by Keene, Day
Ames bought a morning Tribune from a boy on the corner of Franklin Street and moved on with the crowd. Palmetto City was a tourist town. It depended on its winter visitors for the bulk of its living. Tampa was a city. It had been a city when his grandfather had embarked from Port Tampa for Santiago de Cuba during the Spanish-American war. It had shipyards and cigar factories and heavy industry. Rusty and sleek freighters, banana boats, tankers, even a few passenger ships were warped into its docks from ports all over the world. It had an international airport serving the islands of the Caribbean and Central and South America. As much Spanish as English was spoken on its streets. There was a wide-awake feel to the town, unusual this far south. If it were possible for him to find out what he wanted to know, he could buy the information in Tampa.
There was a small restaurant in the next block. Ames sat at the crowded counter and ordered eggs and ham and buttered grits. The first thing he had to do was buy some clothes.
If Sheriff White had alerted the Tampa police, they would be looking for a charter boat captain wearing a tie-less white shirt, a blue serge suit, white sneakers and a white cap. His cap was on the bottom of Boca Grande Bay. Ames studied his clothes. Otherwise, he answered the description.
He read the paper while he ate his breakfast. He was big news even in Tampa, rather Helene Camden was. A reproduction of the framed picture he’d seen in the Camden living room took up a quarter of the first page. Most of the story was a re-hash of what he’d read in the Palmetto City paper Shep had had aboard the Falcon. Only one item was new. He read the Tribune’s version of the shooting on the beach with interest. It quoted Attorney Tom Ferris and Hal Camden verbatim.
According to Hal Camden, Ames was crazy. He had appeared out of nowhere and started to beat on Camden in an attempt to make Camden confess that he had killed his wife or had had her killed. Camden was virtuously indignant. He loved his wife very much. He had no reason, financially or otherwise, to want to see her dead. He had put up as good a fight as he could but Ames had beaten him unconscious.
Ames skipped on to Attorney Ferris’ version of what had happened. Ferris said he had been in town making arrangements for the bodies of Helene Camden and Miss Montigny to be shipped north. He had returned to find Camden unconscious and Ames standing in the middle of the living room with a revolver in his hand. The gun was identified as the revolver that he, Ames, had stolen earlier in the day from a negligent county trooper. According to the direct quotes, there had been a terrific fight. Ferris claimed he had twisted the gun out of his hand and emptied it at Ames as he ran. The attorney had then waited in the darkened living room for the police to arrive, fearful that Ames might have a second gun.
There was no mention of Phillips, the butler, or of any third party in the living room. Ames felt his battered head. Nor was there any mention of a piece of pipe.
He read on down the story. There were the usual wild reports. He had been seen in Bradenton and Fort Myers and as far south and east as Miami. He was believed to be headed for Cuba. It was thought he was still holed up somewhere on the beach. The county and state police were searching all the islands in Boca Grande Bay. As yet no inquest had been held on Miss Montigny and Mary Lou was still being held in Palmetto City jail on a charge of suspicion of murder. The only statement by Sheriff White was the usual police bromide to the effect that his office was making progress and expected to make an arrest any moment.
Ames paid his check and walked up the street to a large department store. Even a few minutes after opening time it was crowded. No one paid any particular attention to him.
He bought a pair of cuffed fawn-colored slacks, a gabardine shirt to match and a pair of two-toned sports shoes. In the drugstore across the street he bought dark sun glasses and one of the long-billed fishermen’s caps that all tourists purchased but that none of the local fishermen wore.
There was a bar on the next corner. He changed his clothes in the men’s room and washed the salt spray from his hands and face. Disposing of his old clothes was a problem. He solved it by stuffing them under the papers in the unemptied trash barrel. Then he put on the dark sun glasses and looked at himself in the mirror. With the exception of his permanent tan he looked as much like a northern tourist as he could expect to look. He was glad there’d been no picture of him in the paper. He still looked like Charlie Ames.
He located a barber shop next and bought a shave. The barber was filled with the Palmetto Beach story and voluble, a Spanish mine of misinformation. The barber knew Palmetto City well. He and his family swam on the beach every Sunday weather permitted and as God was his judge, everyone knew that Palmetto Beach had the best climate in the world. He would like to live on the beach if it weren’t for the sand flies and the mosquitoes and if he could make a living there.
He also knew Captain Ames … well, not exactly knew him, but a very good friend of his, one Carlos Garcia, a waiter at Los Novedades, had chartered Ames’s boat, the Sally, several times and Carlos said that Captain Ames was one hell of a swell fellow.
Ames remembered Garcia. A rotund little man with a pleasant smile, he would have made a good fisherman. As Ames recalled, he’d had Carlos out three times.
The barber continued. He’d also seen Mrs. Ames once when the local bartenders’ union had thrown a binge at the Beach Club during the off-season, of course, when prices weren’t so high. Mrs. Ames or Mary Lou, as she was known at the Beach Club, had sung for them. She was one muy bello nino, a beautiful babe, if there ever was one. It was the barber’s opinion that Camden had shown her too much money and she had been falso with him and Ames had attempted to get even first by staying with and then killing Mrs. Camden. Anyone could see it was a crime of passion. He felt sorry for Captain Ames and he, for one, was glad the goddamn moneyed tourists stayed the hell away from Tampa. They always loused things up. Who did the goddamn-yankees think they were? All this with an Ybor City accent Ames could have cut with a loaf of Cuban bread.
He was glad when he was shaved. He put his change in his pocket and glanced at his watch. It had stopped at eight o’clock, probably the morning before when he’d stepped in the pot-hole off Pine Key.
It was ten by the barber’s clock. He asked the barber if he could use his phone book and thumbed through the classified section until he came to the heading, Credit Reporting Agencies. There were half a dozen firms listed, the nearest one on Franklin Street not far from where he’d bought his morning paper.
The barber tried to be helpful. “You find what you want, fellow?”
“Yes. I think so,” Ames said.
He walked slowly back the way he had come. There were fewer people on the sidewalks now. The shrill of whistles and blare of horns had ceased. A white capped policeman was standing on the corner of Franklin. He looked Ames full in the face, then yawned and looked away. Ames walked on. He was beginning to sweat again. His luck so far had been too good. He couldn’t expect it to last.
He had no illusions. He was free on borrowed time. Fifty people on Bayshore Boulevard had seen Shep dock the Falcon and a hatless man in a blue serge suit and white sneakers scramble out onto the pier. The Falcon was documented out of Palmetto City. The name Palmetto City was painted on its stern in only slightly smaller letters than its own name.
If White had alerted the Tampa police, one of them would hear of it and contact White. He and Shep were known to be good friends. Plainclothes detectives would trail him from the pier to the Greasy Spoon where he had eaten breakfast The waiter would remember him vaguely.
Yeah. A big guy who needed a shave.
He would be traced to the department store. The clerk would remember selling him him the fawn-colored slacks and a shirt and shoes. The clerk in the drugstore might or might not remember him, but the man back of the bar in which he’d changed clothes would. The trash barrel would be emptied. The police would find his old suit.
A fresh fear nagged at Ames’s mind. For all his volubility, the garrulous barber hadn’t once mentioned
the gash on his head. True, he’d washed his hair in salt water and removed all the blood he could, but that hadn’t healed the skin. The blow of the pipe had left a bad laceration. He could feel it. Perhaps the barber had known who he was and that was why he’d talked as much as he had.
The feeling of stiffness returned to Ames’s neck. He swiveled his head and looked over his shoulder. The policeman he’d passed was still yawning, at the plump stern of a pretty girl now. No one seemed to be following him. He walked on and up the stairs under a swinging second floor sign reading:
SOUTHERN CREDIT ASSOCIATION
Reports & Collections
The office was at the end of a short hall. Ames opened the door and walked in. An attractive girl in her late teens was sitting behind the receptionist’s desk in a small outer office.
“Yes, sir?” she smiled at Ames. “What can we do for you?”
Ames took off his long-billed cap. “I’d like some credit reports. You are affiliated with the National Associated Credit Bureau?”
“We are.” The receptionist poised her pencil over her pad. “What is your name, sir?”
“O’Hara,” Ames lied. “James O’Hara, of Asheville and Miami and more recently of Palmetto Beach.” He built up the mythical character he’d created. “I’m planning a rather large real estate development on the beach, one that will run well into six figures.”
The girl was properly impressed. “I see.” She added, “I also see, according to the papers, that you’re having quite a bit of excitement over there.”
Ames waved the statement aside as immaterial. “I’m interested in a credit rating.”
The girl was all business again. “Yes, sir.”
Ames continued. “I would like a thorough character report and credit rating on two men and one manufacturing company. One of them is local to the beach. Two of them are in Baltimore. Money, within reason, is no object, but time is of the essence. I’d like this report today, as soon as it can be compiled. Can such a thing be done?”
The receptionist said he’d better speak to the manager and ushered him into an inner office, where an alert looking young man sat at a desk literally surrounded by filing cases and out-of-town phone directories. She introduced him as Mr. George and Ames repeated what he had told the girl.
“You want this report today?” Mr. George said when Ames had finished.
“That’s right.”
The credit man rubbed his chin. “That could be quite an order.”
“I realize that.”
Mr. George continued to rub his chin. “The local man shouldn’t give us any trouble and I have the connections to get any information that is available on the other two. But a rush job like this is going to cost you money, sir.”
“How much?”
“You want a detailed report?”
“No. A general will do.”
“Then say fifty dollars apiece. A hundred and fifty for the three.”
Ames counted the money on the desk.
Mr. George stopped rubbing his chin. “Fine. I’ll get right to work. Where do you want us to deliver this report, Mr. O’Hara?”
Ames considered saying he would wait in the outer office but was afraid the suggestion might make Mr. George suspicious. He named one of the better hotels in town. “You can reach me at the Flamingo.”
Mr. George wrote — Mr. James O’Hara, Flamingo Hotel — on his pad, then looked up at Ames again. “And the two men and the firm on whom you want the reports?”
Ames took a deep breath and told him. “Ben Sheldon of Palmetto Beach. The other man is Thomas Ferris, an attorney-at-law who practices in Baltimore.”
“And the firm?”
“helene camden, incorporated, also of Baltimore.”
Mr. George wrote the three names on his pad. To him, they were only names. “That does it, Mr. O’Hara. I’ll send a boy over to your hotel with the reports as soon as I can compile them.”
Back on the street again, Ames realized that perspiration was standing out on his forehead in pearl-like drops. He wiped them away with the tips of his fingers and walked slowly in the direction of the hotel he had named. He was glad he had taken three hundred dollars of the fifteen hundred that Ben had given Mary Lou for the Sally. Without it, he would have been sunk. He might be anyway. Maybe he was crazy. Maybe he was being a fool. Maybe he was merely prolonging the agony for both himself and Mary Lou.
A half-dozen shallow stone steps led up to the lobby of the hotel. Ames walked up into the cool lobby, and knew the same feeling of peace that he had known on Pine Key. As he passed the cigar counter on his way to the room desk, the picture of Helene Camden looked up at him from an early edition of the Tampa Evening Times.
Ames dropped a quarter on the counter and folded a paper under his arm. The room clerk was politely impersonal. Ames registered as James O’Hara of Miami and in lieu of baggage, paid for the room in advance.
There was a cool looking lounge off the lobby. Ames sat at the bar and drank a beer before going up to his room. As he drank it he glanced over the front page of the Times.
The search for him had intensified and spread. The Coast Guard had been requested to search for an unnamed boat known to be captained by a friend of his. Neither Shep nor the Falcon were named in the newspaper report, but it was only a matter of time now. The police knew both names. The net was closing in. There was also a small one column picture of him, taken while he’d still been tooting a horn for a living. Ames studied the picture. He looked like a sap. His hair was too long. His ears were too big. His face was too fat. His white dinner jacket was moulded to his body. He looked a little like Camden, only he’d been married to a horn.
He was almost glad the Jap had mashed his lip. He liked the water. So he didn’t make much money, he was happier than he had ever been or he had been happier until this thing happened. If he ever got out of this scrape he’d never complain again. What’s more, Mary Lou was through with singing. The hell with a better boat. He’d make all the living from now on if he had to fish for trout with a hand-line.
The barman was less voluble than the barber but interested in the case. He tapped the picture of Helene Camden.
“Know something, mister?”
“What?” Ames asked him.
The barman confided, “She’s been in here lots of times.”
“She has, huh?”
“Yeah. Lots of times. Sometimes with her husband, sometimes with a big fat older guy, but mostly with some young punk she’d just picked up for you-know-what.”
“How could you tell?”
The barman shrugged. “When she was with the punks, she always paid the check, see? I guess she was one of them nymphs, huh?”
“It could be,” Ames admitted. He was utterly tired of Helene Camden. He wished he never had to hear her name again, but even if what he thought proved true, he still had a long net to haul. There were a lot of small angles and one major one that he had no way of proving.
He picked his change from the bar and rode the elevator up to his room. The clerk had given him a room on the top floor. Ames stood in the window looking out over the city for a moment then turned as the room phone tinkled. He was almost afraid to pick it up.
“This is Southern Credit, Mr. O’Hara,” the crisp voice on the other end of the wire said. “This Helene Camden you want the report on. That’s the woman who just got herself killed over on Palmetto Beach?”
“Yes,” Ames said. “It is.”
“You want the report on her or on her firm, helene camden, incorporated?”
“I want a report on her firm.”
“I see,” Mr. George said. “I just wanted to be sure. Sorry to disturb you, Mr. O’Hara.”
Ames’s knees felt weak. He cradled the phone and sat on the edge of the bed. Now he had something new about which to worry. The phone call could be on the level. It could be a stall. Maybe the credit man had just seen his picture in the Times and was checking for the police. A hunted man had so
many things to worry about. Everything was suspicious to him.
Ames lay back on the bed but couldn’t rest. He took off his shirt and kicked off his shoes. It didn’t help. He got up and paced the floor. Either way he was hooked. He had to stay where he was. So he was playing a long shot; it was the only hope that he and Mary Lou had. He was tooting his own little horn in a big time combo and he had to play it by ear. The other two members of the band had written the arrangement.
Ames walked from the bed to the window, then back to the bed, then back to the window again.
It was going to be a long day.
Chapter Sixteen
CAMDEN’S face was a multi-colored thing of battered flesh. He refilled his shot glass and resumed his staring out the open casement window.
There was an unreal quality to the night. It was like a too-vivid scene on a penny post card, the kind printed for the tourist trade to send back to Des Moines or Minneapolis or Montpelier, the cards to arrive in the middle of a blizzard with the temperature hovering on the wrong side of thirty-two degrees. Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here.
Tonight the stars hung low and the sky was filled with them. A south moon under rested lightly on the feathery fronds of the tallest palms rising out of the Camden grounds. The lawn was sheer black velvet ornamented with twinkling fire flies. The air was warm and scented with the fragrance of orange blossoms. The purr of the traffic on the beach road was a soothing sound in the distance.
“Pretty, huh?” Ferris asked.
Camden looked at him sourly. “I can’t eat ‘pretty.’”
“No,” Ferris admitted. “You can’t.”
“Supper,” Phillips announced, “is served.”
“The hell with it,” Camden said. He left the window and sprawled in an easy chair.
Phillips stood uncertainly in the doorway.
“We’ll eat a little later,” Ferris told him.
“Yes, sir,” the butler said. His leather heels made a solid sound down the long tiled hallway.