Филип Керр - A Five Year Plan

‘Have you ever felt really wide awake and all you wanted to do was go straight to bed?’

‘I’ve never done anything straight,’ said Kate, revelling in the new role she was creating for herself. Barbara Stanwyck. Lauren Bacall. Bette Davis. She pushed Dave gently away. ‘If I had, I’d have become an astronaut. Still, as rocket rides go this has been quite fast enough. Just look at me. Breathless.’ She sat up and collected her near-empty glass off the table. ‘Running low on fuel and oxygen. I think I’d better get back to the mother ship.’

Dave picked up a cushion and placed it on his lap. He said, ‘That’s probably a good idea.’ He finished his Margarita, waiting for Kate to show some more obvious signs of wanting to leave. Like standing up.

When she stayed put on the sofa he helped himself to one of her cigarettes while he thought of appropriate lines of poetry. There was some Andrew Marvell that fitted the situation very well, only he’d relied on other people’s words too much already. It was time to be himself. Or as much of himself as he could ever reveal to her, given what he was planning. So he said simply, ‘You know, for a ship’s captain, you’re a pretty nice girl.’

‘It’s not a condition of the job that you have to look like Charles Laughton and walk around the deck carrying a rope’s end.’

‘Al makes Charles Laughton look like Cary Grant.’

‘It’s probably just as well he does,’ suggested Kate. ‘Think how embarrassed you’d both be if this was him sitting here now.’

The obscenity of that picture made Dave laugh out loud. He said, ‘It would make it easier to say goodnight.’

‘You know, David, for a millionaire, you give up real easy.’

‘And I thought I was demonstrating an admirable restraint.’

‘Your admirable restraint is nice, don’t get me wrong. It makes a very welcome change. But how shall I put it? OK, as butlers go, there’s too much English and not enough of Rhett. Quite obviously I’m in two minds about what to do here now. Maybe I just need a little financial center salesmanship.’

‘Frankly, my dear, I don’t feel up to bullshitting you. What it boils down to is that I like your stock too much to sell it short. I’d rather force the price up than down. When I buy into something it’s not because I’m after a quick killing, but because I believe in the company. You should only sell when you’re sure of that yourself. A deal’s only a good deal if both parties think so.’

‘I love it when you talk that way,’ said Kate. ‘It makes me feel like Bell Atlantic.’ She kissed him and stood up. ‘I’ll be waiting for your offer, Rhett. You’ll know where to find me. You just look out to sea in the morning and then turn around.’

‘Want me to walk you home?’

‘That’s OK, I brought my sea-legs with me.’

‘So I noticed. As a matter of fact I’ve been noticing them all evening. They look good on you. Like one’s called Cyd and the other’s called Charisse. They make a pretty good duo.’

‘And contrary to whatever impression I may have given you, Dave, they’re seldom seen apart.’

‘I didn’t doubt it,’ said Dave, escorting her toward the stern of the yacht. ‘You know Kate, this wasn’t, isn’t, just a casual flirtation. I meant a lot of what I said. That’s not something that happens to me very often, believe me.’

‘And if I told you I already had the same feeling?’ She stopped his mouth with another kiss, and then added, ‘We’ve got ten days to find out if this means anything more important than just human biology.’

Dave frowned, momentarily at a loss. He said, ‘Ten days?’

Kate said, ‘That’s how long we’ve got on this floating tin of sardines until we get to Mallorca, isn’t it?’

‘Oh sure,’ said Dave, whose mental clock was only set for a five-day voyage.

Kate said, ‘You’ll let me know if you plan to get off early, won’t you, David? Only I’d hate to wake up in the morning and find you’d checked out.’

Dave forced a smile. ‘Where can I go? There’s only the moon and stars.’

‘You know the night’s magic, Van the Man. You said so yourself. Remember?’

‘Kinda late when you came back on board last night, wasn’t it Kate?’

‘Kent,’ she protested. ‘You sound just like my father. Besides, I’m surprised you noticed after the amount of alcohol you put away yesterday.’

They were in the galley, Bowen seated behind the L-shaped dinette, Kate standing behind the inlaid faux-granite counter pouring boiling water on top of some Folger’s Crystals. Down the portside companionway, nearby, they could hear the sound of Sam Brockman singing in his shower.

Bowen said, ‘Well, here’s the thing: what with the play-off on TV and the luxury of this boat, and setting out on this voyage, and because I was in your attractive company, Kate, and because there really wasn’t much else to do yesterday except relax, I guess I did drink a little more than I should have done. But you certainly wouldn’t have noticed it affecting my ability to do the job.’

‘I wouldn’t have seen that, no,’ she admitted. Adding, under her breath, ‘Mostly I try not to notice you and your abilities at all.’

‘What’s that?’

Kate shook her head. ‘So what’s your problem with my time-keeping, sir?’

‘I was just wondering what it was that kept you up so late?’

Kate saw no point in denying where she had been. Very little had actually happened. Unless you counted a small trip before maybe falling head over heels in love. Certainly nothing had happened in the bed department. She shrugged and said, ‘The guy on the next boat invited me over for a drink, that’s all. He makes a pretty good Margarita.’

‘I’m interested to hear it. Margarita’s my favorite cocktail. And would this be the same guy who came over here for a drink yesterday afternoon?’

‘The same guy.’

Bowen looked thoughtful.

‘Something wrong with that?’ asked Kate.

‘He’s certainly a good-looking fellow,’ he remarked.

Bowen started grinning at Kate in a way she found offensive. Like he was some jealous sugar-daddy or something.

‘Meaning?’

He said with apparent innocence, ‘Meaning, he’s a good-looking guy.’

Kate placed a cup of coffee on the table in front of him and then retired behind the galley counter, just in case she felt tempted to tip the hot coffee into his lap. She watched him take a sip and almost wished that the coffee was poisoned, like Bowen’s mind. At the very least she wanted to take the brim of his stupid Tilley hat and tug it down hard, over his eyes and ears, just to see if it would make any difference to the way he conducted himself.

Bowen said, ‘Since he and I are to be neighbors, I guess you’d better tell me his name.’

Kate sipped her coffee and stared out of the full-width windshield, her mind wandering. Although the time was not quite ten o’clock, it was already a hot day. The Tropic of Cancer was only a hundred miles to the south. Confident of her figure, she wanted to wear a bikini for Dave’s benefit; but the idea of wearing anything more revealing than a nun’s habit around Bowen filled her with disgust. She was hoping to go up on the coach roof sunpad and catch some rays while listening in to the bug that had been planted aboard the Britannia during loading by one of the Port Everglade stevedores. The trouble was, a single device had not proven to be enough and Kate was going to have to place another on Rocky’s boat herself. She was still undecided about her costume for the day.

Bowen kept on grinning through Kate’s obdurate silence.

‘He does have a name, doesn’t he? The captain of the Juarista?