Sail said, “I just talked to Captain Rader.”
The warp got deeper in the end of the young cop’s mouth. He switched his flashlight on and off in Sail’s eyes, then hung it from the hook on his belt.
“What about?”
Sail told them what he had talked to Captain Rader about — the kidnapping, which he said he could not understand. In describing Nola and Blick, whom he did not name — he made no mention of having heard their names — he repeated the words he had used over the telephone.
When it was over, the young cop stepped forward, jaw first.
“All right, by God! Now you can tell us the truth!”
The shaking policeman got up slowly, holding his shiny damp cigar and looking miserable. “Now, Joey, that way won’t do it.”
Joey grabbed Sail’s right wrist and squeezed it. “The hell it won’t! Lewis says there was human blood on the dock along with the fish blood!”
The shaking policeman said, “Now, Joey.”
Joey shouted, “A lot of people heard somebody let out a yip. Even over in the park where I was doing the vice squad’s work, I heard it.”
Sail held out his left hand to show the tear in the brown callus of the palm.
“A fishhook made that,” he said. “You saw it bleed. There’s your human blood on the dock.”
Joey yelled, “Mister sailor, we’ve been checking on you by radio. You cleared from Bimini, the customs tells us. We radioed Bimini. You know what? You were asked to get out of Bimini. A gambling joint went broke in Bimini because one of their wheels had been wired and a lot of lads in the know made a cleaning. It ended up in a brawl and the gambling joint owner went to the hospital.”
Joey shook his finger at Sail’s throat. “The British police asked around and it began to look as if you had tipped the winners how to play. The joint owner claimed he didn’t know his wheel was wired. It ended up with you being asked to clear out. The only reason you’re not in the Bimini jug is because they couldn’t figure any motive. You didn’t get a cut. You hadn’t lost any jack on the wheel. You didn’t have a grudge against the owner. It was a screwy business, the British said, from beginning to end. But that’s what they think. I think different. You know what I think?”
“I doubt if it would be interesting,” Sail said dryly.
“I think you outfoxed ’em. You’re a smooth article. That’s what you think. But you can’t pull this stuff here.”
The shaking policeman said, “You haven’t got a leg, Joey,” between teeth clicks.
“I’ll sweat the so-and-so until I got a thousand legs!”
The freezing policeman groaned, “You should have your behind kicked, Joey.”
Joey released Sail’s right wrist to frown at the other officer. “Listen, Mister Homicide—”
The shaking policeman got between Joey and Sail and stood there, saying nothing. Joey frowned at him, then sucked at his lower lip, pulling it out of shape.
“Hell, if you gotta run this, run it!” he said.
He turned and stamped up the companion, across the deck and, judging from the sounds, had some kind of an accident and nearly fell overboard getting from the boat to the dock, but finally made it safely.
The other policeman, grinning without much meaning in it, extended a hand which, when Sail took it, was hot and unnatural. After he held the hand a moment, Sail could feel it trembling.
“I’m Captain Chris of homicide,” the officer said. “I want to thank you for reporting your trouble to Captain Rader, and I want to congratulate you on your narrow escape from those two. But next time, don’t take such chances. Never fool with hop and guns. We’ll let you know as soon as we hear anything of your attacker and his girlfriend or sister, whichever she was. I hope you have a good time in Miami in the meantime. We have a wonderful city. Florida has a wonderful climate.” He shook with his chill.
The rabbity man, Lewis, who had not said anything, finished putting things in his bag, picked up a camera with a photoflash attachment which had been unnoticed on a bunk, and went up the companion, stepping carefully, as one who was not used to boats. He got onto the dock carefully with bag and camera. Captain Chris followed.
Sail said, “Quinine and whiskey is supposed to be good for malaria. But only certain quinines.”
“Thanks,” said Captain Chris. “But I think whiskey gave it to me.”
They walked away, and young Joey was the only one who looked back.
The tide stood at flood slack, the water still, so that things did not float away. Something bright was bobbing on the water, and Sail got a light. He found five of the bright things when he hunted. Used photographic flashlight bulbs, with brass bases not corroded enough by the salt water for them to have been in long. Sail went below and looked around. Enough things were out of place to show the hooker had been searched. Fingerprint powder had not been wiped off quite well enough.
Sail catnapped all night, sleeping no more than a half hour soundly at any one time. He spent long periods with a mirror which he rigged to look out of the companion without showing himself.
On a big Matthews cruiser tied across the slip, somebody was ostensibly standing anchor watch. Boats lying at a slip do not usually stand on anchor. The watcher did not smoke and did not otherwise allow any light to get to his features. It was dark enough that he might have been tall or short, wide or narrow. The small things he did were what any man would do during a long, tiresome job, with one exception.
He frequently put a finger deep in his mouth and felt around.
Party fish boats making noise on their way out of Pier Five furnished Sail with an excuse to go on deck at about six bells. He stood there yawning, rubbing his head with his palms and making faces. He rubbed a finger across his chest and rolled up little twists and balls of dirt or old skin, after which he took a shower with the dock hose.
The watcher was not around the Matthews in the morning sun. Sail went below to don a pair of black shorts which washing had faded.
Sail’s dinky rode in stern davits, bugeye fashion, at enough of a tilt not to hold seas or spray, and Sail lowered it. He got a brush and the dock hose and washed down the topsides, taking off dried salt that seawater had deposited on the hull. He dropped his brush in the water three different times; it sank, and he had to reach under for it.
The third time he reached under for the brush, he retrieved the stuff which the Greek’s clothing had yielded the night before. The articles had not worked out of the nook between the dock cross braces underwater where Sail had jammed them after swimming back from the island where he had taken the dead Greek.
Sail finished washing down, hauled the dink up on the davits, and during the business of coiling the dock hose around the faucet in the middle of the dock, he worked his eyes. Any one of a dozen staring persons within view might have been the watcher from the Matthews. The other eleven would be tourists down for a gawk at the yachts.
Sail took the Greek’s stuff out of the dink when he got the scrub brush. He went below. Picking the business cards apart was a job because they were soaked to pulp. He examined both sides of each card as he got it separated. One card said Captain Santorin Gura Andopolis of the yacht Athens Girl chartered for Gulf Stream fishing and that nobody caught more fish. The address was Pier Five. I live aboard, was written in pencil on the back.