Gulf coast girl: original title, Scorpion reef - By Charles Williams Page 0,15

married once for four years. So relax.

I left the bar.

I remembered after a while I hadn’t eaten anything since breakfast. I went into a restaurant and ordered dinner. When it came I wasn’t hungry.

It was an easy job. It probably wouldn’t take a month altogether, if he really knew where that plane was. A month—Just three of us at sea in a small boat. I shook my head irritably. What the hell difference did that make? It was just a job, wasn’t it?

I’d own the Ballerina. After I landed them I’d sail her across to San Juan. I’d go to work for the Navy, at least until the hurricane season was over, and then cruise the West Indies. Why, with that much money I could sail her around the world. I’d try writing again.

I pushed the food back and looked around for a phone booth. I dialed the yacht broker’s office. There was no answer. It went on ringing. At last I remembered to look at my watch. It was nearly seven.

I went out in the street and bought a paper, standing on a corner while I rustled impatiently through it to the classified section. She was still listed among a dozen others in the broker’s ad. 36 ft. aux, slp. Ballerina. Slps 4. Now there was a description, I thought sourly. The poet who dreamed it up would probably call the Taj Mahal an oldr. type bldg, suitbl. lge. fmly.

I walked out to the beach and prowled for miles along the sea wall. It was after ten when I finally caught a cab and went back to the pier. The driver stopped at the watchman’s shanty.

“This will do,” I said, and got out.

While I was waiting for my change the watchman came out. It was old Christiansen, who was always eager for a chance to talk. “Fellow was here to see you, Mr. Manning,” he said. “He’s still out there.”

“Thanks,” I said. I put the change in my pocket and the cab left.

“Maybe he’s got a diving job for you, eh?” Christiansen said. “That’s what he said, anyway.”

“I suppose so,” I answered, not paying much attention. “Good night.” It was late for anybody to be coming around about a job, but maybe he’d been waiting for quite a while.

I crossed the railroad spur in the darkness and entered the long shed running out on the pier. It was velvety black inside and hot, and I could hear my footsteps echo off the empty walls. Up ahead I could see the faint illumination which came from the opened doors at the other end. There was a light above them on the outside.

I wondered what kind of man Macaulay was. There was no picture of him at all. An executive in a marine insurance firm who was being hunted down by a mob of gangsters didn’t make even the glimmerings of sense. I thought of being hunted that way, of never knowing when some utter stranger might shoot you in a crowd or when they might get you from behind in the dark. It had never occurred to me before, but I began to realize now how helpless and alone you could be. Sure, you had the police. But did you want to live in a precinct station? What was left? They could catch and prosecute the man after he’d killed you, if that was any comfort, but they couldn’t arrest him for wanting to.

Then I thought of something else. The girl herself. He must love her very much. If you were trying to hide, having her around would be like carrying a sign with your name on it, or a lighted Christmas tree. And in Central America? Murder. Any kind of scrawny, washed-out blonde led a parade down there, and she’d stick out like the Chartres cathedral in a housing development.

But maybe that didn’t matter so much. It wasn’t as if they were running from the police. A mob looking for them wouldn’t have any connections that far away, and if they got out of the country without leaving tracks they should be all right.

Then, for no reason at all, I remembered the thing she’d said when we had parted there at the car. “I can’t let him down.” At the time it had seemed perfectly normal, the thing any woman would say if her husband were in trouble. But was it? I can’t let him down. It puzzled me. There was an odd ring to it somewhere. He was