She felt her stomach gingerly where my arm had circled. “How’d you find me?”
“The other evening I called a Tampa cop, Gonzales by name, to ask about a man named Jack Scanlon. I also asked Gonzales about you. He said they had no lead on you, that it was as if you’d grown up beyond recognition.
“Later, in the light of the plates, it occurred to me that maybe you hadn’t grown up — but down. Into childhood, so to speak. Just another kid in a houseful of kids.”
“What’s this about plates?”
“The first time I came here Mrs. Cardezas was setting the table for dinner. Six plates. But only four kids and herself. Five people. It finally dawned on me to ask myself who was the sixth person, the fifth kid. There were no other grownups around.”
“I guess it doesn’t take much to tell you a whole lot, Ed,” she said rather dismally.
“Sometimes a wall has to practically fall on me. It wasn’t very nice of you to be hiding right here among Mrs. Cardezas’ brood while I’ve had my naked neck stuck away out.”
“Maybe not, but what else was I to do? For your sake I had to stay away from the cops.”
“Big hearted you,” I said.
“Don’t sound so bitter, Ed. You know it’s the truth. If I’d told them about me and Bucks, and you trying to help me, they’d have stuck you under the jail. You — you didn’t kill Bucks, did you?”
“Would it matter to you if I had?”
“Yes,” she said. “A million times I’ve regretted dragging you into it.”
“Well, with that much decency to start with, we’ll see how well you can level now,” I told her.
Mrs. Cardezas came into the kitchen. The furor in the yard had died down.
The big woman glanced from me to Tina. “It’s all right, Mama Cardezas,” Tina said.
Mrs. Cardezas continued to look at the tiny woman with tenderness. Then Mrs. Cardezas turned her head toward me. “Señor Rivers, we did what Tina asked... For you personally there is no ill feeling.”
“Now that’s downright kindly of you, m’am,” I said. The edge on my words caused her to redden.
“Ed’s pretty much put out,” Tina said, “and I think you had better just go quietly into the other room, Mama Cardezas.”
“If you need me...”
“She will send you a telegram,” I said.
With backward glances over her shoulder, Mrs. Cardezas started out of the kitchen. Little Miguel’s head showed, thrust past the door jamb. Tear streaks were still on his cheeks, but he was recovered well enough to eye my shins hungrily.
“And take him with you,” I suggested.
When they had gone to the front of the house, I turned to
Tina. She sat making pleats in the front of her dress, not raising her eyes to meet mine.
“Ed,” her whisper faltered, “I have some money... I’ll pay you for...”
“Money wouldn’t hire me to go through what I have, Tina. I’ve been slugged, shot at, stuffed in a car trunk and left to die.”
I realized she was crying. It was for real. She was trying hard not to. “What can I do now, Ed? Go to the police?”
“Are you kidding? I’m one-half of a lucky jump ahead of them right now. What you said about Bucks Jordan’s death in relation to me still goes, only more so. It was me involved in the Aeron Hotel shooting. I’m the nudge that caused Gaspar the Great to lose his nerve, suddenly become dangerous to somebody, and get himself killed. If the cops were briefed and moved on me right now, I’d be lucky merely to lose my license and spend the next twenty years or so in Florida state pen. There’s nothing I can do but see it to a finish.”
“I’ll help all I can, Ed.”
“While you’re helping, you bear in mind that if you tell me one more lie I’ll break your lovely little neck.”
“What do you want to know?”
“The obvious. When you came to me that night, Bucks Jordan wasn’t after you per se, was he?”
“No.”
“He was after an object, an item.”
“Yes.”
“It came off the schooner Sprite, didn’t it?”
“Yes, Ed,” she said meekly.
“What was it?”
“A half million dollars.”
Chapter Seventeen
I wasn’t too surprised. I’d known it was big. “A half million,” I said, “in what?”
“What do you mean, in what?”
“Jewels? Bonds?”
“Plain old American cash, Ed. Five hundred one-thousand dollar bills not much larger in a tight package than a couple of pocket-sized books.”
“Whose money was it?”
She stared at the floor and said bleakly, “Bucks said it was anybody’s. Up for grabs. Belonged to anyone who got it and kept it.”
“You know better than that, Tina. That kind of money always belongs to someone.”
“Sure,” she said as if she hated herself. “Bucks was telling me what I wanted to hear, roping me into the deal. He was making it easy for me to rationalize and kid myself. He said the money was part of a crooked deal and we had as much right to it as the next person.”
“Did he know what the deal was?”
“He had an idea. He came aboard the Sprite once without D. D. hearing him. She staggered out of the cabin, blind drunk, and made a crack to her father before she realized Bucks was there. If the liquor held out, she said, she’d remain a happy assassin until it was over. Alex Lessard told her to shut up. Then he tried to pass off the remark as drunken talk. But Bucks got the idea they were planning to kill somebody.”
“With Jack Scanlon,” I said, “as the imported trigger man.”
“I wouldn’t know about that, Ed.”
“It fits him like his skin. Did Bucks know the identity of the target?”
Her pigtails swished about her slender neck as Tina shook her head. “No. He didn’t know about the money, either, at that time. Later he and Scanlon were drinking in a waterfront bar. Scanlon got in a boastful mood. He made a slip about the money.”
“I still can’t figure you in,” I said. “Why didn’t Bucks take the money himself? Why a partner and a split of the take?”
“The money was in a package, inside Alex Lessard’s own stateroom. The cabin was never unlocked, even when he was inside asleep. The only way to slip into the cabin was from outside.”
“Outside?”
“The water,” Tina said. “From the water.”
I glommed onto the idea. “Through the porthole.”
“Yes. Lessard left it open in this climate for obvious reasons. No one would have viewed it as a hazard. For a normal-sized person to get through it was out of the question. I nearly broke my shoulders when Bucks helped me in, small as I am.”
“He took you out by boat?”
Tina nodded. “He had a small, lightweight plywood boat stashed in a mangrove stand not far from the bait camp out there. He eased us out, not taking the oars from the water as we neared the Sprite.”
She was stilled for a moment as she remembered the quiet, the darkness, the rasp of water against the hull of the schooner riding at anchor.
She drew a thin breath. “When we got out there, we heard their voices. The Scanlons and. Lessards. They were up on the foredeck, drinking and making idle chit-chat.
“Bucks gripped the rim of the porthole and steadied the plywood rowboat. I was wearing tight jeans and a slipover knitted shirt, no shoes. With his free hand, he latched onto my belt and helped me inside the cabin.
“We didn’t have any trouble — at first. I’d brought a small flashlight with me, one of those the size and shape of a cigarette lighter. I found the package under Lessard’s bunk. Before I left the cabin, I tore a corner and made sure the package contained money.
“Bucks helped me out of the cabin and we headed for shore. Then suddenly, I heard Jack Scanlon call out, ‘Lessard! Bucks Jordan’s prowling around out there.’