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The Trouble with Paradise

A ship’s horn woke Big Mac a little after noon. That would be the Dolphin; she was due today for an overnight stop, the last port on her regular Caribbean cruise.

Tourists. Salesmen in blazers and two-toned shoes. Old folks from home. Schoolmarms. Maybe a pretty one looking for Romance, not exactly a babe, maybe thirtyish, but friendly, willing, the kind who shucked her inhibitions on a moon-drenched beach.

Big Mac yawned and stretched and then rolled over and looked across at the other cot. Little Mac was star-fished there, sound asleep, buck-naked, the wadded sheet on the floor where he had kicked it. A fly circled his bare black belly, buzzing, looking for a place to land, and chose his navel. In his sleep Little Mac smacked at it and turned over. The fly buzzed back, hovering over Little Mac’s rear, and then made a perfect landing on the deep scar tissue of the left buttock.

Big Mac leaned over to slap at it, but Little Mac’s hand flicked around in his sleep and knocked the fly silly. Big Mac grinned and sat up, swinging his long legs out. For a moment he looked down at the scar which jagged across his own flat belly, remembering the slug he’d taken there, and the one Little Mac had taken in the fanny.

The silly little bastard, he thought, as he looked over at his friend again.

They had a lot in common, shared hardship, shared danger, among other things, and they were alike in many ways. Not in size, of course; Big Mac was about a foot taller and maybe fifty pounds heavier; and not in color; Big Mac was white.

The scar on his belly began to itch a little and Big Mac scratched it for a moment and then stood up, yawning and stretching some more. He felt fine, like a good swim, like racing Little Mac out to the yawl and back to see who’d make the coffee. Giving Little Mac the usual handicap, of course.

He opened his mouth to yell at Little Mac, to wake him up, but the horn sounded again, reminding him there’d be no swimming today. Chief of Police Perez had warned them not to skin-swim when there was a cruise-ship in; it seemed that lady-tourists were always gandering with field glasses and then bellyaching about what they saw. Not the pretty thirtyish friendly ones, of course. They liked what they saw. It was the dried-up ones who didn’t, or anyhow said they didn’t.

Big Mac reluctantly put on shorts and dungaree pants and then went out of the faded pink stucco house and into the patio which faced the tip of the narrow spit of land which stuck into the ocean. A nice breeze was coming up. Big Mac took a deep breath and felt even finer.

Out in the roadstead of the bay the Dolphin dropped her hook and the passengers crowded around the gangway as it was lowered and then poured down into the shoreboat, on their way to romp and play in the big pink casino on top of the hill and later in the tourist traps which lined the waterfront. Especially, and in large numbers, Big Mac hoped, in the creep-joint called The Flying Fish.

Big Mac went across the patio, the stones warm under his bare feet, to the rock barbecue he and Little Mac had built with the small kerosene range in one end and the refrigerator in the other.

He poured fresh water into a pan from the keg they kept it in and splashed his face and neck and under his arms. He groped for the towel which was seldom there, and not finding it, dried his hands on the back of one of the faded yellow canvas chairs and then dried his eyes with his hands.

Picking up the big granite coffeepot, he threw out the grounds, rinsed it, half filled it with water and put it on to boil. When the water bubbled, he poured in plenty of fresh coffee, and when the smell came up, it was good.

On the afterdeck of the Dolphin, a very old man in a white linen suit, buck shoes and wide-brimmed Panama hat sat in a wheel chair, motionless except for his very bright blue eyes which were very busy watching what went on out on the sandspit. He could almost smell the coffee the big bare-chested man was making.

The breeze was becoming a light wind and his fancy made it alive. It seemed to tickle the leaves of the palm trees on either side of the little pink house and to dance with the clothes on the line stretched between two of the trees; it flirted with the old yellow beach umbrella on the round table near the barbecue, spun it and deserted it; it kicked over the two canvas chairs and cavorted across the patio and the narrow stretch of beach which faced the bay, tossing up handfuls of sand; it hurdled the dinghy drawn up above the high-water mark and bounced into the rigging of the dirty little yawl moored just offshore, shook it till it rattled and then skimmed down and over the water, whitening the crest of the strong ebb tide which raced towards and around the sharp steep point. A stronger gust followed, tugging at the things on the clothesline until it set a big shirt free and then ran with it across the patio and down the steps which had been cut to the strip of beach.

The old man cupped his hands to shout a warning, as if there were the slightest chance it would carry against the wind, but the big man by the barbecue turned and saw the shirt scudding across the patio and ran after it. He got his hands on it as it settled for an instant on the sand, but another gust of wind jerked it from his fingers and he chased it along the beach, finally grabbing it when the wind draped it across the rail of the dinghy and abandoned it there. Participating in this victory, the old man nodded approvingly. The big man was light on his feet and fast for his size, like a good rugged pro end or back. He watched him go back up onto the patio, swinging the shirt, and then hang it back on the line and secure it with a couple of clothespins.

The old man saw another man come out of the faded pink house, a Negro, short but big in the chest and shoulders, and he didn’t wear a shirt or shoes either. He stood for a minute, stretching, breathing deep, and looked across the water towards the ship. He said something to the big white man, and the old man could see them laughing and in his fancy almost hear them. The short black man went over to the washbasin, emptied and refilled it and washed up. He, too, groped for the towel that wasn’t there and the big white man pushed one of the canvas chairs to him to dry his hands on.

Then they poured coffee into their cups and wandered over to the weathered wooden rail which circled the point at its steep edge. Perching themselves on the rail facing the open sea, they began leisurely to drink their coffee.

“Man, oh, man,” the old man muttered under his breath. “What a set-up! If I were only thirty years younger. . . .” And then caught himself up and looked around sheepishly; there was no one else on the deck, for which he was thankful. “Talking to myself,” he murmured. “Wishing. Phooey! I’m going wishy-washy!”

Around on the port side near the bow, a girl stood watching the shoreboat chugging through the bright clear water towards the rickety-looking pier at the shore-end of which a tally-ho with big gray horses waited. Presently the shoreboat came alongside the pier and the cruise passengers were helped out or scrambled out awkwardly. They straggled up the pier and were shoved into the tally-ho. The scarlet-coated driver cracked a long whip, the horses plunged against the traces, and the tally-ho load of holidayers moved up the winding road towards the bright pink casino on top of the hill.

The ship had swung slowly with the ebbing tide until her nose now pointed squarely at the pier and her stern at the tip of the spit of land. The girl crossed to the starboard side, her very high heels drumming on the deck, and moved aft.

The very old man heard the click of her heels approaching and let his big hat slip down over his face, as if he were asleep in the sun. He had no stomach for gabbing with tourists.

The girl glanced at him as she passed, recognizing the very old man who looked as if he had been very ill for a very long time and who was always watching her. She went to the rail and stood there, looking out and across the water to the tip of the point, around which the ebb tide was racing. “Lovers Leap Point,” the travel folders called it. She watched with morbid fascination as a pile of driftwood slowly edged into the tide and then was suddenly violently swept half under and around the steep point.

The old man carefully tipped the brim of his hat back, just enough to see that it wasn’t one of the hatchet-faced ones, but the pretty, unhappy-looking girl who never went ashore at any of the cruise ports. She was a dark-haired girl, very slight, really, but sweetly made, and for once she seemed interested, in fact as much interested in what went on in that cosy set-up out there on the point as he was himself.

The girl looked at the old-fashioned jeweled watch which she wore on a fine gold necklace. It was twelve-fifteen. Twelve hours, midnight, before the next ebb tide. Then she felt the very bright blue eyes. Turning abruptly to go, she found the old man smiling at her approvingly.

“Damned interesting, isn’t it?” he said.

His voice had a faint Southern slur to it.

“I beg your pardon,” she said, stiffly.

“Oh, that’s all right,” the old man said. “Let’s skip the formalities and talk about that faded little old pink house over there and what goes with it.”

“Oh?” she said, looking off towards the faded pink house.

“A very cosy set-up, isn’t it?”

“Why, to tell you the truth, I hadn’t noticed it particularly,” she said.

“You hadn’t noticed it! What were you rubbering at then?”

“Why . . . I was just . . . looking,” she said. “There was some driftwood, a sort of pile of driftwood and I saw the current catch it just inside the point. . . .”

“Riptide,” he said, nodding.

“Lovers Leap,” she murmured.

“Huh?”

“Lovers Leap.”

“Who the hell ever gave it that corny name?”

“The folder didn’t say,” she said.

“Folder? You mean to say you’ve been reading that tourist crap?”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Always begging my pardon. Okay, okay. Granted. Lovers Leap! Oh, the hell with it, it’s a sweet spot anyhow, in spite of the name. Just take a good look. Why, I call that Paradise.”

To humor him because he was so old and sick, she shaded her eyes and looked out across the shimmering water.

“How about that little old faded pink house, eh?” he said. “A real snug harbor when the wind’s kicking up and the tropic rain’s pounding down. And all outdoors when it’s fine. A patio, a barbecue and all the fixings. A nice little old yawl to sail in. Sun and sky, the pounding sea on one side and the calm bay on the other. A fresh breeze . . . sand . . . stars . . . freedom!”

She could see two men raising flapping canvas on a dirty little sailboat moored just offshore, and on the spit the wind was whipping a line full of clothes.

“Just about everything a man needs to be happy,” the old man went on. “Not quite though. Something important’s missing. You look sharp and tell me what’s missing.”

“What?”

Well, it’s one way to pass the time, she thought.

“A woman,” he said.

Watching the flapping clothesline, she said, “What makes you think that?”

“Think you got me, don’t you?” he chuckled. “On account of that washing hung out on the line?”

“It looks pretty domestic to me,” she said.

“But not female-domestic,” he said. “Look a little sharper, girl. What’s on that clothesline? There are dungaree pants and shirts and sox, sheets, but not pillow cases. You see any woman-stuff there? You see any panties or thingumabobs, any dresses, any nighties?”

Checking up, she said, “I guess you’re right. You have awfully good eyesight.”

“Yeah, I still got eyes,” he said. “Maybe I haven’t got much else but I still got damned good eyes. And I like to use ’em, too. Men live out there alone; men used to doing things for themselves. You see those two guys putting out in that dirty little old yawl?”

“Yes.”

“Well, they live there. I’ve been watching ’em, envying ’em. They were sleeping in, like sensible guys, getting plenty of the old shut-eye. Guess the ship’s horn woke ’em. One after the other they came out of that fine little old pink house, breathing deep like they really enjoyed it. They made a couple of passes at washing their kissers and dried their hands on the backs of those chairs and then they had coffee and I could damn near smell it clear out here. Look sharp again, girl, and you’ll see something interesting. Notice that one of ’em’s white and the other’s black. . . .”

“Yes, that’s so,” she said.

“A white man and a black, living together,” he said. “Doesn’t that interest you?”

“Why . . . I suppose so,” she said, but she didn’t sound really interested.

“But not much, eh?” he said. “Hmmmm. Riptide, eh? Lovers Leap. Don’t tell me a fine-figured gal like you is unlucky in love.”

“Love? Oh, no.”

“Hmmmm. How come you didn’t go ashore with the others?”

“I just didn’t feel like it,” she said.

“You never go ashore.”

“Neither do you,” she said.

“Ha, noticed that, eh? But this port is sort of different. This is a sort of an interesting little old out-of-the-way port.”

“I know,” she said. “Colorful. Picturesque.”

“There you go quoting that tourist jargon again,” he said. “I’m not talking about the God-damn atmosphere; I’m talking about people.”

“You know people here?”

“Probably not, but I’d like to. It’s the sort of port that’s liable to have some interesting ones. Like the kind that get hot in the States, maybe, and lam it to some place where nobody’ll bother ’em as long as they keep their noses clean. Yeah, lamsters.”

“Oh?”

“Fugitives,” he said.

Fumbling for the heavy cane at his feet, he creaked to his feet laboriously. Automatically she reached to help him, but he brushed her hand away, brusquely.

“Hey, don’t do that. Think I’m a hundred years old?”

“I beg your pardon.”

“There you go again!”

He hobbled to the rail and looked over. The dirty little yawl, close-hauled and running with the wind, was bearing down on the ship.

“Hey, look,” he said.

She turned and stood beside him, looking over the rail. The big white man was at the tiller and the broad short Negro lolled on the seat ahead of him, strumming on a guitar.

“Wonder if they’re lamsters?” the old man said.

“Probably nothing so romantic,” she said.

He leaned forward, propping himself against the rail, cupping his hands behind his ears.

“Hist, they’re singing!”

She listened, too, recognizing the tune of an old ballad, and then the words came up to them, floating on the air:

The yawl had come very close now and the men flung the last words up to them, smiling, and the old man thought, I’ve seen that black boy’s kisser somewhere, I swear. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the girl wave to them. The big white fellow waved back gaily and then the yawl slid under the fantail and out of sight.

“Friends of yours?” the old man said.

“Why, no.”

“You waved.”

“It was because they seemed so happy,” she said, with a strange catch in her voice.

“On them it looks good,” the old man said.

He hobbled around the end rail, until he could see them again, as their yawl came out from under the fantail. He waved enthusiastically and both men waved back.

A short husky Negro and a big rangy white, built like a good pro back or end, he thought, still searching his ancient but very good memory.

When he turned to look for the girl again, she was walking forward rapidly, her very high heels clicking, the wind blowing her skirt and blouse pleasingly. She didn’t look back.

“If I were only twenty years younger,” he muttered, and then, as Johansen, a big blond fellow in white, padded up on rubber-soled shoes, carrying a steamer rug, “Oh, nuts, it’s gumshoes! Why don’t you drop dead?”

“It’s time for your nap,” Johansen said.

“Nap! Who the hell’s sleepy?”

“I’m only following orders,” Johansen said, and began to tuck the steamer rug about the old man.

“I don’t want any nap and I don’t want any damned rug,” the old man said. “Hell, it must be eighty!”

“So are you,” Johansen said.

“Look, you creep, I’m going ashore!”

“There, there,” Johansen said, indulgently.

“You son-of-a-bitch,” the old man said. “One of these days I’m going to squeeze your Adam’s apple till you spit cider!”

“Yes, sure,” Johansen said, smoothly, and turned away.

“Hey, Johansen!” the old man yelled.

The man in white swung around and the old man snatched the steamer rug from around him and dropped it on the deck. Johansen sighed and stooped to pick it up. It was too good a target and the old man booted him lustily in the rear.

As Johansen sprawled, the old man said, smugly, “Monkey with the buzz saw, eh?”

Time on her hands, time to kill, lots of time before midnight. Or, rather, eleven-thirty, when the last shoreboat would go in.

She wrote two notes, one “To Whom It May Concern” and one to the ship’s Captain. They didn’t take much time. There was still lots of time left, too much.

She hadn’t slept all night. She was sleepy, yet she couldn’t sleep. Finally she took the pills, the sleeping pills, three of them, careful not to take too many. Three would knock her out.

She slept at last.

To sleep was to die a little. Except that you dreamed. Her dreams now were endless variations on a theme. She was dead in her best pink frock with her stiff white fingers on the keys of a monstrous grand piano which was lined with silk, pink like the little house on the point, like the casino on the hill, like a coffin. In the big hall a thousand dead men and women in evening clothes were seated in rows waiting for her to play.

In the dream she knew that she could play even with the stiff dead fingers if only Jake would smile at her and give her the nod. But Jake couldn’t smile; he was a death’s head there in the grand piano with the pink silk lining never smiling never nodding. So of course she had to run. . . .

The sound of a knock woke her. She opened her eyes and switched on the light and there was Jake smiling at her from the leather frame on the dressing table, an ageless undead Jake, smiling from a snapshot taken long ago.

The knock was repeated. It was the steward and it was eleven o’clock. She bathed and dressed carefully in her best lingerie and stockings and the pink frock, and her gold slippers.

“You see, Jake darling, I’m all dressed up for you,” she said to the smiling photograph.

She put the necklace, from which the little jeweled watch hung, around her neck. It was eleven twenty-five. But she didn’t wind the watch; she’d do that the last thing.

She left the note addressed “To Whom It May Concern” on the dressing table and rang for the steward. She handed him the one addressed to the Captain, asked him to give it to him at midnight, and tipped him five dollars.

There were half a dozen small boats and a few greasy launches tied up at pier, as well as the dirty little yawl in which the happy men had sailed past, singing “Love, Oh, Love, Oh, Careless Love.” But there was no one around to take her out to the tip of the point or even to rent her a boat. She looked at her watch. There was plenty of time to walk.

She started walking along the waterfront, along which were scattered the bars and cafés with tourist-catching names, Driftwood and Trader Joe’s and Shangri-La and The Blue Lagoon. Music came from some of them, Calypsos and rumbas and boogie-woogie and sad dance tunes.

The sand was hard at the water’s edge but even so her high heels made the going heavy. She took off her gold slippers and the going was much easier. She passed a couple of long thin warehouses and then there was one more café, The Flying Fish.

As she approached, she heard someone within strike a chord or two on a guitar and then two men began to sing “The Ballad of Sam Hall.” She stopped and listened, because the voices sounded like those of the two happy men.

Drawn by the voices, she went up the sand towards the swinging doors.

She pushed the swinging doors and looked inside. The place was full of “atmosphere.” A dozen seedy-looking “characters” male and female were scattered about, drinking. The two men from the yawl, in flamboyant “beachcomber” costumes—artfully frayed yellow linen slacks, scarlet cummerbunds, very full white silk blouses, rope-soled sandals—stood by the bar under a spotlight, singing to the Negro’s guitar accompaniment.

Behind the bar was an illuminated stuffed flying fish. On either side were fish nets, with electric “Ladies” and “Gents” signs behind them. A half-barrel marked “Kitty,” for the tips, was set at an angle behind the two men on the bar.

Not happy at all; just entertainers in a tourist trap, singing for their supper—and tips! For a moment, let down, disappointed, resentful of them as if they were impostors, she stood in the doorway. Then she stepped back outside and started on up the beach, when she saw a white dory beached very close to the water’s edge.

From The Flying Fish, the voices of the two men came:

She hurried down to the dory.

There was a perfunctory scattering of applause. Looking up and down the beach and seeing no one, she placed her slippers in the dory and started to shove it out. A grimy-looking man in grotesque whites sat up suddenly in the bottom of the boat.

“Hey,” he said. “What’s the big idea?”

He reeked of rum and he needed a shave.

“Oh,” she said, startled. “I beg your pardon.”

The man scrambled out of the boat.

“Trying to cop Mr. Ulrich’s dory, eh?” he said, growling.

“I was just going to borrow it,” she said. “I intended leaving money. . . .”

“Oh, sure sure,” he said, taking hold of her arm. “Let’s go talk to the man.”

“Very well,” she said, removing his arm. “I can walk without help, thank you.”

“All right,” he said. “Walk!”

“I’ll take my slippers if you don’t mind,” she said.

She took the slippers out of the boat and went with him to the door of The Flying Fish, where she stopped and rubbed the sand off her stockings the best she could and then put on her gold slippers.

“Ready?” the grimy one asked.

“Quite,” she said.

She started to push through the swinging doors but the grimy one grabbed her roughly by the arm and hustled her inside. She tried to free her arm but he marched her towards a table against the wall where a man in a linen suit sat, his back to them.

“Mr. Ulrich,” the grimy one said, “I caught this here bim tryin’ to steal your dory!”

The man at the table swung around slowly. He was very tall and very lean, almost cadaverous, sick-looking, with very pale skin and very deep-set, unhappy eyes.

“This is ridiculous!” she said.

He stood up quickly.

“Of course it is,” he murmured, his voice rich and gentle, and then, as he spoke to the grimy one, indulgently chiding. “This is no bim, Sam, this is a young lady. Let go of her arm.”

“But I tell you she was coppin’ your dory!”

“Let go, Sam,” he said, softly.

“Look, I thought I was doin’ you a favor . . .” Sam began.

Ulrich slapped him sharply with the back of his hand and Sam let go of her arm and backed away, muttering resentfully.

“I’m sorry,” Ulrich said. “Please sit down.”

The look in his eyes, the very gentleness of his voice frightened her.

“No . . . please,” she said. “I . . . I only wanted to borrow . . . I . . . I’ll be glad to pay for the use of your boat.”

She fumbled in her bag.

“Please,” he said. “Let’s not talk about money. If there is anywhere you’d like to go . . . .”

“I just wanted to row out to . . . to Lovers Leap,” she said.

“I’ll row you out to Lovers Leap,” he said, tenderly.

“No, please, I prefer to be alone.”

“Alone, child?” he half whispered, and the “child” was like a caress. “I wonder if you know what it means to be alone? Please sit with me.”

“No . . . I . . . I have to go.”

He took hold of her arm.

At the bar Little Mac said, “Say, it’s the girl who waved . . . .”

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said in an off-handed way, and drifted down, Little Mac following.

The girl was trying to free her arm and Ulrich was pleading, softly, “Please. You’re such a sweet child. So lovely. Please help me . . . please sit awhile with me.”

Big Mac said, quietly, “I don’t think the young lady wants to sit with you, Ulrich.”

“I don’t think this is any of your affair, Big Mac,” Ulrich said, just as quietly.

“I think it is,” Big Mac said. “I saw her first.”

“You just work here, remember?”

“I saw her first on my own time,” Big Mac said. “This afternoon.” And then, softly, “Let go of the lady’s arm, Ulrich.”

“You attend to your part of the entertainment and I’ll attend to mine,” Ulrich said, just as softly. Then he turned his back and addressed himself closely to the girl. “Sit down, my child, and I’ll buy you some wine with dreams in it.”

“Please, I don’t want to sit down. I only . . . .”

“You heard the lady, Ulrich,” Big Mac said, and broke Ulrich’s hold on her arm.

“Are you looking for trouble?” Ulrich asked, softly.

“I don’t think you weigh enough to cause me much trouble,” Big Mac said, in the same tone.

Ulrich’s hand streaked inside his coat and clawed a knife from under it but Big Mac grabbed his wrist.

“Even with that little old shiv, you don’t weigh quite enough,” Big Mac said, and squeezed until the knife clattered to the floor.

At the door Sam the beachcomber said, low-voiced, warningly, “Coppers.”

Little Mac picked up the knife quickly, shoved it under his blouse. Chief of Police Perez, a slim man wearing an elegant tropical-weight blue uniform came through the swinging doors, followed by two tall brown policemen and Johansen, the man in white.

“Good evening,” Perez said.

“Howdy, Chief,” Big Mac said.

“Do I detect a certain tension in the air?” Perez said.

“Not at all,” Ulrich said. “We were just about to have a drink. Will you join us?”

With a faint smile, Perez said, “Thank you, no. I’m on police business. It concerns an elderly, quite elderly, gentleman named McGovern.”

“He was wearing a big Panama and a white suit,” Johansen put in. “Limps bad, on a heavy cane.”

Why, he’s run away! the girl thought. Old and sick as he is, he’s run away. What was that word he used? Lamster. He’s a lamster himself!

“We haven’t seen anybody like that,” Big Mac said.

“Nobody like that at all,” Little Mac said.

Ulrich shook his head.

“This young lady knows him,” Johansen said. “You sure you haven’t seen him, miss?”

“Not this evening,” she said.

“Have you tried Shangri-La and The Blue Lagoon?” Ulrich asked, helpfully.

Chief Perez sighed lightly, shrugged.

“Thank you very much, Mr. Ulrich. I will.”

He glanced at the girl, sketched a little bow, and moved to the door. Reaching it, he looked back and said, “Please, gentlemen, think twice before abusing our hospitality,” and went out, followed by his companions.

Ulrich looked at the girl and said, gently, “Forgive me, child, I’m sorry,” and sat down again, his back to her.

Turning away, she saw Big Mac smiling at her.

“Thank you,” she murmured.

“Think nothing of it,” he said. “All part of our super-service. Welcome to The Flying Fish, where all dull care takes wing.”

“I . . . I have to go,” she said.

Turning blindly, she started for the swinging doors, but reaching them, she stopped and looked back. He was looking at her reproachfully.

“You waved,” he said.

“Why, yes . . . .” He came over to her and she felt that she had to explain. “It . . . it was just because you looked so happy.”

“Oh?” he said.

“You seemed happy,” she said. “Are you?”

“Say that’s right,” he said. “Were you really going to row out to the point?”

“Yes.”

“Why?”

“It happens to be a personal matter,” she said.

“I happen to ask because I happen to live out there,” he said. “Little Mac and I happen to live out there.”

“I know,” she said. “We saw you from the ship.”

“We?”

“A very old man . . . the one the police . . . .”

“Oh,” he said. “Are you looking for him? He left a while ago.”

“But you said you hadn’t seen him!”

Big Mac shrugged, smiling.

“I tell you what,” he said. “Stick around till the break after our next number and I’ll sail you out to Lovers Leap.”

“No,” she said. “I really waved on impulse . . . just because you seemed so happy. I wasn’t trying to pick you up.”

“Some days you can’t win for losing,” he said, smiling. “I guess I ought to wash out my mind with soap.”

She found herself smiling back because his smile was so warm and boyish.

She knew she ought to be going; it was nearly midnight and the ebb tide wouldn’t wait. Still, he had helped her out of an awkward predicament. . . .

“And I guess the least I can do is buy you a drink.”

“Why sure,” he said, beckoning to the waiter. “Daiquiris. Three of them. Wine of the country, you know,” he told her, pulling out a chair for her.

They sat down and she looked across at Ulrich.

“I hope he won’t cause trouble for you.”

Big Mac shrugged.

“He won’t. He’s not the fighter-type; he’s the lover-type.”

“I don’t know why I was so . . . girlish,” she said. “There was something about the way he talked . . . and his eyes. Soft and sad . . . hurt . . . like a Spaniel’s . . . and yet . . .” She shuddered.

“Woman hungry,” Big Mac said. “He’s been down here a little too long.”

“He’s . . . evil.”

“Maybe,” Big Mac said. “Or maybe he’s just frustrated. He’s got a problem. He likes girls but they don’t like him.”

“He looks like the kind who might stab you in the back some dark night,” she said.

“Maybe he’s the kind,” Big Mac said, “but he won’t stab me in the back. For three reasons. One is he owns this joint and Little Mac and I seem to please the customers.”

He laughed as she looked at the seedy ones scattered about.

“Oh, not those crums. Tourists. It’s too early for them, yet. They give the Casino a whirl first. It’s only when they’ve had a lot of laughing soup that they come slumming. Then they really go for the corn Little Mac and I pop; they really make that old Kitty ring. The second reason why he won’t stab me in the back is that I don’t turn it.”

The waiter brought three frosted daiquiris to the table and then moved off.

“And the third reason?” she said.

Big Mac nodded towards Little Mac who was still watching Ulrich, and said, “Why, my friend Little Mac.”

“I see what you mean,” she said.

Big Mac smiled at her and said, “When you waved I took you for one of those visiting schoolmarms, the friendly kind the tropic moon does things to.”

“I assure you I’m not,” she said.

“I can see that . . . now,” Big Mac said.

He sighed humorously then and looked over toward Little Mac and called, “Hey, Little Mac, drinks are getting cold.”

Little Mac put the knife in front of Ulrich on the table. Ulrich shrugged and replaced it. Little Mac came over to them and Big Mac stood up.

“Little Mac, I want you to meet Miss . . . er . . .?”

As he looked to her for the name, she said quickly, “Hello, Little Mac, please sit down.”

“Why, thanks, miss,” Little Mac said.

They both sat down.

“I broke the Olympic record jumping to a conclusion,” Big Mac said. “She waved because we looked so happy. We are happy, aren’t we, Little Mac?”

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said.

He said it, she noticed, in the same off-handed way Big Mac said “say that’s right.”

“We’re The Happiness Boys,” Little Mac added, and raising his glass, “Here’s to it.”

“And the pursuit thereof,” Big Mac said.

They all took a sip of their drinks. She looked at the watch on her necklace and then quickly opened her bag. They could see the bills in it. She put a bill on the table.

“For the drinks,” she said, standing up. “Now I really must be going.”

“Okay,” Big Mac said, as they both stood up. “Only you really oughtn’t to be running around this crummy waterfront all by yourself.”

“I won’t be alone . . . long,” she said.

“Oh?” Big Mac said. “A date?”

“A . . . rendezvous long delayed,” she said. “Goodbye.”

She went out quickly.

“No hits, no runs, no errors,” Big Mac said, ruefully.

Looking at the still swinging doors, Little Mac murmured, “There’s something eating her, Big.”

“Hmmmm,” Big Mac said. “Come to think of it, she did seem kind of slap-happy. . . .”

“Twelve o’clock, gentlemen,” Ulrich said. “You’re on. If you don’t mind?”

They went over to the bar, and as Little Mac picked up his guitar, Ulrich stood up and started for the swinging doors.

“I wouldn’t,” Big Mac called.

Ulrich turned, looking at them morosely. Then he shrugged and went back to his seat. Little Mac struck a chord and then they began to sing.

Sam the beachcomber looked at the unfinished daiquiris on the table and licked his lips. Slipping over as the Macs sang, he began to gobble the drinks.

Spotting Sam the beachcomber, Ulrich stood up, slipped up behind him, and as the Macs sang on, turkey-walked him to the swinging doors and threw him out.

The girl, her slippers in her hand again, heard them as she hurried along the beach towards the spit of land and the point which stuck into the sea, and began to run, because the words, “that dirty little coward,” were like an accusation. She ran until she couldn’t hear them any more.

The moon had come up and it was very bright out on the tip of the point. The very old man hobbled in slowly on his heavy cane, stopping only when all of the cosy detail was in range. Slung over his left shoulder was a curious burden, a “bindle,” such as tramps use.

He looked the whole place over delightedly, giving a low whistle of approval. It was even more magical close-to than it had been from the deck of the Dolphin.

“God damn!” he murmured. “What a set-up!”

He hobbled over to the table, took off his wide-brimmed hat, unslung his bindle and dropped them unceremoniously. Looking about him he rubbed his hands gleefully.

“Man, oh, man!”

He began to explore. He opened the top cupboards. They were filled with canned goods, packages, staples. He nodded approvingly. Then he opened the refrigerator. Fruit, fish, rock crabs, cheese. He broke off a piece of tempting-looking rat cheese, closed the refrigerator, began to munch happily.

In another cupboard there was a bottle of Jack Daniels Number Seven Tennessee Sour Mash Bourbon. The old man beamed, uncorked it, sniffed it joyously. He tipped the bottle to his lips and let a few drops roll onto his tongue. Then he took a nice snort, grunted with satisfaction and replaced the bottle. Looking at the names on the backs of the chairs, he murmured, “Little Mac, Big Mac, you’re my kind of guys.”

Hobbling over to the door of the little pink house, he found it unlocked, so he went inside. It was a small affair, just two rooms. In one room were two cots and a couple of chairs and an unpainted chest of drawers. Men’s clothes lay all over the place. There was a closet, but it was empty.

The other room was unfurnished. He poked into this closet, which seemed to be a sort of storeroom. There was a footlocker and various odds and ends and something on one of the shelves, wrapped in burlap.

The old man felt of it curiously. Something solid there. He pulled it out and unwrapped it, giving a low whistle of interest. It was a Thompson submachine gun.

He fondled the piece for a moment, then brought it up and swung it around slowly, like a kid playing G-Man, and began to imitate the sound, as a kid might: “D . . . aaaaa . . . aaaaaaa . . .!”

Then he wrapped it in the burlap again, carefully, and put it back on the shelf.

Hobbling back into the other room, he opened the front door, started out, but drew back sharply as he saw the girl from the cruise-ship coming along the beach, carrying her gold slippers and an evening bag.

The old man closed the door to a slit and peered out. He saw the girl cross to the steps leading up to the cooking area, walking woodenly, as if possessed, and then moving towards the rail above the steep point around which the ebb tide was racing.

Paying no attention to the hat or the bindle or to any of the cosy detail of the place, she went directly to the rail as if drawn there. He saw her look over fixedly. After a moment, deliberately, she opened her hands and dropped the gold slippers and the bag into the racing tide.

He stepped out of the house quickly and was about to speak, when she began to do another curious thing. He stood quite still and watched as she took off her necklace very carefully, very deliberately wound the small watch, and then just as carefully and deliberately fastened the necklace on the rail.

“Good evening,” the old man said.

She turned, startled, and backed into the rail, as if she were at bay.

“Howdy, shipmate?” the old man said. “Ex-shipmate, that is! Look, honey, relax, will you? It’s only me.”

He began to hobble towards her slowly.

With a sigh, she straightened herself.

“You . . . startled me,” she said. “That’s all.”

“Is it?” he said, coming closer. “So you jumped ship?”

“Yes, I guess you could call it that,” she said.

“Me too!” the old man said. “Got sick and tired of those flatchested tourists. . . .”

He cocked his head and smiled at her.

“Present company excepted, of course! So I just up and jumped ship same as you. Puts us in the same boat. Off the same boat. Oh, hell, I’d better start all over. Welcome to Paradise.”

“They’re . . . looking for you,” she said. “The police . . . .”

“Just like that son-of-a-bitch Johansen,” he said. “Hollered copper, eh? More than likely they’ll search every saloon and cathouse on the island. But they won’t find me, by Jesus! Not out here. Not out on good old Paradise Spit.”

“They’ll find you,” she said.

“Let’s not even discuss it,” he said. “Let’s talk about you. You know I noticed you the minute you came aboard in New York and I wondered about you . . . what a girl like you was doing on a corny Caribbean cruise. Maybe you wondered about me, too?”

As she made no response he shook his head, regretfully.

“No, I guess not. Guess you didn’t wonder about me a bit. Or think about me. You could have done a lot worse though. I’m a hell of an interesting old Joe when you get to know me. And I’m awfully easy to get to know.”

He looked at her thoughtfully for a moment.

“Hmmmm,” he said. “You know why I’m interesting?”

She didn’t answer.

“Fine! Glad you asked me! I’m interesting because I’m interested. I’m curious. Matter of fact, I’m a God-damned nosy old son-of-a-bitch!”

“I beg your pardon!”

“What the hell for? You haven’t done anything to beg my pardon for except not being interested, and we’ll just overlook that for the time being. Where was I? Oh, yes, about me being so nosy. The truth is I’m a terrible old meddler. You know what Maggie used to say to me? She used to say, ‘Mac, you’re the nosiest son-of-a-bitch in all creation; maybe that’s why you’re also the best God-damned newspaperman since Marse Henry Watterson.’ And I’d say, ‘What the hell you mean since Henry?’ We were always arguing like that, Maggie and I . . . we argued like that for more than forty years and then she had to go.”

“Why, you’re lonely, too,” she said, strangely.

“Am I lone . . . Oh, for Christ’s sake, let’s not get corny!”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Okay. Granted. You’re welcome. So you’re lonely, eh? Curious. Young and comely, designed for love . . . Look, mind telling me why you’re jumping ship?”

“Yes, I would,” she said.

“So you won’t talk, eh? I’d tell you why I jumped ship if you asked me.”

“Please,” she said. “I don’t feel like talking.”

“All right, don’t then,” the old man said. “I’ll take care of that department. Okay, if you insist, I’ll tell you why I jumped ship. I jumped ship so I could be a beachcomber and let my whiskers grow. So I could have a little fun again, drink whiskey and smoke cigars and shoot craps, play stud poker, table stakes. So I could argue, shoot off my mouth, lie if I feel like it. So I could go fishing and swim raw, sleep under the stars and not give a good God-damn whether it’s today or a week from Tuesday. So I could be free.”

When she still did not turn around, he sighed.

“Look, honey,” he said, wistfully. “Humor the old bastard, will you? He likes an audience, especially if she’s young and fair and sweetly put together. Why, you’re like Maggie was. . . . Indulge me, kid.”

“Please,” she said, turning, looking at him. “I know you’re trying to be kind, but please, just leave me alone!”

“Alone? Why that’s plain silly. A pretty wench like you! Look, I tell you what let’s do. Let’s sit down over there and have a drink or two. There’s nothing like a drink or two to loosen a person up.”

He took hold of her arm, gently.

“Look, honey, you’re making me nervous leaning against that rail like that. Why, it’s dangerous! Supposing it would break? You’d plop right down into the middle of that riptide, and, baby, that would be all! Look, let’s sit down and relax, eh? Cut up a few touches.”

He tugged at her arm, and when she didn’t resist, led her to the table.

“You just sit down. There, that’s better. Now I’m going to whip us up that little drink. Bourbon or bourbon?”

“Nothing, thank you,” she said.

“Well, I’ll have one anyhow to keep myself company,” he said, taking the bottle and a couple of glasses out of the cupboard. “You ought to try it. Lubricates the vocal chords. I already had some and I know!”

She shook her head and he poured himself a good stiff drink.

“This is prime stuff,” he said. “Genuine old sour mash, Jack Daniels Number Seven, the tears of Tennessee. I wish you’d change your mind. There I go again, wishing! I don’t like wishing . . . it’s so God-damn wishy-washy. Oh, come on, have one little snort.”

She shook her head.

“Okay,” he said. “Don’t mind if I do. Little Mac, Big Mac, here’s looking at you.” He drained the glass. “Man, man. That’s good stuff. Matter of fact, I was weaned on it. Little Mac and Big Mac . . . Know what they do? They sing for their supper up in a tourist trap called ‘The Flying Fish, where all dull care takes wing.’ I caught their act. Corny but nice.”

“I know,” she said. “But they said they hadn’t seen you.”

“Natch,” he said. “Think guys like that would holler copper on a poor old bastard on the lam? Hell, eight to five they’re lamsters themselves . . . wish I could place that black boy’s kisser . . . oh, it’ll come to me, I never forget a face.”

“What makes you think they’re . . . fugitives?”

“Who the hell isn’t? Who isn’t running from something or other? Say, just what is it you’re running from, honey?”

When she just shook her head, he went on. “Funny thing how some people are just turned inward, how they’re all shut in, how alone they are there where they live. That’s not good. People have to go out, reach out. To other people. Like flowers reaching for the sun. People need each other, need to care for somebody, need to be cared for.”

Suddenly the girl began to sob, burying her face in her hands.

“Okay,” the old man said. “So you don’t care about anybody. You don’t care why I jumped ship, what I’m lamming from, you just don’t give a damn. Okay, the hell with it. For two cents I wouldn’t tell you. No bids, eh? The hell with it, I’ll tell you anyhow. I’m lamming from a bedpan! From pap to eat. Babyfood. From a slob of a nurse. Oh, not a sweetly pretty nurse with curves and gams, a God-damn male nurse! In white pants and gum shoes and a yen for giving enemas. The son-of-a-bitch slept with me! How do you like that? Who the hell wants to sleep with a male nurse?”

She took her hands from her face and stared at him. Then she began to smile, wanly. He beamed at her warmly and then, to her own astonishment, she laughed.

“There, that’s the ticket!” he cried. “That’s better. You ought to do that more often. On you it’s mighty becoming. There’s hardly anything in the world nicer than a girl’s smile, a girl’s laugh. Unless it’s just a girl herself. I’ll bet you never stopped to think what a miracle it is just to be a woman. Bet you don’t appreciate what a wonderful piece of work a woman is, how delicate the design, how functional. Man, man.” He paused and then said, gently, “ ‘She walks in beauty like the night,’ as the fella says.”

Looking up at the stars, he murmured, reverently, “ ‘. . . in beauty like the night.’ You know, next to being me, I’d have liked to have been a woman. Maybe next time out I’ll be one. I hope so. I’d like to have guys whistle at me. They ever whistle at you, honey?”

“They undress you with their eyes,” she said, low-voiced, thinking of Ulrich, in The Flying Fish.

“Why, sure. Naturally. Yep, I’d like to be a woman next time out. I’d like to conceive kids in ecstasy and delight and have ’em from my own body. I’d like to know, from the inside, from the guts, what makes life tick, by God!”

She looked at him very thoughtfully for a moment and then said, “You’re trying to talk me out of it, aren’t you?”

“How’m I doing?” he asked.

“It’s no use, I’ve made up my mind,” she said.

“Don’t want to discuss it, eh?”

“No,” she said.

“Well, it’s your funeral,” he said, cheerfully, and, fumbling in his pockets, “Say, you happen to have a cigar on you?”

“A cigar?”

“I keep forgetting I’ve jumped ship and I’m free and plenty one, as old Duke Ellington used to say. I keep forgetting I’m shed of that God-damn wet nurse and can smoke all the cigars I damned please. Remind me to buy a lot later, will you? Big ones.”

“Oh, stop being so mellow!” she said.

She stood up quickly and hurried towards the rail.

The old man made no move to follow, but spoke solemnly, like a small boy, “If you jump into that riptide, I’ll never speak to you again.”

She turned back to the rail again, and said, imploringly, “Please, please, leave me alone!”

“I really ought to at that,” he said. “It’s really none of my business. But that never did stop me. Guess it never will. Hope not.” He hobbled slowly over beside her. “I guess I’m just too damned old and contrary to change. I’m just an old bastard of a busybody.”

He took hold of the little watch that hung from the necklace on the rail and went on. “I just have to know what makes people do like they do. Why’d you wind this little old watch so carefully and hang it so carefully on the rail? Couldn’t take it with you, could you?”

Staring at the watch, she said, in a strange faraway voice, “He gave it to me on my birthday. You could hear the guns. . . . He said to wind it every night before I went to sleep.”

“There, there,” he said, gently. “You took care of it. You wound it every night before you went to sleep. And tonight you wound it. So it wouldn’t stop running. But you ought to stop running now, honey. You’re running the wrong way. You’re running from life instead of towards it. That’s all wrong. That’s immoral. Death’s the thing to run from as long as you can. The wrong kind of death, I mean. Like the kind I’m running from. The messy sick death in your own offal. By God, I think I’ve earned something better than that; I think I’ve earned a good death, one with my God-damn boots on.” He paused and then went on, quietly. “Have you? You ought to, you know. You ought to earn yourself a death you can be proud of, that your friends can be proud of.”

“Friends?” she cried. “I haven’t any friends! I don’t want any friends! Will you leave me alone now?”

“Don’t know as I will,” the old man said. “Don’t know as I care to trust you with as precious a thing as human life.”

“It’s my life!”

“Yeah, then why the hell don’t you live it?” he cried. “Answer me that! You can’t, eh? Okay, I’ll answer it for you. You won’t live your life because you’re a selfish little bitch!”

“I beg your pardon!”

“Okay, beg my God-damn pardon! But you don’t get it, see? You’re a God-damn cheat, baby. You’re cheating some guy out of your love, out of your body, the joy and wonder of it, the sweetness. You’re cheating your babies out of their milk. What the hell do you think your body’s for? Fish food? I’ll bet sixteen to five you’re a virgin! What the hell are you saving it for, a bloody shark?”

“You can’t talk to me like that!”

“Can’t I?”

From out on the water, there came the sound of voices, male voices, and he turned, listening, staring out over the path the moon made on the water. The little yawl was standing in. Then he could hear the words, the last verse of “Kevin Barry”:

“Begorra, it’s our hosts!” he cried. “Ahoy, hosts!”

“Ahoy yourself,” Big Mac yelled. “What the hell’s the idea?” And then, very loudly, “Hey, grab ’er!”

The old man swung around. The girl had climbed onto the rail. He made a frantic lunge for her, but he was too late. She jumped straight out and dropped like a plummet into the racing tide.

“Oh, Jesus!” the old man said.

As she hit the boiling water she heard the old man’s cry and then the riptide grabbed her and sucked her down. Just for a moment she let go and then she began to fight it, forcing herself up, savagely struggling for air, one breath of air. She got her head up and gasped.

What am I fighting for?

Then the riptide sucked her down again and she couldn’t hold her breath and the sharp bitter water choked her and she felt vaguely cheated that her whole life didn’t flash before her eyes the way people said it did. . . .

The old man saw her bobbing, fighting, going under, and yelled encouragement to her. Then Big Mac flashed past him, shedding his silly silk blouse, kicking off his sandals, and dived over the rail. He hit the water yards behind the girl and took after her, digging deep with his big long arms, churning strongly with his powerful long legs, and the old man found himself yelling advice again, foolish unheard advice.

Meanwhile, Little Mac jumped into the dinghy, cast off, and began to spin the outboard motor frantically, but it kept coughing and sputtering as the tide caught it and flung it around the tip of the point.

Still blindly fighting, the girl shot up, gasped, and then Big Mac overtook her and grabbed for her. He caught hold of her dress but felt it tear apart in his hands. He let go of the flimsy dress, felt smooth flesh which slipped out of his hands, and then grabbed again and got hold of her hair and catapulted to the surface where he gulped one breath of air before the rip and the struggling girl dragged him under again. He held onto her hair and fought his way up again, rolling over and hooking his left arm under her chin and kicking mightily with his long legs, scissoring the tide, fighting to ride with the rip and to keep from being sucked under, wondering where the hell Little Mac was with that dinghy.

Little Mac was riding it around the point, methodically spinning the fly wheel of the outboard, which kept coughing, sputtering and stopping. It coughed again and hiccoughed and then it finally caught hold and Little Mac steered the dinghy towards his friend and the girl. As he came up to them, she flailed her arms, twisted loose for an instant and grabbed Big Mac by the throat.

“Pop her, Big!” Little Mac yelled.

Big Mac squirmed and lashed out with his fist and caught her on the chin and she went limp and almost dragged him under again. But Little Mac reached out his hand and Big Mac grabbed it and held onto the boat while Little Mac dragged first the girl in and then Big Mac.

As Big Mac lay there in the bottom of the boat, puking water, Little Mac put the girl belly down over one of the seats and started to work on her. In a couple of minutes Big Mac got up and grabbed the tiller and held it until the boat got out of the rip, while Little Mac kept working on the girl, forcing the water out of her lungs.

Big Mac shoved the boat onto the beach, quite a way back from the point where the rocky part ended, and hopped out and heaved the boat in and then fell onto his knees and puked again. Then he got up and helped Little Mac lift the girl out of the boat. They laid her over a rotten water-soaked log and Big Mac took over for a while.

They took turns working on her until finally Big Mac sat back on his haunches and sighed and said, “She’ll be all right.”

From far off they heard the old man give a jubilant, triumphant yell.

“Why, that’s the old rebel yell,” Little Mac said.

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said. He stood up, looking down at the girl. “I’ll carry her up. You better bring the dinghy back.”

Slinging her over his shoulder like a wet sack, he started back for the pink house. Little Mac shoved the dinghy out and headed back. He had to make a wide circle around the point to bring her in against the tide.

By the time he’d beached her on the bay side, there was no sign of the old man, but there was a pot of coffee on the stove and it smelled good.

Little Mac went into the pink house. The girl was lying on Big Mac’s cot, in just her wet panties and bra, and Big Mac was kneeling beside her, chafing her wrists.

“Get the whiskey,” Big Mac said.

Little Mac hurried out for it and when he came back Big Mac took the bottle and let a few drops trickle into her mouth. She choked a little and coughed and some of the liquor ran down her chin and then trickled down the valley between her small soft breasts.

She muttered something they couldn’t catch.

Big Mac stood up slowly, looked at the bottle and then took a good slug and offered the bottle to Little Mac, who just shook his head.

They looked at her for a moment and then Big Mac said, “I guess we ought to take those wet things off her.”

Hastily Little Mac said, “I think I’ll sit this part out.”

He went into the other room and changed into dry clothes, the alternate costume with the yellow silk shirt and the white linen slacks and the green cummerbund, and then went out to hang his wet clothes on the line. Hanging the clothes, he could hear the girl inside muttering something, but he couldn’t make out what it was. He felt cheerful though and began to hum and then to sing, softly, “The Foggy Foggy Dew.”

Finishing, he turned around and then gaped. A strange-looking character had come in and was standing, leaning on his cane, looking at him speculatively. It was the very old man, but he was now wearing tattered white pants and shirt, decrepit sneakers and a battered old sun helmet.

“Hi?” the old man said, studying Little Mac’s face carefully.

“Well, think you’ll remember me next time you see me?” Little Mac said.

“Hope so,” the old man said. “Oh, don’t worry about me. I’m hot, too. Hotter than an old maid’s britches.”

Little Mac grinned.

“The Men were looking for you. Say, what are you made up for anyhow?”

“Like it?” the old man said, turning slowly, modeling for him. “It’s my new beachcomber suit. . . .”

He broke off as Little Mac began to chuckle.

“What’s so God-damn funny?”

Trying to force a straight face, Little Mac said, “Why . . . nothing. It’s a sw . . . swell suit.”

“It’s from Abercrombie and Fitch,” the old man said. “They antiqued it for me special. Had it stashed in the bottom of my trunk just in case and that God-damn wet nurse never suspicioned . . . .”

Little Mac broke up again.

“You got a hell of a license to laugh,” the old man said. “You in that musical-comedy get-up! Seems to me guys that live in silk blouses shouldn’t go around throwing aspersions!”

Grinning, Little Mac said, “Why, these are working clothes.”

“What the hell do you guys want to work for when all you’ve got to do to eat like kings is pluck crabs off the rocks?”

“Well, you can’t lie around on your fat can forever,” Little Mac said.

“Why the hell not?”

“Guess a man just needs a change now and then,” Little Mac said. “We don’t exactly strain ourselves, anyhow. Just Saturday nights and when there’s a ship in, which isn’t too damned often.”

“Baffles me why you bother,” the old man said.

“Well, we’d kind of like to get us a little stake together, a little old getaway stake,” Little Mac said.

“Getaway? From this? From Paradise? Why you guys must be crazy!”

“Sometimes I think maybe we are,” Little Mac said.

Big Mac came out of the house, the whiskey bottle in his hand, and now wearing dry clothes, and said, “What the hell’s all the jabbering for?”

“Howdy, neighbor?” the old man said.

“He’s a beachcomber from Abercrombie and Fitch,” Little Mac explained.

Staring at him, Big Mac said, “Beachcomber, my ass! It’s that old kibitzer was out here with her. Say, what do you know about this business?”

“Nothing,” the old man said. “Nothing much. I saw she was going to take a dive and I tried to kid her out of it, only I couldn’t.”

“Anyhow, you sure as hell didn’t,” Big Mac said.

“Anyhow, everything is all right now.”

“What the hell you mean, everything’s all right?”

“Well, the kid’s okay, isn’t she?”

“I don’t know how the hell okay she is,” Big Mac said. “She’s alive, but if you ask me, she’s kind of slug nutty. Keeps muttering and mumbling the goofiest stuff you ever heard in your life.”

“Shock, more than likely,” the old man said.

“Why sure,” Little Mac said. “You knocked her colder than a herring, you jerk!”

“Who the hell yelled for me to slug ’er?”

“I didn’t yell slug ’er,” Little Mac said. “I distinctly yelled pop ’er, and that’s different.”

“Well, I popped ’er as soon as I could break her hold on my throat,” Big Mac said.

“You call that popping?” Little Mac said. “Don’t you know girls have got glass chins? You just have to tap ’em easy.”

By way of illustration he jabbed Big Mac lightly on the chin.

Big Mac grinned and said, affectionately, “You silly little son-of-a-bitch, you saved my God-damn life.”

“Oh, you were doing pretty good,” Little Mac said.

“Pretty good, my ass,” the old man said. “She damned near drowned him.”

Grinning, Big Mac said, “Say that’s right.”

“You were both terrific in there, you crazy bastards,” the old man said. “Remind me to buy each of you a big fat cigar.”

“Big Mac never smokes cigars,” Little Mac said. “Make him sick to his stomach.”

“Blabbermouth,” Big Mac said, growling, and then, glaring at the old man, “Say, who the hell are you, anyhow?”

“Why, your new neighbor,” the old man said.

“For just a second I thought you said neighbor,” Big Mac said.

“That’s right,” the old man said. “Name of McGovern. Oh, just call me Mac for short . . . better make it Old Mac, so we won’t get each other all mixed up.” Gesturing towards the clump of trees back from the ocean side, Old Mac said, “Pitched my camp right over yonder in those trees. You fellas mind?”

“Mind? Not me,” Little Mac said.

To Big Mac, who was staring at him stonily, Old Mac said, “I won’t bother you . . . much. I won’t get in your hair . . . .”

“Much!” Big Mac said, and then, grinning, “What the hell, it’s a free country. Let’s have some of that java.”

“Say, thanks!” Old Mac said. “I put it on, figuring we could use it.”

They all went over to the table.

“Thought I might as well make myself useful,” Old Mac said. “I won’t be a burden around here. Matter of fact, I’m loaded.”

As Big Mac set out cups, the old man pulled a fistful of crumpled bills from his pocket, waved them.

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said.

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said, grinning, and then, as Big Mac poured the steaming savory coffee into the big cups, “Say, Big, how about a little spot of that sour mash, sort of to cool our coffee and get acquainted.”

“You talked me into it,” Big Mac said.

He poured a generous shot into each coffee cup.

Raising his cup, Old Mac said, “Here’s to all the lamsters in the world, God bless ’em.”

“Hear, hear,” Big Mac said.

They all took a drink.

“Whee, wish I had a cow gave milk like that,” Old Mac said, smacking his lips.

“As my granddaddy used to say,” Little Mac said, grinning.

“Mine too,” Old Mac said, and raising the cup again, “And here’s to little Miss Flotsam.”

“Miss who?” Big Mac said.

“Miss Flotsam,” Little Mac explained, grinning. “You know, flotsam and jetsam.”

“That’s a hell of a way to talk about the kid!” Big Mac said.

“I apologize,” Old Mac said. “Anyhow, here’s to her.”

They all took another drink and then Old Mac said, “Now about this muttering and mumbling business. She say anything that made sense at all?”

“Not much,” Big Mac said. “There was something about a dead guy and a God-damn watch. . . .”

“Oh, yes, she couldn’t take it with her,” Old Mac said, pointing to the watch still hanging from the necklace on the rail. “Seems it was a birthday present.”

Going to the rail, Big Mac said, “Say, she mumbled something about her birthday, too.”

He took the necklace from the rail and examined the watch, turning it over.

“This is a nice little watch, all right,” he said. “Say, there’s a name engraved on it. Gay. Now isn’t that a hell of a name for a dame that would do the dutch?”

“Yeah,” Little Mac said. “I wonder what made her do it? You know, this is as close as I ever came to knowing anybody that did it.”

“She didn’t do it, she just tried it,” Big Mac said. “Hell, people are doing it all the time.”

“White people,” Old Mac said. “You ever hear of a colored person doing it?”

“Well, hardly ever,” Little Mac said.

“They love life,” Old Mac said.

“Me too,” Big Mac said. “Maybe I got a touch of the tar.”

“What’d she say about that watch, Big Mac?” Old Mac said.

“I told you she didn’t say anything,” Big Mac said. “She just mumbled and muttered a lot of crap about some dead guy putting this watch around her neck. Don’t ask me how a dead guy could put a watch around her fool neck and play piano to boot, because I don’t know.”

“Played piano to boot, eh?” Little Mac said.

“Yeah. She kept mumbling and muttering and calling him Jake and he kept on playing the God-damn silly piano dead. Oh, she mumbled about guns, too . . . there were guns and bombs all over the place and they scared the hell out of her. She began to shiver and whimper and she grabbed my hand hard and held on just like it was that dead guy’s.”

“Shock, that’s what it is, all right,” Old Mac said.

“Yeah,” Little Mac said. “Say, what we going to do about her?”

“Do?” Big Mac said. “Haven’t we done plenty dragging her out of the drink?”

“I mean now,” Little Mac said.

“We’d better send word to her friends she’s okay and to drop by and pick her up, only they’d better have some clothes or a barrel, because she’s fresh out except for those silly little soaking wet panties and stuff,” Big Mac said.

“Supposing she’s fresh out of friends, too?” Old Mac said.

“Yeah, suppose she is that, Big?” Little Mac said.

“Maybe we just ought to report the whole thing to the police,” Big Mac said.

“Holler copper?” Little Mac cried, shocked.

“Hell, it’s not like really hollering copper,” Big Mac said. “It’s not like she was a lamster.”

“What makes you think she isn’t?” Old Mac said.

“Why, she doesn’t look like one,” Big Mac said.

“Who the hell does?” Old Mac said. “I have news for you. She’s a lamster all right, just like all of us.”

“See, Big, we can’t holler copper,” Little Mac said.

“Well, we’d better think of something,” Big Mac said.

“Shhhh,” whispered Little Mac, warningly, as the girl opened the door of the house.

She had wound a towel around her hair and wrapped a blanket around her body. She stared at them strangely.

“Hi?” Little Mac said, sketching a little salute.

As she continued to stare, Old Mac said, “Relax, you’re among friends, believe it or not, ‘like it’ or not.”

She touched her hands to her head. “Oh . . . I’m beginning to remember. . . .”

“Yeah, it’s me in my beachcomber suit,” Old Mac said. “I said I’d never speak to you again but I’m an inconsistent old son-of-a-bitch and I changed my mind.”

“How you feeling?” Big Mac said.

“I . . . I don’t know. . . . My jaw . . . .”

She touched it gingerly, winced.

“That’s where Big Mac had to slug you,” Little Mac said.

“I’m sorry, you had a stranglehold,” Big Mac said.

“The slob’s not used to popping girls,” Little Mac explained, and as she touched her rib cage and winced again, “Ribs kind of beat up, too, eh? We had to pump a lot of ocean out of you.”

“Yeah,” Big Mac said. “You must have puked gallons. I didn’t do so bad myself.”

“My head aches,” she said.

“Old Big had to grab you by the hair,” Little Mac said.

“Yeah,” Big Mac said. “Your dress kept tearing and your skin was so God-damn slippery. . . .”

“My dress . . . where’s my dress?”

“I took it off,” Big Mac said.

“You took all my clothes off!”

“Well, they were wet,” Big Mac said.

Suddenly she began to cry.

“For Christ’s sake, what’s that for?” Big Mac cried.

“Hush, don’t you cry,” Little Mac said, gently.

She tried to stop, began rubbing her eyes with the edge of the blanket. Big Mac took out his handkerchief and silently handed it to her. She dried her tears and then handed it back to him.

“Th . . . thank you.”

“Oh, that’s all right,” Big Mac said.

There was an awkward pause and then Big Mac held out the necklace with the watch hanging from it and said, “I guess this belongs to you.”

She just looked at it.

“It is yours, isn’t it?”

“Yes,” she said. “Jake gave it to me.”

She took the necklace and put it on.

“Who’s Jake?”

“Why, my father. His name wasn’t really Jake. I called him that because she did, my mother, because she wanted him to sound American. He was American, of course, naturalized American. He was born in Poland. She thought his real name was funny . . . Jan. She died when I was six and then he was my mother, too.”

“Jan what?” Old Mac said.

“Why, Langner,” she said.

“Jan Langner,” Old Mac said, thoughtfully.

“He was a great artist,” she said. “The piano. Chopin.”

“Oh,” Old Mac said. “I could always take Chopin or leave him. But Maggie was partial to the guy. Excuse me. Go on.”

She went on, her voice becoming that of a little girl. “When I was little I loved to climb high into a tree, so high I couldn’t get down by myself, because I knew all I had to do was cry out to him and he’d stop whatever he was doing, even practicing, and come and rescue me. He’d stand under the tree and smile up at me and hold out his arms and I’d jump and he’d always catch me, and if I’d scratched myself, he’d kiss the place and make it well. We were so happy together, just the two of us. I went with him everywhere, on tour, San Francisco, Honolulu, Melbourne, London, Paris, Prague, Warsaw. . . .”

She stopped, shuddering, and her voice became older, and bitter.

“That’s where it happened. They came on my birthday, my tenth birthday, with their hate and their guns and their bombs and I was frightened until he played The Grande Polonaise for me. Then he made me promise I’d work hard at my music, so that one day I’d play it for him so he could be proud of me. He put the necklace and the watch on me and told me to wind it every night before I went to bed and then he sent me away with old Paul, promising he’d come home to me some day. After we got to London, I’d hear about him, through old Paul. He went underground and fought for the people of his blood, like old Pablo Casals did for his. I was afraid for him but I was proud, too, and I waited, knowing he’d come to me, because he’d promised. We went to New York, where his money was, and I worked hard and then we got word he was a prisoner and after that there was no word. After the war they looked for him in every prison camp but there was no word until last winter and then they found that he was dead. They’d killed him long ago. I’ve tried to live in his memory but I can’t any more. This is my birthday and I . . . . Oh, why didn’t you let me! Why did you have to interfere! You . . . you meddlers!”

Big Mac took a deep breath and then he said, “What are we supposed to do, apologize for saving your life?”

“You should have let me go to him! I wanted to go to him!”

“Okay,” Big Mac said. “You can always pick up where you left off, you know. You can always take another dive. And don’t worry, we won’t interfere again; we’ll just sit the next one out.”

“I only want to be with him!” she cried.

“Sure,” Big Mac said. “So he can kiss it and make it well. You know, he sounded to me like a hell of a guy, the kind of guy Little Mac and I’d have liked to know and have on our side, a guy who knew how to live and how to die. For something. But let’s face it, baby, he’s dead. There’s no safety in his arms any more; he can’t kiss it and make it well ever again, and look, I’ve got news for you: there’s no God-damn substitute for guts!”

Her lips began to tremble.

“Oh, come on, sucker,” Big Mac said to Little Mac. “Let’s get going!”

He strode down the steps to the beach and across to the dinghy, not looking back.

“Don’t you give up,” Little Mac said, gently. “Don’t you ever give up again, you hear?”

Then he hurried down the steps after Big Mac.

As he hopped into the dinghy, and Big Mac bent his shoulder to shove it out, Gay cried, “And what about me?”

Big Mac straightened up and turned around and said, challengingly, “I don’t know, what about you?”

Then he turned and put his shoulder to the dinghy again, shoved it out, and hopped in. She stared after them for a moment and then turned to Old Mac, who was looking at her quizzically.

“What about you, kid?” he said, and then he hobbled away, past the pink house, towards the clump of trees on the ocean side.

She watched him until the shadows had swallowed him up, then she went over to the rail and looked down into the tide. She had fought for breath there. Curious, when she wanted to die.

She looked out along the moon-path, imagining herself beneath it. She began to wonder about the two men, the two friends. They could have minded their own business; they had no right to meddle.

Her jaw ached and her ribs hurt and her flesh was bruised where they’d worked on her, fighting for her life, the life she’d quit fighting for. She wondered how they’d ever pulled her out of that tide. How they must have fought it to get her out and themselves out!

Big Mac had fought for her with a man with a knife and he’d fought for her with the riptide, he and Little Mac.

Saloon entertainers in silk shirts picturesque for tourists had fought for her.

They’d fought for her and then they’d realized she wasn’t worth fighting for. How right they were!

“No God-damn substitute for guts!”

She looked over into the riptide again, turning to Jake, and he was down there, his arms outstretched, smiling at her.

When he got to the edge of the trees, Old Mac’s feet dragged. He wondered if he’d done the right thing, leaving her there alone. He knew it was sensible and he thought it was good psychology; she’d have to stand on her own feet some time. Big Mac was so right, of course. Big Mac knew the score.

Still . . . .

He stopped and looked back. She was standing there by the rail, looking down into the tide. He sighed. He hoped she’d be all right, but he knew there was nothing now that he could say or do to tip the scales.

He turned and hobbled deep into the trees, and then over towards the ocean beach, where his camp was. He could see his things there in the clearing in the moonlight. He reached the edge of the clearing and then, in the shadows, he saw the man in white waiting.

He turned to try to slip away, but it was too late.

In the morning when the steward brought Old Mac’s breakfast tray to the cabin, Johansen, for the first time, wasn’t with him. The old man looked at the contents of the tray with infinite loathing, oatmeal with honey on it instead of sugar, hard dry toast with no butter, weak tea.

“Steward,” Old Mac said, “you’re in a position to do yourself some good.”

“Yes, sir?” the steward said.

“You can earn a rajah’s ransom, a five-dollar bill, that is, if you’ll toss this baby-fodder over the side and bring me a chicken-liver omelet, a pot of very strong coffee and a stack of wheats with four pats of butter.”

“I don’t know if I dare, sir,” the steward said.

“Be bold, steward,” Old Mac said. “Grasp this opportunity. Think of your wife and kiddies.”

“I’m not married, sir,” the steward said.

“Then just think of your kiddies,” Old Mac said.

The steward smiled wanly and shook his head.

“Are you mouse or man?” Old Mac said.

“Mouse, sir,” the steward said.

Johansen came in and the steward went out, sadly.

“Aren’t you going to eat your breakfast, sir?” Johansen said.

“No!” Old Mac roared and overturned the tray.

Johansen went out again and was gone a long time.

When he came back with another tray, Old Mac said peevishly, “Where the hell have you been? I’m starving!”

Johansen watched grimly until he had eaten all of the oatmeal and the piece of toast and had drunk the tea.

“Pap!” Old Mac said. “What kept you?”

“The island police are aboard about that young woman,” Johansen said.

“What?”

“That young woman you were talking to; she committed suicide by jumping off the point,” Johansen said.

“Oh, Jesus,” Old Mac said. “She did it after all!”

“Would you like to sit in the sun a bit, sir?” Johansen asked.

“No!”

Just the same Johansen wheeled him out on the starboard side where the cruise passengers were lining the rail, some of them with field glasses, looking out towards the point, babbling.

Old Mac didn’t even protest when Johansen tucked the heavy rug around him. He just sat there in the wheel chair. He couldn’t even see the point and the pink house for the passengers in front of him.

Then there was a commotion among the passengers, as the police chief and two patrolmen came out of the Captain’s cabin with the Captain, and everybody, including Johansen, hurried over to find out the details.

Old Mac could see the point now and he stared off at its steep drop, wondering. After a while he turned his eyes to the narrow stretch of beach. Two men were lying on the sand with newspapers protecting their eyes. They lay so quietly, they seemed to be asleep there in the sun.

His eyes wandered to the clothesline and then he sat up, sharply. There were men-things there all right but something else, too. His eyes were sharp but they weren’t sharp enough to make out exactly what it was that hung at the very end of the line.

A pair of field glasses hung in their leather case from the back of an unoccupied deck chair a few feet away. He tried to move the wheel chair but Johansen had put the blocks under the wheels, front and back, so it wouldn’t roll with the movement of the ship when she got under weigh.

He looked down the deck, furtively. Johansen and the others were clustered about the Captain and the police. No one would notice. He pulled the rug from his legs and slipped out of the wheel chair. He limped to the deck chair, grabbed the field glasses, limped back and re-covered his legs.

Then he took out the field glasses and focused them until he could pick out what was hanging on the end of the line beyond the linen trousers and the silk shirt and the two pairs of sox and shorts.

Little pink panties and a bra.

The horn of the Dolphin woke Big Mac and Little Mac and they sat up on the sand, brushing the newspapers from their faces.

“For Christ’s sake, they’re shoving off!” Big Mac said.

“They are that,” Little Mac agreed.

“They can’t do this to us!” Big Mac said.

“I know it, but do they know it?” Little Mac said.

Behind them Gay came out of the house. She was wearing a pair of Little Mac’s white pants, one of his jumpers and a cummerbund. She looked fine.

“There goes my ship,” she said.

“Yeah, you sure as hell missed the boat all right,” Big Mac said, and then turning to look at her, “Hey! You’ve got on Little Mac’s Sunday suit!”

“I’m sorry,” she said. “I didn’t have anything else to wear.”

“You wear my Sunday suit any time,” Little Mac said.

“Thank you,” she said, coming down to the beach.

“Hmmmm, they fit pretty good at that,” Big Mac said. “Except in the following places.”

“The seat?” she said. “I know I’m too skinny.”

“You don’t have to have a fat can not to be skinny,” Big Mac said, grinning, and then, frowning, as if remembering to, “Sit down.”

“Thank you,” she said, sitting cross-legged.

“We’ve got to figure out what’s to be done about you,” Big Mac said.

“I know, the whole thing’s a nuisance, isn’t it?” she said.

“I cannot tell a lie, yes,” Big Mac said.

“I guess it was kind of a shock, coming home and finding me asleep in your room?” she said.

“Say that’s right,” he said.

“You thought I’d . . . do it again?”

“Well . . .” he said.

“We didn’t really think so, we just worried you might,” Little Mac said.

“You . . . worried about me?”

“We cannot tell a lie, yes,” Little Mac said, grinning. “Especially this big loogan here.”

“Especially hell,” Big Mac said. “You were just as worried as I was.”

“Who insisted we hang around out there to keep an eye on her?” Little Mac demanded.

Touched, she murmured, “You watched over me.”

“Just till we were sure you weren’t going to do it again,” Little Mac said. “You gave us a bad time though when you went over there and looked down into that old riptide. Old Big liked to died. He sweat blood, kept half muttering, ‘Jesus, I hope I wasn’t too rough with the poor kid! Jesus, I only wanted to get her God-damn back up!’ ”

Tears welled up into her eyes.

“Oh, nuts, here we go again,” Big Mac muttered.

He whipped out his handkerchief again and she took it and dried her eyes.

“I’m sorry,” she said, finally.

“Take it easy,” Big Mac said.

She took another dab at her eyes with the handkerchief and then, handing it back, said, “Thank you, Big Mac. Thank you for your handkerchief and your kind heart and . . . and everything.”

“Oh, hell, that’s all right,” he said.

“You know something?” she said. “You got my back up, all right. I went over there and looked down into that riptide and Jake was there, ready, as you said, to kiss it and make it well, but all of a sudden he just wasn’t down there any more. You were, though, Big Mac, scowling up at me and I could hear you snap at me, just as plain, ‘There’s no God-damn substitute for guts!’ ”

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said.

“You should have waked me up,” she said. “You shouldn’t have slept on the beach.”

“We like to sleep on the beach, don’t we, Big?” Little Mac said.

“I can take it or leave it,” Big Mac said. “Now, where were we?”

“I didn’t mean to go to sleep on your cot. I made them both up and then I just lay down for a minute; I must have dozed off.”

“Why sure,” Little Mac said. “Anybody could doze off like that.”

“You were sure dozing good when we got home,” Big Mac said.

“I hope I wasn’t making noises breathing,” she said.

“Look, we keep getting off the subject,” Big Mac said. “The subject is: what the hell are we going to do about you?”

“I meant to make myself a pallet in the other room,” she said.

“We wouldn’t have you sleep on the floor,” Little Mac said.

“Hell no,” Big Mac said. “Anyhow, as I was about to say . . .”

“I didn’t even miss the sleeping pills,” Gay said.

“Huh?” Big Mac said.

“I slept beautifully,” Gay said. “I didn’t even have the dream.”

“That’s fine,” Big Mac said. “What I was going to say was . . .”

“It was sure nice of you to make our beds,” Little Mac said.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t find any pillow cases,” Gay said.

“We haven’t got any pillow cases,” Little Mac said, “on account of we haven’t got any pillows.”

“What’s with all this God-damn pillow talk!” Big Mac exploded. “We’ve got to get down to cases!”

Little Mac and Gay laughed spontaneously.

“And I don’t mean pillow cases!” Big Mac said, growling.

“All right,” she said, seriously. “What the hell are you going to do about me?”

“Now we’re beginning to get somewhere,” Big Mac said. “The first thing to do is round up all your baggage and stuff and get you a decent room up at the hotel.”

“I have no baggage and stuff,” she said.

“No baggage, no stuff,” Little Mac said.

“Christ, you must have had something!” Big Mac said.

“Oh, I did,” she said. “Only I left it on board.”

“All right, so you’ll just have to buy some more,” Big Mac said.

“I have no money,” she said.

“No money,” Little Mac said.

“No money! Why, you had a fat roll in that little dinky bag,” Big Mac said.

“I threw it away,” she said. “I threw it away with my slippers, into the riptide.”

“Threw it away,” Little Mac said, nodding.

“I didn’t think I’d have any more use for money,” she said.

“Oh,” Big Mac said. “Okay, so we’ll stake you.”

“Why sure, we’ll grubstake you,” Little Mac said.

“Yeah, to a room and some clothes and a radiogram to your folks that you’re okay and not to worry because you’ll grab the next ship home.”

“I have no home,” she said.

“No home,” Little Mac said.

“Or any folks except a very old aunt who’s deaf and in her second childhood and hasn’t worried about anything for years except her digestion which is perfect.”

“No folks,” Little Mac murmured.

“And besides,” Gay said, “even if I had somebody to radio to that I was okay, I honestly couldn’t do it, because you see I’m not okay, not yet.”

“She’s not okay yet,” Little Mac murmured.

“You’re not?”

“No. If I’d been okay, why I’d have simply gone back with the police when they came last night.”

“Police?”

“Yes, they came in a big launch shortly after midnight. Because of the note I left with the Captain, you know, and the ‘To Whom It May Concern’ on my dressing table.”

“They came out here?”

“Of course. That’s where I said in the note I was going to do it. I was in the house making up the cots when I heard them, and I kept very quiet. Luckily I didn’t have the light on, because I didn’t know how to light it and besides it was moonlight. . . . I peeked out the window and saw the police. They seemed satisfied they were just too late, that I’d already done it, so I just let them go, and then I lay down on your cot just for a minute and the next thing I knew it was morning.”

“This is where we came in,” Big Mac said. “For Christ’s sake, why’d you hide from the God-damn cops?”

“Because, as I’ve been trying to tell you, I’m not okay yet,” she said.

“All right, all right, I give up,” Big Mac said. “Where the hell do we go from here!”

“We could go swimming,” Little Mac suggested.

“What!” Big Mac roared.

“Well, the cruise-ship’s shoved off, so we could go swimming if we wanted to,” Little Mac said.

“Oh, shut up!” Big Mac said. “You’re always changing the subject.”

Gay said, “You’ve both been so wonderful; you’re so kind and generous . . . I don’t know why!”

As she began to cry again, he said, “Oh, stop it! Cut it out! Turn it off!”

He pulled out his handkerchief again.

“Here, for Christ’s sake, and hang onto it, will you. I’m pooped just from whipping it out.”

She took it and wiped her eyes, and then put it in the pocket of her jumper.

“Th . . . thank you,” she said.

“Now can we go swimming?” Little Mac said.

“All right, God damn it, all right!” Big Mac cried and started to skin his shirt over his head.

“I haven’t any bathing suit,” Gay said.

“Huh?” Big Mac said, underneath the shirt. He poked his head out of it again and barked, “Bathing suit!”

“Say, neither have we,” Little Mac said. “No more bathing suits than a rabbit.”

Tucking his shirt in again, Big Mac said, “Oh well, we had enough swimming last night.”

“Yeah,” said Little Mac.

“I tell you what let’s do,” Big Mac said. “Let’s go catch us some rock crabs for breakfast. You don’t need bathing suits for that; you just pull up your pants.”

He started up the steps.

Gay, following him with Little Mac, said thoughtfully, “You could get some bathing suits in town, couldn’t you?”

“Say, we could at that!” Little Mac said.

Big Mac just snorted and started across the patio to go around back of the house and down the steep path to the ocean side where the rock crabs were. Then, spotting the little panties and the bra on the clothesline, he stopped dead.

Gay was saying, “You could get them when you go in to work and tomorrow we could all go swimming.”

“I’ll buy that!” Little Mac said.

Big Mac swung around, glaring. “What’s all this tomorrow stuff?” And pointing to the panties and bra, “And what the hell do you think this is, the Y.W.C.A.?”

“You pulled me out, Big Mac,” she said. “I didn’t ask you to, but you pulled me out.”

“That’s so, Big,” said Little Mac. “You can’t get around it, you sure pulled her out.”

“So what!” Big Mac barked.

“So it looks as if you’re stuck with me,” she said. “For a little while anyhow.” As he stared at her, speechless, she went on quietly, “Unless you want to throw me back.”

“Say that’s right,” Little Mac said, in the off-hand way Big Mac always said it.

When Big Mac and Little Mac came home that night they were heavy laden, for they’d been shopping in the afternoon at the Jap’s place on the hill, and other places. They had to make two trips from the yawl to bring in the stuff.

First they brought in the bed, with the springs and mattress and bedding, including the pillows and pillow cases. They lugged the bed and bedding into the big front room where they found their own cots freshly made and turned back for them like hotel beds. All of their clothes had been picked up and hung in the closet and the extra sandals and the shoes were lined up at the bottom.

“God damn it, we’ll never find anything,” Big Mac said. “I knew right where everything was.”

“Hush,” Little Mac whispered.

They tiptoed to the door to the other room, opened it and peeked inside. The moonlight slanted in from the window on the ocean side. She was asleep on her pallet on the floor. She seemed very fast asleep, so they set up the bed quietly, to surprise her when she woke, and then tiptoed out without waking her, although she stirred once and said something which they couldn’t catch.

Then they went back and got the packages and the new yellow canvas chair and beach umbrella. They set up the umbrella in the table and tossed the old one behind the house.

Going inside again, they quietly opened her door and placed her packages just inside and closed it again. Then they opened their own packages, trying not to rustle the paper too much. In the packages were identical yellow bathing trunks, pajamas, and terry cloth robes.

Little Mac undressed and put on his pajamas, pants and all, and modeled them for Big Mac, who said, growling, “God damn it, this is going too far!”

“Hush,” Little Mac said, in a hoarse whisper, adding, “Put on your pajamas, slug; you can’t run around bare-assed with a lady in the house.”

Big Mac nodded gloomily, undressed and put on the pajamas. He didn’t like them. He hadn’t worn pajamas since he was a kid.

Little Mac woke first. The sun was streaming in. Big Mac had kicked the sheet off and the pajama pants had crawled up his legs but he was sleeping soundly. Little Mac looked towards Gay’s door. Then he got up and walked to the window.

She was out there by the barbecue, wearing the new yellow linen slacks and shirt and the rope-soled sandals they’d bought for her from the Jap, and she wore a towel around her for an apron. She was fussing about the kerosene stove.

Little Mac woke Big Mac, who sat up and said, “What the hell are you grinning at?”

“Rise and shine,” Little Mac said. “Chow’s on!”

Big Mac went to the window and looked out.

“She didn’t put on her new bathing suit,” he said.

“Let’s put on ours, anyhow,” Little Mac said.

They put on the new swimming trunks and the terry cloth robes.

“Aren’t we a couple of characters,” Big Mac said.

They stepped outside, and Gay, who was just putting the pot of steaming coffee on the table, saw them and sang out, “Come and get it!”

“Well what do you know, breakfast!” Little Mac said, as if greatly surprised.

“It’s just scrambled eggs and bacon and coffee,” Gay said modestly, as she snatched the makeshift apron off. “I’d have made toast, only there wasn’t any bread and I never did learn to make biscuits.”

“It’s biscuit,” Big Mac said. “Like it’s fish . . . and sheep.”

“I’ll try to remember that,” Gay said. “Biscuit, like it’s fish . . . and sheep.”

Little Mac said, “Say, will you make us some hotcakes sometime?”

“I’m sorry; I don’t know how.” And then biting her lip, she said, “I don’t know how to make much of anything.”

“You made our beds,” Little Mac said.

Big Mac was looking at the clothesline. Their other sheets, still damp, hung there.

“We were just getting those sheets broken in good,” he said.

“Go on!” Little Mac said, and then to Gay, he said, “How do you like our new swimming outfits?”

“Mighty pretty!” she said, smiling again.

“You didn’t put yours on,” Big Mac said.

“I put it on but I took it off again,” Gay said. “It made me look so skinny.”

“Oh, quit fishing,” Big Mac said. “You’re built all right. I ought to know.”

“Say, let’s eat,” Little Mac said, hurriedly, and sniffing happily, he said, “That stuff smells good enough to.”

Gay forked the eggs and bacon onto their plates while Little Mac poured the coffee. Big Mac looked at the eggs dubiously.

Anxiously, Gay asked, “Is anything wrong?”

Big Mac took a tentative bite and said, “Bacon grease. Little Mac always scrambles eggs in butter.”

“I guess I can’t even scramble eggs to suit you,” she said wanly.

“Me, I like hogfat,” Little Mac said, taking a mouthful of the eggs. “My mother always cooked in hogfat.”

Her lower lip beginning to tremble, Gay said, “I was trying to be economical. . . .”

Then she broke up and turned her face away.

“Chowderhead!” Little Mac said to Big Mac.

“God damn it, can’t a guy make a simple statement?” said Big Mac. “Who the hell said I didn’t like eggs in bacon grease?”

“The hell with it!” Gay said, snatching at his plate. “I’ll make your damned eggs in butter!”

Holding onto his plate, Big Mac said, “Relax, will you? I’m crazy about these eggs and God damn it, stop swearing!”

“You swear,” Gay said.

“What the hell’s that got to do with it?”

“We ought to watch our language, Big,” Little Mac said. “We’ll have her swearing like a God-damn stevedore.”

Gay, her lips trembling again, begged, “Please! Let me scramble you some more . . . in bu . . . butter. . . .”

“Will it be all right if I just cut my throat?” Big Mac said. “Butter’s fine, of course,” and digging in lustily, he went on with his mouth full, “but bacon grease is better’n butter,” and taking a swig of the coffee, “and anyhow this coffee is God-damn good . . . gosh-darned, I mean!”

She began to cry.

“What’s that for?” he said.

“You’re so G . . . God-damn . . . nice to me!”

She jumped up and hurried to the washbasin where she splashed water into her face and then wiped it with the towel-apron while Big Mac and Little Mac silently ate everything on their plates.

Big Mac looked up as she came back and said, “Those eggs really hit the spot.”

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said.

“Little Mac, the next time you scramble eggs in butter, remind me to kick you,” Big Mac said, and then to Gay, “Say, your eggs are cold. How about whipping up a couple of hot ones for yourself . . . and while you’re at it, a couple more for us?”

“I’ll make them in butter,” she said.

“How the hell can a guy win around here?” Big Mac said.

So she cooked more eggs in bacon grease and divided them evenly. They ate them all up, without any more talk.

Big Mac took out a pack of cigarettes and offered Little Mac one. Little Mac made a face and indicated Gay.

“Oh,” Big Mac said. “Have a smoke?”

“No, thank you,” she said. “You two relax and I’ll wash the dishes.”

“You cooked, we’ll wash,” Little Mac said.

“You can dry them,” she said, rising and picking up the dishpan to fill it with water.

Big Mac took it from her and filled it, saying, “You don’t dry dishes here, the air takes care of that.”

“I wondered why they were all streaked,” she said.

“Oh, all right,” Big Mac said, growling. “We’ll dry ’em!”

When the water was hot, she washed the dishes and Big Mac and Little Mac dried them and put them away. Looking up after stowing a plate in the cupboard, Big Mac saw her stop scouring the frying pan and squirm suddenly.

“Now, what’s the matter?” he said.

“Why, nothing,” she said.

“You wriggled,” he said. “Don’t your new things fit?”

“Beautifully,” she said. “How’d you ever guess my size?”

“I’ve got eyes, haven’t I?” Big Mac said, and went on, indicating with his hands, “I just told that Jap you were so big and he whipped ’em right out.”

“You shouldn’t have got me these expensive linen slacks,” she said. “Levis would have done fine.”

“I never thought dames’ cans were cut out for Levis,” Big Mac said, adding hastily, as Little Mac gave him a disgusted look, “present company excepted, of course.”

“You shouldn’t have bought me the bed and the new chair and the new umbrella. . . .”

“Oh, we’ve been meaning to police the joint up for some time,” Little Mac said.

“Yeah,” Big Mac said.

“You bought pillows and pillow cases, too,” she said. “And a lipstick and sheer black nightgowns, which by the way, I wouldn’t be found dead in.”

“Huh? Well, what color do you wear?”

“I don’t wear nightgowns,” she said.

“Well, God damn it . . . oh, pshaw, I mean . . . the least you can do is wear nightgowns if we’re going to wear those pajamas!” Big Mac said.

“I like to wear pajamas, too,” she said. “Only just the tops.”

“The Jap wouldn’t sell us just the tops,” Little Mac said. “Big Mac asked him. Anyhow, I told Big Mac we wouldn’t be decent in just the tops; I said whole hog or none.”

“I could use the bottom parts to wash windows with and things and that way they wouldn’t be wasted,” Gay said.

“Okay,” Big Mac said, “we’ll take the black nightgowns back and swap ’em for yellow pajamas; I thought women liked black nightgowns.”

She squirmed again.

“Well, if they fit, what are you wriggling for?” he demanded. “You got crabs or something?”

“Big!” Little Mac said.

“I’m sorry; I guess the new panties you got me are rayon because they itch; I mean I itch. I’m allergic to rayon.”

“If those pants are rayon we’ve been robbed by that Jap son-of-a-bitch,” Big Mac said. “I distinctly told him silk; you heard me say silk, Little Mac?”

“You sure did,” Little Mac said. “You said, ‘And some of those cute little yellow silk pants like the schoolmarms wear, the younger ones, that is.’ ”

“Oh?” she said.

“Blabbermouth!” Big Mac said.

“Do they all wear yellow?” she said.

“Huh?”

“Oh, never mind!” she said, giving another small wriggle.

“For Christ’s sake, if they itch, take ’em off,” Big Mac said.

“Your language,” Little Mac warned.

“I’m sorry I brought the whole thing up,” Gay said. “It was unladylike and indelicate,” and then, giving another wriggle, a convulsive one, “but they’re driving me crazy!”

“We’ll take ’em back and make that Jap eat ’em,” Big Mac said.

Jumping up, she said, “I think I’ll put on my new bathing suit; I’d rather look skinny than itch!”

She hurried into the house.

Big Mac, looking after her thoughtfully, said, “I’ll bet she won’t look too skinny in that bathing suit.”

“She’s a hell of a nice little Joe,” Little Mac said. “She made our beds and hung up our clothes and washed the sheets and cooked us scrambled eggs.”

“In bacon grease!”

“You said you were crazy about ’em!”

“You know how I lie to girls,” Big Mac said.

Grinning, Little Mac said, “Yeah man. Say, I’m sorry I made that crack about schoolmarms.”

“I’m a big boy,” Big Mac said. “Say, let’s go swimming in our new suits.”

They took off their robes and looked at each other dubiously.

“Well, you wanted yellow,” Little Mac said. He started to run towards the water’s edge, crying, “Race you out to the yawl for a buck!”

Big Mac, who always gave him a head start to make it come out about even, was about to take off in pursuit when Gay came out of the house, wearing the yellow lastex suit under the yellow terry cloth robe, and carrying the yellow bathing cap.

Seeing Little Mac streaking for the yawl, she cried, “He shouldn’t go in right after eating!”

“Why not?” Big Mac asked.

“Why, you die if you do,” she said, coming down to the steps.

“Well, nobody lives forever,” Big Mac said, and as she came down the steps and took off her robe, he added, “You look skinnier with your clothes on.”

“Thanks,” she said, drily, and sat cross-legged on the robe and looked out at Little Mac, who sprinted as he neared the yawl.

“Look at that little sucker!” Big Mac said. “He thinks he’s beating the pants off me!”

Little Mac reached the yawl, grabbed hold and turned around.

“The winnah and still champion!” Big Mac yelled through cupped hands.

“That’s a buck you owe me!” Little Mac shouted.

Gay and Big Mac laughed. Little Mac climbed onto the yawl and then dived in, yelling like a Comanche.

After a moment, as they watched Little Mac cavorting in the water, Gay said, “This place seems so right for you both. How’d you ever happen to find it?”

“Oh, we just sort of fell into it,” Big Mac said.

She waited for him to tell her more but he didn’t, so she put on her bathing cap and went down to the water’s edge. The tide was coming in. She dived into the water and set out for the yawl, using the crawl with the flutter-kick Jake had taught her when she was a little girl.

Halfway out Big Mac caught up with her and then swam easily alongside her until they reached the yawl, where Little Mac was sitting with his legs over the side and a towel around his shoulders.

“He’s afraid of getting sunburned,” Big Mac said, and pulled himself up into the yawl.

He gave her a hand and helped her up beside them.

“How’d you happen to find this lovely place, Little Mac?” she said.

“Why, we just sort of fell into it,” Little Mac said.

“How’d you happen to fall into it?”

“Well, we came in at night on a tramp and jumped ship,” Little Mac said.

“Race you in for another buck,” Big Mac said.

“I went over the side and Big Mac lowered a life-raft and a footlocker with our stuff in it and then came over the side, too, and we swam in, pushing the raft,” Little Mac said.

“Blabbermouth,” Big Mac said.

“Well, she asked,” Little Mac said, and went on. “The tide was on the flood so we made it here easy. We saw this house, all dark and boarded-up, and when it began to rain, why we just muscled in and spent the night.”

“You mean to say you’re squatters?” she said.

“Well, no,” Little Mac said. “The next day we got the job at The Flying Fish and asked around about the house and found out it was for rent dirt cheap, so we just up and rented it.”

“Why was it so cheap?”

“Well, on account of the old story . . .” Little Mac began.

“I don’t think she’d care for that one,” Big Mac said, hastily.

“I’d like to hear it,” she said.

“No,” Big Mac said. “I don’t think you would.”

“No, I guess she wouldn’t,” Little Mac agreed.

“Oh, I know I’m just in your hair,” she said. “It’ll only be until I can make up my mind; really it will.”

“Oh?” Big Mac said, noncommittally.

“I’m sorry about the eggs,” she said.

“Now listen, those eggs were fine.”

“Don’t lie,” she said. “I didn’t like them either.”

“Well, the coffee wasn’t bad,” Big Mac said.

“Anybody can make coffee,” she said.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” Little Mac said. “Why, I’ve had coffee that tasted like somebody’s boiled an old sock in it.”

They were all silent for a moment.

Finally Gay said, “Please tell me the old story about the house.”

“All right, you asked for it,” Big Mac said. “I’ll give you a rough sketch. It seems that back in the twenties there was a young guy who worked at the rum-running trade. Well, he fell in love with a girl and they ran off and got married and then kept on running for their health, because she was the Big Guy’s girl, until they got down here. They had a little stake and they built this house and were happy and after a while they had a baby and were happier. The young guy got a job as a crap dealer up at the Casino and it kept him away nights. One night the Big Guy came in here in one of his fast boats, and while his boys held the girl, he tossed the baby into the riptide. Then he made the boys a present of the girl. Afterwards she wrote a note to the young guy and then went off the rail into the riptide and when he came home and found the note, he went off the rail, too. Since then they’ve called this point Lovers Leap. Well, you asked for it.”

“Lovers Leap,” she whispered.

Little Mac murmured, “I guess if there is any good reason for taking a dive, they had one.”

“Meaning I didn’t have one?” Gay said.

“Say, I didn’t mean it like that,” Little Mac said.

“Suppose you had been that young guy, Big Mac?” she said.

“I don’t know,” Big Mac said. “I don’t think I’d have taken a dive; I think I’d have gone hunting . . . for the Big Guy.”

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said, softly.

“If I’d been a man I’d have gone hunting,” she said. “As Jake did. . . . I had to be a woman!”

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said.

“Women are all right; they belong,” Little Mac said.

“I hate it,” she said.

Big Mac said, “Well, anyhow, you’re sure stuck with the deal, so what’s the use of bellyaching?”

“A man can die for something,” she said. “What can a female do?”

“Well, live for something,” Big Mac said seriously. “Anybody can live for something.”

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said.

“Such as?” she said.

“Why, making something, for instance,” Big Mac said.

“Sure thing,” Little Mac agreed.

“Anybody can add a little if they try,” Big Mac said. “A bridge . . . or an idea . . .”

“Maybe a poem or a hot lick on a clarinet,” Little Mac said.

“Maybe a useful gadget . . . or a kid . . . or even just a good brick outhouse,” Big Mac said.

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said.

“I can’t even make scrambled eggs! All I can make is trouble!” she said.

“Oh, relax,” Big Mac said. “Quit knocking yourself out. Look at it like this: You’re living on velvet now, every hour you live from this on in is pure velvet, so what the hell have you got to lose?”

“Velvet,” she murmured.

“Sure,” Little Mac said. “Why, hell, we’re all living on velvet.”

“You’re affirmative,” she said. “You say yes. You believe.”

“Why sure, in life, liberty and the God-damn pursuit of happiness,” Big Mac said.

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said.

“We’re a couple of very corny guys,” Big Mac said.

After a moment she said, “There’s something I haven’t told you, something shameful, that I have to tell you. I promised Jake I’d play for him sometime so he could be proud of me. I meant to keep it. All those years I worked. I could have made my debut long ago. They, his friends, said I was ready. But I waited so I could play first for him. When I learned that he was dead I stopped working. It didn’t seem to matter any more. But then his friends decided to have a Memorial program for him in Carnegie Hall and they asked me to be in it, to play The Grande Polonaise and I was happy and proud of the chance to play for him at last, and I worked and was ready. But on the day before, at home, when I was playing it, alone, I could suddenly see myself there on the platform, with all the great names, his friends, but alone. I could see myself playing for him, but needing him, needing his help, but he wasn’t there with his smile and his arms held up to help me, and all of a sudden my fingers froze on the keys, and I jumped up, crashing my dead fingers down in a frightful discord and . . . well, I didn’t play The Grande Polonaise in Carnegie Hall. I didn’t have the guts, alone. I ran away. So you see I’m a coward and I’ve lost him now, really lost him!”

“Oh, I don’t know,” Big Mac said.

“Yes, I’ve lost him,” she mourned.

“That isn’t the way it looks from here,” Big Mac said. “You can’t lose anybody that’s part of you, and he’s part of you, deep in your guts, as long as you live. That’s the way it looks from here.”

“What guts?” she cried.

One night when she couldn’t sleep, Gay got up and went out on the rocky point and watched the riptide for a long time. She remembered how she’d tried to fight it before it sucked her under. Her mind had wanted to die but apparently her body hadn’t.

A piece of driftwood was whipped around the point and then was sucked under. It didn’t matter what happened to driftwood. She followed the riptide with her eyes and saw the piece of driftwood shoot up again and then go under. Even the piece of driftwood was fighting the riptide. But it was losing, of course.

Big Mac and Little Mac were turned outward, like the old man. They went out to things and to people. She wondered if she ever would, ever could.

I wish I could . . .

She stopped, remembering the old man’s “wishing is wishy-washy!” She smiled and thought, At least I can try. Maybe if I could think of somebody besides myself. . . .

She went back into the house and set the alarm for three o’clock. Then she went to bed and slept soundly until the alarm woke her.

She jumped up and dressed quickly and hurried out and put on water for the coffee. Then she went over to the rail again and waited for the water to boil and for Big Mac and Little Mac, who were just about due.

She looked down into the racing water again and thought of the driftwood fighting but losing, of course. If you didn’t ever go outward, you were just driftwood and good riddance.

The water began to boil but there was no sign of the yawl. She turned the flame off and waited, with growing irritation. This was the first morning, except when a cruise-ship was in, that they hadn’t come right home.

Finally she saw a sail. They were over an hour late, but she decided not to say a word about it. She’d be waiting, with their coffee ready, unselfishly waiting.

She lighted the flame under the pot again, and when the water bubbled up, she put in the coffee. Then she ducked back into the shadows, to surprise them.

But the sail wasn’t that of their yawl, after all, but of a fishing boat. She was both disappointed and angry. They had let her down. She had tried to turn outward and they’d spoiled her gesture.

It was sunup when Big Mac and Little Mac brought the yawl in, secured her to the mooring and dropped her canvas. They untied the dinghy and Big Mac started to row in to the beach. They both looked gloomy.

“The trouble was you pressed too hard,” Big Mac said.

“I pressed too hard!” Little Mac said. “Who the hell kept yowling for me to ride ’em high?”

“Well, you seemed so hot at the time,” Big Mac said. “How the hell did I know you’d cool off so quick?”

“I wanted to quit when we were two C’s to the good,” Little Mac said. “You would have me go for it all.”

“You ought to have more character,” Big Mac said.

“You had to be a hog,” Little Mac said.

“Quit beefing,” Big Mac said. “We only dropped a few bucks.”

“Forty-three,” Little Mac said.

They pulled the dinghy up on the sand and went up onto the patio.

“Hey, she made coffee for us,” Little Mac said.

“I wonder if she was worried,” Big Mac said.

They went over to the barbecue. The coffee was stone-cold.

“She made coffee for us and we didn’t show,” Big Mac said. “We’re a couple of bastards.”

“Yeah,” Little Mac said. “I had to feel lucky!”

“It’s lucky I wouldn’t let you dip into our stake,” Big Mac said.

“Shall we heat this coffee up?” Little Mac said.

“Oh, the hell with it,” Big Mac said. “Let’s hit the hay.”

“Are we going to tell her we were shooting craps?” Little Mac said as they went towards the house.

“We’re twenty-one,” Big Mac said.

“She waited up for us,” Little Mac said.

“Oh, shut up,” Big Mac said.

They went inside and Little Mac undressed and put on his pajamas but Big Mac sat on the edge of his bed and lighted a cigarette. Little Mac rolled into his bed and turned his face towards the wall. Big Mac finished the cigarette and started to grind it out with his heel but thought better of it and crushed it out in the ash tray. He looked at the door to Gay’s room for a moment and then tiptoed over and opened it and peered inside.

“Oh, Jesus!” he said, and ran outside.

Little Mac jumped out of bed and ran to Gay’s door and looked inside and then he ran outside and saw Big Mac crossing to the tip of the point. When Little Mac ran up, Big Mac was standing at the rail looking down into the water. He began to grind his right fist into his left palm.

“You and your God-damned crap game,” he said.

Then they heard her call and turned to see her coming around the corner of the house where the steep path led to the beach on the ocean side. They looked at each other sheepishly and went to meet her.

“What were you doing out there?” she said.

“Why, just chewing the fat,” Big Mac said. “Where the hell were you?”

“I took a walk,” she said. “Did you think I’d taken that dive?”

“Don’t be silly,” Big Mac said. “We thought you were in there pounding your ear. Say, I hope you weren’t worried because we were late?”

“Oh, were you late?” she said.

“You didn’t know we were late?” Big Mac said.

“Why, no . . . oh, let’s all stop lying!”

“We were scared,” Little Mac said.

“We were shooting craps,” Big Mac said. “We’re sorry.”

“Why shouldn’t you shoot craps if you want to?”

“I had to feel lucky,” Little Mac said. “We thought we could fatten up the getaway kitty and . . .”

“Getaway?”

“Blabbermouth!” Big Mac said, growling at the look that came over her face.

“You’re . . . going away?”

“Oh, we’re not in any hurry,” Little Mac said. “We just thought . . .”

“Naturally you can’t stick around here forever,” she said. “Did you win a lot?”

“We lost forty-three bucks,” Little Mac said. “All we had with us. We’re going to stay away from that Portugee’s.”

“Please!” she said. “I can’t stand it if I cramp your style. I mean this! You took money from your stake and spent it on me and of course you wanted to try to make it up shooting craps but I jinxed you and you lost forty dollars. . . .”

“Forty-three,” Big Mac said.

“And I wanted to make you feel sorry you’d stayed out and to worry about me when you found I wasn’t there. I’m just a bitch!”

“Such language,” Big Mac said.

“Promise me you won’t let me cramp your style!”

“All right,” Big Mac said.

“And don’t worry about me ever again! I won’t take that dive as long as I’m here anyhow. I promise that, if you’ll promise not to waste any more of your getaway kitty on me and not let me bitch you up.”

“It’s a deal,” Big Mac said.

She looked at them thoughtfully for a moment. She wanted to ask them where they were going when they got their getaway stake, but she didn’t.

“Promise me that when you’ve got enough in the kitty you’ll go and you won’t let me stand in your way,” she said.

“Sure,” Big Mac said.

“That’s part of the deal?” she said.

“You bet,” Big Mac said and Little Mac nodded.

“I’ll make you some fresh coffee now,” she said.

“You shouldn’t have waited up for us,” Big Mac said.

“I set the alarm,” she said.

She went over to the stove.

“The stove’s out of oil,” she said, when the burner wouldn’t light. “I forgot and left it on and used up all the oil.”

“I’ll get some,” Little Mac said.

“No,” she said. “That’s my department. Where is the oil?”

“In the storeroom,” Big Mac said.

She went into the house and into the storeroom. Rummaging around she found the kerosene can. There was also a package, something wrapped in burlap. She opened it and found the Thompson gun. She stared at it for a moment and then wrapped it up again and put it back.

She went back outside and filled the stove from the can. Little Mac and Big Mac were leaning against the rail, smoking. She lighted the burner and went over by them.

“When I couldn’t sleep I came out here,” she said, “and watched a piece of driftwood trying to fight the riptide but losing, of course.”

“It’s too damned lonesome for you out here at night,” Big Mac said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “It gives you time to think.”

“What do you think about?” Big Mac said.

“Everything,” she said.

“We’ll get you something to read,” he said. “There’s a guy in town with a lot of books and he likes to lend ’em to people. He’s sort of an anarchist.”

“Huh?” said Little Mac.

“The guy with all the books,” Big Mac said, tipping him the wink, unseen by Gay.

“Oh, that anarchist,” Little Mac said.

“He must be a very interesting character,” she said. “You must invite him out some time.”

“Hell, he’s just an anarchist with some books,” Big Mac said. “What you need is some good books to curl up with.”

“I don’t want to curl up with a lot of anarchist books,” she said.

“Why, he wouldn’t lend you his anarchist books,” Big Mac said. “He wouldn’t want you to try to get into the act. But I’ll bet he’d lend you some nice happy books about love and stuff.”

“Thanks, I don’t want to read about love and stuff,” she said.

The water in the coffeepot was boiling. She went over and put the coffee in. Big Mac and Little Mac drifted over to the table and they all sat down and looked at the coffeepot.

“I just thought you wouldn’t be so lonesome out here if you had something to read,” Big Mac said, finally.

“Oh, all right,” she said. “I’d like to have something to read . . . but not about love and stuff.”

“I’ll get you anything you want to read,” Big Mac said.

“Thanks,” she said. She couldn’t help it; she blurted, “I found the machine gun.”

“Oh, that,” Big Mac said. “Why, that’s just a little old Thompson gun.”

“Sure, that’s all that is,” Little Mac said.

“What’s it for?”

“Oh, this and that,” Big Mac said.

“You can never tell when a Thompson gun is going to come in handy,” Little Mac said.

“We might want to shoot clay pigeons or something,” Big Mac said. “The only trouble is there’s no ammo for it. A Thompson gun is sort of useless without any ammo.”

“I couldn’t help wondering about it,” she said. “I know it isn’t any of my business . . .”

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said.

“Coffee’s done,” Little Mac said.

“I didn’t mean to pry,” she said, as she poured the coffee. “I saw it there when I was looking for the stove oil.”

They didn’t say anything.

“You’re fugitives, aren’t you?” she said.

“Who, us?” Big Mac said. “Christ, this coffee’s hot.”

“You’re fugitives from justice,” she said.

“Justice?” Little Mac said and laughed.

“What did you do?”

“We put a slug in a slot machine,” Big Mac said. “Look, quit trying to change the subject, will you? We were discussing coffee.”

“Smoke?” Little Mac said, offering her the package.

She took one and so did Big Mac and Little Mac, who lighted hers first and then Big Mac’s, after which he snuffed out the match and lighted his own with a fresh one.

“He’s a superstitious little bastard,” Big Mac said.

“I’m not superstitious,” Little Mac said, grinning. “I just don’t believe in taking chances.”

She took a couple of puffs and then said, “Please, why are you fugitives?”

“You can read all about it in our memoirs,” Big Mac said, and then yawning, “I don’t know what you’re going to do but Little Mac and I are going to bed.”

And they did.

It was quite early when Gay woke. She put on the yellow bathing suit and opened her door quietly. Big Mac and Little Mac were sound asleep, the sheets kicked off on the floor, the pajama pants rucked-up, as usual. She slipped out without waking them and went down to the beach.

The tide was beginning to ebb and the yawl tugged at her mooring. Gay stepped into the water and felt it pull strongly at her ankles. She waded out until it almost swept her off her feet and then started swimming towards the yawl. She had to dig hard to make it.

She pulled herself up into the yawl and sat there, looking at the pink house and the cosy barbecue and thinking about the very old man.

“A white man and a black. Living together. Doesn’t that interest you?”

They didn’t want to tell her why they were fugitives. At least Big Mac didn’t; Little Mac would have told her. She knew that whatever the reason was it couldn’t be a shameful one.

She saw Little Mac come out of the house in his swimming trunks but apparently he didn’t see her. He went over to the barbecue and poured water into the basin from the fresh water keg and washed his hands and face.

Now was her chance, before Big Mac got up.

She lowered herself into the water and started to swim back; she really had to fight the ebbing tide now. She saw Little Mac look up and then run down to the beach. But she made it with a little to spare, at the far end of the sand, just before the tide whipped around the point.

“You oughtn’t to go swimming alone, with the tide ebbing,” Little Mac said.

Breathing hard, she said, “I’m a pretty good swimmer. Jake taught me when I was a little girl.”

“You oughtn’t to play games with that old tide,” Little Mac said.

She wondered if he could be right, if she had been playing a game with the tide, testing herself. . . .

“You go get dressed,” Little Mac said. “I’ll whip up the chow.”

“No,” she said. “That’s my job. Unless you’re tired of eggs?”

“Oh, no,” he said. “We’re crazy about eggs.”

“I’ll just dry out and then I’ll whip up the chow,” she said, stretching out on the warm sand.

Little Mac sat down. He started to say something but didn’t. She knew he’d tell her things if she handled it right.

“Big Mac still pounding his ear?” she said.

“Oh, sure,” Little Mac said. “He’s dead to the world.”

“You’ve been friends a long time, haven’t you?” she said.

“Quite a while,” Little Mac said.

“How long?”

“A couple of years.”

“A couple of years? That’s not so very long.”

“I guess not,” Little Mac said.

“How’d you happen to become such good friends?”

“You’re trying to pump me,” Little Mac said.

“Say that’s right,” she said, the way Big Mac always said it. “How’d you happen to become such good friends?”

“It was the war,” he said. “Police action, I mean. The thing in Korea.”

“You were war buddies?”

“Well, no. We were in different outfits. Met up in a POW camp near the Yalu River, prisoners, you know. I was kind of singing one night and this big white guy joined in. Turned out we knew a lot of the same songs and, well, that’s how we got to know each other pretty good, knowing a lot of the same corny old songs.”

“I love them,” she said, and then, persistently, like a child, “Go on.”

“We got to know each other real good after we crushed out of that POW camp,” Little Mac said. “Escaped, that is. We’d heard on the grapevine they were going to move us way over into Red China, so we made this break, and was it rugged. Only a handful of us got through and then it turned out we’d run the wrong way and about a million Reds were between us and our lines. Well, some peasants hid us out for a while and then they led us to some guys who didn’t like the Reds any better than we did, guerrillas, swell guys, and we put in with them and did a spot of harassing the enemy from the rear. Got so we picked up enough of the lingo to get by. It was a good time. We liked those guys fine, only I got hurt, finally, and couldn’t keep up, but after a while we made it to the coast and were lucky enough to be picked up and . . . well, that’s how it happened. We were kind of beat up, pretty bushed, and they discharged us pretty soon.”

“Thank you, Little Mac,” she said. “Now about the trouble you’re in.”

“Big Mac doesn’t like me to talk about it,” he said.

“Why not?” she said. “Don’t you trust me?”

“Oh, yes, that’s not it,” he said.

“What is it, then?”

“Well, he says I give him the best of it; I make him look too good in there.”

“You can tell me how good he looked in there,” she said.

“Yes,” he said. “Oh, the hell with it, so I’ll be a blabbermouth. It all happened because I forgot I was a nigger.”

On the midsummer afternoon that Little Mac forgot he was a nigger, red-bricked Main Street looked just about the same. It was the first time he’d looked at it since he was a boy but it looked just about the same to Little Mac, Southern warm and lazy, and smelled just the same, honeysuckle sweet.

The cars were slanted into the sidewalk in front of Carter’s Drug Store the way they used to be, just different cars, that was all, red and green topped convertibles and station wagons that were all metal. Even the people, except that they wore snazzy modern sports clothes, looked the same and the soft slur of their voices was the same.

About the only changes Little Mac could notice off-hand were the bowling alley where Dave’s Lunch and The Emporium used to be and the saloon on the corner where The Ladies Shoppe used to be. There were no Negroes on the street but Little Mac didn’t notice that; he didn’t think anything about it.

Little Mac drove his open Chevy into the depot parking lot and got out, stretching and smiling, for he had on his good suit and his Panama hat and he felt prosperous and good. In the old days parking had been free in the depot lot, but now it cost a quarter.

Little Mac flipped one to the kid attendant and started across the brick street, whistling, not noticing the quick scowl the kid gave him. As he reached the sidewalk a man with a heavy white tobacco-stained mustache and wearing a Sheriff’s badge came out of the lunchroom, picking his teeth. Little Mac, feeling good and not noticing the Sheriff’s quick angry look, started up the sidewalk.

He didn’t notice the looks the people gave him; he didn’t notice anything in particular until a man reeled out of the saloon, glared at him, growled, “God-damn uppity nigger!” and pushed him off the sidewalk.

Little Mac stepped back onto the walk again, and when the man started for him again, Little Mac hit him on the chin with a left hook and followed with a right cross, and the man sprawled into the gutter, out cold, his coat falling open to reveal the star of a Deputy Sheriff.

Half a dozen men jumped Little Mac and began to maul him and more men piled out of the saloon and joined in.

The Sheriff watched for a moment or two, then he drew his gun and shouted, “That’ll do, you men! Go on about your business; I’ll take care of this nigra.”

He pushed in and waved the men back and then he took Little Mac up the street, his lips and nose bleeding, his clothes torn, to the jail, upstairs over the Sheriff’s office and across from the Courthouse, just opposite the big statue of General Lee on his horse.

At Ebbets Field the Giants and the Dodgers were all tied up, one and one. It was the last of the seventh and Reese was on second base, with two out and Robinson up.

“Come on, Jackie, bust one!” Big Mac yelled.

He wished Little Mac were there with Jackie up in the clutch. He’d tried to phone him a few times to invite him to go to the game, but there’d been no answer. He had a hunch Jackie was going to deliver and he wished Little Mac were there to see it.

The count went to three and two on Robinson and then he lined one through the hole and that turned out to be it. It was a good game and the only thing Big Mac regretted was that Little Mac hadn’t been there to share it with him.

After the game Big Mac went over to Manhattan, to Cavanagh’s on Twenty-Third Street, and had a big steak and a couple of bottles of Bass and then he called his hotel, in case Little Mac had called, or maybe some babe in an amiable and loving mood.

The clerk said a Miss Cherry had called and that was all right with Big Mac, because Cherry was a nice friendly babe. But there was also a long distance call, collect, from Little Mac.

Big Mac got a cab and went home and called the operator and finally got through. Only it wasn’t Little Mac who answered, it was the Sheriff, who said Little Mac was in jail for assault and bail would be a thousand dollars cash.

Naturally Big Mac didn’t have a thousand dollars cash, he only had about twenty, but he had it in the bank, and they cashed a check for two hundred at his hotel, and he got the rest, fifty here and a hundred there, from bartenders, a gambler he knew and a place across the street from Madison Square Garden where they sold theatre, fight and pro football tickets.

It was almost midnight when Big Mac crawled out of the bus which had brought him from the jerk-water airport on the outskirts of town. The smell of honeysuckle was heavy in the still night air and there were little groups of men in front of the depot, the post office, the bowling alley and the saloon.

Just men, no women were in sight and no Negroes.

The men talked in low voices, every now and then glancing up the street towards Courthouse Square. Each little group fell silent as Big Mac strode past. Their eyes, following the stranger, were hostile and suspicious. But no one said anything to him. After he had passed, he could hear them begin to talk again in low, indistinguishable voices.

Big Mac skirted the big statue of General Lee and approached the jail, dark except for the Sheriff’s office on the ground floor, where a light shone through barred windows. A Deputy Sheriff sat in a rocking chair by the entrance with a rifle across his knees. Big Mac looked back and saw the group from the depot drifting across the street to join the men in front of the bowling alley. The Deputy was watching him speculatively but the rifle rested easily across his knees and he didn’t say anything.

Through the barred windows of his cell, Little Mac had seen Big Mac crossing Courthouse Square and it was a welcome sight because Little Mac had been watching the groups of men up the street and he knew they’d been hitting the bottle.

He heard Big Mac say, “Good evening,” and the Deputy ask, “What you want?” and Big Mac answer, “I’d like to see the Sheriff, please,” and he began to sing “Sam Hall” just loud enough for Big Mac to hear, so he’d know he was all right and up there waiting.

Big Mac heard him and looked up towards the barred windows.

“Now what the hell’s he singin’ about?” the Deputy said.

“Just passing the time,” Big Mac said.

“Yeah?” the Deputy said. “Well, the Sheriff’s inside.”

“Thanks,” Big Mac said.

As he went into the office, Little Mac stopped singing.

The Sheriff was talking on the phone, seated at his cluttered desk, across which lay a Thompson gun.

“Don’t you worry none, Judge,” he was saying. “No, sir, no trouble. . . . Well, you tell the Governor not to worry none, either, sir. . . . Ugly talk? Well, maybe there’s a little talk. . . . Troopers? Shucks, Judge, we don’t want no troopers messin’ ’round. . . . Drinkin’? Well, maybe they got a bottle or two on the hip but I asked Joe to close the saloon and he did. . . . Sure, Ed’s here with a rifle and I got somethin’ more potent than any corn likker you ever saw, that little old Tommygun. Nobody’s gonna argy with that baby. Sure, we can handle ’em. Thanks for callin’, Judge. Regards to the missus.”

As the Sheriff hung up, Big Mac said, “Good evening, Sheriff.”

“Who’re you?” the Sheriff said.

“My name’s McCord,” Big Mac said. “I’ve come about the prisoner, Maconn.”

“You got here mighty quick, mister,” the Sheriff said, crossing to his desk and taking a big chew from his plug.

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said.

“Lawyer?” the Sheriff said, sitting in the creaky swivel chair.

“No. Friend.”

“Friend, eh?”

The Sheriff spit a thin stream at the cuspidor and missed it.

“Yeah, friend,” Big Mac said. “I’d like to bail him out but I want to talk to him, first.”

“You got the bail . . . a thousand dollars . . . cash?”

“I’ve got it,” Big Mac said.

“All right,” the Sheriff said. “I reckon you can talk to him. He don’t look too purty. Resisted arrest.”

The Sheriff let Big Mac through a barred door, turned on a dim light and pointed to a flight of stairs. There were half a dozen cells in the front of the building and Little Mac was in one of them. There were no other prisoners.

“Hi, Big?” Little Mac said, with a rueful smile.

It was a kind of twisted smile because his lips were a lot thicker than usual and his face was a little out of shape all over.

“Hello, sucker,” Big Mac said. “Looks like you forgot to duck.”

“Worse than that,” Little Mac said. “I forgot I was a nigger.”

He told Big Mac what had happened, after which Big Mac went back downstairs and turned the bail money over to the Sheriff.

As the Sheriff laboriously made out the bail papers, Big Mac went to the door and looked out. The Deputy was still rocking, the rifle across his knees. The little groups of men were one group now, in front of the bowling alley.

“Those men are getting together,” Big Mac said.

“I can handle ’em,” the Sheriff said, busy with the papers.

“I hope so,” Big Mac said.

“There ain’t been a lynchin’ in the South for two year,” the Sheriff said. “I read it in the paper.”

“Just the same, I wouldn’t mind getting along,” Big Mac said. “Mind hurrying a little, Sheriff?”

“I’m hurryin’,” the Sheriff said. “I’ll be glad to get shet of that trouble-making nigra.”

“He didn’t make the trouble,” Big Mac said, coming over to the desk.

“You call beatin’ the hell out of a white man, an’ a Deputy Sheriff to boot, not makin’ trouble?”

“The man was drunk and shoved him off the sidewalk,” Big Mac said.

“Well, he should of stayed where he belongs.”

“He used to belong here,” Big Mac said. “He was born here.”

“I been here thirteen year,” the Sheriff said, “and I know ever’ nigra in the county by his first name and I never seen this ’un before.”

“He went away with his family when he was just a kid,” Big Mac said. “He came back to collect a little money left him by the man his father used to work for, a man named Maconn. His grandfather used to belong to the Maconn family.”

“Oh,” the Sheriff said. “Mr. Fred Maconn. Well, why the hell didn’t he collect his money and light out?”

“He didn’t have a chance,” Big Mac said.

“Well, he sure picked a bad time to drive up Main Street in that snappy Chevy, an uppity-lookin’ strange nigra in a hunderd-dollar suit an’ a Panama hat,” the Sheriff said.

“A bad time?”

“Yeah. Ever’ nigra in this town had sense enough to lay low today. A little girl was raped an’ killed last night. She was white.”

“By a Negro?” Big Mac asked.

“White folks don’t go around rapin’ little girls,” the Sheriff said.

“It’s been known to happen,” Big Mac said. “You don’t know if it was a Negro or not, and even if you did, it wasn’t Little Mac.”

“I ain’t sayin’ it was,” the Sheriff said. “All right, here’s your receipt. I’ll get your friend and you can light out. If I was him, I’d forget to come back.”

As the Sheriff went to get Little Mac, Big Mac moved to the door again.

A wave of men was slowly rolling up the street. They weren’t a crowd of individual men any more; they were one; corn whiskey and grief and rage and smouldering deep-seated fear had fused them into a mob.

The man they sought was no longer another human being, innocent or guilty. He was a symbol; he was Nigger; he was The Black Rapist.

“Christ!” the Deputy with the rifle said.

As he creaked out of the rocking chair and hurried inside and across the office and on out through the back door, Little Mac stepped through the barred door and saw them coming.

The Sheriff’s jaw went slack. As Big Mac stepped back and barred the front door, Little Mac stepped quickly to the desk and picked up the Thompson gun.

“You gimme that!” the Sheriff croaked.

Little Mac just shook his head, but Big Mac, turning, said quietly, “That’s right, Little Mac, you give the Sheriff that equalizer and he’ll take care of you, like he promised the Judge a while ago.”

He took the Thompson gun from Little Mac and looked to the Sheriff.

“Won’t you, Sheriff?”

Hearing the mob coming, with its wordless cry, the Sheriff started to back off.

“You’ll protect him or by God I will,” Big Mac said.

“All right, God damn it!” the Sheriff cried, grabbing the Thompson gun. “I can talk to those fellers!”

He strode to one of the windows, bringing the gun up, boldly, through the bars. Outside the mob spread out in the square, murmuring.

“I wanna talk to you men!” the Sheriff yelled.

The mob grew quiet for a moment and then someone shouted, “We don’t want no talk; we want that God-damn nigger!”

Then the others took it up and everybody was yelling. The Sheriff held up a hand and the yelling died away and there was only muttering.

“I don’t want no trouble with nobody,” the Sheriff said. “But this nigra’s a prisoner of the county and I’m sworn to pertect him. I promised Judge Hawkins I would and by God I’m gonna! So go on home now, all of you, before somebody gits hurt.”

Somebody yelled, “Nigger-lover!”

And somebody else yelled, “We want that dinge, gonna singe that dinge!”

Then the mob began to move forward. Everybody was yelling now.

“Stand back, you fools!” the Sheriff yelled, waving the Thompson gun.

The ones in front tried to hold back, but those behind were pushing and nobody could stop. The Sheriff fired a burst from the Thompson gun over their heads and then another burst as the ones in front were pushed up the steps.

Big Mac and Little Mac drew behind him as he turned, the machine gun ready, towards the door. It rocked with heavy blows and then fell. The close-packed mob paused as the Sheriff held the Thompson gun squarely on them.

“Now, fellas, don’t be crazy,” he said. “I’m only doin’ my duty. God damn it, stand back!”

The ones in front tried to back up but there was no stopping the ones behind, those safely out of the gun’s range. They pushed and shoved at the backs of those ahead, slowly squeezing them into the room.

“God damn it, I can’t!” the Sheriff whimpered. “They’re my own neighbors. . . .”

He pitched the Thompson gun into a corner, where it fell behind the desk.

The mob swarmed into the office and the Sheriff went down from a blow and Big Mac went down from a dozen and the mob slugged Little Mac and tore his clothes off and then carried him out of the office on their shoulders.

A big old-fashioned convertible with the top back drove up, and Little Mac was thrown into it and men climbed in and onto the running boards and the convertible started to roll.

The rest of the men were running to other cars, their own or anybody’s and piling into them and hanging on the running boards and yelling. All of them crowded into and onto a dozen cars and rolled down the main street with the horns screaming and out onto the county road.

Big Mac got up off the floor, half dazed. The office was very still, except for the Sheriff, who lay on the floor face down, whimpering. Big Mac took hold of the desk and steadied himself. Then he saw the Thompson gun lying behind it.

He picked it up, jerked out the top drawer of the desk, grabbed another magazine for the gun and limped to the rear door. He unbarred and opened it. The rear yard was deserted and the Sheriff’s car with its big white star on the side was parked there.

Big Mac ran down the steps and got into the car and gunned the motor. Backing it out into the quiet street, he swung it around and started in the direction from which the sound of the horns came now, faintly.

It was an old Cad but it could go. Big Mac kept the pedal clear down until, in the distance, he could see the flames. He eased up a little as he came nearer and nosed the Cad in behind a bunch of cars. The mob was very quiet now and all you could hear was the crackle of the flames.

Big Mac took the Thompson gun from the car and edged forward between the closely packed cars. Everybody was looking at the flames and the rope with a noose in it which a man kept trying to throw over a high limb above the fire. No one even noticed Big Mac as he squeezed slowly forward. The rope finally settled over the limb and somebody laughed, the first sound from the mob.

Little Mac, naked and bleeding, but conscious now, still lay in the back of the convertible which stood so close to the flames that its paint was blistering. As one of the men ran over to put the noose around his neck so that they could swing him up and out over the flames, Little Mac saw Big Mac step out into the open with the Thompson gun and there was something in his eyes that Little Mac had seen there once or twice before.

Big Mac swung the piece slowly around and said quietly, “I’m taking my friend out of here, boys. Please don’t make me shoot anybody with this thing. In the guts it hurts like hell.”

He waved the Thompson gun and the men moved back a little because the ones in the front could see the something in his eyes and they knew what it was even though they’d never seen it before.

Big Mac waved them all to one side and then he turned and sprayed the front tires of all the cars with short little bursts, all but the Sheriff’s car, while Little Mac crawled out of the convertible and ran to the Sheriff’s car and climbed in behind the wheel.

“Come on, Big!” he yelled and started the motor.

Big Mac slowly backed towards the Sheriff’s car and for a moment none in the mob moved or seemed to breathe.

Then someone yelled, someone safely in the rear, “Are we gonna let that nigger-lover get away with this?”

And someone else safely in the rear yelled, “Hell no. Rush the son-of-a-bitch!”

The ones in the rear began to yell and push and when the ones in front, who had seen what was in Big Mac’s eyes, clawed and swore and ducked sidewise, the ones in the middle were shoved past them and four or five of them rushed wildly.

From the step of the Sheriff’s car Big Mac squeezed on the Thompson gun and the two men leading the rush stopped suddenly and grabbed at their stomachs and then sprawled, screaming, while the ones behind stopped and put out their hands, palms up as if to ward off the bullets, and began to back up.

Big Mac didn’t squeeze any more. He slid in beside Little Mac, who gunned the motor and slammed the car back until he hit the highway, when he shifted and they roared off down the county road towards the swamp and the river which lay beyond it.

Gay said, huskily, “I can hear him saying it, ‘I’m going to take my friend out of here.’ And I can see him swinging that Thompson gun.”

“He swung it slow,” Little Mac said. “Real slow and I knew he’d play it rooty-toot-toot if he had to, only those men didn’t.”

“He swung it slow,” she murmured.

“We hated it about the dogs,” Little Mac said.

“Dogs?”

“Yeah,” Little Mac said. “They chased us with the hounds. They always do. We ditched the car and took to the swamp, heading for the river, and after a while we could hear those dogs. They caught up with us before we could reach the water and there was nothing Big Mac could do but open up with that Thompson gun again or the men would have caught us for sure. Old Big had to open up on those dogs and he sure hated to and bawled like a baby afterwards, but there was just nothing else to do.”

“He cried over them,” she murmured. “He’s always giving me hell for crying.”

“The trouble was, a couple of those men died and they called it murder, murder in the first degree,” Little Mac said.

“Murder in the first degree,” Gay said, murmuring.

“That’s what it said in that old indictment,” Little Mac said. “I shouldn’t have slugged that guy; he didn’t know any better.”

“And now you’ve got to keep running,” she said, sorrowfully. “You’ve got to keep running forever. You can never go home again.”

Little Mac grinned and said, “We can go home any old time, only we’re opposed to capital punishment.”

She looked at him for a long moment and then said, “Little Mac, where are you going when you get your getaway stake?”

“Well, there was some talk about China,” he said.

“China,” she said. “The guerrillas . . . your friends . . .”

Big Mac came out of the house in his swimming trunks and yelled, “Hey, when do we eat?”

“In a jiffy,” she said, springing up and slipping into her robe. “You two take a dip and I’ll whip it right up.”

While she scrambled the eggs, in butter, Big Mac and Little Mac staged their usual race to the yawl and back, with the usual result, even though Big Mac gave him a bigger handicap than usual.

When they came out, dripping, she served the breakfast. Nobody said anything while they ate. Gay kept looking at Big Mac and thinking of him facing the mob with the Thompson gun in his hands, seeing him as he “swung it slow.”

“What the hell’s the matter?” Big Mac said, finally.

“Matter?” she said and Little Mac said, “Matter?”

“You keep looking at me in a funny way,” Big Mac said.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“Do I look funny?”

“No,” she said. “You don’t look funny to me, Big Mac.”

She looked as if she were going to cry.

“For Christ’s sake!” Big Mac cried. “What have I done now?”

“N . . . nothing,” she said. “N . . . nothing . . . n . . . now.”

“Well, for Christ’s sake don’t bawl about it!”

Dabbing at her eyes, she said, “You bawled . . . about the d . . . dogs.”

“What!”

“He told me about it, Mac,” she said. “He told me all about Dixie.”

“Blabbermouth!” Big Mac growled.

“I made him tell, I dragged it out of him,” she said. Making her lips stop trembling, she said, “No substitute for guts . . . yes, Big Mac, you sure looked pretty good in there.”

“Well, I had the difference, didn’t I? I had the God-damn Thompson gun.”

“The difference,” she said. “Yes, you certainly had the difference.”

“This silly little shitepoke probably gave me all the best of it,” Big Mac complained. “He always gives me the best of it, the little bastard! Think he’d tell how he carried me halfway across China to the God-damn coast, me with a slug in my guts and helpless as a God-damn puling baby? Oh, no!”

“He said he was wounded,” she said.

“For once he told no lie,” Big Mac said. “For Christ’s sake, he had a festering hole in his God-damn fanny that was so bad he was out of his silly head half the time, delirious, by God, and me not able to lift a hand to help. Why, you little punk, I ought to take a poke at you!”

“Blabbermouth,” Little Mac said. “You don’t weigh enough.”

They had quite an argument about the cook book. Big Mac brought the subject up one day while they were carrying the fresh water up from the spring. Little Mac was against it.

“It’s like giving your wife a washing machine for Christmas,” he said.

“That’s silly,” Big Mac said. “This isn’t Christmas and she isn’t our wife.”

“You jerk, if we go and give her a cook book, she’ll think we don’t like her cooking,” Little Mac said.

“Well, we don’t,” Big Mac said.

“The eggs are better now that she always cooks ’em in butter,” Little Mac said.

“I’m sick of scrambled eggs and you are, too, you liar,” Big Mac said.

“I could show her how to poach ’em,” Little Mac said.

“I’m sick of eggs, period,” Big Mac said. “God damn it, you used to make hotcakes once in a while.”

“I’ll tell her how to make hotcakes,” Little Mac said.

“All right, how do you make ’em?”

“Why, you simply mix up the stuff and get your griddle hot and . . . well, hell, I can’t tell anybody but I can show her.”

“If she had a real good cook book, you wouldn’t have to show her. You can’t show women anything, anyhow. Besides, maybe she could learn to cook all sorts of gunk out of a book.”

“Maybe she could learn to cook a chocolate cake,” Little Mac said. “Well, all right. I just hope it won’t hurt her feelings.”

“My stomach is just as tender as her feelings,” Big Mac said, “and it’s been taking a hell of a beating.”

The next morning when Gay woke up, she found the cook book on the chair beside her bed, opened at “Hotcakes.” It didn’t hurt her feelings; it amused her at first and then it scared her. The cook book put her on the spot.

Studying the recipe, she went out into the patio and began to set out the various ingredients and utensils. Absorbed in the recipe, she knocked the heavy iron griddle off the stove. Bending to pick it up, she saw the man on the beach.

He was lying sprawled on his back, with an old newspaper over his face to keep out the sun, puffing furiously upon a long black cigar which stuck out from a hole in the paper. As she stared, he sat up, and shoving the paper aside, turned to look at her. It was Old Mac and he had let his whiskers grow.

“Hi?” he said and then got creakily to his feet with the aid of his cane and picked up his roll of blankets.

“Why, hello!” she said. “We wondered what had become of you.”

“You did, eh? Thanks. Had a little unfinished business to tend to before I settle down to beachcombing permanently. Say, what you trying to do there, anyhow?”

“Why, I was just going to cook some hotcakes,” she said, as he hobbled up the steps.

“Out of a God-damn book? Are you crazy?”

He dropped his bindle, snatched the cook book out of her hand and threw it across the patio.

“Look, there are some things you can learn out of a book and some you can’t, like cooking or playing piano or making love. Out of my way and I’ll show you how Maggie used to make the best damn hotcakes that ever tickled a gullet. Maggie was my girl.”

“Yes, I remember,” she said.

He began to prepare the batter.

“You know what, I lied a minute ago when I said I had some unfinished business,” he said. “Sometimes I lie just for the fun of it. Matter of fact that son-of-a-bitch of a male wet nurse caught up with me that night and practically turkey-walked me back to the ship.”

“He made you go?”

“Yeah. I hadn’t worked up quite enough gumption to squeeze his Adam’s apple till he spit cider. After all my bragging, too! Let him take me right back to that God-damn bedpan.”

He poured batter into the pan.

“But it had a happy ending,” he said. “I finally took off and went over the hill, I finally got shed of that Johansen bastard. Ask me how I did it.”

“All right, how did you get shed of him?”

He smiled happily and said, “Why, I simply hit him over the head with that bedpan and I’m sorry to say it was empty at the time.”

She laughed.

Flipping the hotcakes over expertly, he said, “That’s only the second time I ever saw you laugh and I still like it. You did all right, didn’t you? Moved right in, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” she said. “I wished myself on them.”

“Just what the doctor ordered,” he said. “Told you all this spot needed was a woman.”

He looked towards the clothesline and chuckled. There were three yellow pajama tops there, one very big, one medium, one small.

“I’ll bet you look cute in just the tops,” he said.

“I wished myself on them and they bought me a bed and pillow cases and a chair and a lipstick and black silk nightgowns and when I said I didn’t wear ’em, they got me the yellow pajamas,” she said.

“Yeah, you did all right,” he said, sliding the golden cakes out onto a plate, and putting them where they’d keep warm.

As he poured more batter, she said, “And they took the yellow rayon panties back because I itched in them and got me yellow silk ones. Don’t ever tell them I don’t like yellow, because I’m trying to get to.”

“I won’t tell ’em,” he said, solemnly.

“They even built a privy,” she said. “They didn’t have any privy; they didn’t need one till I wished myself on them. They built a privy out back of the house with a crescent in the door.”

“That was thoughtful of ’em,” Old Mac said.

“They’re the kindest, most wonderful men,” she said. “They’re Jake’s kind of men.”

“Mine, too,” Old Mac said.

“I want to tell you the kind of men they are,” she said. “They . . .”

“I know what kind of men they are,” the old man said. “Big McCord and Little Maconn.” As she stared at him, he said, “Relax, baby. I’m on their side.”

“But how . . . how did you . . .?”

“Looked up Little Mac’s kisser in the morgue,” Old Mac said.

“The morgue?”

“Files, you ninny,” Old Mac said, sliding more golden cakes out of the pan and onto the plate. “Reference Room of The New York Times. They keep files of most papers there.”

“I don’t understand . . .”

“Well, his face looked so damned familiar,” Old Mac said, pouring more batter. “I kept trying to place it. I figured maybe I’d seen it in the paper . . . and then it came to me. Why, I’d seen it in my own sheet, The Tennessee Rebel. Right on page one. So I leafed back and found it.”

“Fugitives,” she murmured. “And I wished myself on them. They took money out of the kitty, their getaway kitty, to buy all those things.”

“Getaway!” Old Mac snorted, flipping the cakes neatly. “Nobody in his right mind would want to get away from Paradise.”

“They’re in their right minds and they do,” she said. “They want to join the Chinese guerrillas . . . to fight for something.”

Old Mac grunted and slid more cakes onto the plate.

“They watched over me and helped me, a stranger, and a selfish little bitch, just like you said, with no guts.”

Pouring more batter, the old man murmured, “The beginning of wisdom.”

“What?”

“Oh, nothing,” he said. “You tell ’em about Carnegie Hall yet?”

“Carnegie Hall? Yes, I told them. . . . How . . . how did you know about that?”

“That same morgue of the Times,” he said. “Looked up all the clips on your old man, and found the one about you. How come you took that powder, baby? How come you tucked in your tail and ran?”

“No guts,” she said, bitterly. “As Big Mac says, ‘There’s no God-damn substitute for guts.’ ”

“Say that’s right,” he said. “Look, I brought you a little something. It’s in that little old bindle of mine. Break it out, will you?”

“You brought me a present?”

“Yeah,” he said. “It may come in handy; I don’t know. Open it.”

As she picked up the blanket roll, Big and Little Mac came out of the house in their yellow robes and trunks, and stared at the old man, who was adding a new batch of cakes to the pile. Not noticing them, Gay began to undo the roll. Big and Little Mac crossed towards the barbecue.

“Why, it’s old Mac Abercrombie and Mac Fitch,” Little Mac said. “Hi?”

Old Mac turned and gaped at their bright yellow bathing suits.

“Man, man, Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like these! Say, what color is that, anyhow?”

“Why . . . yellow,” Big Mac said.

“Old Big’s partial to yellow,” Little Mac said.

“On him it’s becoming,” Gay said.

“Old Mac, where the hell have you been?” Big Mac said.

“You miss me?”

“Did anybody say anything about missing you?” Big Mac said. “I thought I just asked you where you’d been?”

“Finishing an argument,” Old Mac said. “I won it, I might add.”

“He hit the wet nurse over the head with the bedpan,” Gay said, still working on the bindle.

“A blunt instrument!” Little Mac grinned.

“Tell ’em the rest of it,” Old Mac said.

“He’s sorry to say it was empty at the time,” she said.

Big Mac and Little Mac laughed.

“Say, what’s your front name, Big Mac?”

“Elwood!” Big Mac barked, and, as the old man cackled, “Want to make something of it?”

Looking at Big Mac’s frame, Old Mac said, “Not right now.”

“Elwood, that’s a nice name,” Gay said. “What’s your first name, Little Mac?”

“Horace,” said Little Mac, sheepishly.

“That’s a nice name, too,” she said. “Still and all, I think I’ll just keep on calling you Little Mac and Big Mac.”

“Me too,” Old Mac said. “Say, let’s put on the nosebag.”

Big Mac sat down and Old Mac forked cakes onto hot plates and put them on the table and then rolled the water keg over and sat on it. Gay, having finally opened the bindle, took out Jake’s smiling photograph and a portfolio with sheet music in it and stared at the faded lettering, “Jan Langner.”

Big Mac, not noticing, slapped the old man’s hand as he started to pick up a forkful of hotcakes to eat them, and growled, “Where the hell’s your manners?”

Little Mac, watching Gay, said, “What you got there?”

“It’s just a picture and some music I brought her,” Old Mac said. “Now can I eat?”

“No,” Big Mac said.

“That a picture of your pappy?” Little Mac asked.

She nodded, lips trembling, and opened the roll of music.

“That his music, too?” Big Mac said.

She nodded again, biting her lip.

“Where’d you get her old man’s picture and his music?” Big Mac said, slapping Old Mac’s hand again as he was about to sneak a mouthful.

“Her cabin,” Old Mac said. “Bribed the steward for ’em. Figured maybe she could use ’em.”

“Say, you’re not a bad old coot,” Big Mac said, and looking over Gay’s shoulder he said, “Hmmmm. Grande Polonaise in E Flat, Op Twenty-Two by Fredric Chopin.”

“It’s opus, not op, dope,” Little Mac said.

“I bet she could murder it,” Big Mac said.

“In the first degree!” she said.

“Only we haven’t got any piano,” Big Mac said.

“That’s so,” Little Mac said. “What we need is a piano.”

“Say!” said Big Mac, inspired. “What about the one up at One Eye Lou’s . . .” but broke off as Little Mac gave him a warning kick and said, lamely, “No, I guess that wouldn’t be practical.”

Old Mac, having finally sneaked a mouthful of cakes, said, thickly, but with interest, “Cathouse?”

“I said it wasn’t practical, didn’t I?” Big Mac growled, then to Gay, “Sit down, will you, before this old bugger guzzles all the hotcakes.”

Gay sat down dully and then Little Mac sat down and dug into the cakes.

Big Mac took a forkful, began to eat and then turned to Gay and said through the cakes, “Thought you couldn’t make hotcakes?”

Gay said, miserably, “I can’t!”

Big Mac, swallowing, said, “That’s silly, these cakes are terrific.”

She gulped and looked at him tragically.

“Oh, nuts!” he said. “Fudge, that is!”

She sobbed suddenly, uncontrollably, and stood up.

As she ran blindly towards the house, Big Mac said, “Now what did I say?”

Concerned, Little Mac watched Gay hurry into the house, but Old Mac went on eating.

Big Mac said, “Sometimes I think I don’t understand women,” and went back to eating.

Old Mac, having finished his stack of hotcakes, sighed happily, lighted one of his long black cigars, took a few puffs, rubbed his belly and belched contentedly.

“This is the life,” Old Mac said.

She lay with her face pressed into the pillow—“We haven’t got any pillow cases on account of we haven’t got any pillows”—until someone knocked on the door. She didn’t answer or move until she heard the door being opened. Then she turned and saw Big Mac peering in.

“Stop knocking yourself out,” he said.

Then he backed out and closed the door. After a minute or two she got up and went to the window. Big Mac and Little Mac and Old Mac were getting into the dinghy. They pushed it out and Little Mac secured the outboard motor and spun it and they headed out around the point, with Big Mac throwing out a trolling line.

Fish for dinner.

As soon as they were around on the point, out of sight, she went outside. She found the cook book where Old Mac had thrown it and sat in the new canvas chair and studied how you cooked fish.

But that didn’t satisfy her. So she leafed through the book until she found a recipe for chocolate cake. Men always liked chocolate cake. So she whipped one up just the way the book said to and then she baked it and made the icing and put it on and it looked good enough to eat.

After a while the dinghy came around the point again and Little Mac steered it into the beach. They heaved it up on the sand and hauled out their catch, a pretty good one. They came up onto the patio, swinging their fish, and then they saw the beautiful chocolate cake.

“Well, what do you know,” said Big Mac.

“Chocolate cake!” Little Mac cried.

“I made it,” she said. “I made it out of the book.”

“Humph,” Old Mac said.

He poked a finger at the cake and the still wet icing came off on it. He licked the icing off his finger. Gay was looking at him anxiously.

“Marvelous,” Old Mac said.

“Let’s all have a piece,” Little Mac said.

“You’ll spoil your dinner that I’m going to cook out of the book,” Gay said.

“I always take my dessert first,” Big Mac said.

So she cut each of them a medium-sized piece and a small one for herself. Old Mac got busy lighting a cigar. Gay took a bite of the cake, gulped, swallowed, and then glared at Old Mac.

“My God!” she cried. “It tastes like an old sock!”

Old Mac didn’t say anything but Little Mac chuckled.

“Had bad luck with your chocolate cake, eh? My mother used to have bad luck with her biscuit, so she said. But they were always super just the same.”

“Don’t!” she implored. “It’s lousy.”

But Little Mac and Big Mac both took big bites. They looked very funny for a moment but then they swallowed, manfully.

“Like Mother used to make,” Big Mac gasped.

“I told you not to eat it,” she said. “You don’t have to rub it in!”

“Well, it is like Mother used to make,” Big Mac said. “Of course she couldn’t cook for sour apples. . . . Hey, where are you going with that cake?”

“I’m going to bury it with the rest of the garbage!”

He took the cake away from her and said, “Relax, cake makes you fat, anyhow.”

“Stop being so God-damn nice about it!” she cried, and, turning on Old Mac, “You said it was marvelous!”

“I should stick my neck out?” Old Mac said. “I’m new here.”

“I tried to do it just the way the book said to,” she said, unhappily.

“I told you not to fiddle around with that cook book,” Old Mac said. “You just stand by, with your eyes peeled, and I’ll show you how to cook fish; you simply bake it, in butter.”

She stood by and watched and when Big Mac and Little Mac ate it they said it was super. She knew it was good but she just pecked at it.

After they’d gone to work, she asked Old Mac if he’d tell her how to bake a chocolate cake, adding, “Just tell me, don’t show me. I’ve got to learn.”

So Old Mac just told her how and when she had put it in the oven, he said he guessed he’d be running along.

“You sleep here,” she said. “I’ll make a pallet for you in their room.”

“I’m not going to sleep in any pink house,” he said. “Whoever heard of a beachcomber with whiskers sleeping in a pink house? I’m going to pitch camp over in the trees on the ocean side and snore like hell if I want to and in the morning I’m going to swim raw, where there aren’t any girls around to rubber.”

When Big Mac and Little Mac came home at three, she had the coffee ready and the chocolate cake.

“I made it,” she said. “Old Mac told me how, but I did it.”

Big Mac looked at it skeptically but Little Mac took a big bite and then announced, “It’s the second best chocolate cake I ever tasted.”

Big Mac took a big bite, chewed it for a moment and then growled, “What do you mean, the second best chocolate cake? This is the best chocolate cake you ever saw!”

“It’s the best I ever made, anyhow,” Gay said.

“You sure had good luck with it this time,” Little Mac said.

“I don’t know why, it just seemed to go all right,” she said.

“Did it feel good, it’s going all right?” Big Mac asked.

“Why, yes,” she said.

“Well, that’s the way it goes,” Big Mac said.

“Say, I hope I didn’t hurt your feelings saying it was only the second best chocolate cake,” Little Mac said.

“Why, I thought it was a beautiful compliment,” she said. “You were remembering when you were a little boy and your mother made chocolate cake, weren’t you?”

“Say, you guessed,” Little Mac said.

“Tomorrow I’m going to cook the dinner,” she said. “I’m going to cook all of it. I’ll make out a list and you can get all the stuff. I’m going to start with stuff out of cans and work up.”

The next afternoon, the three men stayed down on the beach, Little Mac and Old Mac playing honeymoon bridge and Big Mac just lying on his back, while Gay cooked the dinner out of cans.

“This better turn out to be good,” Big Mac muttered after a while.

“Well, we can brag about it, anyhow,” Little Mac said.

“You better brag about it,” Old Mac said, “or you’re going to have trouble with me.”

“You don’t weigh enough,” Big Mac said. “Suppose it’s lousy? What’ll we say?”

“Just say it’s super and let it go at that,” Little Mac said.

“You may be a hell of a honeymoon bridge player but you’re one lousy psychologist,” Big Mac said. “If we say it’s super and it really stinks, it’ll knock her for a loop; she’s no dope.”

“All right, if it stinks, we’ll say it stinks,” Little Mac said.

“You don’t have to be vulgar about it,” Big Mac said. “If it stinks we can just say, ‘Ummmm, not bad.’ ”

Just then Gay called, “Dinner is served.”

They had little pig sausages and scalloped tomatoes and biscuits and strawberry preserves, all out of cans.

“Ummmm, not bad!” Old Mac said.

“That does it!” Big Mac said. “Put up your dukes!”

“Sucker, it isn’t what you say, it’s how you say it,” Old Mac said.

“Just super, that’s all,” Little Mac said.

“I’m going to cook all the meals from now on,” Gay said, proudly. “You can bring stuff in from the market, fresh stuff, no more chop suey and stuff out of cans. Except the biscuit, of course.”

“Some night I’ll cook a little dish for you,” said Old Mac. “It’s called slumgullion. Maggie taught me how to make it. Of course, I added a few improvements.”

“Who’s Maggie?” Big Mac asked.

“My girl,” Old Mac said.

“They were married for more than forty years,” Gay said.

“That’s a long time to be married,” Little Mac said.

“To one woman,” Big Mac added.

“It didn’t seem long at the time,” Old Mac said. “How about it, kid, can I show off my cooking once in a while?”

“All right, once in a while,” she said. “On special occasions. But I’m going to be the chief cook. I’ve been studying up how to make corn bread. It’s supposed to go very fine with pork.”

“The first thing you know we’ll get fat, you’ll get fat yourself and develop a big can, so you’ll waddle like a duck,” Big Mac said.

“I find me a duck that can cook like this out of cans and I’m going to marry it,” Old Mac said. “Pass the biscuits.”

“You’re just plain ignorant,” she said. “It’s biscuit, like it’s fish . . . and sheep.”

Coming down the hill from the Casino, Ulrich saw Stein, the fat little doctor, leaving One Eye Lou’s, looking pleased with himself. Ulrich increased his pace. As he came up behind Dr. Stein, Ulrich could hear the little man humming.

“You are happy this afternoon, Doctor?” he said.

“Yes,” Dr. Stein said. “I am happy.”

“The kind you pay for, eh?” Ulrich said, nodding towards One Eye Lou’s.

“No, Mr. Ulrich,” Dr. Stein said. “My call was a professional one. The weekly check-up. I am happy because my patients, the daughters of joy, are healthy.”

“If health makes you happy, you can’t be very happy in my company,” Ulrich said, as they started down the hill.

“You have not asked for my diagnosis,” Dr. Stein said, “but I think I can tell you what is wrong. . . .”

“No, I haven’t asked,” Ulrich said. “I know, you see. I am lonely.”

“It is a malady difficult to prescribe for,” Dr. Stein said. “The ladies of the night suffer from it, too. Perhaps a visit to them, a sharing through the communion of the flesh . . .”

“They are not for me, Dr. Stein,” he murmured. “I do not like them.”

“They also serve,” the doctor said. “They feed certain hungers.”

“Let us not discuss trollops!”

“As you wish.”

“I am a lover of purity,” Ulrich said.

The doctor gave him a quick look but said no more, nor did Ulrich, until they reached the bottom of the hill, when he asked, abruptly, “Doctor, could you give me something to make me sleep?”

“Yes,” the doctor said. “A suggestion. Sun. You live too much in the night, man. You need the sun.”

“I do not like the sun,” Ulrich said, and then, softly, “I like the night.”

“You should take that dory of yours out in the afternoons,” Dr. Stein said. “You should get some of the sun in you, some tan on your cheeks, some air in your lungs; you should get some exercise.”

“And if I don’t, Doctor?” he half whispered.

“You will die, Mr. Ulrich.”

“Don’t we all?”

“Sooner or later,” the doctor said. “Very well, Mr. Ulrich, I will give you some pills to make you sleep.”

When it was dawn again, Ulrich took two of the pills. He slept for an hour or two without dreaming. Then he began to dream. The same dream. It was always the same dream. The sweet young soft naked girls . . . so innocent . . . so wanton.

In the dream they liked him . . . he charmed them with his gentle voice . . . their hearts and their bodies went out to him . . . they wanted to share his loneliness . . . and by the sharing, destroy it.

They loved him in the dream. They came to him, stroking his head gently, offering him their small pointed breasts. . . .

This morning he struggled in the dream, trying to wake himself, but the drug held him, and he couldn’t wake.

This was one of the worst, because the soft young naked girl was dead; it was the girl he’d had trouble with Big Mac over, the girl in the pink dress. She was sweet and soft and young and naked and desirable and desirous, but she was dead, with seaweed in her hair.

Naked and dead she came out of the water, the riptide where she had jumped that night; she came out dripping and amorous for him, smiling at him, a smile tender and ghastly, holding out her arms to him, yearning for his nakedness with hers. . . and then she saw his eyes and screamed. . . . He woke in a cold sweat. His own voice, screaming, had wakened him.

Christ! he thought. Dead she hates me; dead she’s scared of me!

They all do now . . . they all turn away from me. Even the sex-starved schoolmarms. Even the lost ones at One Eye Lou’s . . . even ugly One Eye Lou herself! I offer them love . . . I offer them my loneliness. . . .

He remembered the first time he’d ever been to One Eye Lou’s. . . the sweet very young little Negress . . . you saw her through a peephole . . . in a very bright light . . . lying naked on the bed . . . a child playing at motherhood . . . holding a doll, a big life-sized doll, white, to her ebony breast.

The sight had touched him . . . and stirred him.

“She is a little black madonna; I want her,” he had whispered to One Eye Lou.

“Oh, you don’t want that,” One Eye Lou had said. “That’s strictly old man bait.”

But he had persisted and One Eye Lou had let him into the room.

She lay there on the bed the color of midnight in the very bright light for the peephole customers giving the white baby the doll her eager nipples.

She couldn’t see me for the light but she heard me and switched off the light so we could be alone there in the dark away from their peeping eyes.

She kissed away the tears her little cat’s tongue like Bettyjane’s so long ago licked my wet eyelids. . . . And when I was ready for her I whispered . . . Ask me, ask me, I must be asked. . . .

And she did she asked me using the short ugly word . . . not the way Bettyjane asked and I couldn’t because I wanted her very tenderly like a bride because she was my bride my child. . . .

And then she shouted the short ugly word again and again and when I cried again in shame she didn’t kiss the tears away she turned on the bright light for the peephole customers and laughed at me!

I could hear the peephole customers laughing too and then she saw into my eyes and screamed . . . that dirty little nigger whore screamed!

He remembered the only other time, the last time at One Eye Lou’s, over a year ago, when none of them would go with him, even for a handful of bills. Writhing, he remembered begging them, begging them all, finally even maimed horrible old old One Eye Lou, and the way she looked at him, shaking her head, “Not for all the tea in China!”

Girls have liked me. There was one in New Orleans . . . Creole . . . a wildcat. She loved love . . . she loved me. . . . What was her name?

I don’t remember her name. The only one I remember is Bettyjane.

He whispered the name, remembering, calling her back across the years. . . .

A blonde child . . . virginal. . . if only she hadn’t screamed!

He reached for the bottle of pills, spilled them into his hand.

How many? How many not to be lonely any more?

But he was shaking so, the pills rolled out of his hand; they rolled across the floor.

Maybe if I do as the doctor said. . . . Maybe if I get some tan on me, some sun in me, some air. . . . Maybe they’ll like me . . . at least one of the lost ones. . . . Sam says there’s a new one there . . . French . . . young . . . maybe even as soft and sweet and young as the one who jumped off Lovers Leap. . . .

In the hot afternoon sun he rowed feverishly. He was panting and sweating. He stopped rowing, nearly exhausted. And the hot sweat grew cold, the way it was when he woke from one of the dreams.

He shipped the oars and the dory drifted towards the point, towards Lovers Leap, swept along by the ebbing tide. It would be easy just to let it go. . . .

He turned around and looked towards the point.

And saw a girl there on the beach. A soft sweet young girl in a yellow bathing suit, sunning herself. As he stared, stripping her with his eyes, she sat up and he blinked. It was the dead girl of his dreams.

He grabbed the oars, swung the dory, and began to row back towards the pier. After a while he rested on his oars, and then, slowly, turned his head. The girl ran down the sand, dived into the water and began to swim towards the buoy where Big Mac and Little Mac moored their yawl.

Not dead, alive!

Alive and sweet and young. . . . Sweet! Why, she’s a bum! A tramp shacking up with those two . . . and one of ’em a nigger!

In his mind he saw Little Mac, naked and black, stripping the yellow bathing suit from her . . . and his sweat grew cold again. He saw every amorous detail of their coupling . . . the hard black flesh and the soft young white flesh merging. . . .

And he saw her with Big Mac . . . with both of them, taking turns, insatiable.

He watched her reach the buoy, her white arms flashing as she hugged it.

Tonight. They’ll be working tonight. It’s Saturday.

He rowed slowly along the moon-path on the water until he came to a stretch of sand a couple of hundred yards below the pink house. He beached the dory there and started up the beach.

Suddenly it began to rain, an abrupt tropical downpour. He kept on, drenched, until he stood on the beach in front of the house. A light shone from one of the windows.

He went to it, peered inside. She was in bed, reading by the light of a Coleman lamp. He stood there, face pressed to the wet window, staring at her.

Will she like me? Or will she . . .? I can break in and take her. She’s no better than a whore. Shacking up with those two . . . that nigger!

He tried to revisualize her with Little Mac . . . but he couldn’t any more.

He could see no ugliness in her, only beauty, no corruption, only innocence. Like Bettyjane . . . only purity and he wanted to worship it.

He wanted to court her, gently, to woo her, ardently tender; he wanted her to like him, to cure him of his loneliness, to love him.

She looked up from the book suddenly, and screamed.

And he ran sobbing through the rain.

Gay gave one scream and then she jumped from the bed and ran into the other room, the Macs’ room, to the door, and bolted it. She stood against the door, tautly, listening. Was that someone sobbing, or just the rain?

She thought of the Thompson gun in the closet and ran to it. She took it out, holding it awkwardly, staring at the window, streaked with rain.

Was it a face she’d seen there? Or was it just her imagination? She held the gun tightly . . . and then remembered . . . “The only trouble is there’s no ammo.”

Trembling, she sat on the bed, staring at the useless gun. But would anyone know it was useless? Would The Face know there was no ammo?

Holding the gun, she went to the window, stood there, so that he could see she was armed. If there was a he out there. The rain stopped suddenly and the moon came out. There was no one in sight. She felt foolish, and still afraid. Going back to the bed, she sat on the edge of it, the Thompson gun in her lap.

When Big Mac and Little Mac got home they found the front door bolted.

“That’s funny,” Big Mac said.

“Maybe she’s scared,” Little Mac said.

“What’s there to be scared of?” Big Mac said.

He knocked on the door, lightly. There was no answer.

“The lamp’s on in her room,” Little Mac pointed out.

“Maybe we better take a gander,” Big Mac said.

They went to the window and looked in. She was half sitting, half lying on the bed, with the Thompson gun beside her.

Big Mac tapped on the window and she sat up, quickly, grabbing the Thompson gun.

“Relax, it’s us,” Big Mac said. “Unbolt the door, will you?”

Still half dazed from sleep, she went into the other room, still holding the gun, and unbolted the door.

“What happened?” Big Mac said. “Did somebody . . .”

“I . . . I guess I’m a great big sissy,” she said, sheepishly. “I thought I saw a face . . . but it was raining and I . . . I guess I imagined it.”

“What kind of a face?”

“I don’t know . . . I . . . Oh, damn it, it wasn’t anything! I’m sorry.”

“You oughtn’t to be all alone out here nights,” Big Mac said.

“Why, anybody’d get the jitters out here all alone,” Little Mac said.

“I have my books, remember?” she said. “Oh, stop worrying about me! I’m a big girl now.”

Only I’m not, I’m not, I’m not.

In the afternoon Big Mac and Little Mac said they had to see a man in town and sailed off in the yawl. Gay made the beds and hung the clothes up and then there wasn’t anything more to do. There was no dinner to get ready because Old Mac had invited them to his camp and was off there now making mysterious preparations.

She tried to read for a while but got tired of it. She went out into the patio and the beach looked very inviting. So she went in and put on her bathing suit and then went and lay on the sand in the warm sun, with her yellow robe for a pillow. The sun felt good on her back, so good that she wriggled the straps off her shoulders and let it beat down upon her skin.

After a while she sat up and looked off towards the town, wondering if Big Mac and Little Mac would be sailing back by now. But there wasn’t a sail or any boat at all in sight, except their dinghy which had swung around so its nose was pointing towards the end of the point. The tide was coming in.

She decided to go swimming. She wondered how it would feel to go skin-swimming, the way they used to go before she came along. Well, there was only one way to find out. She skinned out of her suit and raced across the sand and dived in. It felt fine.

She swam out to the dinghy and back and it felt better all the time. She went back and lay on the robe and let the sun warm her all over. She felt very drowsy but then she remembered they’d be coming along soon, so she put on her robe and then curled up on the sand and went to sleep.

A soft cool nose against her hand woke her and she sat up suddenly and opened her eyes. It was dusk and Big Mac and Little Mac stood there grinning at her. The nose belonged to a husky curly black pup with a bluish-tinged belly.

“It’s a Kerry Blue,” Big Mac said.

“He’s Irish,” Little Mac explained.

“Kerry’s are great retrievers,” Big Mac said. “They’re amphibious retrievers. Wonderful watchdogs, too.”

“Like you,” she said.

“Huh?”

“You’re an amphibious retriever,” she said. “You retrieved a piece of flotsam, remember?” She pulled the pup close and hugged him. “What’s his name?”

The pup put his cool nose against her cheek but he didn’t give her a lick, he just snuggled his nose against her cheek and wagged his stump of a tail.

“A male Kerry doesn’t go around kissing people, even girls,” Big Mac said. “His name’s Cuchullin. I named him that. It means The Hound of Culann.”

“It’s an Irish name,” Little Mac explained.

“What do you know about it?” Big Mac said.

“This Cuchullin, they called him The Cu for short, was a terrific guy,” Little Mac said. “He was a sort of Irish John Henry.”

“He was no John Henry,” Big Mac said. “Cuchullin really lived, nobody made him up like they did John Henry.”

“About some things you’re plain ignorant,” Little Mac said.

“All right, I pass,” Big Mac said.

“This Cuchullin,” Little Mac went on, “was a harp hero. Even allowing for typical Irish lies, he was a terrific guy. Like the time when he was sorely beset . . .”

“When he was what?” Big Mac said.

“Sorely beset,” Little Mac said. “About a hundred lugs had him surrounded and they were hacking at him with swords . . .”

“Where do you get off telling how Cuchullin died?” Big Mac said. “I’ll tell her how The Cu died.”

“I know how Cuchullin died,” Gay said. “He died on his feet. He tied himself to a tree, leaving only his hands free, and when his enemies charged him, he cut them down until they overwhelmed him—but The Cu died on his feet.”

“Yeah man what a man,” Little Mac said. “Died on his feet, dishing it out plenty before he took it. Hope when my number’s up, I go like that. Yeah man.”

“Likewise,” Big Mac said.

“Thank you for The Cu,” she said. “I’ll love him very much. Where did you ever get him?”

“A man on the other side of the hill breeds ’em for fighting,” he said. “He charges two bucks to watch ’em fight. The grown-up ones, that is.”

“Why, that’s horrible!” she said.

“Well, we don’t fight ’em,” Big Mac said. “This German does. He sold this one to a friend of ours, that anarchist guy, but Cuchullin started picking fights with the anarchist’s Irish wolfhound and his Great Dane, and that was giving away too much weight so the anarchist gave him to us for a watchdog for you. He’ll be a hell of a good watchdog for you and you needn’t be nervous nights when we’re working.”

“Are you sure he gave him to you?”

“This anarchist is always giving people things,” Little Mac said.

“I wish I could thank him,” she said. “He sounds like a wonderful man.”

“We already thanked him,” Big Mac said.

Rubbing the pup’s ears, Gay said, “I’m terribly happy about him. But I’m really not a bit nervous nights. Anyway, Old Mac’s always around somewhere.”

“Old Mac? Hell, he’s out helling around up in town most of the night,” Big Mac said, “drinking whiskey and shooting craps up at the Portugee’s.”

“Tattle-tale!” Old Mac said, coming down the steps. “Anyhow, I won forty-eight bucks. Is that bad?”

“He’s The Man Who Broke the Bank at Monte Carlo,” Little Mac said.

“I also realized one of my most cherished ambitions,” Old Mac said. “It was in the establishment known as One Eye Lou’s.”

“Why, you old buzzard, hanging around that cathouse!” Big Mac said.

“Your language!” Old Mac said. “Besides, I wasn’t hanging around, I was working.”

“Working?” Little Mac said.

“Certainly,” Old Mac said. “Playing piano. Always wanted to play piano in a whorehouse . . .”

Big Mac cried, “Watch your language, you foul-mouthed old son of a . . .”

“Watch it,” Little Mac warned.

“. . . gun,” Big Mac finished.

“The customers really lapped my piano playing up,” Old Mac said. “Why, they were showering folding money around like it was confetti.”

“Look, let’s change the subject,” Big Mac said.

“Why, all right,” Old Mac said. “Been swimming, Gay?”

“Yes,” she said.

“Hmmmm,” Old Mac said, looking down at the dry bathing suit. “Skin-swimming, eh?”

“I wanted to see how it felt,” she said.

“Say, you shouldn’t go swimming alone,” Big Mac said.

“Well, if she’s going to swim raw, maybe she better,” Old Mac said. “How did it feel?”

“It felt so good I can’t stand it!” she said.

“Huh?” said Big Mac.

“I can’t stand your not being able to go skin-swimming any more on account of me,” she said.

“Maybe we like you better than skin-swimming,” Big Mac said.

“I’ll bet you don’t,” she said.

“How much?” Big Mac said.

She looked as if she were going to cry, so Old Mac said brusquely, “Hey, go put your clothes on. I’ve got a surprise for you over at my camp.”

She grabbed her bathing suit and ran up onto the patio and into the house, still holding Cuchullin close.

When they got to Old Mac’s camp they found that the surprise was Oysters Rockefeller with real Absinthe and a bottle of good wine from the hotel.

“You keep squandering your dough and you’ll really be on the beach,” Big Mac said.

“Yeah?” said the old man. “It might interest you to know that I picked up sixty-one dollars in tips up there at One Eye Lou’s.”

He put one of the oysters in its shell down in front of Cuchullin. The pup slurped it up and wagged his stump of a tail.

“Well, if they’re fit for a Kerry Blue they’re fit for a king,” Big Mac said.

Cuchullin barked joyously but Gay didn’t cry, even though she wanted to, she was so happy about the pup and the party and what Big Mac had said about maybe liking her better than skin-swimming.

Cuchullin woke her, growling. He was standing straight up on his pallet, his hackles up, and the growl was deep in his throat. Gay reached down and touched him to quiet him, but his hackles stayed up and his shoulder muscles worked.

She put her hand over the pup’s muzzle and got out of bed. Slipping into the storeroom, she felt for and found the Thompson gun.

Back in her room she strained her ears. She could hear strange noises out on the beach, creaking noises. Going to the window, she peered out.

It was a bright moonlit night but the shadows of the palms obscured the figure of a man who was pulling on a rope. Deeper in the shadows she could make out a boat and other men and a bulky-looking object.

She went to the door and opened it and suddenly The Cu began to bark menacingly. The man on the beach turned and looked their way.

“Who’s there?” she called.

“Nobody but us chickens,” Big Mac’s voice answered.

“Oh!” she said.

Cuchullin began to bark happily instead of menacingly and she set him down. He scampered down onto the beach.

Ashamed of her fear, she hurried back to the storeroom and replaced the Thompson gun. She didn’t want to answer any questions about it.

Then she put her terry robe on over the pajama top and went out, and down towards the beach, trying to make out what was going on. Little Mac and Old Mac were in the dinghy, steering a bulky dark object covered with a tarpaulin, while Big Mac pulled on the rope.

“Heave, will you?” Little Mac cried.

Big Mac heaved and the bulky object swung in towards him, with Little Mac hopping out of the boat, trying to control it.

“Hey, slug, watch it!” Big Mac yelled.

“Relax, I’ve got it,” Little Mac said, steering the object in.

Old Mac got out of the dinghy with his cane and tried to help Little Mac steady the bulky object as it was lowered to the sand. Cuchullin began to sniff at the tarpaulin.

“What is it?” Gay said, taking hold of the tarpaulin. Pulling the tarpaulin aside she said, “Why, it’s a piano!”

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said.

Accusingly, she demanded, “Where did you get this piano?”

“Borrowed it,” Big Mac said. “Come on, Little Mac, grab hold.”

They started to lift the piano.

“That’s the silliest thing I ever heard in my life!” Gay said. “Borrowed it!”

As they started to carry it towards the patio, Big Mac said, grunting, “We won it in a crap game.”

“That’s ridiculous!” she cried, following them with the pup at her heels.

“All right, we stole it,” Big Mac said, as they man-handled the piano up the steps.

Little Mac, chuckling, said, “In a moment of weakness, we stole a piano.”

Old Mac, following with the piano stool, said, “Liars! They bought it.”

“Well, we practically stole it,” Big Mac said, as they carried the piano towards the house. “It was dirt cheap.”

“I won’t have you wasting your getaway stake buying me pianos!” Gay cried.

“It’s only one little old piano,” Little Mac said.

“Besides,” Big Mac said, “we didn’t buy you this piano, we bought us this piano.”

“We might let you use it sometimes, though,” Little Mac said. “Will you open the door, please?”

“You don’t understand!” she cried. “I don’t ever want to see a piano, ever again.”

“That’s silly,” said Big Mac. “How are you going to play your old man’s music without a piano?”

“I’m not going to; I can’t!” she said.

Big Mac said, “You can give it the old college try, can’t you?”

“Oh, stop it, will you?” she cried.

“Why sure,” Old Mac said.

“If you’d just open the door,” Little Mac said.

“I won’t open the door!” she said.

“We were hoping you’d play something,” Little Mac said. “Couldn’t you just play ‘I Kept Her From the Foggy Foggy Dew?’ ”

“No!”

Big Mac sighed and said, “This piano is too God-damn heavy for light music.”

They put it down, wiping their foreheads.

“Please,” Gay said. “You’ve got to take it back.”

“Uh uh,” Big Mac said, shaking his head emphatically.

Little Mac said, “You’ve been so swell, cooking and all . . .”

“Out of cans!” she said.

“So what?” Big Mac said.

“The vinaigrette you made for the rock crabs wasn’t out of any can,” Old Mac said.

“You know you taught me that!” she said.

“I’ll bet I could teach you to play ‘Foggy Dew,’ ” Little Mac said.

Big Mac threw the door open and said, “Oh, stop bragging and start heaving.”

They lifted the piano again.

Gay, blocking their way, said, “You’re just wasting your money and your time; I’m not going to touch that piano!”

“Oh,” Big Mac said. “You hear that, Little Mac? She’s not going to touch this piano.”

“Yeah,” Little Mac said. “I’ll bet we’d all get awful tired of me playing ‘Foggy Dew.’ ”

They swung the piano around and started to carry it towards the guard rail.

“Where do you think you’re going with that piano?” Old Mac demanded.

“Why, we’re just going to make that old riptide a present of it,” Big Mac said.

“Oh, put it down,” Gay said.

They put it down.

Gay turned on Old Mac and charged, “Meddler! This is all your doing!”

“My doing? You’re crazy,” he said.

She turned to Little Mac and demanded, “Where did you get it?”

“Why . . . we . . .” he broke off, floundering.

“We got it at a piano store,” Big Mac said.

“Liars!” Old Mac cried. “They got it from One Eye Lou, barged in and bought it right out from under me.”

Gay said, sorrowfully, “You broke your promise.”

“We just bent it a little,” Little Mac said.

“You promised me you wouldn’t waste any more of your getaway stake on me,” she said.

“You call this piano a waste of money?” Big Mac said. “Why, this is a hell of a good piano.”

“If you keep throwing your money away, you’ll never get to China, to your friends, to fight for something,” she said.

“Oh, we’ll make it,” Big Mac said. “One of these days we’ll be shoving off for China all right.”

Old Mac snorted. “China! You’re a couple of raggedy-assed Don Quixotes!”

“Your language!” Big Mac cried.

“Making passes at windmills!” Old Mac cried.

“Windmills?” Big Mac said, and Little Mac murmured, “Windmills . . . Say, I never thought of it like that. . . .”

“You used to go skin-swimming and sleep raw,” Gay mourned. “And I’ll bet you got drunk once in a while the way men do and went up to One Eye Lou’s the way men like to sometimes, and now you watch your language!”

“You’re sure domesticating ’em,” Old Mac said.

“I’m bitching them all up the way they said they wouldn’t let me!” she said. “Please! You promised! And you’ve got to promise me again and keep it that you won’t waste any more of your stake on me but will have fun all you want to and hell around a little like I’ll bet you used to and want to!”

“Okay, we promise,” Big Mac said, adding gravely to Little Mac, “Remind us to get drunk tomorrow and hell around a little.”

“I’ll make a mental note,” Little Mac said.

Gay looked at them thoughtfully for a moment.

“Are they . . . very attractive?” she said, finally.

“Huh?” said Big Mac.

“The girls up there,” she said. “Are they pretty?”

“How the hell do we know?” Big Mac said. “We were just buying a piano.”

“They were gorgeous!” Old Mac said, adding hastily, as Big Mac and Little Mac glared at him, “I didn’t go upstairs! I just took a cigar.”

He ripped the tarpaulin off the piano suddenly and said, “Isn’t it a beaut?”

There was a round hole in the piano, about two feet over the keyboard. Gay stared at it.

“We should have had that hole plugged up,” Little Mac said.

“Yeah, we should have had the anarchist plug it up,” Big Mac said. “He’s a whiz on pianos, too.”

“What does the hole come from?” Gay said.

“Why, it comes from the fella shooting the Professor,” Big Mac said.

“The Professor?”

“Yeah, the guy who used to play piano. They always call ’em Professor.”

“Always?”

“Only the pros,” Old Mac said. “Amateurs like me are different. Come to think of it, I don’t know what they call us amateurs.”

“Oh, shut up,” Big Mac said.

“One Eye Lou . . .” Gay murmured. “How did she happen to lose it? Her eye, that is.”

“She didn’t say,” Big Mac said.

“I asked her the same question, first time I met her,” Old Mac said. “She liked to throw me out. Seemed sensitive about it.”

“Ladies are apt to be touchy about things like that,” Little Mac said.

“Did she say how the fella happened to shoot the Professor?” Gay said.

“Why sure,” Old Mac put in. “She said . . .”

“Who the hell’s story is this, anyhow?” Big Mac interrupted. “We bought the God-damn story with the piano.”

“Sorry,” Old Mac said.

Big Mac said, “One Eye said they used to have a gag sign on the wall back of the piano, ‘Don’t shoot the Professor, he’s doing the best he can,’ like in Western movies, you know.”

“Yeah,” Little Mac said, “and this gag sign must have given the fella the idea because he sure shot the Professor.”

“That was his error,” Big Mac said. “That was a hell of a mistake because they up and hung this fella for it.”

“They hang you for killing around here,” Little Mac said.

“It’s not a bad piano, even with a hole in it,” Old Mac said.

She put her finger into the hole in the piano.

“It’s certainly an interesting piano,” she said.

“It plays, too,” Little Mac said. Placing the piano stool and Jake’s music, he went on, “You just try it.”

“No,” she said. “Oh, no!”

“Oh, come on,” Big Mac said.

“I can’t . . . I just can’t!”

“Oh, the hell with it, I’ll play,” Old Mac said.

He sat down with a flourish and began to play “Steady Roll” in the Storyville style of Jelly Roll Morton, singing the blue sportin’ house lyrics hoarsely, rocking the piano with his banging right hand.

“Man, rock me,” Little Mac said.

Old Mac swung around on the stool, stood up and said, “Okay, top that, kid, it’s all yours.”

She shook her head.

“I guess this piano’s not good enough for real music,” Little Mac said.

“It’s not the piano, Little Mac, it’s the pianist!” she cried.

“Look,” Big Mac said, his face reddening, “the least you can do . . .”

“You don’t understand . . . I can’t, can’t!”

“Why the hell not?”

“No substitute,” she said, bitterly. “You said there was no substitute for guts.”

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said.

“Give it a lick or two,” Little Mac said. “We’re all in your corner.”

“No,” she said.

“Look,” Big Mac said. “If a horse throws you, you’ve got to climb back on that God-damn horse.”

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said. “Knew a fella once cracked up his airplane and he wasn’t fit for nothing till he took another one up there.”

“You going to climb back on that stool?” Big Mac said.

She looked at the piano, at Little Mac, arranging the stool invitingly, at Old Mac, spreading the music for her, and then at Big Mac. His face softened.

She sat on the stool and stared at her fingers. Looking at them, they became stiff and dead and she covered her face with them and cried, piteously, “Oh, Jake, Jake . . .!”

“Oh nuts, here we go again!” Big Mac said.

She brought her hands down in a crashing discord and jumped up and ran into the house, slamming the door. The pup began to whimper.

“Satisfied?” Old Mac said. “You and your musical therapy!”

Big Mac spit on his hands. “Grab hold, Little Mac,” he said.

They lifted the piano and carried it inside. From the other room they could hear her sobbing bitterly. The pup whimpered again and Little Mac opened Gay’s door and let him in.

She lay in the darkness with Cuchullin snuggled close and couldn’t sleep. The pup went right off though and began to dream a happy atavistic dream that made his hackles rise. After a while he was quiet and she finally went to sleep only to have the dream, another variation on the theme.

She was dead at the cathouse piano with the hole in it with her stiff fingers but tanned now on the keys and she knew she could play if only Jake would come and smile at her and give her the nod. Only Jake wasn’t in the piano dead or alive but a Kerry Blue pup was there barking at Big Mac who was in blackface like Al Jolson and sitting on top of the piano with Little Mac who was in whiteface and Old Mac was a little baby in a pink blanket and a long beard crying because she wouldn’t play. She kept trying to explain to Old Mac why she wouldn’t, couldn’t play and he stopped crying and began to swear at her and finally kicked her right in the stomach for not playing.

She woke and found Cuchullin running in his sleep and kicking her in the stomach. She pulled away slightly but didn’t wake him. He seemed to be having such a fine time in his dream. Then he stopped running and stiffened and his hackles came up again and he barked a funny little truculent bark and his feet churned again as he took off to engage the Great Dane or the Irish wolfhound or the tiger or whatever it was he was dream-fighting.

Old Mac, wearing only a gaudy pair of shorts, sat on the ground in his camp under the palms just above the beach on the ocean side and vigorously rubbed dirt into a pair of new white duck pants.

Gay, coming up quietly from the beach, stopped and watched him for a moment. She wanted to tell him about the dream and to try to explain why she couldn’t even practice.

Without looking around, Old Mac said, “You want to know what I’m doing, eh?”

“I can see perfectly well what you’re doing,” she said. “You’re rubbing dirt into a new pair of pants.”

“I’m antiquing my new beachcomber suit,” he said.

“What happened to your fine Abercrombie and Fitch one?”

“Well, I happened to get to leeward of it this morning while skin-swimming and the stink would’ve gagged a buzzard, so I had to wash it,” he explained, throwing the pants aside and going to work on the jumper.

“Oh,” she said. “I suppose when your other suit is dry, you’ll antique that, too?”

“No,” he said. “It’s ragged, so it’ll look good even clean. Look the other way, I want to put on my new pants.”

“Why, you’re decent in those shorts,” she said.

“This pair’s got a hole in ’em,” he said. “In the wrong end,” he added.

She laughed and looked away, saying, “Put on another pair and I’ll take those to the house and sew ’em up.”

“I just washed my other pair,” he said, putting on his pants. “Anyhow, you can’t sew.”

“Want to bet?”

“Who taught you how to sew?”

“Why, Little Mac did,” she said.

Old Mac antiqued his jumper thoroughly and then put it on.

“This suit still looks too new,” he complained.

She looked over his new suit. Even with the dirt, it looked stiff and new.

“Oh, it’ll age,” she said.

“Hope so,” Old Mac said. “Look, let’s go sit on the beach and wriggle our toes in the sand.”

They went down to the beach and sat. Old Mac took off the dirty tennis shoes and buried his feet in the sand and then wriggled them until they stuck out.

“It’s fun beachcombing,” he said. “Isn’t it?”

“I’m glad you’re enjoying it,” Gay said.

“Well, aren’t you?”

“They’ll be going soon,” she said.

“Say that’s right,” Old Mac said, as Big Mac always said it. “Well, anyhow, you’ll still have your watchdog.”

“I guess so,” she said.

“Say, where is that paddy pup of yours?”

“He went fishing,” she said.

“Did he catch anything?”

“I mean Big Mac and Little Mac went fishing and he went with them,” she said.

“He’s a hell of a watchdog, fishing when he ought to be on the job!”

“Well, I thought they ought to have him days,” she said. “I’ll have him nights. Last night he came in and got right up on the bed beside me.”

“Did he kiss away the tears?” Old Mac said, and when she looked startled, he said, “We could hear you blubbering in there. When in the hell are you going to stop feeling sorry for yourself?”

“It wasn’t for myself,” she said. “It was because I’d disappointed them; I’d let them down.”

“Phooey,” he said.

“I don’t know whether I can explain it so you’ll understand,” she said. “It’s a dream I have.”

“Oh, forget it,” he said. “Forget everything, like me. Be happy, like me.”

“Thanks!” she said.

“Why don’t you take off your sandals and wiggle your toes in the sand the way I’m doing?” he asked.

“I don’t want to wiggle my toes in the sand,” she said.

“All right, don’t,” he said. “Don’t ever do anything you don’t want to do.”

“Then it’s all right if I don’t ever play the piano any more?”

“Walked right into that, didn’t I? Certainly it’s all right if you don’t ever play the God-damn piano any more. Who the hell cares?”

“They do,” she said. “I wish I could do it for them.”

“Phooey some more,” Old Mac said. “You and your wishy-washy wishing!”

“They’ve done everything for me,” she said. “I want to do that much for them but I just can’t. I can’t even practice.”

“Oh, the hell with it,” Old Mac said. “You’re depressing me. I didn’t come to Paradise to be depressed.”

“I wanted help. . . .”

“Look, the Lord helps those who help themselves, end quote,” Old Mac said.

He stood up with the help of his cane and said, “Go away, will you? I want to go skin-swimming.”

He took off his jumper.

She stood up and said, “Thank you!”

“Oh, that’s all right,” he said and took off his pants.

She turned and walked off through the palms and Old Mac snatched off the shorts that had the hole in them in the wrong end and stomped down to the edge of the water, trailing a long cloud of blue smoke and not limping as much as usual.

“Nobody’s going to louse up Paradise on me!” he muttered.

He waded out into the rolling surf and when a nice big wave came along he dived into it, forgetting all about the cigar until he came up with it dead in his mouth.

When they came back from fishing, with a pretty good catch, they heard her playing up in the house. They stopped on the beach, listening. Cuchullin looked towards the house and began to growl.

“Is that her old man’s stuff?” Big Mac asked.

“No, it’s just practicing,” Little Mac said. “Oh, hush, Cuchullin!”

The dog stopped growling and lifted his leg.

“Those are called Czerny exercises,” Little Mac said.

“Huh?” said Big Mac, staring at the dog.

“Not what he’s doing, what she’s doing,” Little Mac said. “My kid sister used to play those Czerny exercises. They’re to limber your fingers up, like Old Satch limbers his arm up.”

“Just throwing a few,” Big Mac nodded. “Just warming up.”

“Yeah,” Little Mac said, “I guess pretty soon she’ll start fogging ’em through.”

“Sure,” Big Mac said.

They listened for a moment or two and then the sound of the piano stopped for a moment. Then she began to play something else.

“I’ll bet those aren’t finger exercises,” Big Mac said.

“I’ll bet it’s her pappy’s music!” Little Mac said.

It was; it was The Grande Polonaise, and she was trying, with Jake’s music spread out on the cathouse piano. She wanted desperately to be able to play it, to surprise them, to please them.

But she couldn’t. There was that hurdle she had to get over, but when she came to it, she couldn’t get over it. Her fingers went stiff and dead and she stared at the music. Then, from the beach, she heard Cuchullin barking.

She jumped up and hurried to the door and when she opened it, she heard Big Mac cry, “God damn it, Cu, pipe down!”

Then the pup saw her and ran towards her barking joyously.

Picking him up, she said, “Cuchullin, you’re a critic.”

“He wasn’t criticizing, he was just singing,” Mac said, as they went up the steps to the patio.

“It didn’t sound like singing to me,” Gay said. “It sounded like the Bronx cheer.”

“Let’s all go swimming,” Little Mac said.

“Yes, put on your rompers,” she said. “Old Mac’s over on the ocean side swimming raw, but then he’s not domesticated.”

“Oh, quit knocking yourself out,” Big Mac said. “Little Mac and I’ll clean these fish and you practice some more and then we’ll all go swimming.”

They went around in back and began to clean the fish.

“One of these days after she’s practiced a lot, she’ll be shoving off,” said Little Mac, gutting one of the fish.

“I guess so,” Big Mac said.

“It won’t be the same, will it?” Little Mac said.

“We’ll be shoving off, too, remember?” Big Mac said, slashing the head off another fish.

“That’s so,” Little Mac said. “Just as soon as we lay up our getaway stake.”

“Well, we won’t be buying any more pianos,” Big Mac said.

“That’s so,” Little Mac agreed.

They went on cleaning the fish for a while and then Little Mac said, “You know, Big, I was thinking. We haven’t got a radio.”

“Radio? What the hell do we want with a radio?”

“Well, down here, we don’t know what’s going on,” Little Mac said. “We don’t know the score. For all we know, peace might break out in China and we’d look pretty silly traipsing off there if peace broke out.”

“Yeah,” Big Mac said. “Maybe the whole damned China idea is kind of silly.”

“Well, we’ve got to go somewhere,” Little Mac said.

“Yeah,” Big Mac said.

“Hanging around down here does things to guys,” Little Mac said.

“Yeah,” Big Mac said. “We hang around here long enough and we’ll likely get that Ulrich look.”

“Well, I wouldn’t go so far as to say that,” Little Mac said. “Girls like you fine; take all those schoolmarms . . . And say, you know that little maid up at the Casino, that little high yaller?”

“Yeah, I’ve seen you yaking with her.”

“She likes me fine,” Little Mac said.

“Sam the beachcomber says the girls used to go for Ulrich big,” Big Mac said. “Only he picked one too young.”

“The son-of-a-bitch,” Little Mac said.

“Yeah,” Big Mac said. “He got ten years, Sam says.”

“They should have thrown the key away,” Little Mac said.

“Yeah,” Big Mac said. “Look, this screwy idea about us getting a radio . . . Why the hell don’t you say it’s for Gay?”

“Well, I figured if we figured out a good reason why we . . .”

“Listen, you jerk, she’d see through that what’s going in the world gag in a minute and be sore as hell, saying she was lousing us up. She’s no dope. Anyhow, God damn it, she’s got a piano.”

“Yeah, but you don’t understand the psychology of us musicians,” Little Mac said. “Us musicians need to hear other people’s stuff once in a while to keep us on our toes. I’ll bet if she heard some good music on the radio, like the Sunday Philharmonic concerts or those symphony record programs, why pretty soon she couldn’t keep her hands off that piano.”

“Say, you’re not as dumb as you look,” Big Mac said.

“I’ll bet Oscar’s got some good little radios up in the hockshop,” Little Mac said.

“Hell, we don’t want to fool around with those secondhand jobs,” Big Mac said. “We ought to get us one of those snazzy all-wave portable sets with the aerial you stick up.”

“The Jap’s got a couple of those,” Little Mac said. “We could make up the price easy, just cutting down on our bar bill. You ought to lay off anyhow; your wind’s getting bad.”

“My wind’s not so bad,” Big Mac said. “Oh, all right, we’ll get one of those radios but we’ve got to figure out a story she’ll swallow or we’re going to be in trouble with her.”

Little Mac said, “Say, couldn’t we say we borrowed it from the anarchist?”

“I don’t think we ought to make too much of that anarchist,” Big Mac said. “She’ll be wanting to meet him, on account of his being so nice about lending us things.”

“Then we’d be up the creek without a paddle,” Little Mac said.

“She said he must be an interesting character,” Big Mac said. “She’d be sore as hell if she found out we made him up.”

“We didn’t make him up,” Little Mac said. “You made him up.”

“Maybe we could say we borrowed the radio from One Eye Lou,” Big Mac said.

“She didn’t believe we borrowed the piano, remember?” Little Mac said.

“I’ll figure something out,” Big Mac said. “Shall we give this gunk to Cuchullin?”

“Fish heads and guts? Are you crazy?”

“Well, Old Mac fed him Oysters Rockefeller,” Big Mac said.

“That was a party,” Little Mac said.

“All right,” Big Mac said. “I’ll get him his chunk beef and you go bury this stuff deep, so he can’t get it. Where is that hound, anyhow?”

He whistled for him and then Little Mac put his fingers in his mouth and whistled piercingly but the pup didn’t come.

“Maybe he’s inside with Gay,” Big Mac said.

But at that moment Gay came out of the back door with the chunks of meat in a pan to feed him.

Little Mac whistled through his fingers and Big Mac bellowed, “Here, Cu, here, Cu!”

“What have you done with my dog?” Gay demanded.

“Well, he was out front when we were listening to you practice,” Big Mac said.

“Maybe you hurt his feelings, calling him a critic,” Little Mac said.

“Say, you didn’t practice any more!” Big Mac said.

Gay put the pan down and ran up the beach calling the dog. Big Mac and Little Mac ran after her. Just as they caught up with her, Cuchullin came out of the palm trees with Old Mac’s pants. He brought them to Gay and deposited them at her feet and looked up, fondly wagging.

“I told you they’re retrievers,” Big Mac said, proudly.

Then the old man came tearing out of the trees in just his jumper, hopping along with his cane. Seeing them he stopped suddenly and bent his knees, pulling down the jumper.

“What’s the idea of running around without any pants on?” Big Mac said.

“You and your God-damn hound!” Old Mac yelled.

“Oh, hush,” said Gay, picking up the pants, one leg of which was in tatters. “You ought to give him a nice bone, he’s antiqued your pants beautifully.”

“Quit pulling your jumper down, it’s long enough,” Big Mac said. “Who the hell do you think you are, the Bastard King of England?”

The pup took off suddenly, running for the house.

“Hey, he’ll eat those fish heads and stuff!” Little Mac yelled.

Shouting and whistling they ran after Cuchullin but when they got to the back of the house he had consumed the fish heads and stuff and was laying into the chopped meat with gusto.

When the old man limped up, wearing the pants, with one leg flapping picturesquely, they were debating whether to take Cuchullin to town and hunt for a vet.

“He doesn’t need any vet,” said Old Mac, scornfully. “Pants legs and fish heads are good for dogs.”

“They’ve got bones in them,” Gay said. “The fish heads, I mean.”

“So what? What is this hound, a lapdog?”

Cuchullin grabbed hold of the pants leg which wasn’t torn and began to pull.

“Hey!” Old Mac yelled and sat down hard. “Pull this maneater off me! I take it all back! Help! Help! He’s tearing me to pieces!”

“Oh, shut up!” Gay said. “He’s just antiquing your other leg.”

They solved the radio problem to their own satisfaction by having Old Mac pretend it was his and he was lending it to them. Old Mac was against the idea, but they persuaded him.

“It’ll be company for both of you after we shove off,” Little Mac said, as they picked it out up at the Jap’s.

“That’ll be one hell of a long ways off if you keep buying pianos and all-wave radios for that girl who won’t even practice, let alone do something sensible,” Old Mac said.

“This is your radio and don’t you forget it,” Big Mac said, “and anyhow she was practicing yesterday until Cuchullin howled. She called him a critic.”

“Well, everybody ought to be able to take a little healthy criticism,” Old Mac said.

The next morning they got up a little early, before Gay’s alarm went off. Old Mac was waiting, with the radio. Big Mac fiddled around, tuning it low, until he found a record program. It was piano music. He turned it up high and they waited.

After a moment she flung open the window.

“Where did you get that damned radio?”

“Such language,” Big Mac said.

“I got it,” Old Mac said. “I like it.”

“Well, I don’t!” she said. “Turn it off!”

“Look, is this a free country or isn’t it?” Old Mac said.

“Music!” she said. “Piano music! Turn it off!”

“Oh, all right, if you’re going to be selfish,” Old Mac said, and turned the radio off.

“Why don’t you turn it to the baseball game or something?” she said.

“They don’t have baseball in the winter,” Old Mac said.

“Yes, they do,” Little Mac said. “Cuba.”

“Yeah,” Big Mac said, “but the jerks only talk Spanish.”

“They don’t have baseball before breakfast even in Cuba,” Old Mac said.

“Piano music! For my sake! Don’t you realize I hate music!”

She slammed the window down.

Big Mac shook his head.

“I think I’ll go back to bed,” Old Mac said.

“Do that,” Big Mac said.

“What am I going to do with this radio?”

“Take it and shove it,” Big Mac said.

Old Mac shrugged, picked up the radio and limped away.

In the afternoon, when Old Mac came back, without the radio, he found Big Mac squatting in front of the kerosene refrigerator, tinkering with the compressor. Little Mac was at the table, playing solitaire.

“Hi?” Old Mac said.

“Hi?” Little Mac replied.

Big Mac just grunted.

“Where’s Gay?”

Little Mac nodded towards the house.

“Still moping?”

Little Mac nodded.

Gay opened the door, but not seeing her, Old Mac said, “I told you dopes not to throw your money away on that God-damn radio.”

“Liars! All of you!” She stormed across to them. “When are you going to stop treating me like a ba . . . ba . . . baby. . . .” And she burst into tears.

They all looked at her uncomfortably and she turned away, trying to control herself, dabbing at her eyes with her handkerchief.

Little Mac peered at the cards, as if trying to memorize them, and Big Mac went back to his tinkering. Old Mac cleared his throat, then shrugged, went over by Big Mac, peered over his shoulder.

“Say, what are you doing there, anyhow?”

“Sewing a button on an egg,” Big Mac said.

“Ask a foolish question . . .” Old Mac said, and squatting, watched Big Mac’s hands for a moment. “You’ve got hands that know things. Say, what’d you do for a living before you took up female psychology?”

“I was a left-handed flagpole sitter,” Big Mac said. “Don’t ask me about the plumbing arrangements. They’re a trade secret.”

Gay turned, blinking her eyes, and smiled.

“I’m all right now,” she said. “Why doesn’t somebody kick me when I act up?”

“Bend over,” Old Mac said.

She smiled at him, and asked Big Mac, “What was your trade?”

“Adagio dancing, if you must know,” he said.

Chuckling, Little Mac said, “Old Big was a construction engineer. He built things.”

“What was your racket, Little Mac?” Old Mac said.

“Newspaperman,” Little Mac said. “Harlem.”

“Covered sports,” Big Mac said. “Knew Satchel Paige personally.”

“Hmmmm . . . old Satch . . .” Old Mac murmured.

“Why, Old Mac’s a newspaperman, too!” Gay said. “He said he was the best God-damn newspaperman since somebody or other.”

“Marse Henry Watterson,” Old Mac said. “Only I didn’t say that. Maggie did. Hell, I was the best ever. Hey, we were talking about baseball. I saw that Satch once. He called in the outfield and then struck out the side.” He sighed. “That was a hell of a long time ago.”

“Yeah,” Little Mac said, with a shade of bitterness.

“But he finally made the big time,” Old Mac said.

“Sure, after he was old and had lost his fast one,” Little Mac said. “They wouldn’t let him up there when he was in his prime, when he could have won maybe thirty, thirty-five games.”

“Times change,” Old Mac said. “He did get there and there’s Larry Doby and Monte Irvin and Campy and Jackie . . . oh, a whole passel of ’em. I saw that Campanella on T.V. and he looked pretty good in there.”

“Pretty good!” Little Mac cried. “He’s tops!”

“Prejudice is sure a funny thing,” Old Mac mused.

“Ha, ha,” said Little Mac, hollowly.

“Race prejudice,” Old Mac said. “You got it running out of your ears.”

“Who, me?”

“Oh, button your lip, you old bastard,” Big Mac growled.

“Well, he has,” Old Mac said. “Thinks you’ve got to be born black to handle that big mitt. Ever hear of a guy named Dickey? What the hell about Mickey Cochrane?”

Little Mac began to laugh.

“He’s so right! Say, I guess a good white man’s as good as a good black man any day in the week.”

“The Tennessee Rebel,” Gay murmured.

“Huh?” Little Mac said.

“The Tennessee Rebel,” she said. “That’s the name of Old Mac’s paper. Had your picture on the front page, he said.”

“My picture?”

“Sure,” Old Mac said. “Right on page one . . . twice.”

“Say, what was this picture about?” Big Mac asked.

“Well, it was a shot of a two-star general pinning the Silver Star on him in the field. Made a good story for us, him being from Tennessee.”

“The Silver Star! Why, you little bastard, you never told me they pinned any Silver Star on you!”

“Well, I’m not a blabbermouth all the time,” Little Mac said.

“Yep, right on page one,” Old Mac said. “Had a caption over it . . . For Valor.”

“For Valor . . .” Gay murmured.

“Why, you little sneak!” Big Mac said. “Holding out on me!”

“Oh, hush,” Little Mac said.

“If the son-of-a-bitch had the right complexion for it, he’d be blushing!” Big Mac said. “Did you say it was in the paper twice, Old Mac? Don’t tell me they pinned another medal on him!”

“You know what they tried to pin on him the second time, Big Mac, and it was no medal. We ran that picture again, the same picture, only there was a bonfire behind it . . . and a rope over a limb. Same caption too . . . For Valor . . . only it had an astonisher after it . . . For Valor!”

“They ran that, in a Southern paper!” Big Mac cried.

“You’re God-damned right,” Old Mac said. “I ran it. The Tennessee Rebel, Jeff Davis McGovern, editor and publisher.”

“Jeff Davis McGovern,” Little Mac said. “Why, you old son-of-a-bitch, I love you!”

“I love you, too,” Gay said.

“Me too,” Big Mac said. “For Christ’s sake, I didn’t know anybody was on our side.”

“I hate to stop taking bows,” Old Mac said, “but we seem about to have company.”

“The police . . .” Gay said, hoarsely.

The police launch was chugging in, with Chief Perez standing in the bow. Her anchor went down a few yards offshore, a dinghy was lowered, and a tall brown policeman rowed Perez in to the beach.

Gay was staring at Big Mac.

“Relax,” she said, gently.

Chief Perez got out of the dinghy and came up the beach.

Touching his fingers to his cap, he smiled and said, “Good afternoon.”

“Howdy,” Big Mac said.

Perez took out a fine cigar case and offered it to Big Mac, who shook his head.

“Makes him sick to his stomach,” Old Mac said. “Don’t mind if I do, Chief.”

He took a long thin cigar, examined it approvingly. Perez offered the case to Little Mac, who just shook his head. Perez snipped the end off a cigar for himself, using a gold cutter, while Old Mac bit the end of his off. Little Mac took out a match, struck it on his thumb nail, and lighted the Chief’s cigar.

“Thank you,” Perez said.

Old Mac took the still burning match from him, lighted the cigar, took a deep drag, exhaled slowly and said, “A nice cigar, Chief. Sit down.”

“Thank you, Mr. . . . McGovern, isn’t it?” Perez said.

“Hell no,” Old Mac said. “It’s Ross. Charley Ross. Sit down.”

“Thank you, Mr. . . . er . . . Ross,” Perez said and sat down.

He looked to Gay, quizzically, and Big Mac said, quickly, “Anything special on your mind, Chief?”

“This charming . . . er . . . lady you gentlemen have living with you . . .?”

“Correction,” Big Mac said. “She’s not an . . . er . . . lady, she’s a lady.”

“Oh?”

“She happens to be my wife,” Big Mac said.

“My apologies,” Perez said, and, sketching a bow to Gay, “I’m happy to meet you, Mrs. McCord.”

“How do you do?” Gay murmured.

“You’re a lucky man, Mr. McCord,” Perez said.

“I think so, too,” Big Mac said.

“So lovely and so loyal,” Perez said. “One doesn’t find many women who would follow their husbands into . . . er . . . exile.”

“Oh, she didn’t follow me,” Big Mac said. “She came right along with me and we jumped ship together.”

“I see,” Perez said. “That explains something I confess has been bothering me. When it was reported there was a woman living out here, I jumped to the conclusion that it might be the one who was supposed to have committed suicide not so long ago. A Miss Gay Langner.”

“It isn’t,” Big Mac said.

“Frankly, what concerned me most was a certain episode which occurred in The Flying Fish that same night,” Perez said.

“Oh, I remember,” Big Mac said. “Mr. Ulrich made the same mistake you did; he didn’t realize she was my wife.”

“I see,” Perez said. “Then there is no bad blood between you and Mr. Ulrich?”

“I should say not,” Big Mac said. “I get along fine with Mr. Ulrich.”

“Excellent,” Perez said. “We like tranquility down here. Trouble among our guests, we consider an abuse of our hospitality.”

“We won’t abuse it,” Big Mac said.

“We sure won’t,” Little Mac said.

“I just thought I’d mention it,” Perez said. “We are inclined to . . . er . . . expedite the departure of trouble-makers.”

“We follow you, Chief,” Big Mac said.

“There is one other matter,” Perez said, carefully flicking the ashes from his cigar. “Several handbills came a day or two ago . . . from the office of Mr. Howard Moore, the American Consul at our capital. One of them concerned you, Mr. McCord, and you, Mr. Maconn.”

Gay gasped.

“So?” Big Mac said.

“So I posted them in the police station . . . a matter of routine . . . a matter of courtesy to your government.”

“Yes? Is there any reward involved?”

“Reward? My dear fellow, if there had been a reward, you would now be in jail, awaiting deportation proceedings. Good afternoon.”

“So long, Chief,” Big Mac said.

“Thanks,” Little Mac said.

“Not at all,” Perez said, and walked down the beach to the waiting dinghy.

They watched silently as the policeman rowed Perez out to the police launch. When it began to chug away, Gay looked at Big Mac and said, huskily, “Thank you.”

“What for?” Big Mac shrugged.

“For making an honest woman out of me!”

And bursting into tears she ran into the house.

“What the hell is she bawling about now?” Big Mac demanded.

“Don’t brides always cry?” Little Mac asked, innocently.

“Huh?”

“She’s a bride all right,” Old Mac said. “You just said so in front of witnesses. More’n likely it even makes it legal. Too bad it’s in name only . . . sucker!”

The next day a tramp steamer came in early and Big and Little Mac had to work. They left right after breakfast and Gay kept herself busy for hours, washing all the dishes, wiping them all very carefully, changing the linen on all the beds, washing them, and her clothes, and then Big Mac’s and Little Mac’s, although they had told her not to.

After she had done every chore she could think of, even to filling the heavy keg with fresh water and rolling it back, with Cuchullin yipping at her heels, she decided to go swimming.

She went into her room and there stood the piano, silent and accusing. She knew she had to give it a try sometime and that she had to do it alone. But she was afraid if she tried there would be Jake’s death’s head there.

Resolutely, she shut Jake out of her mind and sat down. She looked at the keys and then she looked at her fingers, flexing them. She tried to touch the keys with them, then, but she couldn’t bring herself to for a long time.

And when she did, finally, it was no good.

An hour later Old Mac found her standing by the rail, looking down into the tide. He was carrying a fishing pole and a gunny sack. He stood watching her for a moment, worriedly.

“Hey,” he said, finally.

She turned, startled.

“What do you think you’re doing?” he demanded.

“Thinking.”

“A bad habit. You ought to break it. What about?”

“What?”

“What were you thinking about?”

“Nothing,” she said gloomily.

“Oh, stop mooning. Look, I’m going to fish off the rocks for the picnic.”

“Picnic?” she said, listlessly.

“Sure. We’re going to have a picnic when the boys get home.”

“They have to work.”

“Just till that little old tramp sails,” Old Mac said. “They’ll be along soon after dark. You’d better come fishing with me.”

“I don’t want to go fishing,” she said. “I just want to play the piano.”

“Well, why the hell don’t you?”

“I . . . tried a while ago. It wasn’t any good. I wish . . .”

“Wishing is wishy-washy,” he said.

“If I could only do it . . . for them.”

“Oh, nuts! If you don’t want to do it for yourself, forget the whole business.”

“He says everybody ought to make something . . .”

“Sure they ought,” Old Mac said. “Look, that reminds me. I’m going to tell you how to make something real good. A Ramos Fizz, the way Maggie used to do it. Of course, she was one hell of a bartender. Every night before dinner she’d make the drinks, sometimes martinis . . . but dry. Too much Vermouth stunts the growth. Or maybe she’d make Old Fashioneds, not cocktails, toddies, without all that damn fruit salad. Or maybe it’d be Sazaracs. Naturally, we didn’t drink Ramos Fizzes before dinner.”

“Why not?”

“Why not! Hell’s bells, civilized people just don’t! Look, I brought some stuff just in case you’d be interested some time.” He took two lemons out of the sack and put them on the table. “You take the juice of two lemons. The whites of two eggs. You got eggs there in the refrigerator so I didn’t bring any. Now you add a couple dashes orange flower water, a couple spoons of sugar. . . .” He fumbled in the sack, hauled out a small bottle, and then a fifth of Booth’s House of Lords gin. “You put in about four ounces of this good gin.” He put the bottles on the table. “Now you add lots of cracked ice, shake like crazy, pour into tall frosted glasses and, baby, you’re ready for it!”

“Ready for what?”

“That’s a good question,” Old Mac said. “I’m glad you asked me. Why, bed, of course. The hay. Hey, hey! This is a bedtime potion, a lovetime potion. You want to make something, don’t you? Why the hell don’t you make love with Big Mac so he’ll forget all about that China nonsense!”

“You shouldn’t say things like that to me!”

“Okay, I give up! You can’t make music and you won’t make love. So the hell with it! I’d rather talk to fishes!”

He stalked away, the fishing pole bobbling up and down behind him. Gay looked after him, biting her lip. Then she put the lemons in the icebox and the bottles in the cupboard.

Ramos Fizz.

The hay.

Hey, hey!

Bedtime.

Lovetime.

Suddenly she smiled.

Old Mac knows. He knows how I feel about Big Mac. I’ve been fooling myself, but not Old Mac. He knows. You can’t talk that way to me I said prim like a schoolmarm . . . no, not like a schoolmarm! He makes love with school . . .

I want him!

Oh my darling I want you so!

Make love with me and not those flatchested . . .

She went down onto the sand and lay on her back, looking up into the clear blue sky, and Cuchullin, who had been dozing in the sun, crept close, nuzzling her. She drew him closer, hugging him tightly, and then, turning over on her side, she went to sleep.

She dreamed, but it wasn’t the death dream, it wasn’t the variation on the theme of death, of Jake’s death’s head, it was a life dream of Big Mac. He was holding out his arms to her, but not like Jake, telling her to jump and she’d be safe; it wasn’t safety she wanted in Big Mac’s arms. She went gladly to them.

Big Mac and Little Mac sat at a table near the bar of The Flying Fish, playing gin rummy. It was the midafternoon lull and they were waiting for the men from the tramp steamer to come back from One Eye Lou’s. They’d left, all drunk, a few minutes before, but they’d be back soon, thirstier than ever.

“It’s funny how thirsty a whorehouse makes guys,” Big Mac said.

“Yeah,” Little Mac said.

Ulrich came in, carrying a large package. He was heavily tanned. He gave them an odd, quick look, and sat down, ordering a rum sour.

“That character,” Big Mac said. “Is he trying to pass for your brother?”

“On him it looks funny,” Little Mac said.

“We can still see that stir tan underneath,” Big Mac said.

“Sam the beachcomber says all that rowing is Dr. Stein’s orders,” Little Mac said.

“Guess he wants to look pretty for the girls,” Big Mac said, drawing a card.

“A waste of time,” Little Mac said. “Old Sam says even the babes at One Eye’s wouldn’t let him touch ’em with a ten-foot pole.”

Big Mac looked at his card disgustedly and tossed it on the pile.

Swooping it up, Little Mac chuckled and asked, “What’s the name of this game?”

“Schneidered!” Big Mac growled. “You little bastard, you were born lucky!”

Ulrich sat sipping his drink, watching them out of the corner of his eye. He felt strong and well and confident. Dr. Stein had been right. All he’d needed was sun and air and exercise.

He’d been rowing in the sun every day. He’d row clear around the bay and then over towards the point, towards Lovers Leap, when the tide was ebbing, and he’d have to pull hard, fighting it.

He’d never gone close to the point, not in the daytime, but he’d been close enough to see her there, on the beach, sometimes in her pretty little bathing suit. Always, until this afternoon, the Macs had been around, though.

He’d slept every night, from midnight until nine or ten, even sometimes until noon. Without the bad dreams after the first few days. The dreams now were pleasant. In them she wasn’t dead and she didn’t hate him.

Sometimes, in the dreams, she liked him a little, would smile at him shyly. He never had the dirty dream about her any more, the one in which black Little Mac took her and she liked it, and Big Mac took his turn and she liked that. . . .

His dream of her was one of purity. She was virginal in all the dreams now. She was a child. He knew she didn’t sleep with the Macs, with either of them.

He’d been out there too many nights not to know that. She slept by herself, in a separate room. Once he had seen her undressing through the window, but he’d turned away. He was no Peeping Tom. He respected her purity.

He’d had only one lustful dream about her . . . it was the night after he’d seen the handbill in the police station. He’d thought a lot about that handbill . . . how it could be a weapon . . . to persuade her to . . . to take him for her lover . . . her first lover.

And in the dream she’d done it, she’d given herself to him, to save the Macs from hanging, maybe burning. But it hadn’t been sweet . . . because she wasn’t yielding for love. She was giving herself only because it was the only way to keep him from ratting on them to the American Consul.

And he wasn’t a rat; he wasn’t a man who’d holler copper.

He had wanted to expiate that dream, to restore her purity, to make her a sweet child again. And he did. She was spotless to him now.

He loved her very dearly. He wanted to give her things. Love and smiles and happiness. Presents, a doll. A wonderful doll, life-sized, like a baby. Yes, he wanted to give her a baby, but not one born of lust, an immaculate baby. And soon he would give it to her. This afternoon.

He had it, her present, her doll, her baby, in the big package. He had bought it this afternoon from One Eye Lou, for fifty dollars. He’d asked for the little Negress, willing even to brave her contempt and fear, but One Eye had said she was gone . . . “The stupid bitch got the clap!” . . . but she’d left her doll behind.

Ulrich finished his drink.

It should have been champagne, he thought. They have champagne for christenings.

Suddenly he knew that he must have champagne for this christening. But he mustn’t get it here, in his own place. The Macs would notice. . . .

He got up and went out quietly, carrying the present, the Macs, busy with their gin game, paying him no attention. He went up the beach to The Blue Lagoon and bought a cold bottle of good champagne, the best. This way the Macs wouldn’t wonder where he was going in the middle of the afternoon with a big package and a bottle of champagne.

That’s what Sam the beachcomber, seated in a corner of The Blue Lagoon, wondered. He wondered enough to sidle up to the swinging doors and peer out after him as he walked up the beach, on past The Flying Fish, on along the curving beach which led out to Lovers Leap. And, wondering, Sam the beachcomber followed, keeping to the trees which fringed the sand.

Cuchullin growled, deep in his throat, and Gay woke to find his hackles up. She put her arm around him and turned over, to find Ulrich seated on the top step, watching her. He held a life-sized naked doll in his lap and there was a bottle of champagne beside him.

“Don’t be frightened, child,” he said, gently.

The pup squirmed, trying to get loose, growling deeply, but she held him tightly until he calmed down.

“You needn’t worry about me,” Ulrich said. “He won’t hurt me. I like dogs . . . and children. See, I’ve brought you a present.”

She struggled to her feet, holding the growling, squirming dog.

“Don’t be ridiculous, I’m not a child!”

“Yes, you are,” he said. “You’re sweet and young and pure. Take it, child.”

“No! Please go away.”

He shook his head.

“I’ve brought champagne,” he said. “For the christening. It’s good, it’s French, it’s the best.”

Determined not to show her terror, she spoke indulgently, as if to a small boy. “I’m sure it is, but champagne is for grown-ups. I’m too young for champagne . . . you’re too young.”

“Don’t talk to me as if I were a baby,” he said. “Or crazy. There’s nothing to be afraid of. I love you. I want to make you happy. Take the baby, child. It was born in purity.”

The dog fought in her arms but she held him, remembering the knife.

“Stop, Cu, be quiet! It’s all right.”

The pup persisted.

“You’ll have to go,” she said.

“But the christening . . .”

“Stop it!” she cried. “Do you want Big Mac to kill you?”

“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “But he won’t . . . unless you tell him. . . .”

“If you don’t go immediately I will tell him!”

“You wouldn’t,” he said. “You couldn’t have a man killed just because he loves you.”

“Stop talking to me of love! You don’t know what it means!”

“Yes, I do,” he said.

And she couldn’t hide her terror any longer.

“Don’t look like that!” he cried. “You don’t know what it does to me when a girl, a child, looks at me like that!”

He put his hands over his eyes, then, and said, pleadingly, “Be kind, be young; don’t be afraid. It . . . it isn’t . . . safe for you to be afraid . . .” he ended, hardly above a whisper.

“Stop whispering like that!” she cried, and, controlling her trembling, “Look at me. I’m not afraid.” He took his hands away and looked at her. “I was only afraid, for a moment, for you. For what Big Mac would do . . .”

“You couldn’t tell him,” he said. “Because he would kill me . . . but they’d hang him, child. You wouldn’t kill two men, would you?”

She knew that if she told Big Mac, he would surely kill Ulrich, and that if he did, he would surely hang . . . unless . . .

“They wouldn’t hang him if I told them you . . . that you . . .”

“That I what, child?”

“That you tried to . . . rape . . .”

“Don’t say things like that, child! Don’t even think them! What kind of a man do you think I am? You mustn’t believe those lies about me! I’m innocent!”

“Please go away!”

“She asked me to,” he half whispered. “She took my hand and led me into the bedroom.”

“Stop it!”

“She asked me so sweetly . . . with her little cat’s tongue . . .”

“Please stop!”

“If only she hadn’t screamed!”

“Please, you mustn’t remember it!” Gay cried.

Keeping his eyes closed tightly, he went on, whispering, “She told them the truth but they didn’t believe her. Ten years! Ten years in the dark. I didn’t want her body. . . .”

But I did! he thought. I wanted her body all the time.

“I don’t want your body,” he whispered.

But I do! I want her innocence . . . her purity.

“Scream,” he said. “When I open my eyes, scream.”

If she will only scream I’ll run away.

He opened his eyes but she didn’t scream. She wanted to but she couldn’t. He sighed.

“I’m sorry,” he whispered.

Desperately she looked towards the rail.

“No,” he said. “You mustn’t think of that. Not even . . . afterwards. I’ve suffered too much. . . .”

“If you . . . touch me, I will!”

“No. You’re too kind. You couldn’t. Please . . . be generous. Help me. Save me. . . . Oh, I want you sweetly . . . willingly . . . for love . . . the little cries of joy. . .! Let it be a sharing, child. Don’t make it . . . ugly for me . . . afterwards. . . . Let me see the yes in your eyes. . . .”

“No, no, no, no!”

“Don’t fight it, child. Don’t fight love. Don’t you know my need? It has to be, you must know that. Even if I die for it. Please take my hand. Please want me.”

“Want you! You make my flesh crawl!”

“No! Don’t say things like that to me!”

“I can’t help it. You’re . . . sickening!”

He shook his head very sadly.

“You, too. Even the lost ones who sell their bodies . . . and now you. . . .” Regretfully, he went on, “I didn’t want to use this weapon I’ve got. . . . I wanted you to want me. . . . Don’t make me use that weapon! Don’t make me rat on them! Don’t make me holler copper! The Lord hates a stoolie! . . . I’m talking like . . . like a criminal . . . I was shut up with them so long. . . . I’m not a criminal! She asked me!”

“Please, please!”

“Ask me, my child. Take my hand. If you don’t, I’ll tell the American Consul. I’ll radio their names . . . McCord . . . Maconn . . . murder . . . murder in the first degree. . . .”

“No, you couldn’t!”

“I’ll have to, child.”

He will! she thought. He will unless . . .

“They’ll hang them,” he said. “Or the mob will take them.”

She closed her eyes, picturing Big Mac at the mercy of the faceless mob, Little Mac, too, seeing the mob tearing their clothes from their bodies, ripping at their flesh, dragging them towards the flames. . . .

“Open your eyes, child,” he said.

She opened her eyes. He was holding out his hand, pleadingly.

“Take my hand, child, and lead me to your bed.”

“How . . . how do I know you . . . you won’t tell . . . afterwards?”

“I give you my word. My word of honor. Please take my hand.”

The struggling dog snapped at him as he held out his hand.

“I am surprised,” he said. “Dogs have always liked me.”

“I . . . I’ll lock him up,” she said.

She started towards the shack. Ulrich picked up the doll and the bottle of champagne and followed her. She began to run, trying to reach the door ahead of him, but he was close behind her.

Holding the growling, squirming pup, she tried to open the door, but Ulrich, cradling the doll and the bottle under one arm, opened it for her and edged in behind her.

She nodded towards the door to her room and he opened it, looked in at the bed. She followed him into her room, pausing in the doorway to put Cuchullin down in the Macs’ room. He growled and rushed for the crack in the door, but she closed it quickly, shutting him out.

Ulrich smiled at her warmly, his eyes shining with happiness.

Those sad Spaniel eyes are happy. . . .

Cuchullin was scratching at the door, yipping.

Ulrich held out the doll to her. She took it.

“The christening,” Ulrich said, softly, and began to work at the cork.

He opened the bottle carefully, so that the cork came out with a sigh.

“Undress, child,” he whispered, “and take the baby to your breast.”

He touched her shirt gently, almost reverently.

I can’t I can’t I can’t!

Fighting desperately for time, she said, “The wine . . . we must have some of the wine. . . .”

He smiled.

“Yes. The drink of lovers.”

He touched his lips to the bottle and then handed it to her. It slipped out of her hands and the wine foamed on the floor.

“You’ve spilled the wine!” he cried, and kneeled to pick it up.

She struck at him blindly, with all her strength, with the doll. It broke against his head and he fell face first into the foaming wine. Dropping the broken doll, she ran to the closet door, threw it open and seized the unloaded Thompson gun.

She swung the gun around as Ulrich swayed to his feet. There was a trickle of blood down one side of his face and he was sobbing.

He moved blindly and she swung the gun to follow him.

Swing it slow like Big Mac back there in Dixie. . . . Turn it loose rooty-toot-toot. . . . And then she remembered: Still no ammo!

Ulrich stopped, wiping his eyes.

There was nothing to do but try to bluff it out.

“Get out of here, or I’ll . . .” she said, holding the gun on him.

“You asked me,” he said, sorrowfully, and then he flung his arms in an unreal, theatrical gesture, like a man on a cross, and said, “I’m ready,” and closed his eyes.

I must die in the dark, he thought. Alone in the dark. If I open my eyes now she’ll finally scream. I won’t die with a scream in my ears. Why does she wait? I’m ready.

Gay thought: He really wants to die.

“If I let you go, will you promise . . .?”

“No,” he said, not opening his eyes.

She stared at him helplessly, holding the unloaded gun.

I couldn’t do it, she thought. I couldn’t even if there was ammo. And he’ll surely radio their names . . . unless I do what he wants. . . .

But there flashed through her mind a picture of Big Mac standing with his arms held out for her and shaking his head, and she knew she could only give herself to him.

“All right,” she said, with a sigh. “Go.”

He opened his eyes. She still held the gun on him.

She doesn’t scream, he thought. She’s not afraid of me any more. She’s sorry for me and I’m sorry for her and for Big Mac and Little Mac and everybody in the world.

He picked up the broken doll, crying quietly, and opened the door. Cuchullin, raging through, jumped for his throat, caught his flesh and hung, thrashing. Blindly, through his tears, Ulrich struggled, until Gay grabbed the pup and forced his jaws open.

Ulrich lurched through the door then and she slammed and bolted it. Turning, with the squirming pup in her arms, she caught a glimpse of the face of Sam the beachcomber at the window, just for an instant, and then it was gone.

Sam the beachcomber ducked around the corner of the house as Ulrich came out. Walking like a man in his sleep, the doll dangling, broken and grotesque, he crossed to the rail above the riptide. He held the doll out and let it drop into the swift water.

Watching it go under, pop up, and then go under again, he thought: An easy way. Easier than the pills. But then he shook his head. Too easy. The coward’s way . . . I’m not a coward. Nobody can ever say Konrad Ulrich was a coward. A rat, yes. A stoolie. But not a coward. He’ll kill me, of course. Big Mac will kill me. Her true love will kill me.

Bettyjane’s father would have but they wouldn’t let him. The fools wouldn’t let him. Big Mac will kill me, he’ll be my executioner. . . .

And I’ll be his!

He turned away from the rail and began to run, down the steps and along the beach, towards the radio office, to send the radiogram to the American Consul.

Sam the beachcomber followed slowly, thoughtfully. He was disappointed. He’d hoped to watch Ulrich and that little bim in bed together; but he had a little plan which could make up for it.

By the time Old Mac finished both his fishing and his shopping, he had too much to carry. He had rock crabs and prawns and crayfish and sunfish and herbs and a five-gallon can to cook them in and he had French bread and white wine and a bottle of Jack Daniels. Altogether too much to carry and besides the sun was getting low. So he hired a boy to carry the stuff to the pier and then he hired another boy to take him out to the point in a small launch.

There was no sign of Gay and the house was closed up. Old Mac paid off the boy for the launch and looked up at the house, wondering if Gay could be catching a nap. Then he heard Cuchullin barking and scratching at the door and went up there.

There was a piece of paper tacked on the door with a note on it, which read, “Have gone to town. Back by nightfall.”

Old Mac opened the door and Cuchullin dashed out and jumped all over him. He went back down to the beach, the pup following and frisking about.

Old Mac gathered a pile of driftwood, the pup sniffing at his heels, and then he built a fire on the sand, poured water into the five-gallon can, and when it boiled, dumped the crabs and the prawns and the crayfish and the sunfish and the herbs in.

He’d had a few snorts in town and he felt fine. The smell from the fire and the contents of the five-gallon can and another snort from the bottle of Jack Daniels made him feel even finer.

When the tropic dark came, suddenly, the moon was already high and so was Old Mac, high and comfortable and mellow with good Tennessee bourbon.

The horn of the tramp ship began to sound, letting go at regularly spaced intervals. Calling the crew aboard, Old Mac thought. The boys’ll be along pretty soon now.

He sniffed the savory mixture and began to hum under his breath and then he caught himself up, for he was humming, “When You and I Were Young, Maggie.”

For a moment he stared into the simmering can, the memory of her sharp but sweet and then he raised his head and sang, softly:

He stopped and blew his nose loudly, like a trumpet. Then he picked up the bottle, raised it to the sky in a silent toast and took a stiff drink. When Big Mac and Little Mac arrived he was hunkered down beside the steaming can, stirring the mixture lovingly.

The tramp ship’s horn was still sounding monotonously as Big Mac hopped out of the dinghy and swooped the ecstatically wagging Cuchullin up in his arms. Little Mac followed, with his guitar.

As they came up to Old Mac, Little Mac said, “Hi? Ummmm! Picnic’s cooking. Brought my git-box so we could have some music.”

“I guess I can take it,” Old Mac said.

Leaning over the steaming mixture Big Mac took a deep sniff. “Say, I thought we were supposed to get slumgullion?”

“That’s slumgullion,” Old Mac said.

“It doesn’t smell like slumgullion,” Big Mac said.

Little Mac leaned over and sniffed and said, “It smells more like fish.”

“It is fish,” Old Mac said. “Rock crabs and prawns and crayfish and sunfish . . .”

“Who the hell ever heard of slumgullion made out of fish?” Big Mac said.

“You heard of it now,” Old Mac said.

“You know what this is more like?” Little Mac said. “This is more like bouillabaisse. Remember that bouillabaisse we had in New Orleans that time, Big?”

“Yep, that’s what this is, bouillabaisse,” Big Mac said.

“Bouillabaisse! Why, you poor ignoramuses,” Old Mac said. “This is slumgullion. Maggie taught me how to make it and I ought to know.”

“Okay, okay, it’s slumgullion,” Big Mac said.

“It smells good,” Little Mac said.

Big Mac set the pup down and he, too, sniffed at the can and then jumped back with a howl.

“Like Gay said, that Cuchullin’s a critic,” Big Mac said. “Say, where is she, anyhow?”

“Town,” Old Mac said.

“Town? What’d she go to town for?” Big Mac demanded.

“Didn’t say. Left a note,” Old Mac said, and holding up the bottle, “You’re just in time for cocktails. Oh, it’s not your bottle, it’s my bottle. Have a snort.”

“I pass while I slip into something comfortable,” Little Mac said, going up to the house.

Big Mac took the bottle and looked at it.

“Funny, her traipsing off to town like that,” he said.

“Stop worrying about her,” Old Mac said, “and wet your whistle.”

Big Mac took a drink and then said, “Who the hell’s worrying about her?”

“You’re the hell worrying about her,” Old Mac said, taking the bottle and tilting it up.

“I wish I’d never thought of that God-damn piano,” Big Mac said.

“Oh, forget it, this is the cocktail hour,” Old Mac said.

Taking the bottle, Big Mac said, “Still, it would be nice if she’d only practice.”

“What the hell’s so God-damn wonderful about playing a piano?” Old Mac demanded. “The world’s full of piano players, most of them lousy. Christ, there are more important things in the world than pounding a lot of silly black and white keys.”

“Yeah, but not to her,” Big Mac said. “Now why the hell should she go off to that crummy town? She never did before.”

“You better ask her when she gets back,” Old Mac said. “I’m not going to, because I’m kind of in the doghouse with her.”

“What’d you do to get in the doghouse?”

“Simply told her how to make a Ramos Fizz,” Old Mac said.

“Huh?”

“She claimed I insulted her,” Old Mac said. “Give me that bottle if you’re just going to fool with it.”

Big Mac handed him the bottle and Old Mac took another drink.

“Why did telling her how to make a Ramos Fizz insult her?” Big Mac said, puzzled.

“Well, I said a Ramos Fizz might put her in the mood for love and I recommended it,” Old Mac said. “I said it was a hell of a good prelude to the hay, hey, hey!”

“You shouldn’t say things like that to her!”

“Exactly what she said,” Old Mac said. “And why the hell shouldn’t I say things like that to her?”

“Because she’s a nice girl!”

“A nice girl!” Old Mac said. “You dope, she’s a woman. Sweet and warm. Of course she’s kind of loused up. But a man could unlouse her. If I were twenty years younger . . .” He sighed. “I’m dreaming out loud. Looks like you’ll have to do.”

Big Mac shook his head, slowly.

“What have I got to offer her?”

“A man,” Old Mac said. “Plenty of man. I’m assuming you’ve got no missing parts?”

“Standard equipment,” Big Mac said. “But what the hell else have I got?”

“What the hell else do you need?”

“A job,” Big Mac said. “A home. A country. A future.”

“Why, you’ve got ’em all, right here in Paradise,” Old Mac said.

“Quit kidding. I’m a bum. And a hot bum at that. It’s only a question of time until some rat takes a gander at that handbill in the police station and blows the whistle.”

“Guys around here don’t holler copper . . . unless there’s money in it,” Old Mac said.

“It’s a hell of a life to expect a woman to share,” Big Mac said.

“What’s wrong with it?”

“God damn it, a woman’s got a right to a little security, a little peace!”

“This is the most peaceful spot there is,” Old Mac said.

“Peace of mind,” Big Mac said. “You think I want her waiting . . . waiting for that beef . . . for that Arm to fall on my shoulder?”

“Maybe it’d be a lot better than no life at all,” Old Mac murmured. He took another drink. “No man. No love.”

“I want to give her the moon and the stars!” Big Mac said.

Looking into the sky Old Mac said, gently, “You’ll never find ’em any closer, son.”

“We can’t rot here!” Big Mac growled, as Little Mac came out of the house, wearing his Sunday whites.

“All right, so the hell with it,” Old Mac said. “So go to China, you jerks, and get your guts shot out in some stinking rice paddy, not even knowing what the hell you’re dying for!”

“We don’t talk much about China any more,” Big Mac said. “Maybe it was what you said about windmills.”

“Yeah, windmills,” Little Mac said, coming down to the sand.

“Look, we’re all sitting pretty in Paradise,” Old Mac said.

Big Mac shrugged. Little Mac sniffed at the steaming slumgullion again and sat down, reaching for the bottle.

“Well, aren’t we?” Old Mac barked.

“Huh?” Little Mac said.

“Sitting pretty!”

“Sure, sure,” Little Mac said, taking a drink.

“Anybody that can’t be happy in Paradise ought to have his head examined,” Old Mac said, snatching the bottle and taking a long drink.

“Sure, sure,” Little Mac said.

He took the bottle back, offered it to Big Mac.

Ignoring the bottle, Big Mac said, “The trouble with Paradise, you’ve got to be dead to rate it.”

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said, and took another drink.

Old Mac grabbed it then and took another one himself.

“Say, Old Mac, you used to have any fun running that paper of yours?” Big Mac asked.

“Fun? You’re damned right, brother. Man, did I throw my weight around!”

Thoughtfully, Little Mac said, “Ever wish you were back at that old desk?”

“Wishing is wishy-washy!” Old Mac said.

“Yeah,” Big Mac said. “Still, once in a while a man gets to thinking about the job he’s cut out for . . . a man with no job of work to do’s only half a man.”

“Yeah man, I know,” Little Mac said. “Old Big used to build things and watch ’em grow. Got a hell of a kick out of it.”

“You got a hell of a kick out of yours, too,” Big Mac said.

“Filing the running story,” Little Mac said, nodding. “Like the time . . . remember last summer at the Stadium, Big? The time I got you and Cindy seats right back of third base?”

As Big Mac nodded, remembering, Old Mac said, “Cindy? That your girl, Big?”

“Little Mac’s,” Big Mac said, and went on. “It was the Yankees and the Browns. Last of the seventh and those Yanks trying for that big inning . . .”

“And the sacks all loaded,” Little Mac said. “The Scooter on third, and that Mantle coming up there ready to swing for it all. So they thumbed the man in there, the man with the feet like satchels . . .”

“Old Satchel Paige,” Big Mac said. “Old Satch stepping in there in the clutch . . .”

“Schmaltz!” Old Mac snorted.

“I can see him out there on that hill,” Little Mac said. “Warming up . . . and loose as a goose.” He sighed. “Man.”

“Well, what happened?” Old Mac demanded.

“What happened?” Little Mac said. “He asks what happened!”

“Struck him out of there, of course,” Big Mac said.

After a long moment of silence, Little Mac murmured, “Cindy. I phoned her from New Orleans . . . told her we’d had it. You know what she said, Old Mac? She said she’d wait till there was ice skating in hell. It’s not right, Old Mac! She’s young, with love in her.” He shook his head, murmured, “We used to say we’d have nine kids and field our own ball club.”

“With your luck, you’d probably had about eight girls,” Old Mac said.

“That’d be okay, too,” Little Mac said. “You ought to see my Cindy play third base. Man, could she go to her left. Hit good, too . . . and run . . .”

He sighed, took another pull at the bottle, and looking at Old Mac thoughtfully, he asked, “Old Mac, you get a lot of letters to Vox Pop that time you ran my kisser with the fire behind it on page one?”

“Stacks,” Old Mac said. “Bushels.”

“Nigger-lover beefs, I guess?” Little Mac said.

“Well, some,” Old Mac said. “But there were attaboys, too.”

“Many?” Big Mac said.

“Well . . . yes. A lot. Some from guys who’d been over in Number Two . . . quite a bundle from guys back from Korea. . . .”

“Those guys would know the score,” Big Mac said. “They’d know a black man’s blood’s the same color’s their own. . . .”

“People on our side,” Little Mac murmured. “Any women, Old Mac?”

“Yeah. Plenty.”

“Look, Old Mac,” Big Mac said. “Supposing you were to plant your fanny behind that desk again . . .”

“I like it right here!” Old Man cried.

“Yeah, but supposing you were to get up there in our corner again?” Little Mac said.

“Look, leave well enough alone, will you?” Old Mac said.

“Of course, we’d need a hell of a good mouthpiece . . .” Big Mac said.

“One of those New York hotshots,” Little Mac said.

“You crazy?” Old Mac demanded. “A damyankee? Listen, you want a man like old Judge Pogue, of Memphis, a rip-snorting old son-of-a-bitch who’ll r’ar back and holler, ‘Gentlemen of the Jury! Fellow Southerners!’ And mean it!”

“Fellow Southerners,” Little Mac murmured.

“Oh, what the hell am I saying?” Old Mac said. “We all ought to stop talking to ourselves!”

“Yeah, guess we better,” Little Mac said. But when no one said anything for a moment, he went on. “To see my girl again. To get married. To have each other for a little while, so even if I had to lose, maybe there’d be a kid . . . a man to follow me.”

“Hey, lay off that talk about losing,” Big Mac said. “Why, we’d have a fighting chance with Old Mac and that rebel sheet of his on our side. You suppose he’d have guts enough to run that picture of you with the fire behind it on the front page every day of the trial?”

“I wonder,” Little Mac said. “All the hot by-lines would be there, too, covering. Maybe Winchell . . . telling our story to all the people. . . . Say, Old Mac, you think we’d rate T.V.?”

“Would we rate T.V.!” Big Mac exploded. “Why, the whole damn world would be there with a ringside seat. Well, you old bugger? You got your pecker up or not?”

“I used to play longshots . . .” Old Mac muttered.

“Sometimes a man has got to go for broke,” Big Mac said.

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said. “How about it?”

“God damn it to hell, I’ve played longshots all my life,” Old Mac said, “but that was only for money. You lose this time and it’s your ass, for sure!”

“Hush, your language!” Little Mac said, as Gay came into sight, carrying a package. The pup rushed to her and jumped all over her.

“Hi?” Old Mac said.

“Where the hell have you been?” Big Mac said.

She walked straight across to Old Mac and then said, “I thought you said they were gorgeous!”

“Huh?” Old Mac said.

“The girls at One Eye Lou’s!” she said.

Old Mac began to laugh but Big Mac said, glaring, “What the hell were you doing up at that cathouse?”

“Finding out how much you paid for that piano,” she said. “Four hundred dollars! That’s insane!”

“Well, it was the only piano for sale,” Big Mac said.

“I tried to get her to take it back and return the money, but she wouldn’t,” Gay said.

“Ladies in her business never give refunds,” Old Mac said. “At least that’s the way I heard it.”

“But I got some of it,” Gay said, taking a roll of bills from her pocket.

Grabbing her by the arms, Big Mac said, harshly, “What’d you do for that God-damn madam to get all that money?”

“I sold her my necklace and my watch,” she said. “You’re hurting me, Mac.”

Big Mac let go of her arms and Little Mac murmured, “Her necklace and her watch that her pappy put on her for her birthday.”

“It’s just to pay you back some of that getaway stake,” she said.

Big Mac was looking at her very strangely.

“I’m tired of being a millstone around your neck!” she cried.

He smiled at her gently and said, “You don’t weigh enough.”

“If you’re still worrying about me, please don’t,” she said. “I’m perfectly all right.”

The gentle smile was gone and his voice was flat as he said, “That’s fine.”

“I don’t need you any more.”

“Fine.”

“Anyhow, there’s . . . there’s a man in New York . . .”

“Swell.”

“He’s waiting and I’m going back.”

“Congratulations.”

“So you see there’s nothing to hold you back.”

“Not a thing,” he said.

Holding out the package, she said, “Look, I’ve brought you a present,” and as he took it, “It’s ammo, ammo for the Thompson gun.”

“Thanks,” Big Mac said.

“It’s a sort of symbol,” she said. “If I hadn’t wished myself on you, you’d have had your stake, you’d be on your way, both of you, to China . . . to fight for something!”

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said.

Stuffing the money into his shirt pocket, she said, “If you hurry you can catch that tramp.”

“Why sure,” Big Mac said. “Well, Little Mac, you heard the lady, what the hell’s keeping us?”

He strode to the clothesline and snatched a pair of dungarees and a jumper from it.

“I’ll help you pack,” she said.

“I’m packed,” he said, folding the dungarees and jumper.

Picking up his guitar, Little Mac said, “Me too.”

For a moment they both looked at her.

“Bless you,” Gay said.

“You too,” Little Mac said.

“Goodbye,” Big Mac said.

“Goodbye,” she said, gently.

Big Mac hurried towards the dinghy.

Old Mac held out his hand to Little Mac and said, “So long.”

“So long, Jeff Davis McGovern,” Little Mac said.

“Wait!” Gay said, and hurried into the house, returning in a moment with the Thompson gun, which she held out to Little Mac.

“Take care of him, Little Mac,” she whispered, and, as the tramp ship silenced her horn, “Oh, hurry, Little Mac, please hurry!”

“Bye, bye, now,” Little Mac said, and hurried after Big Mac.

Big Mac hopped into the dinghy, turned and took his seat at the oars, as Little Mac shoved it out and hopped in. Gay stared after them.

In the dinghy, watching Big Mac row, Little Mac said, after a moment or two, “We really shoving off, Big?”

“Sure.”

“You believe that crap about the guy in New York?”

“Hell no.”

“It’s you she’s nuts about, Big.”

“I know.”

“Is that bad?”

“Yes. It could be.”

“I don’t get it.”

“What you want me to do, shack up with her?”

“You could get married.”

“Oh, sure, sure. Great.”

“There’s something screwy somewhere,” Little Mac mused. “She’s really wingy about you. I think she just tumbled to that. And yet she cons us into shoving off. Why the hurry?”

“She’s no dope,” Big Mac said. “She knows we’re dead ducks sooner or later if we hang around here.”

“I guess that’s it,” Little Mac said. “I don’t see what else her angle could be.”

Big Mac grunted and bent harder to the oars.

After a couple of more minutes Little Mac said, quietly, “We’re running out on her, Big. That stuff about her being all right and not needing you any more was a lot of crap, too.”

“I don’t think so,” Big Mac said. “I think she’s ready to stand on her own hind legs. She had that kind of look in her eyes to me.”

The ship’s horn began blowing again, sharp, impatient blasts.

On the beach, Gay cried, “Oh, God, are they going to make it?”

“Sure,” Old Mac said, and looking at the steaming can he sighed, and then he growled, “Oh, nuts!” and kicked it hard.

It rolled over and spilled the savory contents out onto the sand. Cuchullin sniffed happily and began to slurp it up.

Old Mac looked at the bottle in his hand, half raised it, shook his head disgustedly and threw it over the rail, into the riptide.

Gay was still following the yawl with her eyes as Old Mac limped wearily off towards his camp. The ship’s horn sounded again and again, mournfully.

Sam the beachcomber sat slumped over a table in The Flying Fish. The men from the tramp steamer had bought him drinks before they’d shoved off and he was drunk. But not too drunk to carry out the little plan he had.

His little plan was very simple. As soon as Ulrich came in from wherever he’d disappeared to after the little broad had latched onto that Tommygun and sent him a-runnin’, Sam the beachcomber was going to tell him he’d seen everything that had happened out there.

Then he was going to put the bite on Ulrich for a C note and if Ulrich kicked in, he’d forget all about what he’d seen, but if Ulrich didn’t kick in, why Sam the beachcomber was going to tell Big Mac. He was sure Ulrich would be reasonable.

The tramp steamer kept sounding her horn and it annoyed him. It felt like it was going off inside his skull. He needed a drink bad. But he could wait. There’d be plenty of drinks once he put the bite on Ulrich. It wouldn’t be the last bite, either.

Unless that little broad . . . suppose she told Big Mac herself! That would spoil his little scheme for milking Ulrich.

No! She can’t do that to me! Every guy rates one good break. Hell, she won’t open her yap. She won’t take a chance on Big Mac burnin’ Ulrich down and hangin’ for it. This is in the bag.

The swinging doors creaked and he thought, There he is. There’s my pigeon.

He peered through his hands, but it wasn’t Ulrich, it was Chief of Police Perez. Sam the beachcomber covered his eyes again, pretending he was passed out.

“Evening, Chief,” Al the bartender said.

“Good evening,” Perez said. “Where’s Mr. Ulrich?”

“Ain’t seen him since afternoon,” the bartender said.

“Please ask him to come to my office when he comes in,” Perez said.

“Will do, Chief,” the bartender said.

Come to his office! Wonder if there’s been a beef? Sam the beachcomber thought. Wonder if Perez is gonna put the arm on him?

He hoped not, at least until he could put that bite on him. He heard the swinging doors creak again and then Ulrich’s voice, saying, “Why, hello, Chief. Join me in a little drink?”

“Thank you, no,” Perez said. “But I’d like a word with you, if you don’t mind.”

“I don’t mind,” Ulrich said.

“At my office, please,” Perez said.

“Say, what’s this all about?” Ulrich asked.

“It’s about a certain radiogram you gave the operator for the United States Consul at the capital,” Perez said.

Why, the son-of-a-bitch! Sam the beachcomber thought. He’s blown the whistle on ’em! Why, the son-of-a-bitch. And I thought he was just bluffin’ that twist! He hollered copper!

He heard the swinging doors creak as Perez and Ulrich went out, and sat up, blearily. He was morally outraged. Hollering copper was the only unforgivable sin in Sam the beachcomber’s book. Cursing Ulrich for a stoolie, he even forgot that his dreams of one C note after the other were dead.

I ought to row out there and tip those guys off, he thought. Brother, would they burn that man down! But Jesus, I’m in no shape for rowin’. Maybe if I had one little drink . . .

But he was flat broke and there was a fat chance Al the bartender would let him cuff one.

If I had just one little old shot, I could row out there and tip those guys off . . .

He tried to stand up, but it was too rough.

It’s sure drunk out tonight!

He sank back, laid his head on his hands and went to sleep.

The entrance of four or five local bums woke him. The ship’s horn was still sounding. He wished it would stop.

Maybe I can scrounge a drink . . .

Little Mac came through the swinging doors carrying his guitar, with Big Mac right behind him carrying the Tommygun.

She told ’em after all! Sam the beachcomber thought.

“Where’s the boss?” Big Mac said.

A’lookin’ for Ulrich and loaded for rat! Sam the beachcomber thought.

Swaying to his feet, he croaked, “Gonna burn that man down!”

“We came for our dough . . .” Big Mac began. “Huh? What you talking about?”

“Your broad didn’t tell you?” Sam the beachcomber said.

“Tell me what?”

“About Ulrich! He tried to lay your broad! Said he’d blow the whistle on you if she didn’t . . .”

Big Mac began to shake him.

“But she didn’t!” Sam the beachcomber said, and when Big Mac stopped shaking him, “Grabbed that Tommygun and chased his ass, so he hollered copper just like he said he would, radioed the U.S. Consul, spilled his guts, the stinkin’ rat!”

He spat his contempt.

Letting go of his arm, Big Mac said, quietly, “Where is he?”

“Up with Chief Perez.”

“Let’s sit awhile, Little Mac,” Big Mac said.

Little Mac looked off towards the sound of the ship’s horn, then nodded. They sat at a table facing the door and Big Mac broke open the package of ammunition and began to load the Thompson gun.

“Brother, this I gotta see!” Sam the beachcomber said. “Gonna burn that stoolie down!”

“Say that’s right,” Big Mac said. “Two collinses, Al,” and then, nodding to Sam the beachcomber, “Make that three.”

Coming around the edge of the faded pink house, Old Mac saw her in the moonlight, standing at the rail above the riptide, looking seaward after the tramp steamer, which had all but vanished over the horizon.

Old Mac stopped and leaned on his cane, watching her. He had shaved and was wearing his good clothes, white linen suit and shirt, sports shoes, the big wide-brimmed Panama. And smoking a big cigar.

The ship’s horn sounded in the distance and Gay raised her hand in a private gesture of farewell. The horn sounded once more, almost as if in reply.

She looked down into the swift tide.

“If you do, I’ll never speak to you again,” Old Mac said.

She turned slowly.

“Yeah, it’s me,” Old Mac said. “I stopped playing beachcomber.”

As he crossed the patio towards the rail, she noticed that while he was using the cane, he limped less than usual. He looked very fit and chipper.

“I must say it’s done you good,” she said.

“Could be,” Old Mac said, and then, after a pause, “Were you going to do it, kid?”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Were you lying when you told Big Mac you were all right?”

“I don’t know.”

“He believed you and trusted you. You going to let him down?”

“I don’t know. Jake believed me and trusted me and I let him down.”

“That’s all in the past. Aren’t you a big girl now?”

“I don’t know.”

“Well, you sort of made noises like one a while ago. That was kind of brave, sending him off, kind of brave and kind of dopey, too.”

“Dopey?”

“You want those guys to get killed?”

“No,” she said. “You don’t understand. Where they’re going, they’ll at least have a fighting chance, and if they have to die, haven’t they earned that kind of death!”

“Maybe they’ve earned a better one than dying in a stinking rice paddy among strangers, not really knowing what the hell they’re dying for,” Old Mac said.

“You don’t understand,” she said.

“You shouldn’t have sent him away,” Old Mac said. “You should have made him a Ramos Fizz like I told you and then he’d have never gone away.”

“He wouldn’t have known what a Ramos Fizz meant!”

“Yes, he would. I told him.”

“You shouldn’t have!”

“He’s a big boy.”

“What did he . . . say?”

“He bawled hell out of me for talking to you like that. He claimed you were a nice girl and I claimed you were a woman and told him a few of the facts of life, but he said he had nothing to offer you, no job, no home, no country, no future.”

“That wouldn’t have mattered,” she said.

“Maybe you better radio that little old tramp steamer and ask him to come back so you can make him that Ramos Fizz.”

“I can’t. You don’t understand!”

“What don’t I understand? Can’t you tell me?”

“I don’t like telling you,” she said.

“Why not?”

“Because I wouldn’t want to tell you just part of the truth and I’m ashamed to tell you all of the truth.”

“You can tell me any part of the truth you want to,” Old Mac said.

“Oh, no,” she said. “That would make me look too good in there.”

“What?”

“That’s why Big Mac never talks about how he faced the mob for Little Mac’s life,” she said. “He’s brave and modest and he doesn’t like to look too good in there. I’d like to be brave and modest like Big Mac.”

“Little Mac knows how brave and modest his friend is,” Old Mac said. “Don’t I rate knowing how brave and modest my friend is?”

Deeply touched, she said, “Thank you for saying that, Old Mac, thank you for feeling it, but . . .”

“But?” he asked, gently.

“I had a chance to save them without sending them off, maybe to die among strangers. I had a chance to save Big Mac . . . but I didn’t take it. The chance was . . . Ulrich. . . .” She bit her lip. It was hard for her to go on, but she did. “If I’d gone to bed with Ulrich . . .”

“You couldn’t do that,” Old Mac said.

“He said he’d radio their names to the American Consul if I didn’t. He said . . . Oh, Old Mac, he wouldn’t have radioed their names if I’d let him . . . have me. I thought of the mob . . . the flames . . . I thought I could do that much for them . . . for him.”

“No,” Old Mac said.

“They’d give their lives for each other . . . for me. . . . I thought I could give my . . . myself.”

“No,” Old Mac said.

“But I couldn’t,” she said. “I said I would and I meant to . . . but I couldn’t; I hit him with the doll and then I grabbed the Thompson gun and I swung it slow, like Big Mac swung it back there in Dixie . . . but he swung it to save Little Mac’s life and I only swung it to save my . . . myself! I could have saved them both but I just didn’t have the guts!”

“Yes, you did,” Old Mac said. “You had the guts, in spades. Bluffing that son-of-a-bitch with that unloaded gun! You’re a brave modest true girl and you did the only thing you could do, being you.”

“Would he think so? Would Big Mac think so?”

“Yes, he would,” Old Mac said.

“Then I’m glad,” she said.

“Just one more river to cross,” Old Mac said.

“One more river?”

“Carnegie Hall,” Old Mac said. “What about that date you’ve got there, with yourself and a grand piano?”

“Oh, no!”

“Oh, yes.”

“Not alone! I’m so alone!”

“You think so, eh? You’re so wrong, kid.”

“You just don’t understand!”

“The hell I don’t! I’ve been alone. From the time Maggie went away until . . . but let’s get first things first. That God-damn airplane! On her way to California to see our granddaughter and her new baby . . . it tried to shave off the top of a mountain.”

“If you’d only gone with her!”

“Why, hell, I’d be dead.”

“You wouldn’t be lonely.”

“I’m not,” he said. “Not any more. But, baby, I was! In spite of our sons and daughter and the grandkids. Old and alone. I just folded up, turned the paper over to the boys, left all the memories, everything I’d lived by, took to that wheel chair and that male nurse. Wangled that cruise, meaning to jump ship, so I could die with my boots on. Muffed that chance. Baby, I was really alone then, in a New York hotel, with that wet nurse. And then along came that night when I conked him with that bedpan and I haven’t been alone since.”

She smiled.

“That’s right,” Old Mac said. “Smile. On you it looks good. Look, I’m going to tell you something, something I wouldn’t tell just anybody. This night I’m talking about; it was the night I really hit rock bottom. I thought I’d hit it the night I let that son-of-a-bitch Johansen drag me away from here, but oh, no. This other night was really it. I was lying there in bed in that hotel room, with that stinker beside me asleep and snoring. I was feeling so God-damn sorry for myself I couldn’t stand it any more, and suddenly I thought the hell with it! I sneaked out of bed, careful not to wake that bastard, and I went over to the window and raised it very quietly and looked down into the street, twelve stories down, and I thought, move over, Maggie, here I come, and thought what a hell of a fine splash I’d make. Then I looked up and it was just midnight on the big General Motors clock and I looked over at the windows of the big hotels along the south side of the Park, some of them dark, but a lot of them lighted. I thought of the people behind those lighted windows, some of them just in from a good show, maybe having supper there, maybe with wine; and I thought of the people behind some of the dark windows, sleeping or maybe making love. Then I saw one of the lighted windows go dark and I wondered whether some lucky young fellow wasn’t undressing a girl there, and then I thought of you, and your little panties and bra hanging on the line down here alongside Big Mac’s things, and I hoped you were lovers, the way Maggie and I were lovers, and I remembered the sweet clean joy of it, the wonder and the beauty of it, and how she looked and how it was with us that first time and every time we were together and all of a sudden I knew she hadn’t really gone away, at all, and I knew I didn’t have to jump out of that window to be with her, and that she’d never go away again, not from my heart and my memory, never again as long as I lived, so naturally I wanted that to be one hell of a long time!”

Gay looked at him smiling there and then she looked down into the rushing angry water for a moment, and then she turned suddenly and looked at Old Mac again and said, “You’re so right and Big Mac was so right when he said I hadn’t lost Jake, that he’s part of me and you can’t lose anybody that’s part of you, deep in your guts.”

Old Mac nodded.

“Guts,” she murmured. “The stuff there’s no substitute for. You know something, Old Mac? Maybe I’ll never be able to make really good music or slumgullion or a Ramos Fizz the way Maggie made them, but I’ve made something, something better than music, or slumgullion or Ramos Fizzes, I’ve made friends.”

Old Mac nodded.

In a note of wonder, she went on, “I’m not alone any more! It was so cold there alone. And now, no matter where they may be, I’ve got my friends to keep me warm!”

“Say that’s right,” Old Mac said.

Big Mac and Little Mac sat at the table facing the swinging doors, waiting for Ulrich. Between two tall drinks on the table lay the loaded Thompson gun.

Behind the bar, Al the bartender stolidly squeezed limes. He was wondering who he’d be working for, come tomorrow.

At a table in the rear, safely out of range, sat Sam the beachcomber, nursing his rum collins. He felt fine. He was nursing the drink because he wanted to be in shape to enjoy the fun.

The horn of the tramp steamer stopped abruptly and Little Mac breathed a sigh.

“We wouldn’t have got far,” Big Mac said. “All they had to do was radio that tub and we’d have been in irons time we reached the next port.”

“Sure, I know,” Little Mac said.

“If there’d been a chance in hell you could’ve made it . . .”

“Oh, hush,” Little Mac said.

Big Mac looked at him affectionately. “You little bastard . . .” he murmured. And then, defensively, “I’ve got to do it, Little Mac. It’s our ass for sure if I do, but I’ve got to do it.”

“Our ass if we don’t,” Little Mac said. “What the hell, a guy can only croak once, as the fella said.”

“Say that’s right. Who said that, Little Mac?”

“A guy by the name of Feeble.”

“Huh?”

“Yeah, Feeble,” Little Mac said, and quoting dreamily, “ ‘By my troth I care not, a man can die but once’. . . something, something, something . . . oh, yeah, ‘We owe God a death and let it go which way it will, he that dies this year is square’ . . . no, not square, it’s quit . . . ‘he that dies this year is quit for the next.’ ”

“Say, he knew the score all right,” Big Mac said. “You say his name was Feeble?”

“Yeah man. What a name, what a name, Feeble! It’s in Shakespeare, Big. I had a girl once was nuts about old Shakespeare. Used to read him to me in bed. Only thing I remember is that pitch of Feeble’s. Kind of hit me where I live, I guess.”

“Feeble,” Big Mac said. “Oh, quit changing the God-damn subject. I’ve got to do it, Little Mac. You know I’ve got to.”

“She was afraid you would. That’s why she gave us the quick brush.”

“He didn’t only rat,” Big Mac said. “He put his dirty paws on her! He’s got to take it, Little Mac. He’s got to pay.”

“Sure he has,” Little Mac said.

He put his hands on the glass and twirled it between the palms.

“She was worrying about us, Big.”

“Yeah,” Big Mac said. “Grew up quick. The hard way. Brave, too. Had the old Moxie in the clutch. A fighting heart, like all my friends.”

“She doesn’t want us to kill him, Big,” Little Mac said, quietly.

“I know, but I’ve got to do it; I’ve just got to.”

Drumming on his glass with his fingers, Little Mac began to hum “The Ballad of Sam Hall,” and then he half sang, half spoke, softly:

He broke off then, stopped drumming on the glass, and said, quietly, “Not in cold blood, Big.”

“He asked for it,” Big Mac said. “You can’t say the bastard didn’t ask for it.”

“Sure he did,” Little Mac said. “So we burn him down . . . rooty-toot-toot . . . and the boys in blue, they come, too, and we burn them down, Perez and a brown copper or two or three . . . just so they don’t take us alive . . . so we beat that rope.”

“You said you wanted to die on your feet, like old Cuchullin, dishing it out before you had to take it,” Big Mac said.

“Sure, but for something,” Little Mac said. “What we got against Perez? What we got against those brown coppers? They’re just guys. Like we’re just guys.”

Big Mac picked up the Thompson gun and looked at it thoughtfully. Ulrich came through the swinging doors, and stopped, blocking the way for the moment for Chief Perez and the two tall brown policemen.

Big Mac caressed the Thompson gun.

“All right,” Ulrich said. “I’m ready.”

“Do not be foolish, Mr. McCord!” Perez said, sharply.

He pushed Ulrich aside and came in, followed by the two policemen, who had quickly drawn their revolvers. For a moment, Big Mac weighed the Thompson gun in his hands. Then he sighed and put the gun down on the table.

Rising, he said, “It’s all yours, Chief. Nice timing. A couple of minutes the other way and we’d all be headin’ for that last roundup.”

“But I’m guilty!” Ulrich said.

“Yeah,” Big Mac said.

He walked over to Ulrich and looked at him for a moment.

“Aren’t you going to . . . to punish me?” Ulrich whispered.

Big Mac raked his cheek with his knuckles. As the blood came through the tan, one of the policemen grabbed Big Mac.

“Let him go,” Ulrich said.

The policeman looked to Chief Perez, who nodded. The policeman let go of Big Mac, who cocked his left.

“Get ’em up, Ulrich.”

Ulrich stood, waiting for the blow, his arms at his side.

“Aren’t you going to make a fight of it?”

Ulrich shook his head.

“Well, that’s one way of ducking your licking, you yellow bastard,” Big Mac said.

“Punish me,” Ulrich whispered.

Big Mac slowly unclenched his fist.

Ulrich sighed.

“All right,” he said, “if it’s the only way.”

He swung wildly for Big Mac’s chin. Big Mac rolled with the punch and fired his left. Ulrich took it, deliberately, on the chin, and fell forward on his face.

“Why, the son-of-a-bitch wanted it,” Big Mac murmured, staring down at him.

The tramp steamer’s horn began to sound again, sharp, hoarse, peremptory blasts.

Big Mac held out his wrists to Perez and said, “Okay, Chief, let’s try those bracelets for size.”

She was in Carnegie Hall at last, in a new frock, a yellow one, and as she came out to face the people, she was thinking of the time she’d told Old Mac, “Don’t ever tell them I don’t like yellow, because I’m trying to get to.”

I didn’t like yellow, because that’s what I was, yellow, and I didn’t like myself. I was yellow, maybe I still am! Well, here goes, I’ll soon find out!

The people were clapping. For her or for Jake?

No. They’re clapping because I’m going to give it the old college try.

She smiled at all the people and thought of Old Mac saying, “There’s hardly anything in the world nicer than a girl’s smile, a girl’s laugh. Unless it’s a girl herself. I’ll bet you never stopped to think what a miracle it is just to be a woman.”

Am I a woman? Am I a big girl now?

She sat down and began to play, and playing the Polonaise, she felt as if she were a woman, and that she was making something good.

The people applauded and then she was at the big hurdle, it was time to play it, The Grand Polonaise, and now she was frightened. She looked out over the audience, looking for help, for Jake.

But Jake wasn’t there, dead or alive.

And then she searched the faces of the people for three friends, for Little Mac and Old Mac and Big Mac. But they weren’t there either. She was all alone with strangers.

And then she remembered what she’d said to Old Mac, long ago, on the tip of the point, by the rail overlooking Lovers Leap, “I’m not alone any more! It was so cold there alone. And now, no matter where they may be, I’ve got my friends to keep me warm!”

And she remembered what Big Mac had said about Jake, that she hadn’t lost him, that he was deep in her guts, and suddenly she knew that’s where her friends were, too, Big Mac and Little Mac and Old Mac and she was no longer alone and her fingers were alive as she began to play it, to play The Grande Polonaise, not for Jake, or Little Mac or Old Mac or even Big Mac, but for herself and the people who’d paid to get in.

As she approached the place where she’d frozen up before and run away, she was afraid again, but she had to try. She raised her hands to try, but Cuchullin stirred violently beside her on the bed and as she woke he was barking.

Someone was knocking on the door.

No Thompson gun now!

She ran to the window, parted the curtains and looked out. Chief of Police Perez was at the door.

Raising the window, she said, “You’re too late; they’ve gone!”

“You are mistaken,” he said, quietly. “Please get dressed, Mrs. McCord.”

She went up to the swinging doors to The Flying Fish, with Cuchullin in her arms. Chief Perez waved her in, then Old Mac, and followed.

Big Mac and Little Mac were seated at a table. Behind them, against the wall, stood the tall brown policemen. Sam the beachcomber was at the bar and there were a lot of people at the tables, “the crums,” as Big Mac called them.

Seeing her, Big Mac and Little Mac stood up. Cuchullin began to yip happily.

“What happened?” she cried. “He wouldn’t tell me! What happened?”

“Sit down,” Big Mac said.

“Ulrich . . . did he . . .?”

“Why sure,” Big Mac said.

“Where is he? You . . . you haven’t . . . killed him?”

Big and Little Mac shook their heads.

“Mr. Ulrich doesn’t live here any more,” Chief Perez said. “He abused our hospitality.”

“Shoved off on that little old tramp,” Little Mac said.

“The Chief . . . er . . . expedited his departure.” Big Mac grinned.

Perez drew a folded sheet of thin yellow paper from his pocket and handed it to her, and as she read Ulrich’s message to the U.S. Consul, Perez said, “Fortunately, messages of this nature are always cleared through my office.”

He took the message from her, struck a match on his thumb nail, saying to Little Mac, “A trick I’ve been practicing since I saw you do it, Mr. Maconn,” and put the match to the thin yellow paper.

As it blazed up, he dropped it onto a plate, clapped his hands briskly together, and cried, “Bartender! Drinks for everyone! On the house! Compliments of . . .” and he bowed, smilingly, “Juan Perez, your new boniface.”

The “crums” began to pound enthusiastically upon the tables.

When the noise had subsided, Gay said, “Then . . . they don’t have to go back?”

“Hell no,” Big Mac said. “But we’re going. Under our own steam.”

“Yeah man,” Little Mac said. “Talked it all over and it came up Dixie.”

“What about . . . China?”

Big Mac shrugged. “Windmills.”

“Going to do our fighting in our own backyard,” Little Mac said.

“Of course it’d help to have Jeff Davis McGovern and The Tennessee Rebel on our side,” Big Mac said, and looked at Old Mac challengingly.

“You’ve got ’em,” Old Mac said, quietly, and then, breaking his cane across his knee, “We’ll go for broke.”

They looked to Gay, who nodded, slowly. “All of us,” she said.

The waiter was hovering, waiting for their order.

“The drink, Mrs. McCord,” Perez said. “What will it be?”

“Two Ramos Fizzes,” she said.

TRANSCRIBER NOTES

Misspelled words and printer errors have been corrected. Where multiple spellings occur, majority use has been employed.

Punctuation has been maintained except where obvious printer errors occur.

A Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience.

A cover which is placed in the public domain was created for this ebook.

[The end of The Trouble with Paradise, by Roy Chanslor]