So was she back now? Someone was there, just off to the right. Sassi, lying on her stomach, kept her eyes closed and her face hidden in the crook of her arm, because if it was The Weasel she didn’t want any more escape plans. No tunnels under the sea to Jamaica, no balloons constructed of bed-sheets, no scuffing HELP in the sand. No.
But it wasn’t The Weasel after all, because finally it was Lee Marvin’s voice that said, “You’re about done on that side, lady. Better turn over.”
“Hello, Frank,” she said, eyes still shut. She rather liked Frank, much in the same way she liked Kama and Sutra. He was an enjoyable pet, even if he did have one or two bad habits.
He did Thomas Mitchell now: “A man can forget everything in these islands. Even himself.”
“No more imitations, Frank,” she said. She opened her eyes — everything was tinged in red — and looked at him, sitting there on a blanket of his own beside her. “I’m really not up to it,” she said.
He shrugged, and looked embarrassed. “Okay,” he said.
“How long do you think we’ll be here?” she asked, both to ease his embarrassment and because she really wanted to know.
“Not long,” he said. “We’re supposed to get the ransom tomorrow. If we do, we’ll leave here and send the authorities a message where to pick you up.”
“What if you don’t?”
Frank looked embarrassed again and shrugged. “I dunno. We’ll have to work it out then, I guess.”
A trace of cold touched Sassi’s spine. “You wouldn’t — do anything, would you?”
“What?” He looked startled, then laughed in confusion. “Heck, no. What do you think we are? I guess we’ll just give them another message. Maybe put you on the radio and tell them you’re alive and well.”
“Sure,” Sassi said, much relieved. “Anything to oblige.” She found herself hoping it would happen that way: no ransom tomorrow, and then another demand, and so on. With any luck she could get a couple weeks out of this. And it could happen that way. If she knew Joshua Solly, and God knew she did, he wouldn’t be in any hurry to cough up a lot of money, not for her or anybody. “How much are you asking?” she wanted to know.
“Four hundred thousand.”
“I get twice that much for a picture,” she said, feeling idiotically that it was an insult to be held for such little ransom.
“Eight-fifty you get,” he said. “We were going to ask that, but we thought it was too much.”
“It wouldn’t hurt to try,” she said.
He shrugged. “We settled for four.”
“Always start high,” she advised him. “You can always settle for less later on. I wish you’d told me before.”
“I didn’t think you’d care,” he said.
She laughed and sat up. “This is a nutty conversation,” she said. “How’d you get into something like this, anyway?”
Frank grinned. “Which story do you want to hear? The sick old mother that needs the operation, or the kid brother in medical school?”
“Okay,” Sassi said. “I deserved that.”
Which made Frank embarrassed again. “It was kind of snotty,” he said. “Actually, I just want the money.”
“What if you get caught?”
“I’d rather not.”
“But what if you do?”
Frank grinned again. “I’d rather not,” he said.
Sassi saw that was the only answer she was going to get, so she lay down again, on her back this time, and said, “If you do, I probably won’t identify you.”
He looked at her in surprise. “Why not?”
“Because you’re a nice guy,” she said, “and prison would probably be bad for your disposition.”
Smiling, he said, “Thanks, then. But I hope the question never comes up.”
“One thing,” she said.
“What’s that?”
“Don’t spoil it, you know? Don’t try to kiss me or make out with me or anything like that. Okay?”
It was Billy DeWolfe who answered: “Oh, my dear, I wouldn’t do a thing like that.”
Sassi laughed and shut her eyes. “Don’t let me sleep more than an hour,” she said.
“Right,” said Frank.
Jigger glared at herself in the bathroom mirror. “Jigger Jackson,” she said savagely, “you’re a goddam fool. In the first place, the guy’s a kidnapper, he’ll die on the gallows. In the second place, he’s a nut, he’ll blow himself up some day. And in the third place, Sassi Manoon is the only one around here that can do you any good.” She squinted balefully at her image in the mirror. “So why fall for a creep like Kelly?”
Her image didn’t answer.
She looked away from herself, disgusted, and glared instead at the key in her open palm. The fact that it was the wrong key made it both less and more than she wanted to do. So now what? Eh? Now what?
She and Kelly had stayed out there on the boat all day, Kelly having cut the engine so they could just drift wherever the gentle waves took them. They hadn’t even started for home until long after dark, after the nearly-full moon was already up and gleaming its sweet pale falsehoods on the black ocean. And it wasn’t till then, till they were already on their way back to the island, that she thought again of the key. It was in use just then, of course, but might he have an extra?
The thought saddened her. She was troubled about having to do this, but she was also determined. It didn’t matter about the moonlight or Kelly’s unexpected magnetism or her own feelings, she was out here for a purpose and she was going to stick to that purpose. Too much was at stake, she couldn’t let bright moonlight and stupid emotion spoil things this time. Still, it bothered her.
It bothered her when she went down into the cabin and went through Kelly’s pants, he not being in them at the time, and a part of her really didn’t want to find a key in there. When her fingers did close on a key, her heart sank.
But then she pulled it out and looked at it, and saw a way out of the dilemma after all, because it was a Yale, and attached to it was a small cardboard tag on which someone had long ago written in ink RADIO ROOM.
Radio room. She tucked the key away inside her own clothing and went back out on deck.
And now here she was, an hour later, alone at last in the third-floor bathroom, looking at herself and at the key and feeling very confused and troubled and irritated and upset.
All right. The compromise she’d worked out was a good one. She and Sassi wouldn’t be escaping in the boat, they wouldn’t exactly be escaping at all, but the effect would be the same.
It had come to her in a flash, as she’d stood there on the boat with the radio-room key in her hand. What they would do tonight, they would sneak into the radio room and signal for help. Then she would slip a note under Kelly’s door, knock on the door until she was sure he was awake, and then she and the other two women would hurry away and hide in the cellars. There were hundreds of places to hide down there; it would take days for anybody to find them. And the note would tell Kelly that help was on its way, that they’d used the radio and the kidnappers should escape at once.
That would do it. Kelly wouldn’t be captured, at least not this time. Sassi Manoon would be rescued, and Jigger would still have the credit. If the plan was sour ashes in her mouth, that just showed how stupid she was, that’s all. And if she couldn’t help daydreaming about Kelly some night a year or two from now sneaking in her bedroom window to take her in his arms and whisper how he understood, that just showed she’d seen too many movies.