Holly studied him. “What do we do?”
“What you have to do is be just what you are: sexy and desirable.”
Holly looked puzzled.
“While we’ve been talking, a launch from Drummond’s yacht has been coming toward shore. Three crew members are on board.”
Squinting from sunlight off the water, Holly followed Buchanan’s gaze.
“We’ll watch where they go,” Buchanan said. “Maybe they’re in town on an errand. But maybe this is their day off. If they go into a bar, I’ll. .”
10
“Damn it, I didn’t want to drive all this way in the first place,” Buchanan said. “What’s in it for me? Every time I turn around, you’re winking at some young stud with a bulge in his shorts.”
“Keep your voice down,” Holly said.
“Harry warned me about you. He said to watch you every second. He said you’d screw any male old enough to get an erection, the younger the better.”
“Keep your voice down,” Holly said more strongly.
“I notice you don’t deny it. You just don’t want anybody to know the truth.”
“Stop it,” Holly warned. “You’re embarrassing me.”
They were in the Coral Reef Bar, sitting in a corner that had fishing nets on one wall and a stuffed marlin on the other. The small circular table had a cloth with wavy lines and numbers that made it look like a nautical chart. The ceiling lights were chandeliers that resembled the rudder wheel on a ship.
Buchanan slumped in a captain’s chair and swallowed half a glass of beer. “Keep my voice down. That’s all you say. I’ll make you a deal. I’ll keep my voice down if you keep your pants on. Waiter, two more beers.”
“I’m not thirsty,” Holly said.
“Did I say I was ordering for you? Waiter! I’ve changed my mind. Make it a bourbon on the rocks.”
“You already had two at the other place. Two beers here and. . Dave, it’s only noon, for God’s sake.”
“Just shut up, okay?” Buchanan slammed the table. “I’ll drink when I want to. If you’d stop jumping into bed with every-”
“Sir,” a voice said, “you’re disturbing the other customers.”
“Tough shit.”
“Sir,” the man said, a big man, blond, with a brush cut and muscles straining at his T-shirt, “if you don’t keep your voice down, I’m going to have to ask you to leave.”
“Ask all you want, pal, but I’m staying right here.” Buchanan swallowed the rest of his beer and yelled to the waiter, “Where’s that bourbon?”
People were staring.
“Dave,” Holly said.
Buchanan slammed the table again. “I told you, shut the fuck up!”
“Okay,” the big man said. “Let’s go, buddy.”
“Hey!” Buchanan objected as the big man grabbed him. “What the-?” Jerked to his feet, pretending to stagger, Buchanan fell against the table, upsetting glasses. “Jesus, watch my arm. You’re breaking it.”
“I’d like to, buddy.”
As the big man twisted Buchanan’s arm behind his back and guided him toward the exit, Buchanan glared backward toward Holly. “What are you waiting for? Let’s go.”
Holly didn’t answer.
“I said, let’s go!”
Holly still didn’t answer. She flinched as Buchanan kept shouting from outside the bar. Slowly, she raised her beer glass to her lips, sipped, squinted at her trembling hand, lowered the glass, and wiped at her eyes.
“Are you all right?”
Holly looked up at a good-looking, tanned, slender man in his twenties who wore a white uniform.
She didn’t answer.
“Hey, I really don’t mean to bother you,” the man said. “You’ve had enough of that already. But you do look a little shook up. If there’s anything I can do. . Can I buy you another drink?”
Holly wiped at her eyes again, straightening, trying to look dignified. She directed her gaze, frightened, toward the door. “Please.”
“Another beer for the lady.”
“And. .”
“What?”
“I’m. . I’d really appreciate it if you could make sure he doesn’t hurt me when I leave.”
11
Buchanan leaned against the railing on the dock. Surrounded by the activity of tourists and fishermen, he wouldn’t be noticed as he watched the launch cutting through the green-blue water, passing cabin cruisers and fishing boats, returning to the three-decked, two-hundred-foot-long gleaming white yacht that was anchored beyond the other vessels, a hundred yards offshore. The overhead sun was now behind him, so he didn’t have to squint from the reflection of sunlight off the Gulf of Mexico. He had no trouble seeing that among the three crew members returning to the yacht, a gorgeous redheaded woman was chatting agreeably with them, one of the crew members allowing her to put her hand on the wheel of the launch’s controls.
As they boarded the yacht, Buchanan nodded, glanced around to make sure he wasn’t being watched, and strolled away. Or seemed to. The fact is that as he wandered along the Key West dock, he persistently, subtly studied the yacht, pretending to take pictures of the town, using the telephoto lens on Holly’s camera as a telescope. After all, Holly might get in trouble over there, although she’d been adamant that she was able to take care of herself. Even so, if she came out onto one of the decks and looked agitated, he had told her he would get to her as fast as he could.
Near five o’clock, the launch left the yacht again, coming toward shore: the same three crew members and Holly. She got out on the dock, kissed one of the men on the cheek, ruffled another’s hair, hugged the third, and walked with apparent contentment into town.
Buchanan reached their small, shadowy motel room a minute before she did. Worry made the time seem longer.
“How did it go?” he asked with concern as she came in.
She took off her sandals and sat on the bed, looking exhausted. “They sure had trouble keeping their hands to themselves. I had to stay on the move. I feel like I’ve been running a marathon.”
“Do you want a drink of water? How about some of this fruit I bought?”
“Yeah, some fruit would be nice. An orange or. . Great.” She sipped from the Perrier he brought her. “Is this what you call a debriefing?”
“Yes. If this was business.”
“Isn’t it? You make the agent you’ve recruited feel comfortable and wanted. Then you. .”
“Hey, not everything I do is calculated.”
“Oh?” Holly studied him for a moment. “Good. In that case, the yacht. There are fifteen crew members. They take turns coming ashore. They think Drummond’s-to quote one of the crew members-a domineering asshole. He scares them. While he’s aboard. But when the cat’s away, the mice play, sometimes bringing women aboard. To show off the yacht and get even with Drummond for the way he abuses them.”
Buchanan set a pencil and a notepad on the dingy table. “Draw a diagram for the layout of each room on each deck. I need to know where everything is, where and when the crew eat and sleep, every detail you can think of. I know you’re tired, Holly. I’m sorry, but this is going to take a while.”
12
It wasn’t difficult getting a wet suit. There were plenty of dive shops in Key West. The water was warm enough that Buchanan normally wouldn’t have needed to rent the insulating suit, but the stitches in his side made this an abnormal situation. He needed to protect the healing knife wound. He wanted to minimize the amount of blood that would dissolve from the scabs around the stitches and disperse through the water. As in Cancun, when he’d escaped the police by swimming across the channel from the island to the mainland, he worried about sharks and barracuda. Back then, of course, it had been blood from a bullet wound that had worried him, but the difference was the same. At least this time he’d been able to prepare, although another element from the Cancun swim continued to trouble him-his headache.