The sailcloth shroud - By Charles Williams Page 0,27
the topside controls of a sport fisherman, which was definitely a clue because I had an idea of the type and had seen the last two letters of the name. Maybe I’d seen him somewhere before, or had heard of him. Why not go back to Miami now, instead of sitting here like a duck in a shooting gallery? I reached for the phone.
There were two airlines with service from here to Florida. The first had nothing available before 12:30 p.m. I called the other.
“Yes, sir,” the girl at the reservations desk said, “we still have space on flight 302. That departs Southport five-fifty-five a.m., and arrives Miami at one-forty-five p.m., with stops at New Orleans and Tampa.”
I looked at my watch. It was twenty minutes of five. “Right,” I said. “The name is Stuart Rogers. I’ll pick up the ticket at the airport as soon as I can get there.”
I broke the connection and got the hotel operator again. “Give me long distance, please.”
When the long-distance operator came on, I said, “I’d like to put in a call to Miami.” I gave her the number.
“Thank you. Will you hold on, please?”
I waited, listening to the chatter of the operators. Bill Redmond would love being hauled out of bed this time of morning. He was an old friend—we’d been classmates at the University of Miami—but he was a reporter on the Herald, and had probably just got to sleep. The Herald is a morning paper.
“Hello.” It was a girl’s voice. A very sleepy girl.
“I have a long distance call from Southport, Texas—” the operator began.
“I don’t know any Texans—”
“Lorraine,” I broke in, “this is Stuart.”
“Oh, good God. Bachelors! There ought to be a law.”
“Will you put Bill on? It’s important”
“I’ll bet. Well, stand back, and I’ll poke him with something.”
I heard him mutter drowsily. Then, “Look, pal, you got any idea what time it is?”
“Never mind,” I said. “You can sleep when you get old. I need some help. It’s about that trip up from Cristobal with that ketch I went down there to buy.”
He interrupted, fully awake now. “I know about it. AP carried a few lines, and we ran it on account of the local angle. Guy died of a heart attack, what was his name?”
“That’s it exactly,” I said. “What was his name? It was supposed to be Baxter, but it turns out that was phony. There was something wrong about him, and I’m in a hell of a jam I’ll tell you about as soon as I can get there. I’ve got to find out who he was. I think he was from Miami, and there’s some sort of screwy impression I’ve heard of him before. Are you still with me?”
“Keep firing. What did he look like?”
I gave him a short description, and went on. “The Miami hunch comes from a photograph of him that was shown me. I’m pretty sure what I saw in the background was part of the MacArthur Causeway and some of those islands along Government Cut. He was on the flying bridge of a sport fisherman. It was a big one and expensive looking, and I think it was one of those Rybovich jobs. If he owned it, he was probably well-heeled when he was around there because they’re not exactly the playthings of the Social Security set. One of the life rings was just behind him, and I could see the last two letters of the name. They were ‘a-t’ From the size of the letters, it could be a long name. His first name was Brian. B-r-i-a-n. Got all that?”
“Yeah. And I’m like you. I think I hear a bell trying to ring.”
“There was also mention of another man I don’t know anything about at all. Slidell. Maybe somebody’s heard of him. I’ll be in Miami as soon as I can get there. See if you can find out anything at all.”
“Right. Take it easy, sailor.”
Packing was no problem; I hadn’t unpacked. I called the desk to get my bill ready and send for a cab. The lobby was empty except for the clerk. I settled the bill and was putting away my change when the taxi driver came in and got the bag. We went out. It was growing light now. The street had been washed, and for this brief moment just at dawn the city was almost cool and fresh. I looked up and down the street; there were no pedestrians in sight, and only an occasional