“Sergeant!” the familiar voice shouted. “Sergeant Corpol! Kill those engines! Now!”
He pulled the throttles back. The bow lifted and then settled. He put both drives in neutral, turned both keys. He moved back from the wheel and still not looking toward the Lieutenant, he sagged down into a sitting position on the deck. He closed his eyes and rocked slowly back and forth. When your eyes were closed, voices sounded funny. Like the people were talking into empty barrels.
With vivid flashing eyes, body rigid with anger and indignation, Miss Boylston looked directly at Dave Dickerson, then at Gordon Dale, then at Chief Cooley. “I am not going to be given a sedative, gentlemen! I am not going to be knocked out. And the business of Sergeant Corpo is not going to be set aside so you can take care of it later.”
“All I said was...”
“I heard what you said, Mr. Dale. Should I call you Lieutenant the way Sarg does? You and I happen to be the only people in the world he gives one damn about, and I am not going to talk about anything to anybody until I have some kind of guarantee you’ll leave him alone.”
“I don’t rightly see how we can do that,” said Chief Cooley.
“Lock him up, eh? The wonderful answer to everything. I would like to speak to Mr. Dale in private.”
Cooley sighed, nodded at Detective Sergeant Dickerson and they left the hospital room. “Mr. Dale, are you getting tired of being responsible for Sergeant Corpo? Is this just a wonderful opportunity to stick him back into a veterans hospital for the rest of his life?”
“You’re very young, Miss Boylston. He held you there on that island over two weeks. He didn’t seek medical attention for you. He did not report finding the boat and finding you. He told me that in front of Chief Cooley. It’s out of my hands.”
“If you want it out of your hands. That’s my point. When he found me he thought I was dying. I guess I should have been. I think if he tried to bring me in when he found me, I could have died on the way. He is simple, and he is confused, but he certainly is smart enough to know what would happen to him if he brought a girl’s body to the city dock. He is confused about what happened. When I regained consciousness he was going to bring me in. But I begged him not to. I pleaded with him.”
“Why?”
“I couldn’t remember what happened. I knew somebody wanted to kill me. I didn’t want them to find me. I wanted to stay right there on his island where I felt safe. He was very sweet and very gentle, and he did not do anything out of line at all. Why do you people want to punish him for doing what I asked him to do? How was he to know?”
“Then your memory came back.”
“Don’t look at me in that skeptical way. I remembered, and I asked him to bring me here to town. That’s what he was doing when you and that cop started showing off, blowing sirens and waving a gun.”
“Dickerson picked up the name on the transom with the glasses. The Muñequita. What was any cop supposed to do?”
“That’s beside the point. He’s no danger to himself or anyone else. He’s a gentle person. He was released in your custody. He admires you. What’s the matter with you? Does it spoil your image to have to look out for a disabled man who saved your life?”
“Now just a minute!”
“Don’t get stuffy with me. You remind me of my brother. He’s a lawyer too. You’re all defensive because you haven’t been doing your job, Mr. Dale.”
“I’ve done everything possible to...”
“To let him go his own way. So you’ve let him accumulate over twenty-three thousand dollars in cash in two ammunition boxes in that crazy shack of his.”
“That much!”
“If you cared, you’d know how much. We have something in common. He saved my life too. Why don’t you buy the island from the state? Would it cost more than he’s got?”
“I don’t know. Probably not.”
“If he can’t own property, if he’s legally incompetent, borrow the money from him and buy it and lease it to him for the rest of his life for a dollar. When he dies, dedicate it as a bird sanctuary or some damned thing. But right now, please, get those fools to let him out of the cage they’ve put him in and let him go back to his island. This is a lousy time for you to give up on him.”
He looked at her. “The minute I heard about his shopping spree I should have gone out there. But I didn’t. Too busy. Too indifferent. Too much trouble. So I’m annoyed at myself, and I feel guilty, so the Sergeant is a handy target. Okay, girl. I’ll fight them off and pry him loose one more time.”
“As many more times as you have to.”
“But humor me a little. Let me keep telling myself it’s the last time.”
The nurse gave Sam Boylston a shy and luminous smile and ducked out of the room, closing the door gently. He approached the bed, shocked at her emaciated look, yet with a great joy that it was indeed Leila. On the way up, traveling at high speed in the official sedan, he had convinced himself that it was a case of some stupid girl hunting for publicity. With her eyes closed Leila looked emptied of all her familiar vitality.
As he neared the bed she opened her eyes and looked quite vaguely at him, then gave a yelp of joy, grinned widely, stretched her arms out to him and began to cry. He bent awkwardly over the bed to hold her in a close embrace.
“Hey,” she said. “Hey, Sam. You’re not supposed to cry too. You play things cool.”
“Very cool. Very remote. Sure, honey. I’ve taken up crying lately. I might have to use it on a jury sometime.”
He pulled a chair close to her bed. She blew her nose. “You know something, Sambo? I’ve never been really sure you love me. I guess you do. I guess you sent me on that crummy cruise because you love me. Where’s Jonathan?”
“Hunting for you. In a homemade boat out there on the Bank. Maybe they’ve made radio contact by now. He... He knew you weren’t dead. Everybody knew you were. Everybody but him. Fool performance. He wanted to do it. I gave him some money.”
“You? Financing foolishness?”
“I wanted somebody believing in it, even if I knew it wasn’t true.”
“If I’d died, he’d have felt that I wasn’t in the world any more. He’d have felt the emptiness. I would if he died. You go into one room, and you can tell if the whole house is empty. You can always tell. Damn it, they made me take a sedative. They keep prodding at me and saying Hmmm and Hmph. It scalds them they can’t find something wrong, really wrong.”
“Leila, have they told you how they want to handle this?”
“Yes. Complete loss of memory. But — I do remember. God, I remember! Have they found that crazy man?”
“Take it easy, Leila. A man named Lobwohl wants to talk to you. Friend of mine. I’ll call Lyd while he’s talking to you. Is there anything I can get you?”
“Jonathan, and quickly please.”
At nine o’clock on Thursday morning, the red and white float plane came snoring and chattering down to circle the catamaran. Jonathan realized how silent his world had been. Sounds of the sea birds, slap of waves, creak of mast, the long exhalations of the wind. He thought the plane might be in trouble. It straightened out and ran downwind, then turned and landed, heading directly for them. Stanley turned the cat directly into the eye of the gentle breeze. The sail flapped. The plane stopped a hundred feet away, and then with short, sharp bursts it came toward them. Two dozen feet away the engine coughed and died. A man in weather-bleached khakis climbed out and stood on the float.
“Jonathan Dye?” the man called.
“That’s right, who are you?”
“Can you heave a line over?”