Murders' Row

SEVENTEEN

I AWOKE ON a boat. I knew this much about my surroundings before I opened my eyes. There were small, distant wave noises, and there was a certain amount of nautical creaking and groaning-the really big ships don’t talk much in ordinary weather, but the smaller ones do, and once you’ve heard the sound, even if it was a long time ago, you don’t forget it. I could hear footsteps on the deck over my head. There was some motion: the limited, rather jerky motion of a vessel lying at a dock and bumping up against it once in a while.

I knew all this, and I knew there was someone in the room, or cabin, with me. He wasn’t noisy, but he breathed and, now and then, shifted position slightly. I opened my eyes and looked at him where he stood leaning against the door because the cabin offered no facilities for sitting except the bunk on which I lay.

He was one of the biggest men I’d ever seen, very black, with a bony shaved head adorned with a curving white scar that looked as if someone had tried to split his skull with a meat cleaver but had failed simply because the tool wasn’t up to the job. It would take an ax. He had broad nostrils and a broad, thick-lipped mouth. I suppose you’d call him ugly. He certainly wasn’t pretty, but there was a kind of magnificence about him, even in faded denim shirt and pants, that reminded me, somehow, of his mistress-who was also pretty magnificent, I recalled ruefully, if in a different way.

”Hi, Nick,“ I said.

He leaned there lazily, unmoving. ”You know me, man?“

”Nicodemus Jackson,“ I said, repeating information I’d got from Washington over the phone. ”Six-five, two hundred and sixty pounds.“

”Two hundred and sixty-five,“ he said. ”I put on a little weight, loafing around up the creek there with nothing to do but polish the brass. I’ll go tell Miz Rosten you’re awake. She figured you’d be coming around about now.“ He straightened up, towering above me in the little cabin, and grinned, showing large white teeth. ”She’s a welded steel schooner, man. Built in Germany before World War II, but still sound as the day she was launched. The hull’s steel. The bulkheads are steel. Even this here door-“ he gave it a blow that made it ring dully, ”is steel, and it’s got a powerful strong bolt. The porthole’s dogged down tight; you couldn’t budge it without a two-foot wrench.

You catch my drift? I’d sure hate to see you waste your time and scratch up my paintwork.“

”I catch your drift,“ I said. ”What’s a bulkhead? Oh, you mean the partitions?“ I regarded him for a moment. ”You know I’m a government man, Nick? You could get in trouble, keeping me locked up in here.“

I had to say it, if only to give him a break if he didn’t know, but I didn’t expect it to impress him greatly. It didn’t. He merely grinned again.

”I don’t know nothing,“ he said. ”Miz Rosten, she does the knowing. I just does the doing, if you catch my drift. Miz Rosten takes care of the trouble, if it comes.“

Well, that took care of my responsibility towards Big Nick, and I could clobber him with good conscience if I ever had the chance, the strength and a heavy instrument, blunt or edged. With a man that size, it doesn’t pay to be particular.

”That program could keep you both pretty busy,“ I said.

He grinned more broadly. ”Man, you don’t look like much trouble to me, a skinny gentleman like you.“ He gestured towards a narrow door. ”The head’s in there.“

”What’s a head?“ I asked. ”Oh, you mean the plumbing?“

”That’s right, the plumbing,“ he said. ”Open the sea-cocks before you pump. I’ll go tell Miz Rosten.“

He went out silently. I noticed that his feet were bare. The door closed and I heard the bolt go home. It sounded powerful strong, just as he’d said. I was left alone in my quarters, if that’s the proper seagoing term for accommodations. It had been a long time since I’d had to remember port from starboard, and I had no intention of revealing the little nautical information I retained. A show of ignorance can be a useful weapon.

Aside from a trick belt buckle-standard equipment

– designed primarily for cutting the hands free in an emergency, it was the only weapon I had, unless you included the do-it-yourself suicide kit from my discarded drug supply. Since there was no rope on my wrists, and nothing else around to cut, the buckle wasn’t much use at the moment, although it might come in handy later. As for the death pill, concealed never mind where, it might come in handy, too, but I might be forgiven for hoping it wouldn’t.

I sat up and looked around. My bunk could be called a tight double or a roomy single. It was equipped with a hinged board at the side which could be raised and locked in place to keep the occupants from being tossed out in rough weather. The cabin was exactly as long as the bunk. It was as wide as the bunk plus a built-in three-drawer dresser. This, at the foot end, took up some of the floor space, leaving only an area of about two feet by four for standing, opening the doors, and pulling on your pants in the morning. Everything was painted white except the woodwork, which was rich mahogany, beautifully varnished, and the floor, which was smooth, unfinished teakwood.

I already had my pants on, as well as the rest of my number two Petroni outfit, somewhat the worse for being slept in. I tried using the handsome teak floor for standing purposes, therefore, and it worked. Whatever my dark sea-goddess had given me last night, it had practically worn off. I felt pretty good, physically speaking.

Mentally speaking, of course, I felt pretty foolish. I mean, as a man, I couldn’t very well help thinking of the silent laughs Robin Rosten must have had, last night, playing up to my tough gangster act in her best boudoir regalia, knowing all the time that I was a phony and that she was going to slip me a mickey at the first convenient opportunity. Well, it’s always nice to know you’ve brought a bit of gaiety into somebody’s life; and I’d been at this work too long to be sensitive about making myself ridiculous. The sensitive agents, full of pride and dignity, die very young.

I grimaced at my face in the dressing mirror. On the whole, I was doing all right, in my clumsy and blundering way. After all, my job had been to take Jean’s place, one way or another. Well, I’d done it, hadn’t I? I’d spotted her contact; I was on my way. The train was back on the tracks after temporary derailment. After much maneuvering, we finally had an agent in the hands of the enemy.

Of course, according to plan, Jean would have come aboard with her arm in a cast, containing certain interesting and useful objects embedded in the plaster of Paris. She’d have come aboard as a deserter from our side, presumably trusted to some extent by the other. She might even have got a cabin with a wooden door and a less powerfully strong bolt. I had no trust and very few tools to work with; I was a prisoner instead of a potential ally. Still, I should have been pleased with my progress. It was no time to be thinking of a woman with long, dark hair.

I looked at my face in the mirror above the dresser and didn’t like it much. It was, I decided, the face of a ruthless man who’d carry out orders ruthlessly. At least it bad better be if I was going to get out of this alive. I went into the bathroom, or head, which was the size of a broom closet. The tiny lavatory drained into the toilet bowl, which in turn could be emptied by means of a couple of valves and a long lever with a shiny brass handle.

There were instructions in German on a shiny brass plate, and in English on a printed card addressed TO OUR LANDLUBBER GUESTS, and enclosed, under glass, in a neat frame above the apparatus. I remembered wrestling with similar pumping equipment on a converted yacht in a storm in the North Sea a good many years ago, at a time when the North Sea wasn’t exactly a healthy place to be in any weather. I was interested to see that everything still worked the same, if it worked. The other gadget hadn’t.

I performed the usual early-morning operations, cleaning up as well as I could without a razor. I started to follow the printed instructions and stopped, remembering that ignorance was a weapon and a watchword. I went out, leaving the mess sloshing around in the toilet bowl with the schooner’s motion.

Presently there was a knock on the door, and Big Nick’s voice said, ”Lie down on the bed, man.“

I lay down on the bed. ”All clear,“ I said.

He opened the door and looked in cautiously. Seeing me flat on my back-a position from which it would be hard to jump him-he opened the door fully and reached back into the hall or passageway outside, and produced a suitcase that I recognized as my own, or Lash Petroni’s.

”How’d you get that?“ I asked.

He showed me his grin. I was losing faith in that grin. I didn’t think Nick was really a nice friendly man. I was remembering an agent named Ames, who’d been found dead on a lonely beach with a broken neck. Rollin Rosten didn’t quite have the hands for that job, but Nick did.

”Man,“ he said, ”when Miz Rosten sends a Cadillac with a uniformed chauffeur to check out a guest that’s going cruising with her, nobody asks no questions.“

I said, ”I bet you look real sharp in a chauffeur’s cap, Nick.

He gave me a quick suspicious glance, and said coldly, “Miz Rosten say for you to shave and put on something that don’t make you look like a tinhorn gambler-something shipshape, like. And a pair of rubber-soled shoes. She wants you on deck as soon as we’re under way.”

I said “My compliments to Mrs. Rosten, and will you forward my apologies for forgetting to bring my yachting cap?”

“Never mind all the caps,” he said, unsmiling. “Just remember the shoes, man. She don’t allow no leather shoes on her nice teak deck.”

“Sure,” I said. “I guess I’ve got a pair of gumshoes somewhere. Before you go, brief me on how to flush that damn john. I couldn’t make it work.”

He glanced into the bathroom and looked at me grimly. Obviously landlubbers were a cross he had to bear, but he didn’t have to like it.

“I told you, before you pump, you’ve got to open the cocks, both of them. One lets the waste out; the other lets seawater in to flush it clean.” He looked at my uncomprehending face. “Seacocks,” he said wearily. “Like valves, man.”

“Oh, valves,” I said. “I dig you now, man. I didn’t know what the hell you were talking about. Cocks, for God’s sake. But why not just leave them open?”

“If she heels over hard in a breeze, she might take some water aboard.”

“You mean the damn boat could sink just because somebody went to the can? That doesn’t seem like very good planning.”

He showed me his big teeth. “Don’t you go getting ideas. You ain’t going to scuttle her just by leaving those seacocks open. It just kind of splashes around and gets things wet if there’s a sea running. So when you’re through, you close them, hear, after you’ve pumped out all the water. There’s bad weather down the coast and we might get a little blow-”

A distant voice that I recognized, Robin’s voice, called from somewhere above us. “Nick, come here!”

“Coming, ma’am.” He moved quickly to the door, and looked back. “Remember the shoes,” he said. “She’s mighty particular about that deck, Miz Rosten is.”

After he had left, bolting the door behind him, I moved to look out the porthole over the bunk. There was gray daylight outside; the sky was overcast. I was looking straight at the high, flaring bow of the power cruiser called Osprey, which was rolling quite heavily even in the sheltered harbor. I wondered where the waves were coming from. There didn’t seem to be that much wind blowing.

A man ran shoreward along the dock. He was wearing tennis shoes, white ducks, and a yachting cap. I recognized Louis Rosten. Apparently he’d come home, regardless of his fears. Reaching land, he vanished from sight behind the bulk of the powerboat. A moment later a small sports car that I recognized came into view with Rosten at the wheel. It drove up the hill and out of sight past the big house.

While I was puzzling over this, I heard footsteps in the passageway outside. The door opened. I turned to see Robin Rosten standing there with Nick behind her. In front of her was Teddy Michaelis with her arm twisted up between her shoulder blades and tears of pain running down her small face. Robin gave her a shove that sent her across the cabin.

“There’s company for you, my actor friend,” Robin said to me. “You can have a lot of fun explaining to her that you’re an agent named Helm working for the U. S. Government. She seems to be under the impression that you’re a killer named Petroni whom she’s hired for some nefarious purpose she now regrets. She came here to warn me against you. I think it’s really very sweet of her.” The taller woman turned to Nick. “Lock them up. We’ll shove off as soon as Louis comes back from hiding the little fool’s car.”