The sailcloth shroud - By Charles Williams Page 0,1
showered. Could it be Keefer they were talking about? He was a drunk, and could have been rolled, but why killed and thrown in the bay? And by this time he couldn’t have had more than a few dollars, anyway. The chances were it wasn’t Keefer at all.
I toweled myself and dressed in faded washable slacks, sneakers, and a short-sleeved white shirt. After slipping the watch back on my wrist, I transferred wallet, cigarettes, and lighter, took the dungarees aboard the Topaz, and snapped the padlock on the companion hatch.
Ramirez drove. The old watchman looked up curiously from his magazine as we went out the gate. Willetts hitched around on the front seat. “You picked up this guy Keefer in Panama, is that it?”
I lighted a cigarette and nodded. “He’d missed his ship in Cristobal, and wanted a ride back to the States.”
“Why didn’t he fly back?”
“He was broke.”
“What?”
“He didn’t have plane fare.”
“How much did you pay him?”
“Hundred dollars. Why?”
Willetts made no reply. The car shot across the railroad tracks and into the warehouse and industrial district bordering the waterfront.
“I don’t get it,” I said. “Wasn’t there any identification on this body you found in the bay?”
“No.”
“Then what makes you think it might be Keefer?”
“Couple of things,” Willetts said shortly. “Was this his home port?”
“I don’t think so,” I said. “He told me he shipped out of Philadelphia.”
“What else you know about him?”
“He’s an A.B. His full name is Francis L. Keefer, but he was usually known as Blackie. Apparently something of a live-it-up type. Said he’d been in trouble with the union before, for missing ships. This time he was on an inter-coastal freighter, bound for San Pedro. Went ashore in Cristobal, got a heat on, and wound up in jail over in the Panamanian side, in Colon. The ship sailed without him.
“So he asked you for a job?”
“That’s right.”
“Kind of funny, wasn’t it? I mean, merchant seamen don’t usually ship out on puddle-jumpers like yours, do they?”
“No, but I don’t think you get the picture. He was stranded. Flat broke. He had the clothes he was wearing, and the whisky shakes, and that was about it. I had to advance him twenty dollars to buy some dungarees and gear for the trip.”
“And there were just the three of you? You and Keefer, and this other guy, that died at sea? What was his name?”
“Baxter,” I said.
“Was he a merchant seaman too?”
“No. He was an office worker of some kind. Accountant, I think—though that’s just a guess.”
“Hell, didn’t he say what he did?”
“He didn’t talk much. As a matter of fact, he was twice the seamen Keefer was, but I don’t think he’d ever been a pro.”
“Did you and Keefer have any trouble?”
“No.”
The pale eyes fixed on my face, as expressionless as marbles. “None at all? From the newspaper story, it was a pretty rugged trip.”
“It was no picnic,” I said.
“You didn’t have a fight, or anything?”
“No. Oh, I chewed him out for splitting the mains’l, but you’d hardly call it a fight. He had it coming, and knew it.”
The car paused briefly for a traffic light, and turned, weaving through the downtown traffic. “What’s this about a sail?”
“It’s technical. Just say he goofed, and wrecked it. It was right after Baxter died, and I was jumpy anyway, so I barked at him.”
“You haven’t kept in touch with him since you got in?”
“No. I haven’t seen him since I paid him off, except for that few minutes night before last.”
The car slowed, and turned down a ramp into a cavernous basement garage in which several patrol cars and an ambulance were parked. We slid into a numbered stall and got out. Across the garage was an elevator, and to the left of it a dingy corridor. Willetts led the way down the corridor to a doorway on the right.
Inside was a bleak room of concrete and calcimine and unshaded light. On either side were the vaults that were the grisly filing cabinets of a city’s unclaimed and anonymous dead, and at the far end a stairway led up to the floor above. Near the stairway were two or three enameled metal tables on casters, and a desk at which sat an old man in a white coat. He got up and came toward us, carrying a clip board.
“Four,” Willetts said.
The old man pulled the drawer out on its rollers. The body was covered with a sheet. Ramirez took a corner of it in his hand, and glanced at me.