“My name is Daniel McKee,” I said evenly. “I’m a yacht broker from Florida, and a daiquiri sounds mighty good.”
The driver laughed heartily, shrugged massive shoulders and speeded up, rounding a curve as the road began to ascend again. He didn’t speak until we pulled into the shrubbery-screened drive that led to a low, sprawling restaurant that was all but hidden from the road. We stopped in front of a deep, shadowed porch, and as an attendant started down the wide steps toward us, the driver turned to look at me. He smiled, showing the wide gap between his front teeth.
“Half an hour I wait. No more. You have big night ahead of you.”
The attendant opened the door; Christina and I got out and went inside. Alex, by then I’d decided I might as well call him that, was right about the view from a sheltered terrace cantilevered over the slope on the far side of the restaurant. Candles flickered in windproof holders on each table, and in the gathering darkness the water far below turned gleaming silver, shading into pewter and then gradually deepening to black. From where we sat the lights of the town were invisible, but out in the harbor were hundreds of tiny gleams like a congress of fireflies. Neither of us spoke, and I don’t think Christina paid any attention to the view at all.
Alex was waiting for us at the entrance. We were back on the road before he spoke.
“You still doubt me, Nick Carter?”
“Only a little,” I admitted.
“Good. I tell you, your people never so much as hinted that you were to meet me. Good security; if I don’t look anything like Alex Zenopolis who is to know besides you, eh?”
“Uh-huh.”
He shifted his bulk in the seat ahead of us. “Christina, my sister. Forgive I do not speak much to you. I remember you only as a little girl.”
She rattled something back at him in their language. He laughed.
“No, we speak English. Better for Nick, eh?”
I had to take the risk some time. “Okay, Alex. What do we do next? Why are you here now?”
“In our business we do not keep exact timetable. Remember we wait three days for those smugglers?”
“Yes.”
“So I have to leave Albania a day early. Is okay; we were to meet like this tomorrow. Same place, same time. Little Christina, she knows nothing more than that, eh my sister?”
“That is right.”
“Do we leave tonight?” I asked.
“No. You and my sister, you finish your little love affair with big night on the town. You dance, you eat, you hold hands, and then tomorrow you say the sad farewell as you sail away and the little student returns to Athens with the slightly broken heart. Is that not so?”
It was what I’d had in mind. On the off-chance that we were wrong about being followed, the idea was to keep our brief affair as believable as possible.
“And what do you do in the meantime, Alex?”
“Tonight I drive you two around from place to place. Then I return you to your boat. You will show me where it is moored. Before dawn I will come aboard, and no one will see me. I am the stowaway, yes?”
“How are you going to do it?”
He shrugged. “I swim. I know how to be like invisible fish in water in dark.”
I was silent for a moment. We passed the little temple; several cars were parked at the lookout opposite, and one couple stood, hand-in-hand, in front of the columns. I envied them; Christina’s hand was cold in mine.
“How did you get hold of this cab?” I asked.
“I am not without contacts here, my friend. There are others I can trust on this island. Do you wish to know some more?”
“No,” I said.
“Okay. No problems?”
“I hope not.” I was far from satisfied, but I kept my doubts to myself.
It was the grimmest night of celebration I’ve ever spent. We had dinner at the Pavileon, eating outdoors under trellised vines with a view of the island’s most exclusive beach. We ate langouste taken live from the water in their cages only a few feet away from our table. The lights were subdued, the crowd rich and making sure everyone knew it. I recognized at least two movie stars, including an actress I’d been in love with as a teenager. All these years later she looked, close up, even better than she had then.
Later we went to the discotheque at the Palace Hotel, where against my will I gyrated with Christina on the dance floor. It was so jammed it didn’t make any difference what we did, but even in that crowd the girl attracted more than her share of male attention. I didn’t like it, but not for the usual reason; there was an air of controlled desperation in her movements and expression, as though she were listening for the sound of disaster. Anyone who looked at her closely would get the impression that she was on drugs of some sort, but I supposed in that crowd that wouldn’t be too unusual.
There was another place, and a few more after that, always with the implacable Alex on hand to taxi us around the busling city. Twice I spotted the tan Mercedes, but it didn’t bother me much; I was on the lookout for other watchers. Several times I was on the verge of warning Alex, but the man was so confident and, as I vividly remembered, so damned capable I decided to keep quiet. I was both right and wrong.
At two in the morning, it felt much later, Alex announced it was time to head for the boat. There was a launch service from dockside, so we didn’t have to struggle with the miniature dinghy. We stood on the well-lighted quay as I thrust a wad of paper money at our “driver” and asked him to return in the morning. The young man waiting in the launch watched us disinterestedly, yawning hugely.
“No,” Alex spat. “Tomorrow I go across the island, visit my mother.”
“Okay. There are other drivers.”
“Yes.” He made a deliberately insulting show of counting the money, grunted and backed away so quickly I had to jump aside. Christina and I watched him drive away, then smiled ruefully at each other as we stepped into the launch.
During the short ride we made small talk, mostly for the helmsman close behind us.
“He was so bad,” Christina said. “I am sorry I picked him.”
“Oh well. It was a good night anyway, wasn’t it?”
For answer she kissed me, softly on the cheek, then with more passion just under the line of my jaw. “But,” she said sadly after a little while, “we will not need him tomorrow anyway. When does my flight leave? Two?”
“I think so.” Some time during the evening she had gone to a phone and made reservations to fly back to Athens. “Wish you could stay another day or so.”
“But it is not possible. And you must sail to Italy, too.”
“I’m in no hurry.” I rubbed her shoulders, enfolding her in my arms and holding her close. The helmsman slowed the engine, all his attention on his approach to Scylla riding at her mooring.
“But... I am. Unfortunately.” Christina sighed and pulled away from me as the launch slid to a stop alongside the darkened sloop; only its riding lights were burning, low-wattage electric bulbs that drained very little from the batteries.
I paid the launch boy and we went below. As we entered the pitch dark cabin Christina stopped abruptly in front of me on the companionway.
“What is it?” I hissed, my left arm automatically away from my side, Hugo ready to be dropped into my hand from the sheath.
“I... it is nothing.” She moved on into the cabin.
I quickly looked around; the light coming from the dock-side wasn’t much, but there was no place to hide, either. I went forward, checking the head and hanging locker, then the other cabin. No one. Christina was lighting one of the kerosene lanterns when I returned.