Ed Lacy - South Pacific Affair

Barry called the Chinese waiter over, grandly waved a twenty-dollar bill in his face as he said, “Here, keep the change. I know you're overcharging me, but I'd do the same if I was in your place. All right, let's see the alleged boat.”

We staggered out into the street and down to the docks, holding onto each other like queers, for balance. We were the subject of much local giggling and camera snapping.

“You still can't hold your liquor.” He took off the cap. “Stop staring at it. Here, I'll make you a present of it.”

When he took the cap off my little private TV screen disappeared and I shouted, “No! Wear it. Damn it, Barry, put that cap on!”

“Afraid I'll get sunstroke? Trade it for your cap.”

I pushed his hand away from my head and he put his cap on, with a mock bow which nearly upset the both of us as he said, “Aye, aye, Captain. Ahoy, Captain. Captain Ray Jundson of Papeete—oh, God!”

Soon as he put the cap at an angle, the tiny TV scene returned.

The sun was dropping and it was fairly cool when we reached the quay. As we staggered up the gangplank of the Hooker I said proudly, “This is mine. Finest cutter afloat.”

As if caressing a woman, Barry wandered around the ship, feeling the wheel, touching the rigging, the sails, looking into the cabin. He kept mumbling, “My, my, what a sweet job I Oh, what a honey!” Then he said loudly, curtly, “Ray, you're a lying swine. This can't be yours!”

“Ill show you the papers,” I said, but Barry had walked off the gangplank and was standing on the quay, where he had a full view of the cutter's lines. He sat down and held his knees, stared at the Hooker.

I staggered over. He was weeping. I sat beside him, so I could see the scene on his cap again, and asked, “You sick?”

“Sick with jealousy,” Barry said, drunken tears slopping down his handsome face. “Listen to me, Ray, I have some money, let me stay here as your partner!”

“Already have a partner. As for money, I tore up a check for fifty grand yesterday—no—that was over a month ago. A long lousy month!”

“Ray, I'm sick of the States. Everything is all double-talk. Ray, we can buy a larger ship, a—”

I shook my head and it almost came off. I hadn't had any gin in a long time and it was really kicking me. I was having a hard time keeping Barry's cap in focus; the picture of myself being so smart and noble. The perfect sap in...

“Ray, you're not even listening to me. With my money we can get a better boat, do more business.”

“I don't want a bigger boat and there isn't any better. Barry, go back to Chicago where you belong.”

“Who the hell are you to tell me where I belong? Ray, please, maybe I can get a native girl and then the four...?”

On this cap my face suddenly filled the screen, a close-up reflecting the painful resignation, the stupid cuckolded husband walking away from it all.

I vaguely heard myself mumbling, “They are islanders, never call them natives...” Then I couldn't stand the picture of myself any longer: I swung on Barry.

Even though I was sitting I managed to get enough weight behind the blow to knock him sideways. His lips were bloody as he scrambled to his feet. Barry looked fantastically big and tall standing over me, yelling, “Get up, you dumb bastard!”

I started to get up. Something exploded on my right eye. I fell on my back. The punch rattled my brains, sobered me up. Of course there weren't any more pictures on his cap.

Getting half-way up, I tackled Barry and we rolled over and over, throwing short punches at each other. I tasted blood in my mouth but blood was running from his nose and mouth, his fancy scarf was ripped, his hair was mussed—the first time I could remember seeing it that way; even in bed it had been perfectly combed—and above all, the panic in Barry's eyes was the sweetest thing I ever saw.

Even though we were both puffing and grunting, I knew I was in better shape—till Barry got a knee working in my stomach and I blacked out for a split second. I vomited up all the lime and gins, over the both of us, and had a moment of wild relief as I got my shoulders off the sand and belted Barry on the nose.

Blood spread over the lower part of his face and he rolled off me, gasped, “Okay, Ray, I've had it.”

We lay flat on our backs, breathing hard. Oddly enough, not a soul was standing around or watching us. Barry stuffed the torn ends of his scarf up his nose to stop the bleeding. “What did I say that was wrong? What started this?”

“I've been thinking about smacking you for a long time. This is what I should have done when I found you with Milly.”

He shook his head and a little blood started from his stuffed nose. “I don't get it. Even if you felt that way, what's the point in slugging me now?”

“Has a lot of point, for me. Trite as this may sound, now that I've hit you there's a big load off my chest.”

Barry said, “Oh, for Chrissakes, this climate is softening your head!” and got to his feet. “Where can I wash up? Use the bathroom on your boat?”

“The bathroom on my boat is right here,” I told him, pointing to the water's edge.

We washed our heads and faces, went aboard the Hooker and made some bad coffee. My eyes was turning purple and my lower lip was puffed, while Barry couldn't stop the blood trickling from his nose, had a bruise on his cheek, a nasty cut on his forehead, plus a torn shirt and scarf. When we finished our coffee he said, “I have to buy some clothes, cant go back like this.”

“Why not? You'll be the hero of the cruise, battled a beachcomber and all that derelict stuff.”

He said, “Ray, you know you've become a mean bastard?”

“No, I never could get mean enough, I guess. Look, to buy clothes you'll have to go to a Chinese store, the others will be shut by now. Come on, I'll show you.”

I took him down through one of the Chinese streets. He bought a white sport shirt and a new cap, threw his old ones away. We stopped for a sandwich and more coffee. When we hit the street I told him, “I have to return to the ship, expecting a joker on a deal.” And I thought how hysterical it would be if Henri's sucker turned out to be Barry.

Kent said, “Look here, Ray, I may have been drunk awhile back, but I meant that about going in with you.”

“No dice. Hell, nobody stopping you from going to the States, taking what cash you have and returning.”

“It wouldn't work. I'd have to make the break now or never.”

“That's right,” I told him, “and for you it will be never. Just as well. You're not ready for anything but armchair sailing.”

“Damn, you've become a smug bastard as well as a mean sonofabitch!”

I laughed at him. “I been eating crow for a long year, maybe all my life. Let me be smug for tonight.”

Barry told me to do something to myself and walked away. From the rear, in his new clothes, he looked as smooth and confident as ever.

Chapter X

I walked back to the quay, feeling jerky, childish... and wonderful. As I approached the Hooker I saw two men standing beside the gangplank. As it was growing dark I couldn't make them out, but a second later Henri called out in his tourist special thick accent, “Ah, Cap-a-tan Ray, there you are!”

He had a tall stout man in tow who looked in his late fifties and everything about him—the carefully brushed silver-grey hair, well-fed pink face, seersucker suit, and thin nylon shirt—shouted money, folding money.

I said, “Hello, Henri. Come aboard,” and walked up the gangplank ahead of them.

In this cockeyed broken English Dubon said, “Cap-a-tan, I am tres glad to zee you. You have been in zee fights?”