Authors: John D. MacDonald
Stanley had examined it with great care. He had rubbed at the green frosting of tiny bits of marine growth it had begun to acquire. He had looked carefully at the amount of corrosion on the metal parts. And he had said that it had been in the water less than a month, that the pattern of wind and tides across the Bank would have brought it from the east, that it appeared to come from a good, big boat. One could not say it had come from the Muñeca. But one could be almost certain.
Jonathan remembered a grassy knoll in Texas, a cool night when the stars were brilliant, Leila beside him, stretched out on her back, her hand in his. A parsec is a light year. A light year is nearly six trillion miles. The faint glow of light from the nearest galaxy has been en route a hundred and thirty-seven thousand years, traveling six trillion miles a year toward us.
“The light that’s starting from there now,” she’d said. “Who will see it? Or what will see it? Or will it shine on a big cinder?”
“We won’t know or care.”
“So the time to care is now, huh? And wonder. Jonathan, the light from it shines into my eyes and I’m sending it right on back. It doesn’t matter it’s too little to measure, or there’s nothing there to measure it or care. It’s on its way back up there. Have a nice trip. Don’t get lonely.”
“You’re a nut.”
“I better be kissed, or I’ll get the uglies.”
He turned onto his side on the catamaran deck, thinking, I’ll find you tomorrow. If you were dead the night breeze wouldn’t be as soft or the stars as bright. If you were dead I couldn’t smile at the way your mind takes those wild dips and unexpected turns. All the stars would wink out and the wind would rise and blow a gale that would never end.
It was nearly midnight. Raoul Kelly on his way from the bathroom back to his room heard his phone ringing and quickened his pace.
“Raoul?” Sam Boylston’s voice said. “That thing Staniker pulled, it wasn’t a mistake.” He sounded disgusted and irritable.
“She did the same thing?”
“Exact damn same thing you described, and even though I knew it could happen, I couldn’t do anything about it. She left at about eleven. I hung pretty well back. She didn’t have as much traffic to work with as Staniker had. But she found a little pack, passed on the left, gunned it, swung back and ducked off the pike and I got swept right on by. I tried to backtrack, but it’s hopeless. I’m calling from a booth at a gas station. I think I’ll go on back and see what time she comes home.”
“So Staniker didn’t suddenly realize he was about to go past his exit.”
“It’s clever. And it’s also stupid.”
“Very stupid. Sure. We lost them both.”
“No, I’m thinking of how clever people end up sweating blood when you put them on the stand. There are little tricks here and there, and they can give a perfectly reasonable explanation for each one. But after a while they begin to add up. The jury begins to wonder why so
much
strange behavior. Then you come on with the so-it-just-happened technique.”
“What?”
“Well now, Mr. Defendant, so you just
happened
to decide not to bowl that Wednesday night after not missing a league game all season, and you just
happened
to decide to go back to the office that night to finish a report, and you just
happened
to drive twelve miles out of your way to stop and have a beer on the way home, and you just
happened
to have that bag packed in case you had to take a business trip all of a sudden, and you just …”
“I get it. But you say you can’t make a case anyway.”
“What’s the story on your girl?”
“I’ve got a line on a replacement that woman can’t have any reason to turn down, Sam. References up to here. She owes a friend of mine a big favor. I can trust her. What she’ll do is make an offer to work for about half what she’s getting, with the idea it will pry ’Cisca loose, and after we’re on our way, she can quit the job.”
“And if the Harkinson woman says no?”
“Then I
know
I have to get her away from there fast.”
THE THUMPING
awoke Staniker. He had the feeling it had been going on for some time. It took him a few moments to realize where he was. He looked at his watch, his only personal possession which had survived castastrophe. Waterproof, self-winding, shock resistant. It was just past midnight, and in the little window in the dial above the six the date was changing, from 3 to 4.
He went down the corridor and through the dark living room and glanced out before he went to the door. Her white car was out there beside his. He unlocked the door and pulled it open.
“My
God!
” she said as she came in, her voice hushed but angry. “Did you have to keep me standing out there half the damn—”
“Sorry. I dozed off.”
“You dozed way off. It’s hot as a pocket in here.” He smelled the fresh tang of her perfume. Her face and hair were paleness in the dark room.
“There’s a fan going in the bedroom.”
She followed him. “All according to plan, Garry? Just the way we worked it out?”
“No.”
Her voice became louder and it was pitched higher as they walked into the bedroom. “But you
got
it, didn’t you? You got it? It’s
safe
, isn’t it?”
“It’s in a good place.”
“How much?”
“I didn’t count it. It’s a lot. Maybe more than you said. I don’t know. Enough to make you dizzy just looking at it. I thought you knew how much.”
“So maybe he lied? Or maybe he used some up. You waited long enough. You nearly drove me out of my mind, waiting and wondering. I thought you couldn’t do it.”
He sat on the bed, still dulled by the heaviness of his sleep. He swung his legs up and lay back. “I did it.”
She roamed restlessly. She wore a simple cotton dress in an aqua shade that emphasized the golden look of her tan. “These places are gummier than I remembered.” She sat at the foot of the bed, facing him, crossing her legs, smooth round brown knees exposed. “You don’t look so great, Captain. You look soft.”
“Hospital does that.”
She made a mouth of distaste. “What’s the goop on your leg?”
“Kind of a salve to keep the new skin flexible.”
“Will the hair grow back in those places, and on your arm?”
“The doctor didn’t think so.”
“So you’ve lost your breath-taking loveliness, my friend. But you got rich. Fair trade?”
“Crissy, it—it wasn’t like I thought it was going to be. It was different. It was real different. I can’t remember all the parts of it.”
“You waited long enough.”
“It had to happen in the right place. It went wrong.”
She stared intently at him. “They’re dead, aren’t they? All of them?”
“Oh, they’re dead.”
“And the money is safe. Where is it? Where you said?”
“No.”
“What’s the matter with you, Garry? Why not?”
He frowned at the wall behind her. “I think it started to go bad with Mary Jane. They were all below, eating. I put it on pilot and went forward and down through the bow hatch. She was in the galley. I beckoned to her. She came into the crew quarters forward and asked me what I wanted. I put my hands on her throat. I didn’t look at her. I didn’t want to watch it. When it had been—a long time, I pushed her. She fell back on the bunk. Her hair got caught and wound up in the fan. The fan stopped. It buzzed and stank. But when I climbed back up through the hatch, somehow I couldn’t figure out how much time it had taken. I didn’t know how long I’d been down there.”
“You can spare me the details.”
“I was afraid it had been so long we might be too close to the coral. I ran along the side deck. I could see them down there in the lounge, eating. I ran up to the fly bridge. The finder still didn’t show any bottom. I had the rifle. I started to slow it and then I thought what the hell, they’re all down there, and nothing they can do about it, so I cut off the running lights and killed both engines and got down there fast and went in. They always sat the same way when they ate. It was like a booth. Carolyn and Mr. Bix on one side, facing aft. Carolyn on the inside. Roger across from Carolyn, Leila Boylston across from Bix, Stella in a chair facing the booth, at the open end. We still were moving so it was steady enough. I took Bix first, somewhere in the face. He bowed his head down into his plate. Roger turned and half stood up to stare back at me, and the slug hit the heavy bone above the bridge of his nose and knocked his head
back and broke his neck. By then I was thinking the two girls weren’t there. I hadn’t had a chance to look in first. Carolyn was screaming and trying to crawl over Bix’s back and shoulders to get out. I don’t even remember shooting, but the scream stopped and she sort of slid down him, head first, down the side of him toward the open end of the booth, and slid right down head first between the bench and the table top until her hips wedged there and stopped her. Her legs were leaning against Bix and one leg kept kicking.”
“Where were the girls?”
“The only thing I can think of, they had to go to the head, and Stel went to the one next to the master stateroom, and Leila went on along to the one forward of that. By then the boat was starting to rock in the trough, and Carolyn’s body shook loose and fell down half under the booth. Stel came running in and stopped and stared at them and at me and she started to make a circle around me to go outside. Just as I took aim, she made a run for it and I took a snap shot and hit her and it knocked her all the way back to the transom fish box, but … it didn’t kill her. She kept making a noise. I thought I was shooting her, but then I couldn’t hear shots. There were six shells in the clip, I thought. I was sure of it. But I could only be sure of firing four. Maybe I fired five times at the three of them in the booth without knowing it. I had to stop that noise. I couldn’t stand it and I couldn’t take the time to get more shells. I … cut her throat.”
“My God, Garry!”
“I didn’t know I was doing it until—I’d done it.”
“Where was the Boylston girl?”
“The way I figure out what must have happened, she heard the shots and she was smarter. She went forward and up through the hatch. She had to see Mary Jane there. And she wasn’t—real good to look at. Then, from up on top of the lounge deck she saw me finish off Stel. I went after her, almost caught her, and then I got hold of
her dress and that ripped off, and she dived before I could stop her. She dived right into the runabout, head first. It had eased up on us after we lay dead in the water. She didn’t see it before she dived. She hit the edge of one of the engines hatches head first. It killed her. It smashed her head or broke her neck or both. I decided I could take care of her later. It would save time. I remembered the little spare anchor aboard the Muñequita. Big enough to take her on down, and easier than lifting her back aboard. I went and got the money. It was in an aluminum suitcase. I knew that I could get back on the track and finish it like we planned. I didn’t know how close we’d gotten. I went up and turned on the depth finder and I nearly jumped out of my skin. It showed eighty feet. The wind had drifted the boat in too close, and any minute a wave could lift it and drop it on a coral head. You have to understand why I did what I did.”
“What do you mean? What did you do?”
“It racked me up. They were all making—a silence. I kicked the engines on and made a slow hundred and eighty, but tight, and then got out of there, back out until the bottom had been gone for maybe two miles. I killed everything again, and I went down and dragged Stella below decks, and I lashed them all to solid things. I worked fast because I’d gone down into the bilge first and opened her up. I could feel her moving heavier in the swell. Then I put the bottle of gasoline, a half pint whisky bottle, in the pocket of my pants and went out onto the deck carrying the suitcase. Just as I left the lights flickered and went out below as the water got up to the battery cables. I went back and looked and the Muñequita was gone. I got the end of the tow line where I’d fastened it to a center cleat. I saw how it was frayed, and I realized I hadn’t even thought about cutting the tow line with the wheels when I turned around. I couldn’t see it anywhere. It was probably way back where I’d made my turn.”
“You damn fool! You stupid damned fool!”
“I got my knife off the deck, thinking maybe I could cut the
dinghy loose. It was lashed forward. But she was riding low and heavy and she began to kind of tremble and hesitate and I knew she was going. I could get pulled down, I thought. So I went over the rail and swam. That suitcase, thank God, was watertight. It didn’t have enough buoyancy to hold me, but it would float by itself. I pushed it in front of me. I swam until I was winded and I turned around and looked and the boat was gone. Absolutely nothing there. I hadn’t heard a thing. Then there was a big belch and whiteness when a bubble of air came up. I paddled around. There were some cushions floating. I collected two of them, and then I saw something lighter colored and it was that styrofoam board of Stella’s. It held me fine. I figured out from the wind and the stars which way I had to paddle. When dawn came I found I was a little too far north. I made my way to South Joulter, let the board float off and waded ashore with the money. The thing I was scared of was boats being around the corner in the anchorage or further down toward the flats. I ran and shoved the suitcase into the brush and piled sand on it. Then I walked around the shoreline. Nothing. I climbed to the highest point and I couldn’t see a boat anywhere. That meant I had a chance to find a good place for the money.”
“My God, Garry, if anybody had the slightest suspicion, they’d take that island apart and …”
“Why should they have? It’s a good place. There’s some rocky ridges. Way above high tide. There’s a hell of a big old rusty boiler up there. It must have been part of a wreck long ago, a pretty good-sized vessel. Take a hurricane to throw it way up into the rocks. It maybe weighs a couple of tons. One end is rusted away. That end is half buried in drifted sand, and half full of drifted sand. I’d shoved the knife into my belt. I used it to dig up a bush that blocked the open end. Then I dug down into the soft dry sand inside the boiler and worked the suitcase down into it and smoothed it over. I planted the bush back in the hole where it had been, and I brushed away my
footprints when I backed away from there. It’s safe. It will be safe as long as we want to leave it there.”