“Not at all.”
An accident? Possibly. This man didn’t look like a professional follower, but it was sad to think how unprofessional many professional followers were appearing these days. And why would anyone go inside to telephone when there was a battery of outside booths in plain view of taxis and auto-train? Huuygens got in and sat down, leaning back comfortably; his companion, having insisted that Kek enter first, followed, closed the door, and turned with hand outstretched. It was soft, but dry, a remarkable achievement on the sweltering day it was rapidly becoming. In the stilled cab the air conditioning continued to run, proof of the driver’s experience with Florida weather and its effect on customers.
“My name is Ralph Jamison,” the man said. “I’m from Worcester, Mass.”
“Kek Huuygens. I’m from New York.”
“Enjoying the cruise so far?”
At close quarters Huuygens could see that the other man’s blondish hair was thinning, revealing patches of pink scalp beneath; despite the youthfulness of the striped double-knit bell-bottom trousers and the open-necked exotic sports shirt, the man was much older than he appeared. Or, Kek thought, than he tried to appear.
“I’m enjoying it very much.”
“Me, too. Although passing Hatteras wasn’t anything to brag about.” Jamison suddenly neighed. “Come to think of it, it sure wasn’t for you! Tell me, what—”
He paused. The driver had finished delivering the luggage of the two elderly women and had climbed back into the cab. He instantly closed the door to participate in the air conditioning, and looked back at the two men with impersonal curiosity. Jamison looked at Huuygens.
“Where are you going?”
Kek shrugged. “Just into town, I guess, to look around. Where do you want to be dropped off?”
Jamison chose to ignore the question. “Have you ever been to Fort Lauderdale before?”
“No, I’m afraid not.”
It was, of course, a fib, and Kek had no idea of why he had told it, other than if Jamison was keeping an eye on him, any dissembling was better than candor. Actually, although Kek had visited Fort Lauderdale many times, he had always managed his trips in the wintertime. Florida in the summer passed tolerance, and Kek had often wondered what curious aberration had led the founders of beautiful Fort Lauderdale to locate it in Florida in the first place. It was true, of course, that Florida was one place that never had to worry about avalanches, but that seemed little enough excuse.
“Ah!” Jamison sounded as if he had hit a winning number. “Then you have to let me show you the town! I was stationed — I mean, I was stationed at Homestead when I was in the Army, and I came up to Lauderdale every chance I got. I love the place.” Jamison’s horsey smile disappeared suddenly; he looked almost woebegone. “Unless, of course, you would prefer to be by yourself?”
Kek smiled. “Not at all.”
Why the pause after the first “stationed”? And hadn’t Homestead been closed about the time a man of Jamison’s apparent age would have been in the Army? Maybe not; maybe it was all imagination and Jamison was simply a passenger, gregarious by nature, who had finally latched onto a listener after two days of enforced silence. It was possible. At any rate, even assuming Jamison was not as innocent as he appeared — or would like to appear — if one had to be followed, at least there were advantages in having your follower with you. It saved looking over your shoulder constantly, always bad for the neck muscles, and it also made for the economy of a single fare.
Jamison nodded happily and leaned toward the driver.
“Driver, could we rent the cab by the hour?” He turned instantly, raising his hand as if Kek had said something. “No! I insist! My treat. After all, it was your cab and you were kind enough to share it. The least I can do—”
“Sure,” said the driver, cutting into the diatribe. “Twenty-five bucks an hour.”
He could not have picked a better way to cut Jamison short.
“Twenty-five—” Jamison inadvertently blanched but recovered quickly. “All right, driver, but I’ll have to pay you in travelers’ checks and I’ll need a receipt.” He quickly turned to Kek to explain, almost as if the other had demanded an explanation. “I, ah... I’m traveling on doctor’s orders. With a receipt I can take it off my income tax, you see.”
“Of course,” Kek said, and leaned back, no muscle betraying the pleasant expression on his face. Was it humanly possible to be as inept a professional as this and still not starve to death in one’s selected profession? Or was the very ineptness a disguise in itself? This way lies madness, Kek thought; let time decide. He looked out the window, prepared to enjoy himself, at least until the time came when Jamison, follower or not, became a hindrance to his plans. Or, of course, until the air conditioning failed.
Jamison leaned over a bit authoritatively; it was obvious that for twenty-five dollars an hour he intended to direct the cab as much as he could without actually taking the wheel.
“Driver, first along the beach, north. Then up Las Olas, then over to Sunrise and down to the Intercoastal again. Then maybe to Pompano; we’ll see. And drive slowly.”
The driver nodded agreeably and put the car into motion. With gasoline prices what they were, for twenty-five dollars an hour he was willing to creep. Jamison leaned back again, lacing his long thin legs, tucking one hand between them as if for warmth, a habit, obviously, of long standing.
“I was about to say, back then when we first got into the cab,” he began, looking at Kek and unable to entirely mask the slightly malicious smile, “what did you actually say to that girl yesterday?”
Huuygens smiled ruefully.
“I’m afraid I didn’t use very good judgment. I have a tendency at times to be impetuous, and when she practically fell into my arms...” He shook his head. “What I actually said to her is something I’d rather forget. After all, all it got me was a slap.”
“And what a slap!” Jamison said admiringly, and grinned. His teeth, to Kek’s surprise, were not the large blocks he had expected to fit the otherwise horsey face; they were small and delicate, and pointed inward a bit. “Still,” Jamison went on, “it sure would have been worth it if it had worked. You know the old story about the guy who made a pass at every girl he met, stranger or not, and then told his friends, ‘Sure I get slapped a lot, but I also get a lot of—’”
“I know the story,” Kek said, and smiled a man-to-man smile. Would Girard hire a man as obvious as Jamison to keep an eye on him? Highly doubtful; certainly not for protection, since Jamison would be hard put to protect a suma wrestler from a midget. Obviously, it couldn’t be Girard: if Girard wanted him watched, he’d have a man at the airport with a ticket on the same plane. And who else would — or could — have hired him? Who else but Girard knew he had planned to sail on the Andropolis?
“Well!” Jamison said, and looked through the window, as if wondering where to begin his travelogue. “Ah! That’s the 66 Tower. And that’s the Bahia Mar, the largest marina in the world, some say. Maybe we’ll stop up at the 66 roof later for a drink. Everybody does; it’s one of the things visitors to Lauderdale all do. The platform up there rotates once every 66 minutes. It’s not a bad place for lunch, either, and the view is the best in Florida.”
“It looks very inviting.”
“It is. Ah! This is Las Olas Boulevard. Probably the most beautiful street in the most beautiful town in the world.”
It was, indeed, an unusually lovely street and Kek enjoyed seeing it once again. They completed their tour of Las Olas, including some of the adjoining islands, cut across to Sunrise and drove slowly back in the direction of the ocean. At Bay View they turned north again, passing the inlets from the main waterway, with boats of all sizes bobbing in the backyards of homes there. In the background large yachts could be seen moving majestically on the Intercoastal; they almost seemed unreal against the dark wood of the background, as if they had been posed by the Chamber of Commerce. Jamison rambled on, a fairly boring guide, while Kek turned off the little key in his head, the same key that enabled him to read his morning newspaper in peace while undergoing one of Anita’s interrogations.