Bright Orange for the Shroud (17 page)

“Then set the drag tight, aim the tip at him, and back away from the water.”

He did. After five strenuous steps, the nine-thread line popped, out by the leader swivel. As he reeled in, there was another boil, farther out, as the shark went off to think things out.

“Sharks have no bones,” I announced. “Just gristle. They have rows of hinged teeth that straighten up as they open their mouths. They shed teeth from the front row and the other rows move forward. About one third the body weight is liver. The tiny spikes on their hides are tipped with enamel of the same composition as tooth enamel. Their brains are little nubs on the front ends of their spinal cords. They have no intelligence anyone has ever been able to test. They are a roving, senseless, prehistoric appetite, as unchanged as the scorpion, cockroach and other of nature’s improvisations which had good survival value. A wounded shark being eaten by his chums will continue to eat anything within reach, even hunks of himself which might happen by. End of lesson.”

“Gah,” said Chookie. “And thanks a lot.”

“Oh, two more items. There is no effective shark repellent. And they do not have to roll to bite. They can lunge up and chomp head-on, but when they bite down, then they roll to tear the meat loose. Now, children, we go into conference, critical variety. Everybody into the main lounge.”

When they were seated and expectant, I said, “I learned that it wasn’t Wilma you saw with Boone Waxwell, Arthur. It was a girl who looked a little like her.”

Arthur’s jaw dropped. “But I was certain it … Oh, come on! I
know
it was Wilma. Or an identical twin. And I saw her watch. She told me once it was a custom design. I couldn’t mistake it. No, that was Wilma, even to the way she was asleep in there, her posture.”

“I agree. It was Wilma. And ol’ Boo went to great lengths to prove it wasn’t. It seems it is very important to him to establish that Wilma was never there.”

“But why?”

“Because that’s where he killed her. And took over her share. And used it to buy himself lots of pretty toys he doesn’t take very good care of.”

“Killed Wilma,” Arthur said in a sick voice. He swallowed. “Such a … such a tiny woman.”

“And it’s a good guess she was your legal spouse, Arthur. She’d been working with Stebber for years. Maybe he had a little stable of Wilmas. Legal marriage makes it neater, and divorce is no great problem. You might have been husband number eleven. Marriage enlarges the areas wherein the pigeon can be plucked.”

“What a charmer,” Chookie said softly. “Lady spiders eat their mates for dessert. I read about one real smart kind of little
boy spider. He doesn’t come courting until he’s caught a juicy bug. Then while she’s enjoying the gift, he’s off and away like a flash.”

“A quarter of a million dollars is a juicy bug,” Arthur said.

“Made her rates pretty high,” Chook said tartly. “Trav, my God, how did you figure this out?”

“I didn’t. It just seems like what must have happened.” And I gave them a condensed but uncensored report. His little knife trick made Chook gasp. I got paper and wrote down the names he had mentioned before they slipped out of my mind. I gave the most weight, detail and careful choice of words to the feeling I had right at the end.

“So here it is. This is his country. I’ll bet he knows every boat for fifty miles around. He’s not going to take me at face value. He’s going to feel uneasy until he finds where I’m holed up. By now it’s certain that there are people at Marco who know where we’re anchored, know there’s two men and a woman aboard. The more he learns, the less he’s going to like the smell of it. And he’s the type to make his moves and to do his thinking later. Cute as we’ve been, we’ve left a clear trail.”

“So we rub it out and pick a new base,” Chook said.

“Right. And then we think up some good safe way to decoy ol’ Boo, so I can have enough time to take that rat nest of his apart.”

“What do you mean?” Chook asked.

“This is a recovery operation, isn’t it? I doubt he’s spent it all. He wouldn’t bank it. It’s in some hidey hole. And not an obvious one. He’s devious, not in any reasoned way, but by instinct. He has that bluff, battered soldier-of-fortune look, and a ton of ironic charm in that grin, and he makes me think that under other circumstances he’d be the man I’d want to go
ashore with in a strange port where there would be good booze and a chance of trouble. But that would be wrong. The essence of him is feline, and not house-kitty. A bigger predator. I wonder how many people he’s conned with that swampy folktalk which isn’t even very consistent. It’s a good cover. His way of life is a predator way of life, a cat-habit. He has his home range, most of four counties to roar around in that abused Lincoln, whipping the other males so ruthlessly nobody challenges him, bringing prey back to the den, protecting the den violently and instinctively, and ready at any time to fade back into the Glades. I’m saying all this because I don’t want us to make the mistake of assuming he will respond predictably to any action of ours. Something that might send another man hustling to a faraway place might make Boo Waxwell run a little way and circle back. And, when he came so damned close to stomping me, I realized it has been a long time since I have seen anyone move that fast.”

“Trav?” Chookie said in a strange and subdued tone.

“What, dear?”

“Maybe … maybe he is
you
, gone bad. Maybe that’s what he smelled. Maybe that’s why you can handle him.”

My immediate instinct was to get blazing mad, tell her it was a rotten analogy. It was a response the head-feelers would call significant.

“Maybe I’m being dumb or something,” Arthur said. “If this man is all that dangerous, and you’re pretty sure he … killed Wilma, well then I’d think there would be things the police could find out. I mean, maybe an identification of the gray car he had when he took her from the motel while I was gone. Maybe he went with her to the bank when she cleaned out that joint account, before I left on the bus. I could swear I
saw her at Waxwell’s cottage. Maybe somebody else saw her there, or when he drove her in through the village. I mean wouldn’t we be better off if he was in jail?”

“Arthur, it is very nice to believe in an orderly society. By and large, all the counties of Florida have pretty good law officers. Some are excellent. But the law isn’t growing even half as fast as the population. So it is selective. From their point of view, how excited could they get over the possibility of a transient woman of dubious character getting herself killed well over six months ago, a woman who was never reported missing. Collier County will have some deputies who know the score in the Marco Island area, and much as they might itch to put Boo away for keeps, they’d know their chances of finding a body if he was able to take it into the islands and rivers and swamps and hide it. Now after Boo beat you so badly and those nice people who found you on the highway took you in, you must have had some idea of getting the law after Boone Waxwell. Did they give you an opinion?”

“They said to forget it. They said nothing would happen, and it could make trouble for them. They said there were Waxwells all over, and a lot of them were decent quiet people, but there were a lot of wild ones like Boone, and if they wanted to take it out on Sam Dunning, sheltering somebody trying to make trouble, his nets could get cut up and his charter boat could catch fire and nobody would know who did it. The best thing to do, they said, was keep your head down. Trav, I ought to see those good people. I went off and said I’d come back soon. And they haven’t heard a word.… It isn’t right.”

“Another thing, Arthur,” I said. “If you made the complaint about Boo, remember it would be coming from a man
who recently chopped brush on a Palm County work gang. A man with no funds and no employment. When there isn’t enough law to go around, it has to work on a status system. And suppose you
did
get them to take Boone Waxwell in. They’d seal his cave, and maybe they would come across whatever he has left, if anything. Then it would be out of reach for keeps.” I looked at Chookie. She sat with chin on fist, scowling. “You’re getting good grades so far,” I said. “What else should we do?”

“I would think that if Wilma was alive, she would have been in touch with Calvin Stebber, and if she’s dead, he’d be wondering about her. It would be a way to make sure. After all, this Boo Waxwell could maybe have gotten money somewhere else. And maybe Wilma told him to lie about her being there.”

“And,” I said, “Stebber might be the one to decoy Boo away from his cave.” I stood up. “It’s gone past the point where we need an imitation pigeon.”

“How about the money of mine that Mr. Stebber has?” Arthur asked.

“I want to get a chance at it. So now let’s unhook this beast and get out of here.”

We brought the bow anchors aboard, worked the
Flush
out by hauling on the stern anchor lines. When we coasted close enough they pulled free. I hoisted the dinghy up by the stern davits and made it fast, as, under dead slow speed, Arthur took us out through the wide entrance of Hurricane Pass. We towed the
Ratfink
astern, motor tilted up and covered with a tarp. When we were clear, and headed north up the Gulf, I put it up to cruising speed and went aft and adjusted the length of the
tow line until the
Ratfink
was riding steadily at the right point of our wake. The bright afternoon was turning greasy, sky hazing, big swells building from the southwest, a following sea that began to give the old lady a nasty motion, and made it impossible to use the automatic pilot. The little solenoids are stupid about a following sea. They can’t anticipate. So you have to use the old-timey procedure of swinging the wheel just as they begin to lift your back corner, then swinging it back hard the other way when the bow comes up. You labor for long seconds apparently dead in the water, and then you tilt and go like a big train. Chook brought sandwiches to the topside controls, and I sent Arthur to dig out the bible on coastal accommodations.

The Palm City Marina, thirty miles north of Naples, had the sound of what I wanted. And from the way the weather was building, it was far enough. We’d begun to get enough wind to pull the tops off the long swells and the sun was gone in haze, the water changing from cobalt to gray-green. The
Flush
heaved and waddled along, setting up a lot of belowdecks creaking, clinking, clanking and thumping, and about every tenth swell the port wheel would lift out and cavitate, giving us a shuddering vibration. At least I never had to slow her down. Her cruising speed was what other boats slow down to when the seas build. When the driving rain came, I sent them down to take over on the sheltered controls. As soon as I felt the wheel being taken, I pulled the lever that freed it, put a loop over a spoke, snapped the big tarp down over the topside panel and throttles and padded below, soaked through.

They had the wipers going, were peering earnestly into the rain curtain, and Arthur was misjudging the seas enough to
bounce pans off their galley hooks. They let me take over with an obvious relief. Soon, as the heavy rain flattened the swells, she began to ride much easier.

“They put those little signs in boats,” Chook said with a nervous laugh. “Oh Lord, thy sea is so vast and my boat is so small. Trav, you don’t have any funny signs around.”

“And no funny flags to hoist. I almost fell for one little brass plaque though. It said that marriages performed by the captain of this vessel are valid only for the duration of the voyage. Arthur, go see how the
Ratfink
rides. Chook, go make coffee. Busy yourselves. Stop peering over my shoulders. Then check all ports to see if rain or sea is coming in. Stow any loose gear you come across. Then, as a pagan rite I recommend—after you’ve brought me the mug of coffee—you people get bars of soap, go aft and strip down and try that warm hard rain out on the afterdeck.”

After an hour, as I had anticipated, the wind direction had shifted to the west. I made an estimate of my position along the line I had penciled on the chart, put an X at that spot, then changed to a more westerly course so I could take it as a quartering sea on the port bow rather than rocking along in the trough. She steadied, and I put it into automatic pilot, read the compass course, figured the deviation and drew a new line on my chart. According to my computations, another eighty minutes would put us at a point offshore from Palm City where we would turn and run on in. The rain was coming down harder than before, and with less wind. I prowled, looking for my companions of the storm. The clues were obvious. The closed door to the master stateroom. And, in the main lounge on the rug, a damp blue bath towel. It made me remember a line from a story of long ago, written, I think, by
John Collier, about when the kid finds the foot, still wearing sock and shoe, on the landing of the staircase leading to the attic. “Like a morsel left by a hasty cat.” So make this a towel left by a hasty morsel. Hard warm rain, soap, giggles and the tossing and pitching of a small boat are aphrodisiacs vastly underrated. I eeled up through the forward hatch with my soap so I could keep a watch ahead. It was a cool abundance of water, sudsing as only rainwater can. I had a few discernible bruises on my arms where Boo’s fists had sledged, and a round one on the short ribs. When I took a deep breath there was a twinge there, sign that the blow had probably ripped a little of the cartilage between the ribs. Fatuously I admired the new flatness of the belly, and the absence of the small saddle bags over the hip bones. Narcissus in the rain. I dropped back below, re-dogged the hatch, toweled in a hurry, hopped into dry clothes and trotted back to the wheel house, peering through the windshield arcs for the collision course you always anticipate when a bunch of little gears are steering your boat.

Chookie, in a crisp white dress, black hair pinned high, came bearing a tray with three cocktails and a bowl of peanuts, Arthur bringing up the rear. They were elaborately conversational. Rain made a dandy shower. A little chilly but real stimulating. Then both rushed in to find a safer word than stimulating, and managed merely to underline it, giving Arthur such a steaming red face he turned away to stare out the side ports saying, my, it certainly is coming down, isn’t it?