I had to get out to the watchman’s shanty and call the police. But then the whole thing caught up with me. This wasn’t an accident I had to report. I’d killed him in a fight. I’d hit him and knocked him off the pier, and now he was dead. It wasn’t murder, probably, but they’d have a name for it – and a sentence.
Well, there was no help for it. I started wearily to get up, and then stopped. The police were only part of it. What about Barclay? And the others I didn’t even know? This was one of their boys.
Suddenly, I wasn’t thinking of the police any more, or of Barclay’s hoodlums, but of Shannon Macaulay. And the Ballerina. Of course, the whole thing was off now. Even if I didn’t get sent to prison, with those mobsters after me and convinced I had some connection with Macaulay I was no longer of any use to her.
No, the hell with reporting it. Sure, I regretted the whole thing. But I was damned if I was going to ruin everything just because some vicious little egomaniac couldn’t leave well enough alone. Leave him down there. Say nothing about it – I stopped.
How? Christiansen knew he was in here. I was all marked up. In a few days, in this warm water, the body would come to the surface, with the back of his head caved in and bruises all over his face. I didn’t have a chance in the world. He’d merely come in here to see me, and had never come out. That would be a tough one for the police to solve.
Of all the places in the world, it had to happen on a pier to which there was only one entrance and where everybody was checked in and out by a watchman – No. Wait. Not checked in and out. Just questioned as they came in. No books, no passes. And the watchman only waved them by as they went out.
It collapsed. It didn’t mean anything at all, because nobody had gone out. Christiansen would never have any trouble remembering that when the police came checking.
There had to be a way out of it. I looked across the dark waterway. Everything was quiet along the other side; there was nothing except an empty warehouse, a deserted dock. Nobody had seen it. Barclay probably didn’t even know the pug had come out here. He’d done it on his own because he couldn’t rest until he’d humiliated a bigger man who’d knocked him down. There was nothing whatever to connect me with it except the simple but inescapable fact he’d driven in here to see me and had never driven out again— I stopped. Driven? No. I hadn’t seen any car. But how did I know there wasn’t one out there? The shed was dark. I got a flashlight and checked. There it was in the corner of the shed. All I had to do was drive it out past the watchman, and the pug had left here alive. It was as simple as that.
Out at the gate the light was overhead, and the interior of the car would be in partial shadow. The watchman’s shack would be on the right. I could hunch down in the seat until I was about the pug’s size. All the watchman ever did was glance up from his magazine and wave. He wouldn’t see my face; nor remember afterward that he hadn’t. It was the same car, wasn’t it? The man had driven in, and after a while he had driven out.
Wait. I’d still have to get back inside without Christiansen’s seeing me. But that was easy too. It must be nearly eleven now. Chris went off duty at midnight. All I had to do was wait until after twelve and come back in on the next man’s shift. He wouldn’t know where I was supposed to be, or care.
I walked over to the car, flashed the light in, and saw there were no keys. I leaned wearily against the door. I knew where the keys were, didn’t I? It would take only a minute. Revulsion swept me.
But I knew it had to be done. I dove down, emptied his pockets, and came up to surface again. I hadn’t looked at his face. It took me a few minutes to clear the gear I’d used. Then I tried to fix up my face with hot water applications. After that I changed into dry clothes that were similar in color to the ones he’d been wearing. I dried his keys and started his car.
I hunched down in the seat and drove up to the gate slowly. Chris was in the shack, pouring coffee out of a thermos. He looked over casually, waved a hand, and turned back to his coffee.
I drove the car uptown – away from the waterfront, parked it on a quiet street, and threw the key far into a vacant lot. I was free of him now, the poor little punk. Why couldn’t he have stayed away?
At twelve-thirty I stepped into an all-night drugstore and called a cab. I hoped the driver couldn’t see my face.
We passed the last street and were approaching the gate.
He braked to a stop in front of the shanty. The 12-to-8 watchman was looking out the window. “Manning,” I called out, keeping my face in shadow. He lifted a hand.
“All right, Mr Manning.”
The cab started to move ahead, then stopped. Somebody was calling out from the shack. “Mr Manning! Just a minute –”
I looked around. The watchman was coming out. “I almost forgot to tell you. A woman called about ten minutes ago –”
I wasn’t listening. I stared at the window of the shack. Old Chris was looking out, a puzzled frown on his face.
The other watchman was still talking. “– Chris was just about to walk out and tell you. He said you was on the barge.”
I couldn’t move, or speak. Chris was standing beside him now, looking in at me. “Son of a gun, Mr Manning. I didn’t see you go out.”
I fought to get my tongue broken loose from the roof of my mouth. “Why – I –” It was impossible to think. “Why, I came out a while ago. Remember? When my friend left. We drove out to have a couple of beers. It must have been a little before twelve—”
“You was in that car?” He peered at me dubiously. “I looked right at it, too, and didn’t even see you. I must be getting absentminded. I was about to walk all the way out there to the barge and tell you that woman called—”
He broke off suddenly, concerned. “Why, Mr Manning. What’s wrong with your face?”
I was rattled now, but I tried not to show it to these two old men who meant well, but who would remember everything they saw later on.
“Oh,” I mumbled, feeling my face as if I were surprised at the fact of having one. “I – uh – I was getting something out of the storeroom and fell.”
“Well, that’s too bad,” he answered solicitously. “But you ought to put something on them cut places. Might get infected. You never know. I think it’s the climate around here, the muggy air, sort of—”
“Yes,” I said. “Yes. Thanks.”
I got rid of the cabbie, who’d be the third guy to answer any questions asked by the police – or Barclay’s bunch of killers.
I tried to think. How much chance did I have now? In a few days he’d float up, somewhere along the waterfront, and the police would start looking. One of the first things they’d do would be to question all the guards along the piers.
Float up? That was it. He couldn’t float up. I had to stop it. I looked downward again, and shuddered. Could I go back into that place once more? Once? It would take at least a half dozen dives to do it, to make him fast with wire to the bottom of one of those pilings. Too much precious time and breath were wasted in going down and coming up.
There was just one more thing, I thought, and then we had it all. Carter would be back from New Orleans sometime this morning, here aboard the barge, and I wouldn’t be able even to look.
I fought with panic. I still had a chance, I told myself. They might never connect me with it. After all, there was no identification on him now that I’d shoved the wallet into the muck. They wouldn’t have a picture of him, except possibly one taken as he looked when he came up. Chris might not have had a good look at him when he came in the gate.