The stocky man started out, then paused with his hand on the doorknob. “Oh. Cantino’s your contact in Trinidad. He’ll send a man to help you.”
Johnny frowned. “Everybody knows I work alone. What’s Cantino in for?”
“Orders.” The man’s thick smile appeared again as he backed out the door. “Somebody up there doesn’t trust you, Quill.”
The door closed, and a chill climbed Johnny’s spine. He thought of the money he’d been stuffing into the bank in Zurich for nearly two years. Tough, if they found that. The organization looked at secret bank accounts the way wardens look at hacksaws.
He was sure of one thing; he had to do this job by the book.
He left the lavatory and walked to the magazine rack at the rear of the plane. Norma McLain sat with her knees pressed together, small hands folded in her lap, staring out the window. As Johnny passed her seat, she rubbed her palms against her cheeks in a tired gesture, revealing the red crescents of her lower lids.
He took a copy of Country Life and returned to his seat. Norma McLain didn’t look like a wife bound for a joyous reunion with her husband. She reminded him of a rabbit with its foot in a trap.
And that’s two of us, doll, he thought.
Tailing a woman on an island-hopping flight had its own built-in problems, Johnny found.
In Bermuda, Norma McLain spent the twenty-minute layover in the ladies’ room, while Johnny chain-smoked in the waiting room and eyed everyone who came and went. Her ticket to Trinidad might be a red herring. She could meet her husband anywhere, even in a ladies’ room.
But she came out when the flight was called. She walked to the plane with her chin high, turning her head as though looking for someone. She still wore the brown wool skirt, though many of the women had changed to light summer clothing. Johnny wondered if she had anything else.
He followed her up the ladder. Skirts were short this fall, he thought, observing the rhythmic exposure of first one white thigh, then the other. Inside the plane, he noticed that her perfume smelled like violets.
He was edging past her when he heard her ask the stewardess about a short, bald man in a rumpled suit. He froze, realizing she meant his contact.
“That was Mr. Sentara,” said the stewardess. “He terminated at Bermuda.”
“Oh.” Relief was evident in her voice. “Thank you.”
Johnny walked to his seat and sat down heavily. Obviously she’d suspected the man. She had more brains than you’d expect to find in so fancy a package. He’d have to handle her like a thorn bush.
His resolution was strained during the thirty-minute stop in San Juan. The woman seemed bent on touring the entire vast terminal at a heel-clattering pace. Johnny followed, jostling adults, wading through streams of children, and beginning to understand the slob’s rumpled, sweaty condition. Norma McLain was a tough woman to tail.
She returned to the boarding gate when the flight was called. Not wanting to stand behind her a second time, Johnny left her powdering her nose in the line and hurried out behind the customs counter, ignoring the curious looks of the customs men.
He’d been in his seat two minutes when he smelled violets. “How’d you manage it?” she asked.
Johnny stiffened, then twisted to look up at her. “Manage what?”
She leaned forward slightly, her full breasts weighting the fabric of her blouse. Her voice was taut. “You were behind me in the boarding line. Now you’re here.”
With a sinking sensation, Johnny remembered she’d been powdering her nose. She’d caught him in the mirror, sure as hell. Too damn smart.
“I came through behind customs,” he said, forcing a smile. “They hardly ever shoot people.”
She didn’t move. Her face was blank, but her eyes kept sliding toward the corners. Scared, Johnny thought. If I don’t calm her down the whole operation will fold.
He widened his smile and took a card from his breast pocket. “I’m Johnny Quill. Management counselor. Chicago.”
She looked at the card without taking it. Johnny knew the business cover was good; he carried check stubs from a half-dozen small firms which fronted for the Organization; plus income tax receipts and cards to show he contributed to the United Fund like any solid businessman.
“I’m traveling alone,” he added. “If you’re not busy in Trinidad...”
That seemed to convince her. The taut lines of fear smoothed out, leaving her face beautiful. She smiled. “No thanks, Mr. Quill. But I’ll remember you if I need any management.”
She went to her seat and Johnny sank back weakly. He couldn’t risk having any more contact with her. There was an old saying: A man who kills one acquaintance is more likely to be caught than one who kills a dozen strangers. Getting caught in the West Indies meant there’d be no Organization lawyer at his cell next morning with a writ and a bundle of cash.
And that meant hanging.
In Barbados, he cabled Cantino to have his man at Piarco airport in Trinidad. During the last short hop, he kept his nose in Country Life and didn’t look at Norma McLain.
He was watching the Trinidad customs man probe the innards of his luggage when a voice sang out beside him. “Carry your bags, sir?” Without pausing the voice whispered: “Cantino sent me.”
Johnny turned to face a young man with straight black hair falling over his flat, Carib face. He wore a ruffled shirt open to the navel, Belafonte-style.
“Try the woman in the brown wool skirt,” said Johnny.
The young man flashed a white grin. “Saw her already, Chief. If you need a drink, try the slophouse across the street.”
He bounced down the counter to where Norma McLain was handing her suitcase to a cadaverous Indian porter. The kid shouldered the Indian aside and grabbed the handle. The Indian clung. The kid jabbed his elbow into the Indian’s stomach, and he doubled over, retching dryly.
The kid grinned at Norma, shouldered the bag, and walked toward the door. She hesitated a second, then followed, carrying her jacket over her arm. Her white blouse had pulled loose on the sides, and the small of her back showed a dark shadow of persperation. Johnny dreaded the time he’d have to see her again.
Johnny finished customs, checked his baggage, and found the sleazy rumshop the kid had mentioned. Choosing an isolated table in the corner, he drank one lime squash and then another, sensing the violence that seemed always to swirl about the island like an invisible, odorless gas.
An East Indian stood at the bar fondling the gold ring in his ear. A pigeon-chested man with tattoo-blackened forearms sat three tables away complaining in French to a shaven-headed man in a dirty t-shirt. Two bearded men across the room argued in the harsh accents of Caracas.
Johnny felt the pressure build up inside him, washing away the fatigue of the twelve-hour flight. He always felt it before a hit — a taste of pennies in his mouth, the quick, fluttering heartbeat and the stretching of the skin across his cheekbones.
He saw Cantino’s man pause in the door, dark eyes bouncing about the room like a little black balls in a glass. He walked over to Johnny’s table, leaned forward, and spoke in the soft Trinidad singsong.
“She’s in the airport hotel, room 114. She catches a Beewee flight north in two days.”
Johnny sipped his lime squash, feeling let down. The operation was dragging. “Who’s watching her now?”
“The desk man. I gave him five bucks. Beewee money.”
“What if she goes out the back?”
“No, man. The place is surrounded by a chain-link fence and three strands of barbed wire. One gate and the parking lot man watches that. I gave him five, too. If she walks out he sends a kid ahead to tell us. If she rides out, he delays her at the gate and sends a cab ahead for us. Good?”