"I'd like to look around."
"We'd have to break the lock."
"I'll take the responsibility."
He nodded. He handed me the small grapnel anchor from the rowboat. The curved arm of the anchor made a good lever. I pried out the two inch brass screws with very little effort. They made a sort of little moan when they pulled out from the solid oak.
It smelled mouldy and damp inside. Next to the door was a flashlight on a clamp. It worked. I took it and made a sweep. I pulled open the galley door. I lifted the mattresses off the four bunks. I looked in the two closets. I went forward and crawled into the sail locker. I lifted up all the sails. Nothing. I silently said, Thank God.
Then I made another sweep. This time I was looking for anything smaller than a body which might be of use. A letter, a notebook, or a package with an address where he might be. Nothing. Charts, light lists, tidal charts, lighthouses. I went through them all, looking for some idle note which might be a lead.
The boat suddenly sank a few inches on her starboard side. Then she righted. Someone heavy had just come aboard. I waited with the Cobra.
A heavy torso looked down at me. For a second I was tense. But it was Simpson.
"Is the chronometer there?"
I looked around and found it on a bunk in its oak case.
"Is it running?"
I opened it.
"No."
I found a doctor's bag. There were no morphine ampoules in it. A small flat case was inside. It contained a set of scalpels, each one embedded in its molded felt hollow.
The best Swedish steel. And one was missing. I closed the case and slid it into my pocket. I went outside. Simpson pounded the hasps back into place and we got back into the rowboat.
As I rowed back he said, "That chronometer."
"Yes?"
"It's the kind of thing you keep wound up without thinking. That would mean he hasn't been on her for about a week."
A week. I could go to the doctor's apartment and look around for a lead. That might work out very well except that the doctor was far too shrewd to leave anything lying around which might lead to him. I shook hands with Simpson and got into the Maserati.
"Where to, lord and master?"
"Back to New York. And slow."
"Slow? Who ever heard of slow? Why slow?"
"Because I want to think. I don't think good over forty."
23
JUST PAST GREENWICH A POLICE CAR WAVED us over. She had wound up the Maserati to seventy, but so imperceptibly that I hadn't realized it.
She flashed a smile at me as she switched off the ignition. "I hope the trooper is good looking," she said.
"Let's see you get out of this one." Connecticut State Police are tough.
"Just show the nice man your badge, darling."
"Nope."
"Why not?"
"I told you to take it easy."
"Excuse me, folks. Might I see your registration and license, please?"
"Show it to him!" she demanded.
"No."
"What kind of a son of a bitch are you?"
"All right, folks. Save it till you get home. Can I see your license, please?"
"Give the man the license."
She fished her driver's license out of the wild jungle of her alligator purse. The registration she took from the glove compartment. He walked to the rear of the car to check it out.
"Why won't you show him your badge?"
"Because I told you to take it easy going back and you said you would. Now you're going to pay for it."
"You're a sanctimonious bastard, you know that?"
"Yeah."
"Why? Just tell me why!"
"Spanish proverb he says, 'Take what-' "
"I don't want to listen to any goddamn proverb!"
"You'll like this one. It says, 'Take what you want, but pay for it.' "
"I don't need any lecture from you, you pompous ass!"
The trooper came up to me and gave me back both the license and the registration.
"You got enough trouble, Mr. Sanchez," he said with a grin. "So I'm letting you off with a warning. Just don't let her drive if you can't control her."
"Ha-ha," I said.
He got in his car and drove away.
"Do you mind if I drive?" I asked politely.
She said frigidly, "Not at all."
She moved over and I walked around the car and got in. The car was beautiful to handle. We said nothing while I tried to analyze the faintly bewildering sensation I had. I felt uneasy about something that had just happened and I just couldn't place it. I stared at the road until it came to me in a flash.
" 'You got enough trouble, Mr. Sanchez.' "
How did he know my name? How the hell did he know my name?
I repeated that question aloud.
She opened the glove compartment, got out the registration, and put it under my nose. I dropped my eyes and scanned it until it got put together.
A 1968 Maserati. Engine number 191087. New York State license PS 167. Registered in the name of one Pablo Sanchez, 142 East 74th Street, New York, New York.
I hit the brakes hard. The seat belt saved her from a nasty bump on the windshield.
I undid my belt. I got out.
"I thought you were nuts," I said. "Now I know it. What the hell is the matter with you?"
"It's a gift from me. What's wrong with that?"
"What's wrong? What's wrong, she asks! Jesus Christ, how can any one person be so dumb? First of all, if I keep you out of it, I must have taken some payoff in order to buy it, right?"
"You can say you won it gambling."
"I don't gamble and everyone knows it. And no one would believe it even if I did play the horses."
"So I gave it to you."
"Your skull must be made of solid oak. That means I'm a gigolo. Even if your husband never met the police commissioner, I'm dead. And I mean dead. Kaput. Fired. And with your husband buddy-buddy with the PC, I just better stop breathing. Do me a favor and bring the jalopy back. Change the registration. Go to Jamaica for the season. Just go."
"Jamaica is out. It's the season for Marrakesh."
"Big deal. So go."
She opened the door and said warmly, "Get in, darling."
"Shove off!" I slammed the door.
She leaned out and pursed her lips. They were a lovely pale rose. Her decollete revealed the bluish-ivory shadows between her breasts.
"Take me to your bed and earn the car," she said.
"Don't do over fifty-five."
"Kiss me just once."
"You're poison, baby."
She flicked her fingers at me in farewell and was off in a jackrabbit start that left about three feet of a black smear on the concrete. That's what hot-rodders call "laying a patch." I had never seen such a big one. When she was almost out of sight she was doing about a hundred and twenty. I asked God to let her make it in one piece, and then I began putting one down after the other. In a few minutes a car stopped. It was the same trooper.
"You hitching, Mac?"
"Yes."
"Oh, it's you, Mr. Sanchez. Family quarrel?"
"You can call it that."
"I'm sorry, but hitching is not permitted on the Merritt."
"Do your duty, officer. Where's the nearest exit?"
"Four miles. But walking isn't permitted either."
"Can I crawl on all fours?"
He grinned. He opened the door. "Come on," he said, "a guy like you has got too many worries already. I'll drop you off at the exit."
When we got there he told me to walk three miles south. I could pick up a New Haven* train for. Grand Central.
It was a nice walk. I got some cinders in my shoes, sweat about a quart, had to kick a large sheep dog who contested the right of way with me in front of an antique shop, and was only asked by one local cop to identify myself.
But I did get to smell some freshly cut grass. Grass. G-R-A-S-S. Green stuff.
The kind of stuff they used to have all over the United States before the Pilgrims landed. I filled my lungs with the smell; it was a good corrective to the morgue aroma. It lasted me as far as the New York State border.
24
TWO HOURS LATER I WAS HOME. I SHOWERED, shaved, and changed. I took off the dirty bandage. The puffiness had gone down noticeably, but the sutures were sticking out like little black worms. It looked awful. I put on a fresh bandage. I went downstairs and ate a hamburger. I went to the garage. They had just finished with the Olds.
I couldn't think of anything to do. I walked slowly down Madison Avenue, looking at the expensive paintings for sale and the expensive women for rent. I went into a bar. I ordered a drink, lifted it to my lips and suddenly put it down without touching it. I picked up the Manhattan directory.
The eminent doctor lived on 50th Street off First. I paid the check and walked out, leaving a perfectly good drink on the bar.
I stood across the street and smoked a cigarette. It was a small but elegant apartment house. Eight stories tall, one apartment to the floor. Pale red marble for the front facing, and lots of glass. A fountain in the lobby with a big frog spitting water. In the front, no trees or shrubs. Just gravel, with several big stones arranged on a Zen scheme. Just the thing for a tired business man to look at after a hard day at the office.
A doorman wearing white gloves stood in front. A TV screen above the panel of buttons. Another man inside for the elevator. Also white gloves. It added up to money.
I sighed and threw away the cigarette. The doorman looked me up and down as I neared him. His eyes locked on my shoes. They were still dusty from my cross-country hike. I stopped and waited for anything valuable he might care to tell me, whether it would be good morning, a tip on the market, or where to buy better shirts than I was accustomed to wearing.
"Good evening," I said.
"Well?"
Another courteous citizen.
"Good evening," I repeated. "See if you can say it without retching," I added encouragingly, taking a look at the brass name plates on the wall. Each plate was screwed to the marble wall. There it was-3C, Dr. Charles Henley.
"This joint's got class," I said.
"You lookin' for trouble?" the doorman said, taking a step towards me. But it was time for me to go to work. I showed the badge. It's funny, or maybe not funny, that so many people who like to flex muscle on those they think weak or unimportant collapse like a deflating balloon when they find out they are the weaker ones; they seem to go into a tailspin, then reverse, then subside to the ground, much smaller than when they started. All the starch went out of him.
"Where's the janitor?" I said. That killed him. Places like this one didn't even have superintendents; they had administrative coordinators.
"Mr. McClellan, sir, apartment 2M."
"Thank you."
"You're welcome, sir."
I told him he had nice manners. He told me to take the elevator. McClellan wore a neat business suit and had smooth hair brushed straight back. He was worried about me. He kept all the duplicate keys on a panel next to his desk. I saw "3C" stamped on a brass tag attached to one of the keys.
He was frowning. I could almost see the headlines running around and around his brain like the electric news signs running around the building at Times Square. They were saying something like DETECTIVE INVESTIGATES SCANDAL AT LUXURY APARTMENT.
I told him I'd like to look around Dr. Henley's apartment.
He stared at me.
"Just take me up and let me in," I said.
"But-"
"I know it's highly irregular. You can come in with me and see that I don't take away an ashtray for a souvenir."
He didn't move. I sighed and stood up. McClellan held up his hand as if to ward off a blow.
"But Dr. Henley is home right now."
I condemned myself to writing one thousand times, "I must not take anything for granted. I must not take anything for granted."
I didn't want McClellan phoning upstairs that I would be coming up. I asked him to take me up and to ring Henley's bell. I wanted Henley completely unprepared.
"What should I tell him?"
"You didn't get this job being dumb," I told him.
We got in the elevator. It had full length mirrors on all sides as well as a little vase with a single rose in it. I asked McClellan did he get the elevator out of Versailles, but he was too busy concentrating on sweating.
I took out my gun and checked it and then put it in my jacket pocket. He drained white. I told him that if anything should start he should just lie down and wait till I told him to get up. He looked even sicker.
"What's he done?" he whispered.
"He bought four cartons of cigarettes in New Jersey," I said. Although he was nervous, he gave me a disgusted look.
He rang the bell. A voice inside said sharply, "Yes?"
"I-" began McClellan, but it went off into a squeak. Not enough saliva.
"Yes?" repeated Henley; he was getting annoyed.
"There's a policeman downstairs, sir. About your car. He says it's too close to the hydrant."
Very good. That McClellan would go far. He knew that every single American, even one in the midst of a murder, would stop to move his car to avoid a fifteen dollar parking violation.
Henley snapped, "Tell the stupid bastard that I'm nowhere near a hydrant!"
I looked at McClellan. Any man smart enough to think up the hydrant story was a man I could rely upon.
"He's up here," said the administrative coordinator. "He won't go away."
"Oh, godammit!"
Chains banged. The lock turned. The door opened. McClellan scuttled to the right and flattened himself. My right hand held the gun in my right coat pocket. My left was displaying the badge. If he made any move I didn't like, I would toss it in his face to distract him while I plotted my next move.
It was easy to see why a rather plain lady doctor would go all the way for him. Not to mention nurses and matrons.
He was built like a bull. He wore his graying hair closely cropped. He looked like one of those guys who pose for physical culture magazines. He wore a tight white T-shirt, the kind they make for guys like Henley to display their bulging pectorals. Mine bulged, but not so much. I wouldn't like to get in a bear hug with the doctor. He wore well-washed khaki pants. He was tanned, with white teeth. He had brilliant blue eyes and small, neat ears.
He looked at the badge very calmly.
"They got detectives giving out parking tickets these days?"
He looked at McClellan. I saw why McClellan didn't want to ring the bell. Henley's eyes were cold. I felt that the man would kill without anger.
"I put him up to it," I said.
"You've seen too many movies," Henley said. I was willing to admit it. "If you wanted to see me all you had to do was announce yourself like a human being."
"We meet so many slippery people," I said. "It becomes second nature."
"Come on in, Mr.-"
"Detective Sanchez."
He raised his eyebrows at the name. "Equal employment practices," I said. "They're very kind to the subject races these days."
I went in and closed the door on McClellan's woeful face. He would hang around apologetically for a while. I had blown Henley's Christmas present to him that year and he knew it.
I transferred my .38 from my jacket pocket to my shoulder holster. "Parking must be getting rough when they shoot you for crowding a hydrant," he said.
"Fun city."
He led the way over a Persian rug that I guessed must have cost over seven thousand dollars. Seven thousand is my idea of a lot of money. Like some kid once said when he was asked what he thought of money, "Eighty-seven dollars is all the money there is in the world." There was some old furniture that looked very fragile and very expensive. There were a few paintings of big black jagged lines on a white background. On an old oval table he had a silver bowl crammed full of orange flowers that looked lik
e trumpets with brown freckles. The table had a shiny reddish surface and the flowers were reflected in it. It looked very rich and very quiet.
"Drink?"
"Sure."
He grinned. "I thought detectives on duty weren't supposed to drink."
"I break rules."
He liked that. It obviously struck something responsive. I could feel him warming up to me. He poured out two glasses from a cut-glass decanter.
"Best sour mash," he said. "I once had a patient from Tennessee and he sends me a jug every year. No federal tax. Strictly illegal. You have any objections?"
"This is New York. To hell with the Feds." He liked that. I sat down.
"Like the chair?"
"Very pretty."
"It's a ladder-back mahogany Chippendale," he said proudly. "And that's a hunt table. I picked it up in County Armagh."
"Armagh?"
"Ireland. Ancestral home of the Henleys. Cherry wood, early eighteenth century." He caressed the silky gloss. "Ten coats of clear varnish, hand-rubbed each one. That's why the cherry shows through."
I rubbed it with my fingertips. "It feels like silk," I said and in the same tone I added, "Where's Dr. Lyons?"
Sometimes the very unexpected question knocks them. Not this guy.
"My dear fellow, why should I know where she is?"
"You were pretty friendly, I hear."
"Yes. Once. The woman got too cloying. I broke it."
"Just like that?"
"Just like that. Another?"
"Sure." He poured a double this time.
I sipped it for a while. He really had a good friend in Tennessee. I looked around the apartment some more. Sometimes a silent, calm look gets them nervous. The sweat comes out on the forehead, the armpits leak moisture and stain the shirt, the blood vessels on the skin surface lose their blood. They lick their lips and drink a lot of water.
His forehead remained dry. The armpits did not flow. The face kept its ruddy color, and he didn't lick his lips.
None of this meant he wasn't guilty. It simply meant that he had no guilt feelings for whatever he had done. He would be a hard one to crack.
I put down my glass.
"Mind if I look around?"
"You have a warrant, of course, specifically stating what you're looking for."
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