Angel's Ransom Read Free Page B

But the cruiser would sleep six comfortably, besides her owner and crew, and he was prepared for a maximum up until the moment when, shortly before noon, a fiacre came clattering along the Quai du Commerce and turned out on to the jetty. Freddy, tasseled whip in hand, held the reins on the high driver ’s seat.
    Nearing the Angel ’s mooring, he spanked the horses into a jouncy trot and brought the carriage wheeling up in style to where Blake stood at the gangplank.
    ‘Morning, Sam.’ Freddy saluted sadly with the whip. ‘Got a dime for a cup of coffee?’
    ‘Cleaned again?’
    ‘Gutted like a fish. Lost everything but my helpers. Meet the mob.’
    Freddy ’s round face had the lavender tinge it took on when he had been drinking heavily. Otherwise his condition was not noticeable until he nearly fell from the high driver ’s seat while using the tassel of his whip to tickle the nose of a blonde girl asleep in the body of the fiacre .
    ‘Wake up, doll. Meet your genial host, Skipper Blake. This one is Valentina, Sam. She speaks Polish.’
    The blonde girl ’s eyes opened lazily. They were honey- colored , and too knowing for her age, which Blake guessed as the middle twenties. She had the smooth, lacquered, flawless prettiness of a window mannequin.
    ‘Good morning, Captain.’ Her voice was husky, her English only faintly accented. Blake was uncomfortably aware that the too-wise, honey- colored eyes were taking his measure. Most of Freddy ’s girls regarded the Angel ’s captain as a kind of glorified gondolier, and paid him no more attention than was necessary. This one would not be like the others, he was sure. Except in motivation. That never varied.
    Freddy said, ‘The thing she ’s using for a pillow is Bruno.’ Valentina ’s head rested on the shoulder of a good-looking, olive-skinned young man in evening clothes who snored gently through a classically handsome nose. ‘Or is it Beppo ?’
    He giggled witlessly.
    ‘Bruno di Lucca.’ The name was supplied, somewhat snappishly, by a woman sitting on the other side of the snorer. ‘Please, Freddy. Don’t be giggly at this hour of the morning. I am Laura di Lucca, Captain. How do you do?’
    Blake acknowledged the introduction, wondering only momentarily if she were the handsome Italian ’s wife or his mother. They resembled each other too little to be related by blood. Laura di Lucca was twice her husband ’s age, well and expensively jeweled , and wore make - up that would have been kinder to her under the shaded lamps of Monte Carlo ’s gambling tables than in bright morning sunlight. She was not happy about Valentina ’s head on her husband ’s shoulder, and showed it in the elaborate way she ignored the blonde girl ’s existence.
    ‘This one is George,’ Freddy said. ‘Treat him with respect, Sam. Gentleman of the Press. He ’s writing me up as a sympathetic character for the tabloids; Fun-loving Fred, the Lovable Lush.’
    The fourth occupant of the carriage lifted his hand to Blake.
    ‘ S aunders,’ he said crisply. ‘Glad to know you, Captain. I’m not one of your passengers. I came this far for the fresh air.’
    George Saunders was in his thirties, bull-necked and going bald, with a homely, pugnacious face that matched his manner. He looked like a man who would decline to take orders, or favors , from anyone. There was a kind of belligerence in his reaction to the charge when Freddy leaned down from the driver ’s seat to thrust the tasseled whip into his hand.
    ‘If you’re not going to come cruising with us, you can jockey these oatburners back to the character who owns them,’ Freddy said. ‘Don’t pay him anything. Tell him to put it on my bill.’ He blew a solemn kiss to each of the horses. ‘Hail and farewell, sweethearts. It ’s been fun.’
    George Saunders said, ‘I’ll deliver them, but the ride is on me.’
    Freddy did not hear him. He was climbing unsteadily down from the high seat to offer his doubtful