Blow-Down by Lawrence G. Blochman

Author:Lawrence G. Blochman
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Open Road Media
Published: 2023-10-15T00:00:00+00:00

Chapter Fourteen

Love Also Conspires

The farewell snort of the Bonaca’s siren roused Lane from his stiff-necked, unrestful sleep on the folding chair. He had not really slept, he reflected as he removed his numb, tingling legs from the canvas seat of the second chair, kicking his heels on the floor in an effort to restore normal feeling. He had been in a semi-comatose condition in which his subconscious worked overtime, whirling confused, fragmentary pictures before his closed eyes, elements of the huge picture puzzle which had been dumped grimly before him and which still had so many pieces missing.

One part of the picture which had been particularly prominent during his few hours of attempted slumber was a small, delicately poised head surrounded by a halo of undulant sunshine, dominated by two very large and very blue eyes, and punctuated by a tantalizing pair of very red lips. Lane found himself remembering the brief sweetness of those lips, as he might remember the heady fragrance of rare wine. He wondered why he was not more resentful of the girl’s betraying him into the hands of Perry and the Comandante—if she did betray him. He really should be furious with her; instead he was merely annoyed with himself for thinking of Muriel Monroe when he should be puzzling over the murder of Gerald Stilton and Bill Roland. He was a little annoyed, too, that he had let himself become completely intrigued with the question of murder to the exclusion of his job—which, after all, was to run down and checkmate the Nazi and Facist propagandists who were trying to wean Latin America away from the friendship of the neighbor to the north.

Of course, he told himself, the solution of the double murder was really his job now. Since Adolf von Graulitz possessed a Deuxième Bureau efficient enough to uncover Lane’s true mission in Puerto Musa, his chances of flushing his quarry by usual methods were pretty slim. Now that his identity was known to Graulitz, the powerful ether-jamming wave that he had been trying to locate would doubtless remain silent for as long as he remained in Puerto Musa. And by the time he was released from jail, the offending apparatus would be dismantled—if it were not dismantled already—and either moved to a new location or successfully hidden. He had taken a few bearings on the source of interference during his first week at Rio Sangre, but they gave him only a rough indication of its location. He knew only that the anti-American noise came from within a half-mile circle in the immediate vicinity of the port—an area that took in most of the fruit company buildings, including the company wireless station itself. No, Lane was convinced now that he would be serving his original purpose if he found out who killed Stilton.

If Stilton had been killed to cover up the robbery of Dave Perry’s safe—and a hundred thousand dollars was a tempting item for any homicidal coin collector—then of course Lane would be following a false lead.

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