It was the rollaway.
The clerk himself brought it-they were clearly short on help before the season started. He seemed to want a tip, but I reminded him about the fin I’d already slipped him.
I had the rollaway unfolded and ready when the phone on the nightstand rang and I got to it before it could disturb Poochie. Not that the sedative the doc gave him would be easily pierced.
“Hammer,” I said.
“Mr. Hammer,” a mid-range, unctuous voice intoned, “this is Chief of Police Bernard Beales.”
Well, whoop de do.
“Chief Beales,” I said. “A pleasure.”
“Is it, Mr. Hammer?”
“Yeah, and I’m glad you called. Are you aware your deputy chief and two of his pals were beating up a poor little local guy they call Poochie? Right out in public? I had to put a stop to it. Of course, I didn’t know they were cops. They were acting more like a goon squad.”
“I see. Is that how you’re going to play it?”
“It’s the truth.”
“Do I have to come over to the hotel and have you brought in, Mr. Hammer?”
“No. In fact, I wouldn’t advise that. But I’ll be glad to come by some time in the morning and straighten this matter out myself.”
“You would give yourself up?”
“Why, is there a charge leveled against me?”
“No. Not at this time.”
“Fine. Then let’s talk about it in the morning. I had kind of a busy evening.”
“First thing in the morning, then.”
“No, Chiefie. Some time in the morning. I’m on vacation. I want to have a nice breakfast and who knows? I might want to take a constitutional along your lovely beach. Surely you want to let me know, as a tourist and the backbone of local economy, that I can come to Sidon and be confident of having a nice getaway.”
“Some time tomorrow morning then,” he huffed, and hung up.
But I said, “Nighty night, Chiefie,” just the same.
Time to beat the sheets. I’d had enough vacation fun for one evening.
CHAPTER TWO
Poochie’s shack was a dilapidated affair, rudely constructed from boards drifted in off the tide, that probably never survived a winter without being blown down at least twice. Coming down from a dune, you could see its weathered tin roof displaying faded ads for hot dogs and soft drinks. Trailing after the little guy, Velda and I were pooped by the time we reached his place-we parked the car a good mile away and had to walk the remainder of the distance in ankle-deep sand.
We’d been up around an hour and a half. Back in my hotel room, Poochie had woken with a start and a cry that shook me from a deep sleep and a dream that was a hell of a lot better than sharing a room with a battered beachcomber. But he had settled down quick. He seemed to know that I’d rescued him, and accepted me as his new friend Mike, unquestioningly. I called Velda and she brought around his washed and still a little damp clothes. He grinned at her goofily and just as unquestioningly accepted her as his new friend Velda.
Poochie wolfed down scrambled eggs and bacon and hash browns at a cafe across the street next to the Sidon Palace, the movie house. Velda and I had the same fare and were damn near as hungry as our guest. I was amazed by his recuperative powers-his face was splotched yellow and purple and his eyes and lips remained puffy, but his manner was happy-go-lucky.
There had been no conversation at breakfast about last night. For Poochie, right now was all there was. He was sitting in a booth with his new pals Mike and Velda, gobbling down good grub, and what had been or would be was irrelevant. Not the worst outlook in the world.
I said we wanted to take him back to his shack, and he said swell, but he needed to pick up some hamburger at the grocery store. We did that, Velda spotting him a buck when Poochie’s pockets turned out to be empty. No surprise.
We drove a mile or so till he motioned us to pull over, like a kid who needed a john, and soon we were hiking it in the sand.
In a simple pleated navy skirt and light blue blouse with a sweater slung round her shoulders, my dark-haired secretary looked sexier than any bikini babe this beach had ever seen. Me, I looked like a city slicker in my rumpled suit, even without a tie and with my hat off. But after last night, I needed to go out heeled, and I needed the suitcoat to conceal the. 45 in its shoulder sling.
The morning was bright and cool, the ocean breeze refreshing on your face, sun reflecting off shimmering sand, gulls swooping and squawking, the tide lapping, blue ocean glittering, the air salty and fresh, the beach scattered with driftwood and shells, clam, oyster, periwinkle. Good pickings for a beachcomber like Poochie.
Just outside the shack, Velda and I sat down on two old crates while Poochie ducked inside. In an eye blink the little guy came back out carrying a couple of cats. Scraggly, wild things, they were, but they swarmed all over him in the friendliest way, licking his face and rubbing themselves against his neck. He spread out the pound of hamburger on its butcher paper for them and they dug in together.
When I looked up at Poochie, he was facing the ocean, breathing the salt air, a battered little guy who owned the world. “Ain’t it good here, Mike?”
“Swell.”
And it was, as far as it went. But what he called home was a barrel to hold fish heads, three crude fishing poles set against the side of the shack, an ancient wheelbarrow to gather shells, two cats for company, and a broken-down shanty to keep the rain off his head.
“Come on inside,” he said brightly. “I got lots of things I want to show you.”
We followed him in, ducking our heads as we went. He put a match to an oil lamp and the pale orange light threw flickering shadows on the wall. A homemade table sat in the middle, around which were four more crates for chairs. Why he bothered with four, I don’t know. I doubt if he ever had company. A single bunk was built against the far wall, covered with somebody’s cast-off quilt. Behind the table a stove of iron pipes was overlaid on some bricks with a firewood bin next to it. For utensils there were two pots, some reclaimed and polished cans, several old knives and forks, and a wooden salad spoon.
What interested me most was the half-carved shell on the makeshift table. Beside it was a well-worn shoemaker’s leather knife. I picked up the shell and ran my hands over the picture carved there. It was beautiful-a manger scene with an angel in the background. The dog-eared Christmas card it was copied from lay under the knife.
He was grinning. Where his teeth weren’t yellow, they were black. “Like it, Mike?”
“You said it,” I grinned at him. “Where did you learn to do this?”
“In school.” He said it proudly.
“No kidding?” I couldn’t believe he’d stayed in school long enough to develop this kind of skill. The detail work was fantastic.
“Yup. That’s where I went when I was little. I remember it real good. I can hardly remember anything else about being a kid except the school. They were good to me there and a priest showed me how to carve wood. I did bad in all my studies, Mike, but not carving. That priest said I had a real talent. Then he got me a shell one day and I carved that. I got plenty of ’em. Look!”
He pointed to the walls and I whistled under my breath. They were arrayed on a two-by-four running around three walls, beautiful examples of what a simple mind could do if it concentrated.
He pointed to some beat-up cabinets below the crude shelving; they probably had been scavenged from the galley of some old boat. “I got lots more. Down here is my private collection.”
Velda whispered to me: “Idiot savant.”
Why did everybody keep saying that! I knew this guy was an idiot.
