Hamilton, Donald - Novel 01 (13 page)

     
He smiled thinly and said, "In other
words you'll go to bed with me again if I'll run your boat for you." He
had a momentary vision of the impression this conversation would make on his
mother, if she could hear it, and in his mind he whistled softly and
expressively. Then the girl was standing over him, quite tall and very slender
and rigid with anger.

     
He looked up at her. "Well," he
said mildly, "isn't that what you were saying? Let's get down to brass
tacks, darling."

     
He sat unmoving and let her slap him. Then
he rose gingerly to his feet and struck her smartly, in return, on the cheek.

     
"No," he said harshly as her
hand twitched to retaliate. "That's enough. We can keep this up all
night." He sat down quickly to relieve his feet. After a moment she sat
down again beside him.

     
*When's this husband of yours
coming?" he asked presently.

     
"Why did you say that?" she
gasped. "Why?
Even if I was....
It was so
unnecessary to say
itl
!"

     
He said, "You did it better last
time, sweetheart. You delivered the goods without asking me to sign a
contract."

     
"Phillip," she whispered.
"Please!"

     
"When's he coming?" He watched
her produce a small and very crumpled handkerchief. "Do we have to go
through all that?" he demanded.

     
She blew her nose and dabbed at her eyes
and turned
  
to look at him. "I'm
very sorry," she said stiffly. "I don't mean to annoy you."
After a moment she said, "And I'm not going to tell you when Louis is
coming."

     
"Well, is it this week?" he
asked impatiently.
"Or next month, or what?
In
other words, how much longer do you have to stall?"

     
She hesitated. "Well, it isn't very
much longer," she said at last, and then, "What difference does it
make to you, Phillip?"

     
"Never mind that," he said.
"And he's coming by ship, I suppose, and somewhere he'll jump off and
you'll pick him up in a boat, right?"

     
She did not say anything.

     
"It sounds screwy to me," he
said. "Have you got a boat?"

     
After a short delay she nodded sullenly.
"That's what I needed the money for. I knew this man would want-"

     
"That's what you've been doing?"

     
She nodded again. "I gave him fifty
that I got for my watch and promised to bring him the rest."

     
He laughed suddenly. "It wouldn't be
a guy by the name of Parks?"

     
He felt her start. "Yes," she
said, and gripped his arm. "Yes. George Parks. Why?" She shook him a
little. "Tell me!"

     
"Dickerson is there," he said.
"Sellers' detective, you remember, the guy who took the pictures."

     
"Oh," she said flatly. Then she
laughed uneasily. "Oh. Well, I don't see what he can do." After a
little she said, "Parks won't run the boat. He's going to show me where it
is and
have
it ready for me, but if anything happens
he is going to claim I stole it. That's why I need ..."

     
She was silent and he did not speak.
Finally she said, "I stayed with Parks the week after I first came."

     
"That must have been nice,"
Branch said.

     
"Yes," she smiled. "It was.
But he had an organization among the men who unloaded the ships in
Baltimore
. They smuggled all sorts of
things.
Sellers was
in it, too, and when they were
sure nobody had followed me I went to Sellers and he helped me get to Haskell.
But they are not doing that any more and if Louis stays on the boat until he
gets to
Baltimore
he will be arrested and sent back to
France
. He is on the list. You
know?" She glanced at him. He nodded. "Yes. I read the papers."

     
"Then they will kill him," she
said.

     
"Lots of people want to kill
him," Branch said. "If he's going to be killed in
France
why are these birds so
eager to kill him over here? They could just keep you from helping him and
Louis would go to
Baltimore
and the U.S. Government
would present him to the French Government, who would save them the
trouble."

     
"Well," she said reluctantly,
"he might only be imprisoned for a while. They are slowly coming to their
senses again, over there." Suddenly she looked up and said savagely,
"What do you think of a people who the minute the Nazis stop killing and
torturing them, start killing and torturing their own people. Wouldn't you think
they had had enough terror? Wouldn't you think they would want to stop it?
Somewhere?"

     
He did not say anything.

     
Presently she asked, "How did you
learn about Parks?"

     
"Dickerson must have warned him about
me. He sent
    
a colored woman to see if
I were keeping you in my room."

     
"You didn't tell them about it?"

     
"No," he said.

     
"Well," she said, rising.
"If you don't mind ..." She touched his knee lightly. "If you
don't mind I would like to take a shower."

     
He nodded. "Go ahead." He
watched her go to the closet and turn to look at him.

     
"I never got you that drink,"
she said, smiling.

     
"That's all right," he said.
"But if you'd get me my spare pipe. That bastard broke my good one. It's
in the little pocket in the top of my suitcase." He pulled off the
raincoat he was still wearing, and his blouse, and stretched out on the bed in
his shirtsleeves. She brought him the pipe. Filling and lighting it, he watched
her carry her own suitcase into the tiny adjoining bathroom and after a little
he heard water hissing in the shower.

     
At last she came out and he lay unmoving,
smoking and watching her, not looking at him, stop to fasten about her, over
the pale ivory satin nightgown she was wearing, a negligee of the same color
and material. The lace on the hem of the nightgown rustled faintly against the
worn rug as she came around the bed to him. Her hair was loose on her
shoulders.

     
She sat down on the edge of the bed beside
him. "I should have washed my hair," she said. "But it takes so
long to dry."

     
He could feel his heart beating. The
condition of his feet and the greasy ointment on them made him feel awkward and
stiff and a little ridiculous.

     
"You look very beautiful," he
said.

     
She touched his hand. "Do you want
me, Phillip?"

     
"Yes," he said, "Yes.
Very much.
But not for a price"

     
She leaned over him and kissed him lightly
on the mouth. "You're sweet, Phillip," she said. "Do you love
me?"

     
He smiled and shook his head minutely,
looking up at her. "I don't think so."

     
"It's nice to be frank, isn't
it?" she said with just a touch of tartness in her voice. "You'd
better put something on your feet. I don't want that stuff all over my
nightie
."

HE
WAS AWARE Of having been asleep.

     
"Are you asleep, Phillip?" she
whispered. The whisper made her a person again in the darkness beside him.

     
"No," he whispered. "I'm
not asleep, darling." He moved his hand up her arm as she moved to lie
close against him, and smoothed back the displaced strap of her nightgown. It
occurred to him that the gown and the matching negligee had shown the crisp
brightness of newness, as if she had bought them for the benefit of her
husband, but the idea had no power to embarrass him.

     
"Do you love me now?" she
whispered. "Sure.
More than anything."

     
Her fingers searched his face in the
darkness.
"Liar."

     
He laughed and held her snugly against
him, shifting the position of his head on the pillow so that her hair would not
tickle his face. He felt very good.

     
"Phillip?"

     
"Yes?"

     
"When did you the first time?"

     
"Do I have to tell?"

     
"She must have been nice,"
Jeannette Duval whispered. "You're very gentle."

     
"Am I?" He had not thought of
himself as gentle and he was not sure that he liked it; nor was he sure that
she really liked it. "What am I supposed to do, black your eyes?"

     
"No, you shouldn't change," she
said.

     
"It was a mess," he said.
"After a dance.
Freshman year.
She didn't know a damned thing about it either. It took me two hours to get her
calmed down and pinned together afterwards, enough that she could sneak back
into the dorm; but it was a month before she gave up the idea she was going to
have a baby.
Cured me until senior year."

     
"In a car?" the girl's voice
murmured. "I always wondered what it was like in a car."

     
"Then I was going with one of the
intellectuals," he went on sleepily. "You
know,
straight hair, skirt and sweater, low-heeled shoes.
Dark.
You always thought
,
why doesn't she look like hell?
But she didn't. I'd been going with her almost a year, and one night we dropped
in on these people in town and they left and we drank their beer and played
Mozart on their phonograph and I got up enough nerve to kiss her for the first
time. Well it's about time, she said, do you want to?
and
I, after catching my breath said sure, of course, and we went I upstairs and did."

     
The girl moved slightly in his arms.
"I was educated in a convent," she said. "I never kissed a man
until I was engaged to be married."

     
"We were quite busy that
spring," Branch said. "But I never saw her again after graduation.
After a while we stopped writing. I don't know why."

     
"Louis wanted to when he left for the
front," her voice said in the darkness beside him. "But at the time
the idea was very shocking to me. But, my dear, I said, we are not married yet,
what an idea!
laughing
at him because I was so deeply
embarrassed. And every day waiting for him to come back I regretted it, not
only for his sake, but because I was so very curious; and when he came back he
found me very compliant. It is fortunate that he really wanted to marry me,
because of Father's money, and showed me what precautions to take, because, he
said, it was not a time for Frenchwomen to bear children. I did not ask where
he had learned this information." Her voice was a little stilted, as if it
embarrassed her, even in the darkness, to talk about herself.

     
"And what would Louis say?"

     
"Nothing," she said.
"Nothing, darling.
After all, we are civilized
people."

     
He grinned in the darkness. "I don't
know if I'd like my wife to be so damned civilized."

     
"I do not intend to ask any questions
of Louis when I meet him," she murmured, and laughed a little, almost
fondly, "since I already know the answers. And I am quite sure that he
will ask none of me. We will simply pretend that three years have not
existed."

     
They were silent for a little.

     
"Isn't it strange," she
whispered at last, "
how
candid one can be in bed?
Can you imagine us talking like this over dinner? My ears would be
scarlet." Then she shattered their small dark intimate world. "Are
you going to help me, darling?"

     
He turned a little and was aware again of
the bars of light from the curtained window, and of the wind still blowing
outside; and someone passed down the hall and walked down the stairs without
haste. He felt suddenly exposed and vulnerable; all around them the hotel was
still awake, and outside the hotel the town was still awake; and only the walls
of the room and the locked door prevented the wakeful eyes from seeing them in
bed together.

     
"No," he said. "No, I'm
not, darling."

     
He switched on the bedside light and,
raising himself on one elbow, looked down at her for a moment. The youthful
shape of her mouth and the dusky softness of her hair on the pillow made an
ache inside him.

     
"It's too bad," he said harshly,
"that we didn't meet about five years back." He felt as if he wanted
to cry.

     
"Yes," she murmured, looking up
at him unmoving. "Isn't it, rather?"

     
He threw back the covers and swung his
feet to the floor, sitting up. "You could always let this Louis bastard
get himself killed," he said dryly.

     
Her voice behind him said, "Yes, I
could do that, of course." He felt her sit up and, finding her negligee
and drawing it about her, she moved across the bed to sit beside him.

     
"God, I feel lousy," he said.
They sat on the side of the bed without touching each other. "We shouldn't
have done that, darling," he said at last. "I'm getting positively
fond of you. It makes things so goddamned complicated."

     
She smiled. "Does it?"

     
"Cut it out," he said. "I'm
not going to run your bloody boat. That's flat."

     
"Darling," she said, taking his
hand.
"Why not?
It wouldn't-"

     
"Because I'm in the bloody
Navy," he said. "That's why. It would make such a lousy stink if I
got caught." He looked at her, trying to explain it to her so that she
would see it clearly as he saw it. "Look," he said, "I'm not
much of
an of
officer, but I've got kind of a kick out
of being one. Some of the guys hate it. I know one fellow that goes home every
night and puts on a full suit of civilian clothes, coat, vest, tie, and
everything, just so he'll feel natural again. But I've got a kick out of it,
and I'm going to feel kind of sorry when I have to pack my uniforms in
mothballs. Well," he said, "
it's
one thing
to be court-martialed for being caught with a girl in a hotel bedroom, like in
New York
. That's personal to me and
I consider it my own damned business. Anyway, nobody could blame the Navy for
it. But this other business is getting damned close to treason. I may
personally think that your husband can't do much harm, but he's officially a
traitor and I haven't any right to drag the Navy into a mess like that. You
know what the papers would do with it if I got caught. As long as I'm in
uniform I've got to stay out of it. It's the least I can do to thank them for a
very pleasant war."

     
She patted his hand lightly and took her
hand away. "All right, darling," she said, rising.

     
"Don't rush away," he said.

     
She turned to look down at him, sweeping
back her hair. "What else is there to say, Phillip?"

     
"You didn't think
...
?"

     
She smiled slowly. "No. I wanted it.
But I did think you might change your mind."

     
"I wish I had a picture of you like
that," he said. "You're kind of beautiful." He shook his head.
"Nuts," he said.

     
"Yes," she
said."Well
,
I had better get dressed now."

     
"Don't rush off," he repeated.
"I'm going to take those bastards off your neck."

     
Forgetting, he started to rise and sank
back again, wincing. Then he forced himself to rise and walk over to the
window. He drew the blind aside and looked out at the naked branches of the
trees swinging black against the dark sky. She was beside him and he put his
arm about her waist, drawing her to him.

     
"You're going to have a wet ride,
darling," he said, "
unless
this wind breaks
before you start. Better get yourself plenty of warm, clothes and some
oilskins. He's probably got oilskins on board, but don't count on it."

     
"But
.. ."

     
"Listen," he said impatiently,
"you've got money, haven't you? For two thousand, George Parks would cut
out his grandmother's heart and eat it. Offer him five hundred and see what he
says."

     
"He's already asked four hundred for the
boat, since he thinks he may not get it back." She laughed without
embarrassment. "I was ... going-to break it to you gently."

     
He laughed. "Well, you've got plenty
of money now.
 
Don't let him know how
much or he'll get ideas. Now, he said," drawing her to the desk and
sitting down, "Here's the bay. He made a rough sketch on a piece of hotel
stationery. "Here we are and here's
Annapolis
. They generally hit
Annapolis
about dawn to take on the
pilot for the upper bay.
O.K.?
I don't know what your
arrangements are, but I suppose you'll want to do it while it's still dark.
There's a chance the ship may anchor off
Annapolis
in the dark to wait for the
pilot, otherwise you'll have to run down a ways to catch them before morning
twilight."

     
He glanced at her over his shoulder to see
if she
were understanding
him. It was always
difficult, when you talked about something you knew very well, to know if you
were making sense to someone who did not know anything at all about it. Her
face was grave and attentive, intent on the diagram. He pushed the paper aside.

     
"Now what I'm driving at," he
said, "the wind has been swinging between northeast and northwest for the
past week and there's a good chance it will stay there. That means you'll have
an easy run downwind to where you do your business. Well, what you do, when
you've got your Louis on board; you tell George Parks to run you clear over to
the western shore and drop you there. There'll be two of you, and between you,
you ought to be able to handle him. You understand? When you've got Louis
aboard and pumped out and everything under control, have Parks keep her running
southwest until she hits bottom. He'll know where to pull in over
there,
guys like that always know their water. If you let
him talk you into coming back here you'll be bucking the sea all the way up.
You'll have stuff coming over solid and you'll freeze to death before you get
in. Let him worry about getting back alone. But don't tell him until there are
two of you or he'll pull a fast one on you." He turned and grinned at her.
"You'll be colder than you've ever been in your life, darling, but this
way you won't be getting a shower bath every ten seconds, except while you're
getting out of the river. Once you're out past Signal Point it will all be clear
sailing."

     
The satin of her negligee rustled as,
picking up the paper, she seated herself on the edge of the desk to study it.
Then she looked down at him curiously, lowering the paper.

     
He laughed. "Well, I could guess you
weren't coming down here to eat oysters, couldn't I?"

     
"How did you find out all this?"
she asked, smiling.
"About the pilots, for
instance?"

     
"Oh, I chatted with the loafers
around the dock. God, I used to hang around the wharves all the time when I was
a kid. Mother had fits about the language I picked up." He started to
rise, laying his hand on her satin knee, and sat down again abruptly, looking
at his feet, in black regulation socks, below the striped pajama trousers. He
patted her knee gently. "What time is it getting to be, darling?"