The boom swung the foot or so that the ties allowed it to move, hitting the bigger one across the eye. He was there next to her, and then he was falling backward, into the stairwell. One of his hands grabbed the railing, and the woodwork pulled out under his weight. His face disappeared and she heard him fall the rest of the way down.
The mulatto reached for her, smiling at what she’d done, and she pushed the boom at him too. He ducked easily, chuckling at this situation, and tried again. She crossed the open stairwell, and the mulatto came around it after her, holding on to the railing because he was afraid of the water, and she turned away from him and jumped.
She heard the engine cough once before she hit the water then regain itself at a slightly different pitch.
She swam hard for fifty yards and then turned on her back to take off the shirt, and saw them standing together on the deck, arguing. The exhaust was pouring black smoke. She got out of the shirt, and the going was easier.
When she looked again, five minutes later, they were at the bow, tugging at the anchor line, but the engine had quit. She put her face in the water and did not look back again until she reached the marina.
A fisherman in a small aluminum boat pulled her out. He had two days’ worth of whiskers and bloodshot eyes, and smelled of the bait he’d been tossing into the hold. He straightened his T-shirt across his stomach before he introduced himself.
“Harry Marquart,” he said, and offered her his hand. The blood from her breast trickled down her stomach and her eyes burned from the salt water. He was staring at her, and she asked for a blanket. He might have been sixty years old, and his head and hands were crusted with sun cancer. He had no blanket, but he found a worn checkered shirt without buttons and gave it to her, apologizing for the smell of gasoline, and then he stepped back and stared past her for a moment, out over the water at the sailboat.
“You’re a strong swimmer,” he said.
She was still on the fisherman’s boat when the police arrived. There were only two of them: one in uniform and a sergeant in a suit. The uniform had a patch that said
Orange County Sheriff’s Department.
The sergeant’s suit was tailored, and his hair had just been cut and his shoes were expensive and shined. He stepped easily from the pier into the small boat, and said “Excuse me” when he moved the fisherman out of the seat next to her and took it himself. The fisherman had been holding on to her shoulder, sneaking looks beneath the shirt. She could not say if he was drawn to her, or simply to the grotesque, or if those were different things.
“They’re still on the boat,” the fisherman said. “Drinking beer and laughing, having themselves a big nigger party.”
She did not like that word, and particularly did not like being the cause of its use. The fisherman handed the sergeant his binoculars.
The sergeant studied the sailboat, using the same hand to hold the binoculars and focus, then looked back at her.
“That’s a long way out,” he said. His voice was calm and sensible, in no hurry. She nodded, feeling herself shake. She had been shaking ever since Mr. Marquart pulled her out of the water.
The sergeant moved— he was over on her right side, and she couldn’t see him well— and then she felt his coat on her shoulders. The lining was smooth and had a nice weight. “Let’s see what we’ve got,” he said, and he gently touched her face and turned it. He leaned closer, looking at one side and then the other. “It’s not so bad,” he said. He touched her lips, looking at her teeth, and then moved her jaw back and forth. “Does that hurt?”
“My breast,” she said.
“I know,” he said. “Mr. Marquart mentioned it when he called in his report.” He turned and told the uniformed cop to find out what had happened to the ambulance. When he looked back at her, she saw that his eyes were dark brown, almost black. He smiled at her, as if to tell her losing a nipple wasn’t so serious. She shook violently, cold and frightened.
“Is it all right if I look?” He had a soft way of speaking that made things seem easier than they were.
And she nodded, wanting him to see what they’d done. He opened the jacket, holding it carefully away from her skin. A moment passed. “The bleeding’s almost stopped,” he said. And then a moment later: “They’ve got doctors up in Hollywood, they can fix things so they won’t even show.”
She shook her head. She didn’t want it fixed, not when nothing else could be. She touched herself, pressed her fingers into the spot, and for a moment the pain seemed to block out the sun, and she bent over it, trying to stay inside that one moment, trying to stop shaking, bending into her own lap.
He laid his hand across her spine and waited.
He seemed to know when it had passed, even though she hadn’t moved. He took his hand off and said, “So there they are, just sitting out on the boat, waiting.” He made things simple. It was reassuring to have them laid out in order. She needed some sort of order.
She looked up, blinking tears. “I don’t think they can swim,” she said, “and they don’t know how to sail.”
He nodded and smiled, as if that was what he expected.
“And the engine’s thrown a rod.”
He looked back out over the water to the boat. “You were out there alone?”
She paused, not knowing where to begin. “They killed the men,” she said.
“How many?” Quietly, no sign of alarm.
“Two. The captain and my husband.”
He held her hand a moment, just held her hand. The one in uniform was running toward them up the dock now, out of breath.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I thought I already said that.” He just held her hand, and for the first time she thought of how she must look.
“The call’s in,” said the one in uniform. “They’re on the way, but they don’t know where the ambulance is.” He was only a shape, something dark against the sky.
“Are there guns on board?” the sergeant said.
“A shotgun,” she said, “and I think they have one of their own.” It occurred to her that she hadn’t seen their gun, that she hadn’t seen the body of Pedro Ruiz. That he might not even be dead.
“I suppose he could still be alive,” she said.
“Your husband?”
“No,” she said, “not my husband.”
“Is there any chance?” he said.
That brought her out of it for a minute. “No,” she said, “no chance at all.”
He looked back out toward the boat. “We’ll take care of it now,” he said.
She wept, thinking now it would finally be in someone else’s hands. Doctors and nurses and police. They would take care of her; they would take care of Alec, and Pedro, and they would take care of the Negroes too. She thought of them on the boat, and she was suddenly angry.
The uniformed cop moved closer to the sergeant and spoke quietly, as if he didn’t want her to hear. “You want me to call us some backup?”
The sergeant thought a minute and said, “There’s no hurry on that. They aren’t going anywhere.”
She could hear the siren then, a long ways off. They sat together for a little while, neither of them speaking; then he said, “I’m Miller Packard.”
She was thinking of what they had done, of killing him without ever giving him a chance. Without giving either of them a chance. “They must have come on board on the stern,” she said, and then realized how little it mattered.
He patted her hand, telling her in a different way that he would take care of things now. She felt moisture seeping from her closed eye, and was furious all over again. “Could I go along?” she said. “Is that against the rules?”
He smiled at that, laughing at some bigger picture, not making any sound. “I don’t know if that’s the best thing right now,” he said.
She looked out toward the boat, the
Georgia Peach.
“I don’t want to wake up at four o’clock in the morning the rest of my life, thinking they’re in the room,” she said, and saying it, she realized it was true. It wasn’t the reason, but it was true.
“They won’t seem like the same people, you know,” he said.
“Good,” she said, “I want to see how they are now.”
She turned to look at him, looked him full in the face, not trying to hide what they had done to her, and knew that he would take care of her, that he would give her whatever she wanted.
“Okay,” he said. Just like that.
“I’m sorry,” she said, “I’ve forgotten your name.”
Mr. Marquart took them back out to the
Peach.
There was a chop now, even inside the marina, and her head pounded as the little whaler bounced against the water. The old man sat at the outboard, squinting into the breeze, primed for a fight, and she sat in front of him, still wrapped in the sergeant’s coat. He and the uniformed cop were in front. The uniformed cop had a shotgun now— he’d come back with it from the car— and held it across his chest. His calf was braced against the railing of Mr. Marquart’s boat. He did not like this, two Negroes and only two police; he did not like having her along. He’d asked twice if the sergeant wanted backup or the Coast Guard, and then had quit asking. He was afraid, though; she saw that.
The sergeant was sitting on the bait box, one arm dropped over the side into the rush of water, like a boy taking his first ride in a boat. There was nothing in his aspect that suggested what was waiting ahead. When they were perhaps fifty feet away, the sergeant gave Mr. Marquart a signal and he cut the engine to a crawl.
