“Nasty up here,” Grew said.
“Yes,” David replied.
“How fast will she go?”
“Twenty, twenty-five knots.”
“No faster?”
“This isn’t a destroyer, Mr. Grew.”
“More’s the pity,” Grew answered.
“Getting off some correspondence?”
“What?”
“The typewriter,” David said.
“Oh.” Grew hesitated. “Yes.”
“What line are you in, Mr. Grew?”
Grew hesitated for another moment. He smiled broadly then, as though pleased with the answer he had formulated. “Communications,” he said.
David pulled the throttle out a notch, realizing at the same instant that the typewriter below had stopped when Grew came up on deck,
“Your secretary’s goofing off,” he said.
“Eh? Oh, is she?” Grew seemed to remember something. “I’d better get below.”
He went below and in a moment the typewriter started again. A gull swooped low over the boat, decided it was not carrying any fish, and went screaming off.
Suddenly David felt Wanda’s presence beside him.
“How does it feel?” she asked.
“How does what feel?”
“Being a sailor.”
“Like being a millionaire,” David said, smiling. “Minus the million bucks.”
Wanda sucked in a deep breath and threw back her head, the ponytail trailing down her back. “It smells good,” she said. “The water. You can smell the salt and the fish.” Suddenly she pointed off the starboard bow and said, “Look!”
David followed her finger, picking out the yellow speck in the sky. “Coast Guard helicopter,” he said.
Wanda took off her glasses, squinted, reached for a handkerchief in the pocket of her trench coat, began wiping off the lenses of her glasses. He studied her eyes. They were slightly tilted, almost Oriental, a deep gray reflecting the somber water, flecked with chips of white.
“You’re prettier without them,” he said.
“Thanks,” she answered. “I’m also blind as a bat without them.” She put the glasses on again, peered out over the water to where the helicopter was closer now, its roar filling the sky. David watched the craft as it dropped closer to his boat. He saw an enlisted man in the cockpit toss out a rope ladder, and then an officer in grays climbed over him and started down toward the boat. The enlisted man wrestled with the controls, trying to keep the plane hovering over the boat. The officer was a lieutenant j.g. He clung to the last rung of the ladder for an instant, then dropped to the Helen’s deck.
“You David Coe?” he asked.
“Yes,” David said.
The j.g.’s eyes flicked Wanda briefly. “Hate to break up your party,” he said.
“What is it, Lieutenant?” David asked, miffed by the j.g.’s implication.
“The Sun City Police would like to see you, pal. Seems you talked to a Sam Friedman this morning on the telephone?”
“What about it?”
“You were the last guy to talk to him. He was shot to death about an hour ago. They found him with eight bullets in his head and chest.” The lieutenant paused long enough to see the shock spread across David’s face. “You better pull into Madeira Beach,” he said. “The cops sounded kind of impatient.”
The room could have been a broom closet. There was a square, scarred desk with a chair behind it. There was a bulletin board and a battery of green metal filing cases. There was a shaded lightbulb hanging over the desk and there was a window with dust-covered Venetian blinds hiding it. There was a door with a frosted-glass panel, and on the other side of the frosted glass were lettered the words DETECTIVE DIVISION. A narrow wooden plaque on the desk read: LIEUTENANT MAUROW.
Maurow was a big man with a thatch of red hair. His eyes were pale blue, as cold as a swimming pool in January. He had thick lips and a mole close to the deep cleft in his chin. He studied David and his eyes said nothing and his mouth said nothing. He picked up a pencil and tapped it on the desk.
“What do you do, Coe?” he asked.
“I own a boat.”
“Why’d you call Sam Friedman this morning?”
“I just called him socially,” David said. “Sam was one of my best friends.”
“You know anybody named Leslie Grew?” Maurow asked.
David hesitated. “No,” he said.
“Friedman’s secretary tells us you called about eleven thirty or so.”
“Yes. I guess it was about then.”
“What’d you talk about?”
“The weather,” David said.
“Don’t get wise, Coe. I’ve got a jail full of wise guys downstairs. Did you discuss Leslie Grew with him?”
“I don’t know any Leslie Grew.”
“I hope you’re leveling with me, Coe.”
“Why should I lie?”
“Maybe you’re just a natural liar. Maybe you’d lie if I asked you your own name.”
“Maybe. Why don’t you ask me?”
Maurow looked at him steadily, narrowly.
“You don’t know Leslie Grew, huh?”
“No.”
“A certain police department up north a ways is looking for him.” Maurow smiled. “You still never heard of him?”
“No,” David said.
“Grew and Meadows,” Maurow said. “Meadows is the secretary. Funny, too.” He shrugged massive shoulders. “I guess work is hard to find.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean Grew and Meadows are both wanted. They’re wanted bad. That police department is in a small town, a very small town. That doesn’t mean we don’t cooperate with them, though. We got a teletype just a little while after Friedman’s body turned up. Told us they might try to contact him. We got the teletype just a little too late.”
“What are they wanted for?” David asked.
“Grand theft,” Maurow said. “Your pals are heeled, too.”
“Guns?”
“A gun. A souvenir Luger, missing from Grew’s desk. You see any suspicious-looking Lugers lately?”
“I wouldn’t know a Luger if I did see one,” David lied.
“You’re a pretty ignorant fellow for somebody who went through the Italian campaign, ain’t you?”
“Sometimes,” David said.
“Is it true Friedman pulled you away from a grenade once in Italy and maybe saved you from being a splash on the Italian countryside?”
“Yes.”
“Then why are you protecting his murderers?”
“I’m not.”
“You’re protecting Grew and Meadows, aren’t you? You called about Grew this morning, didn’t you? That’s what your conversation with Friedman was about. Isn’t that right?”
“No.” David paused. “I don’t know anyone by those names.”
“You couldn’t miss this babe, Coe. She’s a blonde, and she has it all in the right places. She’s also wearing glasses. What do you say?”
“I don’t know any blondes who wear glasses.”
“I don’t think very kindly of you for making things tough for us.” Maurow paused. “Don’t spit on the sidewalk, Coe. And don’t speed, and don’t do a lot of things you may not even know about. This city has a lot of ordinances, and we’ll be waiting for you, Coe. Now get out of here.”
David headed for the deserted dock alongside which he’d berthed the boat, thinking of Sam Friedman and allowing his murder to build a cold, festering rage inside him. He knew that neither Wanda nor Grew could have committed the murder. He’d spoken to Sam on the telephone and then gone directly to the dock to find Grew and the girl waiting for him. After that neither had been much out of his sight.