“You will have some coffee?” he asked me.
“If you do.”
“Thank you,” said Mr. Sing. “We are quite alone here?”
“Except for everybody in the café,” I told him.
“That is all right,” Mr. Sing said. “You have a boat?”
“Thirty-eight feet,” I said. “Hundred horse Kermath.”
“Ah,” said Mr. Sing. “I had imagined it was something bigger.”
“It can carry two hundred and sixty-five cases without being loaded.”
“Would you care to charter it to me?”
“On what terms?”
“You need not go. I will provide a captain and a crew.”
“No,” I said. “I go on her wherever she goes.”
“I see,” said Mr. Sing. “Would you mind leaving us?” he said to Frankie. Frankie looked as interested as ever and smiled at him.
“He’s deaf,” I said. “He doesn’t understand much English.”
“I see,” said Mr. Sing. “You speak Spanish. Tell him to rejoin us later.”
I motioned to Frankie with my thumb. He got up and went over to the bar.
“You don’t speak Spanish?” I said.
“Oh, yes,” said Mr. Sing. “Now what are the circumstances that would—that have made you consider . . .”
“I’m broke.”
“I see,” said Mr. Sing. “Does the boat owe any money? Can she be libeled?”
“No.”
“Quite so,” Mr. Sing said. “How many of my unfortunate compatriots could your boat accommodate?”
“You mean carry?”
“That’s it.”
“How far?”
“A day’s voyage.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “She can take a dozen if they didn’t have any baggage.”
“They would not have baggage.”
“Where do you want to carry them?”
“I’d leave that to you,” Mr. Sing said.
“You mean where to land them?”
“You would embark them for the Tortugas where a schooner would pick them up.”
“Listen,” I said. “There’s a lighthouse at the Tortugas on Loggerhead Key with a radio that works both ways.”
“Quite,” said Mr. Sing. “It would certainly be very silly to land them there.”
“Then what?”
“I said you would embark them for there. That is what their passage calls for.”
“Yes,” I said.
“You would land them wherever your best judgment dictated.”
“Will the schooner come to Tortugas to get them?”
“Of course not,” said Mr. Sing. “How silly.”
“How much are they worth a head?”
“Fifty dollars,” said Mr. Sing.
“No.”
“How would seventy-five do?”
“What do you get a head?”
“Oh, that’s quite beside the point. You see, there are a great many facets, or you would say angles, to my issuing the tickets. It doesn’t stop there.”
“Yes,” I said. “And what I’m supposed to do doesn’t have to be paid for, either. Eh?”
“I see your point absolutely,” said Mr. Sing. “Should we say a hundred dollars apiece?”
“Listen,” I said. “Do you know how long I would go to jail if they pick me up on this?”
“Ten years,” said Mr. Sing. “Ten years at least. But there is no reason to go to jail, my dear captain. You run only one risk—when you load your passengers. Everything else is left to your discretion.”
“And if they come back on your hands?”
“That’s quite simple. I would accuse you to them of having betrayed me. I will make a partial refund and ship them out again. They realize, of course, that it is a difficult voyage.”
“What about me?”
“I suppose I should send some word to the consulate.”
“I see.”
“Twelve hundred dollars, captain, is not to be despised at present.”
“When would I get the money?”
“Two hundred when you agree and a thousand when you load.”
“Suppose I went off with the two hundred?”
“I could do nothing, of course,” he smiled. “But I know you wouldn’t do such a thing, captain.”
“Have you got the two hundred with you?”
“Of course.”
“Put it under the plate.” He did.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll clear in the morning and pull out at dark. Now, where do we load?”
“How would Bacuranao be?”
“All right. Have you got it fixed?”
“Of course.”
“Now, about the loading,” I said. “You show two lights, one above the other, at the point. I’ll come in when I see them. You come out in a boat and load from the boat. You come yourself and you bring the money. I won’t take one on board until I have it.”
“No,” he said; “one-half when you start to load and the other when you are finished.”
“All right,” I said. “That’s reasonable.”
“So everything is understood?”
“I guess so,” I said. “There’s no baggage and no arms. No guns, knives, or razors; nothing. I have to know about that.”
“Captain,” said Mr. Sing, “have you no trust in me? Don’t you see our interests are identical?”
“You’ll make sure?”
“Please do not embarrass me,” he said. “Do you not see how our interests coincide?”
“All right,” I told him. “What time will you be there?”
“Before midnight.”
“All right,” I said. “I guess that’s all.”
“How do you want the money?”
“In hundreds is all right.”
He stood up and I watched him go out. Frankie smiled at him as he went. Mr. Sing didn’t look at him. He was a smooth-looking Chink all right. Some Chink.
Frankie came over to the table. “Well?” he said.
“Where did you know Mr. Sing?”
“He ships Chinamen,” Frankie said. “Big business.”
“How long you know him?”
“He’s here about two years,” Frankie said. “Another one ship them before him. Somebody kill him.”
“Somebody will kill Mr. Sing, too.”
“Sure,” said Frankie. “Why not? Plenty big business.”
“Some business,” I said.
“Big business,” said Frankie. “Ship Chinamen never come back. Other Chinamen write letters say everything fine.”
“Wonderful,” I said.
“This kind of Chinamen no understand write. Chinamen can write all rich. Eat nothing. Live on rice. Hundred thousand Chinamen here. Only three Chinese women.”
“Why?”
“Government no let.”
“Hell of a situation,” I said.
“You do business him?”
“Maybe.”
“Good business,” said Frankie. “Better than politics. Much money. Plenty big business.”
“Have a bottle of beer,” I told him.
“You not worry any more?”
“Hell no,” I said. “Plenty big business. Much obliged.”
“Good,” said Frankie and patted me on the back. “Make me happier than nothing. All I want is you happy. Chinamen good business, eh?”
“Wonderful.”
“Make me happy,” said Frankie. I saw he was about ready to cry because he was so pleased everything was all right, so I patted him on the back. Some Frankie.
First thing in the morning I got hold of the broker and told him to clear us. He wanted the crew list and I told him nobody.
“You’re going to cross alone, Captain?”
“That’s right.”
“What’s become of your mate?”
“He’s on a drunk,” I told him.
“It’s very dangerous to go alone.”
“It’s only ninety miles,” I said. “Do you think having a rummy on board makes any difference?”
I ran her over to the Standard Oil dock across the harbor and filled up both the tanks. She held nearly two hundred gallons when I had her full. I hated to buy it at twenty-eight cents a gallon but I didn’t know where we might go.
Ever since I’d seen the Chink and taken the money I’d been worrying about the business. I don’t think I slept all night. I brought her back to the San Francisco dock, and there was Eddy waiting on the dock for me.
“Hello, Harry,” he said to me and waved. I threw him the stern line and he made her fast, and then came aboard; longer, blearier, drunker than ever. I didn’t say anything to him.
“What do you think about that fellow Johnson going off like that, Harry?” he asked me. “What do you know about that?”
“Get out of here,” I told him. “You’re poison to me.”
“Brother, don’t I feel as bad about it as you do?”
“Get off of her,” I told him.
He just settled back in the chair and stretched his legs out. “I hear we’re going across today,” he said. “Well, I guess there isn’t any use to stay around.”
“You’re not going.”
“What’s the matter, Harry? There’s no sense to get plugged with me.”
“No? Get off her.”
“Oh, take it easy.”
I hit him in the face and he stood up and then climbed up onto the dock.
“I wouldn’t do a thing like that to you, Harry,” he said.
“You’re goddamn right you wouldn’t,” I told him. “I’m not going to carry you. That’s all.”
“Well, what did you have to hit me for?”
“So you’d believe it.”
“What do you want me to do? Stay here and starve?”
“Starve, hell,” I said. “You can get back on the ferry. You can work your way back.”
“You aren’t treating me square,” he said.
“Who did you ever treat square, you rummy?” I told him. “You’d double-cross your own mother.”
That was true, too. But I felt bad about hitting him. You know how you feel when you hit a drunk. But I wouldn’t carry him the way things were now; not even if I wanted to.
He started to walk off down the dock looking longer than a day without breakfast. Then he turned and came back.
“How’s to let me take a couple of dollars, Harry?”
I gave him a five-dollar bill of the Chink’s.
“I always knew you were my pal. Harry, why don’t you carry me?”
“You’re bad luck.”
“You’re just plugged,” he said. “Never mind, old pal. You’ll be glad to see me yet.”
Now he had money he went off a good deal faster but I tell you it was poison to see him walk, even. He walked just like his joints were backwards.
I went up to the Perla and met the broker and he gave me the papers and I bought him a drink. Then I had lunch and Frankie came in.
“Fellow gave me this for you,” he said and handed me a rolled-up sort of tube wrapped in paper and tied with a piece of red string. It looked like a photograph when I unwrapped it and I unrolled it thinking it was maybe a picture some one around the dock had taken of the boat.
All right. It was a close-up picture of the
