By the time she had had a cup of coffee and come out through the lanai and into the backyard, all thought of helping Luke with his boats had vanished. It was perhaps ten minutes before dawn, and she scanned the horizon over the Atlantic and then turned in a slow circle, her eyes taking in the Ambrosini house to the west, and then the Tannenbaum house, and then moving in the same slow circle across the highway to the north where the big gray Westerfield house squatted behind its stand of hardwood trees. As she watched, she saw the upstairs bedroom light go out. She was surprised because she had not known the Westerfields were here; they did not usually come down until after Christmas. Well, perhaps the house was being rented; she would ask Luke when she saw him. If he was out moving boats, he had undoubtedly seen the light too. She turned eastward toward Bahia Honda and watched the sky beginning to brighten and wondered why on earth Luke was moving the boats into the cove. She had, of course, heard the Weather Bureau’s advisories the night before, but that certainly did not look like a hurricane sky.
She wondered what it was like out on the water, and then — because she was thirty-one years old and had been directly translating thought into action since the time she was six — she walked rapidly to the dock and jumped down into the boat. She threw off the bowline, and then started the outboard and freed the stem line. She nosed the boat out and away from the dock. The offshore waters deepened quickly, dropping from three feet to eight feet to thirteen feet in the space of half a nautical mile. Beyond the inshore shelf the waters dropped away swiftly to form Hawk Channel, where the depths ran to forty feet and more, enough draft to accommodate an ocean liner. She did not go out as far as the channel. She headed due south for several miles, and then cut the motor and allowed the boat to drift. She figured the water beneath her was some twenty-five to thirty feet deep.
She looked at her watch now and saw that it was five minutes to seven. She stood up in the small boat, stretched her arms over her head, and ran one hand through her close-cropped blond hair. Then, smiling for no reason other than that it looked as though it would be a beautiful day, she started the outboard, and cheerfully headed back toward the island.
The chart was affixed to a clipboard, and the clipboard was resting on Luke’s desk where he could see it plainly, just alongside the telephone. Luke was sitting in the chair behind his desk, and Benny sat on the edge of the desk, his eyes on the telephone. Across the small marina office, the second man in dungarees and chambray shirt idly trained his rifle at Luke’s chest.
The chart had been typed on an inked grid:
Looking at the chart, Luke knew instantly that the numbers-under each name were the last five digits of telephone numbers on Ocho Puertos. His own telephone number was 872-8108, and the second listing for the marina was the number of the outside booth. Bobby Colmore’s number was 872-8217, and Sam’s — which he also knew by heart — was 872-8826. He glanced up at the clock hanging on the marina wall opposite his desk. The time was five minutes to seven.
“Figured it out, Costigan?” Benny asked.
“No, I haven’t,” Luke said.
“Well, stick around. Maybe it’ll come to you.”
“You know,” Luke said, “if you think there’s any money in the safe, there isn’t. I made my bank deposit Friday afternoon.”
“Is that right?” Benny said.
“Yes,” Luke answered.
“My, my,” Benny said, and Luke had the positive feeling he had known all along the goddamn safe was empty. He heard voices outside and then the screen door opening. A moment later the inner door opened wide, and a tall man wearing khakis came into the room carrying an open bottle of Coke which he’d undoubtedly bought from the machine just outside. He stepped into the office and glanced immediately at Luke, and then gave him a wide smile, and then tilted the Coke bottle to his mouth and took a long pull at it, and then walked to the desk and put the bottle down on its top, directly in front of Luke, banging the bottle down hard, and keeping his hand wrapped around it, smiling all the while, and then saying very softly, still smiling, “Morning, Mr. Costigan.”
Luke looked up at the man and said nothing. The man’s eyes were blue and steady, and they studied Luke’s face unwaveringly, the smile still on the man’s mouth, his fist still wrapped around the narrow neck of the Coke bottle. There was unmistakable challenge in the stiff extended arm of the man and the hand curled tightly around the bottle neck. Luke did not know why the challenge was being issued, but there it was, as certain as a dropped gauntlet at his feet.
“I said ‘Good morning,’ Mr. Costigan,” the man said.
“Who are you?” Luke answered.
“Well now, that’s impertinent, isn’t it?” the man said, and turned to the blond man who had followed him into the room. “Isn’t that impertinent, Willy?”
“It sure is impertinent,” Willy said, and then moved his hand up to stroke his mustache.
“I say ‘Good morning’ to a man, and next thing you know he’s asking me who I am. That’s not very good manners, Mr. Costigan.” He smiled at Luke again and abruptly released his grip on the bottle. “My name is Jason Trench,” he said.
“What do you want here, Mr. Trench?”
Jason smiled, and at that moment the telephone rang. He walked to the phone and said, “If it’s for you, Mr. Costigan, I’ll just say you’re out on the water — you won’t mind, right?” He lifted the phone from its cradle. “Costigan’s Marina,” he said. “Hello there, Johnny, how are you? Yep, we’re all set here. Did you see us when we hung the ‘Closed’ sign on the door?” Jason chuckled and then said, “Figured you did. All right, keep in touch,” he said, and hung up. He turned to Benny and said briefly, “That was Johnny at the diner. It’s secured, you can check it off.”
Benny took a pencil from the pocket of his chambray shirt, and in the space alongside the diner’s listing and phone number, under the column headed 700, he put a small check mark. Luke glanced up at the clock. It was exactly 7 A.M. He looked again at the chart. The next call will come from Bobby Colmore’s place, he thought, and it will come at 7:05.
“Is Goody in the phone booth outside?” Benny asked.
“Right,” Jason said, and the office went silent.
At 7:05 by the wall clock, just as Luke had expected, the telephone rang again.
“Hello there, Harry,” Jason said. “How’s every little thing? Well, that’s just fine. You lock up there and bring him on over. Right,” he said, and replaced the receiver in its cradle. “The tackle shop,” he said to Benny. “It’s secured. They’ll be bringing the wino on over.”
The wino, of course, would be Bobby, and for some reason they were going to bring him here to the marina. Luke watched as Benny put a check mark next to Bobby’s name, in the column headed 705. The calls, then, would come into the marina at five-minute intervals and would obviously be reports from Jason’s men scattered throughout the community. The chart went only as far as 755, which Luke now knew was five minutes to eight o’clock. Did this mean the reports would cease at that time? He then noticed that this particular chart was only the top page of a sheaf of papers attached to the clipboard. Was it possible that the sheet under this one began with the numerals 800 and proceeded to 855, and then on through the day, on the next sheet and the one after that, for as long as these men intended to stay in Ocho Puertos?