I saw all that and it gave me a funny feeling in my stomach. It made me think of the wav he would lure the lookdowns close to the barb, and it made me think of the way blood spreads in the water.
After that, John Lash began to move in on Betty with all the grace and tact of a bulldozer. He tried to dab at her with a towel when she came out of the water. If she brought anything up, he had to bustle over to take it off her spear. He found reasons to touch her. Imaginary bugs. Helping her in or out of the boat. Things like that. And all the time his eyes burning in his head.
At first you could see that Croy and Betty had talked about it between meetings, and they had agreed, I guess, to think of it as being sort of amusing. At least they exchanged quick smiles when John Lash was around her. But a thing like that cannot stay amusing very long when the guy on the make keeps going just a little bit further each time. It got pretty tense and, after the worst day, Croy started leaving Betty home. He left her home for two weeks in a row.
Croy left her home the third week and John Lash didn’t show up either. We sat on the dock waiting for latecomers. We waited longer than usual. Dusty said, “I saw Lash at the bar yesterday and he said today he was off.”
There were only five of us. The smallest in a long, long time. We waited. Croy finally said, “Well, let’s go.” As we took the boat out I saw Croy watching the receding dock, no expression on his face. It was a funny strained day. I guess we were all thinking the same thing. We had good luck, but it didn’t seem to matter. We left earlier than usual. Croy sat in the bow all the way back, as if in that way he’d be nearer shore, and the first one home.
2.
Croy came around to see me at the garage the next morning. I was trying to find a short in an old Willys. When I turned around he was standing there behind me with a funny look on his face. Like a man who’s just heard a funny sound in the distance and can’t figure out just what it was. He looked right over my left shoulder, and said, “You can tell him for me, Dobey, that I’m going to kill him.”
“What do you mean?”
“He came around yesterday. He was a little drunk. He scared Betty. He knew I wouldn’t be there. He came around and he scared her. The Sandersons were there. She got loose of him and went over where they were. He kept hanging around. She had to stay with them most of the day. He’s got her nervous now. You tell him for me if he makes one more little bit of a move toward her at any time, I’ll sure kill him stone dead.” He turned around and walked out with that funny look still on his face. It was the most I ever heard him say all at one time.
At noon I went over to the bar where John Lash was working. He’d just come on. I got a beer and he rung it up and slapped my change down. He seemed a little nervous.
“Get anything yesterday?”
“Les got a big ’cuda. Croy got some nice grouper. Where were you?”
“Oh, I had things to do.”
“You better not have any more things like that to do.”
He looked at me and put his big hands on the bar and put his face closer to mine. “What kind of a crack is that?”
“Don’t try to get tough with me. You messed around Betty Danton yesterday. You scared her. She told Croy. Croy came in this morning and gave me a message to give you. He says you bother her in any other kind of way at any time and he’s going to kill you.” It sounded funny to say it like that. As if I was in a movie.
John Lash just stared at me out of those little hot eyes of his. “What kind of talk is that? Kill me? With all the come-on that blonde of his has been giving me? Why don’t he come here and tell me that? You know damn well why he didn’t come here. By God, I’d have thrown him halfway out to the road.”
“He told me to tell you. It sounded like he meant it.”
“I’m scared to death. Look at me shake.”
I finished my beer and put the glass down. “See you,” I said.
“I’ll be along the next time.”
I walked out. One thing about that Lash, he didn’t scare worth a damn. I would have been scared. One of those fellows who do a lot of talking wouldn’t scare me much. But the quiet ones, like Croy, they bottle things up.
It was nearly three o’clock when Betty came into the garage. She had on a white dress and when she stood there it made the old garage with all the grease and dirt look darker than ever before. She is a girl who looks right at you. Her eyes were worried. I wiped my hands and lit a cigarette and went over to her.
“Dobey, did Croy talk to you?”
“He was in.”
“What did he say?”
“Wouldn’t he tell you what he said?”
“He just said he gave you a message for John Lash. What was it, Dobey? He won’t tell me. He acts so funny. I’m scared, Dobey.”
“He told me to tell Lash if he messed around you he was going to kill him. He said Lash scared you.”
“Well, he did scare me, sort of. Because he was drunk. But the Sandersons were there. So it was all right. Croy says I have to come along with you next time. What did Lash say?”
“What do you think he said? You can’t scare him off that way. I don’t think anybody ought to go out next time, Betty. I think we ought to call it off. I think it’s going to be a mess.”
“Croy says we’re going. He’s acting funny. We’ll have to go. You’ve got to come along too, Dobey. Please.”
3.
That’s the way it was. It was something you couldn’t stop. Like one of those runaway trains in the old movie serials. Picking up speed as it went. I had time during the week to get hold of the other guys and tell them what was up. I don’t know now why we didn’t form a sort of delegation and go see John Lash and tell him to move along, off the Keys. There would have been enough of us. But there was something about Lash. Something wild and close to the surface. You could have done all that to a normal guy, but he wasn’t normal. I’m not saying he was crazy.
Anyway, I loaded the little Jap automatic I had brought back from Saipan and put it in the paper sack with my lunch. That’s the way I felt about the day.
Dusty and Lew and I were the first ones to arrive. We put the gear in the old tub. Lew had gotten his new Arbalete gun with the double sling and we hefted it and admired it and then we talked about maybe getting our own compressor some time for the two double-tank lungs. I crushed a damp cigarette and rubbed the glass on my face mask. Two more of the regulars arrived. There was the feel of trouble in that day. A different shimmer in the water. A different blue in the sky. A car door slammed and pretty soon Croy and Betty came around the corner of the fish house and down to the dock, laden with gear. For a time I guess we were all hoping that John Lash wouldn’t show. It would have been a good day then, like the days before he came along and joined us.
But as hope grew stronger and Dusty started to fool with the old engine, John Lash came down to the dock, walking cat-light, carrying his sack of gear and lunch and beer, his personal Saetta gun in his other hand, looking slimmer and frailer than it was because it was John Lash who carried it, walking toward us, sun picking sweat-lights off his brown shoulders.
I expected it right then and there. I saw Betty hunch herself a little closer to Croy and start to put her hand on his arm and then change her mind. But John Lash came aboard, saying a lot of loud hellos, banging his gear down, opening the ice chest to pile his cans of beer in there. He didn’t seem to pay any special attention to Betty, or Croy either. He sat on the rail back near Dusty at the wheel while we headed out and down the coast. It was enough to make you want to relax, but you couldn’t. The water had a greased look. We had agreed to try Gilman’s Reef. There is good coral there, and rock holes. I don’t know whether we were trying to keep a lid on trouble, but the other five of us did more talking than usual, more kidding around. But laughter had a flat sound across the water. Lew checked the Aqua Lungs. I had me a beer.