by Roy Huggins
“That’s a laugh. The skipper calls me that, and treats me like it. But I’m a sea-going bum, period.”
HE went back to the briefing then, and he was showing me how to lash the wheel when a girl came aboard. I saw her before he did; she walked along the float with a long clean stride, and she was wearing white shorts and the air of easy self-confidence that you get with a figure like hers. When she came over the side Madden looked up and greeted her casually.
She smiled and said: “Hi. Everybody aboard?”
“Just me and Mr. Bailey here. This is Betty Callister, Mr. Bailey—the skipper’s daughter.”
She looked at me with a puzzled frown and said: “You’re . . . I don’t understand. Dad said he’d known you in business for over twenty years.” She paused and added, dryly: “You must have started young.”
I wasn’t sure, but I thought Madden looked at me sharply. I said: “The business used to belong to my father.”
“Well, I think it was nasty of Dad not to prepare me for you. Where’s Mrs. Bailey?”
“Did he tell you I was married?”
“As a matter of fact, he didn’t.”
“Then it’s safe to tell you.” I grinned. “I’m not.”
“Maybe not so safe, either. A bachelor aboard. This is absolutely revolutionary.”
“Oh? What category do you put me in?” Owen asked lightly.
Betty threw him a quizzical glance and drawled: “Now you don’t want me to answer that, do you, Owen?”
And with that she turned and went below, leaving us standing there with nothing to say.
The morning was gone, the sun was high and hot, and the Callisters still hadn’t put in an appearance. So I walked up to the Anchorage Cafe and had some lunch at a pale green table overlooking the Navy yard across the way. I was just finishing the third cup of coffee and wondering if I should take time for another when Betty Callister came in, glanced around, and walked over.
She sat down without being asked, and the proprietor came around from behind the counter, saying, “Salutations, Miss Callister. What can I get you?”
“Just some tea, Harry.”
“And I’ll have another coffee,” I said.
“Maybe I oughta just put the urn on the table,” Harry said. “This is your fifth, ain’t it?”
Betty shuddered. “How much of that stuff do you drink a day?”
“Never more than twenty cups.”
“Doesn’t it keep you awake? Twenty cups?”
“Well, it helps.”
Betty laughed generously at that.
“Your father and mother arrive yet?” I asked, after Harry had served us.
“Don’t let Eilene hear you call her that. You’ll walk the plank. No, they haven’t.”
I WAITED for her to get started. She certainly hadn’t come up for tea—she hadn’t even bothered to pour any into the cup.
After a while, she said abruptly: “What’s this all about, Mr. Bailey?”
“What?”
“This trip.”
“How do you mean?”
“That’s what I’m asking you. Several days ago Dad said an old business acquaintance of his would be going along—a man he’d known for twenty years or more. That was why I couldn’t go this time, he told me.”
She was waiting for me, but I didn’t say anything.
Then you turn up. I’ll give you ten dollars for every year you’re over thirty.”
“Want to pay me the twenty bucks now, ma’am, or later?”
She grimaced and said, “I’m serious. Dad always takes me on trips, no matter what. This time I had to threaten to do something horrible before he’d agree to let me go. Why? If you’re an old business acquaintance, I’m Minnie Mouse.”
“Well, Minnie, my relationship with your father is just what he said—business. We expect to work out a very important deal on this trip.”
“You sound like you’re telling the truth.”
“I am.”
She looked at me almost searchingly for a long moment, then seemed to relax. “Then—we might be seeing a lot of you—Dad, I mean.”
“That depends on how the deal goes,” I said, and almost choked on it.
“What’s your first name?”
“Stuart.”
“Mind if I call you that?”
“If we have to be formal.”
“Well, mine’s Betty, Stuart, and I think we should be getting back.”
“Shall we take your tea with us?”
She laughed and said, “Never touch the stuff.”
She had a nice laugh, easy and soft, and it did wonderful things to her face, putting a dimple into one cheek, deepening its warmth and color, and darkening the already dark blue eyes. Anyway, that’s how it hit me as I stood there looking at her and hunting vaguely through my pockets for some change.
AT three o’clock I was in my cabin putting things away. The door was closed because one of the things I had to put away was my .38 automatic and I was having trouble finding a likely spot for it. I finally settled for one of my shoes, and was just pushing a sock down over it when the Callisters arrived.
I stood up quickly, listening to the sound of their steps on the companionway. I heard a soft voice with just a touch of the lately acquired in the accent saying, “Come on down. Owen. We’re having a few Martinis first.”
A moment later Callister’s rumbling baritone echoed from the lounge with “Where’s Bailey? Hasn’t Bailey . . .?”
Apparently Betty broke into the question with the news that I was aboard and in my cabin, because five seconds later there was a brisk knock on the door.
Callister was standing there smiling broadly, a high flush darkening the pink of his face to a kind of lobster red. He seemed glad to see me. He clapped me on the back as I stepped out into the passage and asked heartily: “How d’you like your Martinis, Bailey?”
“With whisky and soda,” I said as we stepped into the lounge.
Callister got a big bang out of that, and he stood there laughing, one hand on my shoulder, while I waited for him to introduce me to the blonde.
She was standing in the center of the room, giving me one of those terribly-at-ease goings over—the chatelaine inspecting the peasants on festival day. She was a small woman with a round face, large brown eyes, and silver blonde hair. She may have been only thirty or so, and she thought she looked a good deal less, but there was something about the well-watched figure, the too carefully made-up face, that suggested the dark side of thirty-five. But beyond everything else she was a woman, and one who would never forget it for a moment. She would be making the most or it when people were wondering which side of fifty she was on.
In the meantime, Callister had managed to say the right words, and Eilene stepped forward and held out her hand, a little as if trying to make up for the going over. She smiled slowly and gave me a look that went just a wee bit beyond the ordinary amenities of introduction. The way she clasped my hand was brief and proper, but she somehow managed to convey the impression of having held hands with me.
Betty, standing over at the bar, said, “How do you like your Martini, Stuart?” Mrs. Callister raised an eyebrow at the “Stuart” and Callister stole my joke: “With whisky and soda,” he chortled, and stepped over to the bar to make me a highball.’
Still looking over her shoulder at me, Betty said, “Among other things, I had to agree to be galley rat, potwalloper, and bartender to be invited on this jaunt.”
I started to reply, but Eilene stepped over, very casually got between me and Betty, and said: “Ever taken a trip like this before, Mr. Bailey?”
“No,” I said, and curbed the impulse to ask, “Who has?”
Callister put the highball in my hand and Owen brought over two Martinis and gave them to the Callisters. Betty brought two more and gave one to Owen, and we were all standing there with drinks in our hands waiting for somebody to do the obvious thing.
Callister raised his glass, said: “We
ll, bon voyage, everyone,” chuckled happily, and drank. Everybody joined him heartily, including Stuart Bailey, who didn’t think for a moment he could keep the old boy from being given the deep six if anyone in this happy party had a mind to try it.
I WAS leaning back in the cock-pit letting Iron Mike do the work for me, wondering whether this was the fourth or fifth day out, and watching the sun stain the water as it began its nightly drop into the drink.
Callister had just gone below after coming up to ask me if I was sure I didn’t want a scotch and soda, “. . . even if you are driving, hah, hah!” He also wanted to tell me Eilene had been asking questions about me. He had told her I was a big manufacturer of experimental equipment. “That stopped her,” he said, and followed it with his characteristic deep-bellied laughter. For a man who expected to be killed, Callister was having himself a great time.
Steps sounded on the companionway, and Eilene Callister stepped out on to the deck with a double Martini glass in one hand and the hem of her white evening gown in the other. She walked toward me, picking her steps, because she was also wearing high heels, stepped down into the cockpit, and put herself carefully beside me with the air of one bringing largesse. What she had brought was a heady odor of perfume that went very badly with the sea air.
I wondered if she had planned it this way, waiting until the failing light could give her face a kind of golden warmth and take all trace of hardness from it.
She said, very softly, “May I keep you company, Stuart?”
“Sure. I was beginning to feel neglected.”
She looked at me from the corners of her eyes, smiled wryly, and said: “Believe me, if—if things were different, I’d see that you were never neglected.”
That wasn’t very subtle, and I looked at her sharply and realized, seeing it in the set of her head and the careful raising of her glass, that Eilene was, as Owen might have put it, “primed to the Plimsoll mark.” Anyway, she was a little drunk.
I didn’t say anything, and after a while she drew closer, turned toward me a bit more, and said, in a little-girl tone of confidence, “Know why I like you?”
“No. Why do you like me?”
“Because you’re modest. You never talk about yourself. My husband’s been telling me about you.”
“Always smarter to let the other fellow talk for you.”
She smiled, looked at me, let the smile slowly go, and just sat there. After a moment she put down the Martini and folded her hands in her lap, and went on looking and waiting for me to get started. Finally, she said, whispering now, “You know, there’s another reason why I like you.”
“What’s that?”
“Can’t guess?”
“Because I’m a man?”
SILENCE. And then she laughed a little, but it was strained and a trifle flat. She said, “That wasn’t very funny. It’s because . . . well, you respect the fact that I’m married. Believe me, any other man in the world would have been trying to kiss me now.”
“I’m sorry, Mrs. Callister. I’ll try to” do better next time.”
Silence again; only this time it threatened to be permanent. “Are you,” she finally managed in a tiny voice, “being deliberately rude to me?”
“Well, now that you mention it . . .”
That’s as far as I got. Owen suddenly appeared in the open companionway, his eyes peering fixedly into the growing darkness around the cockpit. He stepped out on to the deck, and Betty followed him, saying, “Thought we’d get some air. Owen’s idea.”
Owen scowled at her and walked over to the rail without saying anything or looking toward us.
“Well, if you’ll excuse me,” Eilene’s tone was definitely cold now, unfriendly, and she picked up her Martini and disappeared with it below decks.
Betty came over and sat down beside me. “Hmmm. Hope we didn’t interrupt anything.” She said it loudly enough for Owen to hear, and I glanced at her in faint surprise. There was more of the wench in Betty than I’d thought.
Owen turned suddenly and went below without a word.
“That’ll be cozy. They’re alone at last. Dad’s in his cabin lying down.”
“Take over for a second. Be right back,” I said.
THE door to the lounge was closed. I stepped over to Callister’s stateroom door and listened. After a moment I heard the sound of his heavy breathing and turned to go down to the lounge door. I listened there, too, but there was no sound at all from inside.
I quickly opened the door and stepped in. They literally sprang to their feet from the couch.
Owen’s mouth was smeared red and Eilene’s face was grey beneath the garish color of her make-up.
“Sorry,” I said. “We ran out of matches.” I crossed to the bar, picked up a book of matches, and started back. I took two steps, and Owen suddenly came to life, moving forward with one long stride and driving a drop-hammer fist into my face.
I went down like a weight and came up with a grunting whoosh of sound against the refrigerator. He was standing over me with fire in his eye and both fists balled like a pair of brass capstans. “You didn’t come down here for matches,” he breathed, “and we both know it.”
I didn’t say anything. He was right, of course, and in a way I didn’t really blame him. I hadn’t liked doing it, but I had hoped to open the door on exactly that, in the vague hope that my having seen them might give one of them pause, might even change whatever plans had been made.
“How about stepping back a couple of feet,” I said, “so I can get all the way up?”
He didn’t move, so I didn’t either, and after a minute of that Eilene stepped over in front of him and whispered something I didn’t quite get; he shook his head, but finally he moved, turning his back to me. Eilene turned and watched warily as I got to my feet. She put out a hand to my arm.
“Will you do me a great favor. Mr. Bailey? I’m asking it as your hostess. Go back up on deck. And please forget what happened. Will you?”
“Tell him to say ‘please’.”
Eilene stiffened as she heard Owen swing round again to glare at me. “Please, Mr. Bailey,” she whispered.
“You got it wrong . . . He says ‘please’.”
She just stood there, her eyes moving from my left eye to my right and back to my left. “You’re being childish.”
“Sure, I’m just a big kid at heart. Tell him to say ‘please’.”
There was little more of the” Wimbledon movement with her eyes, and she swung round to Owen. “Owen,” she said tightly, “I don’t want this to go on a second longer. I mean it. Do what he says.”
Owen stared at her, and whatever it was he saw in her race carried authority, because he finally looked up at me, wet his lips, and said “Please” in a tone that would have cut diamonds.
I WENT back up on deck and sat down again at the wheel. “Everything all right below?”
“Shipshape.”
“Cigarette?”
“Not right now.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Not a thing.”
“Then you won’t mind answering a few questions, will you, Stu?”
“Love to.”
“I should warn you that anything you say may be held against you.”
“It usually is. What’s on your mind?”
“You, as usual. But don’t get me wrong. I’m not an Eilene. I find you quite resistible, in a nice way.”
I didn’t have any comment.
“You said you and Dad were going to close a big deal on this trip.”
“Uh-huh.”
“Funny he doesn’t know about it. You were lying.”
“All right, I was lying.”
THERE was an abrupt pause, and after a moment she said in a tone of surprise, “Well, we’re getting somewhere. Has it something to do with Owen and Eilene? Are you a lawyer or something?”
“What are you talking about?”
“Please. You know what Eilene is, and Owen’s all gone on her
. I’m sure Dad knows about it.”
“Seems to me he’s the happiest human aboard.”
“I know,” she whispered. “It’s made me wonder. Maybe he doesn’t know.”
“Maybe there’s nothing to know.”
“Look, I’m all grown up now, and I’m waiting for an answer.”
“Why I’m aboard?”
“Yes.”
“Ask your father.”
“I’m asking you.”
“And I’m not answering. Ask him.”
“I can’t. He never talks to me. To Dad I’m still five years old. He treated Mother the same way.” She sounded almost bitter.
“Do me a favor, will you, Betty?”
She nodded earnestly.
“Don’t ask any more questions till we hit Honolulu. I might answer them then.”
“There’s nothing I can do to persuade you to tell me now?”
“You might try offering your fair young body. I’d probably break down.”
“I doubt that very much . . . All right, I’ll wait, Stu, and thanks for being honest with me, at last.”
I LOOKED at her. She was lost in something out there across the bow of the ship. It had grown dark now and her profile was etched softly against the moonlight. I felt a sudden tightening at my throat. This could turn out to be a pretty rugged journey for Betty. Why had Callister allowed her to come?
She turned back to me and smiled slowly. “I knew you were looking at me,” she whispered. “I think it’s the first time you have really looked, I mean.”
“It’s the second. I still like it.”
“Did Eilene make a pass at you?”
“No.”
“You’re very kind. Did it work?”
“No.”
“I didn’t think it would. Well. Guess I’ll go down and make with the scoffings—that’s sea talk for chow.”
“Take it easy on the salt.”
“Yes, sir. Easy on the salt. Is your name really Bailey? And are you really not married?”
“Yes, sweet. I’m really not. No more questions.”
She made a face at me and got up and went below. And after she’d gone I realized I was alone up there with a million square miles of ocean all around me.