Collection of Stories
- Автор: Стерлинг Стюарт
- Язык: английский
- Жанр: Другие детективы
Электронная книга - «Collection of Stories». Краткое содержание книги:
“What kind of guy’d be likely to have the phone numbers of four different boat owners, Irish?”
“One these brokers?”
“Not wearing a cap like that. No. Not around the Trident.”
“Ship chandler, now? Marine supply man? Sometimes they sell—”
“Those boys keep their dope in office file, not in their hats.”
Mulcahey gave up.
Koski stuffed a bulldog briar, silently. Then:
“How about some yacht club employee?”
“Yuh. Sure. That could be it. Steward, like?”
“Trident’s not that tony. When the season’s under way, they might go so far as to hire a cook, but their flag doesn’t go up until Decoration Day. However, even in April, they have a watchman.”
“Old geezer, yuh. I seen him.” The sergeant sighted along his samson post, lining it up with the four vertical blue lights on the Trident’s clubhouse mast. Then he gazed at Koski with something approaching awe. “That would fit in with those white hairs!”
Koski squinted at the sergeant before answering.
“Name’s Versena. Pete Versena, something like that. Always goes around needing a haircut and a shave. They call him Poodle Pete along the Island.”
“That lid, with the snappy crack gimmick in place of the regular club button,” Mulcahey agreed. “Yuh, that would be just his speed, now.” He shot another sidelong glance at his superior and shipmate. “If ever I am tempted to dally with a career of crime, I will steer me a course one hundred eighty degrees away from you, so help me!”
“Don’t go jumping off the deep end yet.” Koski shaded his eyes to squint toward the club float, past the moored sloops, cabin cruisers, outboards and strings of rental rowboats. “Chances are Poodle Pete’s just looked too long on the wine while it was red and is sleeping it off on a bridge-deck somewhere.”
But when the Vigilant nudged the Trident’s float, there was so sign of the elderly watchman, nor any answer to Koski’s hail.
Mulcahey was troubled. “If he’s up and about, ’tis queer he’s not here. You could not say we arrive on tiptoe.”
Koski half-hitched the stern line over a float cleat, used his hand lantern. On the opposite end of the float, staining the wet canvas binding of the rub rail, he found more blobs of dark and ominous red.
“We can eliminate the barnacles, Irish. Just to play it safe, take a punch at that short-wave. Tell the Sentinel to hustle in from the Harlem.” He moved up the gangway into the gloom of the yacht yard. “And dust off those grappling irons.”
The lights on the signal mast washed the clubhouse with a ghostly blue and gave a sepulchral tinge to the canvas-shrouded hulls not yet uncovered for spring refitting. The only noise Koski heard was the crunch of his heels on the gravel.
Up the yard, beyond a score of hooded motor boats and high-masted sloops, an amber glow warmed the portholes of a small cabin cruiser. The lieutenant frowned at it, then turned toward the back porch of the clubhouse.
“Hi, Pete” Silence. “Hey — Poooodle.” Nothing answered but the slap of the tide against pilings.
He tried the back door. It was unlocked. The kitchen was dark. Grim lines at the corners of Koski’s mouth hardened. The old watchman never would have left the premises, without first locking up.
Koski took his time in going through the yard, peering beneath squat-sterned catboats, sharp-nosed speed boats. No Pete. Nobody.
Brass lettering on the transom of the lighted cruiser proclaimed C-Urchin, New York. She was a raised decker with steering shelter glassed in and protected aft by new khaki cockpit curtains. Her hull was freshly painted, a smart emerald bootstripe setting off the gloss white of the topsides. Somebody knew how to look after a sea-going lady, he decided.
A home-made ladder of paint-bespeckled 2x4s stood against her, amidships, surrounded by sawhorses, paint cans, an upturned dinghy. Its upper end reached to one of the cockpit curtains which had been left unfastened, flopping loosely in the night breeze.
“Ahoy, on the Urchin,” Koski hailed. He knuckled the hull loudly.
There were hasty steps. A white face appeared timidly in the gap beside the loose curtain — a girl, dark hair bound in a yellow bandana, dark eyes wide with fear.
“What is it?” Her voice was tremulous.
“Harbor Police,” Koski said.
“Oh!” She gasped, clutched at a stanchion. “What’s wrong, officer?”
“Take it easy.” Koski wondered whether it had been his arrival that so frightened her. “Just looking for the club watchman. Seen him around the yard tonight?”
“Pete?” she managed. “No. Not since supper. Why do you want him?”
Koski half turned, as if to go. “You alone on the boat, miss?”
“No.” She seemed relieved at his indication of departure. “Ken’s here — my husband. I’m Marya Caton. If I see Pete, I’ll tell him you want to see him.” She started to withdraw.
He moved back to the ladder. “Ask Mr. Caton if he’s seen Pete.”
“Why — Ken’s not here now.” She was alarmed by Koski’s fresh show of interest. “When I said he was here, I didn’t mean he’s on board right now.”
“When you expect him back?”
“Most any minute. He just went out — to see if he could find some — some stuff to fix our sink drain.”
Koski put a foot on the first rung.
She retreated to the shadowy interior of the cockpit.
“That’s what scared me,” she went on hurriedly, “your saying you’re from the police. I thought something’d happened to him.”
Koski climbed up. “If he’s coming right back, I might wait for him, Mrs. Caton.”
He paused at the top of the ladder, holding onto the new canvas where a jagged piece had been torn out of one corner.
“I’ll stay here in the cockpit,” he suggested.
“No, no,” she apologized nervously. “I guess you can come below. It’s only — Ken’s always warning me about letting anybody come aboard when he’s not here.”
“Wise gent.” Koski pushed the canvas aside, got a leg over the coaming. She retreated down the companionway.
With the light from the cabin on her, Koski could see how pretty she was. She was not more than twenty-five, with delicate oval features made to seem a bit more rugged by a warm, winter tan. The smallness of her hands was emphasized by her quick, fluttering bird-like movements.
One of the hands moved to her throat apprehensively.
“Has Pete done anything to get him into trouble?”
“Not that I know of.” Koski let her worry about it.
The cabin was like the girl — small, attractive, neat as a pin. Brasswork gleaming, brightwork glistening with varnish, bright cretonne at the ports, cozy cushions on the bunks, framed photos on the forward bulkhead. One, of a youth in a corporal’s uniform.
“Your husband?” he pointed.
“That’s Ken. Yes.” Fear stayed in her eyes, her voice. “We married just before the war. We haven’t been together much. He’s only been back a year. We haven’t been able to find a place to live.” Under Koski’s gaze, she shivered suddenly, though the shipmate range should have kept the April chill out of the cruiser. “So Ken bought the Urchin with a G.I. loan. We meant to charter her for fishing, but—” her voice faltered.
“Plans change?” Brittle glass crunched beneath his shoes as Koski crossed to the companionway. He looked down. One of the splintered shards had a curved edge like a watch crystal, only larger.
His right hand, hidden from the girl, felt along the cabin roof. In a box set into the rounded roof, just forward of the steering wheel, was a four-inch compass hung in gimbals. The mahogany top of the box had been smashed, the thick glass lens broken. Other fragments were on the deck, in the groove of the hatch slide.