Tex Kent was remembering aloud. “That chopper was good. When he got through, there was nothing left of Cig’s face. Nothing you could recognize. Twenty dum-dums tore holes in it big as silver dollars.”
“A swell guy, Cig,” the Parson said softly, reminiscently.
“You think so?”
“Every day in the week and twice on Sundays.”
Tex Kent put his gun out of sight into a pocket. His shy, diffident manner had not altered. He said very thoughtfully: “If it’s talk and not gunplay, how’s for wettin’ our whistles?”
The Parson nodded, watched him get a quart bottle out and two glasses. They drank. The Parson said, “You’re a nice reasonable guy, Tex.”
“Uh-huh. And you’re the guy they call the Parson. I remember you now. You used to run gamin’ tables back in N’York for a guy named Vince Guard, though I don’t believe we ever met. You carry quite a rep.”
“Thanks. Shall I continue my little story? I got a chance to throw a little business your way.”
“Business?” For the first time Tex fixed his strange smeary blue eyes directly on the Parson. They were the kind of blue eyes redheads often have. “I like business. What kind of business?”
“We’ll come to that in a moment. Cig Wolfe had a woman — they called her the Dutchess. It was more than a nickname. She was bright as a whip. She’d built him up. She carried on when they planted him. But the going got too hot. Not competition, this time. The law. It seems they got themselves a new D.A. with guts and no price. He just didn’t know the color of money. So he sailed in and banged things around. First thing he gunned for was the protection. Not the racket. You know. The papers are still full of it.”
Tex said nothing. The Parson went on:
“The protection was a bird named North — Judge Edwin North. He was never really a judge. That was just complimentary. But he could fix judges, get Cig’s boys out of trouble when the law got curious about the numbers game. But no sooner does the Grand Jury get ready to hand up an indictment on old Judge North than he swallows runout powders. The new D. A. — Linton’s his name — is stumped. Without North, he’s got nothing. He needs North. So where is North?”
Tex sat still, waiting.
The Parson took a deep breath. “North is here. Here in Cariba. But he’s hiding out. Am I boring you?”
“Yeah. Bore me some more.”
“Linton, the Boy Scout D.A., isn’t asleep, though. He sent his ace investigator, his most trusted man down here to ferret out North and bring him back home. That guy — Jerry Lord — got in touch with me. Do you know Jerry?”
Tex said, “Sure. Everyone knows Jerry Lord. Why did he get in touch with you?”
“It seems that there’s no extradition treaty between our country and Cariba. See? Even if Lord locates Judge North, he can’t get him out unless...”
Tex drawled, “Unless what?”
“Unless, he’s arrested outside of Cariba, say three miles out, in international waters. Or better yet, on an American ship. Then he’s legally Lord’s prisoner.”
“Is that the job? Put North where Jerry Lord can put cuffs on him?”
The Parson grinned. “You catch on quick. Tex. It isn’t like you’d be selling out on North. Hell, he’d turn you in himself if he had half a chance to get his own skirts clear. With me, it’s just a professional job. Lord offers twenty grand. Ten will go to me and ten to you. How’re you fixed for dough?”
“I’m broke,” Tex said quickly. “I had to come away fast.”
“Ten will come in handy then. How do you like it?”
“Lousy. I’m through with trouble.”
“This won’t be trouble. Not when you and I are handling it.”
“Hell, you take it for granted I know where Judge North is hidden.”
The Parson grinned again, nursed his cheek. “You got here a day after North arrived. Funny you should both pick on Cariba to hole up in.”
“When do we do it?”
“Tonight. No. better make it tomorrow. North will keep, and we don’t have to lose sleep over it.”
Tex Kent lit a cigarette. “How about another jolt?” He stood up, smiled a little and said. “Oh, well, what the hell? I don’t owe North anything. I guess I like a little double-cross myself. Ten grand, huh? Couldn’t Jerry Lord be upped a little on the ante?”
“Maybe,” the Parson said. “He’s strictly a business man. There’s just one thing. Lord has to keep his name out of this. If it ever got out that North was forced aboard a boat under a gun on Lord’s orders, his case would be blown sky-high. You can’t do things like that when you’re the law. That’s the system and I’m working with Lord on that understanding. He never appears in the case.”
“Yeah, I know the system.”
“Then it’s a deal?” The Parson held out his hand.
Tex put his hand briefly into the Parson’s. “Right,” he said softly. “Here’s your drink.”
“Thanks.” The Parson looked into its amber depths for a brief moment. “Say, whatever did happen to the Dutchess? I was always curious about her.”
Kent put down his drink in one piece. “Didn’t you hear? She lit out for Havana after Cig died and when the pieces started falling around her head. The pieces of the numbers business, I mean. I haven’t seen her since, but I was told she’s married again to a bird named Blue. Carl Blue. A race-track man or a broker or somethin’ like that.”
“Quite a gal, the Dutchess,” the Parson said.
Tex grinned appreciatively. “Yeah, quite a gal.”
The Parson chatted for a few more minutes. When he rose to go, he told Tex Kent where he could get in touch with him. They arranged to meet at ten o’clock the following morning.
As the Parson went out into the night again, his dark eyes lazily probed the reach of the moon-plated sky, the length of the moon-drenched road. The door closed softly behind him.
Two streets down was an open-air cantina. The Parson hurried to it, went inside to a telephone booth, called a number. When a grave, sing-song voice answered, he said:
“Hello, Ching. I want the master.” He tapped his foot, crowded the transmitter with his lips. “Jerry Lord? This is the Parson. So it’s on the up and up. He bit. Well, yeah. He heard me out. But I don’t think I fooled him. He’s one palooka I couldn’t fool in a million years. I’ll hang around but don’t expect me to be a Dracula the rest of the night. I can’t be everywhere. O.K.. Jerry. Hey, you got a cold? Your voice sounds funny... Uh-huh. Oh, yeah, you’ll hear from me. S’long.”
He walked around the corner to where he had parked a trim little British-made Austin, got in behind the wheel. He moved it close enough so that he could command a good view of Tex Kent’s house, but he was still a block away.
He switched off the lights and waited. He waited about three-quarters of an hour. Then a tall shadowy figure emerged from the house. The figure moved rapidly to the corner, away from the Parson. When it turned the corner, the Parson trailed after.
He rounded the corner in time to see the tall figure climb into a waiting car, lugging a small suitcase in after him.
The Parson scowled moodily through the windshield. The suitcase puzzled him. He had not counted on Tex Kent’s carrying a suitcase.
He trailed the car.
Puerto de las Damas is at the extreme eastern tip of Cariba, a little city all by itself, separated from the rest of Cariba by tradition, blood and unchallenged crime.
Its narrow streets, roughly paved with cobblestones, ended at a high cliff which frowned down on a narrow beach where lashing combers broke high through a tangle of reefs. The docks were to the left: but, long-abandoned, they had rotted and sagged until now they joined edge to edge with almost perfect closeness the limitless tropical sea of silver. Fishing stakes, upthrust like gnarled old fingers, were plunged into the sea; a mysterious crazy system of half-sub-merged bamboo fences, marking a channel passage that was no longer used.