Hamilton, Donald - Novel 01 (23 page)

     
"Let you!"

     
"You let me think you didn't have any
idea of
.. ."

     
"I should draw a diagram?" he
sneered. "Ask you please, please to stick around. Don't go off with the
nasty man, darling, I'll rescue you. I came, didn't I?"

     
"You let me go," she whispered.
"Last night.
All day.
Because I thought ...
Because you were too proud to tell me..."

     
"Proud, hell," he said.
"Careful. I should tell you and have you
spill
it
to them the first time he touched you?"

     
"That was different! That was
... "

     
"What?"

     
"Louis," she said. "It
sounds dreadful, doesn't it?"

     
"It doesn't sound good," Branch
said. "He's your husband."

     
"And that sounds wonderful, from
you," she said, showing her teeth whitely in a smile. "Anyway, I
don't owe Louis enough to be a martyr for his sake. But ..."

     
Branch laughed. "All right, what
about me? He twisted your arm and you called me. So you don't want to be a
martyr for my sake, either.
For whose sake, then?
Your own?"

     
She was silent, not looking at him. At
last she said softly, "I thought ... if you really loved me, you would
want to know. And if you didn't, you wouldn't come."

     
He felt a vague sense of hurt as he looked
at her and as he looked at her the feeling died away and he was only a little
embarrassed for her. Sitting there in the stained shapeless suit, her hair
wild, her shirt half unbuttoned, and her stockings slovenly, she was talking
about love with complete seriousness, as if it were really important, not realizing
that this conversation was really a game. As long as you were quarreling you
did not have to think. As long as you were considering only how to be nasty you
did not have to remember that you could not talk away the fact that made all
conversation meaningless: that unless something happened you were going to die.

     
"God, you're a mess," he said
slowly. "Why the hell don't you at least get rid of those stockings?
Christ!"

     
She winced as if struck and looked at him.

     
"Did you have a nice time?" he
asked her. "I hope you had a nice time."

     
She licked her lips carefully. "Oh, I
had a wonderful time," she whispered.
"Simply
wonderful, darling.
Like a whore, to keep them from beating me.
..." Her laughter was a little shrill. "Simply wonderful experience,
you know."

     
"Are you planning to set up in
business if you get out of this?"

     
"I should, shouldn't I?" she
murmured.
"With my marvelous experience.
Would
you give me a reference, darling?"

     
"How about doing a little business
with me while we wait?" he teased her viciously. "It may be the last
chance either of us will get."

     
"I'm sorry, darling," she said.
"I'm afraid I would be rather unsatisfactory this evening, rather. A
little tired, you know. Would you care to make an
appointment
..
?" The mechanical brightness vanished from her face as the boat
lurched abruptly, throwing her forward. Branch caught her and together they
slid down against the skin of the boat, lying in the angle between the berth
and the boat's side as, running sharply heeled, she turned to starboard for an
endless time. Then the engine slowed to idling and she came gradually to even
keel again while the rippling sound of water running by beyond the planking
diminished to a slow trickling, like a leaking faucet.

     
"What happened"" Jeannette Duval
panted.

     
"She got away from him." Branch
sat up, helping the girl up. Her eyes watched him for a moment, she knowing
nothing about it and watching his face for a clue as to whether it was good or
bad. Then she tipped her head back sharply.

     
"Oh, damn, it's started again,"
she said, groping for the handkerchief on the floor. Branch put the damp cloth
in her hand. She pressed it to her nose.

     
He said, "If they let me out there
come along with me. Don't stay down here." She shivered a little.
"All right, darling."

     
They were arguing topside. With the engine
idling
you could hear them over the gentle
splashings
outside. The boat rolled jerkily, as if
impatient at the delay. Madame
Faubel's
voice spoke
sharply, with authority, and the cabin door opened.

     
"Come out, Lieutenant," the
woman said, and impatiently. "Come quickly. We are wasting time." She
pushed back the hatch with her left hand, the right holding a gun. "No,
you stay inside, girl."

     
Branch straightened up in the hatchway and
felt the impact of the wind. "Let her come out," he said.

     
The woman backed away before him to the
engine box. "All right," she said. "But sit beside me and keep
shut the big mouth." She stared fiercely at Jeannette Duval, but her face,
in the yellow light from the cabin, looked preoccupied, as if she were thinking
of something different and more important than the girl.

     
"Where do you want me?" Branch
asked. He could not allow himself to feel relief. It was not over yet·.

     
"Sit by Georges." The woman
stepped back, supporting herself with her left hand against the engine box as
Branch and the girl passed in front of her to opposite sides of the boat. Mr.
Hahn had his own pistol in his hand. Branch looked at it, and found
himself
unimpressed, and allowed himself a wisecrack:

     
"Aren't you afraid it'll rust?"

     
"Turn out the lights, Paul,"
Madame
Faubel
said, seating herself beside the girl.
The girl's yellow suit made a clear shape in the darkness as the lights went
out, but the woman's borrowed fur
coat, and her felt hat,
were
almost invisible, so that her face and the gleam of the gun in her
hand were the only distinct points of reference about her. "Now you,
Lieutenant,
tell him what to do," she
said, and added viciously, "It does not seem to be quite as simple as
driving a car, does it, Paul?"

     
The large young man stood motionless
behind the wheel. He had not once looked aside since the cabin doors had been
opened.

     
Branch said, "Wouldn't it be easier
just to let me do it?"

     
He saw the broad shoulders twitch
slightly. No one said anything, and the woman sat unmoving, waiting.

     
"All right," he said. "Put
the gears in. Forward. That's right.... Go
easyl
"
he exclaimed. "You don't want to strip them ..."

     
Paul
Laflin
turned his head.
"Madame!"

     
"Be quiet," the woman snapped.
"Listen to what he tells you, you big-muscled moron. I am not going to
give you another chance to drown us. "

     
"Make him be civil, then. I will not
stand for ..."

     
"You will stand for it," the
woman said. "You will stand for it or be shot.
You and
your women.
You and your talk of killing.
You
and your boat that is just as simple as a car...." She looked across the
boat at Branch. "Go ahead. Tell him what to do."

     
"The throttle," Branch said.
"Feed it to her easily." The boat surged forward in a tight circle and
took spray over the bow.

     
"I said easily," Branch said.
"Come left. You've got her hard over.
Hard left."

     
He heard the wheel squealing softly as the
big man turned. He watched the shoreline cease to pass across the bow, steady,
and begin to move in the opposite direction. Above the fringe of trees at the
top of the bluff the stars were very bright in a dark cloudless sky, and the
wind seemed to come from nowhere.

     
It was a little like a bullfight, he
thought, watching the broad shoulders strain against the wheel.
    
"That's enough," he said.
"Rudder amidships."

     
Far ahead of them the lights of the bridge
out of Queens Harbor made a bright chain across the river.

     
"Meet her," Branch said. The big
man threw a glance over his shoulder, his face visibly puffy and
narroweyed
with anger.

     
"You have to make it simple for
Paul," Mr. Hahn said loudly enough to be heard across the boat.

     
"You want to stop the swing,"
Branch said, ignoring the chinless man. "She's swinging left, meet her
with right rudder. Turn the wheel clockwise.... God, take it
easyl
" he snapped as Paul
Laflin
yanked at the wheel. "Pick a point on the bridge and watch it. You're not
avoiding torpedoes, damn it. Look at that wake.... You're past it," he
said wearily. "Come left, now. Bring her back.... Watch it, for Christ's
sake!"
     
Astern, the wake,
luminous with phosphorescence, formed a sinuous path across the short waves
that followed them. Paul
Laflin
fought angrily to
keep the boat on her course. The boat fought back skillfully, swinging always a
little too far, or not far enough. No one moved in the cockpit except the big
man at the wheel.

     
"Head for the draw," Branch said
patiently, pitching his voice over the sound of the motor. "When it starts
to move, follow it with the wheel.
Left now.
Now right.
You've got to anticipate,
Laflin
. She's stopped,
she's going to go left,
can't
you feel it? Meet
her.... Listen, he said, "all it needs is a couple of spokes at a time,
goddamn it. You don't have to take it clear up to the stops each time. Just
meet her when she starts to ... Right?
he
said,
"right, right, right. Don't look at me, watch the bridge. When it starts
to move ... Left," he said softly. "Oh, for God's sake, bring her
left, will you? What the hell's the matter with you? Wake up. Pick a point on
the bridge ..."

     
Paul
Laflin
made
a sudden bellowing noise; as he turned, the boat shot off to the right,
swinging with increasing momentum and heeling so that Branch, bracing his feet
against the engine box, could look down at the woman, pushing herself up, and
the girl, clinging with both hands to the cockpit
coaming
and watching the rising water boil past below her; the wheel turning slowly of
its own accord on the rear of the cabin house and the engine laboring loudly.

     
"Paul," shouted the woman. "Paul!"

     
The large young man had stopped his
advance and clutched the engine box, kneeling, looking back at the slowly
rotating wheel that he had left. Then the woman pulled hard at the throttle
lever. The sound of the engine died away. As the boat carried its momentum into
the wind a wash of spray rippled along the starboard side and was blown across
the cockpit. Mr. Hahn winced and wiped his cheek with the hat of his hand, his
gun in his lap. Branch felt the water trickle down the side of his neck. He looked
at the gun quite calmly and thought: Don't try it, you don't know a damned
thing about it; leave it alone, you're all right now.

As
THEY CAME UNDER the lights of the bridge the whole cockpit was illuminated
almost without warning, like the interior of a train running out of a dark
tunnel. Then the exhaust chattered back at them from the sides of the draw and
Branch crouched over the wheel and felt Paul
Laflin
,
beyond the cabin door, duck for the sudden darkness, and the beams went by over
their heads. The lights struck at them again and gradually died behind them. To
the right the lights of the town showed up, sparse at this time of night, and
the masts of the anchored oyster boats were silhouetted faintly against a gap
in the skyline. Branch made out the first
channelbuoys
ahead.

     
As he swung her towards the buoys the boat
fought him without malice, as if it were a joke they shared, and he thought,
good girl, nice baby, swing all you want to, papa's got you. He rubbed the palm
of one hand over the frozen knuckles of the other and, at the right time,
pulled hard with both hands to straighten her out. Two medals for sitting
behind a desk, he thought a little grimly, and then, wanting to grin: no more
complicated than driving a car. He glanced at the sullen shape of the man
standing beside him. It was a little too bad the woman had not lost her temper
completely and shot him. On the other hand, a dead man would only complicate
matters. I really ought to take the bunch of them out and drown them, Branch
thought, if a dog gets
hydrophobia,
you shoot him,
don't you? You don't ask what excuse he has for getting it, or who gave it to
him.

     
He did not look at the woman sitting so
close to him that as he swayed with the motion of the boat his coat brushed her
knees. It must seem a little ridiculous to her, he reflected, that two men, one
woman, and two guns, could not be made to equal one man, a boat, and a girl;
the girl almost incapacitated by cold and weariness. It was humiliating. It
would be so difficult to explain to the nebulous committee how she had come to
fail, if she turned back. He carefully avoided looking at her. Turning back was
the sensible thing for her to do, and she was a sensible woman; and here in the
shelter of the river she could still make him do it. It was possible that she
had already made the decision and was only waiting to catch his eye to give the
order. It was not safe to look at her.

     
As they picked up and passed between the
second pair of channel buoys the wind began to change, no longer funneled
rigidly between the river banks. Branch felt the gusts on his cheek and the
boat felt them, rolling with a new motion in the confused short waves thrown up
by the chop of the river running into the deflected seas from the estuary. A
little spray washed up alongside and was dashed by the wind against the cabin
trunk. They cleared the land to the right, and a small point of light winked
out at them and was gone. Branch waited for the next flash, looking past the
dark shape of Paul
Laflin's
head and shoulders. The
light came on again, and he counted ten long seconds, and the light vanished.
The only ten-second light that
 
should be
visible was the lighthouse off Signal Point. He was a little surprised to pick
it up so early, and looked about irritably for the much closer dashing light
that should be just south of Queen's Point, below the town. He did not like
picking up the lights in the wrong order, it seemed a little like a bad omen.

     
I wish to God I could take another look at
that chart, he thought, leaning hard on the wheel as an erratic cross sea
slammed up against the starboard side of the boat. He tasted the
saltness
of the spray and turned up his coat collar and
pulled down his cap, still looking to seaward. Number eight, quick-flashing
white. There was nothing
more lonely
than to bat
around unknown waters in pitch blackness looking for a light that you should be
able to see and could not find.

     
Mr
; Hahn, brushing the water from his coat, made his way uncertainly
around the rear of the engine box to the leeward seat.
Branch glanced at
him and
thought, that
helps, now all we need is for
Baby Face to get over there and we'll really be trimmed right. As if this
bucket wasn't heavy enough on the wheel without a ten-degree list to port.
There was a scratching scramble beside him as Paul
Laflin
was thrown off balance, catching himself by the edge of the cabin. Branch
looked quickly down at the woman, who had stirred, and looked away again.

     
Signal Point Light showed up again, and
abruptly, far to the left of it, a small blinking light appeared almost in the
loom of the
recurving
shoreline that was taking shape
ahead as they ran on across the head of the estuary. Well, that's got to be it,
Branch told himself, it's a hell of a long ways out, but it can't be anything
else. But I wish I could get another look at that bloody chart. When you got
out there things never looked quite as you remembered them from a chart. He let
the swing of the boat take her to the right well past the flashing light before
he checked her. There was plenty of water for a two-foot draft, and they had to
get out before the woman came to a decision. There was no time to waste in
making piloting easy by running the buoys.

     
Spray began to come aboard regularly as
the wind came ahead, dashing across the forward deck and blowing back over the
cabin trunk; and the wind was stronger and colder. The boat had lost her
independent rolling motion, the waves now large enough to impose upon her their
own period. Branch groped for the throttle in the darkness and surreptitiously
eased it up, timing the changes in sound of the engine with the impacts of the
seas. The boat rode more easily as her speed dropped, but Paul
Laflin
could no longer keep his hands in his pockets. The
cabin doors slatted and banged noisily until Branch kicked them shut and pulled
the hatch closed over them.

     
The lights remained unchanged. The small
one blinked steadily off the port bow and the larger one, brought to the same
intensity by its greater distance, flashed periodically away to starboard. The
shoreline did not change, and it seemed as if the wind had fought the throbbing
engine to a standstill and they would hammer at the same seas forever, the
crests glowing phosphorescently as they rolled up against the starboard bow,
the boat rising, shouldering its way through, taking spray aboard, and plunging
down again to meet the next one. Then abruptly the flashing buoy was close
aboard and they could hear the clang of the bell on it and presently see it
pitching and snatching at its cable in its own nervous illumination; then it
was gone, and the sound of the bell was gone, and it was only a flashing light again,
but behind them.

     
Branch let the lurch of a wave point them
up towards Signal Point Light as it came on, thinking, God, we must have been
set down a hell of a ways,
I
thought I had the damned
thing half a mile to port. He glanced astern and steadied the boat along the
course between the buoy and the light ahead. Now, he thought, I want Cherry
Creek abeam to port, quick flashing green, and 36A to starboard. The world was
a wet darkness through which the small blinking lights blazed a trail. It
seemed strange to know the names, Queens Point, Signal Point, Cherry Creek, as
if he had sailed here all his life; and yet to have no notion of what the
places would look like in the daytime. 36A, out in the bay, he rhymed without
amusement. Won't pick it up for half an hour yet, and Cherry Creek is still
behind Signal Point. God, that lighthouse is way to hell out there, isn't it?
Must be two miles off the point.
He looked astern and pulled
at the wheel. They were being blown to the left of the course between the lights.
It was always hard to tell, midway between two lights, when you were on the
line between them. Well, I guess I can give them a dose of it now, he told
himself
grimly,
I think I've got them now.

     
The clattering hammer of the engine had
been almost blown away by the wind, but as he worked the throttle open it came
back into the boat with them. Then steering was no longer a one-hand job and he
watched the crests come at the bow out of the darkness in relentless
procession; and as she came up to speed the boat began to throw spray in sheets
that the wind whipped back across the cabin, and the motion was violently
insane. Branch spread his feet, clung to the wheel, and tried to shield his
glasses with the brim of his uniform cap, but the light, flashing out ahead,
was blurred, multiplied, and magnified by the water on the lenses. He snatched
the glasses off and dropped them into his pocket, and watched the light come on
again, hazy and trembling because of his nearsighted astigmatism. The spray
stung his face like hail where it struck and his hands were wet and freezing.
Well, he thought wryly, I've done worse than this for fun. His shoulders began
to ache from the struggle with the wheel.

     
When he looked around at last, daring to
look at them, the girl's head, wet strands of hair blowing crazily about it in
the darkness, was bent over the side of the boat. Good girl, he thought, that's
right, give them the idea. She straightened up, spitting, and wiped her mouth
on the drenched sleeve of her jacket; then it got her again, and Mr. Hahn
looked away and moved away from her, looking rigidly aft. Come on, boy, Branch
told him silently, come on, don't be a hog; give it up, don't sit there chewing
on it. The chinless man turned abruptly, clutching the cockpit
coaming
. As he bent over, the wind caught the brim of his
hat. The hat sailed off to leeward and was lost in the darkness. The chinless
man, unheeding, clutched the
coaming
and vomited into
the swirling green phosphorescence of the boat's passing.

     
The boat rose steeply and Branch turned
forward again and swung her into it so that the crest passed equally on either
side; but the next one was even larger and she pitched forward into it, driven
hard, and could not make it. The bow knifed into solid water and the sea fell
on the forward deck, smashed against the cabin and sprayed upwards. Spray and
solid water and foam sluiced aft over the cabin trunk and caught the two of
them in the chest as the boat lurched heavily. Paul
Laflin
went down and Branch slipped to one knee, clinging to the wheel, pulled himself
up and straightened her out. He could feel the water run down inside his
clothing. He kicked at Paul
Laflin
as the large young
man rolled against him in an effort to rise.

     
Mr. Hahn staggered to the cabin door, seeking
refuge; then turned and fell to the starboard seat; and the wind blew the stuff
back over him as he retched. He clawed his way back uncaring and dove into the
cabin. Beside the woman, the girl was being sick again. The woman had her gun
in her hand. Branch looked at the gun and grinned. She tried to rise but the
roll of the boat threw her back and she waved the gun and shouted, waving
towards shore. Branch laughed and turned away from her, ignoring the gun. When
he glanced at her again she had put the gun away and was crouching in the
shelter of the cabin trunk where a steady stream of water ran down on the
shoulder of the sodden fur coat but the wind-driven spray could not reach her.

     
Paul
Laflin
had
pulled himself up beside the girl, who had her feet braced against the engine
box. Her dripping skirt was bunched about her thighs and the wind had blown
apart the lapels of her jacket. Her bared legs and throat looked unbearably
cold. The large young man studied her in a preoccupied way and turned and was
seasick. Relieved, he rose and made his way into the cabin, and was sick
a second time into the galvanized sink
. Branch closed the
doors on him and dropped the padlock into place.

     
Setting the padlock, he looked about him
at the loud pitching darkness that was abruptly dominated by the glare of
Signal Point Light ahead. He located another white light to the right, to
windward in the bay: that was 36A. He turned and squinted to leeward and there
was the small, quickly blinking green light that he had not had time to look
for, far down under the shadow of the new shoreline that had opened up behind
them as they passed clear of the low dark spit of Signal Point. The lights
blurred and pulsated as, clinging to the wheel, he tried to visualize them as
they had been on the chart. He put on his glasses and studied them for a moment
to be sure. 36A and Cherry Creek in line, he said to himself,
then
south until the lighthouse is in line with the point.
Well, he thought, removing the glasses to his pocket again, better too early
than too late; and he let her swing left, helping with a touch of the wheel.

     
The boat seemed to leap forward as the
wind came astern again, and Signal Point Light slashed out brightly from the
blackness to the right where there was no shore. The whole world had turned
about them. Spray no longer came aboard and the sound of the engine climbed to
a high metallic whine; then the whole boat shuddered and the note of the engine
dropped with sickening abruptness, the wave rolling past to raise the how, the
stern settling heavily into the trough. Branch threw the wheel hard over as the
next wave came on; it was, for a moment, not quite enough, and she began to
slew up into it; then, as the engine began to scream again, the rudder took
hold, all his strength holding it, and she steadied and, balanced in delicate
equilibrium, plunged madly down the face of the wave; the wave passed and she
sat down suddenly. He threw the wheel hard right as she tried to swing past the
course marked by the blinking green blur of the Cherry Creek flasher ahead.
Then easing a little, holding it, easing it again, letting it spin, catching it
at center, back a
spoke,
and hard left with all his
strength as the roller coaster ride began again. Suddenly his mind formed the
words: roll her over. Roll her over. Roll her over and drown the bastards. Two
medals for sitting behind a desk. No more difficult than a car. Roll her over.
Drown them.