Harry & the Bikini Bandits

by Basil Heatter

  And everything was a mess. That’s another thing about a boat; in ten minutes it can be turned from a cozy little home to a shambles. Whatever wasn’t nailed down had come adrift. Pepper, salt, bacon, frying pans, flour, dishes, eggs, and a couple of broken bottles of rum had manicured the sides of the cabin and then combined together on the floor.

  I made my way through the mess and then crawled back aft to what Harry had called the Black Hole. My mattress was still there, although being lapped now by several inches of water. I reached under the mattress and found my wallet. My thirty dollars was wet but otherwise intact. Why was I worried about thirty dollars when I was about to share in more than a hundred and fifty thousand? Because this thirty dollars was mine. I had earned it in the course of a lousy summer working for nickel and dime tips as a bagman in the supermarket. I knew how many hours of hauling and lugging had gone into that thirty bucks. The other? Well, the other was a dream. A bad dream now considering what had happened to poor old Jezebel and to Charity and Grogan.

  All the same if it was still on the boat I meant to find it. So I made a thorough search in all the likeliest places but turned up nothing. Well, I had hardly expected to. He would not have been fool enough to leave it on the boat. Or if he had left it there he would not have let me come out alone looking for it. I gave it up finally and tossed my knapsack up on deck and then dropped over the side to inspect the hull damage.

  Everything below was visible in the clear water. I could see the scars along the bottom left by her keel as she had struck first on the outer reef and then bounced across to become securely wedged on a spiny outcropping. And I could see, too, where one sharp tooth of coral had gone through her planking on the port side amidships. That was what was holding her fast. If that coral could be broken loose she could be gotten off the reef and, if she did not sink first, beached. It would have to be done at dead low water so that the rising tide would float her, and then she would somehow have to be gotten across the swiftly moving current that raced through the channel and on into the lagoon. I remembered the powerful outboard motor I had seen stripped down in the shed. Where there was a motor there ought to be a boat. If I could get the outboard going, and if we timed it right, we could probably pull her off with that. With a little luck the old girl might yet sail again. The thought cheered me up and I went over the side again with a hammer and whacked away a little chunk of the coral just to see how tough the job might be. The coral was iron hard, and I could not seem to get any leverage under water. It would be tougher than I had thought. But it could be done.

  When I surfaced this time Miss Soames was there. She had come out in a skiff powered by a noisy, little, one-cylinder English outboard.

  “How’s it going?” she called out.

  “Okay. I think she can probably be saved. She’s just caught on a spur of the coral.”

  “I’m glad to hear it.”

  “Where’s Harry?” I said, wondering why he had not come with her.

  “Sulking.”

  “Harry?”

  “Mmm.” She had tied up alongside and stepped out onto Jezebel’s canted deck.

  “That doesn’t sound like Harry,” I said, climbing up beside her.

  “Well, he is. Achilles in his tent.”

  I tried to think of a reason for his behavior and the only answer I could come up with was that he had made a pass at her and she had rejected him. It seemed to fit in with his need to get me off the island and out to the boat.

  I was gasping for breath after being under water so long and fighting the tide. I stretched out on my back on the deck and sucked in air. The sun was warm on my face. What had really happened between them? When I had first landed on the island they had seemed very friendly. I’d had the feeling then that Harry was in control of the situation. Also, perhaps because of something Albury had said, I had thought of her as much older. A New England spinster lady living alone on this isolated cay. But I could see now she wasn’t old. In her late twenties maybe. And very good-looking in her clean, bronzed, outdoor way. She had a beautiful figure—neat, compact, sturdy. But she didn’t hit you in the face with it. I mean not the way Miss McGee did or Miss Wong or Mrs. Burger. There was nothing flirtatious about her. Yet behind those cool gray eyes there was a spark of something…

  I had never met anybody quite like her. I mean I could not pin her down or classify her. In a way she was like the sea, always changing. Sometimes bright and sunny and other times cool and gray. And I had the feeling even then that no one would ever really get inside her. She made it clear from the start that the inner core of Hester Soames was her business and no one’s else. I think that was what got Harry more than anything else. I don’t suppose he had ever before met a woman he could not crack in one way or another. I don’t mean just going to bed, although there was that too. What I am trying to say is he could not sort of compartmentalize her. She changed too fast for that. Even her appearance kept changing. There were times when she was kind of hunched in upon herself with tired eyes and looking like nothing so much as a little old man. Other times when she was erect and straight with smooth skin and flashing eyes and breasts thrust out like a sixteen-year-old girl.

  While we lay there on deck in the sun she asked me about myself and I told her the whole story. That is up to the part about the casino. And of course I left out Charity and Grogan. But there was a big hole in the story when I came to that part and I had the uneasy feeling that I wasn’t really fooling her. I don’t mean that she knew the whole truth but just that I was leaving something out. I used to think I was a pretty good liar until I tried it out on Hester Soames. Right off she made me feel like I had been into the cookie jar. The way she put it to me later on, when we knew each other much better, was, “You sometimes have a little trouble with the truth, Clayton.” She was right. No matter how I tried I couldn’t fool those cool gray eyes.

  CHAPTER 27

  AND NO MORE COULD HARRY. EACH DAY I SAW him getting a little more uptight. When he was with me working on the boat, he snarled like a bear and made it pretty clear that he could hardly wait to get ashore. And when he was ashore it was worse. Miss Soames had made it plain from the start that the hospitality extended to shipwrecked sailors had very definite bounds. She provided us with the shed to sleep in, and she said we were free to take what we wanted in the way of food, but we were not to enter the house itself except by invitation. A few times she ate with us, but right after the meal she would disappear into the house or for a solitary walk along the beach. Harry asked three or four times if she wouldn’t like company on her walk but she only gave him that cool smile and a shake of the head.

  What I couldn’t understand was that she seemed to prefer my company to Harry’s. I noticed after a while that the only time she came out to the boat was when I was working there alone. When Harry was with me she stayed ashore.

  I talked to her a lot about Harry. She sensed that something had happened between us, but of course she didn’t know what.

  She said, “You’re very impressed by your uncle, aren’t you, Clay?”

  “How do you mean?”

  “Somehow you always bring the conversation around to him.”

  “I wasn’t aware of it.”

  “But it’s true.”

  “I guess it is.”

  “He’s a very unusual man. I can understand it.”

  “Do you like him?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  “He’s weak and he’s full of the arrogance that comes from weakness.”

  “Harry weak?” What a nutty idea.

  “Weak and insecure and unpredictable. I know he likes to think of himself as a free spirit and perhaps you like to think of him that way too, but I can assure you he’s not. He’s bound within the confines of his revolution. And the real trouble is he’s a revolutionary without a revolution to go to. Basically he’s a coward.”

  I shook my head. “Uhuh. You’re wrong about that. He was a big war hero.” />
  “I would suppose that plenty of cowards become war heroes. I don’t mean a physical coward. I mean a moral coward. He’s afraid to commit himself emotionally to a cause or to people. What he is really is an aging hippie. A lost soul. That sort of thing can be amusing and sometimes even attractive in the young, but not when its practised by a man of Harry’s age. In addition to everything else, he could do with a bath and a haircut.”

  “You seem to have learned an awful lot about him in a few days.”

  “Yes,” she said. “I have. And I’ve learned a lot about you too.”

  “What?”

  “Why for one thing you’re quite beautiful.”

  “Me?”

  “Absolutely. A most elegant young man. Tall and clean and young and beautiful and kind. Given half a chance I think I could fall in love with you.”

  I was speechless. What a thing to say. Was she putting me on? But if there was any hint of laughter in those cool gray eyes, I could not see it. I could not make her out. Everything about her kept changing before my eyes. Now she looked about eighteen, her skin golden and her hair shining in the sun. And what she had said about falling in love with me was crazy but kind of exciting too. I looked at the shape of her breasts under the blue denim shirt and suddenly felt weak in the knees.

  “Come on!” she said. “Let’s go for a swim.” She yanked me up and pulled me down across the sand toward the water. She let go of my hand and made a running dive into the surf. She went under a roller and surfaced with her wet hair gleaming like a seal’s skin. I went after her.

  When I came up she was far ahead. Small and softly rounded and feminine as she was she could swim like an otter. I gave it everything I had and overhauled her in about thirty strokes. She turned to face me, grinning with excitement. I grabbed her around the waist and she put her arms over my shoulders and her mouth to mine. It was a wet salty kiss, but as delicious as a crisp apple.

  We sank down through the clear water pressed together until we touched the sand and then, breathless, bounced up again. I made another grab for her but she darted away.

  That was when I saw Harry. He was a long way off and crouched down behind a little rise, but I could still see the top of his head.

  It made me sad to see him spying on us that way. He must have seen us fooling around together in the water and I felt embarrassed. Not so much for myself or Hester but more for him. I turned my head away so that he wouldn’t see me looking in his direction, and then I swam slowly in toward the beach.

  CHAPTER 28

  HARRY CAUGHT ME BEFORE I WAS HALFWAY back to the shed. He was raging, giving off sparks. He rose up from behind the dune as I came along and stood squarely in front of me with his arms crossed.

  “Just what the bloody hell do you think you’re up to?” he grated.

  My heart jumped a couple of beats. He could still manage to scare me.

  “What do you mean?” I said.

  “Making an ass of yourself with Hester. Imposing on her hospitality. Goddamn horny kid! Do you want to get us kicked off this island? Christ, she could be your mother!”

  He was almost dancing up and down in his fury. But suddenly I felt very cool. My heart steadied and all the anxiety I usually felt with Harry seemed to melt away. If anything I felt a little sorry for him. Our roles seemed to be reversed. Harry was the one who was behaving like a kid, spying on people and having tantrums. There wasn’t anything I wanted to say to him just then except to advise him to cool it, but I thought it would be better not to say anything at all. So I just walked away.

  It was kind of a hairy feeling to turn my back on Harry when he was that sore. I half expected him to climb right up my spine and club me with that Japanese head punch he had used in the casino. Or if not that, a rock or a coconut. But he did nothing. All the same, I could feel his eyes biting into the back of my head.

  He beat me back to the shed. He must have run through the brush and he was covered with sweat. He was standing there waiting for me when I came up the path. This time he didn’t yell at me.

  “Stay away from her, Clay,” he said in a flat voice.

  “You can’t give me orders anymore, Harry. Not after Nassau.”

  “I’m telling you, kid. For your own good.”

  “The same way you told Grogan? Or the way you told me when I was swimming around the harbor that night when you went right by me and waved goodbye?”

  “Now listen. Just calm down.”

  “I’m calm. You’re the one that’s excited.”

  “All right,” he said. “We’ve got a job to do here.”

  “What job?”

  “We’ve got to get Jezebel off the reef.”

  “No we don’t. You’ve got to get her off. You’re the one that put her on.”

  I think that came as a blow to him. He stood very still, but his shoulders seemed to slump a little.

  “You’re quitting?” he said.

  “I didn’t say that.”

  “What did you say then?”

  “Where’s the money, Harry?”

  “So it’s come to that. In the end it always does. What do you want now? Half?”

  I shook my head. “I don’t want anybody else’s money. Just mine. My original share.”

  “You’ll get it.”

  “When?”

  “When we leave.”

  “You mean when you leave, don’t you Harry? When Jezebel is refloated and you take off some dark night. Will you wave goodbye to me again this time?”

  He grinned. It was not much of a grin but at least he made the effort. “Little Clayton Bullmore Third from Peckinpaugh. Doesn’t trust his Uncle Harry.”

  “That’s right.”

  “You want the money now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Right this minute?”

  “Anytime will do. But the sooner I get it, the sooner I’ll go back to work on the boat.”

  “You’ll get it tonight.”

  “What’s the matter? Afraid I’ll follow you to see where you hid it?”

  “Frankly, yes,” he said.

  We left it at that. He went into the shed and I retired to my hammock. In a little while Hester came by.

  “What happened to you?” she said.

  “Nothing.”

  “You disappeared so suddenly.”

  “It was nothing. I just thought I’d head back.”

  She made an inquiring gesture with her head toward the shed as if to ask whether Harry was in there and I nodded. The answer seemed to satisfy her. Either she had seen us together on the beach or had guessed that we’d been through some kind of confrontation. She was very quick that way. She was also quick enough to know that he was probably listening to every word we said.

  “Well, I think it’s siesta time,” she said.

  “Yes.”

  “Happy dreams, Clay. See you later.”

  “Yes.”

  I watched her go, her neat trim little figure, the compact way she held herself when she walked. I settled back in the hammock. I had supposed that with everything that had happened I would be too exited to sleep, but I went right off.

  When I got up I peeked in at Harry. The shed door was closed so I figured he was still asleep. There was no sign of Hester. I took the fins and mask and swam out to Jezebel.

  High tides had come and gone and she had not budged. She would have to be lightened before she could float. It would be an awful job, but there did not seem to be any other way. The first thing to start with would be the inside ballast, about a ton of it. It was in the form of lead pigs weighing about a hundred pounds each. It would have been a lot easier with Harry to give me a hand but the way things were between us I preferred to work alone.

  I pried up the floorboard and felt around under the water for the first of the pigs. The metal was slimy from the bilge water and I could not get a solid grip. I was afraid of smashing my fingers or toes if the thing slipped. I went back to the engine room, got the big old screwdriver, and use
d it to pry up one end of the pig. Then I managed to get a fairly solid grip on it and slid it out of the bilge. In that narrow space and with the boat canted the way it was, it was no cinch to wrestle with a hundred pounds of greasy lead, but I finally got it over to the companionway and out on deck. By the time I did, sweat was pouring down my back. And there were nineteen more of them to go. And if that did not do the trick I would then have to start throwing overboard everything else I could find, including maybe the engine. In any case, I did not want her to come off the reef with water gushing through that hole. She might sink before we could get her over to the beach.

  I dug up the rest of the floorboards and found that I still could not get at the turn of the bilge where the coral had come through the planking. I would have to tear out the forward bunk on the port side. So I started with the screwdriver and hammer and just went ahead, splintering and smashing and throwing bits of wood over the side. Harry would probably not be too happy about it but I could not see any other way to handle it.

  In between hammer blows I heard the sound of the outboard and stuck my head up through the hatch. It was Hester in her old skiff. She went by without a glance and I thought at first she was heading right out to sea, but then as she reached the end of the channel she swung around as if she had suddenly changed her mind and headed back in my direction. When she was alongside she cut the engine, nosed up into the tide, and let the skiff come to rest against Jezebel.

  She smiled up at me and said, “You’re a mess, little friend.”

  “I know. Come aboard.”

  “Am I disturbing you?”

  “Gosh no. I’m glad to see you.” And I was. The prospect of the whole lousy hot dirty job that lay ahead had been getting me down, but Hester seemed to bring with her a kind of cheery vitality that swept it all away. I had the feeling that nothing could intimidate her; that if she had lived in the days when people had been burned alive at the stake, she would spit on the fire and grin while the flames mounted around her.