Watch Your Back!

Alan sipped his Bloody Mary and smiled for the first time since the midnight phone call. Back in coach, they could be roasting goats over an open flame for all he knew, and probably were, but up here among the readers of hardcover thrillers, life was good.

The combination of comfort and vodka soon made Alan contemplative, and what he mostly contemplated was his future. This job with Preston Fareweather, which barely could be called a job at all, had been very pleasant and remunerative, but was that now coming to a close? Had Pamela Broussard, in her nastiness, disrupted not only Preston's life but Alan's as well? He hardly thought of himself as indispensable, so if Preston had plans that did not include a return to Club Med, it was entirely possible they would no longer include Alan, either. He'd certainly be able to find another rich bully to play courtier to — he wasn't worried about that part of it — but would the next one be anywhere near as much fun as silly, fat, teasing Preston Fareweather?

The flight was due to arrive in Miami at 1:20 and very nearly did. And it was here that Alan found out precisely how much baggage he carried on this trip: three carts full. His transit, therefore, from baggage claim to the line of auto rental counters was tedious in the extreme. He would push a cart down a hall to a turn or a doorway, leave it, return to point A, push a second cart down the hall, leave it next to the first, return to point A, push the third cart down the hall; repeat. When he was finished, his goods stacked up like rush hour at the rent-a-car counter of his choice, he had become exhausted, short-tempered, and too harried to fight.

The auto rental clerk gave him a look. "You want a full-size car," she said.

"What I really want," he told her, "is a bed."

"We don't have those, unfortunately. That's a different industry entirely. I can give you a car with reclining seats."

"I'll do my own reclining, someday, please, God."

One had to ride a bus to get to the car, which meant he probably did more baggage handling out here today than did most of the people employed for the purpose. Finally, though, he and his goods and chattels were deposited in front of a bright red Lexus Enorma, and the bus, much lighter now, went on its way. (Chattels, when they are not slaves, are movable pieces of property, which every one of these damn things was.)

The Enorma had a capacious trunk and a pretty roomy back seat, so Alan eventually got everything stowed. Then, constantly checking the map the car-rental woman had given him, he found his way out of Miami International Airport and, after one misstep on state Route 41, which wanted to take him through the Everglades to Naples over on Florida's west coast, he managed to turn south, drop down to Route 1, and, by barely four in the afternoon, two and a half hours after landing, there, by God, was the Key Largo Holiday I

The person at the desk, being female, was unlikely to be Duane. In fact, the name tag on her left breast a

"Yes, sir," she said, with a happy smile, glad to be part of an operation that would have the African Queen in its parking lot.

"It looks smaller than in the movie," Alan said.

She nodded. "Everybody says that. May I help you, sir?"

"Oh, they do, huh? I have a reservation, I'm—" But then he drew a blank for just a second, remembering that the person he was not was Alan Pinkleton. "Duane Smith," he remembered.

"Oh, yes, sir," she said, "I think we have a message for you. Yes, here it is, sir."

The message was from Preston: "Call me before you check in, room 211."

"Where's the house phone?"

"Just over there, sir. Are you checking in now, sir?"

"Not yet."

"Shall we get your luggage from your car, sir?"

You don't know what you're asking, he thought, and said, as he headed for the house phone, "Let's wait on that, too."

Preston answered so promptly, it was clear he'd been sitting right next to the phone, or possibly on top of it. "Yes!"

"Preston?"

"Bring me some clothing. Not all the luggage, just one piece, with clothing."

Alan might have pointed out that he had packed this morning in semidarkness and a mad rush and wasn't certain which of those many bags contained the clothing Preston might most prize at this moment, but Preston had already hung up. So Alan swung by the desk to assure DeeDee he'd be back, and then went out to the hot, bright sun to open the Enorma's trunk and root through suitcases until he found one that seemed to have the variety Preston might have in mind. He carried this into the building, found 211, knocked, and Preston yanked open the door.

"Where have you been?"

"Traveling. Here."

Preston really was wearing nothing but that skimpy bathing suit. Grabbing the suitcase Alan offered him, he waved a hand at the room service table over by the window and said as he receded toward the bathroom, "Have some leftover lunch if you want. Wait here, we have to talk." And into the bathroom he went, slamming the door.

Preston had done well for himself with his room service lunch. Salmon, asparagus, some sort of white pudding. Most of it was no longer in a state Alan found appetizing, but the coffee in the thermos was still at least warm, and the untouched roll was fresh, with sesame seeds. All much better than the little cardboard box of semi-edibles he'd rejected on the flight to Miami, featuring, as it had, a suspiciously blemish-free apple, as large and red and round and perfect as the one the witch had carted about in Snow White.

Alan had consumed half a roll and half a cup of coffee when Preston returned, arrayed in bright green polo shirt, mauve slacks, and tasseled gray loafers. "I have thrown those swim trunks away," he a

"You didn't tell me about the African Queen."

"Some things are best as surprises," Preston assured him. "Speaking of which, we've had a change of plan."

"We have?"

"My initial concept was," Preston said, "we could secrete ourselves within the bland vastness of Florida a while. Offseason, easy to move about, you could be the official presence with your credit cards and driver's license and all that. But shortly before our young friend Duane went off duty this morning, he phoned me to say a man had just come through, showing a photo of me and asking if I had been sighted by anyone. He didn't claim to be a policeman, but he tried to leave that impression."

"Private detective, I suppose," Alan said.

"One of who knows how many, fa

"Yes?"

"Go home," Preston said.

Surprised, Alan said, "New York? Are you sure?"

"Where else is there for me? Anywhere else, I'm a hunted man. I've been safe till now, but they smell blood, Alan, they know they've got me on the run. The safest place for me right now is my own apartment in New York City. Nobody can get me there."

"Preston, I'm not sure how you hope to make it from here to there."

Preston paused to study his reflection in the mirror over the dresser. Pleased, he smiled as he patted his shirt over his paunch. "That's where I've been brilliant," he said. "I know I can't fly to New York. One has to show identification to board an airplane, and they'll be watching for my name on flights to New York. But they can't watch all flights everywhere, Alan."