Cargo for the Styx Read online

  “The one in the closet,” I said.

  “Oh, that file cabinet.”

  I gave up. I said “Make three cups of coffee. I’m expecting a visitor.”

  She said, “If it’s Prebble you’re looking for, he’s already here.”

  She turned away from the mirror. She said unhappily, “He’s waiting in the closet.”

  The door to the closet was next to the washroom. I turned the knob. I pulled. The door came open. Prebble was there, all right.

  He was on the floor. Prebble’s neck was broken.

  I said to Bonnie Minos, “When did you get here?”

  She sat across the desk from me. She held her cup of coffee in one hand and a doughnut in the other. Prebble was behind the closet door. It was firmly closed.

  She said, “About three minutes before you did.” Her eyes were more gray than blue this morning. “I found him that way.”

  I said, “Did you expect to find me too?”

  “No. I saw your car parked by your dock when I came down the hill this morning. I knew you were in bed. I thought you’d be there a while.”

  “Prebble called me at five-thirty,” I said. “He wanted to see me, to show me something. He was scared. I told him to come here through the alley and wait for me.”

  She picked up her bag and brought out a pack of cigarettes. She lit a cigarette and offered it to me. I shook my head. I was still eating doughnuts. I tried not to think of Prebble while I ate. But he kept intruding.

  I said, “Where’s your car?”

  “Home,” she said. “I brought Aggie’s Cadillac.”

  “Because it’s less conspicuous?”

  “And quieter,” she said.

  “Does Aggie know you’ve gone?”

  “No, that’s why I had to be quiet.”

  I said, “Prebble was already here when you arrived?”

  “I said he was. The door was unlocked, too. Don’t you ever lock it?”

  “What is there for anyone to steal? So you looked in the file closet and found Prebble.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What did you expect to find?”

  She shrugged. I said, “I could call the police.”

  “And I’m big enough,” she said. “Are you trying to bluff me, Zane? Because if it isn’t a bluff, start reaching for the phone. If it is, stop wasting both our time.”

  Big, beautiful, and quick. She smiled at me. I didn’t reach for the phone.

  I said, “Sooner or later, the police are going to want an explanation.”

  She said, “Why tell them? We can put Prebble someplace else and then they won’t bother us.”

  I said, “Did Aggie teach you all the tricks or did you learn them before you married him?”

  Her smile mocked me. She said. “I think Prebble was killed here, but that doesn’t mean we have to let everyone in on the secret. How do you think the murderer will feel if the little guy turns up someplace else?”

  I said, “Turns up where?”

  “Let me worry about that.”

  I liked the idea. I said, “Wear that outfit and no jury would ever convict you, not even for being an accessory.”

  “You’re sweet,” she said. “Now let’s get Prebble out of here.”

  She was all woman. I could see that. And earlier my hands had proved it. But she was something else too. A machine. She helped me carry the little guy down to the elevator, on to the basement, and out to where she had Aggie’s car near the service door. If handling a corpse bothered her, I saw no sign of it.

  It bothered me.

  I put her behind the wheel of the car. I said, “I finally found out what these big trunks are good for.”

  She didn’t smile. She sat and stared at me. Her eyes were neither blue nor gray now; they were just kind of muddy. I saw a thin line of sweat form on her upper lip. Her throat muscles quivered as she swallowed.

  She started the motor. I said, “Where are you going?”

  “Let me worry about that. See you around.”

  I said, “Hey, we’ve got things to talk about.”

  “Not at this hour of the morning we haven’t,” she said. “Meet me at Blimey’s Shack at ten o’clock. Do you know it?”

  “I know it.”

  She nodded and drove off.

  I made myself some more coffee in my office. I drank two cups and ate the remaining doughnuts. I went carefully through my desk. Nothing appeared to be missing. I even checked the file in the closet. If anything had been taken, I couldn’t figure out what it might be.

  By seven-thirty I had two solid facts in my possession. One, Bonnie Minos had been in my office this morning. Two, Prebble had been here too. Progress!

  CHAPTER VIII

  BLIMEY’S SHACK was on Harbor Way, a block south of First Avenue, and stuck out on the end of a truncated pier. On either side were two full length piers.

  I parked across the street from Blimey’s pier. I crossed the street and hiked the hundred odd feet from the sidewalk to Blimey’s Shack.

  It was a bright, clean wooden house. The walls were yellow. Lettered all around them in bright blue Blimey had his name and: “A Bit of Old Lunnontown. Grilled Kipper and Kidney a Specialty.” I could smell the specialty when I was within fifty feet of the door.

  Inside there were only Blimey, the smell, and a lone customer. Blimey was at the grill, flipping a kidney; the smell was everywhere; and the customer was at one of the two small tables. He looked out the window toward the pier. All I could see of him was the back of his neck and a dirty collar.

  I slid onto one of the four stools fronting the short counter. Blimey turned from his kidney. He was an old burlesque ham who’d retired into the restaurant business just about a year ago. His best gag was a bad English accent. He used it on me now. He said, “Morning, guvner. Something from old Lunnontown today….” His voice dried up as he had a good look at me.

  I said, “It’s me. Zane. Have you seen a big blond …”

  He was rolling his eyes as if he was trying to tell me something. He was too frightened to do a good job, so I stopped talking and tried to figure out what he wanted. I finally got the message. Blimey was aiming his eyeballs at the customer by the window. I slid off the stool and turned just as he started for me.

  It was the chinless character I’d seen in the building lobby coffee shop. And the same one I’d seen standing on the curb below my window shortly after Bonnie had knocked me on my tail.

  Chinless looked much happier than he had earlier. He held his right arm carefully in front of him, shielding it from anyone who might be looking toward us from the street. An old-fashioned sap dangled from his fingers.

  I deliberately turned my back on him.

  I turned on him just as he was carrying the sap back to the far point of its arc.

  He wasn’t too big. I needed to use only one punch to the place where his chin should have been.

  I walked to where he lay. “Get up.”

  “My back’s broke.”

  He still lay flat. I bent down and flipped open his coat. I pulled his wallet out of the pocket. I stepped back and opened the wallet. There was a hundred dollars in tens and twenties. There was also an ID card saying his name was Clarence Curdy, that he was a private detective from San Pedro, and that he had an office close to the waterfront.

  I dropped the wallet on his chest. “Who hired you?”

  “Nobody. I’m here on vacation.”

  “Who hired you to tag me?”

  “Nobody.”

  “Where’s the woman I was supposed to meet here?”

  “How would I know? Leave me alone.”

  I said, “Did she send you to work me over with this sap?”

  “Nobody sent me.”

  I was getting tired of him. I reached down and grabbed his jacket front.

  His arms came out like broken rigging threshing in a gale. Bony fingers clamped on my wrists. Feet planted themselves in my belly. It was my turn to take a header.
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br />   I landed on my back on one of the tables. I skidded across it and landed on a chair. We went down together, chair and Zane. By the time I was untangled and on my feet, Clarence Curdy and his busted back were almost to the street. I stood and watched him climb into a late model small sedan. By the time I could reach my car, he’d be long gone. I dusted myself off and limped away to find Blimey.

  At the end of the counter was a door leading toward the rear. The door opened onto a short hallway that gave access to a restroom and a storeroom. The restroom was empty.

  As I passed the storeroom door, I felt the floor give. I stopped and looked down. I was standing on a trap door about three feet square.

  I backed up, bent down, and hooked my fingers to the edge of the trap door. I pulled. It came up. And there was Blimey. He had his lank body jammed into the crotch of a big X made by pier stringers.

  I said, “Come on up. Clarence is gone.”

  He came up. I dropped the trap door in place. We walked silently back into the restaurant. His face was yellower than before. I wondered if the slopping of water under the pier had made him seasick.

  I poured him a cup of his own coffee and handed it to him. His hands were shaking. Coffee slopped onto his apron. He didn’t seem to notice.

  I said, “I want the whole story and I want it fast.”

  “They’d kill me.”

  “Who’s ‘they’?”

  “The two that came here after her.”

  “After Bonnie?”

  “That’s right.” He looked miserable. He’d even gone so far that he forgot his English accent.

  I said, “They aren’t here and I am. So take your choice.”

  He righted a chair and dropped into it. He said. “She came in for a kipper about ten to nine. She told me she was meeting you here.”

  I said, “You know her?”

  “She comes in every now and then. She likes my kippers,” he said. He swallowed and his Adam’s apple did an entrechat. “Mr. Zane, we was old friends. We used to play the same burlesque circuit. She helped me plenty of times. You know, with a buck now and then, a bottle when I needed one. Now they got her and I don’t know how to help.”

  Misery made a sweaty sheen on his face. I said, “Give me the rest of it. Maybe there’s something we can do.”

  I gave him a cigarette. He sucked on it like a man in condemned row. He lubricated his Adam’s apple with some coffee. He said, “She was eating her kipper, like I said, and drinking her tea. I always make her a big pot when she has a kipper. Then these two guys come in. One’s average size and the other’s a real moose.”

  “I know them,” I said.

  “They go to her table and stand on each side of her. She looks up at them and then goes on eating as if they wasn’t there. They try to grab her. Bonnie doesn’t like that. She gets mad. When Bonnie gets mad, she don’t know her own strength. She knocks them both down, then she walks over the big guy and goes out to her car.”

  “The Ferrari?”

  He nodded. “She heads south. The two guys pick each other up and go after her. In a black two-door.”

  I said, “When did Clarence come in?”

  “Just before you did,” Blimey said. “I just get the mess cleaned up and there he is. He said he was here to see nobody gave me any trouble. That’s all he said.”

  “And you figured the two goons had sent him?”

  “What else?”

  I didn’t know what else. I couldn’t even make a good guess as to why Vann and Otho wanted Bonnie. But I had an idea I could find out fast enough.

  I went on out. I started the heap. I headed north on Harbor Way. I thought that first I’d stop at my boat and wake up Irma. Then I’d pay a visit to Aggie Minos. It seemed to me that Aggie had some explaining to do.

  CHAPTER IX

  THE RED CONVERTIBLE was still parked by my moorage. I pulled the heap alongside and cut the motor. I wondered if Irma was going to be irked because I hadn’t waked her earlier. I trotted down the dock to find out.

  My boat looked just as I’d left it. And Irma was just where I’d left her. I reached out a hand and poked lightly at a bare shoulder.

  “Time for business,” I said.

  Her head popped up. Somehow during the night her hair had got mussed. I liked the way it fell softly about her face, framing it.

  I said, “You look pretty good first thing in the morning.”

  She blinked at me. “Just what kind of business is it time for?”

  I said, “It’s ten o’clock, Friday morning.”

  She said, “Oh, my goodness.” I had to move fast to keep from being pinned to the bulkhead. She came out of the bunk in a swirl of legs and arms and soft white skin.

  “Get out of here so I can dress.”

  I said, “My robe’s hanging on that hook. The shower is forward.” I retreated to the galley. I put water on for coffee. I yelled, “I’ve got some business. I’ll give you a ring later.”

  She popped up through the wheelhouse and down into the galley. Her hands were lost somewhere in my robe. She flapped the ends of the sleeves at me. “Wait a minute, Martin.”

  I waited. She said, “Where were you? I woke up once and you were gone.” She looked faintly embarrassed. “I thought you might be getting us some breakfast so I went back to sleep.”

  I said, “I’d have enjoyed that more than what I did.”

  “You didn’t run into those men again?”

  I said, “No, these are the same old lumps on my skull. But I ran into something else. Name of Clarence Curdy. Private detective from San Pedro.”

  She was on her way to the shower. She dropped my robe on the deck and stepped through the door. “A colleague of yours?”

  I said, “He’s not my type. He just bought a new sap and he wanted to test it on my skull.”

  Water roared. “A new what?”

  “Blackjack,” I yelled back.

  “Why?”

  My throat was tired. I waited until she decided she was clean. The roaring subsided. I said, “He didn’t seem to want me to find out what happened to Bonnie Minos.”

  “Did something happen to her?”

  I said, “I don’t know yet. The goons tried to pick her up. I’m on my way to find out if they caught her or not.” I told her what Blimey had told me.

  A hand reached around the shower door and picked up my robe. Irma appeared, wrapped in the robe, her face glistening. “She sounds formidable, Martin.”

  I agreed that Bonnie sounded formidable. Irma padded back toward the cabin to get dressed. She said, “How about taking me to lunch?”

  “If I have time.”

  “One o’clock,” she said. She stopped and came back to me. “If you kiss me now, we won’t smear my lipstick.”

  I kissed her. I saw what she meant. If she’d had any lipstick on, we’d have smeared it. I broke the judo hold she had on me and pulled the front of the bathrobe together. I said firmly, “Business between nine and five, remember.”

  Her grin was impish. Then it went away. She said, “Just think, Martin, tomorrow is Saturday. No business to worry about. The Temoc will be gone and we can both relax.”

  I said, “If the Temoc goes.”

  The teakettle whistled. I lifted it off the stove and poured the water into the coffeepot. Irma said slowly, “Martin, has something happened that you haven’t told me about?”

  I said, “That I can’t answer. I don’t know. But if I can get any kind of solid proof to give Ted Winters, he’d be a fool not to hold up the sailing for a further check.”

  She said, “Oh damn! And my first big shipment, too.”

  “Your first shipment?”

  “Of course. I told you before that this was my first executive job. I was private secretary for the west coast manager until last month. When they decided to open a shipping office here, I asked for the job and got it. And now look!”

  I poured her some coffee. “I keep forgetting you haven’t been a boss lady for long. Y
ou act as if you knew what you were doing.”

  “I do know,” she said indignantly. She sipped the coffee. “Hot. But I never expected anything like this to happen. Martin, are you sure …?”

  I said, “I’m not sure of anything. I only know that I thought I had the investigation all buttoned up. Then Bonnie Minos comes along. And Aggie. Even then I might have been able to believe he was just having fun making me sweat. But then Vann and Otho showed up. It isn’t easy to explain them away.”

  It wasn’t easy to explain Albert Prebble’s death away, either, but that wasn’t a subject I felt up to talking about right now.

  I said, “Look, go hang something on that frame of yours and go to the office. Check your files for everything you have on the Temoc—and on Jaspar Clift. Think back to your meetings with him. See if you can’t come up with something—anything, no matter how pointless it seems—that might give me a lead. Okay?”

  “I’ll try, Martin.”

  Her eyes were big and brown and troubled. I kissed her, a quick one this time, and took off.

  I rolled up the curving road that led to the top of The Point. Aggie’s place was on the sweeping drive at the end of The Point. His view should be terrific, I thought.

  I put the heap up a steep driveway. At the top was a wide turnaround with a four car garage located at the back. The garage doors were open. I could see the tail ends of the Fleetwood and of the Ferrari.

  I parked and cut the motor. I said, “It looks like the lady got home safely.”

  A flagstoned walk winding through lush shrubbery led me to a small, covered porch. There was a button beside the door. I pressed it.

  Set in the doorframe above the button was a round metal disc that looked like a radio speaker. It made a squawking sound at me. I looked expectantly at it. Aggie’s voice said, “Who is it?”

  I said, “Zane.”

  Silence. Then the pad of slippered feet. The door opened. A sloe-eyed girl in a bright Mexican skirt and blouse and huaraches looked at me. She smiled. I smiled. She stepped aside. I went in.

  She said something in Spanish. I took her word for it and followed her. We turned left out of a hallway into a living room running the length of the house.