Mike Ryerson stared into a tall glass as if it were a crystal ball. “I should have slugged the bastard when I had the chance.” Phil DeGrave had the look on his face that teetotalers get when they try to converse with drunks. “You lost me. Which bastard, the cop? That’s all you needed to do. How would Judy feel with you in some foreign clink?”
Mike lifted the glass to eye level and squinted at it. Apparently, he liked what he saw, because he lowered the drink and sucked at it the way a baby pulls at a bottle. He swallowed, then worked his lips a few times, as though reluctant to replace the liquor with words. He mumbled something.
Phil said, “What?”
“Not the cop, I said.” Mike practically yelled it. “Not the cop, why the hell would I want to slug the cop? He was just doing his job. I should have slugged Burkehart, that bastard. The night he was giving the old lady a hard time about smoking.”
Phil took a deep breath. I’d come to his rescue in a minute, but they hadn’t seen me yet, and I was learning a lot.
Phil took another deep breath and tried logic, always a mistake with a drunk. “Mike,” he said, “if what I hear is true, and from what the cops asked me, I gather it is, someone reduced Burkehart’s head to the approximate shape of an ashtray. A slugging by you or anybody shortly before that seems superfluous.”
Mike mumbled again. Phil heard it better than I did. He said, “What satisfaction would you have had?”
Mike took three big swallows from his drink. He had a mild smile on his face when he took the glass away. “The satisfaction,” he said, “of having at least done something to that son of a bitch before I get accused of killing him.”
Phil was on the verge of total exasperation. “Come on, Mike. For God’s sake. They questioned everybody on the ship about Burkehart. They questioned everybody in the tour twice. Hell, they hauled Matt Cobb off at gunpoint to the police station last night!”
“That’s right,” I said. “They did.”
I got two jaundiced looks, one drunk, one sober.
“How long have you been there?” Phil demanded. I’ve found that writers do a lot of eavesdropping, but they hate to be eavesdropped upon.
I lied cheerfully. “Just this second,” I said, then deflected further comment by flagging the bartender and ordering a bourbon on the rocks.
“The only good part about being hauled off to the station is that they let me sleep through this morning’s inquisition. Who was it, Buxton?”
“Is he the white guy?” Phil asked.
I laughed. “No, he just looks that way. I wouldn’t mention it to him, either. He’s very touchy about it, and he’s likely to give you a tough time.” My drink came. I paid, tipped, took a sip. I like a glass of bourbon now and then, but this one was more of a gesture of solidarity with Mike than anything else. “Or did he already give you a tough time?”
Phil raised his eyebrows. “Me? No. Mike here thinks they’re going to accuse him of murder.”
I looked at Mike. “Really,” I said. “Not just because you didn’t like him. If they were arresting people for not liking Burkehart, I would be breaking chunks of guano on the Davidian chain gang already.”
“Not just because I didn’t like him,” Mike said. “Because I saw him. In town, ashore. I had an argument with him.”
“Oh, boy,” Phil said.
“And I lied to the cops about it.” Mike drained his glass, angrily, as though he were teaching it a lesson. He slammed it down on the bar. “And they caught me at it.”
17
“If you can’t get to the game, get to a phone.”
—George Steinbrenner,
Dial It/SportsPhone commercial
I LOOKED AT HIM. I saw one encouraging sign. His glass was empty, and he was looking around for the bartender.
“Tell us about it,” I suggested.
“Might as well. It will be in all the papers when they arrest me.”
“Come on,” Phil said. “If it was as bad as all that, they’d have arrested you already. The ship sails tomorrow.”
Please God and Inspector Buxton, I added silently. Still, Phil had a point. Mike saw it and looked vaguely encouraged.
“I was hitting bookstores in Davidstown. They’ve only got two or three, you know. One of them had Nicola’s latest book, Phil. None of yours, or mine. I found the new Dick Francis, though. British edition. Won’t be out in the States for another six months.
“Anyway, when I finished that, I was thirsty. You’d think an island this hot, more of the shops would be air-conditioned.”
“They are,” I said.
“They are?”
“Sure. It’s just that the Islanders’ idea of cool starts at a higher temperature.”
“Sure,” Phil echoed. “Outside it’s ninety-five, inside it’s eighty-eight, they think they’re cool.”
Mike smiled. “Suggestible bunch, aren’t they?” He gave a little chuckle. “Maybe they do it to help their saloon trade. I went looking for one when I got tired of looking in bookstores.”
“Judy wasn’t with you,” I said.
“No, dammit. She would have kept me out of this mess.” He shook his head. “I don’t think I’ll ever leave her sight again. If I stay out of jail. If she still wants me.”
He took time for a big sigh, then went on. “It was dark in the bar, but I saw him right away. He was in a booth in the back. He wasn’t making himself conspicuous, but he wasn’t hiding, either. It was just after opening, and there were about three other people in the bar besides the two of us.
“He spoke first. He looked up at me, kind of surprised, and said, ‘Are you the errand boy?’ ”
“Whose errand boy?” I asked.
Mike scratched an eyebrow. “That’s what I wanted to know. When I asked him, he wasn’t talking. He gave me a disgusted look and said he only wanted to deal with principals.”
I held up a hand. “Hold it. Principals A-L-S, or principles L-E-S?”
Mike shrugged. “I assumed the first way. I don’t think Burkehart had much in the way of L-E-S principles.”
“Then what happened?”
“I started razzing him.”
“Not smart,” Phil DeGrave said. “For all you knew the other people in the bar were friends of his, with knives.”
“According to the cop,” Mike said dolefully, “they couldn’t give two shits about him, but they all had memories like elephants. They remembered me, they remembered I accused him of being a thief, they remembered I didn’t like him. They said I threatened him, but that wasn’t true. I just said what I said a little while ago—I should have hit him when I had the chance.”
Mike looked down at the bar. “Don’t I have a drink somewhere?”
“What happened then?” I asked. Better to keep him talking. From the looks of things, he’d pass out at his next drink, anyway.
“Wha? Oh, next. Next I told him I was gonna tell the captain where he was, and I left the bar. I guess that was a threat, wasn’t it? But it wasn’t the kind of threat that winds a guy up dead later, was it?”
“Of course not,” I said.
“Phil. Phil, you’re a writer. Nobody would be justified in taking it that way, right?”
“Like Matt said, of course not.”
“Good. Good. You both testify for me.”
“But you didn’t tell the captain.”
Mike squinted at me through bleary eyes. He was on the way out. “Tell him what?”
“Where Burkehart was.”
“Nah. The captain’s a Swede. I hate Swedes. They talk funny.”
“Actually,” Phil said, “he’s a Norwegian.”
Mike grinned at me. “Phil’s a nice guy, but he’s a pedantic bastard, you ever notice that?” He turned his head. It wobbled like a bobbing-head doll. “You’re a pedantic bastard, Phil.”
The head wobbled back to me. “Anyway, who cared where Burkehart was? I was glad he was off the ship. If I told the captain, he’d probably have had the bastard hauled ba
ck in irons, or something, a tight-assed Swede like him. I hate Swedes. They talk funny, and they’re sticklers for rules. And they pretend to be Norwegians.”
“So why’d you lie to the cops?” I asked.
“Thought it would be less complicated if I didn’t let anyone know I’d had an argument with the guy a few hours before someone flattened his face, that’s all. Didn’t want to get involved.”
“That wasn’t smart, Mike,” Phil said. He was pedantic sometimes. “You’ve written enough mysteries to know the cops always find out, and things always look worse after they do.”
“Wasn’t thinking about mysteries,” Mike said. “I was thinking about the men’s adventures I’ve done. The Flagellator always gets away with lying to the cops.” He laughed, loud and sharp like a blast from a trombone. Then he looked at the bar again, felt around it with his hands. “What did I do with that goddam drink?”
“I’m going to change the subject, Mike. I mention this because that’s something you should never spring on a drunk unexpectedly.”
Mike nodded gravely. “Good point.”
“Who called Schaeffer Lee?”
“Not me. Not macho enough for him. I called him Schafe, when I didn’t call him Hiram.”
“Hiram?”
“That’s what the H stands for. Made me promise never to tell anyone, and I never did until now. You devious bastard, you get me drunk and you make me break a solemn vow. Ah, the hell with him. Treated me like a leper, anyway.”
“So nobody but Mindy ever called him Lee.”
“Who the hell is Mindy?”
“Up until just before we sailed, his girlfriend.”
Mike shrugged. “Yeah, yeah. Girls called him Lee. He had all these different codes, you know, ways he had worked out to act with different people. That’s his trouble. The son of a bitch is so busy acting some way, he doesn’t leave himself any time to be anything.”
Mike brightened. “Hey, that’s good. Isn’t it? Phil, remind me of that when I’m sober, I’ll use it in a book. I’m a hell of a writer, ain’t I?”
Now, I decided, was the time. “Judy’s worried about you, Mike.”
He started to cry. First Schaeffer and now him. Billy and Karen could advertise. “Take our cruises and see Matt Cobb reduce grown men to tears.”
“Poor Judy,” Mike sobbed. “I put her through so much. I’m such an asshole, and she loves me anyway. She’s way too good for me, Matt, she is. She’d be better off without me.”
“She doesn’t think so,” I said.
Mike sneered at me. “Ah, you’re a bachelor, what the hell do you know?” He turned to Phil. “Judy’s way too good for me, Phil.”
Phil shrugged. “Nicola’s too good for me, too. If women like Judy and Nicola waited around for men who were good enough for them, the human race would have died out long ago.”
“Phil, Phil, Phil. You bullshit artist. Even drunk I can see that doesn’t make any sense.” He laughed again.
“The sentiment is clear,” Phil said. He sounded a little defensive. Writers don’t like it when you accuse them of bullshit. “I’ll work on it.”
“Before you do,” I said, “help me take him back to Judy.”
I walked back to my stateroom with a warm feeling of accomplishment, my first since that Ping-Pong game, which seemed to have taken place sometime back in the Mesozoic era.
There was a note on my door. S.S. Caribbean Comet envelope.
I reached for it eagerly. Maybe it was another message from “Lee.” I could hardly wait to read what he had to say.
Another disappointment. It wasn’t from Lee, it was from the ship’s switchboard operator. There had been a phone call for me from Mr. Harris Brophy in New York, and he would wait at the office until he heard from me. The note had been taken down just after I left the last time, so Harris hadn’t had too long to wait.
I went inside, picked up the phone, and asked the operator if I could call New York from here. She said sure, when the boat was docked, it plugged into the Davidstown phone system, but that I could only make collect or credit-card calls. I said that was fine with me, whipped out my credit card, and set the gears in motion.
It took ten minutes for the call to go through. I used the time to look at the ceiling and think. It was a very nice ceiling, for a ship. The thinking yielded only a question. Why is there a nautical term for every goddam part of a ship except ceilings? Maybe there was and I just didn’t know it. Like the explanations for all the crazy things that had been going on, and this is where I came in.
I was about to call the operator back and accuse her of making me frustrated by giving me too much time to think, but she got to me first.
“Your New York call, Mr. Cobb.”
“Matt?”
“Yeah, Harris. Why didn’t you have them page me?” I asked. “It would have made me feel important.”
“Oh, is that all it takes?”
“I’m easy to please.”
“I’ll remember that. I didn’t have them page you because I thought you might want the opportunity to get to a secure phone.”
“You found something hot?”
“How do I know what’s hot? I don’t have the slightest idea what’s going on there.”
“Welcome to the club.”
Harris went on as if he hadn’t heard me. “You asked me to check something, I got it checked. Also, there’s been a bit of news, possibly.”
“Is it something I might be more pleased that the police not know?”
“You mean the police where you are? I don’t see how, but as I say, I don’t know the situation.”
“Then go ahead and tell me. We’re all friends down here.”
“Some friend or other opened your package before it got here, you know.”
I smiled. “Just as long as it got there on time.”
“No problem, there. Got here quicker than I expected, in fact.”
“The Consular Service is there to help American citizens in every way possible.”
“Some day, you must take a few hours and explain this all to me. Like why you’re cackling like a chicken at this moment.”
“Just a small triumph, Harris. I’ll explain it after I get back. It would be too depressing to go into now. What’s the scoop?”
“The note is the real thing, according to Dr. Smendlon. There’s a lot of technical stuff—weight, ascenders, descenders, bowls, but what it boils down to is that the hand that wrote the inscription is the hand that wrote the note.”
“That was the consensus,” I said.
“That’s nice,” Harris said.
“So, either I’ve got a forger who’s too good for Dr. Smendlon, or he’s still alive, right? Alive and around. That was ship’s stationery, after all. Unless, of course, someone has been planning this since long before the cruise and got hold of the stationery ahead of time.”
Harris snorted. “And got Schaeffer to oblige him by writing the note ahead of time? Then got Schaeffer to further oblige him by allowing himself to be murdered or hidden or both?”
“I thought you didn’t know anything about this?”
“Come on, boss.” He knows I hate it when he calls me boss. “The name was in the book; you’re on the other end talking about being ‘alive or around.’ It doesn’t take Jessica Fletcher to deduce what you’re talking about.”
“Still,” I said, “it’s possible.”
“It’s possible there’s a mental hospital on that island, and it’s possible you ought to check into it. Is Schaeffer really missing? Possibly dead?”
“That’s only part of it, but it’s accurate as far as it goes.”
“You ought to find him.”
“Thank you, Harris.”
“Don’t mention it.”
“I’ve done practically nothing but look for the son of a bitch since Sunday morning!” I said. “Aside from chasing some missing cutlery and getting involved in a murder case.”
“A different murder case?”
/>
“As far as I can tell,” I said cautiously, “a different murder case.”
“You’re okay to work for, Matt,” Harris said, “but the assignments you give out aren’t half as interesting as the ones you keep for yourself.”
“Mr. Greedy,” I said. “Why are you so hot to have me find Schaeffer? One of his legion of fans?”
“No, just a loyal employee. Schaeffer’s a big moneymaker for the Network.”
“But ‘They Call Me Shears’ isn’t on our Network.”
“But the Stephen Shears books are published by Austin, Stoddard & Trapp.”
I said, “Ah.” Austin, Stoddard, and Trapp were all dead. Their publishing company was now a wholly owned subsidiary of the Network.
“That makes my day, Harris.” I made a note to pay more attention to whom AS&T was publishing.
“I thought it would.”
“You said you had some news.”
“The cops think they’ve found Joe Jenkins.”
They say a cruise ship is a world of its own. I believed it, now. I had been so wrapped up in what had happened since we left New York, I had completely forgotten the missing disk jockey.
“What do you mean, they think they’ve found him?”
“Well, his remains, more accurately.”
“Ah,” I said again.
“Some humanitarian left him out to be food for urban wildlife in a drainpipe in Riverside Park. Rain kept him soft. He was pretty ripe by the time the Parks Department got around to investigating all the complaints they’ve had about the smell.”
“When was this?”
“Yesterday.”
“He’s been missing since goddam September!”
“Come on, Matt. Can you blame the Parks Department people for not putting a class-A priority on a smelly drain in New York? At the end of the summer?”
“You have a point.”
“Thank you. Anyway, the reason nobody’s absolutely sure it’s Jenkins is that while the rats and cats and whatever left some skin on his fingers, there was only enough to get a partial print off one thumb. Jenkins had been arrested once or twice for coke, you knew that, so there was something to compare it with, but the experts could only match seven points, and you need ten for positive ID.”
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