As it turned out it didn’t. When the last of the inside ballast was out, I threw over everything else I could find including the engine. The old Palmer had breathed its last and was no good to him anyway. And it weighed a good four or five hundred pounds. Between the two of us we wrestled it out of its bed and up a kind of ramp put together from two-by-fours. We got it up on deck and it teetered there for a moment before it went over with a splash. And we felt Jezebel stir.
She gave a definite switch of her tail. All that seemed to be holding her now was the coral spur through her bottom. I thought Harry would say something, but he never said a word. He had not said a word all the time we were struggling with the engine. If he felt any excitement or pleasure at the idea that Jezebel might finally come off the reef, he did not show it.
The tide was rising. It was now or never.
“I’ll get Hester to come out with the skiff,” I said.
He glared at me, wild blue eyes crazy under the shock of red hair. It was a look to curdle your blood. I remembered her saying he might try to kill me. The idea did not seem so farfetched now.
I put on the fins and dropped over the side. Swimming across the channel I could feel the push of the incoming tide. I looked back and saw Jezebel bouncing ever so slightly. She was almost ready to come off.
I hit the beach and slipped off the fins and walked around to the house. Hester was not there. I banged on the door and called for her, but there was no answer. Regardless of the fact that our relationship was what it was, I did not feel inclined to open the door and go inside. I mean she had this terrific sense of privacy and I was not about to mess with it.
Well, she had to be somewhere on the island, unless she had gone off in the skiff. But I did not think she would do that because I had told her we would probably be needing the skiff for Jezebel later in the day.
I walked around to the lagoon where she kept the skiff and there it was, tied to its usual stake. I thought of taking it without her permission, but I did not want to do that because it would be all Harry and I could do to keep Jezebel afloat once she came off, and we would need her to handle the skiff.
I started walking south along the beach and I suddenly had a funny thought. Funny strange. I thought about the money. It had not even crossed my mind for the past couple of days. I looked for the big palm, lined it up with the tip of Jezebel’s mast, and made my way over to where I had buried the money. I don’t know what I was looking for exactly. An indication, I guess, that anybody had been snooping around. There was nothing. No footprints in the sand. All the same I had an uneasy feeling. Just a crazy hunch. Tried to shrug it off. Walked away from the place a hundred yards or so and then came back to it. Walked down the beach a quarter of a mile or so looking for Hester, but could not find her. Came back to the big palm. Stood there undecided for about five minutes and then began to dig. Dug easily at first and then harder and harder. Dug like a wild man. The money was gone.
CHAPTER 32
I COULDN’T BELIEVE IT. I WAS SWEATING ALL over and covered with sand. I didn’t care who saw me now. I scrambled back and forth like a terrier after a rat. Mounds of sand flew. Nothing. No plastic bag. No sign that it had ever been there. Was it possible that I had somehow made a mistake. But there was the palm and there was the tip of Jezebel’s mast, and neither one had moved. And there was the coral rock shaped like a bullfrog. No doubt about it. No possible fucking doubt.
I sat down to think it through. So Harry had been playing a game with me after all. He had given me my share and then stolen it back. Watched me bury the money and then gone right behind me and dug it up. I began to shake with rage and nervousness. For the first time in my life I felt capable of murder. But murder was not the answer. I must think it through, find some way to outwit him, talk it over with Hester. Hester was smart and she did not have any emotional involvement with Harry. She would know what to do. In the meantime the best thing would be to play it cool.
I stood up. My knees felt weak. The whole area around the bullfrog rock was torn up. What did it matter now? Where was Hester anyway? She must be walking on the other side of the island. I thought of going to look for her, but it would take too long. Can’t afford to turn my back on Harry. God knows what he is up to now.
I ran back along the beach to the lagoon. The skiff was still there, tied to its stake. It had occurred to me that while I was on the beach he might have stolen the skiff and been off. In a way it would have been justified. I mean after all it was what we were planning to do to him.
I waded out to the skiff, cranked up the Johnson, and plowed across to the ketch. Harry was sitting in the cockpit under the old tarp we had rigged as an awning.
He said, “Where’s Hester?”
I shrugged. “We can do it without her.” I did not recognize the sound of my own voice.
I thought he gave me a funny look. But anything he did then would seem funny. If he blew his nose I would figure he was reaching for a knife.
I looked at Burger’s watch.
“We’ve got an hour to high tide,” I said.
He grunted.
We sat there. There was so much mutual hate between us the air crackled with it. Like before a thunderstorm. Neither of us said a word. I think if we had we would have been at each other’s throats.
Jezebel bounced. Twice.
“We’ll try it now,” I said. “You get ready to stuff everything you can find into that hole.”
He nodded but said nothing. I took one of Jezebel’s heavy mooring lines and tied one end to the anchor winch and the other to the stern of the skiff. Jezebel weighed ten tons and there would not be a prayer of pulling her straight off, but I thought if I could swing the bow a little the tide might do the rest. Why was I going through all this anyway? What did I care about his damn boat now? Hester had been right about him. My father had been right about him. I was the only blind idiot who had not really seen him for what he was.
I cranked up the engine and put a slow strain on the line. Nothing. I gave it more throttle. The engine began to cavitate and the bow of the skiff rose into the air. Still nothing. Jezebel seemed to give an inch or two and then stick again.
“Maybe it would be a good idea if you got up the sails,” I yelled over to him. “If we could heel her over a little it might do the trick.”
He nodded and began to hoist the mainsail. I saw the wind catch the sails. She heeled over an inch or two. She was coming off. I put a strain on the line to keep her from sailing backwards onto the reef.
“Get below,” I yelled at him. “Plug that hole.”
He vanished down the companionway. I shoved the throttle up and the bow of the ketch began to swing slowly in my direction. Then she was off and free. But sluggish. Would she make it across the channel before she sank? I gunned the engine. Hester stood on the beach waving. I waved back and felt easier. She could calm me down just by being there. Between us we would figure something out.
I kept the pressure on, all the time watching Jezebel’s water line. She still seemed high in the water but of course a lot of that could be due to the fact that we had removed so much ballast. I kept her going. She had straightened out nicely now and the cross tide did not seem to affect her too much.
Most of the beach was rimmed with coral, but there was one small sandy spot about thirty feet wide that would make a bed for her. I had made up my mind to run her straight in there. Hester was waving encouragement at me. I shoved the throttle up and ran the skiff onto the beach with Jezebel right behind. I had been just a little bit afraid that when the skiff hit the beach Jezebel might crush us, but instead she just seemed to stop dead where she was when her keel hit the sandy bottom, and then sort of tilt a little to one side like a tired old horse. We had done better than I had expected, I mean we had gotten her further in, and now there was a good chance that when the tide dropped the hole in her bottom would be exposed enough for Harry to plug it.
He stuck his head up out of the hatchway and glared at me. His eyes were bloods
hot and sweat was running off his forehead. He looked really crazy. Not one thank-you. To hell with him. To bloody hell with him. After tonight he can sit here with his rotten boat and rot on this rotten island. See how much good his lousy money does him then. But damn it all it will be my money too.
That was when I nearly blew it. Felt the anger boiling in my veins and could hardly restrain the impulse to grab him by the throat. Remembered the way he had clobbered that guy on top of the head. To hell with that. I was on to his little tricks. Anyway I was four inches bigger in all directions and less than half his age. I could take him. I knew I could. But then what? I left him there and went charging off along the beach. I had done what I had told him I would do—get Jezebel off the reef—and now if I never saw him again it would be too soon.
I found an isolated place along the beach and dove in. Beautiful sea-green shallows over white sand and waving coral fronds. Little fish like peppermint sticks. They came up and stared at me and I gave them back eyeball for eyeball. Then I lay on my back and just floated. After a while the anger began to wash out of my blood. I wasn’t so sore anymore. Just a little sad. Sad that all of them had been so right about him, and I had been so wrong. I had really loved Harry. I mean I had thought of him as a marvel of cool. The world’s last free soul. But in fact he had no cool at all. He was a cheap crook, and he lived by lying and cheating and stealing. Talk about a generation gap—how could you ever believe anything any of them ever told you? They would tell you anything, but it was what they did that mattered.
What Harry had done was beyond belief.
While all those worms were jumping around in my head something grabbed my hand and I jumped about eight feet thinking the barracudas had got me at last. But it was only Hester. She had come very quietly up beside me and now she put her arms around me and dragged me down. Her long blond hair floating like a cloud around us. Down onto the white sand. Our lips pressed together and her legs gripping my waist. Was she trying to drown us both? Who cared? Soft and warm, the water and Hester. But then we broke loose and fought our way up.
“Are you crazy?” I said.
“Yes. About you. Come on.”
“Where?”
“Here. Right now.”
She was pulling at my shorts. Practically tore them off. Couldn’t wait. A whole new Hester. Wild. Ripping off her bikini panties and bra and kicking them away. She was white around the breasts and crotch and the rest of her was honey colored. Like some beautiful sandwich of vanilla and butterscotch. Floating around me. Twisting and turning. Took my face in her hands and pressed it between her breasts. Moving us over to the shallows. In no more than a foot of water now, warm in the shallows and warm on the powdery sand. Hester on her stomach with her face on the beach and raising her smooth and beautifully rounded bottom and guiding me toward her and whispering “Oh my God oh I love you yes yes yes.”
CHAPTER 33
IN THE NIGHT I THOUGHT I HEARD A MOTOR starting. Harry! Plunged from my sack like a mad bull.
Hester had promised me that she understood him perfectly. Knew his type from A to Z. Had dealt with his kind before. Under no conditions, she had said, will he leave without a final attempt. His ego is at stake. When you shatter the ego of a man like Harry, you destroy everything. And anyway he will never leave Jezebel. Keep your cool. Get some sleep. Toward morning we will slip away together.
That was what she had told me. And I believed her. All the same I was out of my hammock in one leap and in to check on him. There he was, sitting upright, naked as always, hair matted, eyes crazy. It was too much. I mean we’d had enough. It had been coming for a long time. We went at it without a word. He came at me like a lion.
I bent my knees to take the shock and lowered my head. It was a mistake. He had been street fighting on a dozen waterfronts for as many years. He grabbed me by the hair and punched my head down onto his knee. I thought the whole front of my face had caved in. I felt the blood spurt out of my smashed nose. But I was past caring. I got my arms locked under his knees and lifted him right off the ground. His whole weight. With that much adrenalin charging around my innards I could have lifted two Harrys. I flipped him up legs first so that he came down head and shoulders on the concrete floor. One hundred and eighty pounds of dead weight coming down headfirst onto cement can’t do anybody any good. Not even Harry. He lay motionless, and for a few seconds I thought I had killed him. But then he reached for my leg and tried to drag me down. Naked, and covered with sweat and blood, I was too slippery. I backed off and kicked him as hard as I could in the ribs. He groaned, but his fingers were still clutching at me. I kicked him again but he rolled away and got to his knees and held himself propped there shaking his head.
Whatever else he might be, he was one tough baby, my Uncle Harry. Then he was up, had grabbed one of the five-gallon jerry cans, and heaved it at my head. I ducked and felt the wind of it going by as it smashed against the wall with a noise like a bomb. He was right behind it. As I came up from avoiding the can, he caught me again in the face with a stiff right. But I was past feeling anything and got him around the waist in a bear hug and squeezed until I thought his ribs would crack. Unable to get his arms free there wasn’t much he could do. He tried to knee me in the balls, but I had figured that and twisted a little sideways and hung on squeezing harder than ever. I could feel the breath and the strength going out of him. I wasn’t in much better shape myself. My nose and throat were so full of blood it was impossible to get any air into my lungs. Then he was just a dead weight in my arms and at that moment my knees buckled and we went down together and lay there for I don’t know how long until the sound, and the meaning of the sound, began to filter through my punch-drunk head.
At first I thought it was only the roaring of my lungs working for air but then I knew what it really was. An outboard motor. That forty-horse Johnson.
I guess Harry heard it at about the same time, because he groaned and began to struggle up. I let him go. Neither of us wanted to fight anymore. The only argument between us now was to see who could get through the door first. I made it a little ahead of him and beat him by about five yards to the beach.
That was when I saw her, hardly more than a black speck now in the moonlight. She was in the open channel and giving it full throttle. The bow wave creamed like exploding champagne, and I think she looked back once and I think she even raised her hand. And then she was gone.
Harry let out a sound that was like a cross between a groan, a grunt, and a death rattle. Actually he was laughing.
He said, between gasps, “Your girl friend has skipped.”
“She’ll be back.”
He shook his head. “Uhuh, man. When they take off like that they are but gone. I know!”
I didn’t say anything.
“Well at least we’ve got the dough,” he said. “If you’ll stop playing games with it long enough so that we can get it together in one place.”
“What games?” I said.
He groaned. “Jeezus. Not again! Listen, we’ll split fifty-fifty. What’s the use of killing each other? There’s plenty for both of us. Now where is it?”
“That’s what I’d like to know.”
He shook his head and ran his hands through his hair and stared into my eyes. “You didn’t take my dough?”
“You know I didn’t. You took mine.”
“I’m too tired to fight with you anymore, Clay. Cut out the crap.”
“If there’s any crap it’s on your side. You dug up my money.”
“I dug up yours?”
“You know damn well you did.”
He sat down on the sand and clutched at his bruised ribs. “No I didn’t,” he said in a voice I could hardly hear, “but I’m beginning to think I know who did.”
He rolled back and forth like a man in a fit and it took me a little while to realize he was laughing.
“Ah dear god,” he groaned between spasms. “Dear dear god.”
It was about the most conserva
tive thing I had ever heard him say.
“Don’t you see, you poor stupid sonofabitch?” he said.
I was beginning to.
“All this time I thought you were sore at me because you were in love with her,” I said.
“Is that what she told you?” He was beginning to gasp again like an engine out of control, rolling back and forth and beating his fists against the sand. “You thought I had yours and I thought you had found mine. Too much, man! Too much!”
I began to laugh too. It was that or cry. I fell down beside him and beat my fists against my chest and let it go. Our combined roaring rang out over the empty island and was carried off on the wind. When I had recovered a little, I sat up and looked out to sea. There was nothing there but the narrow path of moonlight, the rest was as black and empty as the dark side of the moon. Suddenly something soft and hairy nuzzled against my hand. I looked down and saw that it was poor little Ho, Miss Wong’s monkey. Attracted, I guess, by all our roaring, he had crept out of the brush to join us.
“Well, here we are, Number Three,” Harry said at last. “Here we are.”
Table of Contents
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
CHAPTER 28
CHAPTER 29
CHAPTER 30
CHAPTER 31
CHAPTER 32
CHAPTER 33
Harry & the Bikini Bandits Page 16
