[The Girl From UNCLE 03] - The Golden Boats of Taradata Affair - Latter Simon - Страница 9

He repeated it a number of times while working on the ropes and laughed gaily at certain passages. The report was collated from many sources. It represented quite a few man hours of work, although some of these had been used by researchers during the normal field compilation of the dossier.

At last he shinned down the mast and went to the fo'c's'le for his daily dish of fish skilly, very nourishing and utterly obnoxious in smell and taste. It had taken him four days to keep it down more than half an hour. His stomach's present acceptance of it was a triumph of mind over matter — aided by a pint of coarse wine so rough and sour that no grease could resist it. As a mouthwash it was excellent. Sealed in a spray can, TV projected, and sold for around fifteen dollars, it would have gone like a bomb.

The trick was to suck a short length of Barbados sugarcane while taking in the wine from the other side of the mouth. Convicts from mainland prisons were accustomed to this fare. To refuse it, to be unable to consume it, or not to know the correct eating and drinking "drill", would have been a dead give-away. U.N.C.L.E. agents have a varied education. They learn that most big factors take care of themselves, it is the tiny ones which attract a bullet in the back or a knife in the ribs.

Mark had to wait until that quiet hour after cocktails and before brandy when the bar trade was nil before he closed the bar and gave Chas the sign that talk was needed. They went to the liquor store, where Chas locked them in.

"Clarence Harold Arthur Salisbury — I salute you!" Mark sat on a keg, feathering cigar smoke.

The brown eyes puckered, surveyed him shrewdly, quizzically.

"Been digging around?" said Chas cheerfully. "Using that little talkie-walkie of yours? Won't do you no good, mate. It ain't nice, either. I'm me — see? One word from me and over the side you go — shark-bait. Shame — nice young fella like you—see what I mean?"

"My friends wouldn't like that, They'd do talkie-walkie themselves."

Chas nodded. "I bet they would. If it wasn't all nice and tidy. Witnesses, terrible tragedy, all writ up in the log, captain, mate, bosun, me — nice honest fellas. You honest?"

Mark nodded. "I'm honest."

"You ain't no ex-con, neither."

"That's where they hired me."

"Nah!" Chas shook his head, making his quiff bob like a petunia. "That's where you let 'em hire you." He drummed fingers on his chest. "A thousand secrets — remember? Y'know something? I was on the islands when the Japs came." He pulled open his shirt to show livid weals of old wounds criss-crossing his chest. He spun around, baring shoulders and scars of horrible lacerations. "Secrets, they wanted. Nice fellas. Nice habits they had. Swords, whips, and fire-heated bamboo. Before you came up, sonny. Long time ago. Keeper of a thousand secrets — that's me." He buttoned his shirt. "I don't scare," he said raspingly. "Get that. I don't scare. But I trade. You want to trade?"

Mark shrugged. "In what?"

"Your safety. I don't want to know why. Nor who. You tell me and it's secret. I don't care. I ain't no ally. We trade and I ain't no enemy."

"I might convince you it was important. That I was important."

"Nah! Nothing is, see? It's all a giggle. You spy, I spy, we spy the nice spy." His voice changed to a deep timbre. "Man, this is bigger than both of us!" He spat between Mark's feet. "Something like that, you are. That set I spied you using — it ain't on sale. So maybe you're government. Which? I don't care."

"They might," said Mark grimly. "See what I mean?"

Chas began to laugh. He had white, expensively tailored dentures. The laughter, the crinkled eyes, the flashing teeth, the dancing quiff gave him a buccaneering air. Real laughter. His eyes watered with it. At last he drew deep breaths and stopped laughing.

"Ten thousand dollars. In used notes. There's a bank in Providencia. I ain't greedy. I'll fix shore leave for you. If your little talkie-walkie ain't any use to contact your cashier, I'll fix it for you to use a private radio. I can even hold up sailing for a day."

Mark grinned. "Do I hear the voice of experience? It's all happened before, hasn't it, Chas?"

"Aye, sonny — and will again."

"And you're not even curious why, or who, or what?"

"Not one little tittle."

"Yet you could cause me to die without knowing or caring?"

"S'right, mate."

"Did they cut out your heart with those swords?"

Chas puckered his lips in a soundless whistle, then grinned. "Shall we dance? Before you break me perishin' heart! Grow up, sonny! I never yet saw a general or an admiral cry over one poor devil cut to pieces. Expendable, they was - see? That's what they taught me. We're all expendable. Only some are more expendable than others — such as you right now."

"Police?" said Mark. "Could be tricky for you."

"Not around here. High seas, mate — or else island waters and local justice. I know it's hard, very hard, but you just got to face it, sonny. You ain't important at all, except to me." Chas lit a cigarette, puckered eyes through the smoke. "Ten thousand — or you'll never get off the island except in a canvas sheet. Like they used to tell me in my man's army — you might break your mother's heart but you won't break mine."

Mark's hand moved casually. A small tube appeared in his hand. A faint click ejected a tiny barrel.

"Something else you can't buy in shops, Chas. It can fire up to six capsules. Like little razor darts, they are. One will be enough. Doesn't matter what part of your flesh it hits." He spat between Chas's feet. "Kaput! Finis! Heart failure."

Chas didn't move. He let the cigarette hang from his lower lip, the rising smoke veiling his eyes.

"Nice firm you work for. Very clever these days, ain't they? You didn't hear me the first time, sonny. I don't scare. Call yourself Slater, don't you? Reckon it's not your name, but you're on the ship's books as Slater, and we have a little camera that took a pretty picture of you — and all the others — soon as you came aboard."

Mark shrugged. "So does that save your life?"

"It won't save yours, mate. This liquor store is bugged. So's every cabin. All we're saying right now is spinning around on a tape. Only one other person knows where that machine is hidden. Anything happens to me — he'll do the listening. Slater killed me. Get him." Chas smiled.

Mark shrugged again. "C'est la guerre!" He carefully restored the dart gun to safety position, replaced it in his pocket. "That's how you heard me before."

"C'est la flippin' common sense too," said Chas. "Bright boy, that's you. Ten thousand dollars."

"So you married a Palaga. How is Mrs. Salisbury?" said Mark softly.

"She ain't a widow yet."

"And how is Mrs. de Witt — Mrs. Charles de Witt? And Mrs. Charles Gordon? And Mrs. Charles Sale? Charles equals Chas equals C.H.A. Salisbury, Esquire, equals bigamist extraordinaire, and the greatest of these is Mrs. Salisbury of Palaga. I don't know whether she was the second or the fourth — but we do know she wasn't the first — so she isn't. If you see what I mean?"

Chas inhaled deeply, then held his cigarette in steady fingers as he let the smoke gently trickle out.

"S'funny, y'know," he said quietly. "I never reckoned on it coming from a stranger."