Built for Trouble

by Al Fray

  I thought hard about those fumes. They’re heavy and they stay low in the boat, and if I could even detect them this high up with the wind blowing, this scow was just one hell of a big explosion waiting for an excuse to blow. I swallowed and looked toward the shore. We were farther out now, four miles maybe, and there was never going to be a better time for a swim. I shifted over to starboard.

  “Eddie! There’s gasoline, Eddie!” Nola’s voice was high and tight again, but I didn’t answer. She called again, this time with something about working together and how she needed me and what should she do.

  “This,” I shouted, and dived into the water. I planed shallow and away to miss propeller suction and went as far as I could before coming up. When I broke the surface, the Sirocco was moving slowly away, Nola framed in the bright rectangle of the companionway. She turned and disappeared, and then the motors roared, the bow raised, and the boat surged ahead.

  “You fool,” I gasped. “Cut those engines. Get out of there!” But my voice was lost in the wind, and the Sirocco began to come about. She was moving right along now, a white bone in her teeth as she spread the sea in a great V of water at the bow.

  “Get out,” I called again, knowing that it was useless to yell. She could never have heard above the roar of the engines. A crest lifted me high, and I tried to wave as the boat—now a good hundred yards away—turned directly toward me and began to close the distance.

  She was in big trouble. Idling, the twin motors would hardly have developed enough heat to ignite the gasoline vapor filling the Sirocco’s bilge, but at full speed her exhaust manifolds were sure to heat up. Any second now could be her last. I rose with the next swell, saw her bearing down on me, and filled my lungs for a dive to get out of the way.

  Then she blew.

  A sheet of flame shot up and astern, the noise more a heavy whoosh than a sharp explosion. A gaping, flaming hole opened almost amidships. The white V of water at her bow faded, the stern dipped under.

  I swam toward the Sirocco and the wreckage drifted down on me, a glowing mass of fire on the water’s surface. I began to tread water as I watched her flaming bow point upward. In the bright light I could see the dinghy farther back, but I didn’t swim toward it. Let it drift; I had no use for the thing. Someone would find it later. The fire was sure to be seen from the shore. Some of the fishermen on the Ballona Creek Jetties stay with it all night; a flaming mass like this couldn’t have gone unnoticed. Before long the Coast Guard boats would be sweeping up from the south. They would probably find some of the wreckage; they’d put part of the picture together.

  I thought about Nola Norton and how she’d loved publicity. She was going out in a blaze of it—mystery death at sea on the eve of shooting her first big picture. Well, some other lucky girl would have to make Island Love, and in a month or two Nola would be forgotten.

  And what about Eddie Baker?

  Watching the Sirocco burn, I began to rationalize a little. Conrad was dead but he’d attacked me with a knife. My leg was tied. He’d had all the best of it and I couldn’t feel much like a killer on his account. Sure I’d gone in for a shakedown. Way in. I’d let them crack me and when it happened I played as rough as they did, but I didn’t rate a murder rap. I hadn’t started this little snowball.

  Yet if I opened my mouth at all I’d have to face a trial for murder in the first degree. I couldn’t explain it all away in court—Joe Lamb and that long ride with him in the back of his Plymouth—it just wouldn’t go down. Carol would be on the hook too, and we’d be damn lucky to get off with life.

  Carol! I had to get ashore; I had to phone her right away or she might talk, might try to explain—

  I turned and began to swim toward the distant lights marking Venice, and Los Angeles beyond. I had to put some distance between me and the wreckage of the Sirocco, had to make sure I avoided the search the Coast Guard would be making soon. That was point one. I’d be hitting the beach at Venice just before dawn; I didn’t want to run into any all-night surf fishermen. Just one of many risks.

  And there were others to worry about. If something of mine was left on the Sirocco, if they brought it up and found—but there was no point in borrowing trouble; it was a gamble, like everything else. I’d simply have to lie low for a few days, get out of the city and keep track of the newspapers, and…

  Four miles. A little over two hours. That should be no great problem. I turned for a moment to watch the burning boat once more. She was lower now. As I watched, the flames burned through, releasing pent up gas vapors and air trapped in the bow. A thin flash of fire stabbed twenty feet into the air. Then the prow slipped down into the water, and the sea was dark and empty.

  I turned and began to stroke toward the lights winking in the distance. The water was cool but not cold. It was just the way I like it.