Part 16 (1/2)

”If it works out and we drive down there, the two of us, and get the skiff from... what's that place by the draw bridge?”

”Regal Marine.”

”On the way out I can mention I gave somebody a letter to mail for me if I don't reclaim it by such and such a day. Who would I be writing to, Travis?”

”Two letters. Our friend Captain Matty Lamarr, who has never been bought or scared, and to General Samuel Horace Lawson at the Doral.” I thought about my luck. Our imminent eviction from what I had begun to feel was safe sanctuary had torn a hole in the bottom of the luck feeling. I sensed emptiness and a cool feeling at the nape of the neck. ”Have you got paper and envelopes?”

”When this n.o.ble vessel, The John Maynard Keynes The John Maynard Keynes, sinks, it will be because of an overburden of paper bound and unbound. Here you are. May I read over your shoulder?”

”Meyer, will you accept the premise that the less you know, the more plausible Sprenger will find you?”

”A subjective judgment. But okay. Who will I leave these with?”

”Jenny Thurston. Allow room for delays.”

Two short letters. All I had to give was my guess as to who and why. The combination of Matty's professionalism and the general's ma.s.sive leverage would open up all the rest of it. I put them in the envelopes and handed them, unsealed, to Meyer. ”You were reluctant,” I said. ”Chance to overrule.”

He sighed and licked the flaps and sealed them tightly. He said, ”Interesting a.n.a.logy, about the jigsaw with square pieces and non.o.bjective art. So you put them together in a way, I suppose, that pleases you, and so you call it the only logical arrangement.”

”That's what I seem to be doing.”

”It is also an a.n.a.logy for a madman's view of reality. No rules restrict his a.s.semblage, because they're all square pieces. So he makes a pattern that pleases him, and then he tries to impose it on the world, and they lock him up.”

”Thanks, Meyer.”

He put his hand lightly on my arm, his wise eyes very sober and quiet. ”Quixote, my friend. It has been too long for you, too long since there was a woman who moved you, who made magic. It started to be very good, and some automatic relays in that skeptical skull broke the connection. A sense of what-might-have-been can make a man very vulnerable. Suspicion can become one h.e.l.l of a big windmill. And some kinds of windmills can break your a.s.s.”

”Contents noted,” I said.

There was a pale pink sc.r.a.p of day left when I unlocked the Flush Flush, noting with approval that Meyer had unhooked the sh.o.r.eside umbilical cords for phone, water, and electric and had taken off the spring lines and the heavy weather fenders. I didn't want to use any interior lights unless I was on engines or on the alternate one hundred and ten system off my generator.

In the gloom Mary Alice rose up from behind the far end of the big yellow couch and said, ”Where the h.e.l.l h.e.l.l have you been?” have you been?”

”Taking care of this and that.”

”Don't you know you've got to get me out out of here!” of here!”

I moved closer to her and checked on the validity of her anxiety by saying, ”Settle down, honey. We'll be on our way in the morning.”

Her voice got very thin. ”In the morning! I morning! I can be can be dead dead by morning! Now. Please. Can't we just go a little way? Please.” by morning! Now. Please. Can't we just go a little way? Please.”

I saw the dark shape in her right fist, pointed down at the deck. I took her arm and pulled it out of her hand. She resisted and then let go of it. I took it over to the light of a port. A little Colt.25 automatic, about as small as you can get and stay reasonably lethal.

”Where'd you get this?”

”Can we talk about where I got things when we're moving moving?!”

I handed it back to her. Maybe it would make her feel a little bit better. Her anxiety was genuine, or she was a great loss to the theater.

I went to the topside controls and cranked her up. When she settled down from the indigestion and flatulence that afflict her whenever I rouse her from indolence, I went down and cast off the lines, moved her ahead a bit, and left her teetering against a piling. I brought the Muequita Muequita close with a boat hook, jumped onto her bow, took her lines off the dock, and scrabbled back aboard with her bow line, snubbed her close and bent the line around a stern cleat. I cut the timing very close. By the time I got back to the controls the bow was swinging very very near the bow of an old and very well maintained Consolidated in the next door slip. The unfriendly old man who owned her stood by his railing with a big fender, ready to lower it to where I might crunch into him. close with a boat hook, jumped onto her bow, took her lines off the dock, and scrabbled back aboard with her bow line, snubbed her close and bent the line around a stern cleat. I cut the timing very close. By the time I got back to the controls the bow was swinging very very near the bow of an old and very well maintained Consolidated in the next door slip. The unfriendly old man who owned her stood by his railing with a big fender, ready to lower it to where I might crunch into him.

”Watch it!” he bawled, just as I gave it hard right rudder and gave my port diesel a hard quick jolt of reverse. It held me against the piling and stopped the swing of the bow and started it moving out.

”Sorry,” I called to him as I eased out of the slip. No point in trying to reply in kind. He had enough trouble in the form of a wide wife with a voice like a bearing about to go. He worked on the boat all week long with her telling him how to do what he was already doing. On Sundays they took a picnic cruise of three hours, and you could hear that voice of hers all the way out to the channel, telling him to watch out for the things he was already watching out for.

After I was under the bridge and past Port Everglades, heading south inside, in the Waterway channel with the running lights on, a healthy arm snaked around my waist, and the big lady pulled us close together and said, ”Wow.”

”I'll put it in the log. One heart-felt wow.”

”You better believe it.”

I showed her a distant marker to aim at and gave her the wheel and went aft and gave the Muequita Muequita a little more line until she towed steadily without wallowing. Mary Alice was very anxious to give the wheel back to me. a little more line until she towed steadily without wallowing. Mary Alice was very anxious to give the wheel back to me.

”Makes me too nervous,” she said. ”Where are we going?”

”I know a good place about an hour and half down the line. We can anchor out. It's good water and out of the traffic.”

”You tell me how I can help, huh?”

”You might be able to find your way below and come back with a pair of drinks.”

It took a while. She had to hunt for things. She apologized. It was full dark. I was using the hand spot to pick up the reflectors on the unlighted markers. I was aware of her near me in darkness, sitting in the starboard chair, aware of how quiet she was.

”And about that automatic?” I said.

”Oh, a friend gave it to me. He was worried about me. He thought it would be a good thing for me to have.”

”Ever fire it?”

”I drove way out into the country one time, to sort of ranch land. I found a beer can in the ditch and put it on a rock. I had a box of fifty sh.e.l.ls. It didn't make as much noise as I thought it would, but I kept flinching. I had a newspaper in the car, and I stuck it onto a stub sticking out of a big pine tree. Then I could see where the bullets were going, and I figured out how to work it. If I didn't know when it was going to go bang, I flinched after it happened. Then they went where I was aiming. Then I could hit the can pretty good. Every other time at about twenty feet.”

”That's pretty good.”

”If I had to shoot somebody, I'd imagine his head is a big beer can.”

”The torso is a bigger target.”

She was quiet for about thirty seconds and finally said, ”I'd shoot somebody who wanted to hurt me, right? So I think it would be better to shoot him in the part that does the thinking.”

”I can't fault you for logic.”

”What?”

”Do you think Jane Lawson switched the stamps in any of the other investment accounts?”

”Darling, can I make a new rule for us?”