Big Kiss-Off Read online

  It wasn’t easy for the Squid to talk. His voice sounded thin and unsuited to his bulk.

  “You goin’ to’ leave like Joe tol’ you?” he asked.

  Cade tried to see the big deputy’s face. “What’s it all about, Squid? Why has Tocko got his knife in me?”

  The Squid’s smile was sly. “I ast you first You goin’ t’ stay or shove off?”

  Cade considered his answer. He was in no condition to take another beating. “I’ve until tomorrow to decide that.”

  The Squid’s head, like his voice, was too small for his body. He bobbled it as he agreed. “Joe said until tomorrow noon.” He sucked in his breath as he raised a big hand and ran it lightly over Cade’s body. When he spoke, his thin voice was plaintive. “Don’t go. Please.”

  Cade backed a step, embarrassed. The touch of the Squid’s hand made his flesh creep. The Squid liked to know and give pain. Due to some flaw in his biochemistry, to the Squid pain was a woman. Cade sidestepped the big man and walked out on the rotting pier.

  Light from the pressure lantern he’d forgotten to turn off flooded the cockpit. Cade jumped down into the boat, then turned and looked back down the pier. The Squid had blended with the night and the silence. In the thin moonlight mingling with the first of the fog rolling in off the river, the frame houses behind the levee and the unlighted business section of Bay Parish looked distorted and unreal, imbued with all the qualities of a nightmare.

  Old man Dobraviche had shaken his hand. A dozen men had welcomed him home. Miss Spence, the postmistress, had kissed him. Sal had said the drinks and eats were on the house. The attack on him didn’t make sense.

  Inside the cabin aft, Cade studied his face in the mirror he used for shaving. It was bad but it would heal. He’d been hurt worse. He cleaned the wounds as best he could and painted them with merthiolate. Then reshaping his nose with his fingers, he bound it and the torn flap of flesh under his eyes with waterproof adhesive tape.

  The mud had soaked through his clean shirt and pants. He stripped them and his sneakers off and lowered himself overside by the rope hanging over the transom.

  The cold water felt good on his bruised body but the hyacinth bulbs clogging the slip were so many slimy little snakes with hands. Still clinging to the rope, Cade washed the mud from his body and pulled himself back into the cockpit and dried with a coarse towel.

  There was a bottle half full of rum in the galley. He drank from it and put it back. Dumping the contents of one of his duffle bags on a bunk, he picked a .38-calibered Colt automatic from the mound of crumpled clothes and personal possessions and laid it aside before putting on clean dungarees and a skivy.

  The uniform he had bought in Tokyo was in the bag. The silver maple leaves on the shoulders of the tunic looked strange and out of place in the cabin of a fishing cruiser. Cade made a mental note to get a mothproof bag in which to hang the uniform. It could be he had made a wrong guess on how to spend the rest of his life. It could be that in a few months he would be banging on doors back at Nellis, trying to get some flight surgeon to recertify him for duty. What the hell. He was only thirty-two. Once his nerves stopped jumping and he’d put on a few pounds, he could still fly a lot of jet. Maybe it had been a mistake — this business of coming home. Maybe he’d been airborne so long, he was out of place in any other element.

  Cade turned down the pressure lantern and stuffed the pistol in the waistband of his dungarees. If Joe Laval and Tocko were as anxious to get him off the river as they seemed to be, perhaps the noon deadline was just a feint. A few slashes with a sharp knife and he wouldn’t have any cruiser. He might as well be back in a POW camp, dreaming about the boat he was going to buy if he ever got out of where he was.

  A wry smile twisted his lips. Sure. He had it made. From here on in, all he had to do was live.

  He made certain the lines to the creosoted pilings were fast, and walked back down the pier and sat with his back against an upturned flat-bottomed skiff that had been pulled up on the levee.

  The wind died but the night remained cool. Cade wished he’d brought the bottle of rum with him. He wished he’d brought the loaf of bread and the can of beans. He wished he knew where Janice had gone after she’d divorced him. The least she could have done was to have waited to say goodbye.

  “Good luck, soldier. It was nice knowing you.”

  He wanted a drink. He wanted a smoke. He wanted a woman. He wanted to know why Laval was throwing off on him. The lean-faced Cajun had said:

  “A big-shot colonel, huh? A hero. Or maybe not such a hero. While the other men you went over with were still dog-fighting all over Mig Alley, you were sitting it out on the ground, shot down over the Yalu.”

  The shaven hairs on the back of Cade’s neck tingled. That louse Laval.

  On the far side of the river, in one of the oyster camps rising on poles out of the mounds of shells that had accumulated through the years, a hound pointed his muzzle at the waning moon and howled. His eyes troubled, Cade got to his feet and stretched, then swiveled his head stiffly as a faint splash in the slip attracted his attention.

  A swimmer, attempting to be quiet, was pushing through the bulbs, stopping now and then to tread water, gasping for air, before moving on. Cade drew the pistol from his waistband and stood watching the phosphorescent ripple.

  Now the swimmer was gone from sight. Cade could hear panting on the far side of the levee, a hoarse, almost animal gasping clearly audible in the still air.

  A small head and a pair of slim shoulders showed over the levee, silhouetted vaguely against the dying moon. Cade started to call out and changed his mind. He wanted to know, he had to know, what the swimmer intended to do.

  The small figure on the levee stood a moment listening to the music escaping with the yellow light from Sal’s door, then looked at the dimly lighted cruiser surging at her ropes.

  Now the figure was moving again, slowly, out on the pier, stooping low as if to keep from being seen by anyone aboard the boat. Now he was looking in through the ports, trying to ascertain if there was anyone in either the fore or aft cabin. Satisfied that no one was aboard, the newcomer jumped down into the cockpit and entered the after cabin. The door closed behind him.

  Cade was grimly amused. The pistol ready in his hand, he walked out on the pier, glancing over his shoulder from time to time to make certain he wasn’t being trapped between two fires.

  At the transom of the cruiser he paused, then eased himself into the cockpit. Even for Joe Laval’s limited imagination, the trap was crude. Whoever Laval and Tocko had sent to gun or knife him, instead of being quiet and waiting, was making himself at home, opening lockers, moving swiftly from one side of the cabin to the other.

  Cade eased forward the last few feet and yanked the door of the cabin open. “All right,” he said, quietly. “Let’s have it. What the goddamn — ”

  His voice stuck like a pair of jammed landing wheels. The swimmer wasn’t a man. It was a girl. Standing in the center of the cabin, her wet hair plastered to her well-shaped head and only two wisps of wet lace to keep her from being as naked as the day she’d been born. A big-eyed black-haired girl in her late teens or early twenties who was toweling vigorously with one hand while she spooned beans into her mouth with the other.

  As he spoke she held the towel in front of her and began to cry without sound.

  3 The Fugitive

  Cade leaned against the jamb of the door, studying the girl. She was exotic rather than pretty. Her cheekbones were high and pronounced, with the cheeks under them slightly hollowed. Her bare shoulders and legs were the color and texture of rich cream. Her eyes and her hair were black with red highlights glinting in her hair. She looked like classic Castilian, with perhaps a dash of the Celtic blood with which so many South American races were spiced.

  “And who are you?” Cade asked.

  The girl tried to speak -and couldn’t. She was too frightened.

  Cade tried again. “Where did you come from?”


  As the girl pointed toward the river, the towel slipped. She blushed and quickly retrieved it.

  “Yes, I know that,” Cade said. “I saw you. You live here in Bay Parish?”

  She shook her wet head. “No.”

  The word had a faintly foreign sound to it.

  “You’re off a boat then?”

  The girl bobbed her head.

  “A ship? A steamer? The one that just dropped anchor an hour or so ago?”

  “Yes,” the girl said distinctly.

  Cade realized that standing in the open doorway of the lighted cabin as he was, he was a perfect target for anyone on the levee. He stepped inside and closed the door behind him.

  The girl clutched the towel closer to her. The well-cared for fingers of one hand caught at her throat in apprehension. Cade leaned against the door. “Why swim off? And having swum off, why pick my boat?”

  The girl’s hand left her throat, as she gestured in the general direction of the music still coming from Sal’s place.

  “You thought I would be in the cantina?”

  “Yes.”

  Cade realized her teeth were chattering and that the portions of creamy flesh he could see were covered with cold pimples. He looked for something warm and all he could see was his uniform tunic. He picked it from the bunk and handed it to the girl. “Put this on.”

  She touched one of the silver maple leaves and some of her fright seemed to leave her. “Officer? You are officer?” she asked earnestly. Her intonation was definitely foreign.

  “Ex,” Cade said curtly.

  The girl turned her back and the towel dropped to her bare feet, as she struggled into the coat. When she turned again, it was all Cade could do to keep from sweeping her into his arms. He’d never seen anything cuter. She’d done something to her wet hair. His top pockets had never been better filled. The skirt of the coat came halfway down the girl’s thighs. She looked like an animated pin-up picture by Varga.

  She tried to smile. “Gracias!”

  “Colombian?” Cade asked her.

  “Venezuelan,” she corrected.

  To keep from making a fool of himself and possibly getting his face slapped, Cade took the bottle of rum from the locker and handed it to the girl. “Here. Take a drink of this. Then maybe you can stop shivering long enough to make sense.”

  The girl drank without pleasure and returned the bottle. “Gracias.”

  Cade sat on the littered bunk, holding the bottle in his hand. “All right. Let’s have it. You swam ashore and picked my boat to warm up in and grab some food and maybe a few clothes, because you thought I was in the cantina. Now you go on from there. Why didn’t you come ashore in one of the ship’s boats or in the pilot tender?”

  The girl spoke distinctly, choosing her words with care. “Because they do not know I am on the ship. Because I am — ” she stopped, puzzled. “How you say when you not pay the passage?”

  “A stowaway?”

  “Sí.”

  “You stowed away, where? In what port?”

  “The port of La Guaira. I am from Caracas.”

  Cade was incredulous. “And none of the crew spotted you between there and here?”

  The girl shook her head. “No.” She had the charm of making everything she said sound dramatic. “For six days I am in a lifeboat, over-covered with canvas. I bribe a steward for food.” She looked at the open can of beans. “Is not nice to be ’ungry. I am ’ungry now.”

  “I’ll string along with that,” Cade said. He took himself a drink of rum. “Okay. We’re up to Caracas. Why did you stow away?”

  The girl moved his clean clothes aside and sat on the bunk opposite him. “Because I do not have the money or the passport and I want to come to the States. I have to come to the United States. And when I get here, I know they will not let me in. So when the boat stopped out in the river, I slide down a rope in the dark and swim to the shore.” She added earnestly, “It was a long way an’ I was ver’ afraid.”

  Cade brought himself another drink. He wished the girl would button the top button of his tunic or stop leaning forward when she talked. Wet and muddy and frightened as she was, she was one of the most attractive girls he had ever seen. That included Janice. Just looking at her excited him. He put the cork back in the rum bottle. “What’s your name?”

  “Mimi,” she said, gravely, “Mimi Trujillo Esterpar Moran.”

  It was snug in the cabin with the door closed. The rum lay warm in Cade’s empty stomach. He was pleased by his own sagacity. “That Moran sounds like it might be Irish.”

  Mimi smiled. “It is.”

  Cade got up and opened the cabin door. The fog was heavy now and blotted out the levee. The juke box in Sal’s was still playing Jambalaya. As far as he could tell, there was no one watching on the pier. It could be he’d gotten his wind up over nothing. Warning him off the river and making sure he left were two entirely different things. Not even Joe Laval or Tocko could explain cut mooring lines or a dead man. Especially when the dead man was a local boy and former Army officer.

  Behind him, Mimi’s voice sounded worried. “Someone saw me swim ashore? Someone is looking for me?”

  “No,” Cade said.

  He closed the door and leaned against it, staring at the girl on his bunk. She didn’t look like any waterfront tramp he’d ever met. She looked like a nice kid from a good family. More, she had guts to do what she’d done. So he hadn’t been with a woman in two years. He was damned if he’d force himself on her just because she had fallen into his lap. If anything should eventuate it would have to start with her, after he’d heard the rest of her story.

  “I am so ’ungry,” Mimi said.

  Cade pumped up the pressure stove in the galley and lighted all three burners. He examined the meager ship’s stores he’d purchased before putting out of Corpus Christi and decided on cream of mushroom soup, canned corned-beef hash and coffee. He put the cans on the small work table and found Mimi fingering the silver leaf on her shoulder.

  “Colonel,” she smiled at him.

  “Ex,” Cade reminded her.

  She touched his wings. “And flyer.”

  Cade picked a clean shirt and a pair of new white duck pants from the litter of clothes on the bunk and laid them on her lap. “Put these on,” he said gruffly. He opened the door of the forecabin and lighted a small lantern. “In here.”

  Mimi stood up dutifully.

  Cade looked at a smear of levee mud on one small cheek. “You’d better wash that mud off. I’ll get you a bucket of water while you peel.”

  Mimi was worried, “Peel?”

  “While you take off your clothes,” Cade explained. He picked up a bucket attached to a length of quarter-inch nylon line.

  Mimi was relieved. “Oh,” she smiled, “for wash.”

  Out in the open cockpit, Cade lowered the bucket overside. The dog on the far bank of the river was still howling. As he hauled up the filled bucket, there was a clanging of ship’s bells in the channel and the steamer he’d seen drop anchor earlier, the ship Mimi must have come from, began to move up river through the fog.

  The door of the forecabin was closed. He rapped on it and Mimi opened the door a crack and reached out with a bare arm and shoulder for the bucket, smiling, “Gracias. Thank you ver’ much.”

  Cade was relieved when she’d closed the door. He made coffee, then added water to the canned soup and put it and the hash to warm. The rum in the bottle was gone. He sucked the last few drops and pushed the empty bottle out the open port over the sink.

  The things that could happen to a man.

  He set the small table, debated a moment and broke out a bottle of port and two glasses. A small glass of wine never hurt anyone — unless the Squid worked him over afterwards. Even under the thin layer of rum, Cade could taste the orange wine he’d drunk in Sal’s.

  Damn the Squid. Cade felt the butt of the gun in his waistband. The Squid wanted to have a good time. The Squid didn’t want him
to leave. He’d do what he could to please the Squid. The next time they tangled, he’d be prepared. He’d kiss him all over his pointed head with the barrel of the .38.

  The watched soup finally came to a boil. Cade turned off the burner and rapped on the forecabin door. “Okay. Come and get it.”

  Mimi opened the door, still smiling. She looked even more fetching than before. She’d braided her wet hair and coiled it around her head. The top two buttons of her borrowed shirt were open and she had discarded the wisp of wet lace. The white pants were tight to the point of bursting around her rounded hips. “Okay, I know,” she said, “but what is this, come and get it?”

  Cade forced himself to look away from her. “Just what it sounds like. Sit down. Soup’s on the table.”

  He looked back, as she touched the adhesive tape on his cheek and nose with feather light fingertips. “Someone has hurt you. You have been in the fight.”

  Cade wished she hadn’t touched him. “Yeah. Something like that.” He sat across from her. “Okay. You said you were hungry. Eat.”

  The table was narrow. The benches were close together, so that their knees brushed as they ate. The cabin was small and intimate. What might happen tomorrow was a hundred years away. Cade poured two glasses of wine. It was nice sitting across the table from a pretty girl again.

  He raised his glass to the girl across the table. “To strangers that met in the night.”

  She touched his glass with hers. “Saludos!”

  He drank his wine. She sipped at hers and spooned her soup away from her, eating rapidly but daintily. She wasn’t a tramp. Hungry as she was, her table manners were perfection.

  Finished with her soup, she smiled. “You are being ver’ kind and ver’ gallant.”

  Cade tried to eat and couldn’t. It wasn’t food he wanted. He wanted love and companionship and someone warm and soft in his arms. He’d lived with men so long, bitter and angry men, in an alien land. “What could I do?” he asked. “Throw you off the boat? Put you back on the levee in nothing but a pair of sheer scanties and a bra?”