77 Sunset Strip

by Roy Huggins

  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 of 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, pot-walloper, 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, “Well, bon voyage, everyone,” chuckled happily, and drank. Everybody joined him heartily, including Stuart Bailey, who didn’t think for a minute he could keep the old boy from being given the deep six if anyone in this happy party had a mind to try it.

  FOUR

  I was leaning back in the cockpit 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 onto 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 largess. 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 you 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 by 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 onto 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 gray 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 Eilen
e 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 a 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 face 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.”

  “I was?”

  “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.”

  “I gave you’an answer and you don’t like it. You’ll have to ask him if you’re looking for another one.”

  “I can’t. He never talks to me. To Dad I’m still five years old. He treated Mother the same way.”

  “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. And— thanks for being honest with me, at last.”

  I looked at heft 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.

  FIVE

  With the exception of a brief but violent squall on about the eleventh day, life aboard the Skylark settled down and became singularly uneventful and uneasily pleasant. Eilene and her friend Owen behaved as if the little episode in the lounge had never happened. Generally we sat around on deck or in the lounge and talked at great length about everything but politics, religion, and ourselves. Now and then Betty would play the piano or Owen would pick up his guitar and sing sea chanteys in an off-key baritone. And there was nearly always fresh fish from Callister’s morning vigil in the fishing seat.

  The squall came up while I was on watch, appearing suddenly off to the southeast—a great swirling bank of black cloud filling the horizon, picking up giant waves and dropping rain as it roared down on us.

  I shouted for help and hoped I was doing the right thing when I turned the ship into the wind and lashed the wheel. Betty was on deck first, pulling me with her toward the bow, and shouting something about jibs that I either didn’t hear or couldn’t understand. By the time Callister and Owen appeared the squall was on top of us, and Betty, bawling orders at me, had my full attention. We clawed and pulled at the crazed sails and finally, bruised and soaked to the skin, got them lashed tight with gaskets.

  I couldn’t see what was going on in the stern and started back there when Betty shouted, “No! Down this way!”

  “Gotta give ’em a hand!”

  “You’ll be in the way! It’s a . . .” The ship lurched sickeningly, and Betty went down on the bucking, rain-washed deck. I stopped arguing and helped her down the forward hatch.

  Eilene was sitting in the lounge, clutching the couch with knotted hands, her eyes sick with fear. Betty had stopped off at her cabin to change, and I went on through without a word and started up the companionway. I stopped because Owen came stumbling down, clutching his left arm. He careened against the door, of the head, opened it, pulled out a towel, wrapped the towel around his arm, and made his way into the lounge.

  I followed him in and asked, “Where’s Callister?” putting more sharpness into it than I had intended.

  He was standing there holding the reddening towel. He looked at me, surprised, and said, “Reefing the jib. Why?” He sat down under a light.

  I turned without saying anything and started out, but the door jarred open and Callister charged in, carrying a first-aid kit. He dropped his slicker on the rug and stepped over beside Owen.

  I stood there looking at him with infinite relief, realizing for the first time that I had become fond of the little man with the big laugh. I had expected never to see him again, not in this world anyway, and I had to get used to the idea that he was still alive and that Madden had skipped a fine opportunity to kill him. But then again, maybe Owen hadn’t had the opportunity. Squalls have a way of keeping you wrapped up in the business at hand.

  Callister had attended to Owen’s arm and was putting a bandage neatly around it. He said, “Maybe this’ll teach you to secure those stays a little better, especially the ones with blocks on ’em.”

  “Yeah,” Owen said, and glowered at Betty as she stepped into the room.

  Callister grinned, gave the arm a final pat, and said, “Relax. That’ll be healed by tomorrow.”

  “You’re sure of that, huh?” Owen said skeptically. “Yep. It’s because you’re young. But don’t think me envious, Owen. Being old has its compensations.” Owen stood up and asked unpleasantly, “Yeah? W
hat are they?”

  Callister chuckled and said, “Well, for one thing, you don’t have so long to live.”

  The remark was greeted by a dead silence, and Eilene broke into it almost harshly with, “Well! Let’s get this party on its feet! I’ll mix ’em myself!”

  Half an hour later the squall had blown itself out and the party was on its feet. Betty was at the piano, Owen was strumming along with her on the guitar, and Callister was on the couch with Eilene beside him holding one of his broad hands in both of hers. I was leaning against the bulkhead next to the piano, looking at all this and wondering what I was doing there.

  And the next morning Glen Callister was shot through the back of the head.

  SIX

  My alarm was set for seven-thirty that morning because I was taking the eight o’clock watch, but something woke me about seven o’clock and I looked up, expecting to see Owen up there in his sprawled sleep. His bed was empty.

  I threw off the covers, pulled on my denims and shirt, shoved my feet into my tennis shoes, and stepped out into the passage. The lounge doors were both open and I could see Madden down in the galley adjusting the oil valve on the stove.

  I walked in, and he glanced up, scowled at me, and offered the usual greeting in a tone that made it sound like, “Drop dead.”

  “What are you doing up at this hour?” I said.

  He held a finger to his lips and gestured at Betty’s door directly behind him. “It’s this damned arm,” he whispered. “Want some coffee?”

  “The old man up on deck?”

  “It’s his watch.”

  “Pour two. I’ll take him up some.”

  “Okay. Won’t be ready for a while.”

  I walked back to the head, undressed, showered, dressed again, and came out to find that the coffee still wasn’t ready, so I went back down to the companionway and up onto the deck.

  Callister was sitting there, strapped in the fishing seat, as usual, the pole in its socket, the line stretched out in the Skylark’s wake. But this time he didn’t throw me his usual derisive, “Good afternoon!” He didn’t do anything at all, because he was dead.