Beatriz Williams - The Wicked Redhead

So I forgive him for the indelicacy of his question. I feel his torment like an ache in my own breast. I take one step toward him and lift his right hand with my left hand, the one that isn’t near to broken by one of Duke’s various methods of torture.

“Do not,” I say, “for God’s sake, do not give that man the power to haunt you still. You just forget every word Duke Kelly said in that springhouse, do you hear me? Every word. It was the devil that spoke through his mouth that terrible morning, and the devil never did speak a word of truth to mortal men.”

He curls his fingers tight around mine and stares out across the boat’s bow. “Speak plain, Ginger. Just tell me. I know it’s a private matter, it’s your own business, but I’ll go nuts if—”

“I’m not carrying any man’s child, Anson. Not Billy’s and not yours.”

The faint, high scream of a steam whistle carries across the water. I take another step to stand but a breath away from his shoulder, and it seems to me that the tension in that coil of muscle is fixing to burst right through his shirt and his ill-fitting Florida jacket.

“You’re certain?” he says.

“As certain as a woman can possibly be.”

He just turns his head, that’s all, turns his head and lets his forehead fall against mine, and the tension in his big shoulder sort of dissolves in our blood. And that’s when I realize I’ve been feeling it all this time, down along the road from Maryland, thinking this wound-up tautness was just his ordinary pitch, his shoulder was just built that way, and it turns out his shoulder is more like a cushion than a rock, more like a cradle than a coil of tarred rope, and it fits the curve of my head like they were made for each other.

NOW I wasn’t lying when I told Mrs. Fitzwilliam that I don’t relish this business of messing about in boats. I wasn’t bred up to it, for one thing, and for another I can’t help but think of what happened last time I took ship with Oliver Anson Marshall. You know what I mean. The rough chop of that speedboat across the water, and the rat-a-tat-a-tat of a Thompson submachine gun searching out your flesh. The whisht-thud of a bullet whisking past you in the night air to find purchase in some nearby object, and the sickness of death that clung to you like the smell of blood.

So I try to close my eyes, but that only brings on nausea and the usual visions of broken necks and brass knuckles and blood creeping across a black-and-white floor, so I stand up instead and share the journey with my beloved. The water changes color from deep, tranquil green to an eager blue, and the shore thins out into sand. We don’t say much, just trade observations on the scenery. I wonder if he’s thinking the same things I am, if he’s thinking about all the death and hurt we have left in our wake, but that’s not a question you can ask a man like Anson in the golden light of a Florida afternoon. You ask him in bed, in the dark, when your skin lies against his skin, and he tells you the truth. Here and now, you ask him about the ships that lie ahead. Those smugglers’ warehouses floating atop the skin of the Atlantic, three miles out to sea. Why three miles? Because three miles marks the limit of United States territorial waters, that’s why. The sum total of the Coast Guard’s jurisdiction.

“I don’t know what you think you’re going to learn,” I tell him, just exactly as if I know his business as well as he does. “Surely the Florida racket’s got nothing to do with the northern rackets.”

“But they both have the Bureau and the Coast Guard to deal with. Any kind of news spreads fast, believe me.” He pauses. “I used to be assigned down here, remember? They sent me down to help break up one of the big family gangs. That’s how I met Fitzwilliam.”

“Aren’t you afraid they’re going to recognize you?”

He shrugs. “It’s a chance, I guess. I’ll just tell them I’ve left the Bureau. Out on the water with my girl, looking for a little refreshment.”

“Oh, they’ll believe that, will they? Mister Law and Order’s gone all wet suddenly?”

“Nothing corrupts a fellow like falling in with the wrong kind of dame.”

“You mean some kind of wicked red-haired floozy who drinks her own weight in gin and falls into bed with any old meathead Prohibition agent who strikes her fancy? That kind of dame?”

“She sounds just about perfect to me.”

“I see. And how are you going to explain our busted appearance? Don’t you think it might make a smuggler nervous, all these bruises and slings?”

“Don’t you remember? There was a fight at the Palm last night. I was defending your honor, as I often do, and you pitched in to help, as you often do.”

“Oliver Anson Marshall. You disgraceful liar.”

He smiles a little.

“Why, you’re enjoying all this, aren’t you? You relish a little adventure.”

“It’s what I do, that’s all.”

“What you used to do, you mean.”

“Yes. What I used to do.”

I guess I ought to ask him the obvious question. Ought to ask him why we’re out here on this boat, heading into a little adventure, when he’s no longer employed by anybody to do such things, when he’s found himself a nice place of refuge with a floozy who adores him. But what’s the point? When a man’s trying to get back his honor, prove to the world and the Prohibition bureau that he’s nothing but an honest, straightforward fellow caught up in some scoundrel’s game, he’ll keep hunting and hunting until he dies, won’t he? He’s not going to stop trying to find the man who has cast him into purgatory.

So instead of wasting everybody’s time, I just ask, “And me? You don’t mind dragging your dame into this nest of smugglers?”

“Ginger, these Rum Row skippers, they aren’t the kind of fellows you need to be afraid of. They’re just businessmen. Sometimes not even that, sometimes just fellows trying to make a few dollars, who wouldn’t put their necks at risk.”

“Then exactly whom should we be afraid of?”

“Pirates, for one.”

“Pirates! You don’t say. You mean like Bluebeard? Wooden legs and eyepatches? Chests full of gold doubloons?”

“Chests full of Scotch whiskey is more like it. They don’t usually attack the big storage ships on Rum Row. But they’ll stop the boats ferrying liquor to shore, or else the schooners out of Nassau or Havana hauling in more stock. Not small potatoes like us—we’re not worth the trouble—and mostly at night, when the rackets from shore are doing their dirty work.”

“And the men running the rackets? What about them?”

“Pretty ruthless fellows, by and large. You’ll want to give them a wide berth.”

“Thanks for the tip.”

“Why, you’re not anxious, are you, Ginger?”

“Of course I’m not anxious. The idea.”

“Because if you’re anxious, I’ll turn this boat around and take you back to shore. Can’t have a nervy partner out there. They’ll smell it on you.”

“Thought you said they weren’t dangerous.”

“They’re not exactly sissies, either.”

By now we have cleared the inlet entirely, and there’s nothing but blue sea ahead and yellow sand behind. The Atlantic wind drenches us clean. I savor the word partner on the back of my tongue. Glance across at Anson’s thick neck, pinkened by all that wind and excitement, and his eyes narrowed gleefully at the encounter ahead.

“Why, then, Mr. Marshall,” I say, folding my arms across my chest, “if that’s the case, I guess you’re going to need my help.”

THEY LIE anchored in a line from north to south, at intervals so regular it’s practically unnerving, if you’re that breed of person who misplaces his nerves from time to time. From three miles out you can still see the shore, verdant and kind of mysterious, but it might as well be another universe for all the good it does you. The boat bobs nervously under your feet, the ship looms large and black-sided, sails folded neat against masts and spars. I turn toward Anson and open my mouth to tell him about my dream, about the schooner that looked exactly like this one, only packed to the hatches with dead men. But he’s concentrating on bringing the motor launch alongside, on some exchange of hails with the sailors on deck.