Down Among the Dead Men

XIII

A cold wind whined across the Hudson; at the bulkhead between Piers Eight and Nine, the Vigilant was drenched with fine chill spray that snaked down the windows of the pilot-house in rivulets like mineral oil.

Mulcahey was asleep on his feet, chocked off between the wheel and the shelf for flares and binoculars. Koski jerked at the siren cord hanging down from the cabin-top; a hoarse blast shuddered through the night. The Sergeant grabbed for his gun before he got his eyes open.

“Steady as she goes, Irish.”

“Was that you, blasting?”

“You must have heard the echo of your own snores.”

The Sergeant rubbed the sleep out of his face, looked at the clock on the instrument panel. “Has that thing stopped? Or is it quarter to four?”

“If you had a refreshing rest, chum—” Koski turned on the ignition key. “Let us then be up and doing.”

“Hark to the man. Have you no respect for your own constitution? The human system needs a little shuteye at regular intervals. Or are you an exemption to the rule?”

“How would we get anywhere on this job if we stuck to the eight-hour tours, Irish? I understand these untersee-boot men put in sixteen hours at a clip.”

“ ‘Tis an inhuman system any way you look at it. And none of the Mulcaheys are iron men. Personally, I am more apt to be on my toes if I am able to accumulate a little slumber instead of being shuffled around from pillow to post by day and by night.”

“When we get to the Basin you can work in some blanket drill. Was there anything you forgot to remember on the short-wave, this time?”

“Nothing but dimout warnings plus an alarm from a couple of lugs who broke into a ration board office and snuk off with an armful of gas coupons.” The Sergeant relapsed into moody silence.

When the patrol-boat touched the float at the Battery, Koski clambered out stiffly. “You’re on your own, Rip Van Winkle. I’ll be prowling.”

Mulcahey stretched out in the cockpit, a life jacket under his head, a slicker over him. “I wouldn’t want you to think I was laying down on the job...”

“ ’Sall right, Joe. If I need you, I’ll buzz one of the boys to come over from the Pier and set off a depth charge.” He wandered across the park, up Greenwich Avenue to an all-night lunchroom.

There were a dozen men eating at the counter, a few more gathered around a pin-ball machine in one corner. A short-order cook was dipping a wire basket of french-fried potatoes out of a kettle of fat. Over his head was a yard-high poster in vivid blues and greens; a haggard sailor clinging to a wave-washed lift-raft on a stormy sea. ANOTHER VICTIM OF SABOTALK, the white cut-out letters announced. At the bottom in giant block lettering:

Koski forked his legs over a hard stool, said: “Scramble two, bacon, butter toast and a cup of old black joe.” He wasn’t hungry, but that rib might quiet down if he filled his stomach a little.

Snatches of talk came through the clatter of dishes, the ringing of the cash register, the scuffling of feet.

Koski fiddled with his water glass, the salt-and-pepper shakers, tried to make some order out of the confusion of the last few hours. He wasn’t so sure, now, that the body had been hacked to pieces to hide its identity; the dismemberment might have been simply so the murderer could carry his victim out of the Bar-Nothing hotel without attracting attention. It couldn’t all have gone in the suitcase — unless the killer had made two trips, leaving part of the corpse in the room while he disposed of the rest. But that would have meant running the heavy risk of having Dora come in the room during his absence, and raising an alarm.

More likely the man with the bandaged face had some other container in which to remove the limbs, and the head; perhaps a sailor’s sea-bag which could have been carried into the hotel in the suitcase when he first went in. The point that puzzled Koski was why the murderer had bothered to lug the valise all the way over to South Street, on the Manhattan shore, instead of merely dumping the remains in the water at Erie Basin or the Gowanus. Every minute he’d have that incriminating suitcase in his possession, his danger would increase. There was no way to gauge how long he had held on to it after leaving Dommy’s place; it might have taken him a good part of the night to cut it up, pack it away, remove his traces in Room Five. He hadn’t managed to dispose of the torso until six the next morning if the Gurlid kid was to be believed.

Koski dug into the bacon and eggs. Another item that rankled in the ‘back of his mind was the way Barbara Ovett had received the news of the butchery. She hadn’t been surprised, not even shocked at the brutality of the crime. Assuming that she had been on more or less intimate terms with the victim, that offhand manner of hers gave Koski an unpleasant sensation along his spine. Both Hurlihan and Cardiff had been jolted by the news of the mutilation. But Mrs. Merrill Ovett hadn’t batted an eye.

Koski stoked his corncob and wondered about that wire from Sinbad. The message-to-Garcia might have meant nothing more than Ellen Wyatt had explained; — on the other hand, this was a queer time for anyone connected with the merchant marine to be sending cryptic references about messages to anybody.

One conclusion from the telegram was obvious: — if Merrill Ovett was shipping out of the country, — and Berger had predicted he might, — then time was running out fast, if Koski was going to do anything about it. BEFORE I TAKE OFF TOMORROW. Tomorrow was today now. But there wouldn’t be more than four or five freighters clearing from the harbor in any one day; it shouldn’t be too difficult for the Coast Guard to send men aboard those ships and check on the crews. Koski would take care of that.

He paid his check, made his way across-town in the gray shadows of false dawn. Porters scrubbed at plate-glass windows, trucks began to rumble through the streets; there was a clean, washed smell in the air.

South Street was awake. Peddlers trudged toward Brooklyn Bridge, shoving hand-trucks piled high with haddock, mackerel, cod. A couple of men set up iron frames and Danger warnings on either side of a manhole. Smoke eddied lazily from the stovepipes of the moored barges.

Herbie Gurlid saw him coming. “The cop, pa! The Lieutenant!” He stood at attention, saluted.

The bargeman emerged, lather on his chin, an old-fashioned razor in his hand. “Top of the morning.”

“Same.” Koski halted on the stringpiece of the pier. “Hear anything more on that suitcase?”

Gurlid flicked soap off the blade. “No. Nor I ain’t anxious to hear nothing more about it, either. I thought the Missus was never going to get them kids to sleep last night.” He massaged his chin, gloomily. “That stuff about Dot’s seeing the man who chucked the bag in the water, I come to the conclusion that’s a lot of bushwah.”

“Why?”

“Them officers from the police station was over here for a couple hours, asking around if anybody’d seen a guy with a suitcase on the dock. Nobody had. So I guess it was a lot of bushwah. If you cops can’t find anyone who saw this mysterious mugg, it’s prob’ly just something Dot made up.”

“She saw him all right. I’ve been talking to someone else who saw him, too. You keep your eyes open for him.”

“How the hell can I be on the lookout for him!” The bargeman scowled. “I’ll be away the day long trying to make a dollar. And my wife and kids here without no protection from a madman like that.”

“Don’t run a fever.” Koski glanced at the two men puttering around the manhole; one or the other would be on the job until the man with the bandaged head was found. “Your family’ll be looked after. There are a hell of a lot of people interested in getting hold of this particular gent.”