The New Mammoth Book of Pulp Fiction (8 page)

The next thing I was conscious of was hanging to the wooden ladder on the side of the barge, being sick. I’d left him there. The police could get him out; I didn’t want to touch him. I climbed up to the deck and collapsed, exhausted. I was winded, soaked and the cut places on my face were stinging with salt. My right hand was hurt and swollen.

I had to get out to the watchman’s shanty and call the police. But then the whole thing caught up with me. This wasn’t an accident I had to report. I’d killed him in a fight. I’d hit him and knocked him off the pier, and now he was dead. It wasn’t murder, probably, but they’d have a name for it – and a sentence.

Well, there was no help for it. I started wearily to get up, and then stopped. The police were only part of it.
What about Barclay?
And the others I didn’t even know? This was one of their boys.

Suddenly, I wasn’t thinking of the police any more, or of Barclay’s hoodlums, but of Shannon Macaulay. And the
Ballerina
. Of course, the whole thing was off now. Even if I didn’t get sent to prison, with those mobsters after me and convinced I had some connection with Macaulay I was no longer of any use to her.

No, the hell with reporting it. Sure, I regretted the whole thing. But I was damned if I was going to ruin everything just because some vicious little egomaniac couldn’t leave well enough alone. Leave him down there. Say nothing about it – I stopped.

How? Christiansen knew he was in here. I was all marked up. In a few days, in this warm water, the body would come to the surface, with the back of his head caved in and bruises all over his face. I didn’t have a chance in the world. He’d merely come in here to see me, and had never come out. That would be a tough one for the police to solve.

Of all the places in the world, it had to happen on a pier to which there was only one entrance and where everybody was checked in and out by a watchman – No. Wait. Not checked in and out. Just questioned as they came in. No books, no passes. And the watchman only waved them by as they went out.

It collapsed. It didn’t mean anything at all, because
nobody
had gone out. Christiansen would never have any trouble remembering that when the police came checking.

There
had
to be a way out of it. I looked across the dark waterway. Everything was quiet along the other side; there was nothing except an empty warehouse, a deserted dock. Nobody had seen it. Barclay probably didn’t even know the pug had come out here. He’d done it on his own because he couldn’t rest until he’d humiliated a bigger man who’d knocked him down. There was nothing whatever to connect me with it except the simple but inescapable fact he’d driven in here to see me and had never driven out again— I stopped.
Driven?
No. I hadn’t seen any car. But how did I know there wasn’t one out there? The shed was dark. I got a flashlight and checked. There it was in the corner of the shed. All I had to do was drive it out past the watchman, and the pug had left here alive. It was as simple as that.

Out at the gate the light was overhead, and the interior of the car would be in partial shadow. The watchman’s shack would be on the right. I could hunch down in the seat until I was about the pug’s size. All the watchman ever did was glance up from his magazine and wave. He wouldn’t see my face; nor remember afterward that he hadn’t. It was the same car, wasn’t it? The man had driven in, and after a while he had driven out.

Wait. I’d still have to get back inside without Christiansen’s seeing me. But that was easy too. It must be nearly eleven now. Chris went off duty at midnight. All I had to do was wait until after twelve and come back in on the next man’s shift. He wouldn’t know where I was supposed to be, or care.

I walked over to the car, flashed the light in, and saw there were no keys. I leaned wearily against the door. I knew where the keys were, didn’t I? It would take only a minute. Revulsion swept me.

But I knew it had to be done. I dove down, emptied his pockets, and came up to surface again. I hadn’t looked at his face. It took me a few minutes to clear the gear I’d used. Then I tried to fix up my face with hot water applications. After that I changed into dry clothes that were similar in color to the ones he’d been wearing. I dried his keys and started his car.

I hunched down in the seat and drove up to the gate slowly. Chris was in the shack, pouring coffee out of a thermos. He looked over casually, waved a hand, and turned back to his coffee.

I drove the car uptown – away from the waterfront, parked it on a quiet street, and threw the key far into a vacant lot. I was free of him now, the poor little punk.
Why
couldn’t he have stayed away?

At twelve-thirty I stepped into an all-night drugstore and called a cab. I hoped the driver couldn’t see my face.

We passed the last street and were approaching the gate.

He braked to a stop in front of the shanty. The 12-to-8 watchman was looking out the window. “Manning,” I called out, keeping my face in shadow. He lifted a hand.

“All right, Mr Manning.”

The cab started to move ahead, then stopped. Somebody was calling out from the shack. “Mr Manning! Just a minute –”

I looked around. The watchman was coming out. “I almost forgot to tell you. A woman called about ten minutes ago –”

I wasn’t listening. I stared at the window of the shack. Old Chris was looking out, a puzzled frown on his face.

The other watchman was still talking. “– Chris was just about to walk out and tell you. He said you was on the barge.”

I couldn’t move, or speak. Chris was standing beside him now, looking in at me. “Son of a gun, Mr Manning. I didn’t see you go out.”

I fought to get my tongue broken loose from the roof of my mouth. “Why – I –” It was impossible to think. “Why, I came out a while ago. Remember? When my friend left. We drove out to have a couple of beers. It must have been a little before twelve—”

“You was in that car?” He peered at me dubiously. “I looked right at it, too, and didn’t even see you. I must be getting absentminded. I was about to walk all the way out there to the barge and tell you that woman called—”

He broke off suddenly, concerned. “Why, Mr Manning. What’s wrong with your face?”

I was rattled now, but I tried not to show it to these two old men who meant well, but who would remember everything they saw later on.

“Oh,” I mumbled, feeling my face as if I were surprised at the fact of having one. “I – uh – I was getting something out of the storeroom and fell.”

“Well, that’s too bad,” he answered solicitously. “But you ought to put something on them cut places. Might get infected. You never know. I think it’s the climate around here, the muggy air, sort of—”

“Yes,” I said. “Yes. Thanks.”

I got rid of the cabbie, who’d be the third guy to answer any questions asked by the police – or Barclay’s bunch of killers.

I tried to think. How much chance did I have now? In a few days he’d float up, somewhere along the waterfront, and the police would start looking. One of the first things they’d do would be to question all the guards along the piers.

Float up?
That was it. He couldn’t float up. I had to stop it. I looked downward again, and shuddered. Could I go back into that place once more?
Once?
It would take at least a half dozen dives to do it, to make him fast with wire to the bottom of one of those pilings. Too much precious time and breath were wasted in going down and coming up.

There was just one more thing, I thought, and then we had it all. Carter would be back from New Orleans sometime this morning, here aboard the barge, and I wouldn’t be able even to look.

I fought with panic. I still had a chance, I told myself. They might never connect me with it. After all, there was no identification on him now that I’d shoved the wallet into the muck. They wouldn’t have a picture of him, except possibly one taken as he looked when he came up. Chris might not have had a good look at him when he came in the gate.

But I wouldn’t know. That was the terrible part of it. I’d never have any idea at all what was happening until the hour they came after me.

I had to get out of here. I was thinking swiftly now. Quit, and tell Carter I was going to New York. Sell my car, buy a bus ticket, get off the bus somewhere up the line, and come back. Buy the boat, under another name, of course. In three days I could have it ready for sea. We’d be gone before they even came looking for me. If they did.

It didn’t occur to me until afterward that never once in all of it did I ever consider the possibility of not buying the boat and not taking Shannon Macaulay.

Suddenly, I had to see her. For the first time in a self-sufficient life I was all at once terribly alone, and I didn’t know why, but I had to see her.

That reminded me. The watchman had said that a woman had called. I was still holding in my hand the slip of paper he had given me. It was a telephone number, the same one she had given me in the bar. Maybe something had happened to her. I ran toward the car.

Calling from the watchman’s shack would be quicker, but I didn’t want the audience. I slowed going through the gate, and the graveyard watchman lifted a hand and nodded. I noted bitterly that old Chris had gone home at last.

I pulled up at the nearest bar and called her. She answered, finally, her voice tense. We put on the lovers’ rendezvous tone to take care of possible listeners. She arranged to meet me at the cocktail joint we’d drunk at earlier in the day.

I was sitting in the car in front of it when she pulled up and parked her Caddy. If she were being followed I didn’t want to go inside where they might get a look at my marked-up face. I eased alongside. She saw me, and slipped out on the street side and got in. It had taken only seconds.

I shot ahead, watching the mirror. There were cars behind us, but there was no way to tell. There are always cars behind you. I was conscious of the gleam of the blonde head beside me, and a faint fragrance of perfume.

She noticed my face and gasped.
Tell her?
What kind of fool would tell anybody? I had known her less than twenty-four hours; I knew practically nothing about her; I knew she had gotten me into this mess; yet I would have trusted her with anything. I told her. I brushed off her sympathetic offerings, but I didn’t find them unpleasant.

I had been watching the mirror carefully. By this time we were well out on the beach highway and traffic had thinned out considerably. There were three cars behind us. One of them stopped. I shot ahead fast, dropping the other two well behind me. As they disappeared momentarily behind some dunes, I slowed abruptly and swung away from the beach. We were some 50 yards from the road, well out of range of passing highlights. I shut the headlights before we stopped rolling.

She started to light a cigarette. “Not yet,” I said. Both cars went by, their tail-lights slowly receding down the road.

I lit her cigarette.

“All right, listen,” I said. I told her what I was going to do. “There’s only one catch to it,” I finished. “You’ll have to give me the money for that boat with no guarantee you’ll ever hear from me again. The word of a man you’ve known for one day isn’t much of a receipt.”

“It’s good enough for me,” she said quietly. “If I hadn’t trusted you I would never have opened the subject in the first place. How much shall I make the check?”

“Fifteen thousand,” I said. “The boat is going to be at least ten, and there’s a lot of stuff to buy. When we get aboard I’ll give you an itemized statement and return what’s left.”

“All right,” she said.

“Pick a name,” I said. “How about Burton? Harold E. Burton.”

She wrote out the check. I held it until it dried, and put it in my wallet. “Now. What’s your address?”

“106 Fontaine Drive.”

“All right,” I said, talking fast. “I should be back here early the third day. This is Tuesday now, so that’ll be Thursday morning. The minute the purchase of the boat goes through and I’m aboard I’ll mail you an anniversary greeting in a plain envelope, just one of those dime-store cards. I don’t see how they could get at your mail, but there’s no use taking chances. Other than that I won’t get in touch with you. I’ll be down there at the boat yard all the time. It’s in another part of the city, and I won’t come into town at all. I’ve only been around Sanport for about six months, but still there are a few people I know and I might bump into one of them. I’ll already have everything bought and with me except the stores, and I’ll order them through a ship chandler’s runner—”

“But,” she interrupted, “how are we going to arrange getting him aboard?”

“I’m coming to that,” I said. “After you get the card, you can get in touch with me, from a pay phone. It’s Michaelson’s Boat Yard; the name of the sloop is
Ballerina
. I’m just hoping I can get her. She was still for sale last night. But if something happens and she’s already sold by the time I get back, I’ll make that card a birth announcement instead of an anniversary greeting, and give you the name of the one I actually do buy. All straight?”

“Yes,” she said. She turned a little and I could see the blur of her face and the pale gleam of the blonde head. “I like the whole plan, and I like the way your mind works.” She paused for a moment, and then added quietly. “You’ll never know how glad I am I ran into you. I don’t feel so helpless now. Or alone.”

I was conscious of the same thing, but probably in a different way than she’d meant it. There was something wonderful about being with her. For a moment the whole mess was gone from my mind.

“You were good on the phone, too,” she said. “Thanks for understanding.”

In other words,
keep your distance, Buster
. I wondered why she thought she had to warn me. We both knew it was only an act, didn’t we? Maybe I was always too aware of her, and she could sense it. “All right. Now,” I said curtly. “That leaves the problem of getting him aboard. I’ll have to work on that. He’s in the house, isn’t he?”

“Yes,” she said, surprised. “How did you know?”

“Guessing, mostly. You said they’d searched it while you were gone. They wouldn’t have had to tear it up much, looking for a grown man. So maybe he told you they had.”