Hamilton, Donald - Novel 01 (24 page)

 
   
The
woman was tugging at his arm, screaming at him and pointing. He flung her off
and steadied the boat and watched Signal Point Light turn red; first pink, then
rose, then clear angry red. The woman was staring across the boat with a
fascination that was almost superstitious terror as the red glaring eve slashed
out again. Even the girl had looked up, a dull apprehension on her face. Branch
beckoned to the woman and she pulled herself up by the edge of the cabin; and
he seized the collar of the drenched fur coat with both hands, spread it and
bore it down to pin her arms with one movement; then turning to grasp the
rotating wheel and throw it hard over, bracing himself and leaning on it and
hearing the wheel ropes groan with the strain as the boat ran wildly off to the
left.

     
The woman, her arms bound, fell helplessly
against him and he let her slide off and
be
thrown
across the cockpit as he fought for control, the boat skating madly across the
face of the oncoming wave, on its beam ends. Water slapped into the rear of the
cockpit and he heard the girl scream. Oh, pipe down, he thought irritably, and
speaking silently to the boat: Come on, come on, you bitch, straighten out; and
she came straight, rolled viciously, and water came with a rush over the stern
as it settled. He could feel it cold through his already soaked shoes. He ran
the throttle back to half speed, and, crouching, clawed at the matted fur of
the woman's coat, found the gun, and pitched it over the side. The woman had
apparently been knocked unconscious by her fall and lay in the ankle-deep
sluicing water, moved back and forth by the rolling of the boat. The girl
kneeled by the engine box, watching him, unconscious of the water that rushed
back and forth about her knees.

 
   
He
took the boat-hook and kicked it loose from its chocks in the cabin top,
levering it over the side; it hit hard bottom before it was half submerged. He
threw it into the cockpit and pulled the switch, stopping the engine, and
turned the wheel to let the last of her momentum take the boat out towards the
bay. Going aft to the engine box, he pulled it open and ripped loose the
distributor cap and handfuls of wire and threw them overboard, then took a
bucket and sluiced down the engine with cold salt water, feeling a little like
a murderer.

     
There was no sound from the cabin but the
woman was struggling to sit up. The girl kneeled by the open engine box.

 
   
"Take
off your shoes and put them in your pockets," Branch said to her. She
stared at him, kneeling in the water. Then she did as he had ordered. "All
right," he said. "Over you go."

 
   
She
did not want to go. He lifted her and half pushed and half rolled her over the
side, heard the splash and looked over to see her struggling in the murky
water, the yellow suit washing weightlessly about her in the darkness.

 
    
 
"Stand up, stupid," he said. She
stood up. The water came to her waist and the next wave struck her shoulders
and knocked her down. She started to follow the boat, blown rapidly away from
her. Branch dropped over the side, felt the chilling rush of water through his
clothing, and pushed at the boat as it drifted down on him, working his way aft
along it; then it was past him and he turned to watch it go on into the
darkness. The girl reached him. He put his arm about her to steady her. The red
eye of the light blinked out. It seemed silly to stand with your arm around a
girl, fully clothed in chest-deep water a mile away from land, and he turned
away from the light and started for the shore.

AT
THE TOP OF THE BANK they stopped to look back. The wind seemed less strong now
that they were on shore and the waves drove against the sandy beach below them
with a sound made gentle and almost pleasant by distance. When Signal Point
Light came on, it looked from up here small and insignificant; a minute red
point of light across the black water, flashing on and off meaninglessly.

     
"What ...makes it red?"
Jeannette Duval panted.

 
   
Branch
pushed her away as she started to take his arm for support and she looked at
her hands and wiped them mechanically on her hips to remove the wet earth of
the bank up which they had climbed. Branch stood rubbing his hands together in
an effort to get rid of the grittiness.

 
   
"Red
glass, I suppose," he said. He shuddered as a rivulet of cold water ran
down his shoulder. Above the more distant sounds of the wind and the water he
could hear, close and loud in the darkness, the sound of water dripping from
their clothes to the dead leaves. "Marks shoal water," he said.
"How did you think I knew where to get out and walk?"

 
   
"Don't
be unpleasant," the girl said, her teeth audibly chattering. "We
can't all ... be great navigators." She began
shakingly
to squeeze at her drenched suit. "Can you... see them?"

 
    
He
glanced at her and saw that she shared his own reluctance to leave this place. "No,"
he said.

 
   
She
straightened up abruptly. "Why didn't you kill them?" she asked.
"Why did you throw the gun away? Why did you let them go?"

 
    
He
looked down at the luminous white curving line of the breakers on the beach.
Everybody wants to kill everybody, he thought.
Bunch of
murderous bastards.
Bunch of murderous bastards puking
all over the boat.
More damned fun. The girl shook him savagely.

     
"You let them go!" she gasped.
"You let them go!"

     
He slapped her hard and watched her go to
hands and knees among the bushes. She rose slowly and stood rubbing her hands
along her thighs.

 
    
"Don't
push me around," he said. "Let's get out of here before we freeze to
death."

 
    
It
was still dark when, after crossing the bridge, they entered the town; and the
town was asleep. Branch looked at his watch but it had stopped at
one
forty-seven
.
He did not look at the girl until they paused at the corner of the block on
which the hotel was located.

     
"You know where the alley is,"
he said.

     
She nodded.

 
   
"I'll
open the door for you," he said. "You can't go through the lobby like
that."

 
   
He
watched her go down the side street and found himself neither amused nor
touched by her appearance. He removed his cap and rubbed it against his sleeve
to remove the crusted salt from the visor. He brushed at his raincoat, finding
it almost dry to the touch. There was nothing to be done about the missing
crease of his trousers. His feet hurt so that he could hardly stand it. He
thought they must have walked five miles.

 
   
As
he came into the lobby of the hotel, the clerk sat up sleepily, and he waved
his key by the tag and said, "That's all right, I've got it." He
could feel his underclothes damp against the skin and his uniform felt bunched
and shapeless about him as he walked past the desk, but the man sank back,
closing his eyes again, having noticed nothing. Branch stopped at the foot of
the stairs and unbuttoned and turned down the collar of the raincoat so that
the warmth of the hotel could reach him. It seemed to him he had been cold as
long as he could remember. He could hardly bring himself to go past the stairs
that led up to his room.

 
   
Then
he stopped again, looking at the stocky black-haired man sitting on the small
curved settee in the alcove at the foot of the stairs. The man had just put
down a magazine, and a cigar smoked on the ash stand beside him.

 
   
"Well,"
said the man, rising. "So you made it." He buttoned the
double-breasted coat of his sharply pressed brown suit. "You remember
me," he said.
"Dickerson."

     
"What the hell do you want?"
Branch asked.

 
    
"What
did you do with them, drown them?" the detective asked. "You look
like you'd been swimming."

 
   
"What
would I want to kill them for?" Branch asked. "There's a law against
it, isn't there?"

 
   
The
detective laughed cautiously, neither believing nor disbelieving.

 
   
"You've
been hanging around Parks," Branch said. "I saw your camera."

 
   
Dickerson
said, "Those brats.
Always into things.
If my
kids acted like that I'd use a baseball bat on them."

     
"What are you doing here?"
Branch asked.

 
   
Dickerson
said, "Helping Parks keep his nose clean. That cracker goes nuts when he
sees folding money. Mr. Sellers doesn't want him to get into trouble." He
picked up his cigar.
"Nothing with a foreign angle, if
you get what I mean.
Because of the connection."

     
"That's why Parks wouldn't run his
boat?"

     
"His boat?"
The detective laughed. "Only boat Parks has is a rowboat with an outboard
motor he takes fishing on the river. You don't think he'd let his boat get away
from him that easy?"

 
   
The
stocky man's eyes looked up at Branch with a steady regard. Somehow the
conversation seemed remote and unconnected with reality. All this was over
with. It was like discussing a football game on Saturday evening.

 
   
"You
might say I saved the girl's life," Dickerson murmured. "He was going
to take her out in the bay and sink her after he saw all that dough."

 
   
"You
called them?" Branch asked. "She said Parks called them."

     
"What did she know about it?
Asleep on the bed."

     
"How did you know I was with
them?"

     
"You've been watched, too,"
Dickerson said. "Sure."

 
   
"Quit
stalling," Branch said wearily. "For God's sake, quit stalling. My
feet hurt."

 
   
The
shorter man grinned and held out his hand, palm up, and rubbed the thumb acquisitively
across the closed fingers. Branch stood looking down at the white, manicured,
muscular hand. He closed his eyes for a moment. When he licked his lips he
could taste salt. He opened his eyes again.

 
    
"Tell
him to look in the
East River
," he said, "or wherever
New York
sewage goes. I flushed it
down the can ten minutes after leaving him."

     
The hand moved a little.

 
   
Branch
said, "If anybody else tries to maul me tonight, I'll kill him. I don't
like big shots. I don't like guys who act as if I had a price tag on my nose.
To make a real good story I should say I used it first, but I didn't. It would
have made pretty rough toilet paper, anyway."

 
   
"Who
do you think you're kidding?" the detective asked.

 
   
Branch
looked from the hand to the heavy, blue-chinned face. "Nobody," he
said. "That's my story. What the hell are you going to do about it?"

     
"Mr. Sellers
..
."

 
   
"Mr.
Sellers is in
New York
," Branch said.
"What are you going to do about it?"

 
   
"Don't
call me, kid," the stocky man said. "Don't get tough with me."

 
   
Branch
looked down at him through glasses that were still foggy, there having been
nothing dry to wipe them on. "I dropped them in one by one and turned the
handle," he said slowly. "I got kind of a kick out of it. The girl
was sore as hell when I told her." The detective let his hand fall to his
side. "You haven't spent it," he said. "It wasn't in the dough
we got from the girl."

     
"I've told you where it is,"
Branch said.

 
   
"You
haven't mailed any letters, and the only time you went to a bank you took out
two hundred. It's not in your room because I looked and you haven't put it in
the hotel safe." The shorter man smiled, looking up at Branch. "Why
don't you say you had it on you and they took it away from you, kid? Mr.
Sellers isn't unreasonable. He just doesn't like to be double-crossed. And
between you and me he's not a guy with a hell of a big sense of humor, if you
know what I mean."

     
Branch looked at him for a moment.
"All right," he said, smiling a little.
"All
right.
They took it."

     
"I don't suppose you'd let me frisk
you."

     
"No," Branch said.

     
"It would be better if I could say I
had frisked you."

 
   
"Go
ahead and say it," Branch said. Then he grinned.
"Oh,
to hell with it.
Do I have to take my clothes off?"

     
"Not for a wad of bills like
that," Dickerson said.
"Just the raincoat."

 
   
Presently
Branch stood buttoning his damp uniform blouse, watching the detective pick up
the magazine and crush out the cigar.

 
   
"I'll
give you a tip," the stocky man said, stopping again in front of him.
"Don't try to spend it."

     
"I won't," Branch said.

 
   
Dickerson
grinned. "Hell, I can't spend all my life chasing that grand. But it
wouldn't be good for me if you'd turn out to have it, after all."

     
"I wouldn't worry," Branch said.

 
   
The
other looked up at him with a certain respect. "I don't know what Sellers
will say. Maybe he'll send someone else, I don't know. But if you haven't got
it, you're all right. But don't try to spend it. They'll be down on you like a
ton of bricks if you try to spend it."

     
"So he paid me off in bad
money," Branch said.

 
   
"It
wasn't bad when you got it," Dickerson said, "but it sure as hell
isn't any good now." He patted Branch's arm. "Well, I'11
be
seeing you."

 
   
Branch
looked after him with a vague gratitude: at least he had not tried to get
rough. Probably his orders had not included getting rough. There was, after
all, a certain immunity connected with the uniform. But it was a relief to meet
somebody who did not feel it necessary to slap your face before asking you a
question.

 
    
He
threw his raincoat over his arm and walked quickly through the passage between
the men's and women's rooms; the barbershop and the beauty parlor, to the back
door, and thumbed back the latch and opened the door. The girl was sitting on
the stone step, her chin on her knees and her arms hugging her drawn-up legs.
She looked up as the light touched her, rose, brushed at the rear of her skirt,
and came to him.

     
"I thought you had forgotten me,
darling," she said.

 
   
"How
could you ever think that?" he asked, a little savagely.

 
   
She
glanced at him, slipped past him quickly, and stood in the hallway rubbing her
grimy hands together to warm them; then slowly relaxing her grip on herself as
the warmth began to reach her. Branch closed the door and she seized him as he
turned and buried her face in his shoulder, gripping him hard; her whole body
shaking convulsively and uncontrollably. He rubbed her back and arms through
the barely damp wool of her jacket.