug runner; one of the thousands that operate under stealth and get rich in the Florida Keys.

On a different night, a later day, I might have waited and intercepted them. Because I was after them all. Every unmoraled son of them. And I would take them all, one at a time, or die trying. But on this night I had bigger game in my sights. I grimaced at the guy's good luck; promised him another meeting on another night, then started my engines and got back under way.

I had discussed tactics with Colonel Westervelt. And we had come to only one mutual conclusion: save for only the one or two obvious diversions I would have to set up to save lives, the rest I would have to play by ear. My only orders were to cause enough chaos so that, when the federal boys arrived with their warrants later on in the dawn, there would be enough unhidden and undestroyed evidence to put the lock on the Senator and his little army for fifteen years or more.

How I went about it was up to me.

I nosed
Sniper
around into the harboring shoals of Friend Key Bank and let her drift back on the incoming tide before dropping the big bow Danforth. When I had played out plenty of scope for the rising tide I set another hand anchor, then switched off the sweet bubble of twin GMC engines. In the sudden silence, I could hear muted voices coming across the water, from Cuda Key. People were awake on the island. People were moving about. But it couldn't be because of me. Something was up.