“Still on patrol,” Hooker answered. “Who am I talking to?”
The guy turned around, his face immobile. “I was your contact once in Madrid.”
“Lee Colbert,” Mako stated.
“You got a good memory.”
“We were trained that way.”
“Not really. You had to be that way to start with,” Colbert said. “We only had a two-minute exchange. That was twenty years ago.”
“I thought you’d be retired by now.”
“So did I, then this boat-eating business turned up and here I am.”
“Tough.”
“Damn right. I have a farm I want to go to.” Colbert took another sip of his drink and put the glass down on the bar. “How’d you get pulled into this thing?”
“I didn’t. It just happened around me.”
“Sure, and the Company doesn’t have any contingency plans.” Colbert lifted an eyebrow.
“I’m out of it, Colbert.”
“Cut the garbage, Mako. I’ve been in the business too long to fool.”
“What will it take to convince you?” Hooker asked.
“You can’t do it.”
“Call the office. I’m wiped off their roster. Personal decision. No chance of reinstatement. I’ve been kissed off with prejudice. No authority, no contacts... absolutely nothing.”
A barely concealed smile flitted across Colbert’s face and he said, “And just by accident you wound up in a strange place like this where something wild has gotten started that nobody can understand. Is that it?”
Mako nodded. “Something like that.”
“Something like that,” Colbert repeated sourly.
“I’ve been here two years, Lee.”
He studied Mako for a moment. “I think events got a little ahead of us. We weren’t given any advance information except to explore the situation. It doesn’t take too much thought to figure out that we were to contact you somehow. Okay, we made the contact. What’s happening, Mako?”
Disgusted, Mako shook his head. “If I were you, Lee, I wouldn’t go any further until you’ve called the office.”
“It’s that big, huh?” Colbert said.
“Lee...”
“Okay, okay. I got the picture. I’ll let the office clue me in. Just one question. What is this party all about?”
“I thought it was just a Hollywood bash,” Mako told him. “All the ingredients are there... the Lotusland crew, your bunch, and the short guy over there with Judy.”
“Know who he is?” Colbert asked.
They both turned and watched the pair. The pudgy guy was in his fifties, nicely tailored into classic yachting garb. He wore a toupee and had a stylized mustache, and Mako knew that he had seen him before but not at a party like this. “He’s with the Midnight Cruise lines. Name is Marcus Grey.”
“Right,” Colbert agreed. “Two years ago he was indicted on a stock fraud charge but was cleared. Something to do with international money laundering.”
“Are those Swiss bankers still uptight?”
“One of their main money sources is drying up, which makes them pretty darn nervous, but that hasn’t got anything to do with us. How did you know him?”
“File copy stuff. There’s another heavy hitter here too.”
“Who’s that?”
“Anthony Pell. He’s one of the biggies in Judy’s movie company. He used to be Tony Pallatzo, a minor capo in one of the smaller mob families.”
“I was never detailed to that scene.”
“No big deal. Looks like he went legit and wound up in show business with Judy’s father, Arthur Durant. These days a lot of the Made Men have got something square going for them. Crime is so high tech you have to be a university grad to keep up with it.”
“Mako, for a guy supposedly out of the action, you seem to have kept up with current affairs.”
A little laugh escaped Hooker. “It’s all old stuff, Lee. You should know that.”
Colbert’s expression grew suddenly serious. “What about the new stuff, then?”
“Like what?”
“Like what eats ships and why.”
Annoyed at the thought, Mako said, “I wish I knew, Lee.”
“Have you got any ideas?”
“Nope. No ideas, no answers and I don’t intend to look for any.”
Lee Colbert swore under his breath and made a gesture of impatience. “Well, we’ll probably be getting orders at the same time, pal. No sense rushing things. Incidentally, you got old Chana all bent out of shape. She never expected to see you on top of this deal.”
“I told you...”
“Yeah,” Lee said, “you never were on it.”
From the end of the dock Hooker and Billy watched Judy wave off her guests as the boats pulled away into the channel. Willie Pender’s launch took Marcus Grey and four of his friends back to the new motel on the south end of Peolle Island, the Tellig close behind her; Lotusland, waiting until all was clear, pulled out slowly, the bunch on deck still partying.
The quiet was noticeable and a pleasant relief from the festive noise of flatland foreigners let loose on a Caribbean island. Judy came up to the Clamdip, still looking fresh as she did at the beginning of the day, and handed Hooker an envelope. “For your seafood delicacies. They were fabulous.”
Mako took the envelope and grinned. “It was a pleasure to work for you, ma’am.”
“Stow that ma’am bit, my friend,” Judy said. “You and Billy could make a fortune catering. Do you know that?”
“But you’d be the only customer,” Hooker mentioned.
“Yes.” Judy smiled. “Wouldn’t that be wonderful?”
Hooker saw Billy grinning at him and frowned. Once again, he was getting that feeling of being manipulated. “I wish I were younger,” he told her.
“I don’t,” she said impishly, her eyes meeting his with a directness he felt go right through him.
Hooker and Billy got aboard the Clamdip and Hooker fired up the engines while Judy threw off the lines on the cleats and Billy coiled them on the deck. She watched them and waved as they rounded the point and were blocked from view.
Only then did Billy say, “The missy likes you ver’ much. You like she back?”
“Why are you so nosy, Billy?”
“I ask questions to get smart. So... do you like she?”
“Yes,” Mako said to him. “I like she. I like she very much. Now, does that satisfy you?”
“Maybe you marry up with she?”
“Billy, you are a pisser,” Hooker told him.
Fifteen minutes out the strain was beginning to get to Billy, he kept watching the decline of the sun and made sure the Clamdip ran at full throttle and all the dials were in the green. Mako knew fear of the unknown was touching his partner, even if he was silent about it, but in another hour they would be pulling into the harbor and there would still be light, so there was nothing at all to worry about. He cranked the wheel for a small turn to port, straightened up and saw the lights of home low on the horizon.
Mako knew the run so well that he never checked his position, but just before he called to Billy to take over the wheel he locked at the compass and his eyes tightened into a scowl.
The Clamdip was twenty-five degrees off course and there was nothing to account for it. He let out a muttered “Damn!” but it was loud enough to draw Billy to his side.
“There is something, sar?”
Hooker pointed to the compass, Billy took it in quickly, checked with the light ahead, then just looked puzzled at Hooker’s strained expression. “We had that instrument lined up two days ago.”