The third ship was the Tellig, freshly washed down and sparkled up as much as a phony supply ship could be.
Judy caught his studying the dock and said, “Lotusland is my company ship... sort of like a second unit. It’s completely equipped for filming and film processing if necessary.”
“Fancy.”
“You know Hollywood.”
“Do you?”
She smiled coyly. “Enough to stay away from it. However, the company has made three very successful pictures in the past two years where the boat has been a necessity. Have you seen them?”
“Judy, I haven’t been to a movie in five years.”
She thought about that for a few seconds and said, “Mako Hooker... what do you really do?”
“I fish.”
Her eyes were doubting him.
“Ask Billy, he’ll tell you.”
“No, Billy doesn’t tell things about people he likes. He intimates.”
“Like what?”
“Oh, he says you are a very good person. You do nice things for people.”
“I’m merely being polite.”
“He says you have no fear.”
“He’s wrong there. A lot of things scare me.”
“Are you afraid of them?”
“Certainly, that’s how I stay alive. I don’t play with rattlesnakes or keep scorpions in my pocket.”
“But you go out on the ocean and don’t fear the eater.”
A little laugh jerked out of him. “Do you believe there’s an eater?”
There was a very small pause, then, “Something’s doing it.”
“Something is something that I’m not afraid of. I’m afraid of what I know that can get to me if I’m not careful.”
Judy paused thoughtfully. “Mako, I asked my first question in the wrong tense.”
“Oh?” He waited, curiosity in his eyes.
“What_did_ you do?”
He knew then that she had queried Billy and had been told nothing at all. He had not even intimated. “I stayed alive,” he told her.
She poked at him gently, then stood back while he opened the door of the big house.
They were all there, everyone not born on the island, with the mark of the city on their gently tanned faces and the inescapable touch of acute civilization in the style of their dress.
He didn’t look too much out of place. His shorts were clean, but one back pocket had been sewn repeatedly and he had forgotten to take his small Schrade Old Timer knife and leather holster off his belt. His dark shirt was as native as they come and his Topsiders had many months of deck time on them; he could have been one of the crew from the yacht, but the sun had ground in a quality of wet mahogany colorization that only his features saved from being taken as that of a proper native.
Chana Sterling was standing in a patch of sunlight cooled by double-paned windows, a well-built man wearing a captain’s shirt talking to her intently. Berger was watching them both from a big chair, sipping a tall drink. The bunch from the Lotusland all wore the latest in Hollywood fashion and were busy talking movies. Hooker located the bar and went over and got a cold Miller beer in a mug.
He had barely sipped the foam off the top when Judy walked up on the arm of a distinguished-looking man who looked like he had stepped out of the pages of Esquire magazine. The blue blazer, with a gold embroidered emblem on the left pocket, had a military cut to it and the white trousers were knife-creased and wrinkle free. He was fully as tall as Mako, about the same age, and although he had a slim look, the way he moved said that there was strength and speed under his stylish garb.
“Anthony Pell, this is my neighbor, Mako Hooker,” Judy said when she introduced them. “Mr. Pell has a business interest in our production company.”
Mako shook Pell’s hand, not changing his expression. He said, “I’ve never met a movie mogul before.”
Pell gave a self-deprecating laugh. “I’m hardly that, Mr. Hooker. Judy’s father and I made a joint investment in the business years ago and it turned successful despite us.”
“Are you in investments?”
“Here and there,” Pell told him casually. “My principal interest is in taking care of Judy’s interest in Hollywood. What line of work are you in, Mr. Hooker?”
“Would you believe it, I’m a fisherman.”
Pell’s mouth creased into another smile. “Yes, I can see that. I was wondering why you carry that strange knife at your side.”
Just as casually, Mako said, “That’s in case I’m snatched over the rail by one of the denizens of the deep. I’d just cut myself loose from the line.”
“Don’t tell me you wind a high test line around your arm?”
“Sometimes I forget,” Hooker said. “So you like to deep-sea troll too, eh?”
“On occasions,” Pell answered.
“Enough fish talk,” Judy cut in.
Mako lifted his beer can in a mock toast. A new expression pulled at the corners of his eyes and he felt a faint twitch in his shoulders.
Anthony Pell, he thought. No wonder you’re in the movie business, you must have taken acting lessons. And you’re good, Anthony. It’s a long way from being Tony Pallatzo, a little soldier in the old Bruno Bunch out of Brooklyn, New York. How the hell did you beat the contract Bruno put on you for fingering his two best men to the Feds? You must have made a great offer, so good they took it, and here you are strutting around like a character out of an old novel.
A sudden hello snapped him around and he said, “Hi, Alley. Who’s minding the bar?”
“Got old Doc-Doc there. That geezer doesn’t drink, doesn’t steal and works cheap, so I can’t lose.”
“Thought you didn’t like stateside parties?”
“Hell, man, this ain’t stateside. You think I’d pass up anything different that happens around here?” He answered his own question. “No way. This is an event. You see all those pretty girls on that movie boat?”
“Come on, Alley, you’re too old for that.”
“Sure, but not too smart.”
“So go catch a bloodcurdling disease,” Mako said.
“I’m that smart,” Alley said with a smirk before he walked away.
Something was happening inside of Hooker. It wasn’t what he liked, because it was something coming out of the past. Back when he walked the deadly roads he had had the same feeling, knowing that his training was warning him that normal wasn’t the name of this game at all; and past experience was kicking up the adrenaline, because right within reach he was being challenged and he didn’t know who the enemy was.
Tony Pallatzo? Was his appearance accidental or coincidental? What was he now, a heavyweight or a misplaced featherweight? A phone call to Miami would answer that one.
Chana Sterling? Female shooters he never did like. They couldn’t be trusted. They acted emotionally instead of rationally. What the hell was she doing here?
“Strange person,” Pallatzo murmured. “He a fisherman too?”
“He owns a bar,” Mako told him.
Tony’s eyes washed over him casually. “But you are a fisherman,” he stated.
“It’s a living.”
“You must eat very well.” A touch of derision was in Tony’s voice.
“I still don’t like the eyes,” Mako told him.
“Pardon?” He had never heard him at all.
“Just an inside observation, Mr. Pell.”
“Oh.” He smiled again and turned toward Judy. “Excuse me, my dear. I have to speak to one of our people.”
When he was out of earshot Mako said, “Who’s the majority stockholder in your movie company?”