The Velvet Voice Affair Read online

  Actually she met motorized vehicles only once during the twenty-mile trip: a convoy of four trucks loaded with bananas. But several times she had to pull over to let by horse-drawn wagons or burro-drawn carts.

  The road broadened to two lanes but became merely dirt when she reached the village limits.

  The place consisted of merely a cluster of adobe huts lining both sides of the single street, plus a few larger adobe buildings. There was a general store with a single gas pump in front of it, a one-room schoolhouse, a large warehouse with several trucks parked before a loading platform in front of it and a long-low building with a wooden sign hanging over its entrance which read: Casa Del Lupe.

  April parked in front of the inn, lifted her suitcase from the rear seat of the car and carried it inside.

  There was a strikingly handsome, bare-shouldered brunette behind the bar. Two old men nodded at a corner table. Mark Slate, bareheaded and in native costume, sat at the bar. Next to him was a tall handsome man in similar dress, except that he also wore a sombrero.

  Both men glanced her way when she dropped her suitcase to the floor with a muffled bang. The woman looked her way also, but the small noise failed to rouse the two old men from their stupors.

  Mark Slate bounced from his stool and approached her with a wide grin.

  "April, it's good to see you," he said.

  When he reached out to clasp both her hands, she studied him searchingly. She could detect nothing unusual about him. His expression was as alert and vital as ever.

  "How are you, Mark?" she asked.

  "Just fine, but getting a little bored, There isn't much to do here. Come meet my friends."

  He lifted her suitcase and carried it over to set it next to the bar.

  "This is Senorita Lupe Alfredo, April," he said, indicating the brunette behind the bar. "She is the proprietress of this picturesque inn. Miss April Dancer, Lupe."

  The women exchanged polite greetings. Slate introduced the tall man as Miguel Flores. The latter rose, swept of his sombrero, bowed and said, "My pleasure, senorita. Senor Slate did not inform us his guest would be so beautiful."

  Lupes' black eyes glittered at him. April was never one to discourage compliments from a handsome man, and this one was quite handsome, but on the verge of dimpling prettily and making some coquettish reply, she caught the expression on Lupe's face. She settled for a discreet smile.

  Mark Slate said, "I told you Miss Dancer would be needing a room, didn't I, Lupe?"

  The brunette frowned. "No, you did not, but the one next to you is vacant."

  April was mildly surprised. It wasn't like Mark Slate to forget such a matter. However, it didn't matter, since a room was available.

  "I'll show you your quarters," Slate said, picking up her suitcase and carrying it to a door at the rear of the room.

  April followed him down a short hallway, past a bath to a corridor with several rooms off of it. As they passed one door, Mark Slate jerked his thumb at it and said "That's my pad."

  He stopped before the next one, turned the knob and went in.

  "No keys," he said. "San Cecilia is crimeless, so you don't have to worry about theft. The men tend to be a little romantic, though. As a practical solution to that, there is an inside bolt you may throw when you go to bed."

  He put the suitcase on an old-fashioned brass bed which had a pile of feather ticks in lieu of a mattress. There was a marble-topped dresser, a wash stand, a writing table with a straight-backed chair in front of it, one ancient easy chair. The room was hardly luxurious, but it was immaculately clean.

  April took a small, flesh-colored earplug from her purse and popped it into her ear. Slate smiled at her benignly.

  "The place isn't bugged," he said. "In two weeks I haven't spotted anyone who could possibly be a THRUSH agent."

  "They taught me at the Academy never to take anything for granted," she said primly. "THRUSH has a habit of listening in when you least expect it."

  "Hear any buzzing in your ear?" he asked in a patronizing voice.

  "No," she admitted. She removed the earpiece and dropped it back into her purse. "Are you all right?"

  He hiked his eyebrows. "Of course. Why do you ask?"

  "You haven't instituted a report on your own in over a week. Mr. Waverly says he never hears from you unless he initiates contact."

  Slate shrugged. "There's been nothing new to report."

  April examined him narrowly.

  "Then why do you hang around here? If you've observed everything there is to see, why haven't you moved on to some other village to check conditions there?"

  "I don't have the answer to the puzzle here yet."

  She continued to study him. "It just doesn't seem like you, Mark. Is that woman the magnet keeping you here?"

  "Lupe?" Slate scoffed. "She's Miguel's girl. She likes to do a little flirting, but she doesn't get serious about anyone but him."

  April still wasn't satisfied. "I don't understand it, Mark," she persisted. "Why are you staying here?"

  "I told you I'm still trying to find the answer to the puzzle," he said with a touch of irritation. "Do you have a car?"

  "Yes. How did you get here?" "On a banana truck. Suppose we use your car to run out where they're cutting bananas this afternoon, and you can see for yourself what we're up against." He frowned at her stylish dress and spike heels. "You had better change clothes for something more suitable for the jungle, though. Did you bring knee boots?"

  "Yes. They were on the list furnished me by Mr. Waverly. I don't understand why I need them, though."

  "Snakes," Slate said briefly.

  April gazed at him wide-eyed. "Snakes?"

  "They seldom strike above the knee. That is, if they're on the ground. You have to keep an eye out for the ones in branches."

  April gave a delicate shudder.

  "Are there many?"

  "Enough to make it pay to be alert. Will you need long to change?"

  "Ten minutes."

  "I'll wait in the barroom. We may as well take Miguel back with us. He's a picker and just walked into town during the siesta period."

  "All right," April said. "I'll hurry."

  When April emerged from her room ten minutes later, she was wearing tight denim slacks, black riding boots, a long-sleeved blouse and a Stetson.

  She found a small scene going on in the barroom. Every eye was on Lupe. Even the two old men at the table had awakened and were gaping at her. The shapely brunette was pounding on the bar and yelling at Miguel, who was rubbing his nose.

  "Do you have another woman on your mind, son of a donkey?" Lupe inquired furiously. "Who is she, so that I may cut out her heart?"

  "There is no other woman, my one," Miguel protested.

  "Then why do you dream like a moonstruck cow? Why do you not even look at me, but just stare off into space, if you are not mooning over another woman?"

  "I look at you, my one. Am I not looking at you now?"

  "Bah!" Lupe spat. "After I tweak your nose to get your attention. Go back to your work. Dream of this slut of a female out of my sight. Go!"

  With the shrug of a misunderstood man, Miguel headed for the door. Mark Slate gestured to April and they followed him out. Outside April handed Mark the car keys and climbed into the front seat of the Ford.

  Slate rounded the car to slide under the wheel. April moved over to make room for Miguel to sit in front too, but he vaulted over the side of the convertible into the back seat.

  "Women," Miguel muttered as he settled himself. "I have not so much as looked at anyone but Lupe. Senor Slate, have you ever seen me look at another woman?"

  Slate started the car and pulled away. "Not in the flesh, amigo. You seem kind of taken by that chick on television. But I guess we all are."

  "She of the dulcet voice? Ah, she is a one. But I do not moon of her, amigo. No woman but Lupe is on my mind."

  "What chick are you talking about?" April asked Slate.

  "Some dame wh
o does a singing commercial on TV. She comes on about every half hour during the evening. And maybe in the afternoon too, for all I know. Lupe never turns on the set until evening."

  "You mean she's so wonderful, she's a conversation piece even though all she does is a singing commercial?"

  "Ah, but how she does it," Slate said. "She's such a sexy dish, every male customer at the inn stops conversation to watch her when she comes on. Even though it's a taped commercial and they see it a dozen times a night."

  April sniffed. "So now we girls must compete with an electronic image? Flesh and blood women aren't enough competition?"

  Slate edged the car over half off the road into the undergrowth to let a burro-drawn cart pass. While they waited, he grinned sidewise at her. "I didn't know you cared. I thought you regarded me as a big brother."

  April eyed the foliage which pushed over the side of the car nearly into her lap dubiously. She edged nearer to Slate.

  "With a brother like you, I would never have left home," she said in a bantering tone which didn't quite cover her nervousness.

  Actually her relationship to Mark Slate was a little hard to define. She did regard him somewhat as a big brother, yet when other women showed that they were attracted to him---which was a frequent occurrence---she was often surprised to find herself becoming jealous. On the other hand, he never showed anything but amused interest when, she developed a passing crush on some man, and this lack of interest tended to irk her.

  She enjoyed being with Mark Slate. They frequently went dining and dancing together when off duty. Whenever she thought about their relationship, she assured herself she hadn't the slightest romantic interest in him. Still---

  The cart passed and Slate drove on. A low humming sound came from the back seat. April twisted around to look at Miguel. The man was staring straight ahead and humming a lilting catchy little tune she failed to recognize.

  Slate said, "How did things go in Geneva?"

  She turned her attention back to him and described the adventure in which she had been partly responsible for foiling the assassination plot against the director of the International Red Cross. Slate interrupted occasionally to ask a searching question.

  April could detect nothing in his manner to suggest he wasn't his usual alert, intelligent self.

  Randy Kovac's suggestion that Slate had perhaps fallen victim to the same apathy affecting the natives was wrong, she decided.

  The grove where bananas were being picked was about five miles beyond the village, along the same one-lane concrete road April had taken from Vina Rosa. The siesta period was just ending when they arrived. A burly foreman was shouting for the men to go back to work and workers were stirring themselves from beneath the shade of trees and from underneath several trucks parked at the edge of the grove.

  Slate parked behind one of the trucks. Miguel scurried from the back seat and ran over to a truck. From its bed he lifted a curved, wooden-handled knife and thrust it into his belt. Over one shoulder he slung a canvas hamper somewhat resembling the bags carried by newsboys, except that it was much larger, allowing it to ride on one hip. ..

  April and Slate had climbed from the Ford and stood at the rear of the truck Slate had parked behind. April examined the grove. It contained banana trees of all sizes, ranging from some only a few feet tall whose fruit could be reached from the ground to giants towering to forty feet.

  As the ripe bunches of fruit hung mainly from the tops of trees, she was wondering how these giants were harvested when she saw several of the men carrying slim, light extension ladders made of tubular aluminum into the grove. Miguel was one of those carrying a ladder.

  Seeing her looking Miguel's way, Slate said, "Miguel's a top worker. They get higher pay than the ground crews. But it's tough work. Top bunches average about twenty-five pounds, ground bunches about half that. Those hampers hold six top bunches or twelve ground bunches. So by the time a picker is ready to head for a truck and unload, he's lugging a hundred and fifty pounds on his back."

  "Will we be able to see anything from here?" April asked.

  "Not much. Just the top workers. You have to get in there to really see how they work."

  "Then let's go in."

  One of the curved banana knives lay in the bed of the truck they stood next to. Slate picked it up.

  "Okay," he said. "I'll cut' you a nice juicy banana."

  He moved into the grove, pushing aside foliage with his hands. April followed after him. There was little underbrush, but there were numerous banana tree shoots with leafy tops, so that the ground was virtually invisible. April kept thinking of snakes as she followed Slate toward the sound of the pickers.

  They stopped to watch a pair of top workers first. Two sections of light ladder had been fitted together and a man thirty feet in the air was cutting hunches and expertly flipping them into his hamper. A man on the ground steadied the ladder.

  April recognized the man on the ground as Miguel.

  "They work in pairs," Slate explained. "Next tree Miguel will be on top and the guy up there now will act as his ground assistant. He's necessary for a little more than just steadying the ladder, incidentally. You'll see what I mean in a minute."

  The man on the ladder filled his hamper and lowered it by rope to the ground. April noted that Miguel was staring off into space and humming the same lilting little tune he had hummed in the car. He paid no attention when the full hamper reached the ground next to him.

  "Hey, Miguel!" the man above shouted.

  Miguel blinked, saw the hamper on the ground and stooped to unhook the rope. Quickly he unslung the hamper hanging from his own shoulder and attached it to the rope. The man above pulled it up, hung it from his shoulder, then swung himself from the ladder to cling to the bole of the tree thirty feet above the ground.

  Miguel shifted the position of the ladder to the other side of the tree and the top worker swung himself back upon it.

  Slate and April moved on through the leafy foliage until they came to a group of four ground workers.

  Two were moving along briskly, cutting bunches and dropping them into their hampers. The other two were standing idle, staring into space.

  The burly foreman came along and yelled, "Sons of donkeys! Are you paid to stand and dream?"

  The two men started, then hurriedly resumed work. The foreman stood glaring at them.

  "Afternoon, Jose," Mark Slate said. "Still having worker trouble, eh?"

  The big man's frown turned to a friendly smile. "Ah, Senor Slate. Yes. The lazy pigs work only when I yell at them. They would dream away the day if I were not constantly on their backs."

  He looked at April curiously. Slate said, "This is Jose Diaz, April. Miss April Dancer, Jose."

  The foreman acknowledged the introduction with a gracious Latin bow.

  But at that moment he spotted a pair of top workers who had paused in the act of joining two sections of ladder together and were vacantly staring off into space.

  "Loafers!" he yelled, striding to-ward them. "The siesta is over!"

  "Seen enough to get the idea?"

  Slate asked.

  "What is the matter with them?" she said. "They just seem to drift off into daydreams."

  "That's what I've been trying to figure out for two weeks," he said, shrugging. "A drug of some kind is out, because they snap alert the moment you yell at them."

  He reached up, cut a pair of plump bananas from a bunch and handed one to April. As she started to peel it, something soft but heavy slithered across her shoulder from behind. Before she could react, massive coils had whipped about her throat, chest and waist.

  A huge head with fanged jaws poised not a foot from her face, ready to strike. To her horror she saw that the head was pointed. She knew little of snakes, but she knew a pointed head was supposed to mean the serpent was venomous.

  The banana knife in Mark Slate's hand moved in a glittering blur. There was a snicking sound and the severed head of the enormous snake
flew six feet away to land on the ground. The coils momentarily constricted, squeezing the breath from April, then slithered loosely to the ground.

  Jumping from the circle of still writhing coils, she backed away in terror. The dark-colored monster was over twelve feet long.

  "Boa constrictor," Slate said. "They grow to fifteen feet."

  April found that the banana in her hand was crushed to a pulp. She dropped it to the ground.

  "Let's get out of here," she said, and headed for the Ford at a rapid walk.

  THREE

  THE VOICE

  April was already in the car when Slate came from the grove. He was eating his banana. He casually tossed the banana knife into the rear of the truck, finished the banana and discarded the skin before climbing under the wheel.

  April looked at him reproachfully.

  "I warned you there were snakes," he said. "Fortunately boas aren't poisonous."

  "They aren't?" she said. "He had a pointed head."

  "One of the few non-poisonous snakes with a pointy head. They just squeeze you until you pop out of your skin like a bursting tube of toothpaste. "

  "Please spare me descriptions," she said with a shudder.

  "They bite too, even though they aren't poisonous. I think he was getting ready to nibble off your pretty little nose when I separated his head from his body."

  "Please, Mark, you're making me sick. Will you shut up?"

  Sorry," he said cheerfully.

  "Just showing off my knowledge."

  He started the car, backed and turned and headed back toward the village.

  April took out of her purse what looked like an ordinary fountain pen, twisted the barrel and a small chromium antenna shot up from one end.

  She said, "Section two, please. Scramble."

  After a moment the voice of Alexander Waverly said, "Yes, Miss Dancer?"

  "I have arrived at San Cecilia and am with Mark Slate," April reported. "He seems to be entirely all right. As a matter of fact he's driving the car we're in now. We're just returning from a visit to a banana grove."

  "I am glad to hear Mr. Slate has not succumbed to the curious epidemic which seems to be raging down there," Waverly said. "Have you anything new to report?"