“Let’s just call it curiosity.”
“If you say so, Mr. Stone. Is the payload worth the trouble?”
“A man’s got to eat.”
“You know who I represent? It’s a powerful outfit.”
It was taking him a long time to get round to the threat. But this had to be it. “Sure.”
“How much would it take to eliminate your curiosity?”
“Like I said, a man’s got to eat.”
He named a figure that would have fed a sell-out at the Yankee Stadium. “You want me to forget about our mutual friend.”
“Completely.”
“Somebody might be disappointed if I did that. Somebody with a bad attitude. It could affect my health.”
“We can take care of that for you. If you help us.”
The idea of the FBI and my three employers going head to head was an interesting one. I just didn’t want to get mashed in the middle of it. “I’ll think about it.”
He nodded and got up, pushing the chair back slowly. “Good. We’ll talk again, Mr. Stone. I’ll be in touch. I know where you live,” he added, with a grin.
I forgot to shudder and just did my casual wave. But the fact was, I was deep in the mire. Whatever I did now, someone was going to be very upset.
* * *
Later in the day, one of my sewer rats came up with a lead. He’d been in and out of the wharf cafés, bumming smokes and a crust or two, when he’d tuned in on an intriguing conversation. Now this guy, a dropout called Shivers, is a real pro. He can blend in with the walls, or the furniture, or the garbage. You wouldn’t know he was there. He lives by the skin of his teeth and traffics in gossip. And he makes a point of knowing his market. So he knew that Nick Nightmare had an ear out for anything to do with the dockside “suicide”. Word had already got around.
In another bar, tucked away in a thick wooden booth, the air hung with smoke as thick as curtains, he spilled his news. He’d overheard two guys. One of them was a major link in an illegal immigrant chain, a man who could arrange to shift people from place to place with no questions asked. I knew the guy by reputation. Let’s call him BoBo.
According to Shivers, BoBo was talking to a weird guy—I interrupted him to show him the mug shot of Zeitsheim.
“Jeeze, Nick, that’s him, I tell ya! That’s the guy. White as a corpse.”
“You don’t know the half of it.”
“He was lookin’ for passage along the coast. Not by any normal channels. He kept turnin’ round as if Satan himself was blowin’ hot air down his neck, so I guess he was on the run.”
“How did he smell?”
Shivers nearly choked on his beer. “What the—? You know about that? Real bad, Nick. I mean, real bad. Fish gone off. I been in some places, but man, this guy was stinkin’ fit to make a guy retch.”
I merely nodded. Sailor Stefan it was, then.
“He spoke low and with a weird kind of voice, like he had a mother of a cold. But I heard him mention one of them old Massachusetts seaports. Innsmouth. He wanted to get to Innsmouth. BoBo took his time about answerin’. Sounded like Innsmouth was bad news to him. But he agreed. The fish guy gave him a wad of notes, must’ve been a fortune. BoBo told him it would take a few days to sort out. The guy would have to hole up until then.”
“You know where he is now?”
“Yeah.” He gave me the address of an old warehouse down by the docks. Good place to hide a needle. “Want me to take you?”
“Not yet. But keep an eye on him. I don’t want him leaving New York before I get a chance to meet him.”
My man was living up to his name, shivering like it was snowing out. Maybe it wasn’t just the cold and maybe the beer and the fug hadn’t done enough to warm him. I’d already given him some money, but I dragged my coat from the chair beside me. It had had its day. “Here, keep this. You need it more than I do.” If this panned out the way I hoped, I’d be picking up a dozen new coats before this affair was closed. Maybe even get myself a slick suit.
He struggled into the coat like it was something alien, but grinned a crack-toothed grin. You could have got two of him inside it. “Thanks, Nick,” he muttered. Then he was gone.
I was left to chew over what he’d told me. Innsmouth. Meant nothing to me. So it was library time, for a bit of research.
* * *
It took some digging out. I spend half my life glued to old newspapers: the good ladies at the library are getting used to me. I think they find me kinda romantic. Must be my old-fashioned charm. Whatever, they came up trumps on Innsmouth. And I had my connection.
Years ago, way back in the winter of 1927–28, it seems that the Government had investigated some pretty weird goings-on in the port, following complaints about demon worship and likewise subversive cults. The Feds had gone as far as to blow up or burn down whole parts of the town. There had been a lot of arrests. One report referred to a submarine diving down into the deep waters off the port to a reef known as Devil’s Reef, where something had been torpedoed. There had obviously been some sort of lunatic cult based around the area. And it seemed like overkill for bootlegging. Whatever they had really been up to would probably remain a mystery, but the Government had obviously taken it seriously enough to send in their heavies.
It had been a long time ago and I couldn’t find out anything more, but maybe there was still life left in the place and Stefan Zeitsheim wanted a piece of the action.
Evening was drawing on. Time to look up the errant sailor. In spite of my instructions, I didn’t plan on killing him. I reckoned he’d be worth more alive.
* * *
I knew where to find the warehouse Shivers had told me about. I parked a few blocks away, checked my Beretta and used the thickening shadows to mask my approach. Shivers wouldn’t be far away. He’d see me when others wouldn’t.
I was within a hundred yards of the building, when I heard a commotion up ahead. And I knew in my guts it was going to be bad news. I wasn’t wrong.
There was a mob. These streets were usually dead at this time of the day. Something had stirred them up, like a kicked hornets’ nest. They were crowding round the sidewalk, opposite the warehouse.
I moved in, looking down.
“Hey, Nick,” breathed a voice beside me. Another of the local dropouts.
“What gives?”
“It’s Shivers. Some punk shot him.”
I started muscling people aside. Sure enough, Shivers was sprawled across the edge of the sidewalk. I bent down to him. He was alive, but only just. His face was grey, his expression a mixture of agony and disbelief. I felt his chest. It was a mess.
Only one bullet, but it had done the job. I felt the fury rising up in me, but fought it down.
“A car,” he breathed through teeth clenched on pain. “The gun… silencer. Jeeze, I’m so cold, Nick. So cold.”
I pulled the coat tighter around him. The coat, goddam it. My coat. He was wearing the coat I’d given him. The bullet had been meant for me.
“Who did this, Shivers?”
He managed only half a word before he died. But it was enough. Suit. It had been some guy in a suit. It figured. The Feds had warned me off. They really had meant business.
“Cops are on the way,” someone above me said. I got up and stood aside. In a minute or two I’d slipped to the back of the crowd. No one paid me any attention, all eyes on the curled-up form of Shivers.
I made my way along the street and crossed it where I thought I’d be least noticed. I guessed the Feds would have gone, thinking they’d taken me out of the picture. It was the one advantage I had on them. I was going to find Zeitsheim before they did, so help me.
At the far end of the warehouse there was an alley running alongside it. The light was fading away, but I could just about see enough to ease my way down it. It suited me. I flattened against the wall and moved forward by inches. Shivers would have known exactly where Zeitsheim was holed up inside, but now I was going to have to flush him out. I had a feeling it was going to be damn tough. My quarry had already shown his credentials in the hide-and-seek stakes.