Ed McBain (34 page)

David walked over to them.

"I guess you're in trouble," he said.

"Who told you that?" Grew wanted to know.

"Nobody. Sam's a clam. But there was a heavy inquiring about you in the diner. He wasn't the type you take home to Mother."

Grew and the girl exchanged a hasty glance.

"Are you taking us aboard?" the girl asked. Her voice was surprisingly husky.

"I want a hundred and a quarter for the week," David said. "If you do any fishing, the bait and tackle are extra." He paused. "I don't imagine we'll be doing much fishing, will we?"

The girl smiled, her gray eyes crinkling at the edges. "I don't imagine so."

"Have you got your baggage?"

"Yes," the girl said. "On the dock."

"I don't think I know your name," David said.

Again, the pair exchanged glances. David caught the quick flicker of their eyes and then Grew said, "David Coe, Miss Meadows." He paused, as if he were testing the name. "Wanda Meadows."

"How do you do," David said. "Come on, I'll help you with your baggage. We can shove off as soon as I get some provisions."

There were two valises and what looked like a typewriter case on the dock alongside the boat. David picked up one of the bags, and it almost pulled him back down to the dock. "What've you got in here?" he asked. "An anvil?"

Wanda stared at him levelly. "A Luger, among other things," she said, and walked past him to the gangplank. Grew picked up the typewriter case and followed her. They went down into the cabin, and David put down the bags.

"The dinette on your port forms into a double berth," he said. "Galley's over here on the starboard. I've got two transom berths up forward, where the john is. You can take the double, Miss Meadows. Mr. Grew and I will sleep up forward."

"Thank you," she said. "And please make it Wanda."

"I will. Have you given any thought to where you want to go?"

"Anywhere, it doesn't matter," Grew said. "Just so we're away from shore."

David considered this. "Well, I can carry meat for about three days in my icebox. I don't think she'll hold more than that. If we're going to be out for longer than that, we'll have to put in some place. I'll need some money in advance if I'm going to stock up."

"I'll have to cash a traveler's check," Grew said. "I'll go with you." He turned to Wanda anxiously. "Will you be all right?"

"I have a gun," Wanda said. "And I know how to use it."

Grew nodded to himself, sighed, and patted her hand. "Very well then. Shall we go, Mr. Coe?"

The rain had a cutting edge to it.

They ducked their heads and went off the dock and onto Pass-A-Grille Way. They walked up to Eighth Street, then crossed the boulevard. Grew didn't say anything. He kept walking with his head bent against the rain, and every now and then he'd raise it and look around.

"Who's after you?" David asked suddenly. "Man named Williston?"

Grew looked up sharply. "So he's the one who was asking questions."

"Is there going to be any gunplay on this little voyage?"

"I don't know."

"Why's the girl carrying a Luger?"

"For protection."

"Against what?"

Grew didn't answer that question. Instead, he said, "If you'd rather not carry us, Mr. Coe..."

"I frankly would rather not carry you, Mr. Grew. But the question is whether I should let the
Helen
lie idle for the rest of this blow, or take her out and earn myself some eating money. I also didn't like the looks of your friend Harry Williston. You don't seem like a match for him."

"And you are a match for him, Mr. Coe?"

"I don't intend to find out. But if I have to use a gun, I'm going to charge you for the service."

They went into the grocery and loaded up with meat and canned goods. They carried the food out in three shopping bags, David carrying two and Grew carrying the remaining one. They were passing the post office when Grew stopped dead in his tracks.

"Let's cross over," he whispered.

David followed Grew's glance. Harry Williston was leaning against the wall to the right of the post office entrance, and David figured he'd stationed himself there on the assumption that anyone wanting his mail in this general delivery town would have to come here for it. David took Grew's elbow, and they started across the street against the rain.

Williston looked up and spotted Grew. He walked out into the gutter.

"Get going," David told Grew. "Head for the boat!"

"No," Grew said firmly, and David glanced at him curiously, then shifted his attention back to Williston. Williston was walking across the gutter in an apparent collision course. He stopped about a foot from them, his big feet planted in a wide, wet puddle. They started to walk around him, but he moved over again, blocking their path.

"You're in our way," David said. Williston ignored him. He looked straight at Grew and said, "Well. Hello there. Long time no see."

Grew pulled back his shoulders. "Get out of our way," he said.

"Have you started it yet?" Williston asked.

"That's none of your business," Grew answered.

"Put it this way," Williston said. "It
is
my business."

"We're driving out of here," Grew said. "We've hired a car and we're leaving this afternoon and you can't stop us. I wouldn't try if I were you."

"Where's the girl?" Williston asked.

"She's going with us," Grew said.

Williston indicated David. "This your chauffeur?" he asked, smiling.

"Yes," David answered. "I'm his chauffeur."

"I should have broke your arm back in the diner."

"You should have," David told him. "Now you'll never get the chance."

"You know who you're chauffeuring around, mister?" Williston asked.

"Yes, I do. Get out of our way, Harry. We're in a hurry."

"Mr. Williston to you," he corrected.

"Gee, I'm so sorry," David said, and then turned to Grew and said, "Come on." Together they walked away from Williston who stood in the center of the street, in the rain, watching them.

"Away from the docks," David whispered.

They began walking back toward the center of town.'

"You accomplished nothing," Grew said breathlessly. "There are others. He isn't alone. They'll find Sam Friedman, and he'll tell them about you, and then they'll know we're on a boat. Wanda and I were senseless to run. We should have stayed put."

"This way," David said, and ducked into an alley.

They walked for a while in silence, circling back toward the docks. Williston was nowhere behind them.

"They don't know you're on a boat," David said at last. "If they look up Sam, he won't breathe a word to them. You have nothing to worry about. This'll all blow over."

"Will it?" Grew said. "Will it?"

And he gave a short, hollow laugh that ran the length of David's spine.

The gentleman stood against the sink with his hands up over his head. He was wearing Army khakis and a tan windbreaker and he was a slim man with a shock of fiery-red hair. Wanda Meadows sat on the port side of the cabin on one of the dinette seats, and the Luger was in her fist and pointed at the gentleman's back. Her legs were crossed demurely, and she held the gun as steadily as if it were a cup of tea.

Grew and David came down into the cabin, and the first thing they saw was the slim gentleman, and the next thing they saw was Wanda with the gun. David looked at Wanda. Her eyes were cold and the coldness had turned the gray two shades darker. Her full lips were taut across her teeth.

"Who is he?" David asked.

The man didn't turn. "Tell the dame to put up the gun, will you?"

"Put it up, Wanda."

Wanda lowered the gun. The man against the sink made a motion to turn—

"Stay where you are," she snapped. "If you turn around, I'll shoot you."

"The dame's nuts," he said, shaking his head. "I come aboard and she pulls a gun on me."

"Who invited you?" David asked.

"I come aboard to see if I could rent her. She's a fishing boat, ain't, she? I heard they was bitin' like crazy. I figured the owner of the boat wouldn't mind making a fast buck."

"I'm the owner," David said. "I've already got a party."

"Then I'll be goin'," the man said. He turned around, and Wanda brought the Luger up and pointed it at his navel.

"What's your name?" she asked.

"Frank Reardon." •

"Where are you from?"

"Tampa."

"Why'd you come all the way down here to fish?"

"I heard they was bitin'. Hell, they ain't even
swimmin'
in Tampa Bay."

"How'd you find the boat?" David asked.

"What do you mean, how'd I find it? I come looking for a good boat, so I come down to the docks. I spot this one, and she looks clean, so I come aboard. What the hell did I stumble into, anyway? A Russian spy ring?"

"Okay," David said. "Get ashore. And don't come back."

"Don't worry," Reardon said. He looked tentatively toward Wanda and the Luger. "Okay, sister?"

"Go on," she said lowering the gun. Reardon looked at her queerly, shook his head, and mounted the steps. David walked up after him, watching him until he was ashore, then went below again.

"Is someone about ready to tell me what the hell's going on?" he said.

Neither Grew nor Wanda answered.

"Why are they after you?"

Wanda smiled a bit tremulously.

David stared into the silence. "One thing I hate," he said, "is talkative fishing parties. Come on, we'd better get under way."

***

He gassed her up and then took her out past the rocks. He had no real idea where he should go, no real idea where he should take the fugitives. He vaguely surmised, however, that any chase party would assume they'd head into the Gulf, and so he chose Boca Ciega Bay as the place least likely to encourage pursuit.

He still could not understand his own reasons for having taken them aboard. But there'd been something pathetically appealing about the underweight Grew, and he could not deny the obvious attractiveness of Wanda Meadows. It wasn't every woman who could handle Pitman and a Luger with equal ease.

He opened the throttle a little wider, and the
Helen
rushed past Villa del Mar in a burst of flying green and gray and white spray. He kept her nosed into the channel, past the shallow flats and the grass, past Mud Key Point and Mud Key Cutoff and Big McPherson Bayou, heading for the open waters of the bay.

He looked back toward the seat aft near the fishing boxes. There was a locker under that seat, and there was a rifle in the locker, and there was also an Army .45 there, and the .45 had a fresh clip in it. He'd once shot the head off a barracuda with that .45 after a careless fisherman had lost two toes dangling his feet in the water. The way things were going, he surmised there might be more to shoot than barracuda this trip.

He heard a clicking from below, and for a moment he couldn't place the sound. Then he realized it was a typewriter, and he silently congratulated Grew on his capacity for concentration. Even in the midst of headlong flight, the man could find time to dictate letters to his secretary. He wondered what type of business Grew was in. He didn't look like a man who got entangled with people like Harry Williston. The typing stopped abruptly. Grew was coming up the steps from the cabin.

"Nasty up here," Grew said.

"Yes," David replied.

"How fast will she go?"

"Twenty, twenty-five knots."

"No faster?"

"This isn't a destroyer, Mr. Grew."

"More's the pity," Grew answered.

"Getting off some correspondence?"

"What?"

"The typewriter," David said.

"Oh." Grew hesitated. "Yes."

"What line are you in, Mr. Grew?"

Grew hesitated for another moment. He smiled broadly then, as though pleased with the answer he had formulated. "Communications," he said.

David pulled the throttle out a notch, realizing at the same instant that the typewriter below had stopped when Grew came up on deck,

"Your secretary's goofing off," he said.

"Eh? Oh, is she?" Grew seemed to remember something. "I'd better get below."

He went below and in a moment the typewriter started again. A gull swooped low over the boat, decided it was not carrying any fish, and went screaming off.

Suddenly David felt Wanda's presence beside him.

"How does it feel?" she asked.

"How does what feel?"

"Being a sailor."

"Like being a millionaire," David said, smiling. "Minus the million bucks."

Wanda sucked in a deep breath and threw back her head, the ponytail trailing down her back. "It smells good," she said. "The water. You can smell the salt and the fish." Suddenly she pointed off the starboard bow and said, "Look!"

David followed her finger, picking out the yellow speck in the sky. "Coast Guard helicopter," he said.

Wanda took off her glasses, squinted, reached for a handkerchief in the pocket of her trench coat, began wiping off the lenses of her glasses. He studied her eyes. They were slightly tilted, almost Oriental, a deep gray reflecting the somber water, flecked with chips of white.

"You're prettier without them," he said.

"Thanks," she answered. "I'm also blind as a bat without them." She put the glasses on again, peered out over the water to where the helicopter was closer now, its roar filling the sky. David watched the craft as it dropped closer to his boat. He saw an enlisted man in the cockpit toss out a rope ladder, and then an officer in grays climbed over him and started down toward the boat. The enlisted man wrestled with the controls, trying to keep the plane hovering over the boat. The officer was a lieutenant j.g. He clung to the last rung of the ladder for an instant, then dropped to the
Helen's
deck.

"You David Coe?" he asked.

"Yes," David said.

The j.g.'s eyes flicked Wanda briefly. "Hate to break up your party," he said.

"What is it, Lieutenant?" David asked, miffed by the j.g.'s implication.

"The Sun City Police would like to see you, pal. Seems you talked to a Sam Friedman this morning on the telephone?"