Bill Pronzini - Labyrinth

The wheelhouse blocked off my view of Greene’s slip. Blocked off his view, too. Nothing stirred in any other direction except tracers and puffs of fog. I swung myself on board, good leg first, and hobbled to the port wheelhouse bulkhead. Eased along it and around to the aft side.

Unlike Greene’s, this wheelhouse had a door; it was shut, but when I depressed the latch it popped open. Into the heavy blackness inside. Shut the door again. Down on all fours so I would not bang into anything and make a carrying noise. Then I crawled over to the helm and lifted up to peer through the mist-streaked windshield.

The pale nightlights let me see part of the float where Greene’s slip was. And he was there, moving away from the ramp toward the bay end. Going to look for me, all right. Near the end he stopped and raised his arm: A shaft of light stabbed out from that big flash of his, swept back and forth in a restless arc over the water. Pretty soon he turned onto the right-angled outer arm, shone the beam across the channel toward where I was. I ducked down, stayed down until the hazy glow disappeared from the glass.

When I raised up again he was hurrying back toward the ramp. I might have lost sight of him in the fog except that he still had the flash switched on; I could see it flicking out between the moored boats-and I could follow it all the way past the ramp and around onto the connecting walkway.

Coming out here, too.

I crawled back along the bulkhead, feeling with my hands. Storage locker aft, near the door-but it was padlocked. I groped above it. Touched cold metal that my fingers told me was a wood-handled steel hook, attached to the bulkhead with clips. Gaff, for hooking and holding heavy fish. Weapon. I took it down, crept back under the wheel. Knelt there gripping it across my chest.

The sodden clothing clung like a wrapping of ice; tremors racked me and I had to lock my teeth together to keep them from chattering. The cramp had loosened a little, but the leg still ached. All of me ached: muscles, joints, bones. My face was stiff with saltcake; the rest of my skin had a puckered feel, cold and hot at the same time, as if with fever.

Pneumonia, I thought.

Flickers of light shone beyond the windshield, went on past. Muffled slap of Greene’s shoes on the float outside. Could he tell I had come out of the water there, climbed on board this boat? No. Float was already wet, sloshed over, and the deck was wet too from the dripping mist. He might decide to check out each of the moored boats, but that wasn’t likely; take too much time, and he could not be sure of what had happened to me. For all he knew I had made it to shore and was already on my way to summon the cops. He just could not afford to hang around much longer.

Another ten seconds passed.

Come on, you son of a bitch. Move out, start running.

Ten more seconds.

Light in the glass again, centered there for an instant. Then it moved off. Footfalls, fading.

Darkness except for the nightlights.

Silence.

I let out a breath through my nostrils. But stayed where I was for a time, listening. Still no sounds from outside. Raised up again, leaned close to the windshield. Emptiness across the way, no movement of any kind. Faint movement of light far down to the right, though, reflected off the fog-Greene over on the float?

Half a minute. Forty seconds.

And the beam reappeared, hazed and steady, on the walkway at the shore end. Moved along there and around onto the west-side float, dancing out again between the boats. Stopped at the Kingfisher, traced a path up across the deck, splashed over the wheelhouse. Probed inside. Vanished.

More waiting, face pressed close to the glass. One minute. Two. Three. The light poked back out, retraced across the deck and down onto the float. Shut off again in front of the ramp. Four beats. Black silhouette: Greene climbing up the metal ladder, something large and squarish in his right hand. Suitcase?

Then he was gone, swallowed by the mist and the darkness.

I used the gaff as a fulcrum to push myself onto my feet. Left leg took my weight now, but I would have to favor the right just in case. I leaned against the binnacle, staring out. More waiting, to make sure he didn’t decide to come back.

Emptiness.

Okay, enough. Enough. Back along the bulkhead to the door, out on deck. Over the gunwale, still hanging onto the gaff, and down the float to the connecting walkway.

Stillness.

Around to the ramp. Up the ladder in cautious movements, to peer down the ramp at the highway.

Deserted highway: Kellenbeck’s Cadillac was gone.

Onto the ramp, along the ramp. Stumbling a little now; legs wobbly, threatening to give out. The wind welding clothing to skin, making me shake like a man with palsy.

Drop the gaff, cross the road. Packed-dirt driveway there, leading up to where houselights glowed behind the screen of fog. Up the driveway. Stumbling again, falling, getting up. House taking shape-gray hexagonal thing with a wrap around porch and switchback stairs leading up. Climb the stairs, lean panting beside the door. Knock on the door. Somebody coming, somebody opening up And it was over.

God-it was over.

The next few hours were a time I lived through with a kind of schizoid detachment: part of me seemed to retreat, to become a disinterested observer, while the other part continued to operate more or less normally. Temporary reactional dysfunction, the psychologists call it, induced by a period of intense physical and emotional stress. And the hell with them and their fancy labels.

The people who lived in the house were the Muhlheims, a couple of artists in their forties. They were helpful and solicitous types and the first thing they tried to do was to get me out of my wet clothes; but all I could think about was using the phone. Muhlheim wrapped a blanket around me while I called the county police in Santa Rosa. I used Eberhardt’s and Donleavy’s names to get through to a lieutenant named Fitzpatrick and laid out the story for him in clipped sentences, some of which I had to repeat because of the way my teeth kept clacking together; the only thing I omitted was mention of the private eye as a horse’s ass: my breaking into the Kellenbeck Fish Company. Fitzpatrick asked a couple of terse questions, and my answers and the urgency in my voice seemed to convince him I was telling a straight story. He instructed me to stay where I was, said he would take care of contacting other police agencies.

When I hung up I let Muhlheim show me to the bathroom. He and his wife had listened to my end of the conversation with plenty of interest, but to his credit he did not try to question me. He gave me some dry clothes-we were about the same size-and left me alone to strip and take a five-minute, steaming-hot shower. Which only just dulled the edge of my chill, but which at least stopped the shaking.

Mrs. Muhlheim had a pot of hot tea and another blanket waiting when I came out. Plus some salve for the barnacle cuts on my hands. Ten more minutes passed, most of it in silence; the tea warmed me a little more. Then there was a sharp rapping on the front door. And things began to happen.

Two highway patrolmen. Questions. A guy from the Coast Guard station at Doran Park. A pair of county Sheriffs deputies. More questions. Another highway patrolman. A telephone call to Santa Rosa made by one of the deputies. And after that they took me out of there, bundled in an old overcoat offered up by Muhlheim, and down to the Highway Patrol substation south of Bodega.

Fitzpatrick, a youngish guy with an authoritarian manner, arrived from Santa Rosa. More questions. Report from the Coast Guard: They had fished Kellenbeck’s body out of the bay near the marina, shot once through the heart. A doctor showed up, summoned by somebody along the line, and spent a little time examining me. No fever, he said, no other signs of incipient pneumonia. He gave me some pills to swallow, told me to see my physician if I developed any serious symptoms, and went away.