Don’t Crowd Me

by Ed McBain

  “Yeah,” Mark said. “And then I had to take Johnny in to the mainland.”

  “What?” I asked.

  “Johnny,” he said. He turned to Lois with a puzzled look on his face. “Does he know Johnny?”

  “Sure,” she said.

  “Yeah, well him,” Mark said. “I had to take him in. He’s going home, you know. Gone home, I should really say.”

  “Is this Johnny from Big Burnt?” I asked.

  “Yeah, that’s right.”

  “You took him in to the mainland?”

  “Yeah, sure.”

  “How long ago?”

  “Hour, hour and a half. Right after I got rid of my disinfectant.” He gestured to the empty lye cartons on the deck of the boat. I nodded.

  “Why’d you call?” he asked Lois, completely dismissing the subject of Johnny.

  “I was wondering if you’d take me in? I’d like to catch a movie.”

  “Sure thing. First, I want to explain to Jean, though.”

  He started up the path.

  “I have to change, so take your time,” Lois said.

  “Okay,” Mark sang back over his shoulder.

  “Want to come along?” Lois asked.

  “Huh?” I said. I had been thinking about what Mark said. About taking Johnny in to the mainland. It seemed as if I had been drunk. But I wondered.

  “Would you like to come to the movies?” she asked.

  “No,” I said.

  “Sure?”

  “Yep. Yep, I’m sure.”

  She winked and nudged me with her elbow like a con man trying to sell French postcards. “We can sit in the last row, hey,” she said. I began laughing and she joined me. “Come on, Steve,” she pleaded.

  “I won’t go to the movies,” I said, “but I will ride in with you. A few things I’d like to do.”

  “Fine!” she cheered, “fine, fine, fine. Now come up to my cabin and watch me dress.”

  “We’d never get to the movies,” I said.

  “You’re telling me,” she whispered, and the hunger came back into her eyes. She tore them from mine and said, “Go put on some pants and a shirt. You have to look halfway respectable in town.”

  She squeezed my hand and left me. I decided to bring the outboard over to my dock and tie it up there. I did that and then changed into dungarees, loafers, and a soft Basque shirt. When I went over to Lois’ site again, she was already waiting.

  She looked as sweet as a ginger cookie, and I wanted to scoop her into my arms and press her tight. She was wearing dungarees that looked vaguely familiar. I puzzled over this until I realized they were the ones she’d borrowed the first night I met her. A green plaid shirt was tucked into the trousers, and it followed the curves of her body with accurate precision. She had bunched her hair back on her neck and tied it with a black ribbon. Her eyes were bright, and she’d put fresh lipstick on her ripe mouth. I could have fallen in love with her that minute. In fact, maybe I did.

  She took my hand and wrinkled her nose at me. “You know,” she said, “I kind of like you. A lot.”

  “You know,” I said, “I was just kind of thinking the same thing.”

  “That kind of makes us even,” she said, and she smiled happily.

  I was ready to take her in my arms and kiss her when Mark popped out of the woods and announced, “Okay, let’s shove off.”

  I didn’t like Mark very much at the moment. But he made me remember what I had to do on the mainland.

  “Talk to Jean?” Lois asked.

  “Yep,” he answered. He yanked out his handkerchief as he came closer, and wiped it across his lips. Before he put it away, I saw a smear of crimson against the white square.

  I glanced hastily at Lois, remembering that she’d been gone for some little time while she changed clothes. And she was wearing fresh lipstick now. Mark had sure as hell wiped lipstick off his face, and the only other gal up there in the woods was Jean.

  I puzzled this one out as we climbed into the speedboat.

  And then I forgot it, as I thought of Johnny and the old man’s warning again.

  CHAPTER FOUR

  I walked Lois to the movie theater after Mark dropped us off at Paradise, Incorporated. The theater was a good-looking one, with clean lines, and a modern, all-glass front. The movie playing was scheduled to hit Broadway in a few weeks. I held her hand all the way from the speedboat sheds, and when we stopped outside the theater, Lois squeezed my hand tightly and wrinkled her nose at me again.

  I felt like a high school kid on his first date, like copy for an ad showing a summery prom dress. I was tempted to go inside with her, sit in the last row of the balcony, hold her hand, kiss her. But I remembered why I’d come in to the mainland.

  “Be good,” I told her.

  She reached up and touched my cheek with her hand, brushing her lips lightly against mine.

  “You won’t go back without me, will you?”

  “No,” I said. “Of course not.”

  She looked up at me then and something came into her eyes. Not the hungry look she’d given me before; no, not that. It was tender, almost hurt, as if she were about to cry any minute. She bit her lip, and then smiled, as if I’d caught her showing an emotion she wasn’t supposed to show. I bought her ticket and watched her open one of the big glass doors and walk inside. She turned to face me and pressed her nose up against the glass, like a kid looking in a candy store window. Then she blew me a kiss and she was gone.

  I walked back to Paradise, Incorporated and looked around for Mark. The little office on the waterfront was empty, so I started down to the sheds where the speedboats were kept.

  Mark was squatting on the deck of one of the boats, a can of brass polish in one hand, a rag in the other.

  “Busy?” I asked.

  He looked up, a little surprised grin on his face. “I thought you were going to the movies.”

  “Nope. Just walked Lois down.”

  He poured a thick, white liquid onto the rag, tilted the can back, and began rubbing a brass plate in the polished wood deck. I watched his hands, big and brown, work the brass furiously.

  “Got to keep the boats in shape,” he explained.

  “Sure,” I said. “Need any help?”

  He stopped rubbing, reared back to examine his handiwork. He spilled a little more polish onto the rag and set to work again. “This is my bread and butter,” he said drily. “You’re on vacation.”

  The brass plate caught the sun, sent it shimmering up into my eyes. Mark plucked a clean rag from the deck and gave the plate a final rub.

  “There,” he said, standing and admiring the gleaming brass.

  I was wondering how I could ask about Johnny without sounding too obvious. Mark rose to his knees, half-slid, half-waddled to another plate in the deck. He tipped the can, poured more polish onto the rag. I thought that was a good time to catch him.

  “About Johnny,” I said.

  If I’d expected him to spill polish all over the deck, I was badly disappointed. He yanked back the can as he’d done before, applied the rag to the brass, and began rubbing.

  “Yeah?” he asked, not lifting his head.

  “Seemed like a nice fellow,” I said lamely.

  “Damn nice.”

  A bird winged its way into the shed, fluttered in panic against the low roof. It cawed wildly, zoomed down over the water and out into the bright sunlight.

  “I wonder why he left so soon?” I asked. I watched Mark hunched over his work.

  He looked up at me, one eyebrow cocked. “Soon?”

  “Well,” I hesitated, “yes. Lois seemed to think he was rushing, away.”

  Mark let out a little laugh. “He was out there for more than a month.”

  “Oh, really?” I said. I was beginning to feel pretty damned silly.

  “Sure,” Mark said. “Gets kind of tiresome, you know. Nothing to do but swim and eat and sleep.”

  He dropped the rag to the deck and fished in his po
cket for a cigarette. He lighted it, cupping the match with one brown hand, blowing a stream of smoke through his lips.

  “He say whether he was coming back or not?” I probed.

  “Don’t remember as he did,” Mark said. He squinted up at me and drew in on the cigarette.

  I looked straight into his eyes and asked, “You did take him in today, didn’t you?”

  Mark returned my level gaze. “Sure.” He paused, puffing again on the cigarette. “Why do you ask?”

  “I just wondered. He seemed like a nice guy.”

  “This is where I came in.” Mark stood up and walked to the thin brass tubing on the starboard side of the boat. I figured it was time to change the subject.

  “Where’d you pick up the old guy who drives the boats?”

  “Pete?” Mark asked.

  “I don’t know. Is that his name?”

  “The one who took you out?”

  “Yeah. Old guy with a white moustache.”

  “That’s Pete. A native,” Mark said, shrugging.

  “Been with you long?”

  “First season. He’s a fish, you know.”

  “A fish?”

  “He guzzles. Usually drunk as hell. About the only thing he’s good for is pushing the speedboat. I don’t even know how he manages that with a snootful.”

  “I don’t see him around,” I said, looking back toward the office.

  “You won’t half the time,” Mark assured me. “He runs back and forth between here and Charlie’s. When he’s not driving, he’s drinking. I pay him what he’s worth, and that’s not a hell of a lot.”

  “Does he do most of the ferry work?” I asked.

  “Yeah. He’s good with the boat. Besides, I have to stay back here to see that everything’s going all right.”

  I dropped to the deck beside Mark and watched his hands mold the rag to the tubing.

  “How come he didn’t take Johnny in?” I said.

  Mark stopped rubbing for a second. The cigarette was burning close to his lips, and the smoke circled up past his nose in long, gray spirals. He shrugged.

  “I was out that way so I stopped by for him. Why?”

  “Just wondered.”

  Mark shook his head and grinned. “You sure wonder a lot. You’re not a lawyer or anything, are you?”

  “Nope,” I said, grinning back. “I’m just interested in people.”

  “Like Lois?” His grin widened.

  “She’s interesting,” I agreed.

  “Mmm,” Mark said, nodding.

  “I’m kind of thirsty,” I told him. “Can I buy you a drink?”

  “Thanks. I’ve got to finish up here, though.”

  “Sure?” I insisted.

  “Yep.” He lifted the can of polish again.

  “Okay. See you later.”

  “See you,” Mark said. He was leaning over the tubing as I left the shed and walked up the rutted path to the street.

  I was glad Mark had refused my invitation. In fact, I was hoping he wouldn’t accept. I began to think of the bungling job I’d done questioning him. If he was lying, he was a damn good liar. At any rate, he seemed to believe he’d carried Johnny in this morning. Of course, he’d probably seen my pitches coming a mile away. It wouldn’t have been too difficult to avoid them.

  I shrugged and headed for Charlie’s.

  It wasn’t hard to find. It was a big log job, fashioned like a cabin, with a sign swinging back and forth on iron hinges. It looked warm and cozy from the outside.

  Inside, it looked the way any bar does at three in the afternoon. A big guy in a leather jacket held up the far end of the bar, talking softly to the bartender. They both looked up when I came in, and the bartender walked over to me, dragging his barcloth across the top of the bar as he came. He was short and bald, with two patches of hair, one behind each ear. His nose had been broken once, and it rested on his round face like an omelet in a frying pan.

  He polished the bar in front of me, and I thought of Mark’s hands moving over the brass plates in the boat’s deck.

  “What’ll it be?” he asked.

  “Pete around?”

  The big guy in the leather jacket turned his back to the bar and leaned on it with his elbows.

  “What’ll it be?” the bartender asked me again.

  “Rye and water,” I said. “Is Pete around?”

  “Who wants to know?” the big guy at the other end of the bar asked.

  I looked him over. He was big, but not that big. And I didn’t like strangers shouldering their way into my business. But I decided I’d learn more by playing this one soft and easy.

  “Steve’s my name,” I said to the leather jacket. “I wanted to thank Pete for something.”

  The leather jacket shrugged and turned back to the bar. The bald head took a bottle from the shelf and set a jigger before me. He filled it and said, “Pete’s in a booth.”

  I dropped a dollar on the bar.

  “But he don’t feel much like talking,” the bald head added.

  I killed the jigger and washed it down. At the back of the place, in a dimly-lit booth, Pete sat with a bottle and a water glass before him.

  “Another one,” I said to the bald head.

  He poured and I carried my glass to Pete’s booth. I slid in opposite him and said, “Hello, Pete.”

  He blinked up at me out of washed-out eyes, red-rimmed. Then he poured half the water glass full of whiskey, drank most of it, coughed, and put down the glass.

  “Don’t think I know you,” he said thickly.

  At the bar, the leather jacket rested on his elbows again, watching us.

  “Sure you know me,” I said. “You took me out to Little Harbor in the speedboat. Remember?”

  He looked across at me as if he were peering through a thick fog. He poured more whiskey into the glass, on top of the whiskey still in it. He threw this off, coughed again, gasped.

  “Sure, I remember.”

  “What else do you remember?” I asked.

  He lifted his head, his eyes looking straight into mine, no longer black coal, but blurred blobs of clay interlaced with fine red lines.

  “Nothing else to remember,” he said.

  “But there is.”

  He turned the bottle upside down over his glass. A half inch splashed out. He stood staring at the bottle, and finally realized it was empty. He plunked it down heavily on the table and turned toward the bar.

  “Al! Hey, Al, bring me another bottle.”

  The bald head reached behind him for another bottle, broke the seal, and unscrewed the cap. He waddled over to the table and set it down in front of Pete.

  “Better go easy,” he said.

  “It’s all right,” Pete said. “It’s all right, Al. All right, Al.”

  He reached into the pocket of his shirt and pulled out a roll the size of my fist. He had a little trouble with the rubberband around the roll, but he finally slipped it off. The figures on the outside bill were a 2 and a 0. Twenty smackers wrapped around a roll. He peeled off the twenty and began thumbing through the wad. I caught a lot of other figures, and none of them were small. I thought of what Mark had said.

  We pay him what he’s worth, and that’s not a hell of a lot.

  Evidently, someone was paying Pete a hell of a lot more than he was worth.

  He pulled a ten and a five from the roll and handed them to Al. I watched him fumble with the rubberband again, and I felt eyes boring into the top of my head. Al’s eyes. He probably thought I was going to roll the village lush. I grinned a little at this, not missing the glance that passed between Al and the big leather jacket standing at the bar.

  Pete dropped the wad back into his shirt pocket and poured another stiff hooker.

  “Celebrating?” I asked.

  “Nope.”

  I threw off my drink and put a hand grenade in Pete’s lap, the pin out, ready to go off in his face. “Why’d you tell me to get out this morning?”

  The hand
grenade was a dud. It didn’t explode. It didn’t even sputter. It just sat in his lap and fizzled out as he guzzled another drink.

  “I told you to get out?” he asked, mild surprise in the gray blobs of his eyes.

  “You’re drunk,” I said evenly, “but not that drunk.”

  “You must be crazy, mister. I never said nothing to you.”

  “Look, old man,” I said, my voice rising a little, “you told me to get out of Lake George. I want to know why.”

  “I told you nothing, mister,” Pete insisted. “You’re crazy.”

  I was begining to get a little sore. I might have been drunk when I saw Johnny, I admitted. That was possible because I’d certainly tossed off a couple talking to Jean. But I hadn’t touched a drop before the old guy helped me with the outboard. And he sure as hell had warned me.

  “What’s the story, Pete?” I asked. “Why’d you give me the scare treatment?”

  “I never give you nothing, mister.”

  “Now, just a minute …” I started to say.

  “This guy troubling you, Pete?” a voice cut in.

  I looked up. The leather jacket was standing near the booth, looking pretty big from where I was sitting.

  “He’s crazy,” Pete said. “Plain crazy.”

  The leather jacket needed a shave. He smelled, too. Of whiskey and horse manure. The horse manure smell was the strongest. Maybe because he was beginning to spread it a little.

  “You from New York?” he asked me.

  I don’t like horse manure mixed with whiskey. I like my whiskey straight, and my horse manure not at all. I never liked leather jackets either. Even when I had to wear them in the Army.

  “That’s right,” I said. “New York.”

  “Why don’t you leave Pete alone?”

  “Why don’t you go take a shave?”

  He moved quickly, quicker than I thought a big guy could move. With one hand he rammed the table against my stomach, while he slapped me across the face with the other.

  I tried to get up but the table was jammed tight against my belt. He slapped me again, this time with the back of his hand.

  “After Pete’s roll, eh?” he sneered, and the horse manure smell seemed to emanate from his mouth. I put both hands under the table and lifted. Pete’s bottle jumped into the air with the table, into Pete’s lap. There was the tinkle of glass, and the splash of liquid. Then the big guy grabbed me by the collar and yanked me clear.