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washed his own hands carefully in the tiny basin to make sure all the traces of poison were off.
    Ten minutes later there was a knock on the door and Paul let Manielli back inside.
    “Andy’s contacting Gordon. It’s midnight in D.C. but he’ll track him down.” He couldn’t stop staring at the body. Finally the lieutenant asked Paul, “You’re packed? Ready to go?”
    “Will be, after I change.” He glanced down at his athletic shirt and shorts.
    “Do that. Then go up top. Andy said we don’t want things to look bum, you disappearing and this guy too,then his supervisor can’t find him. We’ll meet you on the port side, main deck, in a half hour.”
    With a last glance toward Heinsler’s body, Paul picked up his suitcase and shaving kit and headed down to the shower room.
    After washing and shaving he dressed in a white shirt and gray flannel slacks, forgoing his short-brimmed brown Stetson; three or four landlubbers had already lost their straw boaters or trilbies overboard. Ten minutes later he was strolling along the solid oak decks in the pale early morning light. Paul stopped, leaned on the rail and smoked a Chesterfield.
    He thought about the man who’d just killed himself. He’d never understood that, suicide. The look in the man’s eyes gave a clue, Paul supposed. That fanatic’s shine. Heinsler reminded him of something he’d read recently, and after a moment he recalled: the people suckered in by the revivalist minister in Elmer Gantry, that popular Sinclair Lewis book.
    I love the Führer and I’d do anything for him and the Party. . . . 
    Sure, it was nuts that a man would just take his own life like that. But what was more unsettling was what it told Paul about the gray strip of land he was now gazing at. How many people there had this same deadly passion? People like Dutch Schultz and Siegel were dangerous, but you could understand them. What this man had done, that look in his eyes, the breathless devotion . . . well, they were nuts, way out of kilter. Paul’d never been up against anyone like that.
    His thoughts were interrupted as he looked to his side and noticed a well-built young Negro walking toward him. He wore a thin blue Olympic team jacket and shorts, revealing powerful legs.
    They nodded greetings.
    “Excuse me, sir,” the man said softly. “How you doing there?”
    “Fine,” Paul answered. “Yourself?”
    “Love the morning air. Lot cleaner than in Cleveland or New York.” They looked over the water. “Saw you sparring earlier. You pro?”
    “An old man like me? Just do it for the exercise.”
    “I’m Jesse.”
    “Oh, yes, sir, I know who you are,” Paul said. “The Buckeye Bullet from Ohio State.” They shook hands. Paul introduced himself. Despite the shock of what had happened in his cabin, he couldn’t stop grinning. “I saw the newsreels of the Western Conference Meet last year. Ann Arbor. You beat three world records. And tied another one, right? Must’ve seen that film a dozen times. But I’ll bet you’re tired of hearing people tell you that.”
    “I don’t mind it one bit, no, sir,” Jesse Owens said. “Just, I’m always surprised people keep up so close with what I do. Just running and jumping. Haven’t seen much of you on the trip, Paul.”
    “I’ve been around,” Paul said evasively. He wondered if Owens knew something about what’d happened to Heinsler. Had he overheard them? Or seen Paul grab the man on the top deck by the smokestack? But he decided the athlete would’ve been more troubled if that had been the case. It seemed he had something else in mind. Paul nodded toward the deck behind them. “This is the biggest damn gym I’ve ever seen. You like it?”
    “I’m glad for the chance to train but a track shouldn’t move. And it definitely shouldn’t rock up and down like we were doing a few days ago. Give me dirt or cinders any day.”
    Paul said, “So. That’s our boxer I was up against.”
    “That’s right.