James Cain - The Baby in the Icebox and Other Short Fiction

“The porpoises began bringing him in.”

“Bumping him with their noses?”

“Exactly that.”

“To Maria?”

“I wouldn’t put it past them.”

He said the interest animals take in people is more than is commonly realized. “And in the case of porpoises,” he went on, “they talk. I’ve heard them many a time, standing watch on deck, as they swim along with the ship, especially at night. But I’m telling you, I don’t know as we sit here if they talk to themselves, each other, or me. Maybe they’re just breathing, but maybe it’s something more, and they were calling Maria that night, bringing her little boy in, saving him from the sharks. They can handle a shark — they bump him too, and hard, right in the gills, and as they bump they bite, tearing his gill feathers out. But they can’t handle all sharks all night. So they did what they could in their way. But she interested me more than they did.”

“Maria? In what way, Captain?”

“As the eternal soldadera .”

“The soldier’s girl?”

“A muchacha who must have a hero.”

“First little Gil—?”

“And then big Diego. Kind of nice.”

He told me the rest of the story, how the Gendarme, with the cuerpo recovered all the difficult questions settled, outdid himself to make things easy for her. He paced the way, in the patrol car, up to Matamoras, while she followed with Diego holding the little cold body to her warm one. He routed the undertaker out, made all the arrangements for the inquest next day, the services, and burial. He had everything fixed up in a few minutes, so when she walked out, the band was just ending its concert, in the Plaza de Hidalgo, for the same people as had been at the beach, now all dressed up for the evening.

As she sat on a bench with Diego, she felt his clothes, which were wet, clucking with concern. But he motioned toward the band. It was playing Estrellita, and suddenly she started to weep. “For you,” he said, taking her hand and drawing it through his arm. “The play to your Little Star.”

“Yes, my little Gil.”

“If I had only gone sooner!” Diego exclaimed.

“You did your best. You are now...”

She caught herself, then half defiantly, as he waited, went on: “... my Big Star. My brave one.”

“You want me, then?”

“Diego, I do...”

“And so,” said the pilot, “she lost someone, and gained someone. They’re married now, and as I hear, quite happy. Neither of them, probably, have any idea of the true explanation of what happened, but neither of them are wrong as to the amount of bravery involved. Because, my friend, would you have answered that call, in that sea, on that night? I wouldn’t, but he did.”

On the bar, in the space between the fat man’s Tom Collins and the sailor’s beer, a girl was dancing. She wore a white muslin blouse, a red print dress with shoulder straps, black shoes, and white socklets; she was an uncommonly pretty girl, she was known as Pokey, and she was four years old. As she danced, she smiled at the pianist, who thumped a tiny instrument that had been tucked under the bar, and held out her skirts. When the tune ended, she did a pirouette, bowed, and received a crackling hand. Then, from a booth, a woman came over, kissed her, and listed her down. She was a woman of medium height and undeniably arresting-looking. She was dark, and there was something slightly gaunt about her figure and haggard about her face. She would have touched tragic beauty if there hadn’t been something bummy about her.

When Pokey had run over to the soldier with whom the woman was sitting and climbed in his lap, the pianist clapped loudly and called for an encore. The bartender, who was also the owner of the place, said: “It’s OK, Fred. She taps nice and she’s sweet. But when she’s using the bar for a dance floor I can’t use it for a bar, and it’s as a bar that it pays.”

“Says who?”

“The register.”

“So?”

“Sing me a song, Fred. Not no ‘Rosie.’ Not no ‘Daisy.’ And specially not no ‘Annie.’ Something nice. Sing me a song about Paris.”

“Jake, have you become refined?”

“Them hop waltzes, they’re beer music. But a nice song about Paris, that puts people in mind to drink B&B and other imported stock that shows a profit when you move it, it’s OK.”

“Then that clears it up.”

But before Fred could sing about Paris, Pokey was back. When the fat man lifter her up, she said: “Mommy says if you want me to, I can dance once encore. And Fred, play ‘Little Glow-Worm.”

Pokey got a terrific hand that time. When she had returned to the booth, Jake made a beautiful drink of lemonade, sliced orange, cherries, and sugared mint, and carried it to Pokey. When he came back he said to Fred: “Mommy’s no good if you ask me.”

“Nobody was asking you.”

“She’s still no good.”

“She’s good- looking , though, if you ask me. ”

“ If you like a good-looking barfly.”

“Aren’t barflies OK? You knowing our clientele?”

“Why not?”

In response to a blonde girl’s request, Fred sang “Night and Day,” then said reflectively: “I don’t say a lot of them wouldn’t look good on a rock pile, but they’re the only clientele we got, so it’s up to us to be broad-minded.”

“Why ain’t that kid home in bed?”

“Maybe she’s not sleepy.”

“At ten o’clock at night she’s not sleepy and she’s only four years old? You know when they get tucked in at her age? She ought to been in bed with all the prayers said and doll-baby’s night diaper put on and the light put out three hours ago.”

“I give up. What’s the answer?”

“Mommy.”

“Well, she likes booze. Don’t we all?”

“And that’s not all she likes.”

“Quiz Kid, what is it now?”

“Fred, it’s the twentieth century and there’s a war going on and, like you say, with this here clientele we got to be broad-minded, but — a married woman out with a soldier cuts up the same any time, any place, and any war, and when a little kid gets mixed up in it it’s not pretty.”

“You got this woman all wrong.”

“No, I haven’t”

“You thinking about Willie?”

“I don’t think much of Willie either, so far as that goes. Every night they come in here with Pokey, and OK, you say he don’t know better. Well if not, why not? Even them rats out back don’t bring little Sissie Rat in here. Speaking of her, when she’s in here with a soldier the first night Willie don’t show, that’s all I want to know.”

“You’re doing great, except for one thing.”

“ What ?”

“Kind of changes things around.”

Jake stared at the man who now held Pokey in his lap, then said incredulously to Fred: “You mean that good-looking sergeant is the one she’s married to and that other pie-faced runt is her... sweetie ?”

“Talk louder, so they can all hear.”

“I’m asking you.”

“Why me? She’s the one.”

After Fred had sung “Lady Be Good,” the soldier came over. He was a big, smiling man, with jet-black curly hair and a face burned the color of dark mahogany. He said to Fred: “You like my daughter, I notice.”

“Your daughter is my one and only.”

“Do me a favor?”

“Shoot.”

“Take care of her a little while, will you?

At Fred’s puzzled look, he made a sheepish face. “So I can see my wife. Since I went away she only keeps a small apartment and—”

“I got it. It’s OK.”

The soldier had been holding his hat in his hand. From it a little trickle of sand ran out on the bar. He laughed, said: “No trouble to see where I’ve been. I bumped into them on their way to the beach, so of course we couldn’t disappoint Pokey. But, being as you’re taking her for a little while, it’s kind of a nice wife I’ve got, so—”