where the bullet went. I crawled after with my iron bar, wondering how to get at him without getting shot.
”Luff her, ma’am! Luff her hard!“
That was Big Nick up in the crosstrees, conning the ship. I didn’t have to worry about him for a while…
Suddenly the schooner was coming upright; the deck was level under my feet; and all the sails were breaking into thunderous flapping as the ship ran up into the wind. He must have slid down a rope somehow, because there he was, riding the boom of the foresail in. He launched himself at me from the spar, bellowing something to his mistress at the wheel. it was kind of like playing tag with Tarzan of the apes.
It was too bad, really. I mean, he’d given it a good try. You had to give him A for effort. He’d just made one mistake; he’d given me, for a moment, a level deck to fight on. I wasn’t where he landed; and when he reached for me, I was set. The kendo rule is: thrust to the soft, cut to the hard. 1 didn’t take a chance on going in close for a quick finish. I just swung with all my strength and broke the hard bone of his arm between wrist and elbow.
Then the sails were filling again, the Freya was heeling over, water was coming over the rail, and Big Nick tried to grab at the mainmast to catch himself, but that was the arm that no longer worked. He went down into the torrent pouring along the deck to leeward, and was washed aft. I went after him, but ducked as Loeffler thrust his head and gun out of the cockpit. The bullet dug splinters out of the deck to my left.
”Don’t you shoot him, man! He’s mine!“
That was Nick, picking himself out of the scuppers. Loeffler was taking aim for a second shot. Nick knocked him cockeyed. I saw the pistol glint in the air, flying out to sea. Nick was coming forward past the deckhouse. Behind him, I saw Loeffler painfully pull himself up and crawl towards something in the cockpit: the shotgun.
Whether he was planning to use it on Nick or me will never be known, because as he turned, a small figure jumped him from nowhere and twisted the gun in his hands. Mr. Loeffler must already have had the safety off and his finger on the trigger. The twelve-gauge fired and blew off most of his head. Even in the darkness, he was a fairly horrible sight, as he toppled over backwards into the glowing wake.
Big Nick had paid attention to none of this. He’d been stalking me slowly, but I wasn’t worried about a one-armed man, no matter how big and tough. I waited for him, braced against a skylight amidships. When he rushed, I again gave him the feint to the head that brought his good arm up. Then I stepped in with the steel bar held low in both hands and all my weight behind it, driving it in hard from below, up under the ribs to rupture the diaphragm…
When I got back into the cockpit, Teddy had Robin Rosten covered with the shotgun. The kid looked very small in her drenched romper suit-nobody was staying dry on deck tonight-and her face was white and sick.
”I-I can’t!“ she gasped. ”I ought to shoot her, but I can’t!“
”Sure,“ I said. I took the gun from her, dropping the bar.
”That man!“ she wailed. ”I didn’t mean to-it just went off! Did you see-“
I put my left arm around her to steady her. ”Hell, that’s nothing,“ I said. ”I saw a guy with two heads once. In a bottle in the Smithsonian.“
She stared at me with complete horror; then she giggled hysterically and pressed her face against my jacket. I looked at Robin. She was soaked like the rest of us, her jeans and sweater glistening wet. Her gaudy kerchief was gone, and the long dark hair had blown loose and was streaming out to leeward. She was using all her strength on the big steering wheel as the schooner plunged ahead. Behind her, the wake ran back into the darkness. Way back there, I saw spray flash up white; there was a boat chasing us, as we’d guessed, below.
”That’s about it, lady,“ I said. ”Let’s bring this seagoing trolley to a halt, huh?“
She looked at me for a moment, ignoring the shotgun tucked under my arm. She glanced back over her shoulder briefly, and faced me again. She smiled slowly.
”Very well,“ she said. ”If you say so, Mr. Helm.“
She turned and hauled at the wheel, using her foot in the lower spokes for leverage. I felt Teddy look up. The schooner seemed to rise as the wind came aft. The wheel was spinning more easily now. Robin looked at me and laughed as I brought the shotgun up.
”Go ahead,“ she called. ”Shoot. Get blood all over the deck.“
She glanced up at the towering triangle of mainsail above us. I followed the direction of her look and saw the taut canvas slacken and curl oddly as the wind got behind it. If there had ever been a time to shoot, it was too late now. The great main boom began to swing.
I threw myself down into the cockpit, carrying the kid with me. Robin stood firmly braced against the wheel, still laughing. Up forward, the two other sails came over with a crash, shaking the ship. One must have split, because canvas started flapping. The mainsail gathered momentum quite slowly, it seemed. As the great timber swung past over our heads, Robin Rosten stepped up on the cockpit coaming and went over the side in a clean dive.
The schooner went clear over on her side as the mainsail slammed across; then she hit the shoals and the masts came down.
TWENTY THREE
I FLEW OVER the spot in a Navy plane the following afternoon. The schooner was still lying there, half awash. I could have told them it wasn’t going anywhere. You get that much boat crosswise in a narrow channel in shallow water, and where’s it going to go? It can’t even sink very far. It wasn’t as if we’d hit a coral reef with a hundred fathoms on either side.
I’d tried to tell them that the night before, but communications had been poor in the storm, and they’d insisted on rescuing us, which was why I was taped up like a mummy, having broken two ribs in the process. At that, I was lucky not to have lost a leg in somebody’s propellers while being hauled to safety, as they laughingly called it, at the end of a rope. It had been a hell of a wet and heroic business. If they’d just waited until the wind dropped the following morning, they could have taken us off dryshod in a birchbark canoe.
We flew on down the Bay and out to sea. Now that the weather was clearing, we were looking for a freighter. We found three of them, all claiming perfectly legitimate business in the area. Two of them were probably telling the truth. Maybe all three of them were. We radioed Washington and were told to forget it and come home; they’d handle it some other way. After dinner, I went to see Louis in the hospital. He looked like an Egyptian mummy. -
”Have they found her yet?“ he whispered.
”No,“ I said. ”No, there’s been no sign of her.“
”They won’t find her,“ he whispered-and they never did. If she drowned, she never came up. I don’t think she drowned. Some people don’t drown easy.
Leaving there, I saw Teddy and young Orcutt sitting in the lobby, holding hands. He was the hero of the occasion, of course. It was he who, looking for Teddy, had come to the Rosten place and found everybody missing. He’d sighted the schooner heading down the Bay and, on a hunch, had run down to the dock, wound up the power cruiser Osprey, and taken off after us. He’d trailed us back in the mist all day, closing in after dark. When he saw us heading into the prohibited area, he’d got on the cruiser’s marine radio and called for official help. He was also the boy who’d swum a rope over to us after we’d piled up, and helped Teddy across to the rescue vessel.
The kid looked very cute and demure in a pink cotton dress carefully arranged to display some pretty petticoat ruffles as she sat. They were grateful for everything I’d done, she said. Her eyes were uneasy. Obviously she wasn’t quite sure about me, one way or another. It was like waking from a nightmare, and the details were a little blurred, but she certainly didn’t want to be reminded of anything she’d promised or implied under strain, like demonstrating her gratitude in a practical way. Orcutt said he was very grateful, too.
Mac was behind his desk when I came into the office. He looked up, waved me to a chair, and said, ”Haakonsen, Ivar. Half-Danish, half-Russian. Not strictly in our line of work, but versatile. We first came across him in fifty-four. A second-stringer, but moving up.“
”I couldn’t recall his name,“ I said. ”I knew it wasn’t Loeffler.“
”The other one went by the name of Mike Harnisky. Ex-boxer, considered a little punchy. We’ve turned up nothing derogatory so far. We’re still checking.“
”Sure,“ I said.
”As for Louis Rosten, we’ll do what we can, in view of what you report.“
”Sure.“
”1 am instructed to commend you for a very satisfactory job. The other solution would have been acceptable, but this one, since it worked, makes everybody much happier.“
”Sure,“ I said. ”Naturally I had that in mind all along, sir. You know I just love to make people happy.“
”I know,“ he said. ”That is your most endearing trait, I think, Eric. Aside from your great respect for discipline and instant obedience to orders, I mean.“
”Yes, sir,“ I said.
He looked at me for a moment across the big desk. He said gently, ”You lucked out, didn’t you?“
I said, ”Yes. It was a mess from start to finish, but I lucked out at the end.“
”It happens like that,“ he said. ”But it’s not something an agent can count on.“
”No, sir,“ I said. ”That’s why I’m submitting my resignation, sir.“
He didn’t move. After a moment, he said, rather impatiently, ”Don’t be melodramatic. When I want your resignation, I’ll ask for it, never fear.“ I didn’t say anything. After a moment, he reached into the top desk drawer and pulled out an official-looking folder. He glanced at it, and slid it across the desk to me. ”Read that before you do anything hasty.“
I looked at the folder. The neatly typed label read:
ELLINGTON, MRS. LAURA H. Autopsy Report Cop. 3. I couldn’t remember any Mrs. Ellington. Then I remembered that Jean had used that name.
”Go on,“ Mac said. ”Read it.“
I said, ”It will be three pages of medical jargon. You tell me what it says.“
”It says you didn’t kill her.“
I looked at him. ”If I didn’t, who did?“
”She did.“
”Come again.“
”She drank herself to death.“
I grimaced. ”That’s ridiculous, sir. You don’t die of cirrhosis in the time she’d been at it, and it doesn’t hit you like that, anyway. Who’s kidding whom?“
”I didn’t say anything about cirrhosis. Did Jean down a stiff drink-six or eight ounces of straight whisky, say- a few minutes before she died? The autopsy says she did.“
I said, ”Sure, but-“
”It killed her,“ he said. ”Don’t look so surprised. It happens all the time, young people showing off how much they can drink right out of the bottle, and falling over dead. That much alcohol in one dose can be pure poison under certain circumstances. The heart just stops.“
”I see,“ I said slowly. ”I see.“
”According to your own report, you made several mistakes during the past few days. But that is one you did not make. Your hand did not slip. Under the circumstances, do you wish to reconsider the resignation you haven’t turned in yet?“
