time it came and rode back almost to where I had left the hotel. If anybody was tailing me, he was doing it without moving. I didn’t think there was. In that clean little city there wouldn’t be enough crime for the dicks to be very good shadows.
The black piers glittered their length and then disappeared into the dark background of night and water. You could still smell hot fat, but you could smell the ocean too. The hot dog man droned on:
“Get hungry, folks, get hungry. Nice hot doggies. Get hungry.”
I spotted him in a white barbecue stand tickling wienies with a long fork. He was doing a good business even that early in the year. I had to wait some time to get him alone.
“What’s the name of the one farthest out?” I asked, pointing with my nose.
“_Montecito_.” He gave me the level steady look.
“Could a guy with reasonable dough have himself a time there?”
“What kind of a time?”
I laughed, sneeringly, very tough.
“Hot doggies,” he chanted. “Nice hot doggies, folks.” He dropped his voice. “Women?”
“Nix. I was figuring on a room with a nice sea breeze and good food and nobody to bother me. Kind of vacation.”
He moved away. “I can’t hear a word you say,” he said, and then went into his chant.
He did some more business. I didn’t know why I bothered with him. He just had that kind of face. A young couple in shorts came up and bought hot dogs and strolled away with the boy’s arm around the girl’s brassiere and each eating the other’s hot dog.
The man slid a yard towards me and eyed me over. “Right now I should be whistling Roses of Picardy,” he said, and paused. “That would cost you,” he said.
“How much?”
“Fifty. Not less. Unless they want you for something.”
“This used to be a good town,” I said. “A cool-off town.”
“Thought it still was,” he drawled. “But why ask me?”
“I haven’t an idea,” I said. I threw a dollar bill on his counter. “Put it in the baby’s bank,” I said. “Or whistle Roses of Picardy.”
He snapped the bill, folded it longways, folded it across and folded it again. He laid it on the counter and tucked his middle finger behind his thumb and snapped. The folded-bill hit me lightly in the chest and fell noiselessly to the ground. I bent and picked it up and turned quickly. But nobody was behind me that looked like a dick.
I leaned against the counter and laid the dollar bill on it again. “People don’t throw money at me,” I said. “They hand it to me. Do you mind?”
He took the bill, unfolded it, spread it out and wiped it off with his apron. He punched his cash-register and dropped the bill into the drawer.
“They say money don’t stink,” he said. “I sometimes wonder.”
I didn’t say anything. Some more customers did business with him and went away. The night was cooling fast.
“I wouldn’t try the Royal Crown,” the man said. “That’s for good little squirrels, that stick to their nuts. You look like dick to me, but that’s your angle. I hope you swim good.”
I left him, wondering why I had gone to him in the first place. Play the hunch. Play the hunch and get stung. In a little while you wake up with your mouth full of hunches. You can’t order a cup of coffee without shutting your eyes and stabbing the menu. Play the hunch.
I walked around and tried to see if anybody walked behind me in any particular way. Then I sought out a restaurant that didn’t smell of frying grease and found one with a purple neon sign and a cocktail bar behind a reed curtain. A male cutie with henna’d hair drooped at a bungalow grand piano and tickled the keys lasciviously and sang Stairway to the Stars in a voice with half the steps missing.
I gobbled a dry martini and hurried back through the reed curtain to the dining room.
The eighty-five cent dinner tasted like a discarded mail bag and was served to me by a waiter who looked as if he would slug me for a quarter, cut my throat for six bits, and bury me at sea in a barrel of concrete for a dollar and a half, plus sales tax.
35
It was a long ride for a quarter. The water taxi, an old launch painted up and glassed in for three-quarters of its length, slid through the anchored yachts and around the wide pile of stone which was the end of the breakwater. The swell hit us without warning and bounced the boat like a cork. But there was plenty of room to be sick that early in the evening. All the company I had was three couples and the man who drove the boat, a tough- looking citizen who sat a little on his left hip on account of having a black leather hip-holster inside his right hip pocket. The three couples began to chew each other’s faces as soon as we left the shore.
I stared back at the lights of Bay City and tried not to bear down too hard on my dinner. Scattered points of light drew together and became a jeweled bracelet laid out in the show window of the night. Then the brightness faded and they were a soft orange glow appearing and disappearing over the edge of the swell. It was a long smooth even swell with no whitecaps, and just the right amount of heave to make me glad I hadn’t pickled my dinner in bar whisky. The taxi slid up and down the swell now with a sinister smoothness, like a cobra dancing. There was cold in the air, the wet cold that sailors never get out of their joints. The red neon pencils that outlined the Royal Crown faded off to the left and dimmed in the gliding gray ghosts of the sea, then shone out again, as bright as new marbles.
We gave this one a wide berth. It looked nice from a long way off. A faint music came over the water and music over the water can never be anything but lovely. The Royal Crown seemed to ride as steady as a pier on its four hawsers. Its landing stage was lit up like a theater marquee. Then all this faded into remoteness and another, older, smaller boat began to sneak out of the night towards us. It was not much to look at. A converted seagoing freighter with scummed and rusted plates, the superstructure cut down to the boat deck level, and above that two stumpy masts just high enough for a radio antenna. There was light on the Montecito also and music floated across the wet dark sea. The spooning couples took their teeth out of each other’s necks and stared at the ship and giggled.
The taxi swept around in a wide curve, careened just enough to give the passengers a thrill, and eased up to the hemp fenders along the stage. The taxi’s motor idled and backfired in the fog. A lazy searchlight beam swept a circle about fifty yards out from the ship.
The taximan hooked to the stage and a sloe-eyed lad in a blue mess jacket with bright buttons, a bright smile and a gangster mouth, handed the girls up from the taxi. I was last. The casual neat way he looked me over told me something about him. The casual neat way he bumped my shoulder clip told me more.
“Nix,” he said softly. “Nix.”
He had a smoothly husky voice, a hard Harry straining himself through a silk handkerchief. He jerked his chin at the taximan. The taximan dropped a short loop over a bitt, turned his wheel a little, and climbed out on the stage. He stepped behind me.
“No gats on the boat, laddy. Sorry and all that rot,” Mess-jacket purred.
“I could check it. It’s just part of my clothes. I’m a fellow who wants to see Brunette, on business.”
He seemed mildly amused. “Never heard of him,” he smiled. “On your way, bo.”
The taximan hooked a wrist through my right arm.
“I want to see Brunette,” I said. My voice sounded weak and frail, like an old lady’s voice.
“Let’s not argue,” the sloe-eyed lad said. “We’re not in Bay City now, not even in California, and by some good opinions not even in the U.S.A. Beat it.”
“Back in the boat,” the taximan growled behind me. “I owe you a quarter. Let’s go.”
I got back into the boat. Mess-jacket looked at me with his silent sleek smile. I watched it until it was no longer a smile, no longer a face, no longer anything but a dark figure against the landing lights. I watched it and hungered. The way back seemed longer. I didn’t speak to the taximan and he didn’t speak to me. As I got off at the
