Big Kiss-Off Read online

  “By Jeem. My ‘usban’ will pay you.”

  Cade wished Mimi would take her hand off his arm. “Why ask me?”

  “Because I am stranger here. Because you are only man I know. Because you have already been so kind.”

  The memory of his talk with Miss Spence still rankling, Cade was short with her. “You mean such a sucker.”

  Mimi shook her head. “Thees word I do not know.”

  Cade’s irritation increased. “Let it go. It doesn’t matter.” He considered telling Mimi about the other Mrs. Morans and didn’t have the heart to do so. Mimi was a good kid. It wasn’t her fault that a heel like Moran had played fast with her. It could be Miss Spence was wrong. Besides, in the spot he was in, a hysterical woman was all he needed to complete the distorted nightmare through which he had been moving since his return to Bay Parish.

  Mimi’s fingers bit deeper into his forearm. “Please.”

  Conscious that the passersby on the sidewalk were watching them, Cade palmed a cigarette into his mouth with his free hand. “How do you know, after he hasn’t even written to you for a year, that Moran wants to see you?”

  Mimi was truthful. “I don’t.”

  “How do you know he’d even pay for the gas it would take me to run you up to New Orleans?”

  Unshed tears formed in the corners of Mimi’s eyes. “I don’t know that, either.”

  Cade lit the cigarette in his mouth. “Look, kid. I’m afraid you’ve made a mistake. The best thing you can do is look up an immigration man, tell him you entered the country illegally and ask him to contact your consul. Then the worst thing that can happen to you is to be sent back to Caracas.”

  Mimi’s under lip thrust out in a pout. “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “I don’t want to go back to Caracas. I want to go to New Orleans. Besides, I told you last night. My family would not receive me.”

  The heat and the scenes with Tocko and Miss Spence had made Cade’s head ache. He was sorry for Mimi. They had a bond in common. She was in love with a heel. He was married, or had been married, to a tramp. But running Mimi up river to New Orleans was out of the question. He had the showdown with Laval to face. Then there was the matter of gas. Cade fingered the lone five-dollar bill in his pocket. He might raise New Orleans with what gas still remained in the tanks but he’d never get back down river again.

  “I’ve done all I can. You’ll just have to shift for yourself from here on.”

  “There is a road to New Orleans?”

  “Of a sort, but I wouldn’t advise you to hike it.”

  “You mean walk?”

  “Yes.”

  “Why not?”

  “It leads through some pretty rough country. Besides, you’re too pretty a girl to start out through the swamps alone, especially in that outfit.”

  “Why?”

  “You know why.”

  Mimi lowered her eyes and a few tears zigzagged down her cheeks. She brushed at them angrily. “Then why don’t you take me to New Orleans?”

  Her breasts rose and fell with her emotion until the firm young flesh straining against the fabric threatened to pop the none too securely fastened buttons of her borrowed shirt. “I’ve told you,” Cade said. “Besides, believe it or not, I’m only human and male. I doubt if you’d be any safer with me than you would be on the road.” He shook his head. “No. The best thing you can do is to contact Immigration and have them contact your consul.”

  Cade turned abruptly and walked up the street. He’d never felt so like a heel. Still, he had his own problems. He’d had nothing to do with Mimi stowing away in Caracas. She’d known the chances she was taking when she’d crawled under the tarp of the lifeboat on the freighter that had anchored at Pilottown the night before. He’d given her good advice. The best thing she could do was to contact the Venezuelan consul.

  As an afterthought, he turned back and gave her the bill in his pocket.

  Mimi eyed the bill suspiciously. “For why?”

  “Because I think you’re a nice kid. Because I’m sorry for you.”

  Mimi put the bill between her breasts. “Thank you.”

  This time she turned away and stood looking out over the river. Cade shrugged and walked up the street to the courthouse. The building was ancient, built of stuccoed white stone; its high-ceilinged corridors and rooms giving an illusion of coolness.

  The girl back of the parish recorder’s rail was new to Cade, undoubtedly one of the children who’d grown up in the twelve years he’d been away. He told her what he wanted to know and the girl located the information in the files lining one wall. Tocko had given him the truth. The sale of the house and the acreage on Barataria Bay had been duly recorded in a transfer of deed from Mrs. Cade Cain to Tocko Kalavitch. Cade asked the girl behind the desk for a piece of paper and on it wrote the dates of record, to check them against the date on the final divorce papers that had been waiting for him in Tokyo. If Janice had sold the properties before the decree became final, both sales were perfectly legal. There was nothing he could do to recover his property. If, however, she had made the sale after the decree had become final, he at least had a talking point in court. He knew nothing of the law but it seemed reasonable to assume that a divorce would invalidate a power of attorney.

  Cade folded the paper on which he had written the dates and put it in his shirt pocket. He didn’t care about the acreage on Barataria Bay. It was too isolated to be of any value. The land had stood untouched and unused since his great grandfather had purchased it for some purpose lost in time. The house was another matter. The house had a sentimental as well as a cash value. He’d been born in the old house. He’d meant to raise his children in it.

  The gun sagging in his hip pocket had rubbed the flesh of his thin buttock raw. Perspiration made the abrasion smart. He stood a moment on the courthouse steps wondering what to do. Well, all he could do was to go back to the Sea Bird and wait. It was only ten o’clock. His noon deadline was still two hours away.

  He walked back toward the levee down one of the chinaberry-tree shaded streets that led through the colored section of Bay Parish. It wasn’t any different from Main Street. The smiling faces were merely darker, the greetings more enthusiastic and punctuated now and then with praise to the Lord for his safe arrival home.

  Cade knew fierce resentment. This was his town. He liked Bay Parish. Bay Parish liked him. If it hadn’t been for Janice, Tocko and Laval, it could have been a wonderful homecoming. He turned to answer a question one of the admiring folks asked him — and saw Mimi. Pouting again, she was trailing along behind him, the black Delta mud squishing between the exquisitely formed toes of her bare feet. Even her dirty bare feet were pretty.

  Cade waited for her to catch up. “Now what? Why are you following me?”

  Mimi’s small chin jutted, then began to quiver. “Because I don’t know what else to do. I won’t go back to Caracas. I won’t.”

  Cade tried to think of something to say. He couldn’t. There didn’t seem to be anything for him to say. As long as the girl was so determined to have her heart broken properly, perhaps he could borrow the money from someone to buy her a dress and some shoes and pay her fare by boat, bus or plane to New Orleans.

  He turned and walked on toward the levee with Mimi walking beside him.

  Her voice small, she said, “I am a lot of trouble to you, am I not?”

  “Yes,” Cade said.

  Her voice continued small. “I’m sorry. It is jus’ you have been so ver’ kind, that there is no one else I can trust.”

  Cade was annoyed. “Well, stop bawling about it.”

  Mimi wiped at her wet cheeks with the back of her hand. “I am not bawling. I am jus’ crying a leetle.”

  Cade wished her voice, the sight of her small rounded body, didn’t do the things to him that they did. How much was a man supposed to be able to take? He asked, crossly, “You’re still determined to locate Moran?”

  Mimi looked at him
from the corners of her eyes without turning her face. “That is why I come to thees country.”

  “You won’t go home?”

  “I can’t.”

  “Why not?”

  “I told you. My family is — ”

  “Yes. I know,” Cade interrupted her. He finished the sentence for Mimi. “Your family is ver’ old and ver’ proud. And they were ver’ irritado when you married Moran. How long had you known the man?”

  “A week.”

  “And you were together a week?”

  “Yes.”

  “Living as man and wife?”

  “Yes.”

  “You had a child by him? There’s a baby back in Caracas?”

  Color crept into Mimi’s cheeks. “No.”

  “Then, after spending a week with you he left you flat and you haven’t heard from him since?”

  “No.”

  “But you’re still in love with the guy?”

  Mimi watched the mud squish through her toes as she walked. “I don’t know.”

  “What do you mean you don’t know?”

  “I mean I don’t know. I get all excited inside when I think of how it was to be married. But I am not, how you say, experienced. I am ver’ strictly raised from a ver’ small girl and Jeem was the first man I was evair with, alone.” Mimi glanced sideways at Cade. “Until I met you.”

  The bastard, thought Cade. The big Irish bastard. Pushing Mimi over must have been as difficult as waiting for a ripe papaya to drop.

  The grass-grown bank of the levee was steep and slippery. He helped Mimi up the slope, her flesh soft and warm under his fingers. He liked this girl. He’d never liked anyone so much on so short an acquaintance. She was in a bad spot but she was being a lady about it. There was nothing cheap about Mimi. One thing was certain. Easy to push or not, Cade was willing to bet the Sea Bird that Moran hadn’t gotten what he wanted until he’d gone through a ceremony of some kind. It could be they were legally married. And now Moran had Janice.

  When they reached the broad top of the levee, Mimi asked, “What are you going to do with me?”

  “I don’t know,” Cade admitted. He walked down the levee toward the Sea Bird with Mimi hurrying beside him, taking three steps to his one. “I do know I’m not going to take you to New Orleans, but it may be I can borrow enough to outfit you and pay your fare.”

  “Outfit?”

  “Buy you a dress and some shoes.”

  “Borrow?”

  Cade combed through his meager Spanish. “Prestado. What you do when you haven’t any money.”

  They were on the pier now. Mimi took the five-dollar bill from its hiding place between her breasts. Her body had perfumed it. “This is all the money you have?”

  “That’s right.”

  Her voice was as soft and small and as warm as her lovely body. “And you gave it to me.”

  Cade was curt with her. “So what?”

  Her small fingers bit into his arm. “You are officer. You are gentleman. You are nice.”

  Cade was embarrassed. “Stow it. Sweet talk isn’t going to get you anywhere.” He jumped into the cockpit of the Sea Bird and helped Mimi down. “Right now, let’s have a cup of coffee. I’ll make it this time. But get one thing straight in that pretty little head of yours.”

  “Sí?”

  “I’m not taking you to New Orleans.”

  Mimi’s voice continued small. “That is for you to say.”

  Cade made certain the cruiser wasn’t rubbing on the pier and that the mooring lines were fast, before opening the door of the aft cabin. At first, his eyes still blinded by the sun, he thought he’d walked into a trap, that the man on his bunk was drunk and waiting for him. He tugged his pistol hastily from his pocket.

  Then Cade realized that the Cajun was dead. Laval’s shirt front was stained with blood. He lay with one limp arm trailing to the deck plates. In death the gaunt Cajun sheriff looked even more like a weasel than he had in life. Cade felt the flesh of his face. It was still warm. He hadn’t been dead more than a few minutes.

  Cade caught at the rim of an open port to steady himself. Joe Laval was dead on his boat and he had threatened to kill him. In Sal’s, the night before, in front of two dozen witnesses, during his fight with the Squid, he had panted:

  “You bastards. If I had a gun I’d kill you both.”

  Behind him, her view of the cabin blocked by Cade’s back, Mimi asked, “What is the matter? What are you looking at?”

  The smell of the blood still dripping to the deck plates sickened Cade. He had smelled too much blood, lost too much of it himself. Backing out of the cabin, he closed the companionway door and leaned against it, breathing through his mouth. Perspiration beaded on his face. He felt like he wanted to be sick and couldn’t.

  Mimi tugged the tail of her borrowed shirt out of the waist of her borrowed pants and used it to wipe Cade’s face. “What is it? Tell me. What is the matter, Cade?”

  It was the first time Mimi had used his name, Cade liked the sound of it in her mouth. He tried twice before he could speak. “There’s a dead man in the cabin.”

  “Who?”

  “The local sheriff. A man by the name of Laval.”

  “You are certain he is dead?”

  “I’m certain.”

  “How dead?”

  “Shot. I think through the heart.”

  “By whom?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “But why should anyone kill him on your boat?”

  He was afraid he knew the answer to Mimi’s question. Tocko had always hated him, ever since they had been boys and he had refused to allow Tocko to push him around. Now, after pirating Janice, and after stripping him of property that had been in the Cain family for one hundred years, Tocko had reason to fear Cade, fear him enough to plant a dead man on his boat. A murder conviction would be much more permanent than a warning to leave town.

  He had threatened Joe Laval. Now Joe was dead and his only alibi for the approximate time of the killing was that he had been walking with a pretty girl, a girl who was in the country illegally, a girl who had spent the previous night aboard his boat.

  It was the sort of thing only a Tocko Kalavitch could dream up. On the other hand, Joe had been Tocko’s right-hand man. Tocko would be hard put to find anyone else who would do the dirty jobs Joe had done.

  “But why?” Mimi demanded.

  “Put your shirt back in your pants,” Cade told her.

  He glanced up, then down, the levee. It dozed in the mid-morning sun. The only sounds were the jangling of a ship’s bell in mid-river, the surge of the river itself and the buzz of a single-motored plane rising from the small airport on the far side of the town. The storm-pitted glass in the windows of the old house acted like so many reflectors, blinding him. The only moving object he could see were two distant men just starting up the weed-grown road that led to the business district.

  Cade took his glass from its bracket over the wheel and trained it on the two men. The man in the white suit was Tocko. The face of the other man was unfamiliar but he was in the uniform of the Immigration Service. They could only be coming to one place.

  Cade returned the glass to its bracket and looked at Mimi. Moran had been in Tocko’s employ. Men like Moran liked to boast of their conquests. Undoubtedly, Tocko knew all the details concerning Moran’s romance in Caracas — and wanted her himself. Tocko wanted every pretty girl he saw. The big Slavonian collected screams in the night as some men collected stamps.

  Cold anger replaced Cade’s queasiness. Tocko might or might not be able to pin Laval’s death on him. A jury would decide that. But Tocko could have him held for trial, leaving Mimi unprotected.

  Cade’s agile mind raced on. Mimi was in the country illegally. After the “discovery” of Laval’s body, Tocko’s smart move would be to persuade the immigration officials to parole the girl in his custody as a material witness. Tocko was a power on the river. He was a man of property and substance. H
e knew whom to see. It was a fifty-fifty gamble that the immigration officials would listen to him, especially if Tocko were willing to post bond for Mimi. And Tocko would be willing. That kind of a scream from Mimi would be worth any amount of bond.

  Even thinking of the girl that way excited Cade. After all, he’d been hungry for two years.

  Mimi blushed at the look in his eyes and tucked more of her borrowed shirt into her already well-filled white pants. “Please, Cade,” she reproved him gently. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

  Cade spoke without conscious volition. “Just thinking how nice it would be.”

  He started the port, then the starboard motor of the cruiser. There was no strain on the aft lines. The forward line gave him more trouble. He was drenched with sweat by the time he fought it over the rusted iron and returned to the wheel of the cruiser.

  Tocko and the immigration man were running now, shouting something unintelligible over the throb of the motors. Cade made a derogatory gesture and gunned the Sea Bird out of the slip too fast, its powerful twin screws spitting a messy wake of mangled hyacinth bulbs and churned mud.

  He had to have time to think, time to get rid of Laval’s body.

  Her bare feet spread on the deck to maintain a precarious balance, Mimi looked from the muddy wake to the shouting men on the pier. Then holding on to the back of the wheel chair with one hand to steady herself against the slap of the river, she put the thumb of her free hand to her nose and wiggled her fingers experimentally. “What does that mean in English?”

  Cade fed more gas to the boat as he swung the wheel hard, up river. “That we’re going to New Orleans.”

  Mimi was silent a moment. Then she said, quietly, “Thank you. You are, how we say, muy buen caballero. It would be nice with you, too.”

  Cade sucked in his breath sharply as he glanced at the dark-haired girl. She was the damnedest one hundred pounds of mixed naivète and poise he had ever seen stuffed into one feminine body. Her statement was just that, a statement, not an invitation.

  To keep from making a fool of himself, Cade forced his eyes to scan the gas gauge. The tanks were still a quarter full. If he hadn’t forgotten the channel, if he didn’t hit a submerged object, if the immigration man didn’t telephone on up the river for a Coast Guard boat to stop him, at the knots they were logging they should raise the lower harbor by early afternoon.