“Who is he?” asked Ratcliffe.
“Friend of Pap’s, he was—”
“Pretended to be,” put in Jude.
“Spanish,” continued Satan, “and ever since Pap gave out he’s been pretty much on our heels. Jude and me worked the thing out and we came to conclude he’d scented, somehow, from Pap, about the hooker I spoke of.”
“The wreck?’
“Yep. Pap was keen on gettin’ extra money into the business of salvin’ her, and I b’lieve he sounded Carquinez,—that’s his name,—and how much he let out takin’ his soundin’s the Lord only knows! Cark’s in the tobacco line. Does a bit of everythin’,—has a shop in the Calle Pedro in Havana and a gamblin’ joint on the front, owns ships. That’s one of them, and Matt Sellers runs her for him. He don’t trouble handlin’ her: sits in the cabin all day smokin’ cigarettes.”
“He’s been after us ever since Pap died,” said Jude, “on and off.”
“It was one of his men got Jude in that doggery down by the wharf and filled her up with rum,” said Satan, turning the brim of his panama down. “Remember I told you—and what she let out the Lord only knows!”
“I didn’t let out nothin’,” said Jude; “only that we were goin’ east this trip, I owns to that.”
“Well, there’s the result of your jaw,” said Satan. “East was good enough for Cark: he’d hunt hell for a red cent. And don’t you be sayin’ you didn’t let out nothin’. Why, I heard you jawin’ about all the money you had when I come in and collared you! Cark believes Pap found that stuff and cached it—that’s what he believes, or my name’s not Tyler.”