“It’s a pity you didn’t bring bathing apparel. Now, if Allison were broad-minded enough…” Tolliver smiled. “I’m joking, of course.”
Could a man be so completely naive about the woman he married? I started thinking that maybe, just maybe, Allison didn’t have many guests. If I had been the first it might explain Tolliver’s attitude. It seemed a reasonable gambit to shove the conversation in Funland’s direction, so I said, “Do you have many guests out here at the Bluff?”
Tolliver set a tray down on the ground and Allison hopped, bouncing delightfully, to her feet and returned to my side with two Tom Collins. “Gregory doesn’t have many friends,” she told me blandly.
“You see, Mr. Frey, I prefer the company of younger people. As a general rule, we entertain Allison’s friends more than we do mine. I would rather be surrounded by talk of swimming and sunbathing than rheumatism and the gout.”
I lit a cigarette and flipped the match over the edge of the cliff. “Frankly, I sometimes still wonder how a man in your position ever got started with an amusement palace.”
“Allison regards it as a hobby,” Tolliver answered at once. “We visit Tolliver’s Funland several times during the season and… I don’t know if I should tell you this. You’ll pledge secrecy?”
“Boy Scout oath,” I said, and laughed.
“Well, we visit incognito. The concession people rent their places from my agent in Brooklyn. When we visit Tolliver’s we’re just two more customers, a blind man and his wife. Oh, they know there is a Gregory Tolliver, but they don’t know I’m their man. Your associates are a pleasant group, Mr. Frey.”
“Most of them,” I said. “I think one of them killed Bert Archer.”
“Yes, poor Archer,” Tolliver mused. “A terrible tragedy. Have the police uncovered anything?”
“Not that I know of.”
“They decided it was murder at the inquest,” Allison reminded us.
“Their investigation isn’t breaking any speed records,” I said then sucked in my breath as Allison rolled over on her stomach, propping herself on her elbows, her breasts hanging like ripe, succulent fruit.
“You can hardly expect the police to advertise,” Allison pointed out.
“Mr. Tolliver,” I asked, trying my luck with a new subject again, “Does your agent in Brooklyn maintain a constant check on the activities at Funland?”
“No, not that I know of. Why should he?”
“I was just wondering. Then if some criminal activity were going on there, you wouldn’t know about it?”
“Probably I wouldn’t. This is all hypothetical, of course. There isn’t something you want to tell me?”
I considered. I closed my eyes and stopped looking at Allison and thought of Karen. “Hell, no,” I said easily. “I was only wondering.”
“Enough morbid talk for one day!” Allison cried, skipping to her feet. The way she bounced….
“What I had in mind,” Allison called over her shoulder as she headed for a long flight of stone steps carved in the face of the cliff and descending steeply to the beach and jetty below, “was a spin in the Allison I… I’m sorry, Gideon, it embarrasses me, but the boat was named for me, you see.
Coming?”
“Coming,” said Tolliver. With Shamus leading him he walked to where the steps began, then thumped Shamus’ rump and the dog trotted off in the direction of the cool shade near Blind Man’s Bluff. A wrought-iron railing guided Tolliver down the steps and by the time we reached the bottom Allison had already leaped aboard the cabin, cruiser which bore her name in large block letters on its prow. Presently the motor began to throb with a rich, steady humming and the boat bobbed up and down.
“She’s forty feet long and can do better than thirty knots,” Tolliver explained as we climbed aboard from the pier. Tolliver walked with sure, familiar steps toward the wheel and Allison backed out of his way before he could brush against her. “I pilot this ship, Mr. Frey,” he said. “So you and Allison can entertain yourselves back in the cabin or on the sundeck.” Lord, he was throwing us together.
“Come on,” said Allison, taking my hand. “I’ll get you some beer.”
The boat eased forward with a smooth surge of power as Allison led me back to the galley. Outside, we’d churned up a frothy white wake in the Sound. We were picking up speed.
“How does he know which way to steer?” I asked.
“I’m his eyes aboard the Allison I. All I have to do is warn him if any craft approaches. He knows the Sound. Besides, the neighbors know who’s piloting and keep clear of the Allison I. Now will you please stop standing way over there by the stove and come here?”
“That can wait. Your husband’s on this boat.”
“My God, Gideon. Don’t tell me you got wounded in the wrong place in Korea.”
“That’s nasty.”
“Damn you, Gideon. Either you come here or I’m going to scream and tell Gregory you… you attacked me.”
I laughed and then stopped. Allison had begun to scream without the slightest expression on her face.
“All right,” I hissed. “All right.”
“What’s the trouble?” Tolliver called from above. “What’s wrong down there?”
Allison came into my arms with enough force to thrust me back against the small electric stove. She ground herself against me and began to tremble. She called back, huskily, “Turn to starboard, dear, that’s all.”
The cruiser swung about sharply, hurling us across the cabin until Allison’s back struck the bulkhead. She let herself slide to the floor and didn’t leave go of me.
“Gideon,” she whispered. “Gideon, Gideon.” Her lips pouted, hot and avid, against my neck, my shoulders, my chest. I dug nails into my palms and said no over and over inside my head because I’d start the mad whirl with her all over again, but there was Allison clinging to me hot and wet in the warm, still air of the cabin and I sighed and clung back and every few minutes Allison would yell “starboard” or “port” or “steady as she goes” and I could hear Tolliver whistling a cheery sea ballad about a pirate ship whose hair hung down in ring-e-lets.
“I’ll turn on the air-conditioning,” Allison said, slipping away easily. “It will be cooler here later.” Damn her, she did just that. Then she went on deck and I called myself a jackass for each of Heinz’ fifty-seven varieties and said to myself it wouldn’t happen again. But I had a feeling all Allison had to do was crook her pinky.
I smoked a cigarette before following Allison. When I reached the sundeck she had found herself a white terrycloth robe with the word “hers” embroidered on it in maroon script. The white tennis shorts were on the deck beside her, but she’d wrapped herself from chin to knees in the robe and lay there with the sweat glistening on her face. “Relax, Gideon,” she told me. “Lie down.” I stretched alongside her and watched her make a production of ignoring me. Once or twice she called directions to Tolliver, and then the cruiser left the Port Washington Channel behind it and cut out into the wide blue expanse of the Sound and soon there was nothing but the water and the sky and Allison in her damned terrycloth robe.
Then Allison not in her terrycloth robe. She stood up and stretched her arms toward the smoky-hot blue sky. She’d draped the robe about her without using its sleeves and it fell away in a crumpled heap, like a large bathtowel. She stood there, poised on tiptoe and stretching up to bring down the sky around her, then pirouetted slowly toward the water and executed a graceful swan dive which could have got her a job at the Flushing Meadow Aquashow.