Росс Макдональд - Trouble Follows Me

“I know what you mean. Let me assure you we have no desire to embarrass innocent parties.” As Eric became more reticent and cautious, Gordon became smoother and more glib, like a salesman who has lost a sale but wishes to retain the goodwill of the customer.

“Mary could tell you more than Eric,” I said to Gordon. “She worked with Sue Sholto and was friendly with her. One woman can find out things about another woman more easily than a man can, anyway.”

“I’ll get in touch with her tomorrow. Where is she staying?”

“At the Grant for the present. But I think you’ll have to depend on your Honolulu sources for the bulk of your evidence. I gather that Sue Sholto didn’t talk about herself.”

“I was about to come to this end of the affair,” Gordon said in a faintly patronizing tone. “Lieutenant Swann, can you round up two or three members of the crew who were intimate with Land?”

“I don’t think he was intimate with anybody. But I’ll see what I can do. Do you want to wait here?”

“If you don’t mind my using your room.”

“Not at all.” Eric went out.

He returned in about ten minutes with two Negroes. In the interval Gordon cross-questioned me about the circumstances of Sue Sholto’s death. He was particularly interested in the movements of the guests and of Hector Land, which I reconstructed from memory as well as I could.

The two Negroes who preceded Eric unwillingly through the hatch looked frightened. They exchanged furtive looks. Their mouths were closed and set. Gordon’s introduction of himself capitalized on their fear:

“My name is Gordon. I am an agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation. My special field is subversive activities, that is, catching spies and traitors.”

“This is Joe Doss, the Captain’s steward,” Eric said. Joe Doss was a small fat man with an almost hairless head and the face of a dusky moon. “This is Albert Feathers, one of the mess-boys who shared a compartment with Land.” Albert Feathers was a lanky mulatto with large liquid eyes, a convulsive Adam’s apple, and hair that was forcibly straight.

“Hector Land,” Gordon continued, “is suspected of being a spy and a traitor. He was apparently a member of an illegal organization named Black Israel. Did he ever mention it to you?”

“No, sir. He never mentioned anything like that to me.” Joe Doss disowned Hector Land in the same spirit, almost the same words, that Eric had used in disowning Sue Sholto: “I didn’t know him very well. He worked down in the wardroom and I worked up in the Captain’s galley.”

“Feathers, you went on liberty with Land more than once,” Eric said.

“Yes, sir,” Feathers admitted in a dull voice. “But I wouldn’t have nothin’ to do with his lodge.”

“Did he try to get you to join Black Israel?” Gordon said.

“Yes, sir. He didn’t call it Black Israel, but that must be what he was talking about. He said it was to make the dark people strong.”

“By what methods?”

“He didn’t say. I told him he was just going to get himself into trouble, and when I told him that he just shut up like a clam. He said he’d get me if I said anything to anybody.”

“You should have told me or your division officer about that,” Eric said. “You might have saved a lot of trouble.”

“Yes, sir,” he said tonelessly. “I’ll know better next time.”

“Did Hector Land try to persuade you to spy for him?”

“Oh, no, sir, nothing like that. He didn’t say anything about me spying. He just told me about the secret society. I just thought it was like an ordinary secret society.” Feathers’ large eyes seemed ready to dissolve in tears. His feet were rooted to the floor but his long body moved restlessly under his blue dungarees.

“Where did Hector Land get his money?”

“I don’t know, sir. He got his pay.”

“I’m not talking about his pay. He had more money than the Navy ever paid him. Where did he get it?”

“I don’t know, sir. Maybe he got it spying.”

“Why you making that up, Albert?” Joe Doss said. “You don’t know if he made his money spying.”

“No, sir. I thought that’s what you meant.”

“Hector Land made money gambling,” Joe Doss said.

“Yes, sir,” Feathers echoed. “He made money gambling. He ran a pool. He told me one time that back in Detroit he used to be overlook man for a policy wheel.”

Gordon turned to Doss, who seemed the more intelligent of the two: “What kind of a pool?”

“I don’t know, sir. It was some kind of a numbers game.”

“Did you ever buy a chance in it?”

“No, sir, I don’t gamble.”

“We’re not interested in checking up on gambling just now,” Eric said. “If you know anything, let’s have it. You won’t suffer for it. It may do you some good.”

A flicker of hopefulness passed over Feathers’ sullen brown face. “I know what kind of a pool it was, sir. It was a ship pool. All the dark boys bought chances in it. Not just on the ship. On the beach, too.”

“What is a ship pool?” Gordon said.

“Well, all the ships have numbers and if a ship came in with our number we won.”

Gordon straightened up in his chair as if someone had pressed a trigger in his spine. But his voice was almost casual when he said:

“I’m not sure I understand. You mean that Hector Land based his numbers game on the goings and comings of naval vessels in Pearl Harbor?”

“Yes, sir. When we were in Frisco he had the pool, too.”

“That’s impossible!” Eric said angrily. “Only officers have access to that information.”

“Where did Land get his information?” Gordon said.

“We could see the ships, sir,” Feathers said. “Everybody knows what ships are in. And he could always check up on the daily Ships Present list.”

“That’s a lie,” said Joe Doss, like the Chinaman who wrote on the wall where he had hidden his money that there was no money hidden there.

“I didn’t say anything about you, Joe,” said Albert Feathers, like the other Chinaman who wrote on the wall after he had stolen the money that he personally was innocent of the theft.

Eric turned on Joe Doss. “Have you been messing with the Captain’s Ships Present list?”

“No, sir, I don’t ever mess with anything on the Captain’s desk.” Drops of sweat came out on his high black forehead like globules of rendered fat. He swivelled a swift revengeful look at Albert Feathers.

“I want these men to make a deposition,” Gordon said to Eric. “This evidence is of first-rate importance.”

“You’re damned right it is. I’ll have to take the matter up with the Captain, but there’ll be no difficulty there.” He looked at Doss. “There’s another matter I’ll take up with the Captain at the same time. Doss, you’re coming with me to see the Master-at-Arms.”

Doss followed him out on hopeless legs. Feathers stood where he was, apparently occupied with intimations of disaster.

“You may go, Feathers,” Gordon said. “I’ll want to get in touch with you in the morning. If you’ve told a straight story and continue to tell one you have nothing to fear.” The faint trace of ham in his nature added with dramatic effectiveness: “The United States Government will appreciate your assistance.”

“Don’t talk this around,” I said before Feathers left the room.

Gordon turned to me with a tense smile. “By God, this case is breaking. Now to give the Mexican police a shot in the arm. We’ve got to get our hands on Land.”

“Land had a smooth way of gathering information. I wonder if he thought that up himself. He didn’t strike me as particularly bright.”

“I doubt it. There are real brains behind this business, Drake. With the possible exception of the Schneider case, this is the trickiest business I’ve worked on in this war. Schneider had the brains, but he was a piker compared with this outfit. This is nothing less than a conspiracy to give the Japs the whole outline of our naval movements in the Pacific.”