“Sit down,” said one of them in English. He was a tough looking fellow, heavy, with a big face and a voice deep in his throat, and he had been drinking plenty you could see. “What’s your name?”
“What’s yours?” said Harry.
“All right,” said this Cuban. “Have it your own way. Where’s the boat?”
“She’s down at the yacht basin,” Harry said.
“Who’s this?” the Cuban asked him, looking at me.
“My mate,” Harry said. The Cuban was looking me over and the other Cubans were looking us both over. “He looks hungry,” the Cuban said and laughed. The others didn’t laugh. “You want a drink?”
“All right,” Harry said.
“What? Bacardi?”
“Whatever you’re drinking,” Harry told him.
“Does your mate drink?”
“I’ll have one,” I said.
“Nobody asked you yet,” the big Cuban said. “I just asked if you drank.”
“Oh, cut it out, Roberto,” one of the other Cubans, a young one, not much more than a kid, said. “Can’t you do anything without getting nasty?”
“What do you mean nasty? I just asked if he drinks. If you hire somebody don’t you ask if he drinks?”
“Give him a drink,” said the other Cuban. “Let’s talk business.”
“What you want for the boat, big boy?” the deep-voiced Cuban called Roberto asked Harry.
“Depends on what you want to do with her,” Harry said.
“Take the four of us to Cuba.”
“Where in Cuba?”
“Cabañas. Close to Cabañas. Down the coast from Mariel. You know where it is?”
“Sure,” said Harry. “Just take you there?”
“That’s all. Take us there and put us ashore.”
“Three hundred dollars.”
“Too much. What if we charter you by the day and guarantee you two weeks’ charter?”
“Forty dollars a day and you put up fifteen hundred dollars for if anything happens to the boat. Do I have to clear it?”
“No.”
“You pay for the gas and oil,” Harry told them.
“We’ll give you two hundred dollars to take us over there and put us ashore.”
“No.”
“How much do you want?”
“I told you.”
“That’s too much.”
“No, it isn’t,” Harry told him. “I don’t know who you are. I don’t know what your business is and I don’t know who shoots at you. I got to cross the Gulf twice in the winter time. Anyway I’m risking my boat. I’ll carry you for two hundred and you can put up a thousand for a guaranty nothing happens to the boat.”
“That’s reasonable,” Bee-lips told them. “That’s more than reasonable.”
The Cubans started talking in Spanish. I couldn’t understand them but I knew Harry could.
“All right,” the big one, Roberto, said. “When can you start?”
“Any time tomorrow night.”
“Maybe we don’t want to go until the night after,” one of them said.
“That’s O.K. with me,” Harry said. “Only let me know in time.”
“Is your boat in good shape?”
“Sure,” said Harry.
“She is a nice looking boat,” the young one of them said.
“Where did you see her?”
“Mr. Simmons, the lawyer here, showed her to me.”
“Oh,” said Harry.
“Have a drink,” said another of the Cubans. “Have you been to Cuba much?”
“A few times.”
“Speak Spanish?”
“I never learned it,” Harry said.
I saw Bee-lips, the lawyer, look at him, but he is so crooked himself that he’s always more pleased if people aren’t telling the truth. Just like when he came in to speak to Harry about this job he couldn’t speak to him straight. He had to pretend he wanted to see Juan Rodriguez, who is a poor stinking Gallego that would steal from his own mother that Bee-lips has got indicted again so he can defend him.
“Mr. Simmons speaks good Spanish,” the Cuban said.
“He’s got an education.”
“Can you navigate?”
“I can go and I can come.”
“You’re a fisherman?”
“Yes, sir,” said Harry.
“How do you fish with one arm?” the big-faced one asked.
“You just fish twice as fast,” Harry told him. “Did you want to see me about anything else?”
“No.”
They were all talking Spanish together. “Then I’ll go,” said Harry.
“I’ll let you know about the boat,” Bee-lips told Harry.
“There’s some money got to be put up,” Harry said.
“We’ll do that tomorrow.”
“Well, good night,” Harry told them.
“Good night,” said the young pleasant-speaking one. The big-faced one didn’t say anything. There were two others with faces like Indians that hadn’t said anything at all any of the time except to talk in Spanish to the big-faced one.
“I’ll see you later on,” Bee-lips said.
“Where?”
“At Freddy’s.”
We went out and through the kitchen again and Freda said, “How’s Marie, Harry?”
“She’s fine now,” Harry told her. “She’s feeling good now,” and we went out the door. We got in the car and he drove back to the boulevard and didn’t say anything at all. He was thinking about something all right.
“Should I drop you home?”
“All right.”
“You live out on the county road now?”
“Yes. What about the trip?”
“I don’t know,” he said. “I don’t know whether there’s going to be any trip. See you tomorrow.”
He drops me in front of where we live and I go on in and I haven’t got the door open before my old woman is giving me hell for staying out and drinking and being late to the meal. I ask her how I can drink with no money and she says I must be running a credit. I ask her who she thinks will give me credit when I’m working on the relief and she says to keep my rummy breath away from her and sit down to the table. So I sit down. The kids are all gone to the diamond ball game and I sit there at the table and she brings the supper and won’t speak to me.
CHAPTER TEN
Harry
I don’t want to fool with it but what choice have I got? They don’t give you any choice now. I can let it go; but what will the next thing be? I didn’t ask for any of this and if you’ve got to do it you’ve got to do it. Probably I shouldn’t take Albert. He’s dumb but he’s straight and he’s a good man in a boat. He doesn’t spook too easy but I don’t know whether I ought to take him. But I can’t take no rummy nor no nigger. I got to have somebody I can depend on. If we make it I’ll see he gets a share. But I can’t tell him or he wouldn’t go into it and I got to have somebody by me.
It would be better alone, anything is better alone but I don’t think I can handle it alone. It would be much better alone. Albert is better off if he don’t know anything about it. The only thing is Bee-lips. There’s Bee-lips that will know about everything. Still they must have thought about that. They must figure on that. Do you suppose Bee-lips is so dumb he won’t know that’s what they will do?
I wonder. Of course maybe that isn’t what they figure to do. Maybe they aren’t going to do any such thing. But it’s natural that’s what they would do and I heard that word. If they do it they’ll have to do it just when it closes or they’ll have the Coast Guard plane down from Miami. It’s dark now at six. She can’t fly it down under an hour. Once it’s dark they’re all right. Well, if I’m going to carry them I got to figure out about the boat. She won’t be hard to get out but if I take her out tonight and they find she’s gone they’ll maybe find her. Anyway there will be a big fuss.
Tonight’s the only time I’ve got to get her out though. I can take her out with the tide and I can hide her. I can see what she needs if she needs anything, if they’ve taken off anything. But I got to fill gas and water. I got a hell of a busy night all right. Then when I’ve got her hid Albert will have to bring them in a speed boat. Maybe Walton’s. I can hire her. Or Bee-lips can hire her. That’s better. Bee-lips can help me get the boat out tonight. Bee-lips is the one. Because sure as hell they’ve figured about Bee-lips. They’ve got to have figured about Bee-lips. Suppose they figure about me and Albert. Did any of them look like sailors? Did any of them seem like they were sailors? Let me think? Maybe.
The pleasant one, maybe. Possibly him, that young one. I have to find out about that because if they figure on doing without Albert or me from the start there’s no way. Sooner or later they will figure on us. But in the Gulf you got time. And I’m figuring all the time. I’ve got to think right all the time. I can’t make a mistake. Not a mistake. Not once. Well, I got something to think about now all right. Something to do and something to think about besides wondering what the hell’s going to happen.
Besides wondering what’s going to happen to the whole damn thing. Once they put it up. Once you’re playing for it. Once you got a chance. Instead of just watching it all go to hell. With no boat to make a living with. That Bee-lips. He don’t know what he’s into. He ain’t got any idea what this is going to be like. I hope he shows up pretty soon down at Freddy’s. I got plenty to do tonight. I better get something to eat.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
It was about nine-thirty when Bee-lips came into the place. You could see they had given him plenty out at Richard’s because when he drinks it makes him cocky and he came in plenty cocky.
“Well, big shot,” he says
