Gulf Coast Girl - Charles Williams(4)

I drove the car out on the pier and as I got out I thought of
him down there somewhere below me in the impenetrable
blackness of night and silt-laden water, and for a moment he
wasn’t a vicious little hoodlum but just somebody who’d been
alive a few hours ago looking at sunlight and feeling hungry
and thinking about girls and inhaling smoke from a cigarette.
I brushed it away savagely. There wasn’t any time for being
morbid about a dead gangster. I’d be dead myself very shortly
if I didn’t get out of there.
I hurried down the ladder. The waterway was dark and still,
like a jungle river, and it was hot in the thick clots of shadow
below the side of the pier. When I opened the door and went
inside the trapped air was stifling. I looked at my watch. It
was nearly three.


I went out in the galley and put some water on to heat in
the big electric percolator, and then examined my face in the
bathroom mirror. The puffy places were worse. That was all
right, leaving here, because I wanted them to remember me,
but I had to start work on them so they’d be gone by the time
I returned. My stomach felt as if I’d been run over by a tank,
but at least that wouldn’t show.
While I was waiting for the water to heat I pulled the bag
from under my bunk and began to pack. Carter was going to
think I was a sad bastard, quitting with ten minutes’ notice,
but if I wanted eulogies I could stick around and there’d be
lots of them at the funeral. I shaved, and put the toilet gear in
the bag. The clothes hanging in the bathroom were still wet. I
rolled them in a newspaper and packed them anyway.
The water was hot. I poured it into a pan and started a new
batch heating. Sitting on the side of the bunk with the pan
before me on a chair, I shoved the hand in and let it soak until
it was, as red as fire coral while I squeezed out a cloth with
the left and held it against the puffed places on my face. It
was intensely still except for the humming of the fan, and the
minute I stopped moving and planning the room was full of
her. Knowing it was absurd didn’t make any difference. She
was everywhere.
Gulf Coast Girl — 66
She slid toward me and I kissed her again with that odd
sensation of being suddenly overrun and flooded with her like
a compartment below water line when the bulkhead buckles
under pressure of the sea. One minute there’d been only that
unstoppable trickle of her running through the mind, and the
next I was drowning in her.
Nuts, I thought irritably. Who ever heard of anything as
stupid? And there was another slight matter. She was
Macaulay’s wife. Maybe I should try to work that into my
thoughts from time to time so it didn’t elude me altogether.
Who was Macaulay? I stared at a parboiled hand in a basin
of water, looking for Macaulay, and found nothing at all.
There wasn’t even the framework on which to start building a
Macaulay. An executive in an insurance firm who was being
hunted down by gangsters who wanted to kill him—what did
you get from that?
Nothing.
He could fly a plane. Why hadn’t I thought to ask her how it
happened he could fly? Of course, lots of people could
nowadays; maybe I was the only one left who couldn’t. But
flying came in sizes. Even I could see that. Hopping a Piper
Cub sixty miles from Booster’s Junction to East Threadbare
along two sets of railroad tracks and a six-lane highway was
one thing; taking off across 500 miles of empty Gulf and God
knows how many miles of green broadloom jungle was
something else. You had to be a good dead-reckoning
navigator, and you had to know you were good, to tackle it.
And if he knew exactly where that crashed plane was, he
wasn’t only a good navigator—he was a superb one. Of
course, she had said it was within sight of the coast, but that
didn’t mean much. One part of a coast line can have a hellish
knack of looking just like another part of a coast line, even
when you’re approaching it under sail at five knots, and I
imagined it was a lot more so when it was flying back toward
you at a hundred miles an hour. Of course, you were higher;
but that probably didn’t help a great deal. You could just see
more things you were probably wrong about.
Then suddenly I thought of something else that was odd.
The plane was in sixty feet of water, but still it was within
sight of land, near enough to see some landmark to identify
the spot. Off Yucatan? I’d never been down there, but I’d seen
Gulf Coast Girl — 67
it on the charts plenty of times, and it was my impression the
ten-fathom curve was a lot farther out than that. I shrugged.
Maybe she had meant something else was near enough to get
a bearing on, an old wreck, or a shoal.
I went on soaking the hand and holding hot compresses on
my face. At dawn I drove out to the nearest cafe and drank
some coffee. I was beginning to feel people behind me now. It
had been nearly twelve hours since he’d disappeared.
I drove downtown to the bus station. There’d be an
eastbound bus at 10:35. I got in line with a few other people
at the window. When my turn came I asked for a ticket to
New York. After the man had filled in the blanks on a yard of
paper and stamped it in half a dozen places I looked in my
wallet and made the awful discovery I was seven dollars short
of the price.
Actually I had it, of course, but I slapped all my pockets and
turned them out and looked stupidly through my wallet three
or four times while the line behind me grew longer and
people began to mutter. I milked it until his patience began to
wear thin, and then told him to set the ticket aside and I’d be
back later with the rest of the money.
I went out in the street again. It was a hot, still morning,
but the cold place between my shoulder blades was growing
larger all the time. I watched in shop windows, and stopped
suddenly, looking around as I lit a cigarette. Sure, there were
people behind me. There were hundreds of them, going to
work.
As soon as the used car lots began to open I drove around
to one. A man with a cigar glanced at the Ford with complete
indifference, told me tearfully how bad business was, and
offered me half what it was worth. I knew I wouldn’t get any
more, but I screamed like a wounded rug merchant and drove
away. Twenty minutes later I came back and turned the
papers over to him and he gave me a check. He’d remember
me, too. I’d cried louder than he had.
I took a taxi out to the pier, looking at my watch every few
minutes now. This was the first place they’d come when they
began to wonder what had happened to him, and I was
cutting it too fine. There was no one around the gate,
however, and the watchman shook his head when I asked if
anybody’d been looking for me.
Gulf Coast Girl — 68
“But you got a telegram,” he said.
It was from Carter. There’d been a delay in opening the
bids for the salvage job and he wouldn’t be back until
tomorrow. We drove out to the end of the pier and I asked the
driver to wait while I picked up the bag. We met no one
coming out. I turned the keys over to the watchman, said
something vague about sickness in the family, and told him I
was leaving for New York.
Back at the bus station the ticket agent gave me a surly
grunt and reached for the ticket before I’d opened my mouth.
I checked the bag through, and looked at my watch again. It
was 10:10. I walked over to the bank, cashed the car check,
and drew out my account.
There was a telegraph office in the same block. I wrote out
a wire to Carter so he’d have a chance to pick up a new diver
around New Orleans. It was the least I could do.
The last ten minutes were rough. I kept looking around for
them, knowing at the same time it was stupid because I’d
never seen any of them except Barclay. After a long time they
called the bus over the P.A. system and I went out and
climbed aboard. I got a seat on the aisle, away from the
window, and just sat there, enduring it. At last the driver
swung the door shut and we rolled out of the station into
traffic.
The little man in the seat next to the window wanted to
know where I was going and when I told him he said, no
offense, but he just couldn’t stand the place. All them
foreigners, he said.
While he was telling me what was wrong with it the driver
cut in the air-conditioning unit and we began to roll faster
through the outskirts.
I unwound all at once. It was something like melting.
I straightened suddenly and looked around. It must have
been some time afterward, for we were out in open country.
People in near-by seats were staring at me, and the man who
didn’t like New York was shaking my arm.
He grinned apologetically. “Thought I ought to wake you
up,” he said. “You was having a nightmare.”
“Oh,” I said. “Thanks.” I was clammy with sweat.
Gulf Coast Girl — 69
“Must have been a fire in it,” he said. “You kept moaning
and saying something about smoke.”
Gulf Coast Girl — 70

Seven
We came into New Orleans at ten-fifteen p.m. Through
passengers going east were scheduled to change busses, with
a layover of forty minutes. I hunted up the baggage room,
caught the eye of a colored boy, and gave him my claim check
and a dollar.
“See if you can find this bag for me,” I said. “I want to clean
up a little between busses.”
He located it. I went around the corner toward the
washroom, ducked out a side door, and caught a cab. At a
little hotel just off Canal Street I signed the register James R.
Madigan and when I was up in the room I looked at the marks
on my face. They were better, and in another few hours
they’d be hardly noticeable. I drew a basin of hot water and
went to work on them again, soaking the hand at the same
time. The swelling was going down.
They might find out I’d left the bus, and they might even
trail me to this hotel and eventually start looking for
somebody named Madigan, but there the whole thing would
end. Harold E. Burton was only a check for $15,000, and the
last place they’d ever expect me to go would be back to
Sanport.
I studied the rest of it. There’d be the station wagon I had
to buy to get back to Sanport with all the gear. Abandon it
when we sailed? No. Storing it in a garage was a better idea.
Gulf Coast Girl — 71
After a year or so they’d probably sell it for the storage
charges, and if anybody ever bothered to look into it all he’d
find would be that it had been left there by a man named
Burton who’d sailed for Boston in a small boat and never
been heard of again. People had been lost at sea before,
especially sailing alone.
What about after I’d landed them on the Central American
coast? Florida was my best bet now. I could lose myself
among the thousands who made a living along the edge of the
sea in one way or another, and gradually build up a whole
new identity. I tore all my identification into tiny shreds and
flushed it down the plumbing along with the remainder of the
bus ticket. As soon as I turned out the light and lay down I
was thinking of her again.
It was a little after eight when I awoke. I shaved hurriedly,
noting my face was almost back to normal now, and dressed
in a clean white linen suit. Brassy sunlight spilled into Canal
Street, shattering on the chrome and glass of traffic as the
sticky New Orleans heat began. I pushed through the crowds,
looking at my watch. The banks wouldn’t be open for over an
hour.
I got some change in a cigar store and went back to the
battery of phone booths. Putting in a long-distance call to
Sanport, I caught the yacht broker just as he came in his
office.
“Hello,” I said, sweltering in the airless little cubicle. “My
name’s Burton. I understand from a friend of mine you’ve got
a New-England-built sloop over there, 36 footer by the name
of Dancer, or something like that—”
“Yes,” he said. “That’s right. The Ballerina. Good boat, in
first-class condition—”
“How much are you asking?”
“Eleven thousand.”
“That sounds high to me,” I said. “But I’m looking for one of
her class and I’d go to ten if it’s in top shape. Suppose I come
over and take a look at it? I’m in New Orleans now, but I
could be there sometime tomorrow morning if you could
make arrangements for the boat yard to haul her out.”
“Fine,” he replied. “She’s at Michaelson’s Yard. We’ll be
looking for you.”
Gulf Coast Girl — 72
“Around nine a.m.,” I said.
So far, so good. She hadn’t been sold yet.
When the banks opened I went into the first one I came to,
endorsed the check for deposit, and opened an account,
asking them to clear it with the Sanport bank by wire. They
said they should have an answer a little after noon.
The used car lots were next. I didn’t find a station wagon in
the first one and was just about to leave when the idea began
to come to me. Part of my mind had been occupied with the
problem of getting Macaulay out of that house, and now I was
starting to see at least part of the answer. I didn’t want a
station wagon; I wanted a panel truck, a black one. I found
one in the next lot. After trying it out, I told the salesman I’d
come back later and let him know. I couldn’t buy it until the
check cleared.
The wire came back from the Sanport bank a little after
one. I cashed a check for three thousand, picked up the truck,
and drove over to a nautical supply store. It took nearly two
hours to get everything I needed here, chronometer, sextant,
azimuth tables, nautical almanacs, charts, and so on, right
down to a pair of 7 by 50 glasses and a marine radio receiver.
That left diving gear. Of course, there was still the aqualung
in the back of her car, but the coast of Yucatan was too far to
come back for spare equipment if anything went wrong. I
bought another, and some extra cylinders which I had filled.
At five o’clock the truck was full of gear, and nothing
remained but to check out of the hotel and start back.
No, there was one thing more. I went into a dime store and
bought an anniversary greeting card.
* * *
I drove all night.
Just at dawn I was approaching the outskirts of Sanport,
and stopped at an all-night service station to shave and clean
up a little while the attendant filled the tank. I was a little
nervous as I approached the downtown area, but I shrugged
it off. There was nothing to worry about yet. In the panel
truck I looked like any laundry route-man or cigarette
salesman.
Gulf Coast Girl — 73
Michaelson’s Boat Yard lay some three miles from town, in
the opposite direction from the Parker Mill. It was on a
sandspit running out toward the ship channel beyond the
eastern end of the water-front, with only some mud flats
between it and the long jetties going toward the open Gulf.
About a block away from the yard gate there was a small
cluster of buildings among the otherwise empty lots, a beer
joint or two and a cafe and an abandoned store building with
a For Rent sign on it. I parked the truck in front of the cafe,
locked it, and went inside. It was still early, and a girl was
making coffee in a big urn. I drank two cups and ate an order
of hot cakes. The morning paper was on the counter. I looked
through it, but there was nothing about his body’s being
found. It was too soon yet. There would be.
The yard workmen began to drift in. I walked down to the
gate and went inside. The Ballerina was hauled out on the
marine railway. I stood for a moment, just looking at her. She
was long-ended and slimly arrogant, cut away at the forefoot
and tapering in sharply under the stern, and she drew nearly
six feet when she was afloat, with some 5000 pounds of iron
in her keel. I’d never been aboard her, but I’d seen her
several times over at the yacht basin, and I was familiar with
the design. I’d sailed one of her sisters in a race shortly after
the war.
Opening my pocketknife, I walked under her, white linen
suit and all, and started probing. It must have been six
months or more since she’d been hauled, because she was
foul with grass and barnacles, but in half an hour I knew that
under all the marine growth she was as sound as the day she
was built. I kept on, hardly even aware when calking
hammers began sounding on the ways.

Finding a ladder, I went aboard and went on with the
inspection. She’d been well kept up. I remembered Carling
had bought new sails for her a few months ago when she was
over at the yacht basin, so I didn’t have to look at them. The
cabin seemed to be all right, with no indication of leaks in the
decking overhead. The layout was perfect for the three of us
who were going to be aboard. There were two bunks forward,
then a head on the port side and a locker on the starboard
that formed almost a partition, leaving only a narrow
passage. That could be curtained to make two cabins of it. Aft
Gulf Coast Girl — 74
of the head and the locker there were two settees, one on
each side, and either of these could be made up as a bunk. A
folding chart table came down over one of them, and aft of
them were the icebox and locker space of the galley and the
primus stove hanging in gimbals.
I inspected the bilges, and took a look at the Gray marine
engine, though I couldn’t tell much about the latter until she
was back in the water and I could try it out. Just as I was
coming down the ladder the man from the yacht broker’s
showed up. The yard foreman was with him. I introduced
myself.
“Well, what do you think of her?” he asked.
“She’s in good shape,” I said. “I’ll give you ten thousand.”
“He’s still asking eleven.”
“Who owns her?” I asked.
“Man named Carling. Automobile dealer.”
“Well, how about getting him on the phone? Tell him I’ll
write you a check for ten in the next five minutes.”
He went off toward the office. I gave the yard foreman a
cigarette. He was a big, heavy-bodied Finn or Norwegian. He
nodded toward the sloop.
“That one’s built,” he said.
“She’s that,” I said. “But her bottom’s in awful shape. How
soon can you get a crew of men on her? I’ll give you the paint
specification, and the rest of the work list—”
He grinned. “Hadn’t you better wait till you’ve bought her?”
“I’ve already bought her,” I said. “We’re just arguing about
how much I have to pay.”
The yacht broker’s man came back. “Says he’ll take ten
five. That’s the bottom.”
I pulled out the checkbook, and nodded to the foreman.
“Tell your men to start scraping.”
We went up to the office and the foreman introduced me to
the superintendent. We started writing out the work list, and
all the time that anniversary card was burning a hole in my
pocket. She couldn’t possibly get it before tomorrow, I told
myself. But I kept thinking of what she must be going through
with nothing to do but wait. That wasn’t all, either. I was wild
to talk to her.
Gulf Coast Girl — 75
I happened to glance out the front door of the office and
saw a phone booth just inside the gate on the other side of
the driveway. Why not wire an anniversary telegram? It
would be faster, and safe enough. No, I thought; they’d see it
delivered and just the fact she’d received one would make
them watch her that much more closely.
“. . . install new starting and lighting batteries,” I went on
to the super. “Put up a twenty-by-fifteen-inch shelf above that
starboard settee for a radio receiver, and run a cable to the
lighting battery for power for it. As soon as she’s back in the
water, run a check on that engine, and make what repairs are
necessary. As far as I can see she doesn’t need anything done
topside, and as soon as I get to Boston she’ll have a general
overhaul, anyway. The main thing is that pasture on her
bottom. Do you think we can work out a paint schedule so we
can get her back in the water tomorrow afternoon?” And then
I added, “With the paint dry.”
He nodded. “Sure. You check it yourself before she goes
in.”
I stood up. “Fine. I’ll be around here all the time, so if
anything comes up, just yell.”
Just then the telephone rang. The girl at the desk near the
door answered it, and said, “Just a minute, please.” She
looked inquiringly at the super. “A Mr. Burton—”
“Here,” I said. I could feel the tingling of excitement all
over me as I reached for it. “Thank you.”
“Burton speaking,” I said.
“Can you talk all right from there?” she asked softly.
“Oh, hello,” I said. “George told me he was going to wire
you I was coming over. How are you?”
She understood. “Everything is the same here. Is there
another phone you can call me back?”
“Yes,” I said. “Did George tell you about the boat? I’ve just
bought it. And by the way, he wanted me to give you an
address. I wrote it down, but it’s out in the truck. Suppose I
get it and call you back?”
She gave me the number.
I walked out to the truck and stalled for a minute, and then
came back and ducked into the booth just inside the gate. I
Gulf Coast Girl — 76
closed the door and dialed, fumbling in my eagerness. She
answered immediately.
“Bill! I’m so glad to hear you—”
It struck me suddenly she didn’t have to act now, as she
had the other night, because there was no chance anybody
could be listening. Then I shrugged it off. Of course she was
glad. She was in a bad jam, and she’d had two days of just
waiting, biting her nails.
“I didn’t do wrong, did I?” she went on hurriedly. “But I just
couldn’t stand it any longer. The suspense was driving me
crazy—”
“No,” I said. “I’m glad you didn’t wait for the card. I was
worried about you, too. Has anything happened?”
“No. They’re still watching me, but I’ve been home nearly
all the time. But tell me about you. And when can we start?”
“Here’s the story,” I said. “I got back around seven this
morning, and wrote out a check for the Ballerina about
twenty minutes ago. She’s on the marine ways now, and will
be off sometime tomorrow afternoon. Let’s see, this is
Thursday, isn’t it?”
“That’s right,” she said. “Then what?”
“As soon as she’s in the water we have to try out the
auxiliary. Then later in the afternoon I’m going to take her
outside for a shakedown for three or four hours. I hate to use
up the time, but you can’t go to sea in an untried boat. I’ve
got everything we need out here in the truck except the
actual ship’s stores, and I’m going to make a list this morning
and have the ship chandler deliver them here Saturday
morning.”
“Is there any way I could go on that trip outside with you?”
she asked. “I’m dying to see her, and we could plan how
we’re going to get away from here.”
I was tempted. I thought of three or four hours out there,
just the two of us alone. She could charter a water taxi, meet
me down the channel somewhere. No. It wouldn’t work.
“It’s too risky,” I said. “If you’re going to be safe after you
get away from here, there just can’t be anything they can
remember afterward that would connect you with a boat. Any
boat.”
Gulf Coast Girl — 77
“Yes. You’re right,” she agreed. “But it’s going to be a long
time. I keep getting afraid when I can’t talk to you. We sail
Saturday night? Is that it?”
“Yes. Everything will be stowed and ready for sea some
time in the afternoon.”
“Have you thought of anything yet? I mean, for getting
Francis aboard?”
“Yes,” I said. “I’ve got an idea. But something else has
occurred to me.”
“What’s that, Bill?”
“Sneaking him aboard isn’t the big job. Getting you here is
going to be the tough one.”
“Why?”
“They’re not sure where he is. But they’re covering you
every minute.”
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.”
Gulf Coast Girl — 78
“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 whirtlewhirtle,
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.
Gulf Coast Girl — 79
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
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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.
Gulf Coast Girl — 81
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.
Gulf Coast Girl — 82
I held it up to take a good look. Then I handed it back. “I
don’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
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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 ninetwenty.
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,
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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
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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.
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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.”