It was well past eleven when my driver deposited me, intact, and I couldn’t find any place in walking distance still open for dinner. The motel restaurant was closed and so was a little Mandarin place across the street. I finally took an apple from a basket in the lobby and went to bed hungry. My shoulder was sore and the long flight had worn me out. I slept soundly and woke up again after nine.

My shoulder had recovered in the night—most of the stiffness was gone. I dressed more easily than I had for days, only feeling a twinge when I pulled the heavy wool sweater over my head. Before going down to breakfast I reassembled the Smith & Wesson and loaded it. I didn’t expect Bledsoe to jump me in front of the entire crew of the Lucella Wieser, but if he did the gun wasn’t going to do me much good with the barrel unattached to the hammer.

I hadn’t had much appetite while my shoulder was in pain and I’d dropped five or six pounds. This morning I felt better and sat down to pecan waffles, sausages, strawberries, and coffee.

I was a latecomer in the little restaurant and the middle-aged waitress had time to talk. As she poured my second cup of coffee I asked her where I could rent a car. There was an Avis place in town, she said, but one of her sons had a couple of old cars he rented out if I didn’t need anything too fancy. I told her that would be fine as long as they had automatic transmissions, and she trotted off to call her son.

Roland Graham his name was, and he spoke with a Canadian accent, a lilting drawl that sounds as if it has a trace of Scots buried in it. His car was a ’75 Ford Fairmont, old but perfectly clean and respectable. I told him I’d only need it until the next morning. The fee, payable in advance in cash, was thirty dollars.

The Holiday Inn was in the heart of town. Across the street was the largest Presbyterian church I’ve ever seen. A modern city hall faced the motel, but the street behind us had a lot of run-down stores and premises to let. As I got down to the waterfront the stores gave way rapidly to bars and girlie joints. I’ve often wondered whether seamen really have the primitive appetites port towns attribute to them, or whether they go to sleazy joints because that’s the only thing the locals offer.