The Killer Touch Read Free Page A

crepe-soled sneakers and decided that getting soaked was a part of inter-island travel, not at all unpleasant.
    â€œOh-oh, the purse. He looked down, felt a twinge of alarm, then saw it caught in a loop of rope, half-submerged in the runoff water. He picked it up and shook off the water. Better see if any got inside …
    He paused with his hand on the catch, then shrugged.
    The smell struck him again as he opened the purse; an exciting smell of perfume. Ladies’ soft leather wallet.… Once started, he fell into an unconscious search pattern. The wallet’s plastic windows contained a social security card issued to Miss Tracy Dunn, and a Florida driver’s license for Mrs. Tracy Keener. Must have quit work after she got married, otherwise she’d have had her card changed. Age, twenty-eight. Well, well, she’s a Gemini too, and the same age. Address in North Miami. Evidence was stacking up. Her married status didn’t seem very important, since she’d come to the island alone. Where was Mr. Keener? Dead, divorced, separated, working … having a ball elsewhere. Weight one-oh-five, height five-four. A good build, provided the weight was arranged properly. Hair black, eyes brown. Folder of traveler’s checks, all fresh and new. Whee! Hundreds, tens of ’em. Poor little working girl struck it rich. Probably married the boss’s son, or the boss … Funny no pictures, probably meant she had no kids. Lipstick, bright red, a little garish for Burt’s taste. Well, nobody’s perfect, Can of talcum power, funny thing to carry in a purse. Or was it? He took it out and shook it, felt a soft rattle against his hand. Maybe the powder had gotten wet and lumpy …
    The lid came off with a hard twist of his fingers. He shook out some powder and a capsule dropped into his palm. He felt a coldness at the back of his neck. He looked up quickly. The passengers were busy drying themselves. He cleaned off the capsule and saw the white powder inside. He didn’t bother taking it apart. What else comes in capsules which you have to hide inside a talcum powder can? There were fourteen in all. The girl had a heavy, heavy habit.…
    He put everything back in the can, replaced the lid, returned the can to the purse and closed it. She’d been nervous as a cat, and why not? Carrying a couple hundred bucks worth of heroin. But then, to walk off the boat and leave it …
    Isle de Trois jutted abruptly from the sea to the south, humped up to a five-hundred foot prominence, then sloped gently to the north. As the schooner neared, Burt could make out the three black crags which gave the island its name. The upper slope was clothed in cedar, frangipani and shoulder-high citronella grass. At the water’s edge a line of palm trees overhung the thatched roof of the beach club. In front of the club curved a silver-white beach strewn with conch shells and bleached coral. A gentle swell disturbed the lagoon and caressed the beach.
    Burt had first seen the island from the deck of a cruise ship five years ago. He had recognized a scene he’d dreamed of years before, while his breath froze on the fringe of a parka, his finger stuck to an icy trigger and his eyes squinted across a frozen Korean landscape. He’d spent his last five vacations on the island, and while Caribbean prices had ballooned, Burt still paid the same as he had on his first visit: thirty dollars a week.
    The schooner stopped fifty yards outside the semicircle of black rocks which enclosed the lagoon like the jaws of a giant beartrap. Burt stood at the rail listening to the grinding complaint of the engines as they fought the current which hissed and gurgled around the ship. A black figure clad in shorts moved languidly across the beach, dragged a tiny blue rowboat into the water, and started rowing across the lagoon. Burt recognized Joss’s boatman, Coco. He was a skilled fisherman who knew every submerged rock