“Why don’t you obey my order?”
“Who the hell you think you are?” asked Captain Willie.
“That’s not the question. Do as I tell you.”
“Who do you think you are?”
“All right. For your information, I’m one of the three most important men in the United States today.”
“What the hell you doing in Key West, then?”
The other man leaned forward. “He’s Frederick Harrison,” he said impressively.
“I never heard of him,” said Captain Willie.
“Well, you will,” said Frederick Harrison. “And so will every one in this stinking jerkwater little town if I have to grub it out by the roots.”
“You’re a nice fellow,” said Captain Willie. “How did you get so important?”
“He’s one of the biggest men in the administration,” said the other man.
“Nuts,” said Captain Willie. “If he’s all that what’s he doing in Key West?”
“He’s just here for a rest,” the secretary explained. “He’s going to be governor-general of——”
“That’s enough, Willis,” Frederick Harrison said. “Now will you take us over to that boat,” he said smiling. He had a smile which was reserved for such occasions.
“No, sir.”
“Listen, you half-witted fisherman. I’ll make life so miserable for you——”
“Yes,” said Captain Willie.
“You don’t know who I am.”
“None of it don’t mean anything to me,” said Captain Willie.
“That man is a bootlegger, isn’t he?”
“What do you think?”
“There’s probably a reward for him.”
“I doubt that.”
“He’s a lawbreaker.”
“He’s got a family and he’s got to eat and feed them. Who the hell do you eat off of with people working here in Key West for the government for six dollars and a half a week?”
“He’s wounded. That means he’s been in trouble.”
“Unless he shot hisself for fun.”
“You can save that sarcasm. You’re going over to that boat and we’re going to take that man and that boat into custody.”
“Into where?”
“Into Key West.”
“Are you an officer?”
“I’ve told you who he is,” the secretary said.
“All right,” said Captain Willie. He pushed the tiller hard over and turned the boat, coming so close to the edge of the channel that the propeller threw up a circling cloud of marl. He chugged down the channel toward where the other boat lay against the mangroves.
“Have you a gun aboard?” Frederick Harrison asked Captain Willie.
“No, sir.”
The two men in flannels were standing up now watching the booze boat.
“This is better fun than fishing, eh, Doctor?” the secretary said.
“Fishing is nonsense,” said Frederick Harrison. “If you catch a sailfish what do you do with it? You can’t eat it. This is really interesting. I’m glad to see this at first hand. Wounded as he is that man cannot escape. It’s too rough at sea. We know his boat.”
“You’re really capturing him single-handed,” said the secretary admiringly.
“And unarmed, too,” said Frederick Harrison.
“With no G men nonsense,” said the secretary.
“Edgar Hoover exaggerates his publicity,” said Frederick Harrison. “I feel we’ve given him about enough rope. Pull alongside,” he said to Captain Willie. Captain Willie threw out his clutch and the boat drifted.
“Hey,” Captain Willie called to the other boat. “Keep your heads down.”
“What’s that?” Harrison said angrily.
“Shut up,” said Captain Willie. “Hey,” he called over to the other boat. “Listen. Get on into town and take it easy. Never mind the boat. They’ll take the boat. Dump your load and get into town. I got a guy here on board some kind of a stool from Washington. More important than the President, he says. He wants to pinch you. He thinks you’re a bootlegger. He’s got the numbers of the boat. I ain’t never seen you so I don’t know who you are. I couldn’t identify you——”
The boats had drifted apart. Captain Willie went on shouting, “I don’t know where this place is where I seen you. I wouldn’t know how to get back here.”
“O.K.,” came a shout from the booze boat.
“I’m taking this big alphabet man fishing until dark,” Captain Willie shouted.
“O.K.”
“He loves to fish,” Captain Willie yelled, his voice almost breaking. “But the son of a bitch claims you can’t eat ’em.”
“Thanks, brother,” came the voice of Harry.
“That chap your brother?” asked Frederick Harrison, his face very red but his love for information still unappeased.
“No, sir,” said Captain Willie. “Most everybody goes in boats calls each other brother.”
“We’ll go into Key West,” Frederick Harrison said; but he said it without great conviction.
“No, sir,” said Captain Willie. “You gentlemen chartered me for a day. I’m going to see you get your money’s worth. You called me a halfwit but I’ll see you get a full day’s charter.”
“Take us to Key West,” Harrison said.
“Yes, sir,” said Captain Willie. “Later on. But listen, sailfish is just as good eating as kingfish. When we used to sell them to Rios for the Havana market we got ten cents a pound same as kings.”
“Oh, shut up,” said Frederick Harrison.
“I thought you’d be interested in these things as a government man. Ain’t you mixed up in the prices of things that we eat or something? Ain’t that it? Making them more costly or something. Making the grits cost more and the grunts less?”
“Oh, shut up,” said Harrison.
CHAPTER EIGHT
On the booze boat Harry had the last sack over.
“Get me the fish knife,” he said to the nigger.
“It’s gone.”
Harry pressed the self starters and started the two engines. He’d put a second engine in her when he went back to running liquor when the depression had put charter boat fishing on the bum. He got the hatchet and with his left hand chopped the anchor rope through against the bitt. It’ll sink and they’ll grapple it when they pick up the load, he thought. I’ll run her up into the Garrison Bight and if they’re going to take her they’ll take her. I got to get to a doctor. I don’t want to lose my arm and the boat both. The load is worth as much as the boat. There wasn’t much of it smashed. A little smashed can smell plenty.
He shoved the port clutch in and swung out away from the mangroves with the tide. The engines ran smoothly. Captain Willie’s boat was two miles away now headed for Boca Grande. I guess the tide’s high enough to go through the lakes now, Harry thought.
He shoved in his starboard clutch and the engines roared as he pushed up the throttle. He could feel her bow rise and the green mangroves coasted swiftly alongside as the boat sucked the water away from their roots. I hope they don’t take her, he thought. I hope they can fix my arm. How was I to know they’d shoot at us in Mariel after we could go and come there open for six months. That’s Cubans for you. Somebody didn’t pay somebody so we got the shooting. That’s Cubans all right.
“Hey, Wesley,” he said, looking back into the cockpit where the nigger lay with the blanket over him. “How you feeling?”
“God,” said Wesley. “I couldn’t feel no worse.”
“You’ll feel worse when the old doctor probes for it,” Harry told him.
“You ain’t human,” the nigger said. “You ain’t got human feelings.”
That old Willie is a good skate, Harry was thinking. There’s a good skate that old Willie. We did better to come in than to wait. It was foolish to wait. I felt so dizzy and sicklike I lost my judgment.
Ahead now he could see the white of the La Concha hotel, the wireless masts, and the houses of town. He could see the car ferries lying at the Trumbo dock where he would go around to head up for the Garrison Bight. That old Willie, he thought. He was giving them hell. Wonder who those buzzards were. Damn if I don’t feel plenty bad right now. I feel plenty dizzy. We did right to come in. We did right not to wait.
“Mr. Harry,” said the nigger, “I’m sorry I couldn’t help dump that stuff.”
“Hell,” said Harry, “ain’t no nigger any good when he’s shot. You’re a all right nigger, Wesley.”
Above the roar of the motors and the high, slapping rush of the boat through the water he felt a strange, hollow singing in his heart. He always felt this way coming home at the end of a trip. I hope they can fix that arm, he thought. I got a lot of use for that arm.
Part III Harry Morgan, Winter
CHAPTER NINE
Albert Speaking
We were all in there at Freddie’s place and this tall thin lawyer comes in and says, “Where’s Juan?”
“He ain’t back yet,” somebody said.
“I know he’s back and I’ve got to see him.”
“Sure, you tipped them off to him and you got him indicted and now you’re going to defend him,” Harry said. “Don’t you come around here asking where he is. You probably got him in your pocket.”
“Balls to you,” said the lawyer. “I’ve got a job for him.”
“Well, go look for him some place else,” Harry said. “He ain’t here.”
“I’ve got a job for him, I tell you,” the lawyer said.
“You ain’t got a job for anybody. All you are is poison.”
Just then the old man with the long gray hair over the back of his collar who sells the rubber goods specialties comes in for a quarter of a pint and Freddy pours it out for him and he corks it up and scuttles back across the street with it.
“What happened to your arm?” the lawyer asked Harry. Harry has the sleeve pinned up to the shoulder.
“I didn’t like the look of it so I cut it off,” Harry told him.
“You and who else cut it off?”
“Me and a doctor cut it off,” Harry said. He had been drinking and he was getting a little along with it. “I held still
