“He musta drowned,” Blick said. “Get that other leg to workin’, Andopolis. You didn’t know we been on your trail all night and all mornin’, did ya? We didn’t lose it when this Sail got you, either.”
Andopolis whimpered as they hazed him away. Car sound departed.
Captain Chris, wide-eyed and hearty and with no sign of a chill, exclaimed, “Well, well, we began to think something had happened to you.”
Sail looked at him with eyes that appeared drained, then stumbled the other two steps down the companion into the main cabin of Sail and let himself down on the starboard seat. Pads of cotton under gauze made Sail’s neck and wrists three times normal thickness. Tape stuck to his face in four places, and iodine had run out from under one of the pieces and dried.
Young bony Joey looked Sail over and his big grin took the warp out of the corner of his mouth.
“Tsk, tsk,” he said cheerfully. “Somebody beat me to it.”
Sail gave them a look of bile. “This is a private boat, in case you forgot.”
“He’s mussed up and now he’s tough!” Joey said. “Swell!”
“Now, now, let’s keep things on an amiable footing,” Captain Chris murmured.
Sail said, “Drag it!”
Joey popped his palms together, aimed a finger at Sail. “You got told about Lewis finding human blood in that fish mess on the dock last night. But try to alibi the rest. There was wet tracks in this boat. That was all right, maybe, only some of the tracks were salt water and the water spilled on the galley floor was fresh. We got the harbor squad diver down this morning. He found a box on the bottom below this boat with live fish in it. He found a bathing suit with a sinker tied to it. And this morning, a yachtsman beached his dink on the little island by Pier One and found a dead Greek. We sat down with all that and done our arithmetic, and here we are.”
Sail’s face began changing from red and tan to cream and tan, although the bandages took away some of the effect.
Captain Chris said, “Joey, you’d make a lousy gambler, on account of you show your cards.”
Sail said in a low voice, “You’re gonna get your snouts busted if you keep this up!”
Captain Chris looked unconvincingly injured. “I didn’t think we’d have any trouble with you, Mister Sail. I hoped we wouldn’t. You acted like a gentleman last night.”
Sail had been seated. He got up, bending over first to get the center of gravity right. He pointed a thumb at the companion. “Don’t fall overboard on your way out.”
“I bet he thinks we’re leaving!” Joey jeered.
A string of red crawled out from under one of the bandages on Sail’s neck. His face was more cream than any other color. He reached behind himself into the tackle locker and got a gaff hook, a four-foot haft of varnished oak with a bright tempered-steel hook with a needle point. He showed Joey the hook and his front teeth.
He said violently, “I’ve got a six-aspirin headache and things to go with it! I feel too lousy to shy at cops. You two public servants get the hell out before I go fishing for kidneys.”
Joey yelled happily, “Damn me, he’s resisting arrest and threatening an officer!”
Sail said, “Arrest?”
“I forgot to tell you.” Joey grinned. “We’re going to—”
Sail asked Captain Chris, “Is this on the level?”
“I regret that it is,” Captain Chris said. “After all, evidence is evidence, and while Miami is noted for her hospitality, we do draw lines, and when our visitors go so far as to use knives on—”
“I’m gonna hate to break your heart, you windbag!” Sail said angrily.
He took short steps, and not very fast ones, into the galley, and took the rearmost can of beer out of the icebox. He cut off the top instead of using the patent opener. When the beer had filled the sink with suds, he got a glass tube which had been waxed inside the can. He held out the two sheets of paper which the tube contained.
Joey raked his eyes over the print and penned signatures, then spelled them out, lips moving.
“This don’t make a damn bit of difference!”
Captain Chris complained, “My glasses fell off yesterday during one of them infernal chills. What does it say, Joey?”
“He’s a private dick assigned to locate some stuff that sank on a yacht. The insurance people hired him.”
Captain Chris buttoned his coat, pulled it down over his hips, set his cap by patting the top of it.
“I’m afraid this makes it different, Joey.”
Joey snorted. “I say it don’t.”
Captain Chris walked to the companion. “Beauty before age, Joey.”
“Listen, if you think—”
“Out, Joey.”
“Mister Homicide, any day—”
“Out!” Captain Chris roared. “You’re as big a goddamn fool as your mother.”
Joey licked his lips while he kept a malevolent eye on Sail, then took a step forward, but changed his mind and climbed the companion steps. When he was outside, he complained, “Paw, you and your ideas give me an ache.”
Captain Chris sighed wearily while he looked at Sail. “He’s my son, the spoiled whelp.” He hesitated. “You wouldn’t want to cooperate?”
“I wouldn’t.”
“If you get yourself in a sling, it’d be better if you had a reason for refusing to help the police.”
Sail said, “All I get out of this is a commission for recovering the stuff. Right now, I need that money like hell.”
“You’d still get it if we helped each other.”
“Maybe. But I’ve cooperated before.”
Captain Chris shrugged, climbed three of the companion’s five steps, and stopped. “This malaria is sure something. I could sing like a lark today, only I keep thinking about the chills due tomorrow. Did you say a special quinine went in that whiskey?”
“Bullards. It’s English.”
“Thanks.” Captain Chris climbed the rest of the way out.
When the two policemen reached the dock, Sail came slowly on deck and handed Captain Chris a bottle. “You can’t buy Bullards here.”
“Say, I appreciate this!”
“If my day’s run of luck keeps on the way it has, you’ll probably find your knife man in a canal somewhere,” Sail said slowly.
“I’ll look,” Captain Chris promised.
The two cops went away with Joey kicking his feet down hard on the dock boards.
There was a rip in the nervous old man’s canvas apron, and he mixed his words with waves of a pipe off which most of the stem had been bitten. He waved the pipe and said, “My, mister, you must’ve had a car accident.”
Sail, holding to the counter, said, “What about the charts?”
“Yeah, there’s one other place sells the government charts besides us. Hopkins Carter. But if you’re going down in the keys, we got everything you need here. If you go on the inside, you’ll want thirty-two-sixty and sixty-one. They’re the strip charts. But if you take Hawk Channel, you’ll need harbor chart five-eighty-three, and charts twelve-forty-nine, fifty and fifty-one. Here, I’ll show—”
Sail squinted his eyes, swallowed and said, “I don’t want to buy a chart. I want you to slip out and telephone me if either of certain two persons comes in here and asks for chart twelve-fifty, the one which has Lower Matecumbe.”
“Huh?”
Sail said patiently, “It’s simple. You just tell the party you got to get the chart, and go telephone me, then stall around three or four minutes before you deliver the chart, giving me time to get over here and pick up their trail.”
The nervous old man put his pipe in his mouth and immediately took it out.