“What can you tell me about him?”
“I gather you mean Bob Cooke, not God. Like I said, he was a good boy. Even the captain liked him, and the captain on this tub hates everybody, especially passengers, although not quite as much as me. Not that I have anything against the captain,” he went on hastily, “except he disappears every night and I get stuck with the social amenities for these clowns. As well as looking after baggage they misplace—”
“Mr. Thompson. About Bob Cooke—”
“—wiping their noses,” Thompson continued inexorably, “seeing to it they stagger into the right room when they poop out at 9 P.M., giving them back their lost keys and false teeth, and things like that. It’s my fault the stupid bastard natives in Bankok don’t speak English, and if one of our bright lights gets his pocket picked in Manila, I’m supposed to find the miscreant who did it, spank him, and bring back the loot. The least the captain could do would be to take a drink with them a little more often.” He sounded put out; Reardon sighed, knowing full well the man could not be cut off. “Eighteen years on this job it’s a wonder I’ve got a liver left! But if you don’t let some eighty-year-old dame in a miniskirt buy you a drink, she complains to the brass like she’s been raped. Or like she hasn’t been raped. Take your choice.”
“Mr. Thompson—”
“Well,” Thompson added, aware he had been overlong in his dialogue, “enough about Harry Thompson and his meteoric rise to degradation. What did you want to know about Bob Cooke, Lieutenant?”
“Anything you can tell me.”
“Like I said, he was a good boy. It was a damned shame he stepped off that curb.” Thompson sounded puzzled. “Funny, too, because he was as wide-awake on the job as they come.”
“How did he get that scar on his lip? I heard it was an accident on board ship. That doesn’t sound like he was so wide-awake.”
“That’s when he was wider awake than ever!” Thompson resented the imputation. “A davit thole pin shears off with a couple-of-ton-load on the hook coming out of the forward hold, and four guys standing below right underneath it, talking about something important, like how to goof off or something — and Bob, without thinking, almost, jammed a small timber between the davit base and the deck engine that was driving it. It didn’t stop the load from going down, you understand, but it slowed it down for maybe ten seconds, which was time enough for those goops to get the message and scatter. Otherwise the four were mush. Anyway — well, the timber split, which was no surprise, considering, and one piece caught Bob in the kisser. He lost a ton of teeth and wound up with that scar; but he could have been killed. No; he was a wide-awake lad.”
Reardon frowned. “On the night he was hit and killed — last night — could he have had a drink?”
“Not many bars around dockside where we are, I don’t believe. I don’t know too much about San Francisco; every time we’re here I’m usually working. He could have had one in his cabin before he left the ship, I suppose, but if he did it would only have been one. He never drank on duty, and he had a date with that girl from the shop, and he wasn’t the type to get slopped before a date.”
Nor would anyone with any sense, Reardon thought; not a date with Penny. He went on, “As you know, he’d changed from his uniform into civvies. Did you find his wallet in his cabin? He didn’t have it — or any personal identification on him when he was killed.”
“Is that so? The newspaper didn’t mention that. Anyway, I had a man go through his things and pack them,” Thompson said. “I don’t know if there was a wallet or not. I know he usually carried his bills in a money clip, and I know he didn’t have any credit cards — and neither do I — and he didn’t own a car, and I don’t either because who needs it, so he wouldn’t have to carry his driver’s license.”
“No credit cards?”
“Seems hard to believe, eh? Well, you never get rich working the ships, and credit cards are like funny money when you’re in a foreign country. You take a credit card to Tokyo and walk down the Ginza, and you’ve blown about eight months’ pay before you get back. But cash? That’s different.” He paused, calculating. “I can have his stuff unpacked and find out, if you want.”
“I don’t suppose it’s really important. I was just wondering. What about his family?”
“I looked over our copy of his application blank after I saw the squib in the paper, and his nearest-of-kin line was just scratched through. That’s one of the reasons the brass gave permission for the sea burial. Nobody else to give him to.”
“What about his possessions?”
“Well,” Thompson said, “he had a bankbook he kept in the ship’s safe. He had about six hundred in savings in a bank back home — that’s Honolulu. And he was paying on a two-room shack there — away up in the hills and not worth too much, I’d say, although housing in Honolulu is something criminal today, believe me.”
“Did he leave a will?”
“If he did we don’t have it. I doubt it. What did he have to will, and who to? It’ll be up in the courts in Hawaii what happens to the little he had, but my guess is it’ll end up with the state.”
Reardon tried to think of other questions that could give him a better picture of Bob Cooke alive, and then wondered why he wanted a better picture. One final question did occur to him.
“Did you ever have a passenger on one of your cruises named Crocker? Ralph Crocker? A tall thin man, about thirty-three years old?”
“Thirty-three? I doubt it. Make it a hundred and thirty-three and I’d say there was a chance.” Thompson decided to be serious. “I’ve been on this ship since she was commissioned in 1952, and a lot of people have ridden it. But I can find out easy enough; we keep a file of all old passenger lists in the print shop. I’ll look it up. How do you spell it?”
Reardon spelled it for him. “When you look it up, if you find it or not, give me another ring, will you?”
“Sure. Who’s Crocker?”
“He’s the driver of the car that killed Bob Cooke.”
There was a moment’s pause as Thompson digested this. Reardon could almost see the other frowning at the telephone. “I thought it was supposed to have been an accident...”
“It was. Supposed to be, I mean.” Reardon sighed. “I don’t know what I mean. It undoubtedly was an accident. It’s just — well, I’m the curious type. I’d just like to know if Crocker was ever on the ship.” A further thought came to him. “Or ever worked on the ship.”
“Oh,” Thompson said, “you can find that out easier than I can. They have the records at the company offices on Market Street. American-Oriental Steamship Company. Ask for a Mrs. Halloran; use my name if you want.”
“I think she’ll tell me without it,” Reardon said dryly.
“Oh. Yeah. I forgot you were the cops. Anything else before I hang up and get back to arranging a Maypole for the next bunch of senile monsters that are going on our — you’ll pardon the expression — Fun-Filled Cruise to the Flamboyant East?”
Despite the time he had spent getting remarkably little information from the talkative purser, Reardon could not help take advantage of the offer.
“As a matter of fact, yes,” he said with a smile. “One day when you’re in port and have the time, I’d like you to repeat your general description of a cruise on your ship for the benefit of my girl friend, Jan. She thinks anything is better than being a cop lieutenant, and she thinks living and working on ships must be as close to heaven as you can get. She figures it’s a continuous vacation, and you get paid for it too.”
“So you’ve got a weird girl friend,” Thompson said. “She probably has some compensating qualities, though, like two heads. However, any time you want her brainwashed, let me know. I can lecture on the subject for three days without taking breath.”