Charles Williams - Aground

He put the lid back on the box, scooped out a hole in the sand, and buried it. He’d better get some sleep so he could wake up around two or three a.m. By that time they should be sleeping soundly; he didn’t have much hope he could get aboard the schooner without waking one of them, but he had to try. And if he got out there and found he couldn’t get up the bobstay, he wanted to be sure of having an incoming tide so he could make it back.

Just as he was dropping off, he was struck by a curious thought. Why would Ives have a money clip? There at the Eden Roc Hotel, he’d taken his business card from a wallet when he introduced himself. Well, maybe he carried both. . . .

He opened his eyes. It was still night, and for a few seconds he was uncertain what the sound was that had roused him. Then he heard it again, and grunted with disgust; it was a feminine voice raised in maudlin song. God, were they still at it? He flicked on the lighter and looked at his watch. It was a quarter of two. Then he became aware the voice wasn’t coming from the schooner; it was much nearer. He knuckled sleep from his eyes and sat up.

The night was still dead calm and velvety dark except for the gleam of uncounted tropical stars, and the blanket and his clothes were wet with dew. “Come to me, my melan-choly ba-a-a-a-a-by,” the voice wailed, not over fifty yards away now, and he heard the splash of oars. How in the name of God had she got hold of the raft? He walked down to the edge of the water just as it took form in the darkness, and could make out two people in it. When it grounded in the shallows, the man who was rowing got out. The figure was too slender to be that of Morrison. Ruiz ought to take out a card in the Inland Boatmen’s Union, he thought.

“—for you know, dear, that I’m in love with youuuuuu!” Rae Osborne lurched as she stepped out, and Ruiz had to catch her arm to prevent her falling. He marched her ashore, pulling the raft behind him, and halted just in front of Ingram.

“I have brought you this one,” he said in Spanish.

“Thank you a thousand times,” Ingram replied, thinking sourly of The Ransom of Red Chief.

“Let us hope you have already had sufficient sleep, and that you are not a great lover of music.”

Rae Osborne pulled away from him and weaved drunkenly toward Ingram. “Well, whaya know? M’rooned on desert island. With ol’ Cap Ingram, the Ricky Nelson of the Garden Club. Hi, Cap!”

Ruiz turned away in unspoken contempt and disappeared into the darkness, towing the raft. Ingram took her arm and led her to the blanket and set her down with her back against the crates. In the moment before she started singing again, he heard oars going away in the night.

He noticed she still had her purse, and was pawing through it for something. Then the caterwauling trailed off, and she hiccupped. “Got light, Cap?”

He knelt and fired up the lighter. She looked as if she’d had a large evening. The tawny hair was rumpled, she had a black eye that was swollen almost shut, and there was a purplish bruise on her left forearm. The bottoms of the white calypso pants were wet, of course, from wading ashore, and one leg of them had been ripped up the seam for several inches above the knee.

“I’m sorry,” he said. He ignited the cigarette she had in the corner of her mouth, and put the lighter back in his pocket. But not too sorry; you asked for it, sister.

“Talk about survival training,” she said with wry amusement. “I think that’s about the nearest I ever came to being checked out on actual rape.”

He muttered a startled exclamation and clicked on the lighter again. This time he had sense enough to look at the other eye, and he saw the cool, green glint of humor in it just before she winked. She was no drunker than he was.

8

“Is he gone?” she asked.

“Should be about halfway back.”

“No wind that blew dismayed her crew, or troubled the Captain’s miiiiiinnnnd!” she howled. Then she went on quietly, “He woke up while I was trying to get the raft overboard. I started singing again, and said I was going over to the yacht club to see if the bar was still open. I think I fooled him. Anyway, he’d apparently had it as far as the Bahamas Nightingale was concerned, so he brought me over here instead of tying me up.”

“You can kick me now,” Ingram said, “or wait till daylight if it’s more convenient. I thought it was on the level.”

“If you mean you thought I was drunk, you were pretty close to being right. Even with what I managed to ditch, I still had to put away a lot of rum; that Morrison must have been weaned on it.”

“You were after the raft?”

“Principally. I thought we might be able to make it ashore somewhere. But I also wanted to get down in those cabins and see if I could find any of Patrick Ives’ things.”

“You were taking a long chance.”

“It wasn’t quite that bad. They wouldn’t gang up on me; Ruiz isn’t that type of thug. I wasn’t sure whether I could handle Morrison or not, but it was worth the risk. After all, Ingram, I’m not Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. I’m thirty-four, and I’ve been married twice. If I lost the bet, I’d still survive.”

“Did Morrison finally pass out?”

“Yes. Around midnight, I think. By that time I’d used up all the other routines, and didn’t know any judo, so I pretended to be sick and locked myself in the biffy. I beg your pardon, what’s the word?”

Ingram grinned in the darkness. “The head.”

“The head. Anyway, when he quieted down, I came out, and he was asleep in the cockpit. But I wasn’t sure about Ruiz. When he came back from over here and pulled the raft up on deck, he took some bedding and went up forward, so I couldn’t tell whether he was asleep or not. I pretended to pass out on the other side of the cockpit and waited for over half an hour. Then I tiptoed up to where I could see him, and found he was asleep all right. I went below then, and started through the cabins.”

“Did you find what you were looking for?”

“No. It wasn’t a real thorough search, because I was afraid to take very long or turn on too many lights, but I found three suitcases and went through them and there wasn’t anything that would identify Patrick Ives. Two of them belonged to Morrison and Ruiz, because their wallets were in them, but the third one—in one of those staterooms where the ammunition is—didn’t have anything except the usual clothing and shaving gear and so on. It could be his clothing—that is, I think it would fit him—but for some reason they must have thrown his wallet overboard.”

“Unless it was in his dungarees,” Ingram said. “I mean, there in the dinghy. Those two men in the Dorado could have taken it.”

“I thought of that, but somehow I don’t think they did. I talked to them, remember?”

“Do you have any idea why they’d destroy his identification?”

“Just a minute,” she said. “It won’t do to get too quiet too suddenly. So duck.” Her voice soared to a maudlin wail. “Oh, when Irish eyes are smiling, sure ‘tis like a morrrnnn in sprinnnnnggggg—” She chopped off suddenly, and said with amusement, “He’ll think I fell down, or you threw something at me.”

“It doesn’t matter now whether he thinks you’re drunk or not,” Ingram pointed out.

“But it does,” she said. She took a puff on her cigarette; the tip glowed, revealing for an instant the handsome face with its prodigious shiner. There was something undeniably raffish about it, and appealing, and as attractive as sin. Must be atavistic, he thought; the view just before the clinch, after a Stone Age courtship.