Number 302 was a continuing flight, so there were only nine or ten people at Gate 7 waiting to go aboard. Some through passengers who had deplaned to stretch their legs were allowed to go through first. Boarding passengers went through single file while the gate attendant checked our tickets. I was last. As I went up the steps I resisted an impulse to look back. He would be watching from somewhere to be sure I went aboard. There were still four or five empty seats, but that meant nothing. Two would be for the stewardesses, and some of the through passengers might still be in the terminal. I took one on the aisle, aft of the door. There might even be people ahead of him on stand-by. I waited. I was on the wrong side to see the gate, even if I’d had a window seat. It was stifling with the plane on the ground. Sweat gathered on my face. Another passenger came aboard, a woman. Then one in uniform, an Air Force major. I began to hope. The captain and first officer came through the doorway and went forward. The door to the flight compartment closed. Then two minutes before they took away the ramp Bonner came through the door. He took the last empty seat.
We were down in the steamy heat of New Orleans at 8:05 for a twenty-minute stop. Bonner played it very cagey; I remained in my seat while the first wave deplaned, but he went out with them. I could see the beauty of that. He could watch the ramp from inside the terminal to see if I got off or not, so he had me bottled up without being in evidence himself. But if he stayed and I got off, five minutes later he would have to follow me. Smart, I thought. I left the plane. As soon as I was inside the terminal I saw him. He was reading a newspaper, paying no attention to me. I sauntered out front to the limousines and taxis. There he was, still paying no attention.
There was no longer any doubt. Maybe I could call the police and have him picked up. No, that wouldn’t work. I had no proof whatever. He would have identification, a good story, an alibi—they couldn’t hold him ten minutes. I had to escape from him some way. But how? He was a professional and knew all the tricks; I was an amateur. Then I began to have an idea. Make it novice against novice, and I might have a chance.
We landed at Tampa at 11:40 a.m. As soon as the door was open I arose and stretched and followed the crowd into the terminal. I stood for a moment looking idly at the paperback books in the rack at the newsstand, and then drifted outside. I’d had a forlorn hope that I might catch the taxi stand with only one cab on station, but there was no such luck. There were four. The driver of the lead-off hack, however, was behind the wheel and ready to go. Bonner was just coming through the door about twenty feet to my left, lighting a cigarette and looking at everything except me. I strolled on past the line until I was abreast the lead one.
Turning quickly, I opened the door and slid in. “Downtown. Tampa,” I told the driver.
“Yes, sir.” He punched the starter. We pulled away from the loading zone. As we headed for the street I looked back. Bonner was climbing into the second cab. We had a lead of about a block. I took a twenty from my wallet and dropped it on the front seat beside the driver.
“There’s a cab following us,” I said. “Can you lose him?”
His eyes flicked downward at the money and then straight ahead. “Not if he’s a cop.”
“He’s not.”
“That’s what you say.”
“Why would he take a cab?” I asked. “There’s a sheriffs car right there at the terminal.”
He nodded. Swinging into the street, he bore down on the accelerator. “Mister, consider him lost.”
I looked back. The other cab was weaving through traffic slightly less than a block behind us now. We wouldn’t have a chance, I thought, if he had one of his fellow professionals at the wheel, but now the odds were even. No, they were a little better than even. We knew what we were going to do, but he had to wait till we’d done it to find out. It took less than ten minutes. The second time we ran a light on the amber and he tried to follow us through on the red, he locked fenders with a panel truck in the middle of the intersection.
“Nice going,” I said. “Now the Greyhound Bus terminal.”
I got out there and paid him for the meter in addition to the twenty. As soon as he was out of sight, I walked through the station and over to a taxi stand in front of a hotel, and took another cab to a Hertz agency. Thirty minutes later I was headed south on US 41 in a rented Chevrolet. There was no telling how long my luck would last, but for the moment I’d lost them.
My head began to ache again and I was having trouble staying awake. I suddenly realized it was Sunday afternoon now and I hadn’t been to bed since Friday night. When I reached Punta Gorda I pulled into a motel and slept for six hours. I rolled into Miami shortly after 2 a.m. Going out to the airport to claim my bag would be too dangerous, even if I got a porter to pick it up. Bonner would be there, or he’d have somebody watching it. I turned the car in, and took a cab to a hotel on Biscayne Boulevard, explained that my bag had got separated from me when I changed planes in Chicago, and registered as Howard Summers from Portland, Oregon. They wouldn’t locate me this time merely by calling the hotels. I asked for a room overlooking Bayfront Park, bought a Herald, and followed the boy into the elevator. The room was on the twelfth floor. As soon as he left I went over to the window and parted the slats of the Venetian blind. Just visible around to the left was City Yacht Basin. Sticking up out of the cluster of sightseeing and charter fishing boats were the tall sticks of the Orion. It made me sick to be this near and not be able to go aboard.
I turned away and reached for the telephone. Bill Redmond should be home by now. He answered on the first ring.
“Stuart—” I began.
He cut me off. “Good God, where are you?”
I told him the hotel. “Room 1208.”
“You’re in Miami? Don’t you ever read the papers?”
“I’ve got a Herald, but I haven’t looked at—”
“Read it. I’m on my way over there now.” He hung up.
The paper was lying on the bed, where I’d tossed it when I came in. I spread it open, put a cigarette in my mouth, and started to flick the lighter. Then I saw it.
LOCAL YACHT CAPTAIN
SOUGHT IN SEA MYSTERY
The police had Baxter’s letter.
8
It was datelined Southport.
The aura of mystery surrounding the voyage of the ill-fated yacht Topaz deepened today in a strange new development that very nearly claimed the life of another victim.
Still in critical condition in a local hospital this afternoon following an overdose of sleeping pills was an attractive brunette tentatively identified as Miss Paula Stafford of New York, believed by police to have been close to Wendell Baxter, mysterious figure whose death or disappearance while en route from Panama to Southport on the Topaz has turned into one of the most baffling puzzles of recent years. . . .
I plunged ahead, skipping the parts of it I knew. It was continued in a back section. I riffled through it, scattering the pages, and went on. Then I sat down and read the whole thing through again.
It was all there. The hotel detective had gone up to her room shortly after 3:30 a.m. when guests in adjoining 100ms reported a disturbance. He found her wildly upset and crying out almost incoherently that somebody had been killed. Since there were no evidences of violence and it was obvious no one else was there, dead or otherwise, he had got her calmed down and left her after she’d taken one of her sleeping pills. At 10 a.m., however, when they tried to call her and could get no response, they entered the room with a pass key and found her unconscious. A doctor was called. He found the remaining pills on the table beside the bed, and had her taken to a hospital. It wasn’t known whether the overdose was accidental or a suicide attempt, since no note could be found, but when police came to investigate they found the letter from Baxter. Then everything hit the fan.