Gulf coast girl: original title, Scorpion reef - By Charles Williams Page 0,19

out. That would be a tough one for the police to solve.

It was the beautiful simplicity of it that made it so terrifying. Of all the places in the world, it had to happen on a pier to which there was only one entrance and where everybody was checked in and out by a watchman—No. Wait. Not checked in and out. Just questioned as they came in. They didn’t have to sign a book or get a pass. And the watchman only waved them by as they went out.

It collapsed. It didn’t mean anything at all, because nobody had gone out. There hadn’t been anyone else in here. One man had come in; nobody had left. Christiansen would never have any trouble remembering that when the police came checking.

There had to be a way out of it. It was maddening. I looked across the dark waterway. Everything was quiet along the other side; there was nothing except an empty warehouse, a deserted dock. Nobody had seen it. Barclay probably didn’t even know the pug had come out here. He’d done it on his own because he couldn’t rest until he’d humiliated a bigger man who’d knocked him down. That was the awful part of it: there was nothing whatever to connect me with it except the simple but inescapable fact he’d driven in here to see me and had never driven out again—I stopped. Driven? No. I hadn’t seen any car. But how did I know there wasn’t one out there? The shed was dark.

My mind was racing now. I sprang up and ran around to the storeroom door, still barefoot, dripping water out of my sodden clothes. I found a flashlight and leaped onto the ladder. I ran across to the door of the shed and threw the beam into the darkness inside. There it was, back in a corner. I was weak with relief. Maybe he’d parked it there in the dark to keep me from seeing it and being warned. But that didn’t matter. The big thing was that he did have a car in here.

All I had to do was drive it out past the watchman, and the pug had left here alive. It was as simple as that.

Out at the gate the light was overhead, and the interior of the car would be in partial shadow. The watchman’s shack would be on the right. I could hunch down in the seat until I was approximately the size of the pug. All the watchman ever did was glance up from his magazine and wave. He wouldn’t see my face, nor remember afterward that he hadn’t. It was the same car, wasn’t it? The man had driven in, and after a while he had driven out.

But wait. There was something else. I’d still have to get back inside without Christiansen seeing me. He knew I was in here, and I couldn’t very well come in again without having left. But that was easy, too. It must be nearly eleven now. Chris went off duty at midnight. All I had to do was wait until after twelve and come back in on the next man’s shift. He wouldn’t know where I was supposed to be, or care.

I walked over to the car and flashed the light in, and the whole thing fell in on me again. I realized I should have known it if I’d been using my head. You always removed the keys automatically when you got out of a car. It was worse than ever now.

I leaned wearily against the door. I knew where the keys were, didn’t I? It would take only a minute. Revulsion swept over me. I thought of what it was like down there, the light shining among that surrealist forest of dark pilings while grass undulated gently in the current and a dead man watched you with smoke coming out of his head. It was something out of a madman’s dream.

But it had to be done. I walked back to the barge, dreading it, and stood on the afterdeck where he had landed and slid in. I could see the faint glow of the light below me, back under the pier, and began taking off the wet trousers and shirt. There was no use being hampered by them this time. In the deep shadows beside me I could just make out the form of the big steel mooring bit. That was what had killed him. He’d been wheeling vertically as he