“I thought maybe I ought to take the money on board while we were towing her,” the skipper said. “Then I thought it was better to leave it just exactly like it was so long as the weather was light.”
“It was right to leave it,” the sheriff said. “What’s become of the other man, Albert Tracy, the fisherman?”
“I don’t know. This is just how it was except for shifting those two,” the skipper said. “They’re all shot to pieces except that one there under the wheel laying on his back. He’s just shot in the back of the head. It come out through the front. You can see what it did.”
“He’s the one that looked like a kid,” the sheriff said.
“He don’t look like anything now,” the skipper said.
“That big one there is the one had the submachine gun and who killed attorney Robert Simmons,” the sheriff said. “What do you suppose happened? How the devil did they all get shot?”
“They must have got fighting among themselves,” the skipper said. “They must have had a dispute on how to split the money.”
“We’ll cover them up until morning,” the sheriff said. “I’ll take those bags.”
Then, as they were standing there in the cockpit, a woman came running up the pier past the Coast Guard cutter, and behind her came the crowd. The woman was gaunt, middle-aged and bareheaded, and her stringy hair had come undone and was down on her neck although it was still knotted at the end. As she saw the bodies in the cockpit she commenced to scream. She stood on the pier screaming with her head back while two other women held her arms. The crowd, which had come close behind her, formed around her, jostled close, looking down at the launch.
“God damn it,” said the sheriff. “Who left that gate open? Get something to cover those bodies; blankets, sheets, anything, and we’ll get this crowd out of here.”
The woman stopped screaming and looked down into the launch, then put back her head and screamed again.
“Where they got him?” said one of the women near her.
“Where they put Albert?”
The woman who was screaming stopped it and looked in the launch again.
“He ain’t there,” she said. “Hey, you, Roger Johnson,” she shouted at the sheriff. “Where’s Albert? Where’s Albert?”
“He isn’t on board, Mrs. Tracy,” the sheriff said. The woman put her head back and screamed again, the chords in her scrawny throat rigid, her hands clenched, her hair shaking.
In the back of the crowd people were shoving and elbowing to get to the dock side.
“Come on. Let somebody else see.”
“They’re going to cover them up.”
And in Spanish, “Let me pass. Let me look. Hay cuatro muertos. Todos son muertos. Let me see.”
Now the woman was screaming, “Albert! Albert! Oh, my God, where’s Albert?”
In the back of the crowd two young Cubans who had just come up and who could not penetrate the crowd stepped back, then ran and shoved forward together. The front line of the crowd swayed and bulged, then, in the middle of a scream, Mrs. Tracy and her two supporters toppled, hung slanted forward in desperate unbalance and then, while the supporters wildly hung to safety, Mrs. Tracy, still screaming, fell into the green water, the scream becoming a splash and bubble.
Two Coast Guard men dove into the clear green water where Mrs. Tracy was splashing in the floodlight. The sheriff leaned out on the stern and shoved a boat hook out to her and finally, raised from below by the two Coast Guardsmen, pulled up by the arms by the sheriff, she was hoisted onto the stern of the launch. No one in the crowd had made a move to aid her, and, as she stood dripping on the stern, she looked up at them, shook both her fists at them and shouted, “Basards! Bishes!” Then as she looked into the cockpit she wailed, “Alber. Whersh Alber?”
“He’s not on board, Mrs. Tracy,” the sheriff said, taking up a blanket to put around her. “Try to be calm, Mrs. Tracy. Try to be brave.”
“My plate,” said Mrs. Tracy tragically. “Losht my plate.”
“We’ll dive it up in the morning,” the skipper of the Coast Guard cutter told her. “We’ll get it all right.”
The Coast Guard men had climbed up on the stern and were standing dripping. “Come on. Let’s go,” one of them said. “I’m getting cold.”
“Are you all right, Mrs. Tracy?” the sheriff said, putting the blanket around her.
“All rie?” said Mrs. Tracy. “All rie?” then clenched both her hands and put her head back to really scream. Mrs. Tracy’s grief was greater than she could bear.
The crowd listened to her and was silent and respectful. Mrs. Tracy provided just the sound effect that was needed to go with the sight of the dead bandits that were now being covered with Coast Guard blankets by the sheriff and one of the deputies, thus veiling the greatest sight the town had seen since the Isleño had been lynched, years before, out on the County Road and then hung up to swing from a telephone pole in the lights of all the cars that had come out to see it.
The crowd was disappointed when the bodies were covered but they alone of all the town had seen them. They had seen Mrs. Tracy fall into the water and they had, before they came in, seen Harry Morgan carried on a stretcher into the Marine Hospital. When the sheriff ordered them out of the yacht basin they went quietly and happily. They knew how privileged they had been.
Meanwhile at the Marine Hospital Harry Morgan’s wife, Marie, and her three daughters waited on a bench in the receiving room. The three girls were crying and Marie was biting on a handkerchief. She hadn’t been able to cry since about noon.
“Daddy’s shot in the stomach,” one of the girls said to her sister.
“It’s terrible,” said the sister.
“Be quiet,” said the older sister. “I’m praying for him. Don’t interrupt me.”
Marie said nothing and only sat there, biting on a handkerchief and on her lower lip.
After a while the doctor came out. She looked at him and he shook his head.
“Can I go in?” she asked.
“Not yet,” he said. She went over to him. “Is he gone?” she said.
“I’m afraid so, Mrs. Morgan.”
“Can I go in and see him?”
“Not yet. He’s in the operating room.”
“Oh, Christ,” said Marie. “Oh, Christ. I’ll take the girls home. Then I’ll be back.”
Her throat suddenly was swollen hard and shut so she could not swallow.
“Come on, you girls,” she said. The three girls followed her out to the old car where she got into the driver’s seat and started the engine.
“How’s Daddy?” one of the girls asked.
Marie did not answer.
“How’s Daddy, Mother?”
“Don’t talk to me,” Marie said. “Just don’t talk to me.”
“But——”
“Shut up, Honey,” said Marie. “Just shut up and pray for him.” The girls began to cry again.
“Damn it,” said Marie. “Don’t cry like that. I said pray for him.”
“We will,” said one of the girls. “I haven’t stopped since we were at the hospital.”
As they turned onto the worn white coral of the Rocky Road the headlight of the car showed a man walking unsteadily along ahead of them.
“Some poor rummy,” thought Marie. “Some poor goddamned rummy.”
They passed the man, who had blood on his face, and who kept on unsteadily in the dark after the lights of the car had gone on up the street. It was Richard Gordon on his way home.
At the door of the house Marie stopped the car.
“Go to bed, you girls,” she said. “Go on up to bed.”
“But what about Daddy?” one of the girls asked.
“Don’t you talk to me,” Marie said. “For Christ sake, please don’t speak to me.”
She turned the car in the road and started back toward the hospital.
Back at the hospital Marie Morgan climbed the steps in a rush. The doctor met her on the porch as he came out through the screen door. He was tired and on his way home.
“He’s gone, Mrs. Morgan,” he said.
“He’s dead?”
“He died on the table.”
“Can I see him?”
“Yes,” the doctor said. “He went very peacefully, Mrs. Morgan. He was in no pain.”
“Oh, hell,” said Marie. Tears began to run down her cheeks. “Oh,” she said. “Oh, oh, oh.”
The doctor put his hand on her shoulder.
“Don’t touch me,” Marie said. Then, “I want to see him.”
“Come on,” the doctor said. He walked with her down a corridor and into the white room where Harry Morgan lay on a wheeled table, a sheet over his great body. The light was very bright and cast no shadows. Marie stood in the doorway looking terrified by the light.
“He didn’t suffer at all, Mrs. Morgan,” the doctor said. Marie did not seem to hear him.
“Oh, Christ,” she said, and began to cry again. “Look at his goddamned face.”
CHAPTER TWENTY SIX
I don’t know, Marie Morgan was thinking, sitting at the dining-room table. I can take it just a day at a time and a night at a time, and maybe it gets different. It’s the goddamned nights. If I cared about those girls it would be different. But I don’t care about those girls. I’ve got to do something about them though. I’ve got to get started on something. Maybe you get over being dead inside. I guess it don’t make any difference. I got to start to do something anyway. It’s been a week today. I’m afraid if I think about him on purpose I’ll
