She began the song. The lyrics were bawdy, without being blue. She seemed to come alive, using her face, hands and body in an enormously expressive way. Sometimes she had to stop completely for long seconds, staring solemnly out at them until they quieted down.
During one such pause, after a stanza relating her doleful experiences aboard a shrimp boat off Key West, Leo heard a familiar voice close behind him saying, “… no, she works in an office. Actually, a rather crude type. Hardly a lady, as I guess you can tell.”
Leo whirled. Rigsby was talking to one of the Texans. Leo moved closer to him and said, “You’re a son of a bitch.”
“Aren’t you getting terribly protective, old boy? I don’t think the lassie is in need of a white knight.”
“I want to talk to you. Come on.”
“Right now?”
“Right now. Come on, or I’ll drag you.”
“Rather doubt you could, Rice. I’ll come along.”
They made their way through the crowd. Leo walked past the tent and up into the darkness beyond Billy’s shed, Rigsby following him. He turned. “My name isn’t Rice,” he said, an audible tremble in his voice.
“What astounding news!”
“It’s Harrison, you son of a bitch.”
“That little term of endearment is getting monotonous. Is Harrison supposed to mean something to me?”
“Lucille’s husband. Maybe you can remember Lucille.”
There was a silence of several seconds. Leo could hear Christy’s voice and the prolonged roars of laughter. The lights of cars passing on Broward touched Rigsby’s face intermittently.
“Oh,” Rigsby said.
“I got a complete report on you. I made my own investigation. I didn’t come here by accident.”
“I see.” He moved back slightly. “What’s on your mind?”
“I’m going to kill you.”
“That’s a very dull program, old boy.”
“I don’t think so. I’m going to enjoy it.”
“The lady wasn’t worth it, actually. I didn’t debauch her. She wasn’t good material for this cheap melodrama. We exchanged secrets, Mr. Harrison. It wasn’t exactly her … first indiscretion.”
“That’s a lie.”
“Oh, come now! Take out your silly gun or your silly knife so I can take it away from you.”
“I’m going to kill you with my hands.”
Suddenly the country gentleman accent was entirely gone.
“You what? For Chrissake, you had me standing here sweating. I was just about to suckerpunch you. With your hands! You silly bastard, you couldn’t do it if you were triplets.”
Leo swung as hard as he could at the man’s face, so hard that he almost fell down when Rigsby sidestepped it. He moved toward the man again.
“Not now, you clown. If a beating is what you want, I’ll give you one tomorrow. Not tonight. You might get lucky and bust me one time in the mouth while I’m taking you apart.”
“Now!” Leo said, trying to get into position to swing again.
Lew Burgoyne suddenly appeared between them. “Hey! Hold it! How’d you sneak off without me knowing it?”
“He wants a fight. You fight him, Lew. I got better things to do.”
Leo tried to get around Lew, but hard hands snapped down onto his wrists and he could not wrestle free. “We’ve got a date tomorrow, little man,” Rigsby said. “Make it for about one. I plan to sleep late.” He walked off toward the dock.
Leo struggled for a few more moments and then relaxed.
“You through? I can let go?”
“I’m through.” Lew released him. Leo turned away, thankful for the darkness that concealed the tears on his face.
“You don’t want to fight that boy,” Lew said in a gentle chiding voice.
“Yes. I’m going to.”
“Listen, I’ve seen him fight. Hell, I’ve fought him. Fella lives like he does, he just about has to learn to fight real good or people’d be stomping him raggedy ever’ few days. I licked him, but it was hardly worth the fun at all. He’s got a jaw on him like a rock, and he tucks it behind the meat on that big shoulder, and he like to hook your guts out. Minute your hands come down, pow, you get a straight right in the mouth. I tell you, the middle of me was still sore long after my face shrunk back to size. And I got a belly tough as cypress. You spent half your life sitting down in an office. Man, you don’t have a chance.”
“I can’t help that.”
“You’re sure stubborn. He could actual kill you. Can’t I scare you off?”
“I’m scared, Lew. But that doesn’t matter.”
“And when you’re down, you’ll get up again.”
“If it takes an hour or a week or a month, I’ll get up again. Somehow. You don’t understand. I have to do it. There’s a good reason.”
Lew sighed. He pulled an unlabeled pint bottle out of his hip pocket and held it up to the faint light. “Might as well smooth off our nerves some. This here is swamp shine. They age it ten minutes afore they scoop the snakes outen it. Go first. Better get your back against the shed wall afore you tilt it.”
Leo drank, gagged, choked and coughed.
“Nasty, isn’t it?” Lew said, taking the bottle. “Runs maybe one-fifty proof. Listen to ole Christy go. They won’t let her quit.”
When Lew handed the bottle back, Leo drank again and passed the bottle. “I better let her clown all she wants to. I guess it’s natural with her. I better not try any more, thanks.”
“What’s left isn’t worth wearing out my pocket with. Come on.”
They split it. Lew tossed the bottle into the darkness. A woman yelped and a man yelled, “Watch it, you clumsy jerk!”
“Sorry, old buddy,” Lew said, and they walked down toward the lights and the sound of Christy’s voice.
A few moments after they got there, the crowd finally let Christy go. She and Leo found each other in the crush and went aboard the Shifless.
As soon as the door was shut, she said, “Darling, they made me do the stuff they wanted to hear.”
“Sperfectly all right,” he said solemnly. “Wunnerful.”
She peered at him. “Is that a glaze I see?”
“I love you truly.”
“Wow!”
“Some stuff Lew had. Battery acid, possibly.”
“Shine!” She sighed. “Wouldn’t it be easier to just get somebody to club you on the head?”
“I tried that first.”
“Turn your back while I go informal.”
“Happy to help.”
“None of that, lad. I want to hear Alice’s speech. And those imitation Maguire sisters are the last act, and she’s usually great.”
After Orbie had put his guitar away, he located Lew. “Like to wore my fingers down to nothing. Give me a whack on that shine.”
“I used it up,” Lew said, and as Orbie stared at him indignantly, he went on to explain where and how.
“So they’ll just fight then, tomorrow,” Orbie said. “Christy’ll be glad to know that’s all that’s going to happen.”
“I don’t know it’s anything to be so glad about, damn it.”
“What do you mean?”
“He won’t quit.”
“A man has to take a licking sometimes.”
“After the time they sunk the can I was on in the Slot, and the Marines got to use us on account of they were short and things were busy on the island, I got into one of those Banzai parties at first light. Had me a carbine. I didn’t know Japs grew as big as the Jap major who came a-running toward my hole, yelling and waving a big damn sword. It went on like slow motion. I put six holes in him, and he acted like I was throwing rice at him. He was stone dead, but he was still on his feet and he was running, because he hadn’t got the message. He didn’t fall dead until he’d put such a hell of a crease in my helmet with that sword, it knocked me cold as a bat’s ass, and then he fell dead into my hole right on top of me.”
“I get yo
ur message.”
“Rigsby’ll tear everything loose in the middle of that man, and he’ll get up for more. Except for Christy, I’d say it’s none of my business. Or yours.”
“What you figure on doing?”
“I wisht there was some damn way of slowing Rigsby down some before the fight, sort of give Leo more chance.”
“You want to beat on him a little?”
“Not me. I had that one time. Turned me into an old, old man. How about you?”
“Hell, I can’t even lick him, Lew.”
“Couldn’t you wear him down like he’s licking you?”
“Seems to me like there’s something wrong with that idea someplace.”
“Maybe we can think of something before noon tomorrow.”
“Hey, there’s Alice.” They moved closer.
Billy had put all the lights back on. Big Alice stepped to the mike with her curious lightness and grace and grinned out at them.
“Somebody has been rumoring it around, folks, that this isn’t going to get into the society news. Anyhow, it’s nice to be thirty-nine again. You all don’t give a damn about my birthday. It’s just a big fat excuse to get drunk and noisy. You’re noisy all right. You’re disturbing the rich people way the hell and gone over in Cat Cay. The beer drunk already tonight would float any boat in this basin, except maybe that mangy scow from Texas. That boat is so full of money it’s heavy.
“Quiet down now. I want to be serious. Drink up, live it up, because this is the last one. Not my last birthday, please God, but the last surprise birthday party at the Stebbins’ Marina. I’m selling.” She looked over into the darkness. “You can start fixing the papers up any time, George.”
“They’re all ready.”
“God knows I don’t want to sell. Don’t know why I’m so reluctant to get shut of this crummy, rickety, half-ass old boatyard. I’d rather lose an arm. After taxes, insurance and expenses, I just about make eating money, and that’s the truth. They’ve been telling me I don’t charge you people enough, but God knows I don’t furnish much to charge you for. Seems I got to be forced out of here because this is turning into too important a part of town, and I’m operating an eyesore. It’s either sell, or get closed down for something they can think up easy enough. Maybe for having parties like this. I’m getting a good enough price, I guess. But nobody gets much joy out of somebody twisting their arm.
“So this part of my life is over. Don’t know where the hell I’ll go or what I’ll do. They’ll push all you people out and tear everything down and build it up again pretty. And expensive. I’m sorry about that. Can’t help it. I’m sorriest about those who’ve made this their home for years. The best friends I’ve ever had.”
Her voice had thickened, and a new wetness under her eyes glinted in the brightness of the lights.
“So this is the last party, folks. And … thanks.”
George moved to the mike and began to boom, “Happy Birthday to you …” The crowd picked it up, sang it more slowly than the tempo with which George had started it. Alice stood until it was over and then quietly walked away.
“Just a moment!” George brayed. “Just a little word of explanation. This city is growing fast. We need a first-class marina. A bunch of public spirited men are buying it at a fair price and they’re going to make it one of the showplaces of …”
Some woman with diesel-horn lungs yelled a word so shockingly loud and shockingly crude that it stopped George dead and moved him half a step back from the mike. When he tried to continue, dozens of people were yelling at him. He gave up.
“God damn,” Lew said to Orbie.
“Never thought she would.”
“She’s got to. You heard her.”
“I just plain hate to see it happen, Lew. Everything keeps changing, and nothing ever changes for the better.”
“I tell you one thing. It’s going to cost one hell of a lot more to live on a boat around here. Everybody will scatter and they’ll never get back together again, all in the same place.”
“It’s just not fair!” Christy said intensely to Leo. “It’s not fair!”
“Progress.”
“Darling, you look like a broiled owl.”
He bowed. “Thank you.”
“Poor Alice.”
“Make faces, honey. Make me laugh. I feel down.”
“Like this?”
“Yes. Hold it.”
“Huh? Hey, how could you kiss a face like that?”
“It was easy. Try another.”
“I’ve got about fifteen good ones.”
“Run through ’em twice. Tireless Leo. I’m fueled up with shine.”
“Then let’s take tireless Leo off to a privater place, maybe.”
“Snexcellent suggesh—suggestion. Hearten me for the morrow, love.”
“What happens tomorrow?”
“Nothing of any importance.”
“Except your important hangover.”
TWELVE
Happy Something
The talent show was, in one sense, the peak of the evening. After it ended at nine fifteen, the party began to suffer a certain amount of attrition. But the ones who departed were the more sedate guests, and those who felt they had been grossly insulted in one way or another, and those who were in haste to consummate new friendships, as well as the few who had sustained injuries, or fallen off docks and boats, or had a meager tolerance for alcohol.
A party is a capsule lesson in the theories of Darwin. Those unsuited to the environment drop off first. What is left is the hard core, the tireless ones of vim and appetite who, given more elbow room, can duplicate the noise and confusion of a larger group. And they are no longer subject to the repressive effects of the potential disapproval of the sedate ones.
At quarter to ten, Lew Burgoyne heard a concerted rhythmic roaring, like organized cheering, coming from the direction of charterboat row. He hurried in that direction. People were in a big circle around one of the dim dock lights.
“It’s just old Captain Jimmy thinkin’ he’s a goat agin,” Dave Harran said to Lew as he joined the group. “They’re eggin’ him on something terrible.”
Lew saw Jannifer Jean in the group, her usually placid face expressing avidity and a certain contempt. Captain Jimmy was on his hands and knees about eight feet from the slender iron light pole. He was hatless. Weather had turned the lower half of his face to leather. His forehead, always protected from the sun, was high, white and somehow pathetic. There were several red lumps on it, one of them bleeding.
“Go!” they yelled in unison. “Go! Go!”
Captain Jimmy trundled forward, picking up speed, and banged his head with such force against the lamp standard that the high light swayed back and forth, and the rebound knocked him back onto his haunches. He backed away from it as the spectators sighed, shook his head and made a whinnying noise. Lew knew there was no point in trying to stop him. It could even be dangerous. After he had decided he was a goat, he’d bite you if you gave him a chance.
“Go, go, go!”
He moved again, slammed into the pole, and rolled quietly onto his back, out cold. That was the way it always ended. The crowd dispersed. Lew and Dave went and picked him up easily.
“Wheah yuh goan?” Moonbeam demanded.
“Up to the trailer.”
“Putum ona boat, huh.”
“Better put him to bed in the trailer.”
“Putumonagahdamnboat!” she shrieked.
“Okay, okay, okay.” They took Captain Jimmy aboard his Jimmy-Jan and loaded him into a bunk.
Lew wondered about her insistence. He found out, by accident, an hour later, when he remembered a forgotten bottle of shine in the glove compartment of his old car and took a shortcut toward the parking lot. Captain Jimmy’s trailer was a home-made job on responsive rickety springs. It was in darkness. Lew, hearing the rock and clitter of the springs, stopped and stared at it until his eyes became used to the darkness and he could see the vis
ible bounding of the boxlike structure and the half a dozen men loosely cued up by the door. The motion died away. A man came out and one went in. The motion began again. Lew estimated that the old springs would receive the equivalent of transcontinental milage before the night was over.
The man who had come out came swaggering over toward Lew. “That you, Lew?”
“Who is it?”
“Me. Pete.” It was the mechanic brother of the waitress who had done the violent tap dance.
“You don’t much care what you do.”
“It ain’t that bad.”
“What’s she charging?”
“Well, it’s sort of five dollars.”
“What the hell you mean, sort of.”
“Come over by the light.” They walked over. Pete handed him a piece of white paper.
“What the hell is this?”
“You know Pig Wallace, the surveyor?”
“Sure.”
“Once we found out she was hustling, we didn’t have no five dollars apiece, and no friends to loan us. Pig had this kind of drawing paper in the car and some shears, and we used us the onliest one buck we had for a sample. We made a stack. Then I yanked the main electric on the trailer so she can’t check. Shut your eyes and feel it. Feels like money, don’t it?”
“Doesn’t she wonder if she isn’t getting a one instead of a five?”
“We been giving her five of them. You crumple them some first. Pig and me, we’re selling five of these for a buck, and we’re doing pretty good. You want five.”
“I tell you, I’d have no use for them, Pete. My God, she’s going to be one crazy-mad bitch come morning.”
“That’s too damn bad, Lew. I got to go round up some more business. Looks like maybe we’re going to have to cut up some more paper, this keeps up, Pig’s got a lot left, in big sheets.”
Shortly before eleven o’clock, Lew and Marty Urban had an opportunity to eject a paying customer. He was a local cab driver, a large sloppy man named Shed Stauffler, and a quickly assembled kangaroo court decided that his offense merited parabolic ejection. Shed agreed, with a certain solemnity and even cooperated in an uncoordinated fashion. He was ashamed of himself. He yearned for punishment.
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