Koski did a one-hand, up and over. His feet caught Rikky in the chest, drove him against a pyramid of glassware which crashed down. Rikky slashed the bottle at Koski’s abdomen before the lieutenant got his feet under him. Koski twisted, grabbed a fistful of apron high up, yanked viciously and butted his head at the bartender’s chin.
A knife edge of the bottle gashed the lieutenant’s hip like a red-hot wire. But with the impact of Koski’s forehead, Rikky’s chin snapped back, struck a shelf. A mountain of bottles fell on him, cutting his face, drenching him with mint liqueur, cherry brandy, rock and rye.
Koski let go of the apron, wound his fingers in Rikky’s tow hair. He banged the blond head against the back bar hard enough to bring down more bottles, kept banging until a handful of hair came loose in his fingers and Rikky sagged limply to the floor.
Koski wiped his face on a bar towel, turned to the men gawking, wide-eyed, on the opposite side of the bar.
“That’s it,” he mumbled. “Show’s over. Close up now. Don’t crowd, going out.”
The men filed out, swearing under their breaths. Easy Liz wasn’t among them; she’d departed as soon as the fight began, Koski guessed. He couldn’t see her outside on the street, either.
He locked the front door, switched out the sidewalk neon, examined his wound. The bottle had slashed open a foot of his pants leg but only gouged an inch-long tear in the sensitive part of his thigh.
It bled a lot. He doused some of the Jamaica on it, felt the sharp bite of the alcohol. He went to the rear of the joint. Adjoining doors were marked Pointers, Setters.
He tried the first. It was locked.
In the other he found hot water and a roller towel. He used his knife on the towel, made a passable bandage. When he went out, Rikky was on his knees behind the bar, moaning and holding the top of his head in both hands.
“Plenty more where that came from, Tough Stuff.” Koski touched him with a toe. “If you want it.”
Rikky wavered to his feet, groggily.
“Help yourself to a drink.” The lieutenant gestured broadly. “On the house.”
The bartender cursed him, found a broken bottle with a half pint of Irish whisky in it, put the razor-sharp edge to his lips, drank deep. “What’s it all about, copper?”
“You tell me.”
“I was only covering up for a good guy.”
“Covering up for a killer. Poodle Pete got his. You know who gave it to him. Spill.”
Rikky drained the rest of the half pint. “Well. If you know that much. I didn’t want you to catch wise — on Mary a’s account as much as Ken’s.”
“Get to it,” Koski said tightly.
“Liz was right. Ken was looking for a piece of pipe to fix his sink. He found it — somewhere in the Trident yard. Maybe it belonged to some other boat or came out of one. I wouldn’t know.” Rikky inspected a loose tooth in the cracked back-bar mirror. “What I do know is, Pete caught him with the goods, started an argument. Ken got sore, or scared maybe, and took a clout at the old gazink.” He made a brief gesture, clenching his fist, pointing it at the floor. “Down goes McGinty”
“How’d you find that out? Caton come here after slugging Pete?”
“Yeah. He wanted to borrow a few markers — we used to be pretty good friends before the war — so naturally I get a double sawbuck on the line. I ask him why does he need the dough so fast, and he tells me.”
“Said he killed Poodle Pete with the pipe?”
“Shucks, no. Said he crowned him. Thought the old coot might be hurt bad. Wanted to beat it until the thing cooled down, that’s all. Jimminy, I didn’t know he killed Pete!!”
“Mrs. Caton know all this?”
“You can’t prove it by me.” Rikky found another whisky bottle, poured liquor on his palm, rubbed it on his scalp, grimacing. “I s’pose Ken told her something.”
“Let’s go over and find out.”
Rikky flung his fingers out stiffly toward the wreckage. “Aw, have a heart! Leave my place like this? Look at it!”
“Didn’t look so hot to begin with. Come on.” Koski inclined his head toward the door. Rikky slammed a felt hat on his head, groaned with pain, stalked out stiffly.
Koski marched him across to the Trident yard, up the Urchin’s ladder.
Marya came to the torn canvas before Rikky reached the coaming.
“Oh,” she whispered. “Rikky? I thought—”
“Your husband,” Koski put it to her brusquely, “won’t be back right away. As if you didn’t know.”
He stared helplessly at the bartender. He hunched up his shoulders, held his hands out, palms up.
“The brass buttons knew it all, anyway, Marya. I had to tell him I lent Ken some moola to get away.”
She made that quick fluttering movement of fingers to throat again. “He... knows?” She avoided Koski’s eyes.
“I know you made a mistake trying to protect a creep who’d beat the brains out of a harmless old man, Mrs. Caton. Trying to warn him when he came around the boat—”
“Steve!” Mulcahey called loudly, from the foot of the ladder. “We found him.” Marya gasped, tumbled down the companionway, flung herself on a bunk, sobbing. Rikky followed her, fumbled at soothing her.
Koski went to the ladder. “Head bashed in, Sarge?”
“Like you figured, yuh. What do you want us to do?”
Koski told him, quietly and quickly.
“Holy Mother!” The sergeant was startled. “Can such things be?”
“That’s for you to find out, Sarge. The sooner the quicker.” Koski went below.
Rikky was doing his best to console Marya. She wasn’t having any. She crouched miserably at one end of the starboard bunk, dabbing at her eyes with a handkerchief.
Koski sat down opposite her. “You don’t want to feel so bad about losing a guy who’d crack open an old man’s brain and then fix things so you’d be holding the bag.”
“That’s what I’ve been saying!” Rikky muttered.
“Yair. You have so. You told me Ken Caton was a no-good rat who abused his wife and—”
“That’s a lie!” Marya screamed. “A horrible lie!” she repeated more calmly, glaring at the bartender. “You know it’s a lie, Rikky! How can you stand there and let him say things like that about poor Ken when you know he never hurt me or anybody. Why don’t you tell him the truth, Rikky Lundgren! Why don’t you!”
“Maybe, I can make a stab at part of it myself,” Koski said. “I saw that busted compass up in the cockpit — that place in the curtain where somebody tore out a hunk so blood spattered on it wouldn’t be noticed. I’d say there must have been quite a fracas right here on board the Urchin.”
It was so quiet in the cabin Koski could hear a tug hooting for the right of way at Hell Gate. He went on:
“Liz said Pete had been in the Anchor tonight, Rikky. That would have been to tip you off that Ken was going to be away from the boat for awhile, and — stop me if I get it wrong, Mrs. Caton — to warn you what Caton had said, that he didn’t want anyone coming on board while he wasn’t here. Meaning especially you, is my guess.”
Marya watched Rikky like a person hypnotized. Rikky kept his eyes fixed on Koski.
“I expect that was all you needed to get you into the trap, Rikky. From the way Liz talked and the things you let slip yourself, plus the fact you managed to get this babe, to set up an alibi for you—”
“No!” Marya breathed. “I never did.”
“Sure. In reverse, sort of. But an alibi, just the same. What else is it when you don’t contradict his story that your husband’s run away? What do you call it when you phony things up by hollering ‘Ken — Ken,’ when all the time you knew your husband was dead?”