“Burn him. Burn him. God give you strength to burn him,” said the boys on the dock.
“Nobody want him unburned?” Frank asked them.
“Burn him, Captain Frank. Nobody see it. Nothing ever been heard. Not a word’s been said. Burn him.”
“Need a few practice shots,” Frank said.
“Get off this damned boat if you’re going to burn him,” Johnny said.
Frank looked at him and shook his head a little so that neither Roger nor the boys on the dock saw it.
“He’s ashes now,” he said. “Let me have just one more, Rupert, to stiffen my will.”
He handed up the cup.
“Captain Frank,” Rupert leaned down to speak to him. “This will be the deed of your life.”
Up on the dock the boys had started a new song.
“Captain Frank in the harbor
Tonight’s the night we got fun.”
Then a pause, and pitched higher …
“Captain Frank in the harbor
Tonight’s the night we got fun.”
The second line was sung like a drum bonging. Then they went on:
“Commissioner called Rupert a duty black hound
Captain Frank fired his flare pistol and burnt him to the ground.”
Then they went back to the other old African rhythm four of the men in the launch had heard sung by the Negroes that pulled the ropes on the ferries that crossed the rivers along the coast road between Mombasa, Malindi, and Lamu where, as they pulled in unison, the Negroes sang improvised work songs that described and made fun of the white people they were carrying on the ferry.
“Captain Frank in the harbor
Tonight’s the night we got fun.
Captain Frank in the harbor”
Defiant, insultingly, despairingly defiant the minor notes rose. Then the drum’s bonging response.
“Tonight’s the night we got fun!”
“You see, Captain Frank?” Rupert urged, leaning down into the cockpit. “You got the song already before you even commit the deed.”
“I’m getting pretty committed,” Frank said to Thomas Hudson. Then, “One more practice shot,” he told Rupert.
“Practice makes perfect,” Rupert said happily.
“Captain Frank’s practicing now for the death,” someone said on the dock.
“Captain Frank’s wilder than a wild hog,” came another voice.
“Captain Frank’s a man.”
“Rupert,” Frank said. “Another cup of that, please. Not to encourage me. Just to help my aim.”
“God guide you, Captain Frank,” Rupert reached down the cup. “Sing the Captain Frank song, boys.”
Frank drained the cup.
“The last practice shot,” he said and firing just over the cabin cruiser lying astern he bounced the flare off Brown’s gas drums and into the water.
“You son of a bitch,” Thomas Hudson said to him very quietly.
“Shut up, christer,” Frank said to Thomas Hudson. “That was my masterpiece.”
Just then, in the cockpit of the other cruiser, a man came out onto the stern wearing pajama trousers with no top and shouted, “Listen, you swine! Stop it, will you? There’s a lady trying to sleep down below.”
“A lady?” Wilson asked.
“Yes, goddam it, a lady,” the man said. “My wife. And you dirty bastards firing those flares to keep her awake and keep anybody from getting any sleep.”
“Why don’t you give her sleeping pills?” Frank said. “Rupert, send a boy for some sleeping pills.”
“Do you know what you do, colonel?” Wilson said. “Why don’t you just comport yourself as a good husband should? That’ll put her to sleep. She’s probably repressed. Maybe she’s thwarted. That’s what the analyst always tells my wife.”
They were very rough boys and Frank was way in the wrong but the man who had been pitching the drunk all day had gotten off to an exceedingly bad start with the approach he had taken. Neither John nor Roger nor Thomas Hudson had said a word. The other two, from the moment the man had come out onto the stern and yelled, “Swine,” had worked together like a really fast shortstop and second baseman.
“You filthy swine,” the man said. He did not seem to have much of a vocabulary and he looked between thirty-five and forty. It was hard to tell his age closely, even though he had switched on his cockpit lights. He looked much better than Thomas Hudson had expected him to look after hearing the stories all day and Thomas Hudson thought he must have gotten some sleep. Thomas Hudson remembered, then, that he had been sleeping at Bobby’s.
“I’d try Nembutal,” Frank told him very confidentially. “Unless she’s allergic to it.”
“I don’t see why she’s so dissatisfied,” Fred Wilson told him. “Why you’re quite a fine-looking physical specimen. You really look pretty damned good. I’ll bet you’re the terror of the Racquet Club. What does it cost you to keep in that wonderful shape? Look at him, Frank. Did you ever see as expensive a looking top of a man as that?”
“You made a mistake though, governor,” Frank told him. “You’re wearing the wrong end of your pajamas. Frankly I’ve never seen a man wearing that bottom part before. Do you really wear that to bed?”
“Can’t you filthy-mouthed swine let a lady sleep?” the man said.
“Why don’t you just go down below,” Frank said to him. “You’re liable to get in trouble around here using all those epithets. You haven’t got your chauffeur here to look after you. Does your chauffeur always take you to school?”
“He doesn’t go to school, Frank,” Fred Wilson said, putting aside his guitar. “He’s a big grown-up boy. He’s a businessman. Can’t you recognize a big businessman?”
“Are you a businessman, sonny?” Frank asked. “Then you know it’s good business for you to run along down into your cabin. There isn’t any good business for you up here.”
“He’s right,” Fred Wilson said. “You haven’t any future around with us. Just go down to your cabin. You’ll get used to the noise.”
“You filthy swine,” the man said and looked at them all.
“Just take that beautiful body down below, will you?” Wilson said. “I’m sure you’ll get the lady to sleep.”
“You swine,” the man said. “You rotten swine.”
“Can’t you think up any other names?” Frank said. “Swine’s getting awfully dull. You better go down below before you catch cold. If I had a wonderful chest like that I wouldn’t risk it out here on a windy night like this.”
The man looked at them all as though he were memorizing them.
“You’ll be able to remember us,” Frank told him. “If not I’ll remind you any time I see you.”
“You filth,” the man said and turned and went below.
“Who is he?” Johnny Goodner asked. “I’ve seen him somewhere.”
“I know him and he knows me,” Frank said. “He’s no good.”
“Can’t you remember who he is?” Johnny asked.
“He’s a jerk,” Frank said. “What difference does it make who he is outside of that?”
“None, I guess,” Thomas Hudson said. “You two certainly swarmed on him.”
“That’s what you’re supposed to do with a jerk. Swarm on him. We weren’t really rude to him.”
“I thought you made your lack of sympathy clear,” Thomas Hudson said.
“I heard a dog barking,” Roger said. “The flares probably scared his dog. Let’s cut the flares out. I know you’re having fun, Frank. You’re getting away with murder and nothing bad’s happened. But why terrify the poor bloody dog?”
“That was his wife barking,” Frank said cheerily. “Let’s shoot one into his cabin and illuminate the whole domestic scene.”
“I’m getting the hell out of here,” Roger said. “You joke the way I don’t like. I don’t think jokes with motorcars are funny. I don’t think drunken flying is funny. I don’t think scaring dogs is funny.”
“Nobody’s keeping you,” Frank said. “Lately you’re a pain in the ass to everybody anyway.”
“Yes?”
“Sure. You and Tom christing around. Spoiling any fun. All you reformed bastards. You used to have plenty of fun. Now nobody can have any. You and your brand new social conscience.”
“So it’s social conscience if I think it would be better not to set Brown’s dock on fire?”
“Sure. It’s just a form of it. You’ve got it bad. I heard about you on the coast.”
“Why don’t you take your pistol and go play somewhere else?” Johnny Goodner said to Frank. “We were all having fun till you got so rough.”
“So you’ve got it, too,” Frank said.
“Take it a little easy,” Roger warned him.
“I’m the only guy here still likes to have any fun,” Frank said. “All you big overgrown religious maniacs and social workers and hypocrites—”
“Captain Frank,” Rupert leaned down over the edge of the dock.
“Rupert’s my only friend,” Frank looked up. “Yes, Rupert?”
“Captain Frank, what about Commissioner?”
“We’ll burn him, Rupert old boy.”
“God bless you, Captain Frank,” Rupert said. “Care for any rum?”
“I’m fine, Rupert,” Frank told him. “Everybody down now.”
“Everybody down,” Rupert ordered. “Down flat.”
Frank fired over the edge of the dock and the flare lit on the graveled walk just short of the Commissioner’s porch and burned there. The boys on the dock groaned.
“Damn,” Rupert said. “You nearly made her. Bad luck. Reload, Captain Frank.”
The lights went on in the cockpit of the cruiser astern of them and the man was out there again. This time he had a white shirt and white duck trousers on and he wore sneakers. His hair was combed and his face was red with white patches. The nearest man to him in the stern was John, who had his back to him, and next to John was Roger who was just sitting there looking gloomy. There was about three feet of water between the two sterns and the man stood there and pointed his finger at Roger.
“You slob,” he said. “You rotten filthy slob.”
Roger just looked up at him with a surprised look.
“You mean me, don’t you?” Frank called to him. “And it’s swine, not slob.”
The man ignored him and went on at Roger.
“You big fat slob,” the man almost choked.
