“I gave it to my mother’s husband, for services rendered,” Lowell said. “He collected cars. He had it restored from the frame up. And when he died, he left it to me, and I didn’t have the heart to sell it, so I shipped it down here.”
He looked at Marjorie.
“Sweetheart, everyone knows that was a slip of the tongue. Now kiss Jack, chastely, and go to bed. I’ll take Jack to Jack’s bed, and he’ll see you in the morning.”
“I’ll kiss him later,” Marjorie said. “It’s not a spectator sport. Good night, everyone.”
She turned and marched out of the room.
Christ, I don’t even get a good-night kiss, chaste or otherwise.
“Barbara Bellmon, especially with a couple of drinks in her, tends to take long trips down memory lane,” Colonel Lowell said to Sergeant Portet just inside the door to House C. “But she’s one of the world’s good people. And you’re damned lucky to be able to marry a girl just like the girl who married dear ol’ Bob Bellmon. ”
“I think so, sir.”
“I’m going to get out of here at first light,” Lowell said. “The Packard will be at the airstrip, and the keys in the ashtray.”
“Colonel, I don’t know . . . I don’t want to ding that magnificent car,” Jack said.
“Then don’t ding it,” Lowell said. “The boat—House C is closest to the ocean—will be here at half past seven.” He pointed to the rear of the house. “Breakfast aboard. Have a good time, Jack. And welcome to the family. The first time I saw you and Marjorie together, I thought that was going to happen.”
“Thank you, sir.”
“Good night, Jack,” Lowell said. “Sleep well.”
Fat fucking chance of that. And it’s probably a good thing I didn’t get a good-night kiss. Then I would really have a pair of blue balls.
“Thank you, sir. Good night, Colonel.”
Lowell touched his shoulder and walked toward his bedroom, and Jack walked to his, which was on the opposite side of the house.
He turned on the television set and flipped through the channels. There was a Cuban channel, on which a splendidly bosomed Cuban beauty undulated as she crooned a love song.
Exactly what I don’t need.
There was nothing else on he was interested in watching.
Fuck it!
He took off his clothing, decided they were all he would need to go fishing in the morning, tossed them on a chair, and got in bed naked and turned off the lights.
He had tossed and turned for perhaps ten minutes when he became aware of a banging on the sliding glass door of the room.
What the hell is that?
With my luck, it’s an alligator.
More likely, the wind picked up and is knocking a chair or something against the class.
Christ!
He got out of bed, stormed to the window, moved the curtain out of the way, and slid open the door.
Marjorie stood there, in a bathrobe.
“Holy Christ!” he said, and opened the door.
“Obviously, he told you to expect me? Or do you always sleep in the raw?”
“Jesus, wait a minute,” he said, and covered his groin with his hands and went for the bathrobe.
He went back to her.
She handed him a sheet of paper.
It was obviously the same sheet of paper Colonel Lowell had given her.
On it was drawn both a map and a surprisingly good cartoon. The cartoon showed Jack sitting glumly, forlornly alone in a room. Above his head was a picture of what he was thinking: Marjorie, in a bathing suit, with an angel’s crest around her head, kneeling, her hands folded in prayer.
The map showed the route Marjorie should take from House B to House C if she felt the urge to join him.
There was a message:
“If Saint Marjorie would like to bring comfort to a lonely soldier, here’s the route. Love, Uncle Craig.”
“Oh, baby,” Jack said.
“God, I love you,” Marjorie said.
She turned and closed the door and the curtains, then walked to the bed and, with her back to him, took off her bathrobe and pajamas. Then she turned to him.
“I think you can take the bathrobe off now,” she said.
[ TWO ]
15 Nautical Miles SSE of Key Largo, Florida
1225 4 December 1964
Captain Jean-Philippe Portet sat in one of the two, heavy, stainless-steel fishing chairs in the stern of the boat, and Sergeant Jacques Portet sat in the other. They both held bottles of Heineken beer.
Jeanine Portet, who was eleven, gangly, and freckled, was standing, her arms folded over her chest, waiting impatiently for one