As we neared the blinking red lights of the buoys, I thought of something. I said, “Aren’t the cops going to wonder how Dobbs got so far out if we leave his boat docked?”
Ambrose patted my shoulder. “Luckily you have a manager to do your thinking for you, my sinewed but brainless friend. After we land, we’ll aim the boat back out to open water. Eventually it’ll run out of gas and be found drifting. When Dobbs’ body is washed up and the autopsy shows he was full of alcohol, it’ll be obvious he fell overboard in a drunken stupor.”
I wasn’t so brainless that I couldn’t see a big hole in this plan. We were almost to the marked channel now. I cut the throttle way down, swung in a circle and began to back toward the end of the seawall.
“What are you doing?” Ambrose asked.
“You can’t aim a pilotless boat like you do a gun,” I said. “There isn’t a chance in a thousand I could hit the channel if I started it out from shore. It’d crash right into the inner side of the seawall and give the cops something to wonder about. So we’ll land on the seawall, aim it outward from here, then walk along the wall to shore.”
I was making sternway at too sharp an angle. I shifted to ahead, pulled forward several yards and tried again. I had to maneuver several times before I got it just right, but I finally managed to slide the boat gently against the end of the cement wall with its bow pointed outward.
About a dozen seagulls roosting on the wall flapped away when the hull scraped the cement.
Ambrose jumped onto the wall and held the boat there by the rail. I could hear the cement grinding a little paint off, but it wasn’t doing any serious damage.
I set the rudder so the boat would go straight out from shore, spiked the wheel, engaged the clutch, and gave it just enough gas for headway. Then I scrambled down the ladder. Ambrose had been unable to hold the boat against the thrust of the propeller, and there was already a three-foot gap of water between me and the wall when I mounted the rail.
I made a mighty leap, landed on the wall and crashed into Ambrose, knocked him down. Another flock of seagulls a little farther on flapped into the air.
Ambrose climbed to his feet, examined his hands, then tried to peer around at the seat of his pants. He took out a handkerchief and wiped his hands.
“This wall’s just been painted,” he said.
“That’s not paint,” I told him. “It’s seagull manure.”
A revolted expression formed on his face. He wiped at the seat of his pants with the handkerchief, then tossed it into the water. I led the way along the seawall to where the harbor shore curved around to meet its far end. Roosting seagulls rose at our approach and settled again on other parts of the wall. As we neared the wall’s end, I spotted a pair of blinking red lights and came to an abrupt halt.
“What’s the matter?” Ambrose asked.
“I hope not what I think. We’ll know in a minute.”
We went on and discovered that what I had hoped against was true. The blinking red lights I had seen were on buoys marking another channel. There was seventy-five feet of water between us and shore.
Ambrose said bitterly, “I should never let you think.”
“So we’ll get wet. We’ll just have to swim for it.”
“I can’t swim,” Ambrose announced.
After some unfriendly discussion, we finally solved that problem. Ambrose held onto my belt while I breast-stroked across the seventy-five-foot channel. We climbed out on what seemed to be the public dock. A few fishing tugs were tied up to it, but nobody was around.
“At least I got my pants clean,” Ambrose said, craning around in an attempt to see his seat.
It was about three-quarters of a mile along the curving shore back to where our jalopy was parked. We sloshed along without conversation. Although it was a fairly warm night, we were chilly in our wet clothes. Occasionally I could hear Ambrose’s teeth chattering.
As we reached the Yacht Club pier, I spotted the running lights of a boat just entering the harbor by means of the channel we had used. The lights moved in our direction.
We both halted in front of slip twelve and watched the Bountiful slide smoothly into its slot. The running lights went out and a tall, lean figure descended to the deck and tied up. Then he saw us standing there.
“Hello, fellows,” Dobbs said cordially, examining our wet clothes with interest. “You get a ducking too?”
“Uh-huh,” Ambrose said morosely.
“Lose your boat?”
He had blanked out again. He didn’t even remember us.
I said, “Yeah.”
“Too bad,” Dobbs said with sympathy. “I was luckier.” He indicated his own sopping clothing. “I’m not sure just what happened, because I was drinking a little. First I knew, I was in the water and separated from the boat. You can bet that sobered me up. I swam around for a devil of a long time before it swung back right by me at a speed slow enough for me to climb aboard.”
“You’re a lucky guy,” Ambrose said sourly, his mouth drooping.
In an apologetic tone Dobbs said, “I’d offer you a change of clothes, but I only have one on board. You live far from here?”
“Clear downtown,” Ambrose said.
“Well, if you wait until I change, I have a place near here where you can dry out. It’s not my home, but it has a dryer in it, and something to drink.”
We decided to wait.
Dobbs disappeared below. Ten minutes later he reappeared wearing sneakers, white ducks and a turtle-neck sweater. When he stepped onto the pier he staggered slightly, but instantly righted himself. I realized that while his cold bath had sobered him considerably, he was still about half-stoned.
He glanced around the parking area and looked puzzled when he saw no car but ours.
“How the devil did I get here?” he asked. “I just remembered my car’s in the repair shop.”
He must have a vague recollection of the accident, I thought. Neither of us told him his car wasn’t in a garage, but was spread over a considerable area at Glen Ridge.
“Must have taken a taxi,” he decided. He thrust out his hand to me. “My name’s Dobbs.”
“Willard,” I said.
When he offered his hand to Ambrose, Ambrose said, “Jones.”
“Delighted,” Dobbs said. “How’d you lose your boat?”
“Capsized,” Ambrose said briefly. “It was only a skiff and we were inside the seawall.”
We let Dobbs sit in the back of the jalopy so that we wouldn’t get him wet. He directed Ambrose to drive three blocks south to Main Street, then two blocks west.
“Pull in that driveway,” he said, pointing.
The entrance to the drive was between stone pillars. On one of the pillars was a sign: Dobbs Funeral Home.
Dobbs had Ambrose park by a side entrance and we all got out.
As our host fiddled with a key, I whispered to Ambrose, “I thought this guy was in real estate.”
“Retired,” Ambrose whispered back. “Guess he’s gone into another business.”
Dobbs got the door open and led us into a small foyer. An open door off the left side revealed a business office. Dobbs opened a door to the right, flicked on a light switch and led us down a flight of stairs to the basement.
We passed through a room full of empty caskets into another room where there was a sink, a couple of metal tables on wheels and a counter along one wall containing implements of various kinds. I guessed this was the embalming room.
From a cupboard Dobbs took two folded white cloths which looked like small sheets, except that the material was heavier. He handed one to me and one to Ambrose.
“Sorry I haven’t robes to loan you while your clothing dries,” he said, “but you can wrap yourselves in these.”
We emptied our pockets on one of the embalming tables, stripped off our clothes and wrapped the sheet-like cloths around us like togas. Dobbs carried our clothing, including our shoes, into what seemed to be a service hall off the embalming room. A moment later we heard a laundry dryer start to rotate.