“He’ll take some rescuing this time. It’s murder.”
Two vertical creases formed between Berger’s eyebrows. He chewed on the cigar, morosely. “I don’t like the sound of that.”
“You wouldn’t like the sight of it, either. The murderee was hacked into hunks. We haven’t found all of him, yet.”
“Someone Merrill had a fight with?” The Executive Director clasped his hands behind his neck, began to pace up and down.
“All we know for sure is there was a murder. An engineer from the Ovett yacht is missing. Ansel Gjersten, his name is. And young Ovett’s done a disappearing act. That’s enough to make an arrest.”
“You must be mistaken. I don’t believe Merrill would run away from trouble if it came looking for him. But I’m certain he’d not run away after there was trouble.”
“You wouldn’t be holding out on me?”
“Certainly not.”
“It’d be very nokay. Because we’ll catch up with him, sooner or later. Sooner the better for all concerned. If you hear from him, — or can get word to him, — smart thing for him to do is walk to the nearest station and give himself up.”
“If he’s killed a man in self defense, he’d have given himself up, already. If he killed this engineer for any other reason, Merrill’s probably shipped out of the country by now.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that—”
The maid came in with a white-enameled hand-set. “Call for you, sir.” She plugged it in a wall receptacle, handed the instrument to Koski, departed.
It was Nixon. “On that comparative weight thing...”
“What you make it?”
“Taking the leg into consideration, we arrive at an estimate of a hundred and sixty-seven pounds, five ten and a half.”
Koski thought about that. “It’s not too far from our tentative identification. Ansel Gjersten, engineer, yacht Seavett, Came through Miss Persons.”
“Be nice if those lugs in there would let me know before I run myself ragged.”
“Keep running. Plenty more ground to cover.”
“We covered some of it. Fingered your laundryman for you.”
“Now you’re pitching. Whatsit?”
“Three verticals and a cross-bar stand for initials H.H. together.”
“Reasonable.”
“H.H. stands for Hong Hop.”
“Where’s he push his flatiron?”
“1143 Lowden. Know where that is?”
“Brooklyn somewhere. Red Hook.”
“Reddest part. Heart of the Jungle. Three blocks below the Erie Basin.”
“Sounds like stuff. Heathen Chinese have any record?”
“Clean as a whistle. You going to check on him?”
“Always run ’em out, is my motto. Even if they’re scratch bunts. I’ll be over there before he gets another shirt ironed.”
He was jabbing at the elevator button before he called “So-long” to Berger.
VIII
The Vigilant furrowed the oily blackness of the Gowanus Canal like a plow in soft mud. The funnel of light from her searchlight moved past ramshackle sheds of corrugated iron, a sand-loader on high stilts above a decrepit loading dock, the rotten skeleton of an old tug. Her exhaust clattered hollowly from the factory walls lining the east bank. An over-powering stench of garbage hung over the estuary like a blanket. The scummy surface of the water was littered with floating debris, orange baskets, shoe boxes, refuse wrapped in paper bags...
Mulcahey examined the dial of his strap-watch moodily. “The witching hour, no less. And instead of me making time with my mouse, here we go shagging after another will-of-the-wisp. Which by rights should be up the alley of the Homicide crew.”
Koski manipulated the searchlight so its bright disc focused on a gantry crane which spread its scarecrow arms above a yardful of rusty pipe, discarded plumbing fixtures, junked automobiles.
“The Death Valley boys are on it, Harp. The F.B.I. is on it. Naval Intelligence is sending in a crew of trouble-shooters. The Coast Guard Intelligence is stirring its stumps. They’re all busy. Making inquiries along South Street about the bird with the bandaged puss. Checking on Gjersten’s mother up in Waterford to see what she knows about his acquaintances. Rounding up dossiers on the babe aboard the Seavett, the yacht captain and that dizzy Filipino. Making inquiries about Merrill Ovett. There are a couple of men around the Wyatt girl’s studio in case Ovett shows up. But everybody’s shorthanded; any delay might cost the lives of a lot of good guys out on the Atlantic. They want all the weight on it they can get; could we so kindly cover the waterfront end since we have a little head start on the others.”
“It does not prevent me from registering a slight beef. While you are away hobgobbling with the idle rich, I give my sweethot a buzz; she’s off me for life. Is it my fault I have to work sixteen hours instead of a legitimate eight? Hey!” Mulcahey registered belated astonishment. “What brings out all the brass for this one dead man? Especially since nobody knows who he is? How does one single stiff rate so much attention from the armed forces?”
“You might find out if you keep those Hibernian ears open for what the short-waves are saying.” Koski held the circle of light on a steel bulkhead that marked the end of navigable water. “End of the line. All ashore that’s going ashore.”
“Mrs. Mulcahey raised no radio experts. So I am none too sure I snatch the significance of your remark.” The sergeant manipulated the clutch-lever. Water boiled up around the patrol-boat’s stern. She glided to a dead stop six inches from the bulkhead. “You refer to that crystal gimmick?”
“Yair. The tech lab has it. They tested it out; it could only send or receive on the 2900 band. Not like a regular broadcast receiver. You can’t tune a crystal set; only sends or receives on one fixed frequency. According to the particular crystal you have plugged in. But you can take one crystal out of a set and stick another one in. So that gadget we found could be used on any short-wave set.”
“I begin to gather in a glimmer...”
“Reason the Navy and the Cee-Gee are doing nipups, — the Federal Communications Commission hasn’t permitted broadcasting on 2900 kilocycles for quite a while.”
“Do I comprehend your meaning? It might have been used to talk abroad?”
“Not that far, Marconi. But given enough wattage behind it, with a high enough antenna, no reason it couldn’t get a message to one of those schickel-subs, offshore ten or twenty miles.”
Mulcahey looked as if he was about to sneeze. “That is another color of a horse. We might be bunking up against them Gestapo ginzos?”
“There you go. Start gumshoeing around for a thick-necked Nordic with a guttural accent.” Koski clambered onto planks covered with coal dust. “You ought to lay off those shifting pictures; you’ll be seeing spots in front of your eyes. All the Ratzis aren’t German, by a damn sight. There’s plenty of scum floating around in the good old Oo-Ess who’d like to help the fascists put over their program.”
“True for you. The dirty dogs. Have any of the other johndarmes made inquiry about such an apparatus aboard the Seavett, now?”
“I saw one there, myself. A twenty-five watt set. Cap says it’s only used for communicating with the Cee-Gee.”
“We are not duty bound to take his word, skipper.”
“I’ll say we’re not. Then again, maybe he’s giving us straight but isn’t wise to what’s been going on aboard his command.”