But not everything was going okay with Willie Pender. The ocean was flat, calmer than he had ever seen it. The wind was a gentle breeze, not enough to stir up a ripple on the water, yet a slow rolling wave had just lifted his boat up on a rise and slid it down the other side. A lesser one followed, then it was quiet again. On the other two boats he could see the sudden activity. Beams of spotlights reached out over the surface, mingled with Willie’s light, but nothing was there at all. None of the boats slowed down, their old engines throbbing along normally. If one were to quit, the other two would race to assist, but their minds would be filled with dread.
What did the big sailors call the thing the ocean just did, Willie thought. Rogue waves. Yes, that was it. He thought again and knew he was wrong. Rogue waves were huge devastating things that suddenly came up out of nowhere and went back to nowhere after tearing up everything in front of them. No, that was just a very strange wave. It didn’t belong here at all. It had no explanation.
This time he knew he was wrong. Everything had to have an explanation, and he didn’t even want to think about this one.
Anthony Pell suddenly remembered where he had seen Mako Hooker a long time ago. He had seen him slap the crap out of Bull Shultz and handcuff him around a streetlight. He nailed Louie Factor at a distance of a hundred feet with a .45 caliber automatic, then turned the small truck that was carrying six million dollars’ worth of cocaine into a blazing inferno when his slugs penetrated the tank and the lethal gasoline poured onto a hot exhaust pipe.
He had dragged Tony Pallatzo out from behind that garbage can where he had been hiding, beat the hell out of him because he was not worth killing, then kicked him in the butt so hard there was still a painful crack in his tailbone.
Mako Hooker hadn’t changed any. He was just here, that was all. He was what the writers called a nemesis, a something that’s out to destroy you. They were back on the streets of Brooklyn again, only this time Tony Pallatzo was Anthony Pell, bigger, stronger, filled with the expertise of killing, and the nemesis was well past his prime. Tony could taste his revenge. It was his time now.
The gun in his belt was new and unused. It had been stolen in shipment from a factory and only had one purpose. It could kill, then be discarded. The piece could rot out at the bottom of the lagoon with all the rest of the junk down there.
All he had to do was find Mako Hooker. That wouldn’t be too much trouble. There weren’t many places to hide on Peolle Island.
Chapter Eighteen
Charlie Berger was seeing Hooker in a new light now. There was an affinity between them that hadn’t been there before and Charlie knew it was because previously he had only known Mako as a retired mainlander. Even new knowledge was speculative, but he had done things that weren’t just rumors anymore. And on these islands rumors could be taken with a good deal of fact backing them up. Even the passing asides from Chana and the obvious relationships between professional agency personnel made a lot of sense, and when Hooker had caught him away from his big chair in Alley’s bar he silently acknowledged the meeting and stayed off the beaten path and in the shadows to Charlie’s cottage.
On the porch Mako handed him a single letter-sized envelope and he put it in his inside pocket without reading it. There were no lights on in the house, so the porch was in almost total blackout. Mako said, “This isn’t a will, Charlie. It’s just a record of events as I see them. In case I get ‘disappeared’ or wind up dead, get this to the Company. Bypass Chana and go through emergency channels. I coded it so you won’t get chewed out for going around the chain of command.”
Berger nodded thoughtfully. “You want me to read it?”
“It makes no difference if I’m dead.”
“What about the Durant lady?” The way he said it made Mako understand that he and Judy had been a well-discussed topic among the gossipers.
“I’ve got to keep her alive,” Mako said.
For a few seconds it was quiet, then Charlie said, “It’s that bad, huh.” It wasn’t a question.
“It could be,” Mako said.
“What’re you going to do?”
“Look for a guy named Tony Pell,” Mako said.
“Alley saw him two hours ago. He thought he was looking for somebody too.”
“Where?”
“Down by the Clamdip. Alley was at a beach party not far off. The light from the bonfire was enough to make him out.”
“Come on, Charlie, how would he recognize Pell? He hardly knew him.”
“The guy had on city clothes. You know anybody else who wears them around here?”
“No.” He frowned at Charlie. “How do you know about that?”
“I know about everything. Just like Sydney Greenstreet.” He gave a familiar, low, guttural laugh.
“Yeah.”
“Be careful,” Charlie warned.
“Yeah,” Hooker told him, and disappeared into the night.
By accident, Anthony Pell learned that Judy was on the Lotusland. The deckhand whom he had made clean up the inflatable almost bumped into him as he came around the corner of a building. He started to blurt out an “excuse me” but Pell cut him off with, “Is everything all right on Lotusland?”
There was no anger in his voice at all and the hand gulped with relief and said, “All’s fine, sir. Miss Durant, she came back to the ship, but that is all that happened.”
“Good,” Pell told him pleasantly. “I think I’ll go back myself.” With that he nodded curtly and strode off. The deckhand made his way into the night just as quickly. Anthony Pell was no mate of his and was better off out of sight and mind.
The bait itself had set the trap, Pell was thinking. Judy was on the Lotusland and Mako Hooker wouldn’t be far behind her. Whatever they had going for themselves was going to be the end for them both. If he got Hooker alone his death could be concealed easily and quickly. Judy’s demise could look very accidental. All sorts of terrible things could happen to anyone careless enough to get too close to whirling propellers and electrical outlets or tangles of wire rope or hemp line.
Chana had gotten restless. She had intercepted Willie Pender’s radio call describing the errant wave he had encountered, but there were no follow-ups and no calls for help. Ten minutes later somebody at a CB station on the beach asked if the boats were all right and Willie had said they were. There had been no other strange waves. In her mind Chana was trying to picture what Willie had felt. The wave wasn’t big enough to be dangerous, but there was no indication of its origin. What she knew of ocean topography was that some waves could race across the ocean with the speed of an airplane. At some point they would turn into a tsunami, a tidal wave of gigantic proportions. Other waves could be activated, then diminish as they traveled from their propulsive source.
Never, out here, had she ever heard of either kind of wave.
Except now. Except Willie Pender’s wave. Whatever initiated that one could have come from a long way off.
She got up, told the sailor in the wheelhouse she was going for a walk and headed for the gangplank. The stars were bright in the sky but didn’t illuminate the ground at all. So Chana treaded carefully, passed the Lotusland and walked onto the beach. She stood there wondering which way to go.
Anthony Pell didn’t do any wondering, though. He saw the silhouettes of the three men walking through the sand. One carried a railroad-style lantern and the other had two empty ice buckets. Between them was Mako Hooker, and none of them had seen Pell. The trio stopped, the two islanders moved off to the icehouse, where the old refrigerator spit out ice cubes when it was working, and Mako headed straight ahead toward Alley’s bar.