Harry and the Bikini Bandits by Basil Heatter - Chapter 31

1971 Genre: Vintage Sleaze / Casino Heist

A wildly erotic novel of intrigue, suspense, and adventure...

There's a lot to be said for my Uncle Harry. Mostly unprintable. All my life I'd heard about him, and from a distance he was a kind of legend. But the moment I signed on as one-man crew to his beat-up old bucket, Jezebel, I found my hero of the sea was really a pirate. Broads and booze kept him afloat between capers—and so far, his luck was holding...

But this new harebrained scheme—to heist the loot from an island gambling casino—was the daffiest—and most dangerous yet.

And there I was. Right in the middle. Up to my virginal ears in naked nymphs and Nitrous oxide—with nothing between me and the future but a leaky getaway and a pot of gold that was fast disappearing behind Harry's private rainbow.

CHAPTER 31

"Come away with me," she said.

"To where?"

"Somewhere. Anywhere. Everywhere."

"But I thought you loved it here."

"I did. But now I love you. The vibrations are different."

I wondered if the money had anything to do with the different vibrations.

"All right," I said. "When do you want to go?"

"Soon. Before something happens."

"What could happen?"

"I don't know. I have a bad feeling about Harry. He's breaking up."

"What could he do?"

"A man like Harry could do almost anything. He might, for instance, kill you. Or me."

"Go on."

"I mean it. You'll see. I don't think you know him very well."

That much was true. I knew him less each day.

"Well, how do you think we ought to work it then?" I asked.

"I think we ought to take the skiff and just go."

"Leaving him here?"

"He left you, didn't he? And in worse circumstances. In the water without a sou. You'll be leaving him with a boat and all the money in the world. Everything he's wanted."

"Except for one thing."

"Yes," she said, "but that one thing he won't have in any case."

When I hesitated she said, "What do you think you owe him anyway?"

"Nothing, I guess. Well, yes, I owe him something for bringing me here to find you."

"He didn't bring you. You found your own way. Continue to find your own way, love. Find your way to Paris with me."

"Why Paris?"

"Why not? Paris in the spring with someone you love. Chestnut trees in the Bois and a Ferrari with the top down. What a dream."

"What about your house?"

"The house will still be here. And if it isn't, it doesn't matter. It's time to move on. Every seven years."

"Have you been here seven years?"

"A figure of speech, love. It doesn't matter."

I thought briefly of Peckinpaugh and Mary Ann Mobley. Very briefly.

"All right," I said. "When do you want to go?"

"Tomorrow."

"Not tomorrow. I told him I'd help him refloat Jezebel."

"And you still think you owe him that?"

"Yes."

"I suppose that's one of the things I love about you. How long will it take?"

"The day after tomorrow."

"Oh my God," she said. "The day after tomorrow. How beautiful."

"Do we have enough gas? How far can we get?"

"We have enough gas to get to Highborne Cay and Mr. Albury. From there we can signal the mailboat. We'll take the mailboat to Nassau, and Bahamas International to Luxembourg. From Luxembourg to Paris is a hop and a skip."

"What about your things?"

"What things?"

"Clothes and stuff. If Harry sees us putting a lot of stuff into the skiff it won't take him long to figure it out."

"He won't see it. I'm not taking anything."

"You'll go just the way you are?"

"Of course. Like I said, every seven years."

"And what about me? Will you get rid of me after seven years?"

"Ah, love, seven years is a lifetime. Let's think of seven months or seven hours. The world lies before us."

"What lies before us right now is to get that boat off the reef."

"You're determined to do that for Harry?"

"Yes."

"You're a little mad, my love. And so very young."

"I'll do it all the same," I said.

And I did.

I had been getting the ballast out in sections, dropping the lead pigs over the side into the water. At low tide they were not in more than a foot of water and it would be easy enough for him to retrieve them. The lead keel of course was something else. I had tried the nuts holding the keel bolts, but could not budge them. Probably they could be gotten off with a blowtorch or, if that did not work, they could be hacked off. Either way it would be a murderous job and I did not see how, without a great deal of help, the keel could ever be replaced. The French sailor Gerbault had once replaced his four-ton keel after his ship had been wrecked on a reef in the South Seas, but he had been lucky enough to get help from the French navy and half a hundred natives. Harry would have to do it all alone and it would be impossible. So if it came to removing the keel Jezebel would probably have to be abandoned. Still it might not come to that.

As it turned out it didn't. When the last of the inside ballast was out, I threw over everything else I could find including the engine. The old Palmer had breathed its last and was no good to him anyway. And it weighed a good four or five hundred pounds. Between the two of us we wrestled it out of its bed and up a kind of ramp put together from two-by-fours. We got it up on deck and it teetered there for a moment before it went over with a splash. And we felt Jezebel stir.

She gave a definite switch of her tail. All that seemed to be holding her now was the coral spur through her bottom. I thought Harry would say something, but he never said a word. He had not said a word all the time we were struggling with the engine. If he felt any excitement or pleasure at the idea that Jezebel might finally come off the reef, he did not show it.

The tide was rising. It was now or never.

"I'll get Hester to come out with the skiff," I said.

He glared at me, wild blue eyes crazy under the shock of red hair. It was a look to curdle your blood. I remembered her saying he might try to kill me. The idea did not seem so farfetched now.

I put on the fins and dropped over the side. Swimming across the channel I could feel the push of the incoming tide. I looked back and saw Jezebel bouncing ever so slightly. She was almost ready to come off.

I hit the beach and slipped off the fins and walked around to the house. Hester was not there. I banged on the door and called for her, but there was no answer. Regardless of the fact that our relationship was what it was, I did not feel inclined to open the door and go inside. I mean she had this terrific sense of privacy and I was not about to mess with it.

Well, she had to be somewhere on the island, unless she had gone off in the skiff. But I did not think she would do that because I had told her we would probably be needing the skiff for Jezebel later in the day.

I walked around to the lagoon where she kept the skiff and there it was, tied to its usual stake. I thought of taking it without her permission, but I did not want to do that because it would be all Harry and I could do to keep Jezebel afloat once she came off, and we would need her to handle the skiff.

I started walking south along the beach and I suddenly had a funny thought. Funny strange. I thought about the money. It had not even crossed my mind for the past couple of days. I looked for the big palm, lined it up with the tip of Jezebel's mast, and made my way over to where I had buried the money. I don't know what I was looking for exactly. An indication, I guess, that anybody had been snooping around. There was nothing. No footprints in the sand. All the same I had an uneasy feeling. Just a crazy hunch. Tried to shrug it off. Walked away from the place a hundred yards or so and then came back to it. Walked down the beach a quarter of a mile or so looking for Hester, but could not find her. Came back to the big palm. Stood there undecided for about five minutes and then began to dig. Dug easily at first and then harder and harder. Dug like a wild man. The money was gone.