“Ahoy the Stardust,” Jim Coleman’s voice came through the fog. “OK to come aboard?”
Gortoff sighed. He leaned over the schooner’s edge. “What’s on your mind, Jim?”
“A guest at the Inn says he’s a friend. Wants to see you. Name’s Padgett.”
Gortoff thought quickly. The name didn’t ring a bell. And he didn’t want Coleman aboard the Stardust. He didn’t want anyone aboard the schooner that night. “I’ll be with you in a minute, Jim.” He returned to the cabin, threw on a blazer, and locked the cabin door. “Who is this Padgett?” he asked as Coleman moved the dinghy back to shore.
“I don’t know. Never saw him before. He just came into the bar and asked the barman on duty if you were around. Said he was a friend.”
Gortoff made no comment. “I’ll probably sail on the tide, Jim. Anything for me to sign, I’ll stop in the office before I leave.”
“Expect to be gone long, sir?”
“No. I should be back Friday.” Gortoff looked back at the Stardust. “Just a shake-down cruise. I may leave for the winter in another couple weeks. I’ll see this Mr. Padgett in the bar. See you later.” He walked up to the inn while Coleman made fast the dinghy to the dock.
Padgett was alone at the bar. Gortoff looked at him from an alcove, unseen from the bar and lounge. He saw a tall, blonde, tanned — a little on the sallow side — solitary drinker. He was neither well dressed nor shabby. He appeared neither out-of-place nor as a typical guest of the Stardust Inn. He saw Gortoff for the first time in the bar mirror.
“I’m Gortoff,” the swarthy, older man announced himself at a discrete nod from the barman. “Did you want to see me?”
“Why, yes,” Padgett smiled. “Join me?” He rose from the bar stool and shook hands with the Stardust Inn owner.
“In the lounge?” Gortoff suggested. He turned to the barman. “The usual, John, and whatever Mr. Padgett’s drinking — in the lounge.” The kilo man and the N Man walked together into the carpeted lounge. They made small talk on the Stardust, the inn and the fog while they were served their drinks.
When the barman left, Gortoff looked at Padgett. “What was it you wanted, Mr. Padgett? I don’t think we’ve met before.”
Padgett decided a direct approach would be more effective. He had the advantage of knowing who Gortoff was. “I’d like to take over Bello’s deal with you, Karl.”
“You’d like to take over what? Whose deal?”
“Bello’s.” Padgett smiled. “His end of the San Francisco H traffic.”
“I don’t have any idea of what you’re talking,” Gortoff shot back at him.
“Let me explain, Karl,” Padgett spoke in a low voice. “I was with Bello when those hopheads outside your place on Turk Street caught up with him tonight. I was pressuring him myself for some of the powdered sugar he pushed earlier in the day. I tailed him from the time he called you earlier this evening. I got him away from that mob of junkers who tore your Grant Street apartment to pieces. I had a lot of trouble convincing him he should lead me to you. In fact I had to work him over with the wrong end of a 38 once or twice during the earlier part of the evening. I’ll say one thing for Tony. He was loyal to you ’til the going got really rough.”
Gortoff didn’t blink an eye as Padgett continued with his effort to win the kilo man’s confidence. “Your conversation is amusing, Mr. Padgett, even if it isn’t of interest.” He toyed with his drink, a liqueur, and looked straight into Padgett’s blue eyes. “Go on.”
Padgett talked. He named names and places, that could be known only to an initiated addict or pusher in the San Francisco narcotics world. He sold Gortoff when he told him of the works found in his own bath at the Grant Avenue apartment.
“Did you find the hypo?”
“No. I was keeping an eye on Bello. I wanted to get him away from that mob of junkers. They were ready to kill him.”
“You know, Mr. Padgett, you could be a smart policeman, or an N Man.”
“I could be, Karl. But I’m not. I came here from the East a year ago. Things were a little hot around East 21st Street in Manhattan. You probably have the connections. Check me out. I’ve got an FBI record as long as your arm. And it’s not the kind of a record that a stoolie might have.”
“I’m not worried about you being a stool pigeon, Mr. Padgett. I can predict the actions of a stool pigeon and handle them. As a matter of fact, I can smell a stool pigeon. And I know how to handle them. But the Bureau of Narcotics has some smooth workers today. I know for a fact that at least one junker in every city is an N Man in disguise. And I know all about their ability to take a phoney fix and shoot the stuff right through the skin into a shirt sleeve or on to the floor. Let’s go out to my boat. We can talk more there. I might just have a proposition for you.”
“Good,” Padgett smiled. “So far I’ve had to do all the talking. I’m a good listener, Karl.”
“Excuse me,” Gortoff rose from the lounge table. “I have some things to look after in the office.” He beckoned to the hovering waiter. “Tell John at the bar, we’ll have another round here, please.”
Padgett watched the heavy-set inn owner, bar owner, schooner-owner and kilo man move away. In his white flannels and blue blazer, he fitted the former three roles more appropriately, in appearance, than the latter. “He’s smooth,” the N Man thought, “and not sold on me yet. And he’s probably damned dangerous.”
In the office, Gortoff quickly signed checks presented by the manager and initialed some invoices. He made a long distance call to Rosarito Beach, down in Lower California, giving only a time, a latitude and longitude and a date. From a spring compartment in the office desk, he removed a flat Beretta, dropped it into his blazer pocket, and returned to Padgett.
“Have time for a short cruise?”
“My time is your time, Karl.”
“Good. We’ll be gone a couple days — down to Rosarito Beach — should be back up here by Friday.”
“Do we go ashore?”
“Why?” Gortoff asked.
“I’ve a passport but it’s only a passable forgery.” He tossed it on the table.
Gortoff examined it with an experienced eye. “It’s more than passable. It’s a good one for a forgery.”
Padgett pointed out the deliberately created flaw in the federal seal. “If you still have doubts, Karl. This little piece of engraving may reassure you. No law or N Man would be running around with a forged passport. And no ex con would have a genuine one.”
Gortoff laughed. “If I had any doubts at this moment, Chris, you’d be on your way into the Bay rather than on to a schooner on the Bay. Let’s go.”
Gortoff started the small electric outboard which silently pushed the dinghy away from the dock. “Ever do any sailing?”
“A little when I was a kid. I know the difference between a main sail and a gib.”
“Good. You can help me get underway. I’ve got a good diesel auxiliary. We won’t use any canvas ’til daylight.”
Sea-going traffic was so heavy in the San Francisco area that Padgett never knew if the Coast Guard kept the Stardust under surveillance. And Gortoff was too busy navigating and manoeuvring the schooner to pay particular attention to navigation lights of other ships on port and starboard, on the bow or on the stern. By daylight, San Francisco was no more than a spec on the north-eastern horizon. Gortoff sailed southwest, far off the edge of the U.S. mainland. Then he tacked to a southerly course. At dusk he dropped the Stardust’s sails. He turned to Padgett who was sitting in the cockpit with the schooner’s owner.