Assassin's Shadow by Striker Randy

Author:Striker, Randy [Striker, Randy]
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
Tags: USA
Publisher: Penguin Group US
Published: 1981-10-31T13:00:00+00:00

9

Aboard Sniper, I cruised reluctantly past the palm trees and white houses of St. Carib.

I had heard all too much about the place, far too quickly. I had a gut feeling that whatever went wrong would go wrong there. There was the stink of international money behind it: Matrah, Marina’s father, and probably a number of other unknown interests.

But I had a job to do, and that job demanded I check out all the possibilities.

So I made my way up the intercoastal waterway, past St. Carib and Mandango, and entered the rough cross-chop of Boca Grande Pass, taking care to stay well away from the rocks on Cayo Costa where the old quarantine station once stood.

Finally, it was a day that seemed summerlike: pale wind drifting in the fresh heat of morning, and beaches an iridescent white beneath a potent sun.

After some consideration, I decided to pull into the docks at the Pink Elephant—a public house that, like most of Boca Grande, had retained the old Southern grandeur of Florida. There were a few other boats there, and I went inside the bar for a quick lunch and a beer.

The place was almost empty, cool and dark with ceiling fans, and it took my eyes a while to adjust. I paused momentarily to look at the mounted fish in their glass case, then went on inside and took a seat.

And I was midway through my cheeseburger and chilled potato salad when the tall, good-looking waitress suddenly returned to my table.

“Everything all right?”

“Fine,” I said. “Great.”

She took something out of her apron. “A guy sitting over there in the corner asked me to give you this.” She handed me a note, carefully folded.

I waited until she had gone to read it.

It said: “Meet me at the bench in front of the old train depot in twenty-five minutes.”

There was no signature.

I took my time, yawned, and glanced around nonchalantly. He sat at a table with three burly-looking men in bleak, ill-fitting suits. They ate full lunches. He drank tea in a tall iced glass. The face and the shaved head were unmistakable: It was D. Harold Westervelt.

I checked my Rolex and marked the meeting time in my mind. D. Harold looked up, eyes sweeping past me without recognition. He nodded curtly.

So I finished my lunch, left a five for the pretty waitress, and went outside into the bright sunlight.

The village of Boca Grande has all the quiet class of a small New England town. You can walk down the middle of the main street at noon and not worry about getting hit by a car. The small white churches seem to glow with a celestial light, and broad oaks and banyan trees shadow the side streets. It is a rare place among the tacky postcard and trailer-park grotesqueries that most other Florida towns have become. True, the profit-hungry developers are converting the north end of the island into a catacomb of condominiums. But the downtown area remains quiet and quaint with its drugstore and the filling station, and the deserted train depot with its 1920 streetlights.

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