The other twenty-six cards said the Lignum Vitae Towing Company had a president named Captain Abel Dokomos. The address was on the Miami River, and there was a telephone number for after six.
The piece of board was four by twenty by a quarter inches, mahogany, with screw holes in the four corners. Most of the varnish was gone, peeled rather than worn off, and so was some of the gold leaf. There were a letter and four figures in gold leaf: K9420.
Sail burned all of the stuff in the galley Shipmate.
A man was taking two slot machines away from the lunch stand as Sail passed on his way uptown. Later, he passed four places which had slot machines, and there was a play around all of them. Sail loafed around each crowd, but not as if he wanted to. He walked off from one crowd, then came back. In all, he managed to play three machines. The third paid four nickels and he played two back without getting anything. The slot in a dial telephone got one of the surviving nickels.
He told the operator he didn’t dial as a matter of principle and asked for Pier Five, and when he got Pier Five, asked for Captain Santorin Gura Andopolis of the Athens Girl. It took them five minutes to decide they couldn’t find Captain Andopolis.
After the telephone clanked its metal throat around the fourth nickel, Sail repeated the refusal to dial and asked for the number of Captain Abel Dokomos’ Lignum Vitae Towing Company.
When he heard the answer, he made his voice as different as he could. “Cap’n Abel handy?”
“He hasn’t come down this morning. Anything we can do?”
“Call later,” Sail said.
The woman on the other end of the wire had been Blick’s sister Nola, visitor aboard Sail the night before.
Sail selected a cafeteria which was a little overdone in chromium. The darkie who carried his tray got a dime. There was a small dab of oatmeal on the first chair Sail started to sit on. He broke his egg yolks and watched them run with an intent air. The fifth lump made his coffee cup overflow. He put almost a whole egg down with the first gulp from the force of habit of a man who eats his own cooking and eats it in solitude.
A boy wandered among the tables, selling newspapers and racing tip sheets. He carried and sold more tip sheets than newspapers. Sail took the coffee slowly with the spoon, getting a little undissolved sugar out of the bottom of the cup with each spoonful, seeming to enjoy it. The sugar lumps were wrapped in paper carrying the cafeteria’s advertisement, and he unwrapped one and ate it after he finished everything before him. He put the papers in the coffee cup.
The man in a stiff straw hat eating near the door did not put syrup or anything sweet on his pancakes or in his coffee. And when he finished eating, he poked the back of his cheek absently with a finger, then put the finger in the back of his mouth to feel.
Sail got up and took a slow walk until he came to a U-Drive-It. There was a slot machine in the U-Drive-It. He tried it, and it paid off only in noise. He made a deposit and got a light six sedan. For three blocks, he drove slowly, looking out and appraising buildings for height. He picked one much taller than the others and parked in front of it. After starting into the building, he came back to look over an upright dingus, one of a row of the things along the curb. Small print said motorists could park there half an hour if they put a nickel in the dingus and turned the handle.
“The whole town’s got it,” he complained, and shook the device to see if it would start working without a nickel. It wouldn’t and he put one in.
He said loudly, just before entering one of the tall building elevators, “Five!”
The fifth-floor corridor was not much different from other office building corridors. There were three real estate and one law office and some more.
The man who had felt his bad tooth in the cafeteria came sneaking up the stairs from the fourth floor and put his head around the corner. Sail was set. The man’s straw hat sounded surprisingly like glass when it collapsed, and the man got down on all fours to mew in pain. Sail hit again, then unwrapped his belt from his fist. He blew on the fist, working the fingers.
“I’ve got to rush my friend to a place for treatment,” he told the operator when the elevator cage came.
He thanked the operator and half a dozen other volunteer assistants while he started the rented car. He drove past the U-Drive-It. The proprietor was fussing with his machine.
Sail drove five or six miles by guess before he found a lonesome spot and got out. He hauled the man out. Sail’s breathing was regular and deeper than usual; his eyes were wide with excitement, and he perspired. He wiped his palms on his clerical black shorts and bent over his victim.
The man with the bad tooth began big at the top and tapered. His small hands were callused, dirt was ground into the calluses, and the nails were broken. He had dark hair and a dark face, but got lighter as he went down, finishing off with feet in a pair of white shoes. He smelled a little as men smell who live on small boats with no baths.
His pockets held three hundred in nothing smaller than tens, all new bills, in a plain envelope. There was a dollar sixty-one in silver mixed up with the cashier’s slip for his cafeteria breakfast. In ten or so minutes, he was scowling at Sail.
He said something in Greek. It sounded like his personal opinion of Sail or the situation.
Sail said, “Andopolis?”
“You know my name, so whatcha askin’ for?” the man growled without much accent.
“You’re here because I been getting too much attention,” Sail said. “That oughta be clear, hadn’t it?”
Andopolis felt his head, that part of his cheek over his bad tooth, then got to his feet. Sail took his belt out of his pocket and started threading it through the loops. Andopolis clutched his head, groaned, started to sit down, but jumped at Sail instead. Sail moved to one side, but not enough, and Andopolis hit his shoulder and the impact turned him around and around. Andopolis hit him somewhere else, and the whole front of his body went numb and something against his back was the ground.
“I’ll stomp ya!” Andopolis yelled.
He jumped on Sail with both feet, and Sail was still numb enough to feel only the dull shock. His rounded body rolled under the impact, and Andopolis waved his arms to keep erect. Sail had his belt unthreaded. He laid it like a whip across Andopolis’ face. Andopolis grabbed his face, and was wide open when he sat down heavily beside Sail.
When Andopolis came to, his wrists were fastened with the belt. Sail had his shirt unbuttoned and was examining the damage the other’s feet had done. There was one purple print of the entire bottom of Andopolis’ right foot, and a skinned patch where the other had slid off, with loosened skin tangled in the long golden hairs, but not much blood. He put back his head and shoulders and started to take a full breath, but broke it off in coughing. He sat down coughing, holding his chest, and sweated.
“Yah!” Andopolis gloated. “I stomp your guts good if you don’t lay off me! What you been follerin’ me for?”
Sail looked up sickly. “Followin’ you?”
“Yah.”
Sail, still sitting, said, “My Christian friend, you stood anchor watch on me last night. You haunted me this morning. But still I was following you, was I?”
“Before that, I’m talk about,” Andopolis growled. “You follow me to Bimini in that black bugeye. I make the run from Bimini here yesterday. You make it too. What kinda blind fool you take me for? You followin’ me, and don’t you think I don’t know him.”
“It must have been coincidence.”
“Don’t feed me, mister.”
“It just might be that nobody will have to feed you for long.”