Standing in the companion looking around, Sail scratched his chest and tugged the hair on it. His fingers twisted a little rattail of the chest hair. No one was in sight. He got over the side without being too conspicuous about it.
The water had odor and the usual things floated in it. He swam under the dock, searching. The tide was high slack, almost, but still coming in just a little, so things in the water were not moving away.
The pier had been built stout because of the hurricanes. There was a net of cross timbers underneath, and anything falling off the south side of the dock would drift against them. Sail found what he was seeking on the third dive.
He kept in the dark places as he swam away with it.
The little island — artificial, put there when they dredged the harbor — was darkly silent when Sail swam laboriously toward it. Pine trees on the island had been bent by the hurricanes, and some torn up. The weeds did not seem to have been affected.
Sail tried not to splash as he shoved through the shallows to the sand beach. He towed the Greek underwater. Half a dozen crabs and some seaweed clung to the Greek when Sail carried him into the pines and weeds. The knife sticking in the Greek, and what it had done, did not help. The pines scratched and the weeds crunched under the Greek when Sail laid him down. It was very dark.
Pulpy skins in a billfold were probably greenbacks, and stiffer, smaller rectangles, business cards. Silver coins, a pocketknife, two clips for an automatic. The automatic holster empty under the Greek’s left armpit. From inside the Greek’s coat lining, another rectangle, four inches wide, five times as long, a quarter of an inch thick. It felt like hardwood. The Greek’s wristwatch still ticked.
Sail put the business cards and the object from the coat lining inside his swim trunks, and was down on his knees cleaning his hands in the sand when the situation got the best of him. By the time he finished being sick, he had sweated profusely.
The water felt cold as he swam back the way he had come — under the docks and close to the seawall — with the Greek.
Sail clung to Sail’s chain bobstay until all the water had run off him that wanted to run off, then swung aboard and moved along the deck, keeping below the wharf level, and dropped down the hatch. He started to take the bathing suit off, and the girl said, “Puh-lease.”
She swung her legs off the forward bunk. Light from the kerosene gimbal lamp did not reach all of her. The feet were small in dark blue sandals which showed red-enameled toenails. Her legs had not been shaved recently, but were nice.
Pink starting on Sail’s chest and spreading made his tan look dark and uncomfortable, and he chewed an imaginary something between his large white front teeth as he squinted at the girl. He seemed about to say something two or three different times, but didn’t, and went into the stateroom and got out of the swim trunks. The shadow-wrapped rest of her did not look bad as he passed. He tied a fish sinker to the trunks and dropped them through a porthole into the bay, which was dredged three fathoms deep here. He put on his scrubbed black clothes.
The girl had moved into the light. The rest of her was interesting.
“You probably think I’m a tart,” she said. “I’m not, and I wish you’d let me stay here awhile longer. I have a good reason.”
Sail scratched behind his right ear, raised and lowered his eyebrows at her, stalked self-consciously into the galley, pumped freshwater in a glass and threw it on the galley floor, then stepped in it. His feet now left wet tracks such as they had made when he came aboard. He seemed acutely conscious that his efforts to make this seem a perfectly sensible procedure were exaggerated. His hands upset a round bottle, but he caught it. He set it down, picked it up again, asked:
“Drink?”
She had crossed her legs. Her skirt was split. “That would be nice,” she said.
Sail, his back to her, made more noise than necessary in rattling bottles and glasses and pinking an opener into a can of condensed milk. He mixed two parts of gin, one of crème de cacao, one of condensed milk. He put four drops from a small green bottle in one drink and gave that one to the girl, holding it out a full arm length, as if he didn’t feel well-acquainted enough to get closer, or didn’t want to frighten her away.
They sipped.
She said, “It’s not bad without ice, really.”
“I did have an electric ice box,” he told her, as if excusing the lack of ice. “But it and this salt air didn’t mix so well.”
Her skirt matched her blue pumps, and her yellow jersey was a contrast. Her long hair was mahogany, and done in a bun over each ear, so that her long oval face had a pure, sweet look. She drank again. Her blue leather handbag started to slip out of the hollow of her crossed legs and she caught it quickly.
Sail put his glass down and went around straightening things which really didn’t need it. He picked up the News off the engine box. It was in two parts. He handed one part to the girl. That seemed to press the button. She threw the paper down and grabbed her blue purse with both hands.
“You don’t need to be so goddamn smart about it!” she said through her teeth.
She started to get up, but her knee joints did not have strength, and she slid off the bench and sat hard on the black battleship linoleum. Sail moved fast and got his plump hands on the blue purse as she clawed it open. A small bright revolver fell out of the purse as they had a tug-of-war over it.
“Blick!” the girl squealed.
Blick and a revolver came out of the oilskin locker. The gun was a small bright twin to the girl’s. Blick’s Panama fell off slick mahogany hair, and disarranged oilskins fell down in the locker behind him. Blick had his lips rolled in until he seemed to have no lips. He looked about old enough to have fought in the last war.
“Want it shot off?” he gritted.
Sail jerked his hand away from the girl’s purse as if a bullet was already headed for it. He put his hands up as high as the cabin carlins and ceiling would allow. His mouth and eyes were round and uneasy, and the upper part of his stomach jumped a little with each beat of his heart, moving the polo shirt fabric.
Blick gave Sail a quick search. He was rough. His lips were still rolled in, and a sleeve was still jammed up on one arm, above a drop of blood that was not yet dry.
The girl started to get up, couldn’t. She said, “Blick!” weakly.
Blick, watching Sail, threw at her, “You hadda be a sucker and drink with him!”
The girl’s lips worked over some words before sounds started coming. “...was... I... know he... it doped.”
Blick gritted at Sail, “Bud, she’s my sis, and if she don’t come out of that, I wouldn’t wanta be you. Help me get her goin’!”
Blick dropped his sister’s purse and gun in his coat pocket, got his Panama, then took the girl’s right arm, letting Sail look into the little gun’s muzzle all the while. “Help me, bud!”
Sail took his hands down. Sweat wetness was coming through his washed black polo shirt. He watched Blick’s eyes and face instead of watching the gun. They walked the girl up the companion and onto the dock. Blick put his hand and small revolver into a trouser pocket.
“We’re tight. Stagger!”
They staggered.
The orchestra on the moonlit excursion boat was still trying to entice customers for the moonlight sail. Yacht sailors, some of them with a load, stood in a knot at the end of the lunch stand, and out of the knot came the chug of the slot machines. Blick was tall enough to glare over his sister’s head at Sail. His glare was not bright.