“When they straightened out the estate they found that young Stanley had been left the income from a very sizeable trust fund. An irrevocable and untouchable trust. It seems the old boy never really had much confidence in young Stanley after all. Still, it was a nice income. Just enough so that he would never have to work for a living. I guess he was still protecting me all the way, even after his death. And that was the biggest mistake he made. If he had left me a few million bucks where I could get my hands on it I probably would have thrown it away in one big binge and then been forced to go out and earn a living. In that case I might have been an insurance salesman somewhere and married the kind of nice little girl that marries small, bald-headed insurance salesmen.
“Or if I didn’t throw away the dough I might have reinvested it and made a pot more and been able to call myself my own man. Either way I would have been better off. As it was, he crippled me. I didn’t have enough to play around with and at the same time I had too much of an assured income to ever really be forced to take a job. Right now, for instance, I’m waiting for next month’s check which won’t be here for another three weeks, and until I get it I’m absolutely flat. So it’s all been wasted. Everything. And when I let myself think about it it’s like a knife in my guts. Maybe that’s why I booze so much.”
“You could have refused to take the income,” Robinson said.
“Maybe once but not any more. It’s too late now. I’m too old and too scared. And anyway, I like the dough. It may be crap but I like it.”
“What you need is a wife, Stanley.”
“They’re all too young or too old. Too soft or too hard. If I marry some child bride who doesn’t know the score she’ll let me drift along the way I’m going and in the end I’ll just wind up dragging somebody else down with me. On the other hand, if I ever got involved with a woman like Clare Loomis she’d chew me up and then spit me out like a used piece of gum. No, if I have one saving grace, old boy, it’s that I know my limitations. I’ve got the house and Tom to look after me and my old pal Johnny Walker to kill the pain and that’s all there is and that’s all there will ever be. I guess it’s enough; still, I like to dream. I like to dream that I still might do something positive…”
The clownish expression that Walker habitually wore had gone. For one brief moment there was a touch of strength in the weak jaw and the faded blue eyes. That, Robinson thought, is how the old man must have looked.
“You won’t laugh at me?” Walker said.
“No, of course not.”
“What I’d really like is to be another Gus Robinson. I’d like to sell the house and put the money into a boat and take off.”
“Why don’t you?”
“I told you; I know my limitations. How far do you think I’d get? I’d wind up drunk and scared and lonely. And besides, I’d get sick as a wet cat on a boat. I like to talk about sailing but I’m really just a fraud.” The foolish, self-deprecating grin had returned. “No, I’ll stay here where I belong, waiting for the checks that will always keep coming as long as the market doesn’t go to hell. In a way it’s right for me but it’s no good for you, Gus.”
“I know that.”
“I wouldn’t want to infect you with the same disease.”
“No fear, Stanley. My old man left me nothing but his best wishes. Anyway, I’ll be leaving in a few days.”
“I’ll be sorry to see you go but I guess it would be best.”
“Maybe someday when I get another boat I’ll come back and you’ll take a cruise with me.”
“Yes,” Walker said, knowing they never would, “maybe someday we will.”
From that point on Walker began to drink steadily. He had lost another in the series of sharp little skirmishes he had fought with himself over the years and now he turned to the Scotch for relief. Eventually Thomas led him away to bed.
Robinson was glad to see his host go. The maudlin self-pity of a drunk always made him uncomfortable. Walker was likable enough and there were times when you could feel sorry for him but he was still a fearsome bore. When the house was quiet he slipped out through the sliding glass door and walked rapidly down the path through the dunes to his meeting with Clare.
“Have you thought any more about my proposition?” she asked.
“I still don’t know what your proposition is,” Robinson said.
“What do you think it is?”
“You really want me to guess?”
“Why not?”
“Well it might be almost anything, but since you specified that you needed a sailor and since you’re probably too smart to go in for anything as foolish as smuggling or gun running, I’d have to guess that it’s some sort of insurance fraud.”
“And if you were right would you be willing to go through with it?”
“If I thought I could get away with it.”
“Well, it has nothing to do with insurance. Do you remember you told me that first night when I mentioned the twenty thousand dollars to you that you would do anything short of murder?”
“I remember.”
“Well, murder is what I want done.”
She had spoken in the calm, slightly overbearing voice that she might use instructing a bartender in the proper preparation of a dry martini. Robinson waited for her to go on and when she didn’t he said, “I hope this is your idea of a joke.”
“I’ve never been more serious.”
“All right,” he said. “Good-bye. It’s been nice knowing you.”
“Don’t you want to hear the rest?”
“No. You’ve got the wrong boy.”
“I think I’ve got the right boy. Don’t you want to know why?”
“That much might be interesting,” he said, sitting down again. “Go on.”
“I’m surprised to find such an initial feeling of righteousness in you. You just don’t seem like the sort of man who would be bound by the usual phony crap of accepted convictions. Tell me, Gus, were you in the war?”
“They called it a police action.”
“You mean Korea?”
“Yes.”
“Well, whatever they called it it was a war.”
“That was the way it seemed to me.”
“Were you actually in combat? I mean did you kill anybody?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“They were shooting at me.”
“No, before that.”
“Because I was told to.”
“No other reason? No strong convictions about saving the world for something or other?”
“No.”
“Well at least you’re honest about it. What did you feel about the men you killed?”
“Not much.”
“They gave you a reason to go out and kill and you went and did it. And as far as I can tell from looking at you it doesn’t keep you awake nights. The only trouble was it was not a very good reason. Now I can give you much better reasons. Twenty thousand of them.” Her voice had grown warmer and she had moved a little closer to him as she talked so that her arm was pressing softly against his. “Your fellow creatures can’t be so terribly sacred to you, Gus, or you wouldn’t have gone to war and you wouldn’t be sailing around the world alone. What it boils down to is a question of your life against somebody else’s. You told me yourself that without a boat life for you wasn’t worth living. So if you want to spend the rest of your life puttering around some miserable boatyard painting other people’s yachts, all you have to do is get up from here and walk away right now. But I know you won’t because we’re two of a kind, Gus. We both take what we want out of life and to hell with everybody else.”
Isn’t it great, he thought, how they keep seeing themselves in me? Walker thought he saw something of himself in me and now this bitch does the same thing. And the funny part is they may both be right.
She was going on about morality. Her point was that it is all a question of degree instead of any fundamental sense of right or wrong. We never hesitate to b
reak the law in dozens of small ways all the time. We sleep with other men’s wives and we cheat the customs inspectors and we lie to the tax collectors and we fix parking tickets and we use influence to obtain government contracts and we duck the draft and we pad expense accounts and we rig insurance claims and we even let the damned dog mess on the damned sidewalk when he should be in the damned gutter. So, according to her, if you follow that reasoning to its inescapable conclusion, why the hell should anyone shy away from murder?
“I’ll tell you why,” she went on. “For only one reason. We’re afraid of getting caught. Isn’t that so?”
“You’re doing the talking. Go ahead.”
“Suppose I were to present you with an absolutely foolproof scheme for murder. What would you say then?”
“I’d say there is no such animal.”
“Well you’re wrong. It happens all the time. A very dear friend of mine got away with murder and she’s currently a member in good standing of international café society, and you’d know her name if I told it to you because it’s in all the gossip columns.”
“I don’t read the gossip columns,” Robinson said, “but who did she murder and how did she do it?”
“She murdered her husband with a box of pills.”
“And you mean to say they couldn’t trace the pills?”
“There was nothing to trace. She didn’t give him the pills; she just kept him from getting at them. He was an invalid with a bad heart. The doctor had prescribed certain pills to get him through his attacks. My friend, who was about thirty years younger than her husband, just waited until he was in a bad way and then tucked the pills into her bag and went for a good long walk. When she came back he was dead. She put the pills back where they belonged and then began screaming for help. No matter what anybody may say there’s no way they can prove anything. It was an absolutely foolproof murder.”
“Since you’ve got it all so well figured out, what do you need me for? Why don’t you do it yourself? Or haven’t you the guts?”
“I have the guts all right, sonny boy, but as I told you it needs a sailor.”
She stood up suddenly, then bent down and kissed his cheek and said, “Good night, Gus. Think it over.”
Gwen Leacock rattled up to the Walker house the next morning in a flame-red Hillman and said, “I have every intention of holding you to your promise, Mr. Robinson.”
“About the sailing lesson? Fine. Let’s go.”
She looked exceptionally lovely. Her smoothly tanned skin was without makeup and needed none. Her hair was drawn back simply and tied with a ribbon. She wore a blue and white striped shirt and tiny faded denim shorts. Her limbs, as revealed by the skimpy outfit, were slender but beautifully rounded. She opened the door for him and he got in and they drove around the point and toward the lagoon. A brisk easterly sent a flock of whitecaps racing across the usually calm water.
“It may be a little windy out there for a Lightning,” Robinson said.
She raised one eyebrow and asked in a mocking tone, “Frightened?”
“Maybe. Aren’t you?”
“Not with you.”
“Well that’s where you’re wrong. I’m far from infallible. I lost my own boat and I wouldn’t want to lose yours.”
“But that’s the nice thing about a day-sailer. About the worst that can happen to you is a good ducking.”
“You can get clobbered by the boom of a Lightning just as well as in a forty footer.”
“I’ll keep my head down and do as I’m told. Okay?”
“All right,” he said. “We’ll give it a whirl anyway. Where do you keep the boat?”
“At a dock on the far shore.”
They turned off onto a narrow track and went over a rise to a landing where two sport-cruisers lay gleaming in the sun. Between them was moored a handsome day-sailer with all loose lines coiled and sails neatly furled.
“You keep her shipshape,” Robinson said approvingly. “Or is that the work of the hired help?”
“The hired help don’t have a thing to do with it. Captain Leacock is responsible for everything you see here.”
“Before we start out you’d better tell me just what you have in mind. Do you plan to race her or just to knock around the lagoon?”
“There’s a one-design race scheduled for next week and I thought it might be great fun to enter it if I knew a little more about the technique of racing.”
“Then I think the best way to start would be for you to do everything just as though you were alone. While you’re at it I’ll sit back and watch you with a lecherous eye.”
She got the sails up, let go lines and moved smartly away from the dock. It was very neatly done. They went out fast on a broad reach and although she was a little afraid of so much wind she handled the boat nicely enough on port and starboard tacks.
“Don’t you want to take it?” she asked.
“Not just yet. Let’s just drop the sails for a few minutes and sit and talk. You sail very well but you have something to learn because racing is not only technique but psychology as well. I’ll try to be very learned and professional with you, and I’m betting that by the time I finish you’ll be ready to give the boat away to the first taker.”
She nodded happily. Her cheeks were rouged by the wind and her eyes were shining with excitement. If there is such an animal as a born sailor, Robinson thought, she is certainly one. You could see it in the way she handled the tiller, as lightly as a good horseman handles his reins, and in the way she responded to the heel of the boat, not getting nervous or panicky but just instinctively easing the sheet or coming a touch closer to the wind. But most of all it was in her eyes as she followed the sweep of canvas and in the pulse of excitement that showed in her throat as she prepared to come about.
He helped her drop the sails and when the boat was comparatively still they sat side by side in the cockpit. He offered her a cigarette and cupped a match in his fist.
“Let’s talk generalities first,” he said. “To begin with you’re not paying enough attention to the jib. Did you know that for its size the jib develops about twice the pulling power of the mains’le?”
She shook her head. “I just assumed they threw it in for something a little extra.”
“Well if you want to win a race don’t ever neglect that jib. Try to see that it’s set up as smoothly as possible. I don’t want to sound too pontifical about it but you have to think of it as a kind of aerofoil, something like the wing of a bird or an airplane. The surface should be smoothly arched and at the same time as stiff as possible. It isn’t just a question of the wind flowing onto the sail; it’s got to flow off it as well. Every little wrinkle or hard spot sets up eddies on both sides of the sail. These eddies break up the flow of the wind and cut down on the sail’s efficiency. Are you properly confused now?”
“No, not too much.”
“Then let’s talk about racing. A good many people have written volumes on the subject, many of which are largely over-technical nonsense. The main thing to remember is that the start is most important. More sailing races are won at the start than at any other point. It’s not like a horse race or a foot race or even an automobile race where the animal or the man or the machine is in danger of breaking down from too fast a start. All other factors being equal the first boat across the starting line should win the race. For one thing it’s always easier to keep a competing boat behind you than it is to catch up with the one ahead. If you’re ahead you can use such nasty little tricks as blanketing his sails or leaving broken water in your wake, both of which will slow him down. And then too, the boat in the lead seems to sail better. She’s lighter in the water and easier on the helm. A lot of that is probably due to the fact that the skipper of the trailing boat is trying too hard to catch up and it forces him to press. But if you just remember to get across that line first it’s my bet that you won’t have any trouble staying in front.”
“Couldn’t I just tuck you away somewhere in the
bilge?” she asked. “That way when I need advice you could flash signals at me.”
“I weigh two hundred and five pounds and I don’t think that kind of ballast would do you any good. The main thing you have to remember is that if we have the same kind of wind on the day of the race that we’re having today—which is pretty likely for this time of year—it will make for a windward start. In that case you make darned sure you get off on a starboard tack. And the reason for that is very simple—you have the right of way and you don’t have to worry about fouling the other fellow. This gives you a very clear advantage over the boat on the port tack. Savvy?”
“I savvy, Gus.”
“Good. Then get those sails up again and take her off on the starboard tack just as you would for a race. And while you’re at it I’ll see if I can’t tune up the stays and the rest of the rigging.”
The time had slipped magically away. In the joy of sailing and in the pleasure of Gwen’s company Robinson had been able to forget himself and most of his troubles. The little boat swept back and forth across the lagoon. Robinson drove her down almost to her beam ends. White water nipped at the weather boards as the Lightning beat to windward. If Robinson was showing off to some degree it was hard to blame him.
When they finally brought the boat in she said, “How can I thank you, Gus?”
“No thanks are needed, Gwen. It was just as much fun for me. I really came alive out there today for the first time since losing Charee.”
“It’s none of my business, of course, but I’m wondering what your plans are now. Surely you’ll get another boat.”
“I suppose I will someday if I can ever put that many dollars together.”
“But wasn’t the Charee insured?”
“Singlehanded sailors crossing oceans are not generally considered a good risk. Even if you could find a company willing to carry the policy the premiums would be way out of line. But, I’ll make out. Something usually turns up. But what about you, Gwen? Where do you go from here?”
Virgin Cay Page 4
