Kent Conwell - Tony Boudreaux 01 - Galveston (12 page)

With a casual shrug, I said. “It was no big deal. No sense in bothering you when I could pop in and out in fifteen minutes.” I hoped my insouciant aplomb convinced him that my visit to the apartment was of little importance. And as far as I knew, it had been—depending on the meaning of that eclectic collection of numbers we had discovered.

He dragged the tip of his tongue over his fat lips. “What did you find?”

I laughed. “Nothing. Not a scrap of anything. I’m right back where I was.” I kept silent about my theory regarding the fate of Albert Vaster. I might be wrong, and right now I couldn’t afford another problem. The D.A. was giving me all I could handle.

‘Mustache Pete’ studied me intently. I knew he didn’t believe me, but he had nothing to prove otherwise. I settled the question for him. “Anything I run across about your cousin, I’ll let you know. Anything.”

As we drove away from the warehouse, Virgil snapped his fingers. “Hey, those numbers … if they got to do with shipping, why don’t we just ask somebody around here. They ought to be able to tell us.”

I lifted an eyebrow. “Yeah, tell us and Abbandando too. We can’t take the chance. We’ve got to figure it out ourselves.”

The Galveston Public Library sat on the corner of Church and 23rd, its red brick façade showing nicks and ragged corners suffered in the great flood of 1900. The Galveston Historical Committee had pressured the city into remodeling the interior in the 1950’s and again in the 1980’s.

Inside, Virgil and I sat around a table on which rested a stack of the
Galveston Daily News
. We skimmed through the current and following week’s maritime shipping schedules, time in and time out for every vessel docking at each of the thirty-five or so piers along the north side of the island.

“Take a look. This could be our one dash twenty-two,” I said, pointing to the date at the top of the week’s schedule. “Today, Monday, January twenty-second. This is the list of ships due in this week.”

Virgil nodded, a crooked grin on his face. “That means the goods are coming in sometime this week, huh?”

I drew a deep breath. “Could be.”

During the current week, there were thirteen ships due into port. Virgil read them off, and I jotted the names down on a note card.

“We got three Centennial cargo ships, seven foreign ships, and three government ships.”

Virgil pointed to the card. “What about the Centennial line? That begins with a C. Maybe the shipment is on one of those.”

We had discussed the cryptic set of characters we discovered in Vaster’s apartment only briefly. None of them made sense except maybe one dash twenty-two, today’s date. However, none of the vessels were due to berth today. “Where’s the three c’s?”

He shrugged.

I read the list of ships, the independents as well as the line ships. “Centennial Texas, Centennial Maryland, Centennial California, U.S.S. Wilberforce, Marshall, and Robert Holly. Now, the foreign lines. Two from Great Britain, the Chauncey Meadows and the Liverpool. Then there’s the Seven Seas Falcon from Spain, Tri Ocean Voyager, Turkish Cargo Lines Allah II, Mauritania Royal Escort, and Oceania Steamship Company’s Daniel Smith.”

“I don’t see no three c’s.” Virgil growled.

I studied our situation a few moments. “We got a mountain here. Too much to wade through. Let’s try to narrow it.”

Virgil arched an eyebrow. “Easier said than done.”

“Maybe not.” I indicated the newspapers. “We’ll go back two months and list all of the vessels and shipping lines that have berthed at the port here. Then we’ll go online, check their current and future schedules and see what we come up with.”

Frowning, Virgil looked at me blankly. “You can do that?”

“What?”

“Find all them schedules on the computer.”

I gave him a crooked grin. “I don’t know, but we’re going to give it a try.”

By seven p.m., we had our list compiled.

Grabbing a bag of hamburgers and fries, we reached the motel by eight and went online.

We surfed for a few minutes, then finally stumbled onto the right links. Within another thirty minutes, we had a list of over one hundred and fifty maritime shipping lines.

Checking the list against the arrivals and departures from the Port of Galveston, we discovered eight shipping lines that regularly berthed in the Port of Galveston.

I read back over the list. Of the eight, four of the shipping lines were scheduled to berth in Galveston during the week, Seven Seas, Turkish Cargo Lines, Centennial Cargo, and Oceania Steamship Company. There was a fifth line scheduled in, not a regular, Tri Ocean Lines.

“You think the shipment is on one of them?” Virgil was looking over my shoulder.

I shook my head and blew out through my lips in frustration. “I got no idea. If those c’s mean anything, I don’t see it.”

Suddenly Virgil blurted out. “Hey. Look at that.” He pointed to one of the shipping lines on the master list. “Centennial Cargo. Didn’t we see some vessels coming from Centennial?”

I glanced over my notes. “Yeah. Centennial Texas, Centennial Maryland, and Centennial California. So?”

His voice shook with excitement. “Centennial California.  Centennial Cargo California. Three c’s.”

I caught his enthusiasm. “Could be. Centennial Cargo California. Three c’s.” I scanned the schedule, searching for the cargo of the vessel. I frowned when I found it. “General cargo.” No telling how many tons of general crap they would be bringing in. Everything from Taiwanese towels to Manchurian mud flaps. 

Finding a cache of diamonds in that milieu was like matching two snowflakes. Of course, if I were smuggling goods, that’s exactly the type cargo I would select.

“You think that’s it, Tony?”

“It looks good, Virge. Still … ” I spread my note cards on the table.

“What are you doing?” Virgil frowned, puzzled.

“Hoping to spot something that doesn’t belong. Something that sticks out. Yet nothing in particular. The California might be the one we’re looking for. And it might not.”

“Huh?”

I grinned. “Sometimes if you spread notes out like a picture, sort of rearrange them, you’ll spot something you’ve overlooked. Maybe there’s another three c’s in here somewhere.”

He eyed me skeptically. “If you say so.”

As soon as I laid them out, I spotted it.

The Voyager, owned by Tri Ocean Steamship Lines. I remained calm. “There it is, Virge.”

Virgil grunted. “What is?”

“Tri ocean. Look at it. Tri means three. Three oceans or seas-ccc. That could be it too.”

He shook his head and raised a skeptical eyebrow. “Kinda stretching it, huh?”

I ignored his skepticism. “Take a look at the list of arrivals and departures for the last couple months. What about Tri Ocean Lines? You see them?”

Slowly, Virgil studied the list. Finally, he shook his head. “No.” He looked at me, confused. “Why?”

I jabbed my finger at the schedule. “A Tri Ocean vessel, the Voyager, is due in the twenty-sixth.” I paused and considered the matter. “I wonder where it will berth? In fact, I wonder where each of them will berth.” I grabbed the telephone and dialed information for the Port of Galveston.

I frowned when the dispatcher informed me that Tri Oceans Voyager would berth at Pier 23, but the frown turned into a grin when he told me the California would berth on the twenty-fourth, two days from now, at Pier 21.

Pier 21, the same pier where I ran into Cheshire; the same pier that Abbandando’s stevedoring firm used; the same pier where the last patch of cement had been poured.

I leaned back and grinned sappily at Virgil. There are coincidences, and then there are coincidences.

“What?”

“Virge, old buddy. I think I got it figured out.”

“Well, let’s hear it.”

“I’m guessing Abbandando is behind the caper. The California berths at his dock on the twenty-fourth.”

“What about the rest of the letters and numbers?”

I shrugged. “Well, I’m not sure, but I think that at least we’ve made some headway.”

Virgil arched an eyebrow.

Before I could say another word, the phone rang. I answered it and froze.

“Boudreaux. This is Sergeant Wilson. You better get down to the hospital. Looks like Ben Howard is dying.”

I sat gape-mouthed, staring at Virgil as the dial tone hummed. Virgil leaned forward. “Tony! What—”

A knock at the door interrupted him. He held up a hand to stay me as he headed for the door. When he opened it, Ted Morrison staggered in and collapsed. He looked like someone had fed him through a meat grinder.

After assuring myself Morrison wasn’t going to croak in my motel room I left him with Virgil and raced to the hospital. Raced might not be the word for the fog was thick. Crept is better. I cursed Galveston and its January fogs.

I felt nauseous. I couldn’t believe it, Ben Howard, dying. I remembered some of the cases we’d worked together. He was irascible, but a good man to work with. Like the old cowboys used to say, he was one to ride the river with.

There was the time we chased a killer through the darkened backyards of a ritzy neighborhood at night and all of us, killer and all, ran into a swimming pool. That was the night we not only solved a year-old murder, but blew away a gang of drug dealers who had been selling to high school students.

Despite the fog, traffic was heavy. While I had pretty well neglected my religious upbringing the last few years, I mumbled a short, but sincere prayer for Ben. Naturally, I was worried about my own skin, but for one of the few times in my life, I was more concerned about someone else than my own hide.

Half-a-dozen uniforms were clustered in the ICU waiting room. Sergeant Wilson was waiting in the doorway for me and quickly ushered me down the hall. “This is no time to be around those others boys, Boudreaux,” he announced, interrupting my questions about Ben as he backed me into an empty room.

“But, how is he now?  What’s going on?”

He grimaced. “I don’t know for sure. They lost him for—“

“Lost him? You mean … ”

“Yeah. He died, but they got him back. We haven’t heard nothing from the Doc yet, so we don’t know what happened.”

I closed my eyes and breathed a sigh of relief. “Thank God.”

Wilson grunted. “Yeah.” He glanced briefly down the hall in the direction of the ICU waiting room, then looked back at me. “How are things going with you?”

I studied him a moment, wondering how honest I could be with him. On the one hand, I wanted to lay out all I had, and get feedback from another lawman. But on the other, what if he was just a plant for the D.A.? After all, he compromised no one when he told me he that the D.A. was going out of his way to build a case against me. Of course, he didn’t say District Attorney, but that’s whom he meant.

Yet, he had found Ted Morrison’s address for me.

Neither effort was enough to warrant taking a chance on him. “How’s it going? I don’t know, Sergeant. It’s kinda like back home paddling across a bayou. You got alligators all around, just waiting for you to flip over.”

“You need anything?” He glanced nervously in the direction of the waiting room.

“Yeah. Every city has one. Who knows the most and the worst about Galveston?”

His eyes widened in surprise, followed by a knowing grin on his face. “There’s an old broad down at the
Galveston Daily News
. Lela. Lela Hoffman. She’s been down there sixty years. Nothing goes on in this town that she doesn’t know about.”

At that moment, a hospital staff member in green scrubs entered the ICU waiting room. Wilson excused himself. “Be right back.”

A couple minutes later, the uniforms departed, grinning and joking. I relaxed. Wilson returned, nodding and grinning. “He’s stable.”

“They know what caused it?”

His grin faded. “No. It was unexpected.”

I closed my eyes and shook my head. “That means it could happen again.”

Wilson arched an eyebrow. “Hey. Be positive about this thing. It could happen, but it won’t. Get me?”

We studied each other a moment. A faint smile curled my lips. “I got it. Thanks.”

Out in the parking lot, I climbed into my old pickup and called Virgil. Morrison was conscious. Nothing appeared busted or broken. But he was scared.

I figured anyone who was well enough to be scared wasn’t about to croak, so I stuck him on the bottom of my list of things to do. First, Lela Hoffman.

Then I realized the time. 10:00 p.m. Only the night shift would be at the paper. Hoffman would be home. I could catch her there, but then I remembered Wilson’s remark ‘she’s been down there sixty years.’ Sixty years? She must be at least eighty. I shook my head. She was probably in bed at six every night.  I’d catch her in the morning.

Reluctantly, I headed back to the motel. During the drive, I called Austin, and my boss, Marty Blevins. I needed to bounce my theories off someone, and that someone was Al Grogan, the top sleuth in Marty’s stable of P.I.’s. Al had helped me more than once. I always figured that maybe he was somehow genetically related to the fictional Sherlock Holmes for he possessed intuitiveness that constantly surprised me.

I was about to hang up when Marty answered. His voice was terse, irritable. That puzzled me at first for he never hit the sack before midnight. Then I understood. Marty perceived himself a ladies’ man. And as long as the tequila held out, he played the role. Every time he left the office to pick up his date, he held up a bottle of cheap tequila and said, “One tequila, two tequila, three tequila, floor.” And then he leered lecherously. So apparently, he had found the floor once again, and not by himself.

I apologized and gave him a way out. “Marty. This is Tony. I didn’t mean to wake you.”

A raspy, but feminine voice sounded behind him, too muffled for me to understand. I grinned to myself. I was right.

“Hey, Tony. Naw, naw. You didn’t wake me.” He hesitated and covered the mouthpiece, but I could hear him. “In a minute. Pour us another tequila.” His voice grew loud once again. “I was just laying here … ah … reading a book, you know? What’s up?”