The Corpse Without a Country

by Louis Trimble

  The boss said hopefully, “Maybe his call was just more routine.”

  I grunted at that. I said, “Emily didn’t get any of the message?”

  “Not a word. I called the answering service, but the girl there swore she’d switched the call right on to the recorder and hadn’t listened in. I believe her,” he added gloomily.

  When he believed anyone, they had to be telling the truth. I stood up, holding the manila envelope. “Any other news?”

  He said, “The Coast Guard found the boat Tom rented. It was floating in the east bay on Boundary Island. They haven’t come up with anything on the blonde you say buzzed you.”

  I said, “She was probably just some fat-headed vacationist full of beer and empty of brains. One of those stupid hotrod boaters.”

  It was his turn to grunt. I agreed with him. Neither of us liked the theory. The blonde had come too close to me and been too sharp with her searchlight for the encounter to have been merely casual.

  I headed for the door. The boss said, “Be careful, Peter. This case is beginning to stink like a hold full of unrefrigerated fish.”

  I said, “I’m always careful. That’s why I’ve lasted so long with this outfit.” I shut the door quietly. I couldn’t bear to watch him suffer about Tom any longer.

  I stopped in the doorway to look at Emily Calvin. She was folding a letter. She licked the flap of the envelope and then remembered to put in the letter. All of her movements were painfully slow and rather awkward.

  She hadn’t been with us more than three months and I hadn’t really got to know her well yet. But I had seen her enough to know that tonight something about her was different. I continued to watch her, trying to figure out where the difference was.

  She got to her feet and glanced at me. She looked down quickly, and I could have sworn she was blushing. Then I got the difference. She was wearing no make-up and she wasn’t dressed for the office. She was the kind of girl whom make-up helped. It hid her muddy complexion and filled out her thin lips and enlarged her rather small eyes. And she was a girl who was helped by clothes. She was tall and big, here and there. When she dressed to show off the better parts of her anatomy, her complexion and mouth and eyes lost their importance. But tonight she was in paint-stained jeans and a loose sweater. They didn’t do very much for her.

  I said, “If you’re going down, Miss Calvin, I’ll go with you. And if I can take you any place …” I stopped because she was flushing again. I added, “This isn’t the best part of town for a woman alone at night.”

  She nodded. “Thanks.”

  We walked down the dimly lit hallway to the elevator. Our offices were on the tenth floor of a building not far from the waterfront. The town had started there, as so many seaport cities had, but as it grew and prospered, the business district moved eastward until now it was almost to the Inlet, our big salt water lake. This older section had degenerated into a honky-tonk area, fringed by warehouses and small wholesalers. At night it was not very savory.

  As we stepped into the creaky six-by-six box the building owners called an elevator, Emily Calvin seemed to find enough courage to speak to me. She said, “I’m awfully sorry about Tom, Mr. Durham. And I feel terrible about that taped message.”

  She was just a kid, twenty-one at the outside. I had been about to question her concerning the tape, but now I decided not to. She sounded miserable enough without my making her feel worse. I said, “That kind of thing happens.”

  She gave me what I took for a grateful smile. I smiled back. She flushed and a strange, soupy expression oozed onto her features. I pressed the button for the main floor and the elevator hiccoughed and began to clank slowly downward.

  She said, “I was kind of irritated when Mr. Harbin called me tonight and asked me to come down and do some work. But when I heard about Tom, I was glad I could help a little.”

  I examined her costume in the light from the midget bulb in the ceiling. “I hope he didn’t take you from anything important.”

  She said in a mournful voice, “I was down at the Pad listening to that divine Ridley Trillian.”

  I had read about Ridley Trillian. He was the darling of Puget City’s small but determinedly beat generation. A young member of the local college’s English faculty, he wrote poetry. This he took to the Pad, where the local beatniks had their headquarters, and he recited his work to his admirers, at the same time accompanying himself on the dulcimer.

  I said, “I’m sorry.”

  We had reached the ninth floor. The elevator hesitated and then decided to make the plunge and continued on down. I noticed that with each creaking minute, Emily’s complexion had grown muddier. Her eyes began to take on a glazed look, and the pulse in her throat started to jerk like a hooked salmon.

  Suddenly she gave a convulsive gulp, reached over my shoulder, and snapped off the light switch. The elevator went as dark as the inside of a ship’s hold. Her breath had a chugging quality as it went past my ear.

  She said out of the darkness, “Elevators make me schizoid. This is the worst one I’ve ever known. If I can’t see I’m moving, it isn’t quite so bad.”

  I could feel her shoulder against mine. I moved aside to give her neurosis a little maneuvering space. But she moved with me. The back of the cage pressed into my hip. There was no place for me to go. I said in desperation, “What kind of poetry does this Trillian write?”

  “Divine,” she whispered. Her breath was faintly beer-flavored. “Simply divine.” And still whispering, she said, “The quick, sweeping frond/slashes the ugly maw/the bitter blood pouring/upward into waiting nostrils.”

  She sighed.

  I swallowed.

  I wished the damned elevator would stop trying to die at every floor. By counting each major hesitation, I figured we were no farther down than six by now.

  She said, “It’s very pure.”

  “Very,” I agreed.

  She was touching me again, but not with her shoulder this time. She said, “The dark is so frightening.”

  I said, “Relax, Miss Calvin. We’ll be down soon.”

  “Tom calls me Emily,” she said. Her hand located mine and held on. Her palm was damp. The chugging quality of her breathing thickened. “One night, we were in here and the elevator stuck.”

  I said brightly, “You couldn’t be marooned with a nicer guy than Tom.”

  Her anatomy pinned me a little tighter to the wall. “He is nice,” she said, “but so … immature. I like older men, men I can look up to.”

  Her grip on my hand tightened. Somewhere in her past she must have cracked bones for a living. She had fingers like steel clamps. I said, “Well, they say women grow up faster than men.”

  It was an effort to start a conversation. But Emily was through talking. She concentrated on leaning. I shifted but I only made a few inches of gain. She had me surrounded. She said in a faint, husky whisper, “It helps so when I’m not alone.”

  I thought, “One more clank to go and we’ll have it made.”

  The damned elevator gave a convulsive belch and stopped. I had a sudden desire to kick out the wall behind me and skin down the cables.

  The door opened and light came in from the hallway. One of the cleaning women stared in. She giggled. Emily moved away and I got out of there. But she still had her grip on my hand, and she came too.

  I said, “This is the second floor. Let’s walk the rest of the way.”

  The cleaning woman giggled again. I dragged Emily toward the stairs. By the time we reached them, I was running. I didn’t care what Emily might think. All I wanted was the freedom of the open air.

  V

  I GOT A SHOCK. By the time I had Emily in my middle-aged heap and got myself beneath the wheel, she had become the formal secretary again. She sat well on her side, almost against the door, folded her hands in her lap firmly, and looked straight ahead.

  I started the motor and waited until the bearings stopped clattering before pulling away from the curb. “Just w
here is this Pad?”

  “South along the waterfront,” she said. By her tone of voice we might have been strangers.

  I drove down Salmon Way to Front Street and turned south along the docks. Most of the big piers were dark and deserted. A few had ships tied up. Out on the Sound the ferry from Dobbs Island, location of our highest-level sin bins, tooted for a landing. To my left was a long row of dark warehouses and crumbling, abandoned buildings. It was a mournful part of town at night.

  Farther along the harbor curved as a long point of land reached into the Sound. This was Southpoint, built up from the tideflats out of fill, and it housed much of the city’s heavy industry. Lights from plants going strong on swing shift lit the sky, growing stronger as we neared them. Just short of the complex of railroad tracks that led into Southpoint, the steep slope of Hill Street took off from the waterfront eastward. It was bright with neon, a street of penny arcades and pawnshops and beer joints, all waiting to catch the swing shift worker when he came on duty.

  Emily said, “Right there,” and pointed toward a sagging building that cornered on Front and Hill. I made my turn and pulled up before a closed door. On its cracked surface was painted The Pad. I was glad to see it.

  Emily opened the door and stepped to the dirty sidewalk. “Thank you, Mr. Durham.”

  She didn’t look at me, but trotted off and opened the door and disappeared down a flight of steps so dimly lighted I wondered how anyone navigated them without falling.

  I drove back down Front to Salmon Way and followed it to Southlake Way and turned left. I didn’t let myself think about Emily, or rather the two Emilys I had seen tonight. There was no profit in it.

  I followed Southlake along the shore of the Inlet. It was a fair-sized body of water and a focal point of much of the newer part of town. The business district touched it at the southwest corner, and all along the west side were boat yards and marine supply houses, with here and there a restaurant or a bar. Around the remainder were homes and apartment houses that looked down on it from the steep hills rising sharply almost from the shore.

  The Inlet was connected to the Sound by a long, natural canal. Just past the bridge that crossed the canal where it joined the Inlet was Arne Rasmussen’s huge boatworks and moorage. But from his place on to the Sound, private homes, with their own boat moorages and their lawns sweeping down to the water, had replaced industry. And on the hills that rose from either side of the canal were Puget City’s fancier apartment houses. I paid out a fair piece of my income so I could live in one. My windows looked down onto the Canal and out across the Sound.

  It was a tremendous view and I pushed the heap, eager to get home to it and to a chance to look at Tom’s report, bouncing on the seat beside me. The traffic along this side of the Inlet was thin at this hour and I made fair time. By the time I had gone halfway to the bridge that crossed the upper end of the Canal, all but one of the cars had left me.

  That one was a big, shiny Buick, and I suddenly became intensely conscious of it. I remembered seeing it on Front Street and then on Salmon Way. I noticed that it was about thirty yards behind me and that despite the lack of traffic it stayed there.

  I lowered my speed. The Buick sloughed off and lay back, keeping its thirty yard spread. I pushed down on the throttle. The Buick picked up until it made up the advantage my spurt had given me and then it slowed again.

  I thought of the report on the seat beside me. I thought of Tom Harbin lying in a hospital with his head ripped open by a gun barrel. And I thought of the difference in power between my heap and the big Buick.

  I looked ahead. Southlake swung to the right, over the bridge. The road that continued straight on was Canal Way and on it, just past the bridge, was Arne Rasmussen’s place. It was dark there and silent at this hour. If that Buick wanted me, it would catch me there, I figured.

  I put on speed, making the heap rattle. The Buick stayed its thirty yards behind me. The September night had grown definitely chilly, but I could feel myself sweating.

  I passed the turn-off that led to the bridge. The vague hope that the Buick might go to the right died as its headlights clung to my tail. Now all light but the dim glow from a distant street lamp was gone. There were only our headlights and the riding lights of a fishboat chugging down the canal to the Sound.

  I passed the dark mass of Arne’s boat works. Just beyond it were the two bulky buildings that housed the salvage and marine repair division run by Reese Fuller. Farther along, hidden behind a high wooden fence, was the moorage where Arne kept his fishboats when they were in port.

  The idea hit me all at once, and I swung the wheel before I could stop and consider. I bounced off the road and onto the wide gravel strip that fronted the salvage buildings. My headlights rose up momentarily as the nose of the heap tilted. They struck the sign painted on the covered passageway that connected the two buildings at the second-story level. I saw Rasmussen Boat Company, Marine Salvage Division, Reese Fuller, Manager. Then the car leveled out, and the lights tunneled their way into the wide alley that ran beneath the passageway and between the buildings.

  I snapped off my headlights and rammed the heap into that alley. For a moment it was like being gulped into the belly of a whale. All outside light was gone. The covered passageway overhead blotted out the stars. The tires of my car whined on rough concrete and then rumbled loudly as I passed the ends of the buildings and started along a pier jutting out into the canal. Loose planking slapped protestingly under me. I eased up on the gas and began to brake gently.

  On my right was a huge floating crane silhouetted against the night sky like some monstrous insect. On my left were moored two smallish workboats: the first a tug and the second for divers, with a winch and a big generator on its afterdeck. Beyond them, down the canal, I could see light in the pilot house of the Norway Queen.

  I stopped with the end of the pier less than ten feet away. I wasn’t sure that I had gained much beyond a little time, but I had the feeling that right now a little time could be very precious to me.

  I opened my door, scooped up the envelope, and stepped onto the pier. The bright, hard headlights of a car bored through the tunnel between the dark buildings, spraying eagerly toward me. I had only one choice unless I wanted to be caught squarely by those lights.

  I jumped onto the deck of the workboat moored nearest to the end of the pier and dove into the shadow cast by the big winch.

  The car came on, pier planks rumbling under its weight like close thunder. It was the blue Buick as I had expected. The headlights went off, plunging darkness down over the pier and the boat. The car stopped, its front bumper only a few feet from the rear of my heap.

  The driver’s door opened and the dome light flashed on briefly. Any doubts I had that I was not the real quarry of the driver went away quickly. The light revealed to me the same blonde woman I had glimpsed at the wheel of the boat that had buzzed me twenty-four hours ago.

  But this time I was closer to her, and so I had a chance to take a good look. And what I saw I could have liked, only I was in no position to appreciate her. She was one of those blondes blessed with superb facial bone structure, and she had made the most of it. Her thick pile of bright, yellow-gold hair was pulled back to reveal her long, narrow face and emphasize large and luminous dark gray eyes. They were outlined with just enough make-up to bring out her high cheekbones and handsome, slightly arrogant nose. Her ears were small and close to her head and adorned with small emeralds set tight to the lobes.

  When she stepped from the car, she was momentarily silhouetted against the light from inside. The brief glimpse I had left me with few illusions about her figure. It, too, was superb. She was wearing a fitted dress of some thin, summery material, and what she wore beneath it could have been mailed in a small envelope with a four cent stamp.

  Then the door closed and we were in darkness again. She said, apparently to someone else in the car, “If he did not go into the water, he has gone on one of these boats.”
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  Her voice fascinated me. It was low and throaty and the accent was faultlessly British except for a slight but definite non-English rhythm to her speech.

  Whoever she had spoken to did not answer. She stood by the car a moment more and then, high heels clicking, started toward the boat where I was hidden.

  I raised myself to a crouch and sprinted away from the winch, toward the protection of the port side of the pilot house. I found a sliding door and drew it open. I ducked inside.

  I knelt, feeling beneath the instrument panel for a locker. When I found it, I slid the door aside, pushed the envelope onto a shelf behind a roll of charts, and slid the door shut again. Then I walked crawfish style out of the pilot house, shut the door, and lay down on the deck. It was dirty and smelled of tar.

  The woman had come aboard. I could hear her heels clicking as she circled the winch and the generator on the after deck. I thought about trying to work my way forward and jump onto the pier and make a run for it.

  But if I did she couldn’t fail to see me. And she might have a gun. And there was someone else waiting in the car.

  Besides, I was too late. I was listening for the click of heels, and when I failed to hear them, I assumed she had stopped walking. Then she appeared at the front corner of the wheelhouse, cutting me off from going forward. She held her shoes in one hand. And in the other she very definitely had a gun.

  Faint light from Arne’s Norway Queen, fifty feet to the left, showed her to me, and could not fail to show me to her. I stood up.

  She said, “Will you please come to my car now, Mr. Durham?”

  I did not “please” but I went. In the first place, she had a gun. In the second, she had called me by name; and I was curious.

  I turned and walked around the after end of the pilot house and jumped to the pier. She followed, staying a careful five feet behind me. When I hit the pier, I decided to see just how far she meant to carry this game. I started to run for the buildings.