Gulf coast girl: original title, Scorpion reef

by Charles Williams

  It was stifling in the booth, even with the little fan whirring. I looked out the glass part of the doors and could see them scraping away at the Ballerina.

  I went on, talking fast. “But Macaulay first. You can help me a little. I think they’re covering you from both ends of that alley in back of your house, as well as from Barclay’s place in front of it, so we can’t just sneak him out the back way. Now your house, as I recall, is the second one from the corner, so Barclay’s, right across the street, must be also, isn’t it?”

  “Yes,” she said.

  “What’s the name of that intersecting street?”

  “Brandon Way.”

  “All right. Now from Barclay’s house they shouldn’t be able to see down Brandon Way very far, should they? I mean, the angle would be too flat to see much more than the corner itself, and the place where your alley comes out into Brandon would be hidden behind the house next to you. That right?”

  “Let me see,” she said. She thought for a moment. “Yes, I’m sure it would.”

  “Good. And there are lights only at the intersections of the streets themselves? None around the alley?”

  “That’s right.”

  “All right. That’s about all I needed to know. I think we can pull it off, but I want to work on it a little more. And I’ve still got to figure out a way to get you.”

  “And your diving equipment,” she said. “It’s still in the back of the car.”

  “I know,” I said. “I was just coming to that. There won’t be time to fool with it, either, when I come to get you, no matter what kind of plan we work out. So we’ll have to get it aboard first. You’ll also want to bring a few clothes with you. So here’s the way you work it. Put that aqualung in a cardboard carton and tie it. Pack what clothes and toilet articles you can get into another carton, and put both of them in the trunk of your car. Around noon tomorrow call Broussard & Sons, the ship chandlers, and ask if they’ll deliver a couple of packages to the Ballerina, along with the stores. They will, of course. But don’t take them to Broussard’s yourself.

  “Take the car to the Cadillac agency. It’s got a squeak in it, or the motor goes purtle-purtle when it should go whirtle-whirtle, or something. As soon as you get inside on the service floor and they’re trying to find what’s wrong with it, you remember those packages you were supposed to deliver. Call a parcel delivery service to come after them. The point of all this hocus-pocus is that whoever’s following you will be outside and won’t see the things come out of your car. If he did they’d be hot on the trail in nothing flat to see where they went. All straight?”

  “Yes. Now, when do I call you again?”

  “Saturday afternoon about five, unless something happens and you have to get in touch with me sooner.”

  It took the rest of the morning to check the gear on the sloop and make out a stores list. Broussard’s runner came down in the afternoon and picked it up. The yard closed at five. I drove the truck inside and parked it. The night watchman was a friendly, talkative old man who reminded me a little of Christiansen. He wanted to know if I was going to sail that boat clear up to Boston all by myself. What happened when I had to go to sleep? The whole thing fascinated him. Here was another problem; as fast as I solved one I had two more to take its place. I had to get them aboard without his seeing them.

  I studied the layout of the yard. The driveway came in through the gate where the office and the shops were located, and went straight back to the pier running out at the end of the spit. There were some ways on the right, where they were building a couple of shrimp boats, and on the left was the marine railway itself. The Ballerina, of course, would be out on the pier after I brought her back in from the shakedown. It could be done, I thought; if I backed the truck up to the pier and left the lights on he wouldn’t be able to see them come out the rear doors.

  The foreman had given me an extension light and some cleaning gear. By midnight I had the cabin immaculately clean. I switched off the light and lay down on one of the settees.

  We put her back in the water a little after one the next afternoon. I kept watch on the bilges for about an hour, and she was all right. With one of the yardmen aboard to give me a hand I took her down the channel against the tide with the engine, after the dock trial, hoisted sail, and went on out. There was a good breeze blowing, kicking up a moderate chop on the bar. I took her back and forth across it and let her pitch to see if she opened up anywhere. When we came back and tied up I pumped the bilges again. In a few minutes she was dry. Baby, I thought, standing on the pier looking at her.

  There was still nothing in the morning or afternoon papers about his body being found. When the yard closed I backed the truck down to the pier and stowed all the gear aboard the sloop. The yard work was completed now, and I’d asked them to have the bill ready for me in the morning.

  I worked on the charts for a while, stowing away the ones we wouldn’t need in the Gulf. Turning on the radio, I picked up a time tick from WWV and started a rate book on the chronometer. After a while I heard a weather report for the West Gulf: moderate east and northeast winds.

  I switched off the light and lay down. It was hot in the cabin. I could hear water lapping against the hull. It was a lovely sound until I started thinking of his body down there somewhere. How much longer did we have? I got off him at last, and tried again to see Macaulay, running into the same old blank wall. He didn’t even exist. Then I was thinking of her again.

  I sat up and savagely lit a cigarette. I was being paid, I reminded myself, to get Macaulay out of that house alive, and not to lie there thinking about his wife.

  All right. So I’d get him out. I had an idea for it, and it might work, too, if I didn’t get myself killed doing it. But what about her? I still hadn’t solved that.

  Suppose I arranged a rendezvous out there on the beach and transferred her to the truck? That was all right, provided she could get far enough ahead of them so I could get her aboard without their seeing it. But if they did see it, we didn’t have a chance. That truck was too slow. And I was pretty sure by now they were trailing her with two cars. They’d murder us.

  They were pros; we were amateurs. It was going to have to be good. I dug up and discarded plan after plan, but after a long time I began to see a way I could do it. When I had it all straight in my mind, I looked at the watch. It was a little after four. Sleep was impossible now, so I got up and walked out on the end of the pier. Taking off the watch and the shorts, I dived in and went for a long swim out toward the channel. When I came back I sat naked in the Ballerina’s cockpit, smoking and watching the sky redden in the east. This was the last day. If everything went right, this time tomorrow we’d be at sea.

  Eight

  The stores came down in a truck at a little after nine. I looked quickly for the two cartons. They were there. I took them aboard and started checking stores with the driver. When he had it all on the end of the pier I wrote out a check and started carrying it aboard.

  I was still at it at eleven o’clock when I looked up and saw the two strange men come into the yard. They were dressed in seersucker suits and Panama hats, and were smoking cigars. I saw the foreman go over, as if asking what they wanted. They started around the yard, talking to each of the workmen for a minute or two.

  Then they were coming toward me. I was just picking up a coil of line; I straightened, watching them. I’d never seen them before as far as I could tell.

  “Mr. Burton here’s from out of town,” the foreman was saying. “I doubt if he’d know him.”

  “What is it?” I asked, trying to keep my face blank. I was beginning to be afraid. The larger one, the blond, was carrying something in his hand. It was a photograph.

  He held it out. “Ever see this man, that you know of?” he asked. He didn’t glance toward my hand as I took it; he watched my face. They both did. They didn’t have an expression between them.

  I held it up to take a good look. Then I handed it back. “I do
n’t think so,” I said. “What did he do?”

  “Just a routine police matter,” he said. “We’re trying to find somebody that might know him.”

  I shook my head. “Sorry. He’s a new one on me.”

  “Thanks anyway,” he said.

  They left.

  I went on aboard the boat with the coil of line under my arm, but instead of stowing it away I walked down into the cabin and dropped, weak-kneed, onto the settee. I wiped the sweat from my face. The way they worked was frightening; it couldn’t possibly have been more than a few hours since they’d found him, and already they had a picture. Not a picture, I thought. Probably dozens of them, being carried all over the water-front. And it was a photograph of him as he was alive, not swollen and unrecognizable in death.

  Anybody but a fool would have known it, I thought. The pug would have a criminal record, and when they have records they have pictures. Maybe they had identified him from his fingerprints. But that made no difference now. The thing was that Christiansen would recognize him instantly.

  I shook it off. They’d still be looking for Manning, who had gone to New York. And we’d be gone from here in another twelve hours. I was still tense and uneasy, though, as I finished loading stores and went up to the office to write a check for the yard bill. I topped off the boat’s fuel tank and fresh water tank. The ringing clatter of the calking hammers died away at twelve as the men knocked off and went home. It was Saturday afternoon.

  I filled the running lights, and drove the truck out and bought some ice. She was ready for sea. There was nothing to do now but wait.

  It was bad. And it grew worse.

  It was exactly five o’clock when the telephone rang inside the booth at the gate. I went in and closed the door.

  “Bill,” she said softly, “I’m getting really scared now. Are we all ready?”

  “We’re all ready,” I said. “Listen—I’ve got to get Macaulay first. They’re not sure where he is, and if it works right they won’t even know he’s gone. They won’t suspect anything’s happening. But when you disappear, everything’s going to hit the fan.”

  “I understand,” she said.

  I went on, sweating inside the booth. I could see the watchman down in the other end of the yard. “Tell him to dress in dark clothes and wear soft-soled shoes. He’s to come out the back door at around nine-ten. That’ll give him plenty of time to get his eyes accustomed to the darkness and make sure there’s nobody in the alley itself. I don’t think there will be, because they’re too smart to be loitering where somebody might see them and call the police. They’re watching the ends of it, sitting in cars. I’ll come down Brandon Way and stop at the mouth of the alley at exactly nine-twenty—”

  “But, Bill—You can’t stop there. He’ll know what you’re doing. He’ll kill you.”

  “He’ll be busy,” I said. “I’ve got a diversion for him, and I think it’ll work. Now the truck will be between him and the mouth of the alley. Tell Macaulay to come fast the minute the truck stops. And if anything goes wrong he’s to keep coming toward the truck. If he breaks and goes back he hasn’t got a chance. But I don’t think there’ll be a hitch. Tell him when he reaches it to stand a little behind the door and just put his hand up on the frame of the window, near the corner. And he’s not to try to get in, or even open the door, until the truck starts moving. If he even puts his weight on the running board while it’s stopped, that guy may hear it. Got all that?”

  “Yes,” she said. “Then what?”

  “You’re next. Have you ever been to a drive-in movie?”

  “Yes. Several times.”

  “All right. As soon as he leaves the house at nine-ten you lock all the doors. Be standing right by the phone at nine-twenty. If you hear any commotion or gunshots, call the cops and hide, fast. A prowl car will get there before they can get in and clobber you for having him hidden in the house. But if you don’t hear anything, you’ll know he got away. So leave the house at nine-thirty. Just go out front to your car and drive off. Some of them will follow you, of course. Go to the Starlite drive-in, out near the beach on Centennial Avenue. Centennial runs north and south. Approach from the north, and try to time it so you get there at ten minutes before ten. If you look you’ll see a black panel truck parked somewhere in the last block before you get to the entrance. That’ll be me. Drive on in.

  “Now, all this is important. Be sure you get it right. This is Saturday night, so it’ll be pretty full. But you know how they’re laid out, fan-wise, spreading out from the screen, and there are always a few parking places along the edge because the angle’s poor out there. Enter one of the rows and drive across to the exit, slowly, looking for a good spot. But there aren’t any. So you wind up clear over at the end. Sit there twenty minutes, and then back out. You’ve decided you don’t like that, and there must be something better farther back. So drop back a row and go back to the entrance side again. Park there for five or ten minutes, and then get out and walk down to the ladies room in the building where the projector is. Kill about five minutes and then come back to the car. The minute you get in, back out and drive toward the exit. Before you get to it, pull into one of the parking places along the edge, and step out, on the right hand side. Don’t scream when a hand grabs your arm. It’ll be mine.”

  “Won’t they still be following me?”

  “Not any more,” I said. “By the time you come back from the ladies’ room I’ll know who he is.”

  “You think he’ll get out of his car, too?”

  “Yes. It’s like this. There’ll probably be two cars tailing you. When they see you go into a drive-in theater one man will follow you in to be sure it’s not a dodge for you to transfer to some other car. And the other bunch will stay outside near the exit to pick you up coming out, because there’s a hellish jam of cars fighting for the exit when the movie breaks up and they could lose you if they both went inside. There’s just one thing more. If an intermission comes along, sit tight where you are. You’ve got to make those two moves and that trip to the powder room while the picture’s running and not many people are wandering around. It’s darker then, too; nobody has his lights on.”

  “Yes, but how are you going to stop him from following me the second time? Bill, they’re dangerous. They use guns.”

  “It’s all right,” I said. “He won’t even see me. When he gets out to follow you on foot I’ll just get in his car and pull all the ignition wires loose from the switch, under the dash. By the time he tumbles to the fact his car’s not going to start, you’ll already be down at the other end of the row and in my truck. When the picture’s over, we just drive out, along with everybody else.”

  “All right. But you’ll be careful, won’t you?”

  “Yes, if you say so.”

  “I do say so,” she said softly.

  “Why?” I asked. I couldn’t help it.

  “Couldn’t we put it this way—if anything happens to you we wouldn’t get away.”

  “We’ll call it that.”

  “Yes,” she said. Then she added, “That, at the very least.”

  She hung up.

  * * *

  I sweated it out. Somehow, after a long time, it was dark. I was growing increasingly nervous after eight o’clock and kept looking at my watch every few minutes. At eight-fifty I picked up the big flashlight I’d bought with the stores, and got in the truck. The watchman let me out the gate.

  I skirted the edge of the downtown area and went on west. Crossing Brandon Way, I looked at the numbers and saw I was about ten blocks north of Fontaine Drive. I turned left at the next corner, went nine blocks, and turned left again. Just short of the corner I pulled to the curb under some big trees and stopped. This was a block and a half above him. I flipped the lighter and looked at my watch. It was 9:10. I waited, feeling dry in the mouth. A lot depended on just a flashlight and a panel truck.

  The thing was to give him just a little time to look it over, so I wouldn’t spring it
on him too suddenly, on the same principle that you never surprise a snake if you can help it. He’d be able to see what I was doing, and as I passed under the street light at the intersection of Fontaine Drive he’d see the black sides of the truck. My headlights would cover the Louisiana license plate. I took another look at the watch. It was 9:18. I stepped on the starter and eased away from the curb.

  Switching on the flashlight, I held it in my left hand and shot the beam into dark places under the trees and back among the hedges as I came slowly down the street. After crossing Fontaine I could see him. He was in the same place, facing this way. I flashed the light into another hedge.

  I had to calculate the angles fast now. I was well out in the center of the street, watching the mouth of the alley on his side. He was parked just beyond it. I stopped with my window opposite his, and at the same time I threw the light against the side of his car but not quite in his face.

  “You seen anything of a stray kid?” I asked, as casually as I could with that dryness in my mouth. “Boy, about four, supposed to have a dog with him—”

  It worked.

  I could feel the breath ooze out of me as a tough voice growled from just above the light. “Nah. I haven’t seen any kid.”

  “Okay. Thanks,” I said. I felt along the edge of the window frame in the opposite door. Hurry. For the love of Christ, hurry.

  My finger tips brushed across a hand. I inhaled again.

  I let the truck roll slowly ahead three or four feet, and said, “If you see a kid like that, call the station, will you? We’d appreciate it.”

  I moved the light away from him. He wouldn’t be able to see anything for twenty or thirty seconds, and Macaulay was on the far side of the truck, walking along with me. But he had to be in before we hit the street below Fontaine, under the light. I slipped the clutch and hit the accelerator a couple of times, shooting the flashlight beam along the sidewalk. The door opened soundlessly, and he was sitting beside me. He closed it gently.