I went up past the gear locker by the pole and two men separated themselves from the shadows and stepped out to block my way. One of them was the big ex-pug, the one they call Jakesy. The other was a foxy little bird in racetrack clothes. He flipped a cigarette away and pinched the knot in his tie and shook out his cuffs like a card shark getting set for a fast shuffle.
“This here is Mr. Renata, Curlon,” Jakesy said. Somebody had hit him in the throat once and his voice was a foghorn whisper. “He came down from Palm special to talk to ya.”
“A pleasure, Mr. Curlon,” the foxy man put out a long narrow hand like a monkey’s. I didn’t look at it.
“I told you not to hang around my boat,” I said.
“Don’t get tough, Curlon,” Jakesy said. “Mr. Renata’s a big man, he come a long way—”
“The Fishermen’s Protective Association’s an important organization, fella,” Renata spoke up. “A man can save hisself a lot of trouble by signing up.”
“Why would I want to save myself trouble?”
He nodded, as if I’d said something reasonable. “Tell you what, Curlon,” he said. “To show our good will, we’ll waive the three hundred initiation fee.”
“Just stay out of my way,” I said, and started past him.
“Wait a minute, conch,” Jakesy growled. “Mugs like you don’t talk to Mr. Renata that way.”
“Take it easy, Jakesy,” Renata said softly. “Mr. Curlon’s too smart a man to start any trouble.”
I looked the way his eyes had flicked and saw the car that had eased up across the street. Two men had gotten out and were leaning against the front fender with their arms folded.
“You got to move with the times, Curlon,” Renata said, and showed me some teeth that needed work. “A guy on his own ain’t got a chance nowadays. The competition is too tough.” He took some papers out of an inside pocket and held them out. “Sign ’em, fella. It’s the smart thing to do.”
I took the papers and tore them across the middle and tossed them away. “Anything else before you go?” I asked him. His face got nasty, but he put out a hand to hold Jakesy back.
“That’s too bad, Curlon. Too bad.” He took out his show hanky and flapped it and I stepped in fast past him and left-hooked Jakesy before his hand had time to finish its sweep up from his hip. The blackjack went flying and Jakesy took two off-balance steps back and went over the side and hit with plenty of splash. I grabbed for Renata, and a small automatic fell out of his clothes; he dived for it and ran into the toe of my shoe. He flopped out on his back, spitting blood and mewling like a wet kitten. The two back-up men were coming at a run. I grabbed -up the gun and started to say something to Renata about calling them off, but a gun flashed and coughed through a silencer and a slug cut air past my right ear. I fired twice from the hip and a man skidded and went down and the other hit the planks. I caught Renata’s collar and hauled him to his feet.
“Any closer and you’re dead,” I said; he kicked and tried to bite my hand, then squalled an order.
“The lousy punk got Jimmy,” the yell came back.
Renata yelled again and one of the gunnies got to his feet, slowly.
“Jimmy, too,” I said. Renata passed the word. The man on his feet tried to lift his partner, couldn’t make it, settled for getting a couple of handfuls of coat and dragging him. After a minute or two I heard the car start up, gun away into the fog.
“OK—now gimme a break,” Renata said. I pushed him away. “Sure,” I said, and hit him hard in the stomach, and when he bent over, I slammed a solid one to the chin. I left him on the dock and went on out and started up. I used my old knife to cut her stern line; in two minutes I was nosed out into the channel, headed for deep water. I watched the beach lights sliding away into the mist that covered the decay and the poverty and just left the magic of a harbor at night. And the smell of corruption; it couldn’t cover that.
I ran due west for five hours, then switched off and sat on deck and watched the stars for an hour, listening for the sound of engines, but nobody was chasing me.
I put out a sea anchor and went below and turned in.
There was a low mist across the water when I rolled out just before dawn. My shoulder was aching, and for a minute that and the feel of the clammy fog against my face almost reminded me of something: the glint of light on steel and a pennon that fluttered in the breeze, and the feel of a big horse under me; and that was pretty strange, because I’ve never been on a horse in my life.
The boat was dead still on the flat sea, and even through the mist the sun already had some heat in it. It looked like another of those wide, blue days on the gulf, with the sea and sky empty to the far horizon. Out here, Jakesy and his boss Renata seemed like something out of another life. I started for the galley to rustle some ham and eggs, noticed a curious thing: little clumps of funguslike stuff, growing on the mahogany planking and on the chrome rail. I kicked it over the side and spent half an hour swabbing her down and polishing her brass, listening to a silence as big as the world. Afterward, I lifted the hatch and checked the engines over, screwed the grease cups on the stuffing boxes down a turn or two. When I came back up on deck, there was a man standing by the port rail, looking at me over the sights of a gun.
He was dressed in a tight white uniform with little twists of gold braid at the cuffs. His face was lean, hard, not sunburned; a city man. The thing in his hand wasn’t like any gun I had ever seen, but it had that functional look; and the hand that pointed it at my face was as steady as it needed to be. I looked past him, all around the boat. There was no other boat in sight—not even a rubber raft.
“Smooth,” I said. “How did you manage it?”
“This is a neurac—a nerve-gun,” he said in a matter-of-fact tone. “It is indescribably painful. Do exactly as I tell you and I won’t be forced to use it.” He motioned me back toward the hatch. He had a strange accent—British, and yet not quite British. I moved back a step or two and he followed, keeping the distance between us constant.
“There is a fuel-pump valve located at the left of the water manifold,” he said, in the same tone you might ask to have the sugar passed. “Open it.”
I thought of things to say then, but the gun was the answer to all of them. I climbed down and found the valve and opened it; diesel fuel gushed out, making a soft splashing sound hitting the water on the port side. Three hundred gallons of number two, spreading out oily on the flat water.
“Open the forward scuttle valve,” the man with the gun said.
He moved with me as I lifted the hatch, watched me open the valve to let the green water boil in. Then we went aft and opened the other one. The water made a cool, gurgling sound coming in. I could see it in the open engine hatch, rising beside the big cylinder blocks, with bits of flotsam swirling on the dark surface. In two minutes she was down by the stern, listing a little to port.
“It’s a cumbersome way to commit suicide,” I said. “Why not just go over the side?”
“Close the aft valve,” he said. He was braced against the side of the cockpit, cool and calm, a technician doing his job. I wondered what the job might be, but I went aft fast and closed the valve. Then the forward one. By then, she was riding low, her gunwales about six inches out of the water. The smell of the oil was thick in the air.
“If the wind comes up, under we go,” I said. “And with no fuel, that means no pumps—”
“Lie down on the deck,” he cut me off.
I shook my head. “I’ll take it standing up.”