The Bootlegger by Clive Cussler (novels in english TXT) 📗

which was fixed to the cast-iron wall at the end of the tunnel. Mounting the iron rungs, he looked back.

The river smashed through the barrier. Abe Weintraub flew to the end of the tunnel, hurled on a crest of water and broken crates that dashed him against the cast-iron wall. The water rose to Zolner’s chest. He kicked loose from it and climbed up the shaft into the night. Across the river, he saw a motorboat’s searchlight probing the dark like a desperate finger.

•   •   •

“ISAAC!”

“Mr. Bell!”

“Ed! Ed Tobin. Where are you?”

In the searchlight glare, the Van Dorns on the guard boat saw the shattered speedboat half sunk on its side. It was turning, slowly spinning, picking up speed, spinning faster and faster, as it was sucked into a huge whirlpool. A crater was spinning in the river, a gigantic hole left by a million tons of water plunging into the tunnel.

“Isaac!”

“Here!” Bell shouted. “Behind you!” The river current had helped him and Tobin swim away from the wreckage. Now the vortex was drawing them back.

The guard boat roared alongside them. Strong arms hauled them out of the water, drenched but unhurt, just as the last of the speedboat was sucked under.

Isaac Bell was grinning ear to ear.

“They’ll never invite me back to that yacht club.”

31

PALM TREES RUSTLED, the sea was green, and the sky a fine blue. Iced daiquiris frosted their glasses, the finishing touch, like painter’s varnish, on a portrait of a dreamy afternoon in tropical Nassau.

Out of nowhere, the dream melted into a detective’s nightmare.

Pauline Grandzau had seen to every detail to disguise herself as a plucky businesswoman subtly battling the “no skirts” prejudice of the men in the liquor trade: She was awaiting a consignment of rye from the Glasgow company she represented; the market for Scotch was glutted, and Americans loved their rye; she had to make a deal with a buyer.

“Meantime, I’m talking up a storm to convince the buyers it’s coming soon and it will be the real McCoy, so they’ll bid up the price.”

“Are the buyers the rumrunners?”

“Exactly! They sail it up to the Row.”

Fern Hawley, seated across their little round cocktail table, seemed to swallow her story hook, line, and sinker. The Van Dorn detective, who was pretending to be a liquor agent, and Marat Zolner’s girlfriend, who was pretending to be a carefree American tourist, were going to be, in Fern’s own words, “great pals.”

They had climbed the lookout tower on the hotel’s roof, where liquor agents were watching the deep-blue sea for their ships, and admired Fern’s steam yacht, the biggest anchored in the turquoise harbor. Now on the patio under the royal palms, sharpers and hucksters, bankers and gangsters were bustling about overtime, and the daiquiris were flowing.

But, all of a sudden, just as Pauline eased Fern into a discussion of the liquor traffic—legal in the British colony, legal on the high seas, legal on Rum Row, illegal on the wrong side of the U.S. border—who should wander into the all-day, all-night party that Prohibition had made of the Lucerne Hotel than the only human being in all the British Bahamas who knew that she was a Van Dorn detective.

Joseph Van Dorn’s oldest friend, whom Isaac Bell had introduced her to at Bellevue Hospital, spotted her instantly and waved.

“Captain Novicki,” she blurted, jumping to her feet and trying to send signals with her eyes.

Dave Novicki churned toward their table, robust as a barrel of beer and guileless as a manatee.

She greeted him in a rush of words, hoping to contain him. “I’m so surprised to see you here, I thought you set sail already, may I introduce my new friend, Miss Fern Hawley of New York? She just landed in her yacht, you must have seen it in the harbor from your ship.” She took a breath and turned to Fern. “Captain Novicki commands a schooner that brings my import-export firm’s rum from, uhhm, Hispaniola, is it, Captain? Or will it be Jamaica next shipment?”

Novicki looked puzzled and about to speak, which could not possibly help.

Pauline stuck out her hand. Novicki took it, and she squeezed his horny paw as hard as she could, saying with a laugh she could only hope did not sound hysterical, “Or will you sail all the way to England to bring me some gin?”

Novicki looked down at her hand. Then he looked into her eyes.

Sea captains must be alert, she thought. And unusually observant. Surely—

He spoke at last.

“I’m not certain the old girl could sail as far as England, but I would risk it for you, my dear, if you’re hard-up for gin. In fact,” he added, warming to the fiction, “I would gladly sail her around the Horn to fetch you the wines of Chile or cross the Pacific for Japanese sake.”

With that, Novicki gave her hand a little squeeze, let go of it, and seized Fern’s. His sharp eyes roamed her beautiful face appreciatively, and when a surprised intake of breath from her revealed that he had her attention, he said, “Pleased to make your acquaintance, Miss Hawley. What yacht did you arrive in?”

“Maya.”

“Yes, I saw her come in. Handsome steamer. Beats the newfangled diesels hands down. But may I caution you, if you’re discussing business deals with this young lady”—he clapped Pauline on the back—“hold tight to your fillings and count the spoons!”

“We’re only drinking daiquiris,” said Pauline. “This isn’t business. We just ran into each other down at the harbor.”

“I’m only a tourist,” said Fern. “Would you join us?”

Novicki looked like a man who very much wanted to while away the afternoon drinking daiquiris with two beautiful woman. Pauline shot him an eyeful of No, no, absolutely not!

“Thank you, Miss Hawley . . . Pauline. Nothing would delight me more. But I don’t like the look of that sky. I want deep water under my bottom, the sooner the better.”

He made his good-byes, choosing an