“How about this one?”
He held the picture closer to his face. “Could be. Yep, could be he was around. Not that many I shouldn’t remember, but I saw this one, all right.”
It was coming now.
“Does he own a place around here?”
He held the picture back with a friendly smile. “Now that, mister,” he told me, “I can say no to. Been living here thirty years and there ain’t a dirt farmer or registered voter I don’t know about.”
“Any property change hands?”
He shrugged, spreading his hands. “Does that lots. Good years a man lays in more land, maybe even builds a new house or adds a few rooms. If you mean has your friend in the picture moved in, then it’s nope. Three tourists got beach shacks they bought ‘bout five years ago... come down summers and fish. Nice people. Never see ’em ’cept when they spend money.”
I stuck the photo back in my pocket. “Where’s this fish house?”
“Mile and a half down the road. Not far from the beach. You figuring on walking?”
“No. I’m figuring you have a car to rent for a price. How does fifty suit you?”
“Suits me fine,” he said. “She’s sitting outside, that black Ford.” He took the bills from my hand and fondled them a moment and as we left he grinned and said, “Hurry back.”
The fish house, with the sign that read Wax’s Fish made nearly illegible by wind-driven sand, was buried behind scrub pines, shutters propped across the windows and a plank holding the door shut. No paint had ever touched the bare wood, and except for the smell that was part of it, the place was perfectly camouflaged. But anybody who could survive a year with two months’ work had to do a good business — the pile of clam and oyster shells, almost covered with pine needles at one side, were mute evidence of it.
The shack was behind it, similar in appearance except for the tendril of smoke that came from the brick chimney and the faint glow of light from one window. I knocked on the door, waited, then pushed it in impatiently. Over at the far end, stretched out on a cot and reeking of whiskey, was a bearded old fat guy in dirty long underwear, his breath wheezing from his mouth in drunken monotones while a calico cat perched on the wrinkled newspaper he had draped over his mountain of a stomach. A pair of empty bottles lay on the floor beside him, the remains of a sandwich being attacked by a mottled kitten who looked up at us and growled at the intrusion.
We reached him together, tried to shake him awake, then doused him with a glass of water from the hand pump beside the sink. Mason said, “Hell, he’s out.”
The guy stirred a moment, grunted something unintelligible, and tried to roll over. I got my hand behind his neck and jerked him upright. “Wax! You hear me?”
“Get him on the floor on his stomach and I’ll make him toss his cookies.”
“Hell, we haven’t got time to fool with him, Mason.”
“Let me try anyway.”
Both of us pried him off the cot, rolled him on some papers, and Mason went to work with his fingers. In a second Wax was gagging and coughing, trying to push himself up, bleary eyes searching for his tormentors. I turned on a gas jet, put a pan of water over the flame and found instant coffee that I loaded into a chipped cup, and when it was hot enough, forced it down Wax’s throat.
It was thirty minutes before he was alive enough to say, “What... the dickens you think... who you people?”
Money makes the loudest sound in the world. I let him see a fifty dollar bill in front of his eyes, feel it, then look up through a dreamy haze and nod. “I need information. You up to talking?”
Mason handed him another cup of steaming coffee and he drank half of it greedily, then made a face and looked around for a bottle. “Maybe... if I had a drink...”
“Talk first.” I held Agrounsky’s photo out in front of him. “Ever see this man?”
He leaned forward, glanced at it once, and nodded again. “Buys fish from me.”
“Where does he live?”
His mouth gave a negative twist. “On the beach someplace... I guess. Never said. Hardly comes down. Saw him ’bout three, four times. Sick man.”
“Do better than that, Wax. Where on the beach?”
This time he shook his head decisively. “Dunno. Maybe he camps like some do. Couple shacks there, few houses.”
“But he’s from the beach... you’re sure?”
“Uh-huh.”
“Why?”
Wax gave me a silly grin like I should know better and said, “Come in with sand spurs on his pants like the rest. No sand spurs this far in. Always droppin’ the damn things where I step on ’em. He’s from the beach. But not now. Nobody there now.”
I didn’t wait to argue. I nodded to Mason and we got back to the car and headed toward the ocean. Sometime in the last half hour the rain had let up and holes were showing in the clouds, big patches of incongruous blue against the dirty gray. The sandy road had drained quickly, the coquina base firm under the wheels. Barely visible were tracks partially filled with water, but the car that made them, having taken the center of the road, could have been going in either direction.
Somewhere above the cloud layer a flight of jets screamed by, cut out to sea, then circled back, challenging the thunder of the broken storm front.
The road began to bear to the left, then angled sharply and intersected a rutted strip that paralleled the beach. Once past it we would lose the cover of the tree line, so I braked, backed into an opening in the pine grove, and cut the engine. South of us we could see the boxlike shape of the beach houses perched on the dunes, abandoned now for the season.
Mason said, “How do you figure it?”
“Agrounsky could have bought one of those places from a summer resident. The transaction wouldn’t have gotten any attention if he didn’t use it often. My guess is he stocked it with groceries and equipment he needed and let it sit until he was ready to use it.”
“Which one?”
“That we find out the hard way.” We reached the end of the road and I looked at the line of poles running in both directions. “They’re all power serviced. Any not being used will be shut off at the meters, so we’ll see who’s using juice. Don’t you stick your neck out.”
“Now you tell me.”
The jets roared by again and somewhere the deep growl of thunder talked back to them. The hole in the sky overhead closed in menacingly and the soft blanket of rain moved in from the ocean like a heavy fog, cutting off sight of all but the first beach cottage.
Aside from the dunes there was little natural cover and we made use of every hillock and the weaving fronds of sea oats that crested them. The rain was a veil of protection, but an enemy in itself because it could work to shield another as well as us.
We reached the first house, checked it thoroughly, and satisfied it was unoccupied, started for the next one a hundred yards away. We stayed split up, separate targets if shot at, ready to build an effective crossfire if anybody showed.
It was Mason who spotted it first, a beat-up old pickup mired in the sand off the road where it had been forced after hitting a pothole, leaning into the trees and brush, obscured from any angle until you were right on it.
“He’s here,” Mason said.
I nodded. “Go see if any tracks lead from it. I’ll hit the next house and keep going until there’s a contact. If you spot anything, cut back to me and we’ll take him together.”
“Hell, Tiger...”
“Look, buddy, this is a pro. He’s a killer, you’re a flier. He’s ready for anything and knows we’re behind him. This is one guy you won’t slip up on from a blind spot. He hasn’t got any.”
“So you’re going in and...”
“I don’t have any either. Now move on out.”