"Six spades doubled," I announced. "Nine hundred and ten."
"Way to go, partner," said Betty. "Well played."
"Luck," said Kreiske. He was a grumbler. "Could have gone either way."
"Sheer luck," his wife agreed.
But, as you can see, luck had nothing to do with it. Still, I have to admit that Sammy has a point about my luck, for there have been times when I've done something thoughtless, or careless, or downright stupid, and the luck has pulled me through. That's the way it was earlier that day, before we sailed, when I staked out Weiss's home in Port St. James. He lived on a shady, well-kept street lined with cookie-cutter houses, the sort of street where you express your individuality by the color of your garage door and the size of the flamingo on your lawn. Weiss's door was lime green, and his flamingo wouldn't have broken any records. For no good reason, I was disappointed. I had expected more of a statement from a man who made his living making other people laugh.
I got there early in the morning, parked down the street, and waited for him to show. The Queen sailed at five in the afternoon, and so I had plenty of time, but, despite what Sammy had said about covering him, I wanted to see him on his home grounds and familiarize myself with the way he moved. I settled down to wait with the motor running, the air on high, and that was the first stupid thing I did that day. I wasn't there twenty minutes when the cruiser pulled up, and parked behind me. Two cops got out, and came over. They both wore dark glasses, and one of them was chewing a toothpick.
I lowered the window, and said what everybody says. "What's the problem, officer?"
Toothpick said, "Would you step out of the car, please?"
"I'm just sitting here."
"Out, please. Now." I stepped out into the heat, and he said, "License and registration, please."
I gave him the papers. He looked them over, and gave them back. "Mr. Slade, do you have any business around here?"
"No, just passing through."
"Parked at the curb?"
"Is it a no-parking zone?"
He didn't like that. "Do you know anyone in this neighborhood?"
"Not a soul."
"Then I'm going to ask you to keep on moving."
"You running me?"
"That's it."
"I don't get it. What did I do?"
"It isn't what you did, it's what you're going to do." He shifted the toothpick to the other side of his mouth. "You are going to drive straight down Mason Street to the first light, hang a left onto Cordell, and go four more lights to the entrance to the Interstate. You will not stop for a cup of coffee, you will not stop to rest your weary head, you will barely even stop for the lights along the way. You will get onto the Interstate, north or south, makes no difference, and you will leave the confines of Port St. James at once. That's what you will do. Have I made myself clear?"
"Clear enough, but I'm not sure that you can do this."
"Mr. Slade, I assure you I can. I can do it hard, or I can do it easy. Which is it going to be?"
I couldn't figure it. Sometimes a cop will run a stranger in a small town, but not when the small town is in south Florida where strangers are the bread and the butter. Still, I should have done it. I should have tugged my forelock, and gone quietly, but that would have left Weiss uncovered, and so I made my second stupid move of the day. I reached for my wallet, and both cops stiffened. I smiled. I showed them the silver shield and the green plastic card that identified me as Commander Benjamin Slade, Office of Naval Intelligence, Criminal Investigation Division. Toothpick wasn't impressed.
"Around here that doesn't mean shit," he said. "I know a place in Miami where you can buy one of those things for ten bucks." "Not one like this."
Toothpick asked his partner, "What do you think, Eddie?"
"The lieutenant said to run him."
"He didn't say anything about the U.S. Navy."
"I don't work for the Navy, I work for the lieutenant."
"Yeah, there's that." Toothpick asked me, "You gonna move?"
"Sorry, but I can't oblige you."
"Have it your way."
He was quick, and he was good. He hit me once in the belly, doubled me over, and clipped my head with his knee as I went down. The pain burst in my cheek, and went to my neck. I tried to get up, and he gave me the knee again. This time I lay on the ground without moving.
"Get up," said Toothpick."
"Not me," I told him. "I like it down here."
They threw me into the cruiser and took me to the substation, one of them driving my car. They turned me over to a lieutenant named Ford. He was short and tubby, and he looked as if his shoes hurt. When he saw my face, he glared at the cops.
"I told you to run him," he said. "I didn't tell you to make hamburger out of him."
The two cops shifted uncomfortably. Toothpick put my ID on the desk. Ford stared at it, and said, "What the hell is this? The navy?"
Eddie said, "You said to run him, boss, but he wouldn't run."
"The fucking U.S. Navy?"
"He wouldn't run," Eddie repeated stubbornly.
Ford's mouth opened and closed a couple of times. He looked like an unhappy fish. He suddenly shouted, "Get out of here. Get the hell out of here."
The cops went out. Ford peered at my face. "That hurt much?"
"I can live with it."
"Sit down, sit down." He got a bottle of Wild Turkey out of a desk drawer, poured into paper cups, and handed me one. "That should take the edge off it. What the hell have we got here?"
"Your people tried to run me. I got sore, and I showed them the tin. Then the fun started."
"You working?"
"If I were, would I tell you?"
"No, I guess not. You should have let them run you. I mean, what the hell?"
"I know. Like I said, I got sore."
"Not so good in your line of work. If it is your line of work." He tapped my ID with a fingernail. "Take me an hour to check this out. If it's a phony, you could tell me now and save us some time."
"It's real, all right. Look, I'll show you. Port is left, starboard is right. That's sailor talk. Can I go now?"
"Jesus, one of those." He sighed, and pushed himself out of his chair. "Sit there like a good little sailor, and don't move."
He went out, and came back in a few minutes. "Like I said, about an hour."
"What do I do for an hour, just sit here?"
"You want to pass the time, you can tell me why you were staking out the Weiss house."
That didn't figure. I'd been parked up the street. "You've got me. What's a Weiss house?"
He sighed again. "Suit yourself."
He went to work on some papers, and ignored me after that. I sat back, stared at a wall, and wondered how I was going to explain this one to Sammy. He had to find out. The computer check would go to the ONI, but then it would be shunted to the Center. The check would come back confirmed, but Sammy would see the paperwork. Lie, I decided.