Стюарт Стерлинг - Down Among the Dead Men

At the door to the hiring hall, Mulcahey was waiting. Beside him was Frankie Salderon.

The Sergeant beamed fondly at his prisoner. “Look what wriggles out from under a rock, skipper. The lad who was up in the deckhouse while you were on the yacht.” He patted the Filipino on the shoulder. “Says he aims to get himself another berth. I figure maybe we could make one up for him over at the hoose-gow. No?”

Koski said: “Frisko?” Mulcahey produced a red tobacco tin, opened it, shook out half a dozen cigarettes made of light brown paper.

The Lieutenant took one, put it to this nose. “This stuff’ll make you see around corners, Frankie. Also, — ” he ran deft fingers along the back of the Filipino’s coat at the shoulder blades, “sometimes it gives you ideas.” The steward wore no collar scabbard.

“The little roach was getting ready to take a scram, Steve. When he saw me.”

“Whither away?” Koski asked.

“I have a right to go where I please.” Frankie’s black eyes smoldered hate. “I came here to get another job. You can’t stop me.”

Koski put the tin in his pocket. “Maybe we can find something to keep you busy.” He gripped the Filipino’s arm. “Sarge, how’s for changing partners, hah?”

Mulcahey looked at Joslin. “Is he ready to go into his dance?”

“Yair. Waltz Comrade Joslin into the hall, for a checkup. Tells me he was addressing a union crowd here, Sunday afternoon. Then rhumba along with him to the Seamen’s Institute. Find out if he was playing sweet music to the throng, Sunday night, he says.”

“And if so be it, coach?”

“Kiss the boy good-by.” He pulled at the steward’s arm. “You and I will mosey over to the hoosegow, son.”

“You haven’t any reason to arrest me.” Frankie dragged back. “Just because I want to change my job. Leggo!”

Mulcahey cuffed him lightly alongside the ear. “Get along, little dogie.”

“Leave him alone.” Joslin’s face darkened; he caught the Sergeant’s shoulder. “Arrest him if you want to. But don’t muscle a union man around while I’m standing by!”

“Hark to the hard guy, will you.” Mulcahey clubbed a huge fist, swung a half-hearted punch. The organizer mistook the Irishman’s intent, countered with a savage jab that landed flush on Mulcahey’s mouth, rocking him back on his heels, toppling him over a hydrant.

Joslin whirled, darted across the street between a fruit truck and a moving van. Koski dived toward him, but at that moment the Filipino wriggled out of his coat, sprinted away in the opposite direction. The Lieutenant went after Frankie, caught him halfway up the block. “By rights I ought to put the twisters on you, slippery. Try one more break, I’ll fix you so you’ll wake up smelling ether. Climb into your coat.”

Mulcahey was out in the middle of the street, with his gun drawn, “See where the bugger went, Steve?”

“With the wind, Irish. Best thing’s to shoot in an alarm for him. He can’t keep out of sight of eighteen thousand cops for long.”

“I was not looking for any such demonstration on his part.” The Sergeant felt of his front teeth. “Next time I will take good care to beat him to the punch.”

“Beat him to setting up an alibi, — all I ask. After you stick in the alarm, check here at the hall and at the Essie-eyes.”

“He’ll not put anything over on me again. Depend on that.”

“Okay. Tell the Telegraph Bureau his address is Nineteen Swamp.”

“I got it.”

“If you still feel like chewing, pick me up at the Tavern, after you run the boat down to the Basin.” Koski propelled the Filipino toward Fourteenth Street, signaled a cab.

When they were rolling toward Centre Street, Koski growled: “What makes, Frankie? Nice lady give you the bounce?”

“I quit. I have a right to quit.”

“Sure. But all same kind of sudden.” The Filipino made no reply.

“Should think you’d like it better on the yacht now. With Ansel gone. You didn’t buddy up with Ansel? Did you?”

“I didn’t like him. But I didn’t kill him.” Frankie struggled, indignantly.

“Quiet down. Does Captain Cardiff know you’re running out on him?”

The steward looked bored. “He sent me ashore to get supplies. I sent the supplies back. I don’t intend to go back. I’ll have no difficulty in finding a place.”

“We’ll find a place for you, all right. Where’d you push the pots and pans before you went to work on the Seavett?”

“On the Polaris.” Frankie straightened his narrow, black tie, resentfully. “Mister Fross’s ketch. For the past five years.”

“Oh, yair. Friend of Hurlihan’s, isn’t he?”

“He is Mrs. Ovett’s lawyer.”

“Fross recommend you for the job?”

“He lays the Polaris up for the winter, I was free to accept other employment.”

The detective mulled it over. “Did Ansel work for Fross, too? Before he went with Mrs. Ovett?”

“Yes.”

Koski said nothing more until the cab pulled up back of headquarters. “Out and in, Frankie.”

“You can’t arrest me without letting me telephone to my lawyer. The law says so.” The Filipino nursed a patch of surgeon’s tape on the back of his hand.

“You’re not being arrested. Just detained. For investigation.”

The steward balled his fists. “I want to call my lawyer.”

“Who is he? This Fross?”

“He would take my part. Yes.”

“All right. I was going to call the gent, anyway. Don’t work yourself into a lather. We’ll give you a nice, quiet place where you won’t be disturbed. Until you hear from him.”

He marched the Filipino to the booking desk, gave him into custody, signed the complaint blank. On the line: NATURE OF CHARGE, he told the desk-sergeant to write: possession of narcotics.

“Print him, Charley. Ask Identification to check the whorls with the negatives from that house of ill-fame in Brooklyn. With anything they might have been able to dust out of the Purdo’s kid’s room on Treanor Place. And anything else they’ve got lying around on this suitcase job.”

“You wouldn’t like ’em to use the comparison microscope down at the Federal Bureau, would you, Lieutenant?” The desk-officer made notations on a pad.

“They’ll do that in due course, Charley, I’ll be over at the Tavern, if the Inspector wants me.”

He used the phone book, found Henry Sutlee Fross listed at 40 Wall Street. But he didn’t find him in. The man on the switchboard said Mister Fross was in court, wouldn’t be back until mid-afternoon.

It was beginning to pour when Koski crossed the thirty feet from the white stone building to the Headquarters Tavern on Centre Market Place, — a cold, steady downfall that brought shiny black coats and dripping hats to the racks beside the café door.

Koski found a table near the window across the street from the Hole, where the patrol wagons drove up to empty their hauls. He ordered bean soup, pot roast, home-fried, red cabbage, raisin pie and coffee, — continued to gaze at the purple handwriting on the menu long after the waiter had taken his departure.

He stripped a loose end of cotton from the folded napkin beside his water tumbler. A loose end, he reflected grimly; too many of them, entirely. The Seavett was full of them. Why hadn’t anyone seen Merrill Ovett on the trip across the river from Rodd’s to the Wall Street dock? Why hadn’t Barbara Ovett been more concerned about her husband’s unexpected return, his sudden vanishing? What had been bothering Cardiff when he watched Koski go into Mrs. Ovett’s stateroom? Was there any significance in Frankie’s quick-leave?