through the long wide windows two figures in blue uniforms seated at the counter, the only customers. I saw Big Steve, too, down the counter, minding his own business, wiping away with a rag.
And even turned away from me, those two blue backsides could only belong to Sidon’s top-ranking excuses for police-Chief Beales and Deputy Dekkert.
That stopped me so cold in my tracks I damn near fell on my face. It was highly unlikely these two exemplars of the law would have grabbed Poochie from the doc’s, then gone to the diner for a bite while letting somebody else handle the back-room interrogation.
What the hell?
Wind whispering in my ears but not making its message plain, I eased the. 45 back under my arm but left the coat unbuttoned as I went up the couple of steps into the box-car diner. I settled onto the stool next to the chief, with Dekkert next to him.
As if I didn’t notice who my counter mates were, I called out, “So this is a twenty-four-hour joint, huh, Steve?”
Big Steve gave me a grin that lifted his black handlebar mustache halfway to his eyes. As he turned to wring out his rag in the sink, he said, “Open till midnight, Mike. Not closing for another five minutes. Fix you up with a burger or a dog maybe?”
“I’ll have a slice of that apple pie and some coffee.”
“Comin’ right up, my friend.”
Both Chief Beales and Dekkert were giving me frozen sideways glances. Theirs were the kind of open-yapped expression the driver of a car wears when he sees the truck about to hit him head on.
“Gentlemen,” I said with a friendly nod. “Little late for the town’s top cops to be finishing up a shift, isn’t it?”
Neither said a word. They still just looked at me, Beales with popping eyes in that fat thick-lipped face of his, bullet-headed Dekkert staring out of eyes like small black buttons sewn on his face. Funny-seeing me made Beales turn red and Dekkert white, almost as white as the half-dozen bandages that seemed haphazardly applied to that once handsome face his blobby nose had ruined.
Those bandages were smaller than when last I’d seen Dekkert, but still a nice reminder of what I’d done to him in that alley. And later at the police station.
As genial as Fibber McGee, I said, “I was just on my way over to the station to report a crime.”
The chief licked the fat lips, but it was Dekkert who snapped, “ What crime?”
“That little beachcomber you boys took such a shine to-he’s been recovering at Doc Moody’s from a gunshot wound. He caught a bullet through the open window of his shack last Saturday night.”
The chief’s frown consisted of ridges of furrowed fat. “What are you saying, Hammer? Is that the crime you’re reporting?”
I shook my head.
Big Steve delivered my coffee and pie.
Stirring some sugar into the java, I said absently, “No, I didn’t bother reporting that. You see, I’m pretty sure it was your deputy here that shot Poochie, so calling it in struck me as redundant.”
Dekkert flushed around the white bandages and blurted, “I did not do no such thing! Watch your mouth, Hammer! Accusations like that can get your ass hauled in.”
“I didn’t say I was sure you did it,” I said, shoveling in a bite of pie. It would have been better warm, but it was still good. “Anyway, I was the intended target, not Poochie.”
The chief swallowed. He tried to fill his chest with indignation but it looked like so much more flab to me. “Maybe my deputy is right, Mr. Hammer. Maybe we should go over to the station, and take down your statement.”
“Here’s my statement. Poochie’s been lying low at Doc Moody’s, recuperating from that bullet wound, not to mention the beating you devoted servants of the law gave him. I figure keeping the little guy with Moody was kosher since he is, after all, your local coroner.”
Dekkert spat, “He won’t be for long!”
I chewed, swallowed, washed it down. “That’s your business. I don’t mess in local politics. The thing is, somebody has grabbed Poochie out of the doc’s place. Looks to have been a struggle.”
The chief demanded, “When was this?”
“An hour ago at least. Not more than a few hours ago at most.”
“Was Doc Moody there when Poochie was taken?”
“Nah. He was out drinking somewhere. Anyway, what I need to know is…” I wiped off my mouth delicately with a paper napkin and then gave them my worst goddamn grin. “…was it you?”
I watched their reactions. The chief seemed honestly confused, and frankly so did Dekkert.
With a half-spin on the stool, I turned to face them with the suit coat hanging open, revealing that big nasty gun under my arm.
“Well, Chiefie?”
But he was already shaking his head. “No, Hammer, I don’t know anything about this.” He looked back at his deputy. “If you know something about this, Deputy Dekkert-”
“I don’t,” Dekkert said insistently, but it was the movement in his eyes-the fast, even desperate thinking he was doing-that made me believe him.
The chief seemed genuinely astounded. “Why would anybody want to kidnap Poochie? Why him of all people?”
I grunted a laugh. “Well, you local cops were interested enough in him the other day.”
The chief slammed a fat fist on the counter and my pie jumped. “Hammer, that was before Sharron Wesley turned up dead! We wanted to know if he’d seen anything on that beach. We were looking for any lead we could find.”
I studied him some more. “The disappearance of Sharron Wesley was troubling to you, wasn’t it, Chiefie? A lot was at stake. Plenty of local income, particularly off-season, depended on that dizzy dame.”
The chief shrugged. “Why should I deny it?” He cleared his throat rather theatrically. “Hammer, I’m going over to the station and I’m calling everybody in. The entire department, back on duty.”
What, all six?
He hopped off the stool like a big toad off a medium toadstool. “We’ll put out an All Points Bulletin on Poochie, or I should say Stanley Cootz. That’s his name. Whatever you may think of us, Mr. Hammer, know this-we run a safe community, safe for the citizens and safe for the visitors who we depend upon during the season. The Sidon PD will not sit still for having a serious crime like kidnapping take place in our jurisdiction.”
And he tipped his cap to Big Steve, probably in lieu of payment, then waddled out.
Dekkert, on the other hand, did seem to “sit still” for a crime like kidnapping. At least he was still sitting there. He was apparently ignoring his chief’s clarion call.
I slid over next to him as Big Steve cleared away a pile of dishes-Chiefie had had an appetite.
“Can you think of any reason,” I said, not putting even an ounce of menace into it, “why anybody would kidnap that beachcomber?”
Dekkert shook his head. He seemed to be staring at the open window onto the kitchen, where one of Big Steve’s big sons was cleaning up. But I had a feeling Dekkert wasn’t seeing much of anything but his own private thoughts. Private thoughts I would like to shake out of him.
But I had a different idea about how to handle this son of a bitch.
“Listen,” I said. “Let’s let Big Steve close up the joint for the night. We can go over to the hotel bar, find a quiet booth, and have a friendly talk.”
His scowl made his bandages shift. “Why the hell would I want to do that?”
“Because you used to be a cop in New York City. You’re not just another one of these hicks. You know what’s really going on around Sidon, which interests me. And I think you might be interested in hearing about what I’ve turned up lately.”
He thought about that.
Finally, he nodded at me, and left his own dirty dishes behind but tossed a quarter on the counter next to the buck I’d left. Whether that was a tip or his idea of payment, I couldn’t hazard a guess. Big Steve didn’t look thrilled either way.
