“He’s been out of his head or unconscious ever since we picked him up,” the boatswain’s mate commanding the Coast Guard cutter said. He was a short chunky man with glasses that shone in the floodlight. He needed a shave. “All your Cuban stiffs are back in the launch. We left everything like it was. We didn’t touch anything. We just put the two down. that might have gone overboard. Everything’s just like it was. The money and the guns. Everything.”
“Come on,” said the sheriff. “Can you run a floodlight back there?”
“I’ll have them plug one in on the dock,” the dockmaster said. He went off to get the light and the cord.
“Come on,” said the sheriff. They went astern with flashlights. “I want you to show me exactly how you found them. Where’s the money?”
“In those two bags.”
“How much is there?”
“I don’t know. I opened one up and saw it was the money and shut it up. I didn’t want to touch it.”
“That’s right,” said the sheriff. “That’s exactly right.”
“Everything’s just like it was except we put two of the stiffs off the tanks down into the cockpit so they wouldn’t roll overboard, and we carried that big ox of a Harry aboard and put him in my bunk. I figured him to pass out before we got him in. He’s in a hell of a shape.”
“He’s been unconscious all the time?”
“He was out of his head at first,” said the skipper. “But you couldn’t make out what he was saying. We listened to a lot of it but it didn’t make sense. Then he got unconscious. There’s your layout. Just like it was only that niggery looking one on his side is laying where Harry lay. He was on the bench over the starboard tank hanging over the coaming and the other dark one by the side of him was on the other bench, the port side, hunched over on his face. Watch out. Don’t light any matches. She’s full of gas.”
“There ought to be another body,” said the sheriff.
“That’s all there was. The money’s in that bag. The guns are right where they were.”
“We better have somebody from the bank to see the money opened,” said the sheriff.
“O.K.,” said the skipper. “That’s a good idea.”
“We can take the bag to my office and seal it.”
“That’s a good idea,” said the skipper.
Under the floodlight the green and white of the launch had a freshly shiny look. This came from the dew on her deck and on the top of the house. The splinterings showed fresh through her white paint. Astern of her the water was a clear green under the light and there were small fish about the pilings.
In the cockpit the inflated faces of the dead men were shiny under the light, lacquered brown where the blood had dried. There were empty .45 caliber shells in the cockpit around the dead and the Thompson gun lay in the stern where Harry had put it down. The two leather briefcases the men had brought the money aboard in, leaned against one of the gas tanks.
“I thought maybe I ought to take the money on board while we were towing her,” the skipper said. “Then I thought it was better to leave it just exactly like it was so long as the weather was light.”
“It was right to leave it,” the sheriff said. “What’s become of the other man, Albert Tracy, the fisherman?”
“I don’t know. This is just how it was except for shifting those two,” the skipper said. “They’re all shot to pieces except that one there under the wheel laying on his back. He’s just shot in the back of the head. It come out through the front. You can see what it did.”
“He’s the one that looked like a kid,” the sheriff said.
“He don’t look like anything now,” the skipper said.
“That big one there is the one had the submachine gun and who killed attorney Robert Simmons,” the sheriff said. “What do you suppose happened? How the devil did they all get shot?”
“They must have got fighting among themselves,” the skipper said. “They must have had a dispute on how to split the money.”
“We’ll cover them up until morning,” the sheriff said. “I’ll take those bags.”
Then, as they were standing there in the cockpit, a woman came running up the pier past the Coast Guard cutter, and behind her came the crowd. The woman was gaunt, middle-aged and bare-headed, and her stringy hair had come undone and was down on her neck although it was still knotted at the end. As she saw the bodies in the cockpit she commenced to scream. She stood on the pier screaming with her head back while two other women held her arms. The crowd, which had come close behind her, formed around her, jostled close, looking down at the launch.
“God damn it,” said the sheriff. “Who left that gate open? Get something to cover those bodies; blankets, sheets, anything, and we’ll get this crowd out of here.”
The woman stopped screaming and looked down into the launch, then put back her head and screamed again.
“Where they got him?” said one of the women near her.
“Where they put Albert?”
The woman who was screaming stopped it and looked in the launch again.
“He ain’t there,” she said. “Hey, you, Roger Johnson,” she shouted at the sheriff. “Where’s Albert? Where’s Albert?”
“He isn’t on board, Mrs. Tracy,” the sheriff said.