“Just call me Professor MacWalsey.”
“My name’s Laughton,” the tall one said. “I’m a writer.”
“I’m glad to meet you,” Professor MacWalsey said. “Do you write often?”
The tall man looked around him. “Let’s get out of here, dear,” he said. “Everybody is either insulting or nuts.”
“It’s a strange place,” said Professor MacWalsey. “Fascinating, really. They call it the Gibraltar of America and it’s three hundred and seventy-five miles south of Cairo, Egypt. But this place is the only part of it I’ve had time to see yet. It’s a fine place though.”
“I see you’re a professor all right,” the wife said. “You know, I like you.”
“I like you too, darling,” Professor MacWalsey said. “But I have to go now.”
He got up and went out to look for his bicycle.
“Everybody is nuts here,” the tall man said. “Should we have another drink, dear?”
“I liked the professor,” the wife said. “He had a sweet manner.”
“That other fellow——”
“Oh, he had a beautiful face,” the wife said. “Like a Tartar or something. I wish he hadn’t been insulting. He looked kind of like Ghengis Khan in the face. Gee, he was big.”
“He had only one arm,” her husband said.
“I didn’t notice,” the wife said. “Should we have another drink? I wonder who’ll come in next!”
“Maybe Tamerlane,” the husband said.
“Gee, you’re educated,” the wife said. “But that Ghengis Khan one would do me. Why did the Professor like to hear me say nerts?”
“I don’t know, dear,” Laughton, the writer, said. “I never did.”
“He seemed to like me for what I really am,” the wife said. “My, he was nice.”
“You’ll probably see him again.”
“Any time you come in here you’ll see him,” Freddy said. “He lives in here. He’s been here for two weeks now.”
“Who’s the other one who speaks so rude?”
“Him? Oh, he’s a fellow from around here.”
“What does he do?”
“Oh, a little of everything,” Freddy told her. “He’s a fisherman.”
“How did he lose his arm?”
“I don’t know. He got it hurt some way.”
“Gee, he’s beautiful,” the wife said.
Freddy laughed. “I heard him called a lot of things but I never heard him called that.”
“Don’t you think he has a beautiful face?”
“Take it easy, lady,” Freddy told her. “He’s got a face like a ham with a broken nose on it.”
“My, men are stupid,” the wife said. “He’s my dream man.”
“He’s a bad-dream man,” Freddy said.
All this time the writer sat there with a sort of stupid look on his face except when he’d look at his wife admiringly. Any one would have to be a writer or a F.E.R.A. man to have a wife look like that, Freddy thought. God, isn’t she awful?
Just then in came Albert.
“Where’s Harry?”
“Down at the dock.”
“Thanks,” said Albert.
He went out and the wife and the writer kept on sitting there and Freddy stood there worrying about the boat and thinking how his legs hurt from standing up all day. He had put a grating over the cement but it didn’t seem to do much good. His legs ached all the time. Still he was doing a good business, as good as anybody in town and with less overhead. That woman was goofy all right. And what kind of a man was it would pick out a woman like that to live with? Not even with your eyes shut, thought Freddy. Not with a borrowed. Still they were drinking mixed drinks. Expensive drinks. That was something.
“Yes, sir,” he said. “Right away.”
A tanned-faced, sandy-haired, well-built man wearing a striped fisherman’s shirt and khaki shorts came in with a very pretty dark girl who wore a thin, white wool sweater and dark blue slacks.
“If it isn’t Richard Gordon,” said Laughton, standing up, “with the lovely Miss Helen.”
“Hello, Laughton,” said Richard Gordon. “Did you see anything of a rummy professor around here?”
“He just went out,” said Freddy.
“Do you want a vermouth, sweetheart?” Richard Gordon asked his wife.
“If you do,” she said. Then said, “Hello,” to the two Laughtons. “Make mine two parts of French to one Italian, Freddy.”
She sat on a high stool with her legs tucked under her and looked out at the street. Freddy looked at her admiringly. He thought she was the prettiest stranger in Key West that winter. Prettier even than the famous beautiful Mrs. Bradley. Mrs. Bradley was getting a little big. This girl had a lovely Irish face, dark hair that curled almost to her shoulders and smooth clear skin. Freddy looked at her brown hand holding the glass.
“Hows the work?” Laughton asked Richard Gordon.
“I’m going all right,” Gordon said. “How are you doing?”
“James won’t work,” Mrs. Laughton said. “He just drinks.”
“Say, who is this Professor MacWalsey?” Laughton asked.
“Oh, he’s some sort of professor of economics I think, on a sabatical year or something. He’s a friend of Helen’s.”
“I like him,” said Helen Gordon.
“I like him, too,” said Mrs. Laughton.
“I liked him first,” Helen Gordon said happily.
“Oh, you can have him,” Mrs. Laughton said. “You good little girls always get what you want.”
“That’s what makes us so good,” said Helen Gordon.
“I’ll have another vermouth,” said Richard Gordon. “Have a drink?” he asked the Laughtons.
“Why not,” said Laughton. “Say, are you going to that big party the Bradleys are throwing tomorrow?”
“Of course he is,” said Helen Gordon.
“I like her, you know,” said Richard Gordon. “She interests me both as a woman and as a social phenomenon.”
“Gee,” said Mrs. Laughton. “You can talk as educated as the Professor.”
“Don’t strut your illiteracy, dear,” said Laughton.
“Do people go to bed with a social phenomenon?” asked Helen Gordon, looking out the door.
“Don’t talk rot,” said Richard Gordon.
“I mean is it part of the homework of a writer?” Helen asked.
“A writer has to know about everything,” Richard Gordon said. “He can’t restrict his experience to conform to Bourgeois standards.”
“Oh,” said Helen Gordon. “And what does a writer’s wife do?”
“Plenty, I guess,” Mrs. Laughton said. “Say, you ought to have seen the man who was just in here and insulted me and James. He was terrific.”
“I should have hit him,” Laughton said.
“He was really terrific,” said Mrs. Laughton.
“I’m going home,” said Helen Gordon. “Are you coming, Dick?”
“I thought I’d stay down town a while,” Richard Gordon said.
“Yes?” said Helen Gordon, looking in the mirror behind Freddy’s head.
“Yes,” Richard Gordon said.
Freddy, looking at her, figured that she was going to cry. He hoped it wouldn’t happen in the place.
“Don’t you want another drink?” Richard Gordon asked her.
“No.” She shook her head.
“Say, what’s the matter with you?” asked Mrs. Laughton. “Aren’t you having a good time?”
“A dandy time,” said Helen Gordon. “But I think I’d better go home just the same.”
“I’ll be back early,” Richard Gordon said.
“Don’t bother,” she told him. She went out. She hadn’t cried. She hadn’t found John MacWalsey either.
CHAPTER SIXTEEN
Down at the dock Harry Morgan had driven up alongside of where the boat lay, seen there was no one around, lifted the front seat of his car, skidded the flat, web, oil-heavy case out and dropped it down into the cockpit of the launch.
He got in himself and opened the engine hatch and put the machine-gun case below out of sight. He turned on the gas valves and started both engines. The starboard engine ran smoothly after a couple of minutes, but the port engine missed on the second and fourth cylinders and he found the plugs were cracked, looked for some new plugs, but couldn’t find them.
“Got to get plugs and fill gas,” he thought.
Below with the engines, he opened the machine-gun case and fitted the stock to the gun. He found two pieces of fan belting and four screws, and cutting slits in the belting rigged a sling to hold the gun under the cockpit floor to the left of the hatch; just over the port engine. It lay there, cradled easily, and he shoved a clip from the four held in the web pockets in the case up into the gun. Kneeling between the two engines he reached up to take the gun.
There were only two movements to make. First unhook the strap of belting that passed around the receiver just behind the bolt. Then pull the gun out of the other loop. He tried it and it came easily one-handed. He pushed the little lever all the way over from semi-automatic to automatic and made sure the safety was on. Then he fastened it up again. He could not figure out where to put the extra clips; so he shoved the case under a gas tank below, where he could reach it, with the butts of the clips lying toward his hand. If I go down a time first after we’re underway, I can put a couple in my pocket, he thought. Be better not to have it on but something might jar the damn thing off.
He stood up. It was a fine clear afternoon, pleasant, not cold, with a light north breeze. It was a nice afternoon all right. The tide was running out and there were two pelicans sitting on the piling at the edge of the channel. A grunt fishing boat, painted dark green, chugged past on the way around to the fish market, the Negro fisherman sitting in the stern holding the tiller. Harry looked out across the water, smooth with the wind blowing with the tide, gray blue in the afternoon sun, out to the sandy island formed when the channel was dredged where the shark camp had been located. There were white gulls flying over the island.
“Be a pretty night,” Harry thought. “Be a nice night to cross.”
He was sweating a little from being down around the engines,
