Gulf Coast Girl - Charles Williams(5)

“Okay. Thanks,” I said. I felt along the edge of the window
frame in the opposite door. Hurry. For the love of Christ,
hurry.
My finger tips brushed across a hand. I inhaled again.
I let the truck roll slowly ahead three or four feet, and said,
“If you see a kid like that, call the station, will you? We’d
appreciate it.”
I moved the light away from him. He wouldn’t be able to
see anything for twenty or thirty seconds, and Macaulay was
on the far side of the truck, walking along with me. But he
had to be in before we hit the street below Fontaine, under
the light. I slipped the clutch and hit the accelerator a couple
of times, shooting the flashlight beam along the sidewalk. The
door opened soundlessly, and he was sitting beside me. He
closed it gently.


There was no outcry behind us. I wanted to step on the gas
and flee. Not yet, I thought. Easy. I still hadn’t seen him at
all. He was only a dark shadow beside me as we rolled on
toward the intersection. Then a cigarette lighter flared.
I jerked my face around, whispering fiercely. “Put that—”
“It’s all right,” a smooth voice said. “Just turn at the corner
and go around the block, like a good fellow.”
Gulf Coast Girl — 87
I saw a lean face, and tweed, and the gun held carelessly in
his lap. It was Barclay.
We turned. I was numb all over and there was nothing else
to do. We went slowly up the street behind Fontaine and
turned again.
“Rather theatrical,” he said, almost deprecatingly. “But it
was the only way to enlist you without a brawl which might
arouse the neighborhood. Please go on around and park at
the mouth of the alley, where you were.”
“Mrs. Macaulay?” I asked mechanically.
“She’s in the house.”
“Is she all right?”
“Yes. A little shock, perhaps.”
I swung around the next corner, and we were on Fontaine,
under the big, peaceful trees. “Then you finally killed him?”
“Oh. Yes,” he replied, almost as if talking to himself. “Quite
unfortunate.”
I didn’t know what he meant, but there was no point in
asking. I was too far behind now to catch up in a week. We
parked at the mouth of the alley. Across the street I could see
the red tip of a cigarette in the other car. Bitterness welled
up in me. I’d fooled them, hadn’t I? It was wonderful the way
I’d fooled them.
Barclay opened the door on his side. “Go inside, shall we?
Ready to leave shortly.”
“Leave?”
“Embark. Ballerina does sleep four, doesn’t she? Hope we
haven’t been misled as to the accommodations.”
He stepped aside in the darkness and followed closely
behind me. My mind turned the parts of it over and over with
no more comprehension than a washing-machine tumbling
clothes. Embark? Four of us? Macaulay was already dead;
that was what they’d wanted, wasn’t it?
It was—unless she had been lying all the time. I tried to
shove the thought out of my mind. It came back. How would
they have known I was coming by in the truck unless she had
told them?
Maybe I could have got away from him in the alley, but I
didn’t even try. The whole thing had fallen in on me, and I
Gulf Coast Girl — 88
didn’t have anywhere to go. I wanted to see her, anyway. She
had lied about it, or she hadn’t lied about it. I had to know.
We went in through a rear garden full of dark shrubs and
the cloying sweetness of honeysuckle. The kitchen door was
unlocked. There was no light inside, nor in the hall beyond,
but at the end, through a Spanish archway, I could see the
living-room and hear music.
It was a large room dimly lighted by the one bridge lamp
that was turned on. I had a confused impression of beige
broadloom, modern furniture, and drapes with bright
splashes of color. The music was issuing from a phonograph
console at the right end of it.
There were two men in it besides the one lying on the rug
under the edge of the coffee table, but they registered merely
as blurs as I swung my face and looked at her. She was on the
right, near the phonograph, sitting straight upright on the
front edge of a chair. She was wearing a sea-green dress and
sandals, and the light gleamed softly on her hair. Nothing
moved, and she might have been a well-bred girl listening to
some old bore at a party until you looked at her eyes and saw
the shock wearing off and could sense the scream running
around inside her like a motorcycle riding the rim of a
motordrome. I came over in front of her just as her mouth
opened and she pressed the knuckles of her right hand
against her teeth. Barclay stepped from behind me and hit
her across the right side of the face with an open hand. The
scream choked off before it could get started, and she
whimpered and fell back in the chair.
I hit Barclay. The two men who had been blurs hit me, one
of them with the flat side of a gun.
I was on my hands and knees, trying to get up with a big
ocean of pain sloshing around in my head. The lights went out
and then came back on and I tried to focus my eyes. I could
see nothing but feet and the rug. Her nylons and gilt sandals
were before me, and to one side I could see a pair of huge
brogues under gabardine legs. I lunged weakly at them. One
brogue kicked my arm from under me, and shoved. I rolled
onto my back.
He looked down at me with a bleak grin, a big cottony
blond with a flat slab of a face and gray eyes set wide apart.
The other one had backed away and was on the other side of
Gulf Coast Girl — 89
the table, holding the gun in his hand as if it were an
extension of his arm. He was a mean-looking slat about six
feet tall, wearing a white linen suit and a Panama hat. His
face had the human softness of a hatchet blade.
He pointed with the gun. “Sit down in that chair.”
I looked at him and at the other one and slowly got to my
feet with the two of them watching me. My legs buckled and I
slid into the chair. Barclay got up, felt his jaw, and brushed
casually at his clothes.
The telephone was on a stand at my left. Barclay saw my
glance and shook his head. “I shouldn’t try it,” he said.
“They’re looking for you, anyway.”
“You’ve killed Macaulay,” I said. “What do you want now?”
“Mrs. Macaulay, obviously.”
“Why?”
He gestured impatiently. “Later, Manning.” He walked over
to the other end of the room and stood looking around like a
director inspecting a set for a scene he was going to shoot.
I could see the man lying under the edge of the coffee table.
He was wearing slacks of charcoal gray and a dark-blue sport
shirt, and his shoes had crepe soles. He had been ready to go
when they killed him. My mind was still numb, but it could
encompass that much. He was lying on his stomach with his
face turned to one side, and a little blood had run from under
his chest. It looked black against the rug. The face, what I
could see of it, was slender, and his hair was very dark and
needed cutting. I was conscious of the crazy thought that I’d
been wondering for days what Macaulay would be like when I
met him, and this was what he was like. He was a dead man
who needed a haircut.
I turned my face and I could see her. She was slumped
forward with a handkerchief pressed to her mouth. What if
she had told them I was coming by in the truck? They had
ways of making you talk. But what did they want with her?
And with me, and the boat? The whole thing was one big
blank. I sat there, feeling sick.
“You cleaned your prints from everything you touched?”
Barclay asked.
The thin one nodded.
Gulf Coast Girl — 90
“Very well,” Barclay said. “Who has the keys to her car?”
“Here.” The big blond fished them from his pocket.
“Give them to Carl,” Barclay directed crisply. “You’ll go
with us in the truck.”
He shifted his gaze to the thin man. “Take the Cadillac

downtown and park it. Meet us on the southeast corner of
Second and Lindsay. We shall be going east, in a black panel
truck, Manning driving. Get in the front seat with him. When
we go in the gate at the boat yard Manning will tell the
watchman you’ve come along to drive the truck back to a
garage. If Manning tries a trick of any kind, don’t shoot him;
kill the watchman. As soon as we’re all aboard the boat, take
the truck to some all-night storage garage and leave it, under
the name of Harold E. Burton, and pay six months’ storage
charges in advance. Then pick up the Cadillac, drive it to the
airport, and abandon it. Take a plane to New York, and tell
them we should be in Tampa in three weeks to a month. Tell
them how it was with Macaulay, but that we have her and it’s
well under control. You have all that?”
“Check,” Carl said. He took the keys and went out.
I could see a little of it now. They were hanging it on her
quite neatly. The police already wanted me, and now they’d
be after her, too, for killing Macaulay. I didn’t know what
Barclay wanted with her, but he had her from every angle.
There was nowhere we could run.
Gulf Coast Girl — 91
Nine
“Here, George.”
Barclay took the handkerchief from the breast pocket of his
jacket and tossed it, waddled into a ball, to the big towhead.
“Put that in her mouth, so she doesn’t cry out in the alley.”
George tilted her face up and rammed the handkerchief
into her mouth. Then he tied his own across it and around her
neck to hold it in. She was crying softly and offered no
resistance.
“Go, shall we?” Barclay said.
I saw him through dancing flickers of rage. My head was
splitting and I was helpless and weak as a cat, nothing
seemed to matter. “Suppose I don’t”? I asked.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he answered crisply. “Would you like
to have her knocked about a bit to convince you?”
There was nothing else to do. I stood up. George gave me a
bright, hard grin, and led her past. As they started out
through the archway she pulled suddenly away and tried to
fall to her knees beside Macaulay. George cursed and yanked
her back. Barclay watched me with his hand in the pocket of
his jacket. He shook his head warningly.
“Your boy’s good,” I said.
“He’s efficient.”
Gulf Coast Girl — 92
“Don’t overmatch him and get him hurt,” I said. “He might
lose his confidence.”
George glanced back over his shoulder at me. Barclay said,
“Let’s not be heroic, Manning. Suppose you follow them.”
I followed them. Barclay followed me. As we went through
the kitchen I could hear the phonograph softly playing Victor
Herbert for a dead man, and then we were outside in the
darkness and Barclay eased the door shut. I could see nothing
but the pale gleam of her head, and that very faintly. Barclay
had taken the gun from his pocket and was holding it against
my back as we walked slowly through the garden and out the
gate. At the end of the alley George stopped and I bumped
gently against her. He stepped ahead to peer up and down
the sidewalk. I put my hand on her arm and let it slide down
until I had her hand in mine. I squeezed it, but there was no
answering pressure. All her lines were down.
“All right,” George whispered.
We moved ahead across the walk. There was no one in
sight. It was just another peaceful evening in an uppermiddle-
class suburb where the only violence was on 21-inch
screens. George opened the door of the truck and tipped the
seat up. He helped Shannon Macaulay into the back and got
in himself.
“Get in,” Barclay whispered to me. I slid under the wheel
and he sat beside me. “You know where to pick up Carl. Don’t
attempt anything foolish.”
They couldn’t get away with it, but they did. We rolled
downtown through increasing streams of traffic. I counted
three police cars, and once one stopped beside us at a traffic
light almost near enough to touch. It was like a nightmare.
Every turn of the wheels was taking her farther beyond the
reach of help by anyone. There was nothing in the house to
indicate the others had ever been there, and when the police
found her car abandoned at the airport they would be sure
she had done it and fled.
Just before we reached the corner of Lindsay and Second,
Barclay climbed over the seat and sat on the floor in back
with the others. I stopped. Carl got in. We went on, going out
of town now. Nobody said anything. I thought of their three
guns. It was like driving a nitro-glycerin truck over a rough
road.
Gulf Coast Girl — 93
Traffic thinned out. We were driving through dimly lighted
streets. I made the last turn and stopped before the gates of
the boat yard. I beeped the horn. The old watchman swung
them open. I pulled inside and he stood by my elbow.
“I’m going to get under way in a few minutes,” I said. “This
man will drive the truck back to a garage for me.”
He glanced at Carl. There was dead silence from the rear of
the truck. I could hear my own breathing. Carl nodded.
“Okay, Mr. Manning,” the watchman said. “You need any
help down there at the dock?”
I shook my head. “No. Thanks.”
We rolled ahead.
At the lower end of the yard I swung the truck in a circle
and backed it up against the end of the pier. The watchman
was settling down with his magazine again, in the pool of
light at the gate. Everything was black behind us.
“Get out and open the rear door, Manning,” Barclay said
softly.
I stepped out. Carl slid behind the wheel. I went around in
back and pulled the door open. They stepped out. “Give us
two minutes,” Barclay whispered to Carl. “Then drive on out.”
I led the way down the pier with Barclay close behind me
and then George and Shannon Macaulay. It was intensely
dark and I had to keep my eyes averted from the glow of
lights over the city off to the left in order to make out the
form of the pier and the clots of shadow which were the craft
moored to it. Beyond in the channel the buoy winked on and
off and the bell clanged restlessly in the night. Then the tall
stick of the Ballerina was above us, shadowy against the
stars. I felt my way aboard and stepped down into the
cockpit.
“Stand clear,” Barclay whispered. “Move to the aft end of
the cockpit and sit down.”
He was taking no chances of our being scrambled too
closely together in close quarters in the dark. I stepped back.
I could have jumped over the side and possibly escaped, but
he knew I wouldn’t. I had nowhere to go, with the police
looking for me, and I couldn’t leave her. They helped her
down into the cockpit.
Gulf Coast Girl — 94
“Take her below and stay there with her,” Barclay said
quietly. “I’ll watch Manning.”
I could hear the soft scraping of shoes on the
companionway and two shadows disappeared. “Start your
auxiliary, Manning, and cast off,” Barclay said. “Let’s go to
sea.”
“Where?” I asked.
“I’ll give you a course when we’re outside. Now, step to it.”
“I’ll have to light the running lights first. Is that all right
with you?”
“Certainly.”
“I just wanted to be sure I had your permission.”
He sighed in the darkness. “I assure you this is no game,
Manning. It should have penetrated before now, but in case it
hasn’t I’d like to call your attention to the fact that your
position is very poor, and Mrs. Macaulay’s is even more
dangerous. What happens to her depends on the way the two
of you co-operate. Now suppose you take this sloop away
from the dock before the watchman hears us and comes down
here to investigate.”
Getting the watchman killed would accomplish nothing. “All
right,” I said. As soon as the running lights were burning I
started the engine and cast off the lines. We moved slowly
away from the pier. I took her straight out toward the
channel and swung hard over as we cleared the buoy. The
twin rows of the channel markers stretched ahead of us,
going seaward between the long dark lines of the jetties.
There was no other traffic.
Barclay sat down across from me in the cockpit and lit a
cigarette. The tip glowed. “Neat, wasn’t it?” he asked, above
the noise of the engine.
“I suppose so,” I said. “If killing people is your idea of
neatness.”
“Macaulay? It was unavoidable. We were afraid of it.”
“Of course,” I said coldly. “It was an accident.”
“No. Not an accident. Call it calculated risk.” He paused for
a moment, the cigarette glowed redly, and then he went on.
“And speaking of that, perhaps I’d best brief you now as to
your part in this expedition. You’re also a calculated risk, for
Gulf Coast Girl — 95
the reason that—quite frankly—I’m not a navigator and
neither is Barfield. I can handle small sailing craft well
enough to take this sloop across the Gulf, but I couldn’t find
the place we’re looking for. Therefore we need you, and while
we both have guns and are quite expert in their use we won’t
kill you except as a last resort. Score yourself one point.
“But before you start plotting a mutiny, try to imagine a
bullet-shattered knee, complicated by gangrene, with a
medicine chest which probably consists of aspirin tablets and
Mercurochrome. Not an enchanting picture, is it? And while
you’re about it, you might consider how unpleasant life could
be made for Mrs. Macaulay if you don’t co-operate with us.
“One of us will be watching you every minute. Do as you’re
told and there’ll be no trouble. Try to get out of hand, and
both you and Mrs. Macaulay will be badly hurt; we’re not
amateurs at this sort of thing. Is it all clear, Manning?”
“Yes,” I said. “Except you keep telling me this is no game,
so there must be some point to it. Would you mind telling me
where you think you’re going, and what you’re after?”
“Not at all. We’re looking for an airplane.”
I stared at the end of his cigarette. “You mean the one
Macaulay crashed in? You’re going to try to find it after
you’ve killed the one person on earth who knew where it is?”
“There’s one more who knows,” he said calmly. “Why do
you think we brought her?”
“Look,” I said. “Don’t be stupid. He was alone in it when it
crashed. How could she possibly know?”
“He told her.”

“You’ll never find it in a million years.”
“I think we shall. He knew where it was, obviously, and was
certain he could go back to it, or he wouldn’t have tried to
hire a diver and a boat. Therefore it has to be near some
definite location, such as a reef or promontory. And if he
knew, he could tell her. All she has to do is tell us. In fact, she
has already given me the general location. It’s to the
westward of Scorpion Reef. You know where that is, I
presume?”
“It’s on the chart,” I said curtly. I swung the tiller a little to
line up the channel buoys again. “Listen, Barclay. You’re
stupid as hell. Even if you found the plane, that money’s not
Gulf Coast Girl — 96
recoverable. I didn’t tell her, because the main thing they
wanted was to get away from you and your damned thugs,
but that currency’s pulp by now. It’s been submerged in sea
water for weeks—”
“Money?” he asked. There was faint surprise in his voice.
“Don’t be cute, for Christ’s sake. You’re not looking for that
plane just to recover the ham sandwich he probably had with
him.”
“She told you there was money on the plane? Is that it?”
“Of course that’s it. What else? They were trying to get to
some place in Central America so they could quit running
from you and your gorillas—”
“I wondered what sort of story she gave you.”
“What do you mean?”
“You’re rather naive, Manning. We’re not looking for some
trifling sum of money Macaulay might have had with him.
We’re after something he stole from us. He was a thief.”
“I don’t believe it.”
“What you believe or don’t believe is of no importance
whatever. But what makes you so sure, when you’d never met
him and knew nothing about him at all?”
“I know her. She wouldn’t lie about it.”
He chuckled. “I rather thought that was it. And, by the way,
that puts me in a somewhat awkward spot.”
“Why?”
“It’s obvious, isn’t it? One of us, it would appear, is lying. I
think I can prove it was the lady; but should I, as a matter of
policy? It’s a delicate point. We’re depending to some extent
on your regard for the toothsome Mrs. Macaulay to ensure
your co-operation in this venture, and it would seem we’d be
doing ourselves a disservice in proving to you she’s been
having you on. You might become indifferent as to what
happened to her—”
“You got out of that all right,” I said.
“—but, on the other hand,” he went on as if he hadn’t even
heard me, “if you were thoroughly disenchanted with the
enchantress, you might be more inclined to help us in
recovering what her husband stole from us. Interesting
psychological point, isn’t it?”
Gulf Coast Girl — 97
“Yes,” I said contemptuously. “Very interesting. We’ll be
down to the bar in a few minutes. Could I interest you in
taking the tiller when we’re outside so I can get sail on her?”
“Certainly, old boy.”
The Ballerina began lifting slowly on the long ground swell
running in through the mouth of the jetties. I searched the
darkness ahead and could see the sea buoy winking on and
off. There was a moderate breeze, a little north of east. I
wondered why Barclay had tried to get off a cock-and-bull
story like that. He was in control; why bother to lie?
“I found their bag, the one she sent aboard.”
I looked around. It was the voice of George Barfield, issuing
from the companionway.
“Any chart in it?” Barclay asked.
“No.” Barfield came out and sat down beside Barclay. In
the faint starlight I could see he was carrying something in
one hand. “The satchel was in it, all right. About eighty
thousand, at a rough count. But no chart.”
“What?” It exploded from me before I could stop it.
“What’s the matter with Don Quixote?” Barfield asked.
“Somebody goose him?”
“I’m afraid you’ve spoiled Manning’s illusions,” Barclay
murmured. “Mrs. Macaulay told him that money was in the
plane.”
“Oh,” Barfield said. “Well, I wanted to see everything
before I died, and now I have. A man over thirty who still
believes women.”
I could only keep my hand on the tiller and stare straight
ahead. I felt sick. “Shut up, you son of a bitch,” I said. “Put
that bag down and throw a flashlight on it. There’s one on the
starboard bunk.”
“I’ve got it here.” Barfield put the bag down at my feet.
The light flipped on and he pressed the catch on top of the
bag. I looked at bundle after bundle of twenties, fifties, and
hundreds.
I sold my jewelry and borrowed what I could on the car. It’s
the last chance we’ll ever have. I don’t know why they’re
trying to kill him; it was something that happened at a party
—
Gulf Coast Girl — 98
“All right,” I said. “Turn it off.”
“Didn’t you forget my rank?” Barfield asked.
“What?”
“You’re supposed to say, ‘Turn it off, you son of a bitch.’ ”
“Shut up,” I said.
“How long would it take you to learn enough navigation,
Joey?”
“Too long,” Barclay answered. “Leave him alone.”
“I was pretty good at math,” Barfield said; “Want me to try
it? I could get sick of this guy.”
“Stop it,” Barclay ordered curtly. “Even if we could find the
place alone, we still need a diver.”
“Anybody can dive with an aqualung.”
“George, old boy—” Barclay said softly.
“All right. All right.”
“What’s in the plane?” I asked.
“Diamonds,” Barclay answered. “You might say a
considerable amount of diamonds.”
“Whose?”
“Ours, obviously.”
“And she knows about it?”
“Yes.”
I wondered if I had a latent tendency toward masochism. I
wanted to hear it all. “And they weren’t trying to get to
Central America?”
“Yes. As a matter of fact, they were. Or at least originally.
But Macaulay couldn’t take her in the plane because he had
to take a diver. These particular diamonds appear to have an
affinity for water. This will be the third time they’ve been
recovered by a diver.”
“Why don’t you write him a book about it?” Barfield asked.
“Are you worrying over matters of policy again, George?”
“No,” Barfield said hastily. “But I don’t see any sense
telling this jerk the time of day—”
“Well, I assure you he isn’t likely to tell anybody out here.”
Or ever come back. The implication was obvious.
Gulf Coast Girl — 99
I didn’t even hear them any more. They faded away as if I
were alone in the cockpit. She had lied about the whole thing.
Why try to find a way out now? It was perfectly clear;
anybody but a fool would have seen it long ago. I wasn’t
interested in their airplane or their stupid diamonds, or
where they had come from, or what it was all about. The fact
that she’d been lying all the time seemed to be the only thing
that mattered.
I was a chump. A sucker. I’d believed her. Even when I’d
had intelligence enough to realize the story sounded fishy I’d
still believed it. She wouldn’t lie. Oh, no, of course not. Why,
you could look at those big innocent, come-on-in-and-drownyourself
gray eyes and just know she couldn’t tell a lie. Jesus,
how stupid could you get? She couldn’t go in the plane
because he’d had to add a fuel tank to stretch out its cruising
radius. I was their last chance to escape; she had trusted me
with all the money they had left. She must have been
laughing herself sick all the time. I had no desire to spare
myself any of it. I even imagined her telling her husband
about it. Dear, this poor sap will believe anything.
So I’d gone for it like a high-school sophomore. And
because I’d believed it I had killed that poor vicious little
bastard in a fight and now the police would be looking for me
as long as I lived. Only I wasn’t going to be living very long.
That was as obvious as the fact that I’d been a fool. I was
scheduled for extinction just as soon as I located Macaulay’s
plane and brought up what they wanted.
So was she. And wasn’t that too bad? I wondered if she
realized just what her chances were of selling Barclay and
that big thug a sob story of some kind. As soon as she told
them where to look for that plane they’d kill her with no more
compunction than a monkey cracking the life out of a louse.
And if she didn’t tell them they’d enjoy beating it out of her.
Well, let her turn up the rheostats in those big beautiful eyes
and see what it bought her on this moonlight cruise. There
should have been some satisfaction in knowing her doublecrossing
had got her killed as well as me, but when I looked
for it, it wasn’t there. I just felt sick.
So I was going back to feeling sorry for her? I was like hell.
The dirty, lying, double crossing—I stopped. A puzzling
thought had occurred to me. If she knew what was in the
Gulf Coast Girl — 100
plane and where it was, why hadn’t they grabbed her off long
ago? Why had they kept trying to sweat Macaulay out of
hiding so they could take him alive and make him tell, when
they could have picked her up any time they pleased?
I cursed myself. What the hell, was I still trying to find a
way out for her? Of course they hadn’t wanted her as long as
there was a chance she would lead them to Macaulay. Her
information about the plane would be secondhand, and they’d
only taken her as second choice after Macaulay was dead.
She was all they had left.
Well, I thought, they didn’t have much.
We were on the bar now. The breeze was kicking up a
moderate sea that was choppy and confused as it fought with
the ebbing tide. We shipped a little water on deck now and
then as I held her on course toward the sea buoy.
“Here, take the helm,” I said to Barclay. He slid over and I
went forward and got the mainsail and jib on her. Barfield sat
where he was, smoking. When I had the sails set we were
passing the sea buoy. I cut the auxiliary.
“All right, what course?” I asked Barclay.
“Make it a little west of Scorpion Reef,” he replied in the
darkness. “That will do until in the morning and we can have
a little quiz session with Mrs. M.”
“Right.”
I went below, pulled down the chart table over the port
bunk, and clicked on the small light above it. 155 degrees
true would do it. I was just guessing at the leeway we’d make,
having never sailed her before, but that was close enough
since we didn’t even know where we were going anyway. And
since nothing made any difference and I didn’t care whether
we ever got there or not. Unless the wind changed we’d be
able to run down on that course all night without tacking.
Before I went back I looked swiftly around the cabin. I
didn’t even know what I was looking for, but since it was the
first time I’d been alone, there must have been some idea in
my mind of trying to find a weapon. I was just kidding myself.
They had brought nothing aboard with them, so there was no
hope they’d have another gun down here. I didn’t have a
chance. There were two of them; I’d never be where one
wouldn’t be watching me or at least aware of where I was. If I
Gulf Coast Girl — 101
got behind one of them and tried to get his gun, the other
would kill me. They were professionals; even a man armed
with another gun would have no chance against them.
The sloop heeled down a little, the cabin deck tilting.
Barclay had cleared the sea buoy and was letting her pay off
a little before the wind, guessing at the course as
approximately southeast. She lifted on a sea, and eased
across and down, the only sound the hissing of water past the
hull and the creaking of cordage. It was like home again until
I remembered I was laying down a course which went in only
one direction—outbound.
They wouldn’t need me going back. Anybody could find the
coast of Florida.
On some impulse I couldn’t explain, I stepped to the curtain
and looked into the forward part of the cabin. There was just
enough illumination from the chart lamp behind me to make
her out, lying on the starboard bunk with her face in the
pillow. The big lovely body looked defenseless and utterly
beaten.
I didn’t know why I did it. I stepped inside and stood near
the bunk, as if I had no control over my own movements. She
must have heard me, for she stirred and turned on her side
and her eyes opened. They were wet.
“Bill,” she whispered, “I’m sorry—”
I snapped out of whatever it was. I grinned coldly at her.
“Have a nice trip,” I said.
Turning, I went back through the after part of the cabin and
on deck. Barfield had his legs stretched out in the cockpit. I
kicked at them savagely.
“Keep your goddamned feet out of the way,” I said.
It had all the potentialities of lighting a cigarette in a
tanker’s pump room. Barclay’s cold professionalism was all
that saved it.
He was going to have his hands full. You could see that.
Gulf Coast Girl — 102
Ten
The moment for explosion had passed and he sat in the
breeze-swept darkness. She heeled down a little and water
hissed along the hull. I gave Barclay the corrected course,
and he let her fall off another point.
“Now,” he said, off to my left, the faint glow of the binnacle
light on his slender, handsome face, “watches. Have you ever
handled a sailboat, George?”
“No,” Barfield replied, across from me. “But if your nippleheaded
friend can do it, anybody can.”
“Well, it won’t be necessary, actually,” Barclay said.
“Manning and I can take it watch-and-watch, but you’ll have
to be on deck when he has it and I’m asleep. Mrs. Macaulay
can have the forward part of the cabin; you, I, and Manning
can get a little sleep in the two bunks in the after part from
time to time, except that obviously he can’t go down there
when one of us is asleep.”
He was utterly calm and matter-of-fact, as if he were
discussing the seating arrangement at a dinner party rather
than trying to work out a deathwatch over a condemned man
they had to live with and keep prisoner until the hour came to
kill him.
“It’s a little after twelve now,” he went on. “You’d best go
below, George, and catch up on your sleep. Manning can
stretch out here in the cockpit and I’ll take the first watch,
Gulf Coast Girl — 103
until six. When Manning relieves me, you’ll have to come on
deck.”
Barfield grunted something and went below, carrying the
satchel.
When he had gone, Barclay said, “I’d advise you to be chary
of provoking him, Manning. He’s quite dangerous.”
I sat down, as near him as I dared, and lit a cigarette. “It
would be tragic, wouldn’t it?” I said. “I mean, if he blew his
stack and killed me before I found your lousy plane for you
and the two of you could take turns at it.”
“Why should we kill you?”
“Save it,” I said. “I knew all along you wouldn’t. But aren’t
you going to give me a letter of recommendation? You know,
something like: ‘This will introduce Mr. Manning, the only
living witness to the fact that we killed Macaulay and that his
widow is innocent—“
“Not necessarily,” he said. “You won’t go to the police. You
can’t. You’re wanted for murder yourself.”
I wondered if he thought I would believe that. Certainly the
chances were I wouldn’t go to them. I’d have everything to
lose and nothing to gain. But if I were dead and lying on the
bottom of the Gulf of Mexico somewhere in two hundred
fathoms of water, there was no chance at all. And .45
cartridges were cheap.
I moved a little nearer. Just a slight shift of the buttocks
along the seat, almost imperceptible. I glanced at his face. It
was calm and imperturbable in the faint glow from the
binnacle. I stretched and slid another inch. I could almost
reach him.
The eyes were suddenly full of a mocking humor. “Here,”
he said. He took the .45 automatic out of the pocket of his
jacket and held it out to me butt first. “Save scuffling for it.
Undignified, what?”
My mouth dropped open. For a fraction of a second I was
too startled to do anything. Then I recovered myself and
grabbed it out of his hand.
“That was what you wanted, wasn’t it?” he asked
solicitously.
“Come about,” I said. “Take her back to the sea buoy.”
Gulf Coast Girl — 104
“I say, you are a theatrical devil, aren’t you?” His voice was
amused.
“You don’t think I’d kill you?”
“Frankly, no.”
“So it’s not loaded?” Completely deflated, I took the gun in
my left hand and pulled the slide back. I stared. It was
loaded.
“You won’t pull the trigger,” he said, “for several reasons.
You don’t want to go back to Sanport, because the police are
searching for you. And in the second place I doubt very
seriously that you are capable of shooting a man in cold
blood. Requires a certain detachment you don’t have—”
“Go on,” I said.
“But, naturally, the principal reason is that Barfield is down
there in the cabin with another gun, and he’s between here
and Mrs. Macaulay. If you attempted anything, he has her.
And he can be quite unpleasant if necessary. Has a knack for
it.”
“I don’t give a damn what happens to Mrs. Macaulay,” I
said.
He smiled. “You think you don’t, but that would change
with the first scream. You don’t have the stomach for that,
either.”
“I’m the original gutless wonder. Is that it?”
“No. You’re just vulnerable in a number of areas in which
you can’t be in a business like this. I’ve made quite a study of
you since that afternoon up there at the lake.”
“Then you knew what she was up to? That’s the reason you
shoved off and left us?”
“Naturally. Also the reason we were a little rough with you,
without actually hurting you, that night on the beach. We
wanted you to hurry a bit and get this boat for them so we
could find where Macaulay was hiding. Worked out quite
well, too, except that he was in such a funk he forced us to
kill him. However, that’s all in the past. Right now, would you
mind giving my gun back if you’re finished examining it?”
Sweat broke out on my face. I lifted the gun, lined it up
squarely between the mocking brown eyes, and flicked the
safety off. My hand shook so badly it wobbled. I had only to
Gulf Coast Girl — 105
squeeze the trigger, ever so gently, and there would be only
one of them. He watched me coolly. I wondered if there was
any fear in him at all. He couldn’t be human.
My finger tightened. I was taut as guitar strings all over
and the muscles hurt in my arms. I didn’t care what
happened to her, did I? I cursed her silently, bitterly, hating
her for being alive, and hating her for being here.
“George,” Barclay said quietly.
I went limp. I handed the gun to him, feeling sick and weak
all over.
“What is it?” Barfield’s voice asked from the
companionway.
“Nothing,” Barclay said. “Sleep tight, old boy.”
I lit a cigarette. My hands shook.
“Charge it to clarification,” Barclay murmured.
He had wanted me to know it, wanted me to realize the
futility of jumping one of them to get his gun as long as she
was there where the other could get her. This way it hadn’t
cost anything. I wondered what kind of mind I was dealing
with. He knew things about me I didn’t know myself. I
detested her. Maybe I even actively hated her. She and her
lying had ruined everything for me, I was sick with contempt
when I thought of her, and yet he’d known he could tie my
hands completely by threatening her with violence.
Clarification, he called it. It was about as clear as the
bottom of the Mississippi.
“I shouldn’t feel too badly about it,” Barclay said.
“Exploitation of weakness is purely routine in war, chess, or
tennis, and older than any of them. And she is admirably
constituted to be a carrier. Rather delectable wench.”
“Carrier?”
“Typhoid Mary of vulnerability, to use a medical analogy,
assuming any extension of the areas of potential hurt to be a
pathological condition. Regard for another human being is an
exposed nerve end, if you follow me. Imagine a surrealist
football player trailing his solar plexus or testes after him like
an eleven-foot bridal train. Unwieldy, what? And damned
convenient for the opposition in case the score is close.”
“The hell with Mrs. Macaulay,” I said.
Gulf Coast Girl — 106
“Forgive me if I talk too much. Grow philosophical at sea,
particularly under sail. Unpleasant habit.”
“What are you going to do with her after you find the
plane?”
“Frankly, I haven’t given it any thought, old boy. And since
neither of us gives a damn what happens to her, as you say,
why waste time in speculation? Lovely night, isn’t it? Are you
fond of Swinburne?”
“We were like that,” I said. “What did Macaulay do?”
“He tried to steal, or did steal, some three quarters of a
million dollars worth of diamonds from us.”
The sum meant nothing to me. He could have said twenty
dollars or a billion and it would have been the same as far as I
was concerned. It was something they were after, and
Macaulay had been after. I was just a pedestrian who had
been shoved into the line of march and run over.
The breeze was almost directly abeam. We shipped some
water amidships and a little spray blew into the cockpit.
Barclay handled her well; he was a good helmsman. A clumsy
one might have had the cockpit full by this time. I leaned
down and cupped my hands to light another cigarette and
looked around at him. The brown eyes gazed thoughtfully at
the compass card. He was the most completely baffling
human being I had ever run into, and I knew somehow that if
we were to sail this boat around the world for the rest of our
lives, just the two of us, I wouldn’t be any nearer to
understanding him on the last day than the first. He was coldblooded,
entirely without conscience, and still you almost
liked him. Why, I didn’t know.
“Since you were in the salvage business,” he went on, “you
must be familiar with the Shetland Queen.”
I looked up suddenly. “Sure. I remember her.”
She had lost her rudder in a tropical disturbance last fall
and hit a reef somewhere along the northern edge of the
Campeche Bank. As I recalled the story she had gone on
across it as the sea piled up, but there had been too much
damage below water line and she had gone down a few hours
later. The crew had got away all right. She was in about ten
fathoms, and the underwriters had let a contract to salvage
as much of the cargo as wasn’t ruined. They had saved some
Gulf Coast Girl — 107