Manhunt. Volume 14, Number 1, February/March, 1966

“I see what you mean, Karl. I’m not about to fail — either way. I was wondering who I was aiding and abetting. Actually I wouldn’t have failed if the person were alive in the berth storage space. When I go in with a man, I go in all the way.”

Padgett moved to the cabin and lifted the hinged berth. An odor, nauseating and sickly, that of early decomposure, struck him. He forced himself to carry the dead girl’s body up to the deck. He looked quickly away from the bubbles as the body settled slowly after the splash. And he looked Gortoff straight in his black eyes. “Any other little messy tasks to be looked after, Karl.” As he spoke, he made a promise, “I’ll square things up for that blonde girl with you, Gortoff, or I’ll die trying.”

“Not right now, Chris. Perhaps some other time.” Gortoff cut in the auxiliary and sailed south. By the compass light, Padgett noticed, he began to make a careful check on his course. When the Stardust passed the San Diego light, Gortoff tacked to a south-southwest course. Soon after dark, Padgett noticed the green flash of a signal light. Gortoff increased the schooner’s speed and made for the signal’s direction. He cut his engine when a cruiser approached the Stardust. Go below, Chris. Like your own crime this evening, the fewer witnesses, the better.

Padgett listened from the cabin. Sound and voices travelled clearly over the South Pacific water and through the semi-tropical night.

“Three tins, Senor Gortoff. Enough?”

“For this time, Garcia. How are things at the casino?”

“Very good, senor. Will you be down soon again?”

“I’ll call you. Give my regards to Hernandez. And you better give that cruiser a coat of paint. I’ll want to do some fishing this winter.”

Padgett made a fast assessment of the conversation he had overheard. “Garcia — Hernandez — a casino — and lying off Rosarito Beach — and Gortoff ordering a coat of paint for the cruiser — no money exchanged for what he supposed was three tins of heroin. Gortoff could be more than a kilo man; more than an importer. He could be the big man behind the heroin traffic from Mexico. He could control the source as well as the big West Coast outlet in San Francisco. Three tins made for a lot of heroin. It was more than what was needed for the San Francisco traffic.” He stopped his mental debate when Gortoff called from the deck.

“OK, Chris, come up on deck.”

Padgett heard the roar of the cruiser as it sped east in the night. He saw only its starboard light as it disappeared. “Smooth operation, Karl,” he smiled.

“In this racket, Chris, only the smooth last. And let me pass on a tip to you. Play it like I do in your traffic in town. Never make the same move twice in a row. When you arrange for a pick-up at a plant, vary your routine and your pedlers’ routines. That’s the only way you’ll last. Get into a rut. Make the same moves every day and the Narcotics Squad or the N Men will have you in a week. But you know the racket. Play it your own way.” On the northward voyage, Gortoff spelled out his deal for the new pusher. “I had a middle man between me and Bello. He was the character who sugared the caps the other day. Now he’s out of the way. With you it’s going to be different. I’m going to give you the stuff eighty per cent pure. That’s as pure as any heroin coming on to this continent. You have two ways of handling it. You can cap it yourself and put the cut stuff out to your pedlers. Or you can have a capper working for you and making the plants for you. Do it your way, Chris. You get one of these tin’s. It will handle your traffic for a month. You pay me through the mail every day. In cash. The first morning mail at the inn that misses an envelope from you, with its cash, will be the day you die. That’s the way it has to be Chris. When I put you ashore, you’ll be walking away with $100,000 worth of pure H. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not about to trust you. Instead some of my people watch you — all the time!”

“Where do those other two tins go?” Padgett asked.

“And that’s another thing, Chris. No questions. And no answers about anything other than the Frisco traffic. That town-is only one of my towns.”

“What time we due back at Sausalito?”

“We’re not due back there. I’ll put you ashore at San Pedro. Take a cab from there to the LA airport and fly up to Frisco. And the cab you take, Chris, will be my cab, and my driver. And you’ll have a shadow on the flight. Like I said, I don’t trust. I watch. All the time. When I drop anchor at Sausalito, the Stardust will be as clean, or cleaner, than any pleasure craft sailing into a harbor on the coast. Like I mean it to look, I was on a short vacation voyage. I play it careful as well as smooth.” Gortoff swung on an easterly course towards the mainland.

Padgett heard Gortoff contacting his cab driver in San Pedro before the Stardust reached the harbor. “And two one-way flights up to Frisco,” he heard the kilo man conclude his orders.