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

Padgett again returned to the Turk Street bar, resuming his pusher role for the afternoon and evening as if nothing had interrupted normal operations of the Gortoff narcotics traffic. He left downtown San Francisco at eleven and drove normally across the bridge. The yellow, sodium-vapor lights broke through the fog as he drove off the exit and curved around the turn to Sausalito. He took the two parcels of heroin from his car trunk and walked across the cliffside road. As he crossed the inn parking lot he recognized a Bureau car. He made no sign of recognizing the occupants of its front seat. He moved through the fog and shadows down to the dock. The electric motor of the dinghy purred into operation with a press of its starter button. He cast off from the dock and the dinghy disappered into the fog. The Stardust loomed up in front of him and he switched off the tiny outboard. Padgett caught at the port side of the dinghy and gasped audibly as a black rubber sleeve of a skin diver’s suit helped propel the dinghy against the Stardust’s stern. He called into the night.

“Ahoy the Stardust.”

“Come aboard, Chris.”

The N Man looked up and saw Gortoff standing at the stern, looking down on him. He hoped he hadn’t seen the skin diver’s arm. Gortoff helped make the dinghy fast to the stern. Padgett held the two parcels in his left arm and pulled himself aboard with his right.

“Wouldn’t want to drop this ‘stardust’ in the water,” he quipped without a smile. Padgett held out the parcels to Gortoff. And the heroin king accepted them.

“Come below, Chris. Might as well have a drink before you go ashore.”

Padgett looked along the starboard side of the cabin as Gortoff reached for its door. He saw the first of his skin-diving N Men fellow workers climb aboard. He waited until they had slipped quietly towards the cabin and followed Gortoff inside. When Karl Gortoff turned he saw the.38 revolver aimed directly on a level with his heart.

“You’re under arrest, Gortoff...”

Gortoff laughed and jeered, “You forget, Chris, I’m the careful one. You’re covered like you think you have me covered.”

Until Padgett felt the pressure of a gun barrel in his own back, he momentarily felt Gortoff’s statement was another form of the old ruse. Then he recognized Garcia’s voice. “Drop the gun, senor.” The pressure increased on Padgett’s back with a sharp jab. He dropped the.38 and was suddenly jammed against Gortoff, propelled to the cabin berth as Garcia’s body slammed against his own. For a few, wild struggling moments, the tiny cabin of the schooner was filled with grunts and curses of Garcia and Gortoff. Garcia screamed as his arm was broken by a blow from a rubber-clad figure, one of the three N Men skin divers who had hurtled into the cabin. Padgett was briefly overlooked in the melee. His fingers clutched at Gortoff’s throat and the narcotics king was beginning to choke when another N Man knelt to snap handcuffs on him.

“You wouldn’t choke a handcuffed prisoner, would you?” the skin diver N Man laughingly asked.

“This one? Yes. I think I would — if it were not against Bureau regulations.”

The four N Men and two prisoners moved from the cabin into a gleaming bath of light. A Coast Guard boat had slipped through the fog and spotlighted the Stardust. Gortoff blinked as he faced the blinding light ten feet away. He cursed when Chris Padgett taunted him, “Light too bright for you, Karl? You’ve made your last move under the stars or on the Stardust. Your stardust days are all over now!”

He turned to the Coast Guard lieutenant, “Can you put us ashore at the Presidio? We’ll stay right with these boys. They’re tricky. But we are careful.”

“Glad to help out, sir,” the lieutenant replied.

Past Imperfect by Frank Gay

She was an ex-stripper... with a capital “X”. Then Widget came on the scene.

* * *

Widget decided he would go for die flesh this time, and not the money. He made three circles of the block, then parked in front of the house. He was squat and flabby, almost beetle-like in the big car.

He thrust his head toward the windshield to get a better look at the blonde digging in the garden. His face was a melon of freckles decorated with puffy eyes and a bulbous, hairy nose.

He emerged from the car with his sample case and strode aggressively toward the blonde.

“You Mrs. Gideon?” he asked bluntly.

The woman rose from her knees and puzzled a look at him.

This was the way he remembered her, lean and petite with full hips and breasts. She had a beauty that took his breath. She also had a dignity about her that made his lip curl — he could recall her in less dignified postures.

“You’re the encyclopedia salesman?” she asked.

“That’s me. Name is Widget. I’d like to show you samples.”

They moved toward the house, a large brick and cedar shingle colonial on a lot planted with maples and oaks.