Built for Trouble

by Al Fray

  There was no recognition in his face, naturally, though we weren’t much over a hundred feet apart, and soon he turned away and went back below. I sat down on a piling end to wait. It was another hour before Nola Norton came on deck, and by then there were several other people on the dock. Some of them were men and they were all looking in the same direction—toward Nola. She looked like something out of a Little Abner comic strip. Her shorts were brief and frayed at the bottoms; they’d probably been cut from an old pair of dungarees, but the effect was better than most dames can get from ten bucks’ worth of nylon. She wore a tight blue-striped sweater—doing what came naturally—and her wedgies clacked across the deck as she went past the cabin and sat down on a deck chair forward. She glanced casually at the line-up along the pier and then her eyes flashed back to me. She put up a hand to shade her face, and I stood up, took off the dark glasses, polished them a little, and smiled at her.

  She bounced out of the chair and hurried aft, then swung down the companionway into the cabin. A few seconds later I saw binoculars pressed against the plate glass window. I nodded significantly, turned, and went slowly along the pier. At the end I turned off, wandered along the beach, and sat down.

  Nola took her time. It was almost half an hour before she came on deck once more, and this time she wore a red bathing suit. Salty came out too and lowered the dinghy for her, and when she pulled away he found a cloth and went to work on the brass. Nola handled the oars well. She skirted the pier on the side away from the Sirocco, then made for the landing. When her tiny skiff was tied up, she walked briskly off the pier and then slowed her step, her eyes going toward me. I got up and followed at a distance. She moved around the corner of a building and when I rounded that corner she was waiting for me. We fell into step.

  “I’m a little surprised to see you,” she said, her voice low.

  “You shouldn’t be. When you owe a guy dough he usually comes around to collect. It’s standard business procedure.”

  “But we aren’t in business any more.”

  “Since when?”

  “Since you killed Joe Lamb,” she said harshly. “Joe’s death made you and me even at one each. And I’m not paying off. Not a cent!”

  “You’ll cough up every damn dime. Or else!”

  “Or else what? You’ll go to the police? I don’t think so. Let’s start by agreeing that, although the police have marked Hank Sawyer’s passing as an accident, the evidence you have would lead them directly to me. To save argument, let’s admit that it would make a sure case and I’d have little chance to beat it. Very well, the same things apply to Joe Lamb. As of now, he was killed by a hitchhiker who is still at large. But as soon as the police learn that Lamb went to see you at Ojai and add in your shake-down project and put all this with the facts they already have—such as that Joe was hauled a considerable distance after he died—they’re going to come up with the name of that hitch-hiker in a hurry. Eddie Baker! Then they’ll begin a search for the gun and probably find the place where you shot Joe and…”

  As she talked, I began to do some overdue thinking of my own. Sure I didn’t kill Lamb, but saying so would only throw Carol into the fire. I didn’t have to weigh that very long. She was still piling on the dark clouds and saying how bad things looked for me, so I let her finish, then lit two smokes and handed one to her.

  “Let’s head back toward the pier,” I said.

  “We haven’t settled anything, Eddie.”

  “It won’t take long. This is a little like poker, baby, and we’ve each got some pretty good cards. It’s all a question of how far you’re willing to back your hand. So you go to the police and sing your song. Who, besides you, knew that Joe Lamb went to Ojai? Two people—Carol and Eddie. And Carol can’t admit knowing it because that would implicate her in the previous killing. I’ll certainly deny the whole thing. And according to his secretary, Joe was bound for Las Vegas to see a singer about handling her contracts. So how will you convince people that Joe didn’t decide to go to Vegas first and pay a call on me later?”

  “When they put together—”

  “Hold it,” I said. “I listened to your pitch; now listen to mine. As we stand at the moment, your goose is cooked for sure; my skin is close to the fire but not quite in. I’ve got a fighting chance to break clear; you haven’t. The gun? They’ll play hell finding that. Or any other evidence, so far as I know. A gamble, of course, but I’ve got the best hand. I think you’re bluffing and I’m going to call.”

  “But you can’t risk the—”

  “I can and I will,” I said grimly. I snapped the cigarette into the weeds. “If you don’t pay off, I’ll be on the evening steamer for the mainland, and the cops.”

  Without looking at her a second time, I turned away and went in the general direction of a taxi.

  She didn’t let me take five steps. There was a quick patter of feet behind me and then her hand tugging at my arm. “Eddie, I’ll need time.”

  “And the rest of my dough?”

  “You’ll get it. I—it’s in a wall safe back in my apartment, but I’m not supposed to go very far from the Isthmus now until the picture begins and—”

  “You could run over tonight. Get the old salt to run you across.”

  “I don’t want him to know about this. Let’s do it this way. Will you come down to the pier tonight? At eight. By then I’ll have something figured out, some way to get over and get your money.”

  “I’ll be there,” I said shortly. “Be damn sure you are.”

  “I will. I have to.” Then she turned and walked slowly toward the pier. When she was gone I went for a walk in the back bay area. I had almost eight hours to kill.

  Chapter 14

  IT WAS ALMOST DARK. I went down the ramp from the pier to the landing float, then wasted some time lighting a smoke. I stood on the gently lifting and falling planks for fifteen minutes, and then the small skiff of the Sirocco rounded the end of the pier and came toward me. The big fellow was at the oars, Nola in the bow. When it came within the lighted area, she avoided looking in my direction. The dinghy touched lightly and Conrad stood up, then jumped out onto the float as Nola shifted to the middle seat and grabbed the oars.

  “What time shall I come for you?” she asked, looking up at him. He grinned down at her.

  “Unless they clean me out early, sweetheart, I’ll be there until it breaks up. So don’t worry about meeting me; I’ll get one of the other guys to drop me aboard.” He nodded toward half a dozen small skiffs tied up along the float, then waved and went up the ramp as Nola pulled away. Her hand darted into her pocket momentarily. She tossed a folded paper onto the wharf, then rowed around the end of the pier and was gone. I put a foot on the bit of paper and waited until Conrad was out of sight, then bent to pick it up.

  We’ll take the Sirocco and go for the money, but we’ll have to wait until almost midnight. Otherwise someone from one of the other boats might go to the club after we’re gone and mention that the Sirocco is missing, which would bring Conrad in double time to see what’s wrong. So I’ll come back about twelve. Be here on the float. Nola.

  I read it twice, tore it into small bits, and scattered it on the water as I went back toward shore. Almost four more hours. I hiked into the hills above the Isthmus once more, rested a while on a huge boulder, and when it grew on toward the hour I slipped the .38 out, checked it over, found it ready, and put it back inside my shirt. Then I went to the float once more. The tiny boat from the Sirocco was there, her painter slipped through a ring, and she bobbed easily with several others in the line.

  “Eddie.”

  It was Nola’s voice, and when I looked up she was standing on the pier above me. “Get in and lie down, Eddie,” she whispered softly. “I’ll be right there.”

  I nodded, stepped into the boat, and sat down on the planking. When Nola hurried down the ramp and jumped in, I flattened out, my hand resting just inside my shirt, my fingers around the butt of the gun. I knew better
than to sell her short.

  “Just in case someone happens to be glancing out from another boat, let’s not be any more conspicuous than we have to,” Nola said. She rowed expertly, and a few minutes later the skiff bumped gently against a heavy rope fender hanging from the Sirocco.

  “Up the ladder, Eddie, but give me a few minutes to get out of sight.”

  Then she was gone. I lay there a minute or two, the dinghy riding against the ladder. Then I straightened up, slipped over the side, and down into the cabin. Nola went aft, made the dinghy fast, and climbed up onto the leather seat behind the wheel. She pressed a button and one engine sprang to life. Then another. She let them idle for a few seconds while she went to the bow and untied the line holding us to the mooring buoy. When she climbed into the pilot seat once more, she eased the throttles ahead and the Sirocco nosed out to sea. Finally the lights were two or three hundred yards behind us.

  “What about that?” I asked, thumbing toward the skiff trailing astern. “Are we going to tow it all the way over?”

  “I don’t know enough about boats to bring it up,” Nola said. “It won’t hurt anything back there.”

  “Good,” I said. “How long do you figure Old Salt will play poker tonight. Will you make it back in time?”

  “Probably. Those parties run on until dawn.”

  Her face was drawn and tight, and it worried me a little. She wasn’t concerned about the trip; piloting a cabin cruiser isn’t that difficult. Then another possibility crossed my mind. I slipped a hand inside my shirt once more and began to go over the boat. I lifted the hatches; there was nothing below on either side except a smoothly running engine. They looked, in the dim light, like a couple of big Chryslers, and they purred nicely. I dropped the hatches and opened lockers along each side, checking all that were big enough to hold anyone. I didn’t want our party for two suddenly developing into a triangle. I worked my way forward, to the door at the end of the companionway. An army rifle was over the frame and I knew that many cruisers carry such a gun for knocking off sharks, but it would be too cumbersome for a fight in this confined space. Still, it might not hurt to look at it when I finished the search. I put a hand on the doorknob and Nola spoke.

  “That’s the head,” she said loudly.

  “All right. So maybe I’ll have an emergency some time; I’ll look it over.” I turned the knob but the door was stuck. When I turned the knob a second time and jerked harder, the door slammed open, half turning me around. My gun was coming out now, but it wasn’t quite fast enough. Nola had let go the wheel and lurched out of the pilot chair, her hands catching for my wrist. I caught one brief flash of mustache and faded T-shirt and dungarees. A heavy arm lashed out at me from above. Something flattened against the top of my head, something with a hell of an impact, and a sheet of bright red streaks exploded in front of my eyes. My knees buckled. I pitched drunkenly into the black void.

  There was a rhythmic surging of water. I could hear it; I could feel the spray. I opened my eyes and the clean wooden deck was only inches away from my face. I sat up and started to get to my feet, and then I noticed the rope around my ankle. I shook my head and reached out to move the line off my leg, but someone laughed behind me. When I looked around, Conrad Masters squatted on the deck in front of the cabin and Nola leaned her pretty face out of the window at the wheel.

  “Going somewhere?” Masters asked. He laughed again and stood up.

  “Poker party must have pooped out early,” I said dryly. My head was clearing now and I looked around. I was sitting far up in the bow and wore only bathing trunks. New ones, and they fit a little loose. I grabbed the rope tied around my ankle and followed the line. It led over the side almost as far forward as the anchor chain. When I looked over the side I saw that the other end of the rope that shackled me was made fast to the anchor itself. I shook my head again and stared at the ridiculous trouble they’d gone to in order to stake me out in the bow. There were a dozen things they could have tied me to without reaching out there to the anchor.

  “I think he’s getting it, sweetheart,” Conrad laughed, and when he got up he started unsteadily back along the cabin. Nola handed a drink through to him, and he took it but continued on aft. “I’ll set the wheel, sugar, and then we’ll go talk to the guest. Not sociable to leave a guest by himself.”

  I looked at him sharply. He was moving clumsily. It wasn’t that rough. It wasn’t rough at all. The sky was clear and behind us were the lights of Catalina Island. Ahead you could see the coast cities glittering in the night. I got down on my haunches and looked at the rope. It was heavy, over an inch in diameter. The loop around my ankle was snug, securely tied, and the loose end of the knot was bent back along the line and fastened with heavy wire. The wire had been twisted tight, then nipped off close. It was much too heavy a wire to work with fingers, no matter how desperate a guy got. I leaned over the bow and saw that the other end was just as permanent.

  And then it got through to me.

  All they had to do was let the anchor down. Let it down about twenty feet, because wherever that anchor went, Eddie Baker was going to be close by. Ten feet of slack I had. No more than that, and when that anchor dropped into the water I was going to drop in with it. But why wait? They could have drowned me twenty minutes ago. We were in mid-channel and they could—

  That rope had to come off, and quick. I dug my fingers into the twisted wire. That was first. Get it off and then I could untie the line, but the sharp, short ends of wire cut into my fingers and I got nowhere. Chew the line through? A line that big? I’d be drowned before I made a dent in the thing.

  I wasn’t cold any more. I was sweating. I stood up and swallowed and looked around. Nola was coming toward me now, and Masters was behind her. She didn’t smile. Her face was serious and her stride short, but Masters was grinning like a half-lit goon. His yachting cap was at an even more rakish angle than before and he slouched along like an overweight merchant sailor dragging himself aboard after a long night in the beer joints. I looked toward shore and spotted the red and white tower of the Hyperion Sewage Disposal on ahead. We were running north toward Venice, or perhaps Santa Monica.

  They stopped and sat down on the deck just out of my reach. Masters nibbled on an apple and grinned at me. “This the guy you said has those blackout spells?” he asked. Nola was too intent on watching me to go along with the gag, so Masters carried it himself. He took another bite of apple, then pointed a finger at me.

  “Well, mate, I think you’re going to have another one tonight.”

  “So what are you waiting for, Salty?”

  “The beach at Playa Del Rey. Your old hunting grounds. Or happy hunting ground.” He slapped Nola on the fanny and laughed, but she only gave him a quick smile. Her mind was on the business at hand, one hundred per cent. Masters slipped a sheath knife out of the leather hanging from his belt, sliced off part of the apple, and offered it to Nola. When she shook her head he tossed the apple toward me.

  “Condemned man gets a hearty breakfast,” he said. I kicked it over the side.

  “Don’t, Con,” Nola said. He frowned, and she changed her tack, leaned over, and patted his cheek. “Take it easy, honey. We don’t want to make the guest mad.”

  I could see it now. It takes a lot of guts to carry out a planned killing, and Masters maybe didn’t have a large supply. He had to get some out of the bottle, but Nola didn’t need any boost. She was keeping him on the edge with booze and the well-known bait. His turn would come, though, and it might help to point that out to him now. At least it couldn’t hurt me any; I was beyond that.

  “You’re being conned, Salty, but good! Didn’t she tell you that about a week after I take my dive, there’ll be a committee from the police department calling on a few people. You’re getting out on a limb, sailor boy.”

  “The package in the mail again?” Nola said. She shook her head wearily. “We’ve known for a long time that you were kidding us, Eddie. Almost from the first.”
/>   “The hell you say. I sent that package—”

  “I think not, Eddie. You went into quite a bit of detail—even mentioned using the substation out on Vermont Avenue—but there is one small hitch.” Again Nola shook her head. “General delivery mail,” she said softly, “is handled only at the main post office. We checked.”

  I made a mental dive for safer ground and came up with a fast answer. “A trivial bit of deception. Actually, I’ve been using the smaller city post offices—Huntington Park and Southgate and Bell and…” She was giving me that damn cool look again, and my voice trailed off.

  “With what for identification, Eddie?”

  “Identification?” I was beginning to get it now.

  Nola stood up and found a cigarette. She lit it and leaned against the cabin rail. “You can’t just walk up to the window and ask for a package addressed to Joe Doaks. You’ve got to produce some kind of evidence that you really are Mr. Doaks. A driver’s license, maybe a wallet-size discharge, something reasonable. And you aren’t carrying a thing. Just Eddie Baker.”

  “That’s why you turned on the heat in Oceanside and bedded down with me? To search for an extra driver’s tab?”

  She nodded. The wind was in her dark hair now, streaming it back from her white face and flattening the sweater tight against her. There may have been better sea witches in history but none more inviting on a windy night afloat. Masters got up and went along the side, reached into the cabin window, and made a small adjustment in the wheel. Then he came back, stood beside Nola, and put his thick arm around her.

  “You ever see a dame with a shape like this and brains to boot, friend?” he asked, and then he laughed again.

  “What the hell are you so happy about?” I said grimly. “You’re next. You ought to be able to see that.”

  “There won’t be no next,” he said, shaking his head. “We understand each other. This little girl needed a new man and she’s got one. She’s going a long way in this picture business, and I’m going to be right on hand to see that she gets a fair shake. How about it, sugar?”