“Prices have gone up so.” She’d had time to figure out her answer. “We thought we could charge twenty-five dollars for taking out a party of four. With meals, that is. But, things the way they are, we’d have to ask forty. There won’t be so many who’ll pay that.”
He nodded sympathetically, wondering why a boat owner whose craft was otherwise so shipshape — or a boatkeeper whose galley pans were so spic and span — would a leave broken compass around like that.
“That’s the kind of difficulty the police aren’t much help on, Mrs. Caton. But if there’s anything else bothering you?”
“Oh, no,” she cried, biting her lip. “There’s nothing. I... I just get so lonely — sometimes — with Ken — away.” She turned aside so he wouldn’t notice the tears in her eyes.
A low whistle shrilled close by; high note, low note, repeated.
She froze, rigid as a child playing still-pond-no-more-moving.
Koski said: “That him?”
Marya nodded.
“Tell him to come on in.” Koski didn’t appear to notice her tension.
She stumbled up the companionway. “Ken!” she called, almost hysterically. “It’s all right, Ken. Come on up.”
Koski was right behind her. He caught her before she got to the head of the ladder, pushed her aside, looked out.
He didn’t see anyone. Or hear anyone. The whistle wasn’t repeated.
When he got to the ground, she leaned out of the cockpit above him, shouting: “Ken! Ken!”
Koski glanced up. “Never mind,” he said. “You’ve warned him enough.”
She shook her head violently, terrified.
“Not that it’ll make any difference,” he told her. “We’ll get hold of him. Don’t fret about that.”
Mulcahey was using the probe pole in the soft mud alongside the float when Koski got back.
“What was the commotion, Steve? Did I not hear some babe crying aloud in the night?”
“Dame on the C-Urchin. Yair. When the Sentinel pulls in, tell ’em to use care with those hooks. We don’t want to mark up — whatever’s down there. No more’n it’s been marked up.”
“ ’Twill be the watchman, then?”
“He’s not around, anyway, Sarge. And I wanted to ask this dame’s husband about that. But he’s not around, either. When the boys get to dragging, you go up and keep a peeper on that cruiser. Something smells fishier’n a week-old halibut.”
Koski strode away. Everything was quiet on the Caton boat when he went past and out to City Island Avenue.
At the delicatessen whose card had been in the cap, he asked about the Catons. The proprietor was obliging, but wary. He was sorry, but he couldn’t remember seeing Marya or her husband for some time. If the matter was urgent—
Koski said it was urgent, all right.
The delicatessen man frowned. Had the lieutenant asked at the Anchor? The Catons frequently dropped in at the Anchor.
“Thanks,” said Koski. “I’ll do the same.”
The bar-and-grill with the pink neon anchor over its door was practically opposite the Trident Yacht Club. Through grimy windows, Koski could see a long bar, a kaleidoscopic juke box, half a dozen tables covered with red-checkered cloth. A dozen waterfront characters were draped over the bar. At one table sat a solitary woman.
The blare and beat of Harry James greeted him as he swung open the door:
The stench of stale beer, rank tobacco, sour sweat and strong disinfectant had the force of a blow. The men at the bar turned to eye the newcomer. None of them looked like the photograph on the C-Urchin’s bulkhead.
Only the woman greeted Koski. She was a scrawny specimen of indeterminate age, with red-rimmed eyes and a shiny beacon of a nose.
“Ah-ha,” she hiccoughed loudly. “Me old chum! Me bucko mate and buddy! Pull up one of m’knees an’ siddown, pal.”
Koski smiled, striding toward the bar. “How they going, old-timer?”
“Down.” She lifted an empty whisky glass. “When I c’n get ’em.” She hiccoughed again, drooped over the table.
“Rum,” Koski murmured to the bartender, a blond wide-shouldered youth with sunbleached hair like new rope ends and a homely genial face. “Demerara, if you have it.”
The barkeeper grinned cheerfully. “We used to carry that stuff, but our customers couldn’t. How’s Jamaica?”
“Jake.”
The man behind the bar slopped three fingers of the molasses-brown liquor into a glass. “Something with it?”
“Little information.” Koski held out a half-dollar. Under it, in the hollow of his palm, the gold badge with Marine Division in blue enamel.
The bartender raised one eyebrow. “Don’t know’s I can furnish that, either. What’s it?”
“Seen Poodle Pete tonight?”
“Nah. Hardly ever do. He don’t patronize high-grade joints like ours.” Candid gray eyes smiled along with the wide, homely mouth. “Pete belts that buck-a-bottle sherry around, for his. What you want him for?”
“Seems as if the old guy might have got himself hurt. Just checking around to find out.” He took the rum straight. “Ken Caton been in here tonight? Or Mrs. Caton?”
Suspicion clouded the gray eyes instantly. “Neither hair nor hide of ’em.”
“Mmm.” Koski shoved the glass across the bar. “Ask your regulars if they’ve run across him this evening.”
The bartender hesitated, scowling. Then he shrugged.
“Any you boys seen Ken lately?” he asked.
“Not me.” “Not since last night, Rikky.” “That creep? Uh-uh.” The bunch at the bar were curious but unconcerned.
The woman at the table spoke up, thickly. “I seen him. At the chandler’s. He was buyin’ a piece of pipe.”
“Ah, shut up, Lize.” Rikky made a pushing-away gesture with his palm. “You were prob’ly seeing double.”
One of the drinkers, standing close to Koski, bobbed his head sideways toward the woman at the table.
He said: “Easy Lizzie can point you out pink ellyfants, if you want ’em.” He laughed uproariously.
“Easy” Liz swung around, making her chair creak. “Yah! You crumb bums! I know Ken Caton all right. Know all ’bout him.” She hiccoughed, got heavily to her feet.
Rikky swaggered around the bar. “That’ll be all from you, now, Liz. You’re schwocked! Shuddup!”
Unsteadily, she waved him away. “Got a ri’ t’say — what I please. Know all ’bout Ken — rotten way he treatsh — treats — sweet li’l wife ’f hish — rotten, shtinkin’ temper ’f his—”
Rikky grabbed her, pushed her toward the door.
Koski moved swiftly, caught the bar-keep’s arm just as Easy Liz was bellowing: “You was shayin’ shame thing yourself, tonight, Rikky Lundgren. Y’know you said jus’ them very words to Poodle!”
Koski said: “Keep your hair on, brother. Let’s hear what she has to say.”
“Ah! This old frowz don’t know what she’s talking about. She’s plastered right up to the ceiling!” Rikky glared. “Sign there over the bar says we don’t serve intoxicated people. One side, mister.” He shoved Easy Liz to the door. The men at the bar circled them.
Koski swung the bartender around. “Leave her alone.”
Rikky spat in his eyes.
In the second it took Koski to blink his back vision Rikky reached the bar, snatched a half-empty whisky bottle, swung it behind him, smashed it on the mahogany back bar. He held the jagged remainder out before him, retreating behind the bar.