It was money in a small chamois pouch. She took it out and tried to hand it to me. I kept my hands on the wheel. “Whose is it?”
“Mine.”
“But whose was it before that?”
She thought about it. “You’re right,” she said.
She put her hand on the outside and let the wind peel it away from her. It went streaming backward into the night, in tens and twenties and, for all I know, hundreds. Someone had a good time along that stretch of roadway the next day, I bet.
“Aren’t we ever going to get there?”
“Soon. The worst is over now. It doesn’t sail until twelve, and we still have—” I felt her pressing herself against me. “Why’re you so scared?”
“That isn’t it, Scotty, they know! The whole thing worked out wrong. It paid off ahead of time. It’s delayed action with a fuse. And we’ve got to beat the fuse to that boat. And I don’t think we can now.”
I asked her what she meant. It was just a mess of words to me.
“Somebody saw you. Somebody that knows him saw you buying the tickets, or coming out of there, or whatever it was. He recognized you, or rather Ed’s car. One of those ghastly coincidences, tonight of all nights. He was the one who sat down at the table with us just now. Only he thought it was Roman and me you were buying them for. Thought we were going away on a quick trip or something. I heard him mention it to Ed. Luckily it didn’t register. Because I was still there at the table with them.
Ed passed it off; it didn’t make sense. He thought it was just a mistake. But now. Starting in from the minute I left that table, from the minute they miss me — it’ll suddenly make sense. It’ll suddenly pay off. They’ll know. Havana. The boat. There’s only one every ten days. With the two of us gone, they’ll know who the tickets were for; they’ll know where to catch up with us before we have a chance to sail.”
“But I have the car.”
“This third man who sat down at the table with them has one of his own. They may already be on the road behinds us.”
I gave it the gun. “We’ll take care of that.”
But now our anxiety had reversed itself. We wanted it to leave soon; soon and fast. Only give us time enough to get aboard and then pull right out.
“We’ll be under way in ten minutes now.”
“But you can die in only one.”
“We won’t,” I promised her. I hoped I was right.
“There’s something back there. Some pair of lights that seems to do everything we do. Awfully far back, though. The size of little pills.”
“Don’t keep looking back,” I soothed her. “That won’t keep them off our trail, if it is they.”
We got there at six to midnight, with a great slashing turn and a plowing stop in front of the pier. I gave her the tickets, said: “Here, wait for me by the gangplank. I’ll get this out of the way.” She wanted me to come right with her, but I waved her on. We couldn’t leave it standing right there; it would have been a giveaway to them, if it was they behind those distant “pills” she’d mentioned.
I took it offside, left it where it was good and dark, came chasing back on foot. Cars were coming up every minute, coagulating into a sluggish single-file line in front of the embarkation point. I couldn’t tell if the “pills” were included in it or not; they had lost their separate identity. Most of the people spilling out of them were lushed up; this was a pleasure cruise, after all. The vessel’s steam siren let go with a dismal, bronchial blast that drowned everything else out for a minute.
I found her waiting at the foot of the gangplank. There were plenty of other women in evening gowns milling around, and that was all to the good; it made her less conspicuous. We showed our tickets and went scampering up. A steward took us in charge, led us down below, showed us where the two staterooms were: one opposite the other across the passage. He tried to come in, adjust the porthole. I handed him a bill, said, “Never mind that. We like everything just the way it is.” He turned and went off.
She said, “Lock the door.” And she crowded up against it and flattened it with her hands, to make it stick fast, after it was already locked.
“I’ve got another one for myself,” I told her.
“Oh, don’t leave me. Propriety be damned. Stay in here with me tonight.”
Motion started in.
I said, “It’s all right. We’re safe.”
“I don’t think we’ll ever be,” she said. “Do you?”
“Do you feel it? It’s getting stronger every minute. We’ve made it. We’re okay.”
We sank down together on a sort of settee under the porthole, with the fresh breeze coming in over us, and we stayed that way, my arm around her, her head against mine. We stayed up all night. It was only an overnight run, anyway.
That’s a pretty condensed love affair. One night. But we weren’t gypped. I think we said everything there was to say in that one night. And maybe it was better there was a deadline on us. Because there was no money. And the hard grind would have chipped all the glamor off in the weeks and months to come. We had it brand-new from the factory. And what more can you ask for?
We stayed like that all night, her head pillowed on my shoulder, mine slanted back against the stateroom panel. The porthole curtain rippling inward over our heads like a pennant, the water humming softly by outside. We were happy. We were heading for that line way out yonder, where the water meets the sky, that we’d longed for from the shore.
The porthole paled, and the day broke across the Gulf Stream.
Then suddenly there was a sound at the door, and we both died a little all over again. It was about six; it was too early yet to be in Havana, and there was this soft, almost surreptitious tapping on the wood. As though it were being done with just one finger.
We were erect now but still cleaving together. I carried her with me that way over toward it.
“They’re on board! They must have got on last night!”
“No, no, take it easy. They wouldn’t have waited this long if they were.”
We stalled to see if it would come again. It came again.
“Who’s there?” I asked gruffly.
A man’s voice said: “Wireless message, sir.”
That’s the oldest gag in the world. On land it’s a telegram.
“Don’t open,” she whispered fiercely.
I said, “Shove it underneath if you have one.”
A tongue of tawny yellow started to lick through. It really was one.
I waited until it had fallen still. Then I pulled it free, and we opened it and read it together. The instructions were to deliver immediately.
It was addressed to her. It was short and bitter. Just one word.
LUCK. ED
6
When I’d finished telling it to her the candle flame had wormed its way down inside the neck of the beer bottle, was feeding cannibalistically on its own drippings that had clogged the bottle neck. The bottle glass, rimming it now, gave it a funny blue-green light, made the whole room seem like an undersea grotto.
We’d hardly changed position. I was still on the edge of her dead love’s cot, inertly clasped hands down low between my legs. She was sitting on the edge of the wooden chest now, legs dangling free; that was the only difference.
After I’d stopped I couldn’t help thinking: How long it takes to live your life, how short a time to tell it.
She’d listened to it; a stranger hearing a stranger’s troubles. I could hardly see her any more; she was nearly as invisible now again as she’d been earlier at our first never-to-be-forgotten confrontation. Just a light shield over there for her face, and an occasional glint coming from it for her eyes.