The Parson sat silent a moment. Then he said, “Look, when you broke from Carl Dorn, you broke clean, didn’t you?”
“Yeah. Yeah, sure I did.” But Jake’s voice lacked conviction.
“I mean there was no reason for a kickback, was there?”
“Of course not. Gosh, Parson, I know you got reason to be suspicious but you’ll have to trust me, see? I can t—”
“Why did Dorn follow you down here?”
Jake’s face was working. He leaned wearily across the table. “Parson, listen to me. I can’t tell you. I... well, I can’t, is all. If that means you won’t help me,” his lips came together in a firm line, “that’s my hard luck. I’ll see it through alone somehow.” Sitting there, white-faced, a desperate shimmer came into his eyes, his fists clenched and his jaw muscles knotted.
The Parson’s chin was sunk to his chest. “O.K., boy. I was only trying to make conversation. Forget it. I’m with you. But,” his voice was low, hushed, “what are you going to tell Nina?”
Jake Mund groaned. “I’ll tell her something; I haven’t thought it out yet.” He broke off speaking suddenly; his gaze whipped across the room. “She’s coming out for her first number.”
She was fragile and pale with luminous black eyes beneath a coronet of braided black hair. She drifted across the floor almost shyly, her hands limply clasped before her.
All at once the noisy cabaret became hushed as a cathedral. Her face was nun-like in its reserve; she looked about her with a combined wonder, exultancy and sadness. Then she began to sing.
Her voice was not strong; it was even meager; but it had a touching almost child-like inflection of purity that chained her listeners. No matter how tawdry her surroundings, she brought with her the armor of simplicity and innocence. Her fresh treble recreated the smoke-filled Montecita into a cottage or a flowery lakeside retreat. Her wide-spaced haunting eyes were open with the magic of her voice as if she could follow with them the waves of music, dissolving and recurring with the whisper of the orchestra.
Suddenly there was a commotion at one of the packed tables. A man stood up as though with his action he were breaking a spell. The Parson had a glimpse of him — a tall, white-haired man of about sixty-five, the rigid bar of his white mustache trembling with the tremble of his lips. Instantly, a shorter, much younger man, with sandy hair, who looked vaguely familiar to the Parson, stood up beside him and said something. The older mustached man shook his head violently and strode forward.
The girl stopped singing. Her face lost color; she took small retreating steps. Jake Mund leaped to his feet, dived toward the rear of the cabaret. The Parson saw his hand snake up toward the master switch.
The place was plunged into darkness. People became frightened. Feet pounded. As the Parson moved out from his table, he was caught in a milling throng. Minutes later, the lights went on. Lee Fong himself had clicked the switch. His arms were upraised and he was bawling like a banshee, “Evlybolly him happy! No mo’ tlubbul! Evlybolly him dance!”
He signaled the orchestra to play. People quieted down. The Parson looked about. Jake Mund and Nina were not to be seen. He remembered that there was a back door to the cabaret. The sandy-haired man was gone, too. Then with curiosity he watched the tall, white-haired man speak to Lee Fong. Lee Fong was smiling, he bowed profusely but he looked troubled. At length, he took the arm of the old man and piloted him to his tiny private office. The door closed.
The Parson squinted at the door, wondering who the tall man with the white military mustache might be. He shrugged and strode out.
Triangular shaft of moonlight broke through the leaves, slashing the Parson’s body from shoulder to hip. It left his chiseled features in semi-darkness but showed up his black suit and black tie in striking relief against the brightness of his scrupulous white shirt. His shadow was firmly stenciled on the powdery white coral dust of the roadway as with black ink.
It was ten minutes past midnight. The town of Cariba was asleep. Here and there through the close-woven roof formed by interwining mango and guava trees, a sudden shaft of moonlight struck down. Under the leafy tunnel nothing, moved. The branches themselves were never quite at rest. The warm breeze traversed them by slow vibrations, breaking into ripples through the leaves.
There was just the one house at the end of the straggly street. Two hundred yards beyond it were the phosphorescent waters of the Caribbean, endlessly slapping against the sunken piles of the tarred-wood docks. The house was a one-story bungalow built on stilts which were concealed by rotting lattice-work.
Thick, rope-like vines reached from the ground to the roof; flowers, fragile and white, crowned their highest point like very delicately wrought diadems.
The Parson knew the house well. On a number of occasions he had accepted the hospitality of Nina and Jake Mund. It had been for him a sort of oasis for his loneliness, a refuge in his exile. The two young kids had made him welcome, had granted him a niche in their lives.
Shades were drawn to the sills of the three front windows, cutting off the light from within, but themselves glowing orange. The Parson had a fleeting impression, not of catastrophe, but of ominous danger. He could not explain the feeling but he did not try to shrug it off. He felt the ten thousand dollars he was going to loan Jake Mund. Then he reached under his coat and transferred his Luger from the shoulder holster to his pocket. From another pocket he took a handkerchief and studiously wiped his fingers dry. It was a meaningless gesture but characteristic of him. He liked a dry finger on the trigger of his gun.
Then he walked down the brick walk toward the front steps. On either side of the walk was a patch of lawn. Directly below the porch grew a stunted banana plant. Its broad, shirred leaves, mottled with reflected traceries of leafage, were bright under the silver-white glare of the tropical full moon, which sometimes is almost as luminous as sun. All else surrounding the plant was in darkness. The effect was that of an intense spotlight.
The Parson stepped up on the tiny front porch and the harsh murmur of a voice reached him. Then another voice cut in. The Parson rapped sharply on the door.
The murmur of voices was louder now, but nobody came to the door. The Parson turned the knob, flung the door wide and went in.
He nearly collided with a red-haired handsome woman in a suit of white flannel who apparently was coming to answer his knock. The Parson had never seen her before. She had a .45 pocket automatic in her hand. Her hand was small and white and the gun looked enormous in it.
She stepped back, pointing the gun at him. Her eyes were wide but not frightened. Her eyes were bright green with strange gold flecks in the pupils. Indecision and a sort of puzzlement was written in the lines of her creased forehead. She was waiting for his move.
The Parson said sharply, “Put that gat away!”
The tawny flecks in her eyes glinted, but she lowered the gun to her side. The Parson moved quickly, grabbed her wrist. She offered no resistance; the gun clattered to the floor.
“That’s better, sweetheart. If I should call the cops in, you wouldn’t want them to catch you with a gun.” He stopped picked it up. It had a comfortable, balanced feel.
Wrinkles appeared and disappeared on her smooth forehead. “Oh, then you’re not the cops?”
“Did you think I was?”
“Nothing less. That’s why I didn’t shoot. Who are you, mister?”
“Are the Munds at home?”
“I think they’re out for the evening,” she said. Then she smiled, showing white, even teeth. “Yeah, they’re out for the evening. I asked who you were, runt.”