He pulled himself sharply out of it and sat up. To hell with this adolescent daydreaming. The facts were that he was in a lady’s bed and that very shortly he would have to leave it and that he had no place in particular to go and was virtually penniless. What a strange woman she was. Her attitude had been so cold at first and then… She had left teethmarks in his shoulder but he had sensed no real abandon. It had all been rather premeditated, as though she were sitting on the other side of the room watching two strangers on the bed. Well, no matter, one couldn’t be greedy. The whole thing had been a totally unexpected windfall. He would really have to get shipwrecked more often.
She flicked on the light. The clock on the night table read three A.M.
“Gus,” she said, “I want to talk to you.”
There was certainly nothing flirtatious about her voice now. It was all business, leaving-the-money-on-the-dresser as-you-go-out sort of voice. Even her appearance had changed. She looked her age. Aware of his glance she drew the robe up over her breast and held it against her throat.
His voice mocked her when he said, “Do you want to talk about the twenty thousand dollars, Clare?”
“Yes.”
“It’s a nice little joke but I think we’ve carried it far enough.”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
He let that sink in. She apparently was serious. It was wild, but no wilder than everything else that had happened to him this night. “I gather that what you have in mind is not exactly legal,” he said.
“Let’s face it, Gus. Would anybody pay you twenty thousand dollars to do something legal?”
“I guess not.”
“Do you want me to stop now?”
“As far as I’m concerned, listening doesn’t commit me to anything. Go on.”
“The way you wandered in here tonight was a heaven-sent opportunity. Apparently you’re alone in the world and don’t really give a damn for anything but boats. No one knows you’re on this island and when you leave this house—as you will before daybreak—no one can connect you with me or prove that you were ever here.”
He reached across her to the night table for the cigarettes.
She said, “Still interested?”
“So far it’s just a fairy tale. I’ll have to know a hell of a lot more.”
“Of course. But not yet. That part will come later. Now here’s what I want you to do. While you were asleep I figured the whole thing out. To begin with you’ve got to go out and get shipwrecked all over again.”
“Thanks very much.”
“Not really shipwrecked, of course, but what I want you to do when you leave here is to go on down the beach a mile or so and take that bandage off your foot and have another good dip and then come ashore all over again just as though it were the first time. But instead of coming back to this house you’ll go to another house that belongs to a friend of mine.”
“I’m game,” Robinson said lightly. “I like the hospitality on Spanish Cay.”
She ignored the minor thrust and went on in the same businesslike voice. “The house belongs to a man named Stanley Walker. He has more money than brains and he stays half drunk most of the time, but he’s a mad yachtsman. For that matter he may even know your name. In any event I’m sure there is nothing in the world that would give him a bigger kick than to have a real sailor washed up on the beach in front of his house. It will make him a local nine-day wonder and give him something to talk about besides taxes and baseball, and he’s almost certain to invite you to stay on.”
“And after that?”
“After that we’ll have another chat. I’ll get word to you somehow about the time and place. How does that sound to you?”
“Stanley sounds like a dope but not a bad sort. Does this involve him in any way?”
“Not at all. And if you have scruples about lying to him you can take my word for it that you’ll be doing him a favor to break the monotony.”
“All right,” Robinson said. “I don’t guess I have much to lose at this point.”
“Then you’d better get dressed and be on your way. My girl comes in before seven and it would spoil everything if she saw you here.”
“How do I find Stanley’s house?”
“Go straight south on the beach until you come to the wreck of an old schooner. You can’t miss it. It’s the only wreck on the beach. Just above it is Stanley’s house.”
“Was it his boat?”
“No. It came ashore years ago and Stanley built his house there because he thought the wreck was romantic. Now remember, if we meet at Stanley’s house or in town we never saw each other before.”
“I understand.”
He swung his long legs out of the bed and walked naked into the kitchen and pulled on the clammy khaki trousers.
“Don’t worry about puddles,” she called. “I’ll clean up after you.”
There was no intimacy at all in her voice. It was as if he had delivered fifty pounds of ice. A tired old joke about the iceman came into his mind and then vanished into the dusty limbo where old dirty jokes are filed.
She came into the kitchen, holding the robe tightly around her body, and followed him to the door. “Come here, you lug,” she said.
She reached up and pulled his head down and kissed him on the lips. There was no warmth in the kiss. It was like the scrambled eggs, part of the routine for shipwrecked sailors.
“Good-bye, Gus.”
“Good-bye, Clare.”
“Don’t forget your life jacket.”
He nodded without speaking and went out closing the door behind him. Down on the beach with the wind cold against his wet shirt and the moon now obscured by clouds, he felt curiously lonely and somehow even sadder than when he had first come ashore.
The wreck was precisely where she had told him it would be. She was obviously a very efficient woman. He removed the bandage from his foot.
CHAPTER TWO
Stanley Walker hovered over him like a mother hen while he tried to cram down a second breakfast. “More eggs? More toast?” Walker asked.
“No, thanks,” Robinson answered.
“Well, then what about some more coffee?”
“Another cup of coffee would be fine.”
Robinson’s host appeared to be in his early forties. He was a small wiry man with a totally bald head that was somewhat oval on top and resembled an ostrich egg. He had faded blue eyes, a very red face and a guardsman’s mustache. A network of veins made his nose look like a road map. He reminded Robinson of that small foppish playboy who used to appear on the cover of Esquire magazine. He could see Walker in a blue blazer and yachting cap and surrounded by chorines. The man was pathetic but appealing.
Walker kept shaking his head and saying, “I just can’t get over it. Gus Robinson. And the funny part about it is I was reading a piece about you in Yachting just a couple of weeks ago. I think it was that time you sailed singlehanded from the Galapagos to Tahiti. Listen, Gus, is it really true what they say about Tahiti? I mean about the girls. Are they really so…?”
“Yes, Stanley. They are and they do.”
“Fantastic. What are we wasting our time here for?” He reached a terry-cloth-clad arm into the kitchen cabinet, drew out a bottle of Scotch and said, “You sure you won’t have one?”
“Not after all this food.”
“I should think after what you’ve been through you’d need one. I know I do. You can believe me when I tell you we’re not accustomed to this much excitement around here. Usually it’s a pretty dull place.” His hand shook noticeably as he poured the drink.
Robinson shoved his chair back and stood up. “You’ve been damned kind, Stanley, but I think it’s time I moved on and let you get back to bed.” If Clare’s script was accurate this was the point at which Walker ought to insist that he stay.
The little man did not disappoint him. He shot the whiskey down his throat like an injection and sputtered, “Move on? Move on where? You’re staying h
ere, old boy.”
“I don’t want to put you out.”
“Good God, will you listen to the man. One of the most famous sailors in the world is washed up right on my doorstep and talks about putting me out. I can’t tell you what a pleasure it will be for me to have you here. I consider it an honor. A very real honor. How often do I have a chance to talk to a real deep-water singlehander. I mean it’s like old Joshua Slocum himself rolling up out of the deep in Spray. No sir, Gus, I won’t hear of it. You’re staying right here. I want to tell you about the time I sailed with Alan Carlisle on the Big Ti in a race from Marblehead to Halifax. Head seas all the way, Gus, and the jib sheeted home and that damned fog and booting around all night among the rocks looking for that bloody lightship, and when we finally gave it up as a bad job and went on in the whole city stank of codfish and they had the gall to tell us they had taken the lightship in the day before for an overhaul. Taken it in, mind you, without even notifying the race committee. It’s that sort of thing that drives a sailor to drink,” he said, pouring himself another healthy shot. “Of course I’m not saying I’m a sailor in your class, but I do mean honestly that it would give me real pleasure to have you stay on with me until you’ve made your plans.”
Although Walker’s voice was unsteady and his blue eyes rolled like marbles in his red face, he was obviously sincere and Robinson could not help but like him for it “All right, Stanley.”
Walker smashed his fist down happily on the table. “Done then! And now you’ve heard enough of my blather for a while. You must be dead for sleep, old boy.”
“I could do with a bed at that.”
“And you shall have it, sir. Tom! Oh Tom! Where are you, you lazy devil?”
The Negro servant who had admitted Robinson to the house came in looking fresh as a new golf ball in his sparkling white jacket.
“Tom, I want you to show Mr. Robinson to the spare room. Is the bed made up?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And we’ve got to do something about clothes for him until he can get his own. Who do we know that’s as big as Mr. Robinson?”
“There’s Mr. Lacey.”
“Of course. Good old Jocko. I’ll run over there later and steal his pants. Now you show Mr. Robinson the way and put him to bed.”
Robinson began to express his thanks again but Walker interrupted him with a raised hand. “Not a word, old boy. Not a word.”
Robinson followed Thomas and found that the ultra-efficient servant had already turned back the sheet for him. He shucked off his clothes and fell gratefully into bed. It had been a long twelve hours since the ketch had gone down and a lot had happened. Thomas drew the blinds and switched on the air conditioner. Robinson said, “Thank you, Thomas.” Thomas had the monumental dignity that is sometimes found among people of his race, particularly among old-time Pullman porters. “Not at all, sir,” he answered gravely.
Just before Robinson fell asleep he thought again that it was really too bad about the hoax he had played on Walker, who was so obviously a crashing bore without a really mean bone in his body.
He awoke to the sound of music and loud voices. The sky, faintly visible through the drawn blinds, was dark. He looked at his watch and saw with surprise that it was after eight o’clock. He had slept through the day.
He swung out of bed and groped his way into the bathroom, took a quick shower and used the razor he found in the medicine chest. When he returned to the bedroom he saw that someone had already been in there and turned on the lights, opened the windows, made the bed and laid out well-polished loafers, crisp white linen shorts and a blue oxford-cloth short-sleeved shirt which, he was glad to see, bore no swaying palms, fading sunsets or leaping sailfish. The clothing fit him reasonably well and he dressed quickly and then ran a comb through his mop of hair.
When he had dressed he followed the babble of music and laughter to the main part of the house. The living room was jammed with a couple of dozen people all applauding loudly while the host, glass in hand, was attempting, with indifferent success, to walk a straight line. When he had somehow wavered to the end of it he was greeted with another burst of applause. Wild with overconfidence he placed the half full glass on top of his oddly-shaped head and balanced it there for a brief moment before the glass came crashing down. Walker stood there grinning foolishly until the grave-faced Thomas appeared from the kitchen with dustpan and broom to sweep up the broken glass.
Walker looked up and saw Robinson in the doorway and darted over to seize him by the arm. With an accomplished bellow that finally brought quiet to the room he introduced Robinson all around. Walker was enjoying the stir created by Robinson’s arrival. He stood there holding the big man’s arm as proudly as though Robinson were some world’s record fish landed on light tackle. Robinson felt increasingly foolish and was relieved to see that their interest was short-lived. He would not even be a nine-day wonder. Nine minutes was more like it. After a few polite questions they drifted away. He had never known how to handle drunks anyway.
A slender, dark-haired girl with a smoothly tanned oval face and wearing a lime-colored linen dress came up to him and said, “You look as though you could do with a drink, Mr. Robinson.”
“I guess I could.”
“Let me get it for you.”
“I’ll go with you,” he said, glad of the chance to escape the crush.
When they had their glasses she took him by the arm and led him to a wicker couch at the side of the room. “My name is Gwen Leacock,” she said.
“You’re a right purty gal,” Robinson said.
“Thank you, sir.”
“But you seem out of place here.”
“In what way?”
“You’re just not the type for this sort of shindig.”
“What type do you have to be?”
“A little harder around the jaw, with maybe a few divorces, a couple of crackups and perhaps a short tour of duty in an expensive laughing academy.”
When she threw back her head to laugh the lovely clear line of her young throat was exposed. She said, “It sounds like fun. I might try it. But I’m afraid that in those long lonely days at sea you’ve been letting your imagination run away with you. There are some reasonably normal people here, you know. Why I…”
She was interrupted by the arrival of a tall young man who bent down and kissed her hand and said in a voice much like that of a certain well-known Italian movie actor, “I’ve missed you, darling. You really shouldn’t go off and leave me like that.”
The girl smiled and looked up at the tall young man with soft eyes and said, “Hello, Dino. Have you met Mr. Robinson?”
“Ah, the famous castaway. How do you do, Mr. Robinson.”
His slimness was deceptive. There was plenty of strength in that hard broad fist.
“This is Dino di Buonaventura,” the girl said. Her tone indicated that Robinson ought to know the name.
Dino sat down on the arm of the couch beside the girl and crossed one elegant yellow trouser leg over the other. He had a small aristocratic head, something like a greyhound’s, and yellow hair and dark blue eyes. The combination of colors went superbly with his tanned skin and brilliantly white teeth. His teeth showed beautifully when he smiled. And he smiled, Robinson thought, just a bit too much. Making a quick judgment, he decided that Dino was not especially his cup of tea.
But certainly he and the girl made a pretty picture together. By contrast to their elegance Robinson felt oversized, outlandish. Preoccupied with his thoughts he had lost track of the conversation and he brought himself back to reality now when he heard the girl say, “… it seems as though I ought to be able to get her closer to the wind. But every time I try it that darned jib begins to rattle and shake. Obviously I’m doing something wrong but I don’t know just what it is.”
“I’m sorry,” Robinson said. “What kind of a boat did you say it was?”
“A Lightning.”
“I don’t know much about day-sailers;
I’ve always been more interested in cruising than racing but I’ll take a look at her sometime if you like.” To annoy the young man hovering over her so jealously he added, “Perhaps the best thing would be if we went out for a sail together.”
The girl’s eyes lit up. She said, “That would be wonderful.”
Dino rose smoothly to his feet and took the girl’s two hands in his and said, “Have you forgotten that we have a date to meet Chuck and Lila for dinner? I think we had better go now.”
“All right, but I’m going to hold you to your promise, Mr. Robinson.”
“I suppose Stanley knows where to reach you.”
“Yes, of course.”
“Then I’ll be in touch,” Robinson said.
He watched them going off together, lime-green dress and yellow slacks. He had seen them before, or others very much like them, in all the best watering places. Montego Bay and Palm Beach and Portofino and Monte Carlo. The golden people spending their inheritance of money and charm and health and vast good looks. He had mingled with them briefly and as a rule they had been kind enough, but he had never really belonged. Hardly anyone did. You had to be born to it.
The party was slowly breaking up. Walker had managed to torpedo himself with a final double Scotch and had been dragged off to bed. Jocko Lacey—a large, foolish man with a face somewhat like General de Gaulle’s—had arrived dragging a small foul-smelling goat on a leash. The goat made a mess on the rug and they all stood around watching while Thomas attacked the spot with soap and water. Two couples were necking furiously in the garden. They were married, but not to each other.
This confused, half-witted, forced gaiety always made Robinson uneasy. It was the sort of thing he went to sea to get away from. Lacking a ship there was still the beach. He strolled down across the sand to the old wreck. She had once been a fine big-breasted schooner, and although the hull was still reasonably intact, she had been gutted from the inside. How she must have looked spanking along on a broad reach, brightwork and white topsides gleaming.
Virgin Cay Page 2