“To one of the largest tugboat companies in the world.” Simon Templar swirled the ice in his half-empty glass. “Foss Tugs roam the world, Barney. The boats have evolved from Thea’s first five dollar rowboat to the husky deep-draft ocean tugs that are familiar sights in nearly every ocean.”
“So?” Malone looked at Simon, awaiting the kicker.
“So,” replied the mercurial Mr Templar, “you are sitting on a true treasure.”
“Treasure?” Malone closed one eye, peering at the Saint as if through a spy glass. “Did Thea Foss stash some cash on board?” Malone, still squinting, attempted appearing Picaresque.
“Thea Foss never saw this exact craft in her entire life,” sighed the Saint. “Dear old Thea passed away in 1927. The Foss Maritime Company bought this ship in 1950 from a group of geological scientists working off the coast of California.”
Malone pulled an ugly cigar out of his pocket and stuffed it into the side of his mouth.
“Don’t say it, Templar,” warned Barney. “I’ll stop smoking when you stop drinking. Besides, if this was one of Charteris’ old Saint stories, you’d have smoked half a pack by the time we got to that line about Tugboat Annie.”
“Well,” the Saint slowly tilted his head away from the unlit but potentially offensive cylinder of tobacco. “if you want to know more about the treasure...”
Malone removed the cigar.
“Allow me to acquaint you with the vessel’s characteristics,” continued the Saint lightly, “her length is 12 feet with a twenty-one foot six inch beam, eight foot draft and displacement of three hundred tons. She has twin Atlas Diesel engines, horsepower of 550 b.h.p, cruising speed of 10 knots, officers and crew total five, and ten people may sleep overnight, but not with any degree of privacy nor intimacy.”
“So tell me,” interrupted Malone, “when does...”
“Someone get shot? They already did. Don’t you read the papers? It was a tragic story of back alley execution, low life crime, and high-stakes extortion. It will make a delightful motion picture,” insisted the Saint, “suitable for the entire family, provided the entire family is over forty, armed, and dangerous.”
“People over forty don’t go to movies,” scowled Malone as if confessing a tragic secret, “they rent videos of old movies.”
The Saint ignored Malone’s depressing digression into the realities of show business, and banged his foot on the ship’s deck much as men kick the tires of used cars.
“It’s built of 3/8 inch rolled steel, same as a World War II battleship. In those days she had anti-aircraft guns on her foredeck and carried a dozen depth charges on her fantail.”
“So did a dancer on La Cienega Boulevard I knew back in the ’40s,” deadpanned Barney. “Sorry, Simon, but I simply can’t enthuse about old warships. Now, you want to talk about actors, that’s a different matter. War ships? They mean nothing to me. And if by treasure you mean that this ship won a medal for having big guns bolted on deck,” Barney was building volume in mock bombast, slipping into his best Lionel Barrymore impersonation, “then the famous Simon Templar had better park his Hirondel at Cars of the Stars because I fear the man has become too senile to drive.”
“Senile is what Julius Caesar said to Cleopatra”, countered the Saint. “Do you do any other members of the Barrymore family, or are you a one trick impressionist?”
Barney rose to the challenge. Standing erect and windswept on deck, he turned sideways to Simon and gazed resolutely to the horizon.
Short and slightly lumpy, Barney Malone did not cut a romantic figure. The Saint gave this silent impression serious consideration before offering his opinion.
“Ethel Barrymore, sister of Lionel and John”, decided the Saint.
Barney allowed his flabby chin to hit his chest.
“True, true, all too true”, Malone faked a slight sob. “John was ‘The Great Profile’, I however, resemble Ethel. You could have been sporting enough to say ‘John Barrymore’ just to flatter me on my birthday.”
The Saint found Malone vastly amusing. Perhaps it was Barney’s unique ability to combine considerable business savvy with an unpretentious, almost childlike appreciation for the joys of his avocation.
“Flattery is not an appropriate gift for a man of your distinction and achievements, Mr Malone,” beamed the Saint. “You deserve something far more tangible. Say, several thousand dollars in cash and a King salmon buffet.”
Malone plopped back into the deck chair, eyed his cigar, and ran one stubby hand through his almost invisible hair.
“I wouldn’t take the money if it passed through your hands, Saint.” Barney’s eyes paid tribute to Eddie Cantor. “Lord knows what vile creature had it before you. I earn my money the old fashioned way — making movies for middle income twelve to twenty four year olds with enough cash to pay the inflated ticket prices at the multiplex. King salmon buffet, however, is perfectly acceptable.”
Invited to the upper deck by an officious white jacketed crewman, the two men enjoyed an obligatory Seattle latte while culinary experts in the galley began preparation of the aforementioned buffet.
After a few thoughtful sips of exceptional espresso, Simon called Malone’s attention to a grouping of condominiums on the lake’s West side.
“See that area over there? It’s called Madison Park.”
Barney nodded. He was not familiar with Madison Park, but he knew the general geographic area to which Simon referred. It was one of Seattle’s older, smaller, and more relaxed lake-bordering neighborhoods.
“Something very interesting happened in that lovely location late last night. I robbed a man who didn’t exist of over $50,000.”
There was no snappy come-back from Barney Malone. A relative silence punctuated by gull cries and augmented by the low rumble of Atlas Diesels informally requested clarification of Templar’s cryptic comment.
Malone locked eyes with the Saint, slowly pulled a silver Zippo from the right hand pocket of his windbreaker and proceeded to light the cigar. “If you didn’t shoot him,” Barney puffed, “it won’t make a movie.”
“Movies, movies, movies,” moaned the Saint. “And you were once a man of letters.”
“Newspapers can’t make you dance,” Malone countered. “With movies, I dance all the way to the bank. Now, tell me the story before I shoot you — no, wait, let me guess. It all starts with a small knot of struggling men.”
“Wrong story.”
“Then it must begin at a cocktail party where you are approached by a beautiful woman who wants you to kill the husband, remove her rival, or invest in a new line of lipstick.”
“Not this time.”
“Templar, let me give you a piece of advice. Always begin with your hero in mortal danger, then make it get worse as the plot unfolds.”
“If you would let me unfold it, you might enjoy it.”
Malone, having irritated the Saint to the point acceptable in their relationship, leaned back and drew deeply on his cigar. For Barney Malone, this was the all clear signal.
2
The Saint’s story began with neither struggling men nor beautiful women, but with an ice sculpture. While Simon Templar had seen his share of slowly melting swans, frozen busts of famous patriots, and even a lovingly rendered representation of two moose locking antlers, he had never encountered a five foot high block of ice which left him so chilled.
The sculpture, elevated by a stainless steel pedestal and back-lit by neon, shimmered in amplified translucence and tasteless overstatement. Serving as an unsubtle centerpiece for a mutated form of cocktail party known as a media reception, it dominated the room and overshadowed the buffet.