Hard Case Crime: Honey in His Mouth (21 page)

As soon as he was in his room, he locked the door, then ran to the wall safe. His first attempt at the combination was a miss. It must be because he was nervous, he reflected; he had opened the outer door with the combination numerous times before. He wiped the sweat off his hands and tried again, successfully this time. All right, now the keys to the inner door. The key Brother had given him and the key that Goldberg had made and the cop had so helpfully delivered. He had put Goldberg’s key in his pocket, alongside Brother’s. He reached in his pocket for them. His mouth suddenly tasted of brass.

He went though all his pants pockets, slapping, grabbing, finally turning the pockets inside out. Not a thing. Nothing in the way of a key in any pocket. No key. Nothing. Only a knocking that commenced on the door.

Harsh faced the sound of knuckles on the door. “Who’s there? What you want?”

“Hassam. Open up, Harsh.”

I got to let him in, Harsh thought, I got to act like nothing was wrong with anything anywhere. He closed the outer door of the safe and spun the combination, then he walked over and unfastened the door of his room. “I was getting ready to take a bath.”

Mr. Hassam entered bearing a tray holding two glasses and a martini shaker. “You looked as if you needed a drink, so I brought you one.”

“Jesus, yes, I can stand one.”

“I thought you might.” Mr. Hassam poured from the shaker into the glasses. His hand was plump and steady and he filled each glass until the liquid stood fractionally above the edge of the glass. “I saw you were jumpy. A little snort, I said to myself, is what friend Harsh needs. As a matter of fact, I wanted to thank you for being very cooperative on our trip into town.”

Harsh looked at the over-f glass. He hesitated to reach for it, feeling he was too nervous to keep from spilling it. However, when he finally picked up the glass and drank from it, he did not lose a drop. He was encouraged. “Say, that hits the spot, Mr. Hassam.”

“Too dry for you?”

“No. I always say just waving the vermouth cork over the gin makes it right for a Missouri gentleman.” Harsh sat down in an armchair and placed the half-emptied glass on the chair arm. He looked at his outstretched legs and got the odd impression they were encased in a strange pair of slacks of a pattern and color quite unfamiliar.

Now, a little bit at a time, Harsh’s stomach became cold. It was as if he was slowly swallowing ice water. It was coming to him that the slacks he now wore were the ones he’d had re-altered, not the ones he’d worn when he’d gone out to meet the cop. Now he knew where the keys were. When he had gone back into the store after killing the cop, he had taken off his trousers and put on the altered pair to show Mr. Hassam. That was it. The keys were in the slacks he had taken off. And those slacks should be in one of the boxes he had carried home from Leon’s.

He wanted to turn his head, look at the boxes. They were lying on the bed. It was an effort to look casually at the martini glass instead. He knew he could not stay in the same room with the suit boxes for long without betraying himself. He stood up, rubbing his stomach.

“Say, Mr. Hassam, when do you suppose they are going to feed us around here?”

Mr. Hassam put his head back to toss the last drops of martini down his throat. “That’s the other thing I came to tell you.” His eyes held regretfully on the empty martini glass upside down over his mouth. “Tonight Miss Muirz thought a cookout on the beach would be nice.” He lowered the glass. “I gather she feels you were disappointed over not getting to cook a steak on the beach last night. The others are already out there. She asked that we join them now.”

“Now?” Harsh couldn’t help it—he looked at the boxes.

“Yes, now, Harsh. Haven’t you spent enough time today trying on clothes? I thought you said you were hungry.”

Harsh had to force himself to follow Mr. Hassam to the door.

Miss Muirz was building up a fire on the sand, and Doctor Englaster and Brother were scouting firewood. Harsh nudged Mr. Hassam as they approached, figuring it would be best to keep up the appearance that nothing had changed. “Any chance, do you think, of getting some time alone with Miss Muirz? How do I get rid of all the damn chaperones?”

“I’m sure you’ll think of something, Harsh. And be my guest, just so you wait until after a talk we are going to have sometime this evening.” Mr. Hassam’s voice was firm.

“A talk?”

Mr. Hassam nodded. “It’s time cards went on the table.”

“Hello, there.” Miss Muirz picked up a stick of driftwood. “This is the kind of firewood I want, firm and dry, short pieces.” She threw that stick down and showed Harsh another stick. “This kind will give off a stink that will make the steaks taste.”

She wore tan duck slacks and yellow Chinese sandals with the straps coming out between crimson toenails, and a yellow sheer blouse which reminded Harsh of a puff of sulphur smoke. Her eyebrows had a high thin arch that made them inquisitive, but not amused. Her hair was drawn tight her to her head so that it did not look like hair but like a different-colored skin, and it was fastened in the back with a jeweled comb large enough to be a peacock tail, emeralds and gold like the large earrings pendant from her ears. Her necklace was also emeralds, very large ones which Harsh did not believe were genuine, although he was wrong. She stood close to Harsh. “I thought you would want a steak cooked on the beach. You were so disappointed last night.”

The tips of Harsh’s ears, the ends of his fingers, felt warm. “I’ll help gather the firewood.”

They searched in the sand for fuel for the fire and Miss Muirz added it to a blaze under the wire grill. One of the servants brought down two baskets containing the steaks and pickles and silverware and bottles of brandy and glasses, and another brought a beach refrigerator containing cocktail shakers full of drinks already mixed. Both servants retired at once to the house.

Miss Muirz prepared the steak a way Harsh had not seen before. She cut it in thick strips and threaded these on iron rods in S curves with various other items—onion, apple, pineapple, assorted other fruits—then put on soy sauce and herbs. Mr. Hassam made the coffee and some of his ingredients were chocolate, butter, lemon rind, orange rind, cinnamon, bay leaves, Jamaican rum, and brandy. He told Harsh it was an old Arabian desert formula which he had learned before he was five years old. Doctor Englaster stood with his hands on his hips, helping little. Brother sat on the beach listening to a portable radio which he kept on his lap, tuning the radio continuously for news broadcasts.

The wind came off the sea with no more strength than baby breath. The waves arrived in vigorous succession, climbing up and up until there was a wall of water nearly as high as a man rushing up the sand, then falling apart and shooting a sheet of water across the sand under a frosting of bubbles. The bubbles slid about on the wet beach like ice skaters, then were left high and dry, and broke almost audibly.

“Psst!” Brother pointed at the radio he was nursing. “Listen! The news!” He turned up the volume. A commentator’s voice came out strongly with deep-throated, resonant tones.

“—demands for his return made by the junta which now controls the government, but these demands are being ignored by the Uruguayans. Unless they accede,
El Presidente
is safe on the gunboat. But in spite of his advantageous position, the deposed dictator has maintained complete silence. He has made no statement, seen no one, has not appeared publicly. No one we have spoken to in the Uruguayan government will even admit to having seen him, including officials who have made visits to the warship. The only report we have received, and we stress that it is as yet unconfirmed, indicates that the dictator may have sent a courier with a note to a young girlfriend. But there is no concrete proof that
El Presidente
is on the gunboat. All we know for sure is that the man is in hiding—somewhere. Meanwhile, in the streets of the capitol, a mob today burned thousands of photographs of the former leader and his deceased wife. The tremendous bonfire took place on the
Avenida de Libertador General San Martin,
the wind carrying the smoke to the harbor even while the shirtless ones trampled the ashes with bare feet. But
El Presidente
has the last laugh, one commentator noted, since the protestors do not even have shoes while the deposed despot is reputed to have looted millions of dollars worth of government funds and hidden the money abroad.

“Now from London, news of a royal romance...”

Brother shut off the radio.

Miss Muirz looked at Brother irritably. “Why not turn up the volume when the broadcast began? I have friends back home. I would like to know how things are going.”

Brother seemed not to hear her. There was a line of moisture across his upper lip and a tremor in his hands as he put the radio on the sand in front of him. “Is he on the gunboat? Is he? Do we know that?”

Mr. Hassam poured straight gin into a glass and handed it to Brother. “In every news report, they bring out that he is supposed to be on the gunboat, yet has not been seen there. I do not like it either.”

Brother’s teeth made a grinding on the edge of the glass as he drank the gin. He pushed the glass away and lay back on the sand. “I wish he would show up here. I have waited five years for it.”

One of Brother’s hands came up and wandered around on his chest until it found a shirt button. He unfastened the button, brought out a flat automatic pistol. Brother laid the gun down on his chest over his heart. He put his hand over it. His hand covered the gun completely.

“I will use this.” His voice was low and almost sweet. “Is it all right with everyone if I do?”

Doctor Englaster leaned forward. “Is that gun registered here in the States?” Curiosity arched his eyebrows.

“No. No, it is not.” Brother was suddenly watching Harsh. “Mr. Harsh—there something wrong with your eyes, Mr. Harsh?”

“Huh?” Harsh took his eyes off the hand Brother had placed over the gun. He’d been thinking it was about the same size as the one the cop had carried—the one still burning a hole in Harsh’s jacket pocket. Even looked like a similar make. Apparently his run of luck hadn’t ended just yet. “What was that? Nah, there ain’t nothing wrong with my eyes.”

Brother’s hand lifted a few inches, poised motionless above the gun on his chest, then fell back like a tan bird settling on its egg. “Your ears then, perhaps? You heard something that upset you?”

Harsh shrugged. “You trying to pick a fight with me, pal? If it is all right with you, could we wait until after I eat? I fight better on a full stomach.”

“What did you stare at, Harsh?”

“That’s a pretty nice little gun. Is there a law against looking at it?”

“No. No law.”

“Okay.”

“Do you want to know where I got this gun, Harsh? It was once his gun—part of his collection. I have had it five years. When I took it, I told him why. I told him I was taking the gun to use later to kill him, and he thought it amusing. Do you suppose the bastard will be amused when I do exactly what I said I would do, shoot him with the gun I took for the purpose five years ago?”

Harsh shrugged. He had seen all he wanted to see of the gun. He leaned back. “Why don’t you knock it off, huh?”

Brother’s eyes fixed upward, staring ecstatically at the stars. “I hope blood comes out of him, I do want to see his blood. But with these small bullets, I do not know if there will be blood.”

“You’ve certainly got a problem there.” Doctor Englaster drank a glass of brandy in its entirety. “A good problem to discuss with our meal. Very appetizing.”

Miss Muirz took one of the rods off the grill, waved it around to cool the meat on it, then handed it to Harsh. Harsh took it, but he was not hungry. He pulled some meat off the rod and ate it, then ate the onion and pineapple.

Miss Muirz watched him. She seemed to have the best composure of any of them. It had a glassy quality. “How does it taste, Mr. Harsh?”

Harsh swallowed the meat in his mouth. “Okay. It does taste a little of the conversation, though.”

Brother put back his head and laughed weirdly. “Good. Very good, Mr. Harsh. Just like a dead body, eh? You have caught the spirit of our little group, Mr. Harsh.”