Down Among the Dead Men

VIII

The Vigilant furrowed the oily blackness of the Gowanus Canal like a plow in soft mud. The funnel of light from her searchlight moved past ramshackle sheds of corrugated iron, a sand-loader on high stilts above a decrepit loading dock, the rotten skeleton of an old tug. Her exhaust clattered hollowly from the factory walls lining the east bank. An over-powering stench of garbage hung over the estuary like a blanket. The scummy surface of the water was littered with floating debris, orange baskets, shoe boxes, refuse wrapped in paper bags...

Mulcahey examined the dial of his strap-watch moodily. “The witching hour, no less. And instead of me making time with my mouse, here we go shagging after another will-of-the-wisp. Which by rights should be up the alley of the Homicide crew.”

Koski manipulated the searchlight so its bright disc focused on a gantry crane which spread its scarecrow arms above a yardful of rusty pipe, discarded plumbing fixtures, junked automobiles.

“The Death Valley boys are on it, Harp. The F.B.I. is on it. Naval Intelligence is sending in a crew of trouble-shooters. The Coast Guard Intelligence is stirring its stumps. They’re all busy. Making inquiries along South Street about the bird with the bandaged puss. Checking on Gjersten’s mother up in Waterford to see what she knows about his acquaintances. Rounding up dossiers on the babe aboard the Seavett, the yacht captain and that dizzy Filipino. Making inquiries about Merrill Ovett. There are a couple of men around the Wyatt girl’s studio in case Ovett shows up. But everybody’s shorthanded; any delay might cost the lives of a lot of good guys out on the Atlantic. They want all the weight on it they can get; could we so kindly cover the waterfront end since we have a little head start on the others.”

“It does not prevent me from registering a slight beef. While you are away hobgobbling with the idle rich, I give my sweethot a buzz; she’s off me for life. Is it my fault I have to work sixteen hours instead of a legitimate eight? Hey!” Mulcahey registered belated astonishment. “What brings out all the brass for this one dead man? Especially since nobody knows who he is? How does one single stiff rate so much attention from the armed forces?”

“You might find out if you keep those Hibernian ears open for what the short-waves are saying.” Koski held the circle of light on a steel bulkhead that marked the end of navigable water. “End of the line. All ashore that’s going ashore.”

“Mrs. Mulcahey raised no radio experts. So I am none too sure I snatch the significance of your remark.” The sergeant manipulated the clutch-lever. Water boiled up around the patrol-boat’s stern. She glided to a dead stop six inches from the bulkhead. “You refer to that crystal gimmick?”

“Yair. The tech lab has it. They tested it out; it could only send or receive on the 2900 band. Not like a regular broadcast receiver. You can’t tune a crystal set; only sends or receives on one fixed frequency. According to the particular crystal you have plugged in. But you can take one crystal out of a set and stick another one in. So that gadget we found could be used on any short-wave set.”

“I begin to gather in a glimmer...”

“Reason the Navy and the Cee-Gee are doing nipups, — the Federal Communications Commission hasn’t permitted broadcasting on 2900 kilocycles for quite a while.”

“Do I comprehend your meaning? It might have been used to talk abroad?”

“Not that far, Marconi. But given enough wattage behind it, with a high enough antenna, no reason it couldn’t get a message to one of those schickel-subs, offshore ten or twenty miles.”

Mulcahey looked as if he was about to sneeze. “That is another color of a horse. We might be bunking up against them Gestapo ginzos?”

“There you go. Start gumshoeing around for a thick-necked Nordic with a guttural accent.” Koski clambered onto planks covered with coal dust. “You ought to lay off those shifting pictures; you’ll be seeing spots in front of your eyes. All the Ratzis aren’t German, by a damn sight. There’s plenty of scum floating around in the good old Oo-Ess who’d like to help the fascists put over their program.”

“True for you. The dirty dogs. Have any of the other johndarmes made inquiry about such an apparatus aboard the Seavett, now?”

“I saw one there, myself. A twenty-five watt set. Cap says it’s only used for communicating with the Cee-Gee.”

“We are not duty bound to take his word, skipper.”

“I’ll say we’re not. Then again, maybe he’s giving us straight but isn’t wise to what’s been going on aboard his command.”

“A yacht on patrol like that would be a very handy spot for anyone who wished to observe sailings down the Sound, if I do not mistake.”

“You got right, Joe. But that doesn’t hook up with this epidemic of sinkings lately. The convoys that have been taking the beating were made up of vessels that went out of the harbor the other way. Through the Narrows.”

“Nevertheless and notwithstanding, it is something to think about.”

“Are you bragging?” Koski drifted into the murk, called back: “Break out the canned heat, Sarge. Brew yourself a spot of scoff. Keep yourself awake. And keep that volume up. WPEG might let us know if the Medical Examiner’s office has anything for us.”

He made his way swiftly past shipyards and warehouses, broken-down shacks, odorous tenements, — came to a dismal district of poolrooms, coffee-pots, dime-a-dance halls. Sandwiched between a pawnshop and a fruit-store was a narrow window with an anemic display of ironed shirts and collars against a wrinkled poster advertising the China Relief Fund. There was a curtain behind the window; the shade was drawn at the door, but a thread of light showed at the sill.

He rapped on the glass. There was a shuffling inside. The shade was pulled back a crack; a placid, waxy face appeared. The Chinaman shook his head, smiled, dropped the shade into place.

Koski hammered on the glass. “Hey! Open up in there.”

The face materialized again, unsmiling.

The Lieutenant held his badge up in a cupped hand. A key turned.

“Police? For me?”

Koski got inside. “Keep your didies dry. Just want to ask some questions.” A radio in the back room announced five minutes of the latest news gathered from the far corners of the earth.

“Question? Yes?”

“Where’s your list of customers?”

Hong Hop tucked his hands into black sateen sleeves, shook his head impassively.

“No list. Too many customer. Don’t know address.”

“I was afraid of that.” Koski eyed the package rack, filled with thin shirt-sized bundles. “Most of the stuff you wash is clothing?”

“Shirt. Drawer. Sock. Everybody get back from Hong.” The loud-speaker said something about General MacArthur.

“Okay. Nobody says you stole anything. How many customers send you bed-linen?”

“Please?”

“Sheets. Pillowslips. Maybe blankets.”

Hong felt of his fingernails. “Few.”

“Name ’em.”

The laundryman went to a shoe box stuck in one of the compartments of the rack, began to paw over pink, torn pieces of paper. The newscaster’s round tones reported:

Koski made an unintelligible growling sound; his eyes were angry. Survivors landed at an East Coast port! After how many days and nights of fear and suffering! What about those who weren’t survivors, who had faced it out there on the cold dark sea, knowing it was the windup! Did they think it was easy because the announcer said it quick!

Hong put the slips back in the box. “No sheet.”

“I didn’t ask you if you had any. Whose sheets do you wash when you wash ’em?”

“Different people. Sure.”

Koski put his hands flat on the counter, leaned over it. “Listen. You want China to lick Japan?”

The laundryman showed white, even teeth.

“Okay. The U. S. is helping China?”

“Yes. Helping.”

“All right. I’m trying to find a man who may be a spy. Understand? Against this country. And China.”

“Japanese?”

“No. Likely isn’t a German or an Italian, either. Most likely an American. Only way I can run him down is by a piece of sheet that had your laundry mark on it.”

“How long ’go?”

“Week or so.”

Hong stared at a fly on the ceiling. Then he looked at Koski. “Agarappoulous.”

“How’s that? Say it slow.”

“Agarappoulous. Runs saloon.” He ducked his head quickly, seized a black crayon, made a mark on the fresh ticket. “His place. Saloon.” He grinned, handed over the paper. “Sign like this.”

Koski looked at it.

“Big Dommy’s place? The Bar-Nothing Ranch?”

“Yes, yes. I do sheets.”

“Copacetti, Chungking. Keep it under your hat. No talk. Catch?”

Hong scratched an armpit. “Catch.”

Big Dominick’s place was a couple of blocks north, a conglomerate establishment of restaurant, saloon, hotel and dance hall. There was no quivering neon in the sign over the door to the saloon; the windows had been painted black.

“Gangway!” Koski shouldered into a hard-faced crowd lounging around the doorway. “One side.” They made way.

Inside, fluorescent lights gave an unhealthy appearance to the crowd lining the horseshoe bar. A juke-box glowed cerise and purple, wah-wah’d boomingly. The air was heavy with smoke, sour beer, sweat, perfume. The Bar-Nothing wasn’t as full as Koski had usually seen it but the crowd was the same.

Shipyard hands and longshoremen in dungarees; seamen and stokers; Portuguese, Danes, Mexicans, Negroes, Lascars, Chinamen. A few panhandlers drinking their take; a knot of Irish laborers in noisy argument; a solitary drinker with no chin and foxy, protruding teeth; two greasy-faced youths in barrel-top pants and long pinch-waisted coats. And girls, — of every age, shape, size, and condition of sobriety.

Koski elbowed through to the far end of the horseshoe. Behind the shiny chromium of the cash register, a fat-jawed Buddha gave no sign of recognition. He inspected Koski coldly with small, pale eyes encased in folds of tallow-gray flash.

“How you doing, Dommy?” The Lieutenant got his elbows on the bar.

“Bad enough.” The lipless slit of a mouth hardly opened. “Lousy enough without Little Boy Blue come blowing his horn to drive patrons away.”

“If I blow, it won’t be to drive anyone away. On the contrary. Mix me a lime and Jamaica.”

Big Dommy reached mechanically for the rum bottle. “If you got to make a collar, for Pete’s sake, take the guy out in the alley first. Last time I had a free-for-all in here it cost me two hundred clams for breakage.” The puffy eyelids blinked; the sausage of fat beneath his chin wrinkled like the neck of a turtle withdrawing into its shell.

“I don’t want much.” Koski sniffed the liquor. “What do you cut this with?”

The colorless eyes stared stonily. “Carbolic acid. Get to it. You’re not boosting business.”

“How’s for a personally conducted tour of the joint? Just me and you.”

“In your hat. Where the hell would I get off with my trade if they saw me stooling around with you!”

Koski drank. “That’s your problem. Come on. Les’ go.” He set the glass on the bar.

“You putting on a pinch?”

“I will if I have to. I’m fanning the rooms, upstairs. You want to make me get a search-warrant, close you down?”

The saloonkeeper cursed bitterly. “Why don’t you ask your beat-man if I’m pulling anything, before you bull around? This place is run legitimate.”

“What you sweating about?” The Lieutenant waited until Dommy had circled the end of the bar. “I’m not on the Vice Squad.”

The fat man waddled to a blue-painted door, flung it open angrily. “Why do you have to futz around outside your own precinct? Why couldn’t you call up the Captain, here? He’ll set you right... on your tail.” He swore again, thickly, lumbered out into a narrow hall, grabbed a shaky banister and began to haul himself up brass-treaded stairs.

“Get moving.” Koski followed him into the hall, left the door open. “I haven’t got all night.”

“Just long enough to wreck my setup. Look at that bar. There won’t be a nickel coming across it in five minutes. All because somebody leaves a manhole open and a stink blows in.”

Koski got to the foot of the steps. “You’re going to talk yourself into a punch in the teeth—”

The light went out. The hall door slammed. Somebody jumped him, from behind. Big Dommy turned, swung on him. Koski got in one solid punch to the fat man’s face; heard him grunt. The Greek retreated up the stairs, swung his foot from the higher step, kicked the Harbor man in the head.

Then blows rained on him. Arms pinned his arms to his side. His knees buckled.

The blows were cushioned by unconsciousness...