Only Johnny Trachetti knew that it wasn’t all right, and that maybe it would never be.
Downpour
This Richard Marsten story was first published as “Murder on the Keys” in the February 1956 issue of Argosy. I don’t know why editors — especially magazine editors — insist on changing good titles to invariably lousy ones. I have always liked this story, and I have always liked my original title for it, which is what appears on it now.
The state of Florida is a Luger.
You think of it as a broad beaver’s tail jutting out into the Atlantic but it isn’t that at all. There’s a perpendicular bar of real estate on the northern end, spreading west to form the muzzle of a pistol, and the muzzle is narrow and thin in comparison to the broad grip of the gun, the way a Luger tapers down to a narrow, lethal grace. You’ll find Sun City curling down like the trigger of the gun, and if you travel down the western side of the notched grip, you’ll find the Gulf beaches. One of those beaches is called Pass-A-Grille, and it’s as much a part of the Luger as the slide mechanism and the clip.
In Pass-A-Grille that week, they talked of nothing but the weather.
The snowstorm had swept through Ontario and Quebec, rampaged into New York State, and then ripped southward. In Tallahassee, Florida, a surprised citizenry awoke to find sleet and snow and a low temperature of thirty-four degrees — and in Pass-A-Grille, there was a cold, steady rain together with high winds.
People came into the diner with the collars of their coats high, their eyes watery from the angry winds that blew raw off the bay. It was a cold March in Florida, and people looked at the skies and said, “It’ll break tomorrow” — but tomorrow never came.
David Coe watched the skies, too.
David owned a boat. It was a thirty-six-footer and not a yacht, but it had a good engine and it managed to earn its keep. When the weather was good, David carried fishing parties. He could usually get up a good party in Pass-A-Grille. His rates were reasonable and he got all kinds of fishermen — when the weather was good. The weather was not good. The weather was lousy, and he was contemplating a pretty lean week when Leslie Grew came down to the docks.
Grew was a thin man with gold-rimmed spectacles, no more than thirty-eight but with the tired look of a man of seventy. His shoulders were hunched, and he took tentative, birdlike steps as he came down onto the wood planking. He glanced over his shoulder every now and then, almost as if he had a nervous tic. He had thin, sandy-brown hair, and it danced on top of his head, rising and falling with the fresh gusts of wind that whipped off the water. He seemed not to notice the rain. He walked directly to where David was squatting on the deck of the Helen, cleaning out the bait well.
“Mr. Coe?” Grew asked. He had a deep voice, surprising because it came up from such a narrow chest.
“Yes?”
“I want to rent your boat.”
David squinted up at him. He was surprised by the unexpected windfall, but he was also suspicious of a man who wanted to go out in this kind of weather.
“How many in your party, Mr.—”
“Grew,” he supplied, and he looked at David long and hard, as if trying to see whether or not the name meant anything to him. “Leslie Grew,” he added and he kept looking, and David simply nodded because the name meant nothing.
“How many in the party?” David asked again.
“Two,” Grew answered.
“How long do you expect to be out?”
“That depends. I’d say a week or so.”
“You and your friend must be hardy fellows,” David said.
“My friend is a woman,” Grew answered. “My secretary.”
“This is a fishing boat. Does your secretary fish?”
“Is the boat for hire or isn’t it?” Grew asked impatiently. “I haven’t the time to argue.”
“I didn’t say I was renting.”
“I’m a friend of Sam Friedman,” Grew said.
“Yeah?”
“Yes. He suggested I try you. He said you would rent us the boat for a week or so. It’s really quite urgent.”
“How well do you know Sam?”
“Not too well,” Grew admitted. “He told me you were in the Army together. He said you were a man to be trusted. Are you?”
“It depends on what I’m entrusted with.” David looked at his watch. “Come back at noon. I want to call Sam first.”
“Certainly,” Grew said. He paused and then added, “We’d like to get under way as soon as possible. We’ll bring our stuff with us when we come.”
“I’m not sure you’re going yet,” David said.
Grew allowed a tiny smile to briefly appear on his face. “I’m willing to gamble, Mr. Coe,” he said.
David walked over to the diner and crowded himself into a phone booth. Sam Friedman worked on the Sun City afternoon daily, and David had known him for a long time. Sam knew the way David felt about things in general, and it sounded strange that he’d recommend Grew and his “secretary.”
When Sam came on, David said, “Hi. David Coe. Sam, who’s Leslie Grew? He wants to rent a boat. He’s also got a girl with him. Why’d you send him to me?”
“I’d like you to take him aboard. I’d appreciate it a lot. It’ll just be for a week or so. The secretary — it’s not what you think it is.”
“Is he in trouble with the law?”
“No.”
“What then? Look, Sam, give it to me. All of it.”
There was a long silence on the line. Sam sighed then and said, “I can’t, David. Not even a part of it. If you take them aboard, you’ll be doing a lot of people a favor. But I won’t try to influence you. I don’t want to be responsible for getting you involved.”
“What’s there to get involved in?”
“I can’t say another word, David.”
“I just wasted a dime,” David said. He paused, sighing. “I’ll think it over. In the meantime, have you got any other interesting business for me? Like smuggling in some Cubans, or heroin?”
“Go to hell,” Sam said, a smile in his voice.
David hung up and went out of the booth and over to the counter. He ordered a cup of hot coffee, and Charlie went over to draw it while David mulled over Leslie Grew and Company. He was still mulling when the coffee came. The diner was empty except for him and Charlie. When the door opened, David didn’t look around.
The fellow who sat down at the end of the counter didn’t leave room for much else. He was at least six-two in his bare soles, and he probably tipped the scales at two-twenty, bone-dry. He was wearing a camel’s hair polo coat and a brown porkpie hat. He had a thick, beefy-looking face with a lot of meat between the ears, and a nose that looked like a segment of corrugated tin roof. His eyes were almost black, set deep into his head. He sat down, and the stool creaked under his weight. He picked up the menu with a hair-shrouded hand.
Charlie ambled over and said, “Morning, sir. See anything you like?”
The man’s voice was like the sound of a hacksaw, high and rasping. “Cup of coffee and a French,” he said.
“Yes, sir,” Charlie answered. “Some weather, huh?”
“Yeah,” the man said. When Charlie brought him his coffee and doughnut, he leaned closer to the counter and said, “My name’s Williston. Harry Williston.”
“Pleased to meet you,” Charlie said.
Williston nodded. “You know everybody in town?”
“Almost,” Charlie answered.
“I’m looking for a friend of mine,” Williston said.