When you get hit on the head really hard you can taste it in your brain. It is the taste of sour metal-of tarnished copper or bitter tin, of solder and rancid flux… and you taste it not with your tongue or mouth, but with your brain. And the place you taste it, just at that instant before unconsciousness or agonizing pain, is right in the center of your head. Above your throat. Behind your nose. Under the back of your eyes. When you taste it, you know you are in deep trouble.
Looking down into my hands to find the bright silver key, I had heard the faint rustle behind me. I was in the act of looking around when there came a sound like a super-tanker grating fast on a granite ledge-a million artillery pieces letting go at once. A tympani between my ears; Then a dropping feeling and a going away. And through it all, the metal taste I felt in the center of my head.
And then I felt nothing, saw nothing, thought nothing, until I came to. And coming to was most terrifying of all. I awoke in a howling gale, a shrill symphony of mad whines and roars. Dim phosphorescent shapes glowed before me. It was dark and cold. The sound grew louder. Clicking and clacking not in my ears, but in my head-sounds I heard in the bridge of my nose. I was dying. I had to get out… I was underwater.
Something from I-know-not-where told me a vital message as I regained consciousness in the depths of Gloucester Harbor. I did not, starved for air as I was, swim straight up. I swam at an angle, spurting precious bubbles of air as I went, until I saw a thick cylindrical shape pass by my right side. A piling, clustered thick with barnacles, mussels, and rock-weed. Four feet below me I could barely see an orange starfish. Spent, I came up, popping and blowing, on the top of the scummy water. I still had not recalled why I had swum up behind the piling-what signal of self-preservation I had obeyed. Perhaps in my unconscious (or subconscious) state, a grim logic was working: someone had knocked me on the head and tipped me into the harbor. Ergo: that person was not the best one to come sputtering up to, flailing arms and water, screaming for help.
I clutched the piling, panting and blowing as softly as I could. Fortunately for me, a loud delivery truck came rattling along the street above, and so hid any noises I was making. Within half a minute the panting stopped. I clutched my numb fingers around the craggy shells that covered the piling, which was as thick as a telephone pole. I was glad the shells were there; they made it easier, to hang on. I looked from under the pier back in the direction I had come, and saw a thin beam playing along the water. Flashlight. The beam came toward the pilings and I slid behind, out of sight. It played along each one with monstrous slowness and deliberation. It snaked around beneath the pier like the Serpent in the Garden. As it approached my timber, I sucked in the biggest breath I could manage and went under, holding onto the barnacles tight to keep from floating up again. The cold water helped my head-but the rest of me was shivering, the deep convulsive shiver that tells you there is not much time left.
I saw the water above me glow bright green-gray with streaks of silver-the shimmering of refracted light. But the light stayed there. It would not leave, and I was running out of air, and time. I knew if I surfaced, however quietly, Mr. X would spot me-see the ripples in the water and catch a glimpse of my yellow Windbreaker. Then what would happen? Whatever he had in mind, I was in no condition to put up much of a struggle. The scrap in the Schooner Race followed by the rap on the head followed by a ten-minute dunking in the harbor was enough to take the tar out of anybody-especially a guy pushing fifty. Would he bap me on the head with a pole and watch me sink again? Did he have a gun? Or was this person with the light some helpful soul who had seen me pitched in, and wanted to help?
No. Certainly any helper or concerned passerby would make a lot more noise-call for help, etc.-than the Quiet One with the flashlight. Time was up; I had to move. I shoved away from the piling and breast-stroked over to the next one.
Clutching it, I shoved off with all my strength-what little there was left-and on to the next pole. This I latched on to, surfaced and breathed. But I was careful, upon coming up, to make myself breathe in a bit before exhaling. This insured there would be no loud burst of expelled air. I breathed agonizingly slowly and felt my heart pounding in my neck and head. The beam of light was just moving away from the pole, and swung lazily back and forth across the murky water. I was under a narrow pier, and therefore was unable to look up and see Mr. X. On the other hand, he was unable to see me, which was beneficial. I spotted an old fifty-gallon oil drum poking itself out of the water at an angle a few feet away. I slid over to it and felt rock against my side. I lay, halfway out of the water behind the old drum, and waited until the light was switched off. Then came the sound of feet from the top of the harbor wall. They died away into the distance and I lifted my weary frame and stood' up. I could scarcely stay on my feet. My legs were numb, and I rubbed and pounded them. I had the worst headache I could remember. I had begun to trudge along the bottom of the sea wall when in the foot-deep water I heard footsteps again. They sounded remarkably familiar-a heavy scuff. They died away. I waited. Then they came back.
Jesus Christ. The guy was pacing the wall. Then there could be no doubt. He wanted me dead. He was up there killing time to make sure he was killing me. Then I remembered the faint sound I'd heard just before getting mugged. It was a shoe scuff. Mr. X did not have a firm step. He dragged his feet when he walked. A slovenly habit, but then would you expect a bright, firm step from one who does murder by stealth?
There was another sound too that I heard at regular intervals: a nervous sniffing. A short sniff followed by a faint clearing of the throat. I decided then and there to keep those sounds fixed in my mind. If I ever got out of the harbor alive, I would find Mr. X. And I would fix his wagon but good..
The pacing continued. Once it stopped for a while and I heard people walking past. They talked loudly and laughed a lot. Probably just closing up some of the local bars. Then the footfalls returned. Finally, I saw the light again, and snuggled down tight behind the oil drum as the beam swept over me and along the pilings. Then it played on the water for a few minutes, sometimes shining way out over the water. Then it went out, the footfalls faded for the last time, and I was alone under the pier.
I hoped.
After another half-hour's wait, I dragged and hopped myself along in the shallow water until I came to the next pier. There was a ramp leading right down to the water. Gloucester has huge tides, and these floating angular ramps rise and fall with the water, allowing people to get to their boats easily. I rolled onto the floating platform and ground my way up the ramp slowly and quietly. I couldn't feel my legs.
At the top I slid into the shadow of a boatyard shack and waited. Nothing. Mr. X, convinced I was dead at the bottom of the harbor, had finally departed. Freezing, I lurched and staggered along the street. The Scout was parked where I'd left it. I didn't have the keys; they were either in the hands of Mr. X or else left on the pavement next to the car. In any case, I wanted to leave it exactly as it was. I fumbled in my pockets. No wallet, which didn't surprise me. My corpse, minus wallet, would inject the robbery motive. Also, it let Mr. X and his associates know exactly who the nosy fellow in the Schooner Race was. This did not set well with me at all. I hurried on, hoping that a brisk walk would warm me. It was warm out with no wind, which was lucky. Also lucky that I was wearing a wool sweater beneath my Windbreaker. Wool, of all materials, is the only one that is as warm wet as it is dry. My head and sides hurt terribly, but I would be all right.
Twenty minutes later I found a phone booth. I had deliberately slunk about to avoid police cars. I didn't want to be seen by anyone. A plan was beginning to form in my hurt head. Slumped into the phone booth, I let the door remain open so the light wouldn't go on. I had change, and dialed our number preceded by 044-a collect call that was a bit frenzied, but brief and to the point:
Mary was to make extra-sure all doors, windows, etc., were bolted and the dogs inside, freely roaming throughout the first floor. Additionally, she was to keep my Browning 9-mm Auto at her bedside. At my insistence she'd learned how to use it.
She was to call Jim DeGroot and tell him to pick me up, in exactly the manner I would explain to her.
"I'll see you around three. Jim and I will sneak in the back way. Remember, no lights."
"Are you all right, Charlie?"
"Just dandy. Good-bye."
It would take DeGroot an hour to arrive, but I started on my way. I had a long walk.
I sat hunched, shivering, behind the short hedgerow that lined the edge of Brown's Boatyard Annex. It seemed forever before the red Olds wagon came cruising slowly along the street. In two seconds, I was in the front seat, telling Jim to turn on the heat full blast. I shivered until we were halfway home, then fell asleep. He woke me up behind our garage, and had to help me up the stairs to the kitchen door. I had stiffened up badly, and felt as if my body had been used as a plaything by a pack of mandrills. My cast was soft; I'd need a new one.
Mary pulled open the door even before we reached if and let us in. She hugged me and I groaned. She put her arms around my neck to kiss me and I groaned again. I told her to stop there. She turned on the stove light and busied herself with a boiling kettle. Soon each of us had a giant hot toddy cradled in our paws. I had shed the cold garments for flannel PJs and a robe. Mary probed my skull first and pronounced it intact.”
"The outside anyway. There's no telling about the inside."
"Let's look under the light… can you see, through my thinning hair, a bruise?"
"No. Whoever bopped you used something heavy and soft and your hair's not thinning."
"Yeah, like a leather bag full of buckshot. It's also called a blackjack."
Jim said it was madness not to call the police. Mary gripped the sides of her head with her hands, working her fingers in and out. She was about to cry. She was scared plenty.
"Jesus, Charlie, they wanted to kill you. They tried to kill you."
"Now listen," I said, exchanging the toddy mug for one with hot coffee, "everybody shut up and listen. Mr. X thinks he did me in. So be it. It's my guarantee of safety, Tomorrow the two of you are going back up to Gloucester looking for me. You're going to ask around the Schooner Race… describe me to the owners and patrons. You're going to find the Scout and have the police tow it, or help you start it. Make a big deal about the fact I haven't shown up. The Gloucester police will do the rest. Sooner or later Dan Murdock and Company will get the word: I'm gone…"
"Who the hell is Dan Murdock?"
I told them, and Jim was all for making a beeline straight for him. But of course, I explained, their picking him out would refute my death, since how on earth would they have known about Murdock unless I told them?"
Jim left surreptitiously ten minutes later. After dosing, myself with aspirin, I went to bed.
It was 3:30 next afternoon when Jim dropped Mary off at the front door. She found me in the sunporch smoking a Cuesta Rey. I had slept till noon, waking only to see Mary off at ten.
"Well?"
"The entire town of Gloucester thinks you're dead… or probably dead."
"Excellent, my love. And surely certain interested parties now know I'm dead. They're only waiting for my bloated carcass to surface in the putrid water of Gloucester Harbor. And if the body is never found, so much the better-they'll think they're home free."
"Who are they and what are they doing?"
"That's what I'm going to find out. One thing there's no mistaking now, though, is that somebody really tried to kill me. To kill in a manner remarkably similar to the way in which Allan Hart died." ~
"Well-you're going to forget the whole thing, Charlie, right now. We've got, with luck, twenty-five good years left on this planet. I don't want to spend mine with a bloated corpse."
"Tell me what happened."
"Jim and I went to that bar. One of the bartenders remembered you-he said you were a good fighter for an old guy."
"Bless his heart."
"So we pretended to be really upset of course… and I think we did a good job of it. The whole place is worried, and people are asking around if anyone's seen you. Then we just happened to find the Scout. It was still where you said it would be. The keys were nowhere to be found, so the police helped us get a new key-don't ask me how. It'll work, they said, at least until I can have another made. Then we went to the station and I filled out a form and answered a whole bunch of questions about your appearance, habits, etc., and now they want me to send them a picture."
"Perfect."
"No it isn't, you dope. They're going to get in touch with Brian Hannon."
"Uh oh. Oh boy. I should have thought of that."
"Yes you should have. In fact I'm surprised Brian hasn't been over here yet…"
"He may have been. I heard the doorbell once, and the phone's rung on and off too. But according to Plan A, I haven't stirred."
"Well you'll have to talk with Brian. I think it's a crime, isn't it, to falsify a disappearance?"
"Hmmmm. I think you're right. It's certainly frowned on."
"And what are you going to tell him?"
"I'm not sure I'm going to tell him anything, and I'll tell you why: I have-really, truly, officially-nothing to go on but observations, hunches, and my near-death by murder."
"You've got to be kidding."
"No: While a lot of what I've found out is suspicious, there's no hard proof of any of it. Did Allan drown accidentally or not? Who knows for sure? Are the missing Windhover and the phantom boat Penelope one and the same? Maybe. Maybe not."
"Look, Charlie, somebody tried to kill you-"
I rubbed the bean with my cast. I was in truly great shape: broken wrist, black eye, cracked ribs, and a bruised brain bucket.
"I've been thinking that over too, Mary. Listen: just before I got mugged and dumped, I was in a bar fight. A nasty scuffle in which I figured prominently-not of my own choice-and in which several men were severely beaten and people were arrested., Don't you see how most cops would suspect that what happened forty minutes later was merely a continuation of the fight inside?"
"You mean somebody getting even with you?"
"Sure. I know I clipped somebody: a good one on the side of his head with my cast. He must not be overly fond of me."
"Maybe he's the one who tried to kill you."
I considered this possibility, but later rejected it. The clientele of the Schooner Race was a rough slice of humanity, but I doubted if the patrons would stoop to murder from behind. Several people had been pretty beat up in the light, but nobody was stabbed. Yet every person I saw there had a knife of some kind on his belt. No. Logic led me away from that fork in the road. On the other hand, there was Danny Murdock. Certainly he'd be interested in my demise. So would the person who paid him to falsify the carpenter's certificate. And he'd made a phone call just before the fight broke out. Then afterward lounged about in front of the bar where I'd be sure to see him. Another possible scenario began to emerge:
1. Danny Murdock is warned that somebody is inquiring around his boatyard about Penelope. The person who warns him is his wife.
2. Murdock, alarmed, gets in touch with Penelope's owner, whoever he is.
3. Owner, also alarmed, instructs. Murdock to keep mum, but to alert him if/when he ever sees or hears of me.
4. In the Schooner Race, after our initial encounter, Murdock phones the owner, who tells him to stay put in the bar so I'll stay there too, giving the owner, who could be the same nice fellow with the blackjack and the flashlight, time to arrive either in the bar or outside it, waiting for me to emerge.
5. Perhaps Murdock was to leave the Race, allowing me to follow behind, perhaps not. In any event, the fight caused me to remain in the joint long enough for Mr. X to arrive and arrange for my disposal. He must have known my description. But that wouldn't be hard: middle-aged man with salt and pepper hair, yellow jacket, thin, with left hand in cast. I would be easy to pick out, especially from a bunch of working fishermen, most of whom were young, Italian or Portuguese, or both.
The second scenario made a lot more sense, but it couldn't be pinned down for sure. No, the police could-would-say that the bopping on the head was either a robbery mugging or a revenge action from the brawl in the Schooner Race. Certainly Danny Murdock, who did not follow me outside, had an airtight alibi.
"What about Chief Hannon, Charlie?"
"Let's wait for the Gloucester police to make their preliminary inquiries and spread the word of my disappearance far and wide. Then I'll see Brian and explain. Now I have taken out grouse and pheasant, which should be almost defrosted. I'm hoping a game dinner will speed my recovery, or at least improve my spirits. And speaking of them, how about a double Tanqueray with a dash of Boissiere on the rocks, with a curl of pungent lemon rind?"
"Oh Charlie, you've got a headache already."
"Yeah, but not for long," I said, making for the side-board.