Cargo for the Styx Read Online Free Page A

strange convolutions.
    That was the answer. And I could beat Aggie by ignoring him. By closing the case. By leaving it where it was when Bonnie Minos came calling.
    It took me thirty minutes to decide that. My watch told me it was eleven o’clock. I carried the dregs of my drink and a book to my chair. I adjusted the reading lamp. Aggie had had it. I’d wash him out of my mind by forgetting his existence.
    I read to page three. I closed the book. I laid it down. I set my glass beside it. I listened.
    Live on a boat for a while and you get accustomed to certain sounds—the gentle slap of water against the hull, the creakings and soft rubbings of joints and rigging, the fingering of the wind ghosts. After a time you don’t hear these sounds; they are part of your refuge.
    The boat moved under me. This wasn’t the movement brought by the wake of a passing ship. This was the sensation when someone heavy steps on board.
    I tried to remember whether I’d left my gun in the office file closet or in my locker. It didn’t matter. Doors were swinging softly open. A thick bulk was moving down into the lounge. I stepped toward it.
    A lighter noise came from the wheelhouse forward. It moved to the galley. I turned in its direction. A smaller bulk was cat-footing toward me. I was an olive caught in a pair of tongs, ready to be dropped into a martini.
    Two years of no Aggie Minos, of the slow pace of LaPlaya, had taken the edge off me. I’d forgotten how to respond quickly to this kind of situation. I’d forgotten the feel of air charged with danger.
    The bulk coming from the cockpit had a voice. It said, “You’re dead, Zane. You got a gun, toss it this way.”

CHAPTER V
    “N O GUN,” I SAID.
    The smaller bulk coming through the galley had a voice, too. It said, “He can’t shoot both of us. Turn on the lights.” It was a voice without inflection, completely flat.
    The lights came on. I looked aft. The big bulk became a big goon. My cabin had a clearance of six feet, six inches. This character had to bend to keep from scraping his head. He had a reddened face that looked as if it had faced a typhoon. The typhoon lost. He wore seaman’s clothing and a seaman’s rolled wool cap. Tufts of sun-streaked blond hair stuck out from under the cap. His hands were huge and rough, with the kind of roughness that comes from hauling nets out of a cold sea. The right hand held a gun.
    I turned around hopefully. The smaller one had to be an improvement. He turned out to be medium height and slender. He held a gun, too.
    He said with no more emotion than before, “What did Minos want here?”
    “He came to renew an old friendship.”
    Bigboy came up behind me. He lifted a foot and drove the sole against the back of my knees. I pitched forward. Flatvoice held out his hand, palm up. I ran into that palm. I felt my nose cartilege bend.
    “What did Minos’ wife want at your office, Zane?”
    I watched him tuck his gun away. He didn’t seem to think he would need it. I said, “I’m a gentleman. I won’t tell.”
    “A card,” Bigboy said. “Ain’t he a real card.” He kicked at the back of my knees again.
    I knew it was coming. I stepped sideways. I made a flying tackle. I put a hundred and ninety pounds behind the shoulder that caught him halfway up the thighs. He casually lifted one leg. I bounced off him and slid along the deck.
    “Pick him up.”
    Bigboy picked me up. For all he cared, I didn’t weigh a hundred and ninety. I was a feather pillow.
    “I don’t want him marked up,” Flatvoice said.
    “You hit him high and he don’t mark much.”
    I said, “What’s the point of all this? What have you got when you get through?”
    “Answers,” Flatvoice said.
    “Answers about the
Temoc?
”
    “What’s that?” But he said it too fast, and he let a hint of emotion slip into his voice.
    I said, “It’s what I’m looking for answers about.”
    Flatvoice said, “Maybe we don’t want you to look.” He was tired of