Sail had time to throw the fire extinguisher and made use of the time, but the best he did was bounce the extinguisher off the bulkhead behind Andopolis.
Andopolis said thickly, “I feex you up, mine fran!” and deliberately reversed the butcher knife for throwing.
Sail threw his ice pick. It stuck into Andopolis’ chest over his heart. It did not go in deep enough to bother Andopolis. He did not even bother to jerk it out.
Sail jumped for the door, wanting to go back the way he had come. His wet feet slipped, let him down flat on his face.
Feet came pounding through the door and went overhead. Sail looked up. The feet belonged to the plainclothes detective who had been in the hardware store which sold marine charts.
Andopolis threw his knife. He was good at it, or lucky. The detective put his hands over his middle and looked foolish. He changed his course and ran to the wall. His last steps were spraddling. He leaned against the bulkhead. His hands did not quite cover the handle of the butcher knife.
Andopolis hobbled to Sail on his chair. He stood on one leg and clubbed the chair. Sail rolled. The chair became two pieces and some splinters on the floor. Sail, still lying on the floor, kicked Andopolis’ good leg. Andopolis fell down.
As if that had given him an idea, the detective fell. He kept both hands over the knife handle.
Andopolis used the two largest parts of the chair and flailed at Sail. On all fours, Sail got away. His throat wound was running again. He got up, but there was no weapon except the bent fire extinguisher. He got that. Andopolis hit him with the chair leg and his left side went numb from the belt down. He retreated, as lopsided on his feet as Andopolis, and passed into the main cabin.
Nola was still screaming. A man was swearing at her with young cocky Joey’s voice. Men were jumping around on the decks and in the houseboat rooms.
Blick sat on the main cabin floor, getting his head untangled from the remains of a chair. His face was a mess. It was also smeared with blue ink. The ink bottle was upside down under a table on which a new chart was spread open. A common pen lay on the chart.
Andopolis came in following Sail. Andopolis crawled on one knee and two hands.
Blick squawked, “What’s Nola yellin’ for?”
Andopolis crawled as if he did not see Sail or Blick, had not heard Blick. A tattered divan stood against the starboard bulkhead. Andopolis lay down and put an arm under that. He brought out a little bright pistol, either Blick’s or his sister’s.
Captain Chris jumped in through the door.
Andopolis’ small pistol made the noise of a big one. Blick, sitting on the floor, jumped a foot when there seemed no possible way of his jumping, no muscles to propel him upward. He came down with his head forward between his knees, and remained that way, even after drops began coming out of the center of his forehead.
Captain Chris had trouble with his coattails and his gun. Andopolis’ little gun made its noise again. Captain Chris turned around faster than he could have without some help from lead, and ran out, still having trouble with his gun.
Sail worked the handle of the fire extinguisher. The plunger made ink-sick! noises going up and down. No tetrachloride came out. There was nothing to show it ever would. Then the first squirt ran out about a foot. The second was longer, and the third wet Andopolis’ chest. Sail raised the stream and pumped. He got Andopolis’s eyes full and rolled.
Andopolis fired once at where Sail had been. Then he got up on one foot and hopped for the door. His directions were a little confused. He hopped against a bulkhead.
Andopolis went down on the floor and began having a fit. It was a brief fit, ending by Andopolis turning over on his back and relaxing.
The wall had driven the ice pick the rest of the way into his chest.
Outside, Nola still screamed, but now she made words, scatteredly.
“Andopolis... killing Blick... tried... me... Andopolis... last night... Abel... knife... we... him... tell... broke loose... me... anchor... Blick...”
Sail ran to the table. The chart on the table had two ink lines forming a V with arms that ran to landmarks on Lower Matecumbe, and compass bearings were inked beside each arm, with the point where the lines came together ringed.
Sail left with the chart by the door opposite the one which he had come in by, taking the chart. He found a cabin. He tore the V out of the chart, folded it flat and tucked it under his neck bandages, using the stateroom mirror to adjust the bandages to hide the paper. He threw the rest of the chart out of a port on the river side.
Captain Chris was standing near dead Andopolis. Torn coat lining was hanging from under the right tail of his coat, but he had his gun in his hand.
“Where’d you go to?” he wanted to know.
“Was I supposed to stick around while you drew that gun?”
“The fireworks over?”
“I hope so.”
Captain Chris put his gun in his pants pocket. “You’re pinched. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.”
Young Joey came in, not as cocky and not stamping his feet. Two plainclothesmen followed him, then two uniformed officers walking ahead of and behind the old man who sold the charts in the hardware store.
The old man pointed at Sail and said, “He’s the one who asked about the feller who ordered the chart. Like I told you, I gave him—”
“Save it.” Joey glared at Captain Chris. “We still ain’t got nothing on this fat sailor, Paw. The girl says Andopolis is a party fisherman whose anchor pulled up part of a boat.”
The girl had told about everything. Joey kept telling the story until he got to, “So Sail yanked the dame out, and now what’ve we got to hold him on?”
Captain Chris, looking mysterious and satisfied, told Sail, “Get your clothes on or we’ll book you for indecent exposure along with the rest.”
“What rest?”
“Get your clothes on.”
Sail dressed sitting on the hurricane wreckage, brushed off the bottoms of his feet and put on socks and shoes. He looked up at Captain Chris as he tied the shoestrings.
“Kidding, aren’t you?”
“Sure, sure!”
Sail bristled. “You’ve got to have a charge. Just try running me in on an INV and see what it gets you.”
“I’ve got a charge.”
“In a gnat’s eye.”
Captain Chris said with relish, “You’ve been playing the slot machines which are so popular in our fair city. You used a slug made of two hollow halves that fit together and hold muriatic or something that eats the works of the machines and puts them on the fritz. We found a box of the slugs on your boat. We have witnesses who saw you play machines before they went bad.”
Sail wore a dark look toward the squad car. “This is a piker trick.”
Captain Chris tooled the car over a bad street. “You put that gambling joint in Bimini on the bum, too. What’s the idea?”
“Nuts.”
“Now, don’t get that way. I’m jugging you, yes. But it’s the principle. It’s to show you that it ain’t a nice idea to football the cops around. Not in Miami, anyway. You’ll get ten days or ten bucks is all. It’s the principle. That, and a bet I made with Joey that if he’d let me handle this and keep his mouth shut, and you beat me to the kill, I’d jug you on this slot machine thing. Joey wanted you jugged. Now, what’s this between you and slot machines and wheels?”
Sail considered for a while, then took in breath.
“I even went to an institution where they cure things, once,” he said. “Kind of a bughouse.”
“Huh?”
“One psychologist called it a fixation. I’ve always had it. Can’t help it. Some people can’t stand being alone, and some can’t stand being shut up in a room, and some can’t take mice. With me, it’s gambling. Can’t stand it. I can’t stand the thought of taking chances to make money.”