Murderers Row

TWENTY TWO

I STARED AT the wrench for a moment. Then I looked at Teddy, who was rubbing her bruised wrist.

"It was-in Louis' sock," she said, glaring at me. "You didn't have to break my arm!"

I didn't bother to ask why she'd tried to hide it. The answer was in her face. She'd been going to wait until my back was turned and slug me with it, after which, presumably, she'd have rescued Papa somehow, from me as well as from the people on deck.

I looked at Louis. The rolling around had worked his pants leg up towards the knee, but of course I should have looked there when I first searched him. I'd had hours to go over him thoroughly, but I'd taken for granted there wasn't anything to find. I'd assumed that he'd never really meant to get us anything useful, that he hadn't had time, or even if he'd got it, that he'd told all about it and had it taken away from him.

I'd made the mistake that's so easy to make in this business: I'd sold a guy short because I didn't trust him or like him. Louis had given me what I'd asked for. He'd even kept quiet about it through a brutal third degree. I'd passed it up because I'd been too smart to really look for it.

Well, it was no time to start counting my shortcomings; that would have to wait until I had a week or two to spare. The funny thing was that I felt pretty good, suddenly. I looked at the kid, standing there defiantly, and at Dr. Michaelis, lying in the bunk behind her; and I knew that I'd had it, I was through, and it felt fine. I knew I wouldn't have killed him if he'd had the secret of the universe locked inside his unkempt head.

I was remembering what Mac had said happened to men whose business allowed them to kill and get away with it. I was remembering Jean dying in my arms, and the hasty knife going into Alan, and the careless way I'd almost put a bullet through young Orcutt's head. Mac had been right, and Klein, the psychiatrist. It was time I got the hell out of the lousy racket.

First, of course, I had to get the hell out of here. I looked at the wrench. It was no beauty, but it was in working order. I pulled off my belt. The rectangular buckle wasn't as big as I'd have liked-Lash Petroni hadn't been the type for wide, cowboy-style belts-but under the leather covering it was of hardened steel with sharp edges, built to come in handy in emergencies.

I snapped the buckle from the belt, and peeled the leather from the buckle. The pencil from the coat pocket of my Petroni suit went through the hole in the buckle for leverage, and I had a reasonable facsimile of a screwdriver. Teddy was watching me with a kind of fearful respect, as if expecting me to produce a pocket model ray gun, or a Dick Tracy wrist radio. Her attitude annoyed me. She wasn't really very bright, or she'd have been asking why I hadn't done all this two hours ago.

"Put up the side of that bunk so our patients don't fall out if things get rugged," I said. "Then keep an eye to the porthole and an ear to the door, if you can manage. If you see anything out there, let me know. If you hear anybody coming, let me know. Okay?"

"Yes, Matt," she said, but I noted she didn't get too far from the bunk until I'd made my way past her into the bathroom.

It still looked as interesting as it had when I first cased the joint for possible tools or weapons-that husky lever, I mean, the one that ran the plumbing. It was attached to the machinery in two places: through a pivot at the bottom, and a rod about halfway up that actuated a kind of piston when you pushed and pulled. There were two paint-choked screws to be extracted from two paint-choked nuts. It took me about ten minutes to do the job, and I had a piece of steel about two feet long with a shiny brass handle.

I also had some bleeding knuckles and an incipient case of seasickness: the kid had messed up the place pretty badly, and the schooner was by no means standing still. In fact, it seemed damn close to capsizing as it roared along, but I wasn't taking time out to ask damn fool questions. I figured, if we were really going over, my little nautical expert would come in and give me the word.

When I made my way back into the cabin, she was braced against the door, having a hard time staying there, since it was on the high side. I could see why she'd given up the porthole; it was showing nothing but water and shiny bubbles rushing past. The floor had a slant of about forty-five degrees. Things were getting pretty noisy. You'd have thought we were about to crack the sound barrier with afterburners blazing, instead of just plowing through the water at a measly fourteen knots-well, call it fifteen now.

Teddy looked at the metal bar in my hand and started to ask something. I waved her aside, and took a look at the door.

"What gives?" I shouted, searching for a point of attack. "Maybe sailboats normally travel on their ears, but isn't our skipper overdoing it a bit?"

"I think she's carrying sail deliberately," Teddy shouted back. "We draw less water well heeled over. We must be getting out of the lee of the island, into the full force of the wind. That means we should be entering the channel soon. If she can find it."

"And if she can't," I said, "things will start getting very wet in here, very suddenly? Well, I'm going to try prying this door open a bit. You stick the wrench in the crack I make, to hold it open. Here." I gave her the tool. "If you try to crown me with it, I'll knock you clear across the cabin. That's a promise."

She gave me a breathless little grin. "All right. It's an armistice. Matt!"

"What?"

"There's somebody outside the door, a guard! I just heard him move. A couple of times before I thought I heard something, but-"

I glanced at her, and put my ear to the door. After a moment, I heard him, too, quite plainly, as he struck a match, presumably lighting a cigarette. I wondered how long he'd been standing out there, and how much he'd heard. Not much, with the noise the ship was making. If he'd heard me working in the bathroom, he'd have come in to investigate.

However, we certainly weren't going to break the door down with him standing there. I thought for a moment, and went quickly back into the head and opened every valve in sight. At first I thought it wasn't going to work, although we were on the low side of the ship. Then water rose in the toilet bowl and started sloshing over with the schooner's motion. It ran across the floor and into the cabin as the Freya rolled. I beckoned the kid to me, and told her what to do.

"If it's Nick, he won't fall for it," she protested. "He knows the ship is sound."

"It won't be Nick," I said, hoping I was right. "Big Nick's needed on deck at a time like this. It'll be landlubber Loeffler or his unseen pal. Go on."

I stationed myself in the cabin, slipping the iron bar behind the edge of the bunk. Teddy glanced at me. I nodded. She stepped forward and hammered on the door with her small fists.

"Help!" she shouted. "Help, we're going to drown! The water's coming in. Oh, help us, please!"

It was pretty corny. For a moment, there was no response. Then somebody fumbled with the bolt. I didn't recognize his voice.

"Get back. Don't try anything funny."

The door swung open, slamming hard against the dresser. A big man with a pug's thick ears and flattened nose appeared, hanging onto both doorjambs to keep himself from being pitched into the slanting cabin by the force of gravity. He looked at me, safely out of the way, and at the kid.

"There!" she cried, pointing to the water on the floor. "It's coming in, more all the time! We've tried to stop it, but nothing helps!"

He was a landlubber, too. He didn't like the idea of a ship springing a leak, even a little one, with him on board. He took a step forward, still holding the edge of the door with one hand, swinging towards the bathroom. As he turned away from me briefly, I picked up the iron bar and smashed it across his kidneys. He came erect and more than erect. He bent backwards like a bow, grabbing himself back there; then he doubled over with a gasping moan.

I put him down for good with a crack across the neck, and went on my knees to search him for a gun, although if he'd had one, he'd presumably have had it ready when he came in. But I just wasn't passing up any more bets of that kind. But he was clean. He was strictly muscle, the jailer type; and jailers don't carry guns for prisoners to take away from them. Loeffler would supply the brains and artillery for the combination. Well, if he'd had a gun, he'd have been harder to take; we couldn't have it both ways.

I rose. Teddy was staring at the dead man, wide-eyed, her hand to her mouth. I said irritably, "What the hell did you think I was going to do, spend half an hour tearing sheets into strips so I could bind and gag him, like in the movies?"

She drew a deep, ragged breath. "All right. I-I'm all right. What-do we do now?"

"How many ways are there of getting up on deck-"

As I said it, the Freya struck. There was no mistaking it this time. She hit hard enough to throw us both to the end of the cabin. There was a sickening moment of scraping and grinding, and she came free, gathering speed again, but the water outside the porthole seemed to have changed color. Maybe it was my imagination, but it seemed to have turned brownish with roiled-up mud or sand.

"There must have been a bar across the mouth of the channel." Teddy's voice was husky. She cleared her throat and spoke breathlessly. "There are three hatches. One leads from the owner's cabin directly into the cockpit. One opens on deck from the main cabin-"

"I know that one. Just back of the mainmast."

"-and there's a scuttle way up forward, with a ladder from the foc's'le."

"Scuttle," I said. "I'll take the scuttle, whatever it may be. We'll use Louis' plan with a change of cast. You get back there where you can watch the cockpit and Mrs. Rosten. Don't let her see you. I'll start some action up forward. When you see a chance, when she's distracted, get that shotgun away from her. I don't mind pistols so much, nobody's going to hit anything with a pistol on a boat jumping around like this, but buckshot scares me. She'll have her hands full, steering. You get the gun. Don't try to use it if you don't know how; just pitch it overboard. Okay?"

"Okay," she breathed. "Matt?"

"Yes, kid?"

She paused in the doorway, and glanced at her father. "If I was wrong-if I was wrong, I apologize."

I stood there for a moment after she'd gone down the passage. Then made a face at my own thoughts, and hauled myself out of there. With my impromptu weapon in my hand, I made my way forward, through a kitchen or galley, into a wedge-shaped compartment that held two bunks, another seagoing john, a washbasin, and an iron ladder leading up into a kind of miniature deckhouse with a curved, slanting roof, half of which slid on tracks. I took a chance on being seen, shoved the lid forward. and got a faceful of spray. I elbowed myself up and out and found myself on the pointed, tilting, streaming deck forward of the masts.

I looked around for Nick and couldn't see him. The long bowsprit was empty. So much for clairvoyance. It looked as if I'd damn well better see the coach after the game and turn in my crystal ball. Loeffler wasn't in sight, either. From where I clung, I couldn't see the cockpit for masts and sails and rigging. I started to crawl to windward for a better viewpoint, and stopped, looking around, aghast. Until that moment, I hadn't really noticed what we were sailing through.

I mean, it wasn't just that the damn sea was going crazy all around us; I'd kind of expected that. Way off to port and behind us I thought I saw a shadow that could have been Mendenhall Island; way off to starboard I thought I saw the loom of the land. The rest was just broken water, with the spray ripped off the crests of the waves by the howling wind. All right, I'd seen that before; but the thing that really shook me was that the damn stuff was glowing.

I'm not kidding. Ask anybody who knows the Bay. Call it phosphorescence, call it what you like: those waves lit up like neon tubes when they broke. The stuff that washed aboard as the schooner put her lee rail under shone pale whitish green; and all around us the foam was luminous. A man with a literary turn of mind might have said we were sailing through the coldly burning seas of hell…

He almost got me while I crouched there, staring. I didn't hear him, of course. Up there, you couldn't hear anything except the cracking roar that was the Freya's bow splitting the water. I just felt him, I guess. I knew it was time to move by the instinct you get after long years of this work; and I threw myself aside as he dropped out of the rigging. He landed where I'd been. I caught a fistful of ropes on the foremast and cut at him with the johnny-lever and hit nothing but solid shoulder muscle. The bar just bounced.

He came for me, his white teeth shining in his black face. He seemed to be made of the same kind of crazy, luminous stuff as the sea around us. Just the same, it should have been easy. A good man with a stick ought to be able to handle a fair-sized mob or a full-grown male gorilla. I was pretty good at fencing long before anybody in this country ever heard of kendo. I should have been able to pick his eyes out of his head, smash his Adam's apple, and tear his guts out. No matter how big he was. I should have been able to-take him easily, and I could have, too, if the damn ship had only stood still.

It didn't seem to bother him. His bare feet seemed to cling to the slanting deck. I feinted at his head as he moved in. He ducked, throwing up an arm, wide open. Still clinging to the mast, I gave him the end of the bar in the stomach, as hard as I could from that position.

It wasn't hard enough. He was made of tarred rope and old whalebone. It stopped him momentarily, but I was clumsy recovering. There was supposed to be some fancy footwork in here, but I was having a hard enough time just staying on the boat. I chopped at his head and got a forearm instead, not hard enough; then he had me by the arm. I remembered what had happened to Louis' arm under similar circumstances. Well, it had been a loused-up operation from the very beginning.

The Freya hit bottom, hard. It made him lose his grip and hurled him forward, away from me. I went to my knees, still clinging to my friendly halyards, if that's what they were; but he was lying there in the bow, momentarily dazed, and I let go and went after him. The schooner hit again, throwing me off balance, and bumped along the bottom, losing speed. A big wave broke over the rail and sent solid water sluicing across the deck.

"Nick!" It was Robin Rosten's voice, sounding miles away. "Nick, damn you, call it! Give me the course!"

Nick picked himself up, jumped over me, and reached the foremast in three bounds. He ran right up it, using the wooden hoops of the foresail as a ladder. I saw him take one look around up there.

"Bear off, ma'am. Helm a'weather

The schooner swung to leeward. For a moment I wouldn't have put money on it either way; then, slowly, the bottom lost its grip on the keel and we began to gain speed again.

"Steady as you go!"

He was still up there, calling it. What he could see ahead of us, I didn't know. it all looked like the same phosphorescent welter of spray and foam to me. It was, I thought, a hell of a place for an innocent boy from the arid state of New Mexico; but while he was up the mast, I'd better attend to business aft.

"Look sharp on deck! Prisoner loose!"

His bellow alerted them before 1 got amidships. I saw Loeffler's head appear above the deckhouse. There was a little spit of flame, but I'd anticipated that and thrown myself down. I don't know where the bullet went. I crawled after with my iron bar, wondering how to get at him without getting shot.

"Luff her, ma'am! Luff her hard!"

That was Big Nick up in the crosstrees, conning the ship. I didn't have to worry about him for a while..

Suddenly the schooner was coming upright; the deck was level under my feet; and all the sails were breaking into thunderous flapping as the ship ran up into the wind. He must have slid down a rope somehow, because there he was, riding the boom of the foresail in. He launched himself at me from the spar, bellowing something to his mistress at the wheel. it was kind of like playing tag with Tarzan of the apes.

It was too bad, really. I mean, he'd given it a good try. You had to give him A for effort. He'd just made one mistake; he'd given me, for a moment, a level deck to fight on. I wasn't where he landed; and when he reached for me, I was set. The kendo rule is: thrust to the soft, cut to the hard. 1 didn't take a chance on going in close for a quick finish. I just swung with all my strength and broke the hard bone of his arm between wrist and elbow.

Then the sails were filling again, the Freya was heeling over, water was coming over the rail, and Big Nick tried to grab at the mainmast to catch himself, but that was the arm that no longer worked. He went down into the torrent pouring along the deck to leeward, and was washed aft. I went after him, but ducked as Loeffler thrust his head and gun out of the cockpit. The bullet dug splinters out of the deck to my left.

"Don't you shoot him, man! He's mine!"

That was Nick, picking himself out of the scuppers. Loeffler was taking aim for a second shot. Nick knocked him cockeyed. I saw the pistol glint in the air, flying out to sea. Nick was coming forward past the deckhouse. Behind him, I saw Loeffler painfully pull himself up and crawl towards something in the cockpit: the shotgun.

Whether he was planning to use it on Nick or me will never be known, because as he turned, a small figure jumped him from nowhere and twisted the gun in his hands. Mr. Loeffler must already have had the safety off and his finger on the trigger. The twelve-gauge fired and blew off most of his head. Even in the darkness, he was a fairly horrible sight, as he toppled over backwards into the glowing wake.

Big Nick had paid attention to none of this. He'd been stalking me slowly, but I wasn't worried about a one-armed man, no matter how big and tough. I waited for him, braced against a skylight amidships. When he rushed, I again gave him the feint to the head that brought his good arm up. Then I stepped in with the steel bar held low in both hands and all my weight behind it, driving it in hard from below, up under the ribs to rupture the diaphragm…

When I got back into the cockpit, Teddy had Robin Rosten covered with the shotgun. The kid looked very small in her drenched romper suit-nobody was staying dry on deck tonight-and her face was white and sick.

"I-I can't!" she gasped. "I ought to shoot her, but I can't!"

"Sure," I said. I took the gun from her, dropping the bar.

"That man!" she wailed. "I didn't mean to-it just went off! Did you see-"

I put my left arm around her to steady her. "Hell, that's nothing," I said. "I saw a guy with two heads once. In a bottle in the Smithsonian."

She stared at me with complete horror; then she giggled hysterically and pressed her face against my jacket. I looked at Robin. She was soaked like the rest of us, her jeans and sweater glistening wet. Her gaudy kerchief was gone, and the long dark hair had blown loose and was streaming out to leeward. She was using all her strength on the big steering wheel as the schooner plunged ahead. Behind her, the wake ran back into the darkness. Way back there, I saw spray flash up white; there was a boat chasing us, as we'd guessed, below.

"That's about it, lady," I said. "Let's bring this seagoing trolley to a halt, huh?"

She looked at me for a moment, ignoring the shotgun tucked under my arm. She glanced back over her shoulder briefly, and faced me again. She smiled slowly.

"Very well," she said. "If you say so, Mr. Helm."

She turned and hauled at the wheel, using her foot in the lower spokes for leverage. I felt Teddy look up. The schooner seemed to rise as the wind came aft. The wheel was spinning more easily now. Robin looked at me and laughed as I brought the shotgun up.

"Go ahead," she called. "Shoot. Get blood all over the deck."

She glanced up at the towering triangle of mainsail above us. I followed the direction of her look and saw the taut canvas slacken and curl oddly as the wind got behind it. If there had ever been a time to shoot, it was too late now. The great main boom began to swing.

I threw myself down into the cockpit, carrying the kid with me. Robin stood firmly braced against the wheel, still laughing. Up forward, the two other sails came over with a crash, shaking the ship. One must have split, because canvas started flapping. The mainsail gathered momentum quite slowly, it seemed. As the great timber swung past over our heads, Robin Rosten stepped up on the cockpit coaming and went over the side in a clean dive.

The schooner went clear over on her side as the mainsail slammed across; then she hit the shoals and the masts came down.