Charles Williams - Aground

The detective picked it up. “Get me the Eden Roc Hotel, in Miami Beach,” he said, and waited. The room was silent except for the faint humming of the air-conditioner. “Mr. Fredric Hollister, please . . . Oh? . . . Are you sure? . . . And when was this?”

Ingram stared at his face, conscious of a very cold feeling that was beginning to spread through his stomach. Schmidt hung up, and snapped, “Get your clothes on, fella.”

“What is it?”

“Hollister checked out of the Eden Roc a week ago. On Monday night.”

2

His leg hurt. He’d smoked the two cigars he had, and the cigarettes they gave him tasted like hay. They sent out for coffee. Quinn and Schmidt questioned him, moving like cats around the table where he was seated, and then Schmidt was gone and there was another man, named Brenner. There was one window in the bleak interrogation room, covered with heavy screen, but from where he sat he could see nothing but the sky. He thought it was still raining. It didn’t seem to matter. Quinn went out, and came back shepherding an old man with dirty white whiskers and sharp black eyes, an old man who clutched a comic book in one hand and a crumpled and strangely bottle-shaped paper bag in the other and pointed dramatically from the doorway like some ham in an amateur production of Medea or King Lear, and cackled, “That’s him! That’s him!” It was the watchman, the old shrimper who’d lived aboard the Dragoon.

“Hello, Tango,” Ingram said wearily, to which Tango made no reply other than to heighten the fine theatrical aspect of this confrontation by leaning further into his point and belching. “Ain’t nobody’d ever forget a big flat face like that,” he announced triumphantly, and was gone, presumably back to the bottle. The identification seemed rather pointless, since he admitted being aboard the Dragoon, but maybe it was something technical about preparing the case.

Schmidt came back, and Brenner left. Schmidt leaned on the other end of the table with an unlighted cigarette in his mouth, and said, “All right, let’s try again. Who’s Hollister?”

“All I know is what he told me,” Ingram replied.

“We just heard from Cleveland. There is no such outfit as Hollister-Dykes Laboratories—if that’s news to anybody. And he paid his hotel bill with a rubber check. How long have you known him?”

“I didn’t know him at all. I met him just twice.”

“How did you meet him?”

“I told you. He called me at the La Perla Hotel.”

“When?”

“A week ago last Saturday. He said he had a proposition that might interest me, and asked if I’d come over to Miami Beach and see him.”

“He just pulled your name out of a hat, is that it?”

“No. He said I’d been recommended to him by a couple of yacht brokers.”

“He mention any names?”

“No. It didn’t occur to me to ask, at the time. But there are any number of people around the Miami water front who could have told him about me. I’ve been in and out of here for years. Anyway, he seemed to know all about me, and wanted to know if I’d had any luck in finding a boat. I told him no.”

“This was over the phone?”

“Yes.”

“So you met him at the Eden Roc?”

“That’s right. In his suite, about two p.m. Saturday. He explained who he was, and gave me a rundown on the deal he had in mind. The company wanted an auxiliary ketch or schooner, seventy feet or longer, one that would accommodate eight guests in addition to the crew. It would operate out of Miami, and be used for conferences and company entertainment, that sort of thing—deductible as a business expense, of course. I was to get five hundred and fifty a month as skipper, and during periods when nobody from the company was using it I could operate it as a charter boat on a commission basis. I wasn’t crazy about the idea, because I’d rather work for myself, but I was in no position to be choosy. We didn’t have the boatyard fully insured, and three-quarters of it belonged to Barney’s widow, anyway, so by the time I’d settled my hospital and doctor bills I had less than thirteen thousand left. Any kind of boat I could use at all would run twenty-five thousand, and I just didn’t have enough cash to talk to anybody. So I told him I’d take it.

“He had a list of five boats the company had been considering. The Dragoon in Key West, Susannah in Tampa, and three over in Nassau. He suggested I look at the Dragoon first, since it seemed to be the most promising. I went down to Key West Sunday morning, spent all afternoon on it, and flew back that night. I called Hollister, and he asked me to come on over and give him the report. I met him in his suite again, and we spent about two hours going over all the dope I had on it—sketches of the interior layout, inside dimensions, estimates on minor repairs, condition of the auxiliary engine, rigging, sails, and so on. The boat had been kept up, in spite of the fact it hadn’t been used for a long time. He liked it. I told him that of course any offer we made would be subject to her passing survey. You don’t buy a boat just on preliminary inspection. He suggested we hold off final decision until I’d looked at the others, but that if I still liked the Dragoon we’d get in touch with Mrs. Osborne and try forty-five thousand dollars. I left for Tampa Monday morning, and then went on from there to Nassau on Wednesday.”

“He didn’t say anything about calling him from Tampa with a report on the Susannah?”

Ingram’s face hardened. “No. In fact, he said he’d probably be in West Palm Beach the next few days at a house party, and just to wait till I got back from Nassau.”

Quinn came around in front of him and leaned on the table. “That’s a great story. I love it. It covers you from every angle except being a chump, and there’s no law against that.”

“I can’t help it. That’s exactly the way it happened.”

“Then you just swallowed all this whole?” Schmidt asked. “It never occurred to you to question it?”

“Why should it?” Ingram demanded. “His story made sense. Corporation-owned boats are nothing new. He had all the props. He was living in a suite on the ocean side, with a sundeck. He gave me his card. It said he was Fredric Hollister, president of Hollister-Dykes Laboratories. When I was there the first day, he got a long-distance call from the home office in Cleveland—”

Schmidt gestured pityingly. “From some joker on a house phone in the lobby.”

“Sure, I suppose it’s an old gag, if you’re looking for it. But why should I? And don’t forget, he fooled the hotel too.”

“I know,” Schmidt said. “And to do that, he’d have to have more than a business card. He’s beginning to smell like a real con artist to me. But that’s the stupid part of it—what the hell would a con man want to steal a boat for?”

“You tell me,” Ingram said. “He can’t sell it. And he can’t even leave the country in it without papers.”

“Who paid your expenses while you were looking at all these boats?”

“Apparently I did. He gave me a check for two hundred dollars and said if they ran over that to keep a record and I’d be reimbursed. That’s the reason I kept all those receipts.”

“Where’s the check?”

“I couldn’t cash it before I left, because it was the week end, but I had enough cash of my own to carry me, so I mailed it in to the bank from Tampa. On Tuesday afternoon, I think.” He tossed his checkbook over in front of Schmidt. “The deposit’s entered on my stubs.”

Schmidt looked at it, and nodded to Quinn. Quinn went out.

“Can you describe him?” Schmidt asked.