FIVE
Violets M’Gee called me up in the morning, before I was dressed, but after I had seen the paper and not found anything about Steiner in it. His voice had the cheerful sound of a man who had slept well and didn’t owe too much money.
«Well, how’s the boy?» he began.
I said I was all right except that I was having a little trouble with my Third Reader. He laughed a little absently, and then his voice got too casual.
«This guy Dravec that I sent over to see you — done anything for him yet?»
«Too much rain,» I answered, if that was an answer.
«Uh-huh. He seems to be a guy that things happen to. A car belongin’ to him is washin’ about in the surf off Lido fish pier.»
I didn’t say anything. I held the telephone very tightly.
«Yeah,» M’Gee went on cheerfully. «A nice new Cad all messed up with sand and sea water…. Oh, I forgot. There’s a guy inside it.»
I let my breath out slowly, very slowly. «Dravec?» I whispered.
«Naw. A young kid. I ain’t told Dravec yet. It’s under the fedora. Wanta run down and look at it with me?»
I said I would like to do that.
«Snap it up. I’ll be in my hutch,» M’Gee told me and hung up.
Shaved, dressed and lightly breakfasted I was at the County Building in half an hour or so. I found M’Gee staring at a yellow wall and sitting at a little yellow desk on which there was nothing but M’Gee’s hat and one of the M’Gee feet. He took both of them off the desk and we went down to the official parking lot and got into a small black sedan.
The rain had stopped during the night and the morning was all blue and gold. There was enough snap in the air to make life simple and sweet, if you didn’t have too much on your mind. I had.
It was thirty miles to Lido, the first ten of them through city traffic. M’Gee made it in three-quarters of an hour. At the end of that time we skidded to a stop in front of a stucco arch beyond which a long black pier extended. I took my feet out of the floorboards and we got out.
There were a few cars and people in front of the arch. A motorcycle officer was keeping the people off the pier. M’Gee showed him a bronze star and we went out along the pier, into a loud smell that even two days’ rain had failed to wash away.
«There she is — on the tug,» M’Gee said.
A low black tug crouched off the end of the pier. Something large and green and nickeled was on its deck in front of the wheelhouse. Men stood around it.
We went down slimy steps to the deck of the tug.
M’Gee said hello to a deputy in green khaki and another man in plain clothes. The tug crew of three moved over to the wheelhouse, and set their backs against it, watching us.
We looked at the car. The front bumper was bent, and one headlight and the radiator shell. The paint and the nickel were scratched up by sand and the upholstery was sodden and black. Otherwise the car wasn’t much the worse for wear. It was a big job in two tones of green, with a wine-colored stripe and trimming.
M’Gee and I looked into the front part of it. A slim, darkhaired kid who had been good-looking was draped around the steering post, with his head at a peculiar angle to the rest of his body. His face was bluish white. His eyes were a faint dull gleam under the lowered lids. His open mouth had sand in it. There were traces of blood on the side of his head which the sea water hadn’t quite washed away.
M’Gee backed away slowly, made a noise in his throat and began to chew on a couple of the violet-scented breath purifiers that gave him his nickname.
«What’s the story?» he asked quietly.
The uniformed deputy pointed up to the end of the pier. Dirty white railings made of two-by-fours had been broken through in a wide space and the broken wood showed up yellow and bright.
«Went through there. Must have hit pretty hard, too. The rain stopped early down here, about nine, and the broken wood is dry inside. That puts it after the rain stopped. That’s all we know except she fell in plenty of water not to be banged up worse: at least half-tide, I’d say. That would be right after the rain stopped. She showed under the water when the boys came down to fish this morning. We got the tug to lift her out. Then we find the dead guy.»
The other deputy scuffed at the deck with the toe of his shoe. M’Gee looked sideways at me with foxy little eyes. I looked blank and didn’t say anything.
«Pretty drunk that lad,» M’Gee said gently. «Showin’ off all alone in the rain. I guess he must have been fond of driving. Yeah — pretty drunk.»
«Drunk, hell,» the plainclothes deputy said. «The hand throttle’s set halfway down and the guy’s been sapped on the side of the head. Ask me and I’ll call it murder.»
M’Gee looked at him politely, then at the uniformed man. «What you think?»
«It could be suicide, I guess. His neck’s broke and he could have hurt his head in the fall. And his hand could have knocked the throttle down. I kind of like murder myself, though.»
M’Gee nodded, said: «Frisked him? Know who he is?»
The two deputies looked at me, then at the tug crew.
«Okay. Save that part,» M’Gee said. «I know who he is.»
A small man with glasses and a tired face and a black bag came slowly along the pier and down the slimy steps. He picked out a fairly clean place on the deck and put his bag down. He took his hat off and rubbed the back of his neck and smiled wearily.
’Lo, Doc. There’s your patient,» M’Gee told him. «Took a dive off the pier last night. That’s all we know now.»
The medical examiner looked in at the dead man morosely. He fingered the head, moved it around a little, felt the man’s ribs. He lifted one lax hand and stared at the fingernails. He let it fall, stepped back and picked his bag up again.
«About twelve hours,» he said. «Broken neck, of course. I doubt if there’s any water in him. Better get him out of there before he starts to get stiff on us. I’ll tell you the rest when I get him on a table.»
He nodded around, went back up the steps and along the pier. An ambulance was backing into position beside the stucco arch at the pier head.
The two deputies grunted and tugged to get the dead man out of the car and lay him down on the deck, on the side of the car away from the beach.
«Let’s go,» M’Gee told me. «That ends this part of the show.» We said goodbye and M’Gee told the deputies to keep their chins buttoned until they heard from him. We went back along the pier and got into the small black sedan and drove back towards the city along a white highway washed clean by the rain, past low rolling hills of yellow-white sand terraced with moss. A few gulls wheeled and swooped over something in the surf. Far out to sea a couple of white yachts on the horizon looked as if they were suspended in the sky.
We laid a few miles behind us without saying anything to each other. Then M’Gee cocked his chin at me and said: «Got ideas?»
«Loosen up,» I said. «I never saw the guy before. Who is he?»
«Hell, I thought you were going to tell me about it.»
«Loosen up, Violets,» I said.
He growled, shrugged, and we nearly went off the road into the loose sand.
«Dravec’s chauffeur. A kid named Carl Owen. How do I know? We had him in the cooler a year ago on a Mann Act rap. He run Dravec’s hotcha daughter off to Yuma. Dravec went after them and brought them back and had the guy heaved in the goldfish bowl. Then the girl gets to him, and next morning the old man steams downtown and begs the guy off. Says the kid meant to marry her, only she wouldn’t. Then, by heck, the kid goes back to work for him and been there ever since. What you think of that?»
«It sounds just like Dravec,» I said.
«Yeah — but the kid could have had a relapse.»