Free Hawke by Ted Bell Page B

bartender said with his big white smile. He stuck out his hand. “My name, sir, is Amen Lillywhite. Please call me Amen. We are honored to have you here at the club, Commander Blackhawke.”
    Hawke nodded and took the man’s scrawny mahogany hand and shook it. “Rum, please, Amen. Neat. Gosling’s Black Seal 151 if you’ve got the stuff.”
    “Not much call for it, but I do, sir!” he said. “Let me find it.”
    Commander ? Hawke was amazed. Commander had been his rank when, after a successful career, he’d retired from the Navy. Hardly anyone used it anymore.
    And Blackhawke ? Who knew how that had gotten started? No one, save perhaps Congreve, knew that Alex was indeed a direct descendant of the famous pirate. Perhaps it was a creation of the idiotic society reporters in London who relentlessly followed his every move and romantic misadventure. “Blackhawke’s Latest Bird Flies the Coop” was typical of the tabloid coverage he’d endured.
    And there were more than a few captains of industry around the world who, having been broadsided by a Hawke hostile takeover, considered him somewhat piratical. In any event, the swashbuckling sobriquet had stuck, and it amused Hawke no end. He and Congreve alone knew that there was a very real Blackhawke perched atop the uppermost branches of the Hawke family tree.
    “An honor to serve you,” Lillywhite said, placing a healthy tumbler of rum on the bar before him.
    “I only drink on two occasions. When I’m alone or with somebody, Amen,” Hawke said, taking a sip of the dark liquid. “Will you join me in a glass?”
    Amen smiled and shook his head.
    “Haven’t had a drop since my first day here, near to fifty years now. Good Lord surrounds me with temptation, sees what I do. I sometimes imagine myself at the pearly gates. And maybe the Lord might say, ‘You’ve had a long trip, Amen. Would you like a drink?’”
    Alex laughed and said, “I was wondering. Those pictures over there on that wall. How far do they go back?”
    “’Bout fifty years or so, sir,” Amen said. “To the club’s most early days, I think, right after the war. I started working here, let me see, in forty-nine.” Hawke nodded silently, gazing at the wall. Strange, but he found himself studying the jumble of old photographs with solemn intensity. Almost as if he expected to find an old friend or relative amongst the countless strangers.
    He caught Gloria’s eye. She had been standing at the window, watching Congreve and the two Russians stroll down the dock. She walked over, keeping her eyes on the floor, and handed him the handwritten chit. Hawke didn’t even look at it. He took her hand and pressed a folded hundred-pound note into it. He caught her gaze and held it.
    “I don’t know what happened to you last night. But I’m the one who invited those two men to your island and so I feel responsible. I promise you this. They will never, ever bother you again.”
    She looked up at him with gleaming eyes. “You’ll keep them away?”
    “Actually, I plan to put them away,” Hawke said with a smile. “Now, you take care of yourself. Cut some fresh aloe and rub it into those abrasions.”
    “I will,” she said, not looking up into his eyes.
    Hawke paused once more before the wall of photographs on his way to the door. Spying a tiny Polaroid amidst the jumble, he found himself unthinkingly reaching up and plucking it from the wall. Without even looking at it, he stuck it in the breast pocket of his shirt, then walked out into the heat of the tropical sun.
    At the end of the dock, the launch’s powerful twin engines rumbled in the somnolent afternoon. Congreve had raised the hydraulic engine hatch cover and was busy showing off the twin supercharged Rolls-Royce power plants to the Russians. Rasputin had climbed down into the engine room for a closer look.
    “Giving away the latest of Her Majesty’s technology for free, eh, Constable?” Hawke said, looking down from the dock.