Aground
by
Charles Williams
1960
1
They were down at Miami International between thunder showers at 3:40 p.m. Ingram, a big, flat-faced man with aloof gray eyes and an almost imperceptible limp, followed the other passengers out of the DC-6 into the steamy vacuum left behind by the departing squall. His leg had stiffened a little, as it always did when he had to sit still for very long, and he thrust the foot down savagely against the pull of tendons as taut as winched halyards. He checked through Immigration, and when he was cleared by Customs he waved off the porter with a curt shake of his head, carried the old suitcase out to the lower ramp, and took a taxi downtown to the La Perla, the shabby third-rate hotel he’d first checked into some fifteen days before and had used as a base of operations ever since. There was no mail for him. Well, it was too soon.
“You can have the same room, sir, if you’d like,” the clerk said.
“All right,” he replied indifferently. It commanded a view of a dank airwell, but was cheaper than the outside ones. He signed the registry card and rode the palsied elevator to the third floor. The operator, a bored worldling of nineteen, picked up the suitcase and preceded him down a corridor where flooring creaked beneath its eroded carpet.
The room was high-ceilinged and dim and passably clean, stamped with the drab monotony of all cheap hotel rooms and that air of being ready, with the same weary and impervious acquiescence, for sleep, assignation, or suicide. The bathroom with its old-fashioned tub was just to the left of the doorway. Beyond its corner the room widened to encompass a grayish and sway-backed slab of bed, a dresser marked with cigarette burns and the bleached circular stains of old highball glasses, and, at the far end, beside the window looking into the airwell, a writing desk, on top of which were the telephone, a coin-operated radio, and a small lamp with a dime-store shade. It had begun to rain again. He could see it falling into the airwell beyond the parted slats of the Venetian blind. Looks like the set for an art motion-picture, he thought; all we need is a Message and a couple of rats.
The youth deposited the suitcase on a luggage stand at the foot of the bed and switched on the air-conditioning unit installed in the lower half of the window. Ingram dropped a quarter in his hand. He let it lie there for an insulting half-second before he closed the fingers, and started to look up at Ingram with the bright insolence of the under-tipped, but collided with an imperturbable gray stare that changed his mind. “Thank you,” he said hurriedly, and went out.
Ingram ran hot water into the tub and stripped, hanging his suit in the closet with the automatic neatness of a man accustomed to policing his own loneliness. After rinsing out the drip-dry shirt, he selected a wooden hanger for it and hooked it on the curtain rod. When he got into the tub, he stretched his legs out and put his hands on the knee of the left one, forcing it down against the pull of the tendons. Sweat stood out on his face. It was better, he thought. He’d got rid of the crutches a month ago, and then the cane, just before he’d come up from San Juan. In another month the limp would be gone entirely, and there’d be nothing left but the scar tissue. After a while he climbed from the tub, blotted himself as well as he could with the sleazy and undersized towels, and put on a pair of boxer shorts. The skin across the hard wedge of his back and shoulders and the flat planes of his face had a faint yellowish cast, the residue of old tan faded by weeks in the hospital. The slick, hairless whorls and splotches of scar tissue around his left hip and in back of his left leg still had an ugly look, and would probably never tan again. He made the futile gesture of running a comb through the intransigent nap of graying dark hair, and went out into the bedroom.
He broke the seal on the Haig & Haig pinch bottle he’d bought in Nassau, and poured a drink. He selected one of the thin cigars from the leather case in his suit, lighted it, and looked at his watch on the dresser. He’d better call Hollister and explain what he’d done. He was just reaching for the telephone when someone rapped on the door.
He put down the drink and opened it. There were two men in the dingy hallway. The nearer one crowded the door just enough to prevent its being closed again, and asked, “Your name John Ingram?”
“Yes,” he said. “What is it?”
The other flipped open a folder containing a badge. “Police. We’d like to talk to you.”
He frowned. “About what?”
“We’d better come inside.”
“Sure.” He stepped back. They came in and closed the door. One took a quick look into the bathroom, and then the clothes closet, reaching in to pat the suit hanging there. Ingram went over to the suitcase lying open on its stand at the foot of the bed, and started to reach inside. “Keep your hands out of there,” the other man ordered.
He straightened. “What the hell? I just wanted to put on some pants.”
“You’ll get ‘em. Just stand back.”
The one who’d checked the bathroom and the closet came over and riffled expertly through the contents of the bag. “Okay,” he said. Ingram took out a pair of gray slacks and started to put them on. The two detectives noticed the scars. One of them opened his mouth to say something, but looked again at the big man’s face and closed it.
“Who are you?” Ingram asked. “And what is it you want?”
It was the one near the doorway who replied. “I’m Detective Sergeant Schmidt, Miami Police.” He was a dark, compactly built man in his early thirties with an air of hard-bitten competence about him, neatly dressed in a lightweight suit and white shirt. He nodded to the other. “This is Arthur Quinn. You’re from Puerto Rico—is that right?”
“More or less,” Ingram replied.
“What do you mean, more or less? That’s what the hotel register says.”
“I lived in San Juan for the past three years.”
“What line of work are you in?”
“I was in the boat-repair business down there. Another man and I had a boatyard and marine railway.”
“Is that what you’re doing now?”
“No. We had a bad fire. He was killed in it, and his widow wanted out, so we liquidated what was left.”
“What are you doing in Miami?”
“Looking for a boat.”
“To buy, you mean?”
“That’s right,” he replied. “What’s this all about?”
Schmidt ignored the question. “You checked in here the first time fifteen days ago, but you’ve been gone for the past eight. Where’ve you been?”
“Nassau. Tampa. Key West.”
“When were you in Key West?” Quinn asked. He was a slender, graying man with a narrow face and rather cold eyes. He looked more like the manager of a loan company than a cop, Ingram thought.
“Sunday,” he said. “A week ago yesterday.”
The two men exchanged a glance. “And you went down there to look at a boat?” Quinn asked.
Ingram nodded. “A schooner called the Dragoon. What about it?”
Quinn smiled. It didn’t add any appreciable warmth to his face. “We thought you knew. The Dragoon was stolen.”
Ingram had started to take a drink of the whisky. He lowered the glass, stared blankly at the two men, and went over and sat down beside the desk. “Are you kidding? How could anybody steal a seventy-foot schooner?”
“It seems to be easy, when you know how,” Quinn replied. He moved nearer the desk. Schmidt leaned against the corner of the bathroom and lighted a cigarette.
“When did it happen?” Ingram asked.
“Oddly enough, the next night after you were aboard,” Quinn said.
“And what is that supposed to mean?” Ingram asked quietly.