Downstairs in the lobby the old Negro was still mopping the tiled floor, humming to himself as he worked.
“Good night, Tom.”
“Floor’s wet, you walk easy.”
“Yes, I will.”
“A fine clear evening, ma’am.”
She stepped out into the dusty street.
The wind went everywhere, like an inquisitive ghost through keyholes, down chimneys; under the cracks of doors; and everything felt gritty to the touch.
The beach was littered with the broken shafts of palm trees. In the little café near the breakwater the tables were layered with fine sand that blew in when the door was opened and gradually settled over everything. Sam, the proprietor, went around muttering to himself and making futile swipes with a dish towel.
Charlotte sat at the counter and ordered a cup of coffee. The phone was where she remembered it, at the end of the counter beside the cash register. The hope grew in her mind that it was the phone Lewis had used yesterday morning to call Vern. She and Lewis had often come here for a late supper. The food was terrible and the dishes never quite clean, but it was the sort of place where neither of them would be likely to meet people they knew. Besides, in the rear booth where they usually sat, there was a tiny window like a square porthole, with a view of the breakers crawling up the beach. Our view, Lewis called it, with a kind of sadness in his voice, as if he meant that it was the only view they would have together, from the small murky window.
Sam brought the coffee. He was a Greek from Brooklyn, a fat curious-eyed man with spindly legs and narrow, delicate feet that could hardly support his weight. He talked a lot, always in a whisper out of the side of his mouth like a movie spy.
“How come you’re sitting up here? The back booth’s empty.”
“I’m alone tonight.”
“Mother of pearl, aren’t we all,” Sam said gloomily. “I’m thinking myself of maybe getting married again. I have the type of lady in mind, a nice widow with a little something in the bank and a little insurance. But they’re hard to find and in this business the dice are loaded against you. Take a nice widow coming in here for instance — sees me in this lousy apron and don’t see no further than the apron. Get what I mean? Sure ya do.” He leaned his elbows on the counter to ease the weight off his feet. “That your steady boyfriend you come in here with?”
“Yes. In fact, I’m looking for him now.”
“Anything the matter?”
“No, I just — well, yes. We had a quarrel. I want to find him to apologize.”
“He hasn’t been in today. Say, he’s got class, you know? I guess it’s the clothes, nifty tweeds instead of a lousy apron like...”
“What about yesterday?”
“Oh yesterday, sure. He came in early for breakfast. Ate a couple of eggs, drank some coffee and asked if he could use the phone. I said sure, go ahead. Though I’m telling you, confidentially, that I don’t encourage people to use the phone. How do I know they aren’t going to call their Aunt Daisy in Jersey City?”
He paused long enough to turn over a couple of hamburgers that were cooking on the gas grill.
“Well, he made the call, and then he bought a loaf of bread and a quart of milk and some cigarettes. He wasn’t looking himself. He had on a pair of dungarees and an old mackinaw. I said, kidding-like, ‘Going on a fishing trip?’ He didn’t answer. Paid his check and walked out. I was kind of curious, so I went to the window and watched where he went. He was heading hell for leather down the breakwater where all those dinghies are tied up. Well, then this girl in pink shorts happened to walk past with a rod and reel, and well, you know how it is. My eye kind of wandered. I’m very interested in rods and reels.” He chuckled at his own joke, supporting his heaving stomach with the palms of his hands.
Charlotte didn’t hear him. She knew now where Lewis was.
22
The breakwater was dark but there was light in the harbor master’s little office and the door was open. A young man was sitting on top of the desk examining the sole of one of his canvas shoes. He was about seventeen, clad in skin-tight levis and crew shirt, with a yachting cap pushed back on his head. He was full-grown but his face was beardless, and his manner had the uncertainty of adolescence.
When he saw Charlotte in the doorway he jumped down from the desk with an embarrassed grin.
“I’m looking for the harbor master,” Charlotte said.
“He went home, ma’am.”
“Are you in charge?”
“Well, kind of. I mean, he’s my uncle and I’m just kind of hanging around for the summer vacation.”
“There’s a boat anchored here called the Mirabelle.”
The boy’s uncertainty vanished. “Oh sure, that’s Mr. Johnson’s cruising sloop. He let me go aboard her tonight when I asked him if I could.”
“Tonight?” If Vern had been on the boat tonight it meant that her whole theory was wrong, that Lewis wasn’t hiding there after all. She felt defeated, exhausted, like an animal that had been trying for hours to find its way out of a maze of closed traps and blind alleys.
He was looking at her curiously, his brown eyes as round and alert as a spaniel’s. It was apparent that he wasn’t used to well-dressed women coming alone to the breakwater at nearly eleven o’clock at night. “You want to go out to the Mirabelle, ma’am?”
“Yes. I... Mr. Johnson’s a friend of mine.”
“Oh, he is?”
“A very good friend. You can verify that if you like.” She couldn’t understand the sudden blush that stained his cheeks and the lobes of his ears. “I guess you can take one of the skiffs that’s down there on the float, ma’am, if you bring it back in the morning.”
“I’ll have it back in half an hour.”
He didn’t say anything, he seemed too embarrassed to speak.
“Look,” Charlotte said. “If you’re in any doubt, you can phone Mr. Johnson. I believe he’s still at his office.”
“Mr. Johnson’s on board.”
“On board?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“I saw him at his office half an hour ago.”
“No ma’am,” the boy said stubbornly. “He’s aboard. He said he was going to s-sleep there.”
She went down the gangplank to the float, thinking, Vern can’t have reached here ahead of me. But if he did, why? Did he suspect all the time that Lewis was hiding on the boat? Did he come to warn him? No, that’s absurd. Vern doesn’t even know what kind of trouble Lewis is in.
The heavy float was rolling gently in the ebbing tide. Half a dozen skiffs were drawn up on it, bottoms up. The boy eased one into the water and walked back up to the top of the gangplank silhouetted against the light of the tiny office.
The Mirabelle was anchored a hundred yards off shore, its sails furled, its cabin portholes dark. She tied the skiff up at the stem and climbed awkwardly up the ladder.
“Vern?”
She crossed the deck and opened the door of the cabin. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the figure of a man lying on the lower bunk, face down.
She descended the five narrow steps, slowly, as if her legs were numb. “Vern?”
He stirred, moaned; one of his hands came up to his head as if to ward off a blow that he saw coming in a nightmare. She found the light and turned it on.
It wasn’t Vern. It was Lewis.
He was sleeping, but still moving, moving his head back and forth, and shielding his face with his arms. The dream stopped as suddenly as it began, his hands dropped, the fight was over.
She knelt down and touch his cheek gently. “Lewis, it’s me, Charley. Wake up, Lewis.”
He opened his eyes. They were pink and swollen, as if from tears. In the dream he had fought and won — or fought and lost — and the fight, the effort, was real; his forehead was drenched with sweat