John D MacDonald - Barrier Island

  John D MacDonald - Barrier Island

  To the memory of Maxwell Penrose Wilkinson

  In baiting a mouse trap with cheese, always leave room for the mouse.

  SAKI

  ONE

  A night bird winging back to one of the islands made a harsh sobbing cry as it passed near a small cruiser anchored well to the south of the channel. The sound brought the owner up out of sleep, wrenching him out of his dreams into a moment of confusion before he sorted his world into the small realities of time and place.

  He was naked on top of the sheets, sweaty, and with a thick headache somewhere behind his left brow. The sea was so still he could detect no motion, nor could he hear any slap of water against the fiberglass hull of the Thelma HI. He heard a humming sound begin and knew it was the cooler. The woman in the other bunk made a thick snorting sound and settled back into her quiet sleep.

  Loomis stood up and felt his way to the two steps and the hatch, and the cockpit deck. It was lighter under the invisible stars. Morning mist obscured them. Off to the east, toward Florida, was the first suggestion of dawn, a deep red line, narrow as a needle, along the watery edge of Mississippi Sound, out there close to infinity, close to the edge of the world where, if things were properly arranged, one could fall off. Or push someone off. Or hold hands and jump.

  He felt around in the scuppers until he found his soggy red swimming trunks, discarded soon after he had jollied and cajoled Helen Yoder out of the black and white swimsuit he had loaned her. He stepped into the trunks and pulled them up. Didn't matter if there was no live person left on earth, a man felt better with a little bit of protection between his private possessions and the toothy creatures of the deep.

  Tucker Loomis climbed heavily over the transom, stood on the small mahogany diving platform for a few moments, then sat and dangled his legs in the soup-warm sea, and slid in, glad of the chance to sluice away the sour sweat of hot night and too much to drink. The drinking seldom happened. It was not a problem. But the pressures were heavy lately. Have to keep watch for a correlation. If drinking goes up with the pressure, time to get back on the wagon. As he swam a slow circuit of his little cruiser, he emptied his bladder into the summer sea, heat into warmth. A notable example of environmental pollution. Get the professors all agitated and jumpy about it. They'd probably say that ten months and three days from now they could scoop up a pan of water in Sydney Harbor and take it to the lab and find one part in forty trillion is hangover piss out of old Tuck Loomis, one of the great despoilers of God's own earth. With some real sophisticated procedures maybe they could find out that this pleasant pee at dawn had originated in a couple of bottles of the best champagne put out by Perrier. Maybe eighty dollars a pop in your best restaurant. Pretty flowers on the bottle. That old senator surely went for it in a big way last April in New Orleans in the suite.

  He circled the boat three times, and when he climbed back aboard, the narrow red line was a broad pink band, and there was less mist overhead. He stepped out of the trunks, picked them up and wrung them out and spread them along the back of the fishing chair to dry.

  When he went below to get a fresh towel, Helen Yoder was sitting up in her bunk, arms wrapped around her legs, forehead on her knees. She raised her head and glanced at him and lowered it again. Her dark blonde hair was a wild tangle.

  "And a cheery good morning to you too, little buddy," he said.

  "Just shut up, Tuck. Okay?"

  "That bad?"

  She did not answer. He knelt and took a towel out of the stowage locker under her bunk. Enough gray light came through the small port to make a silver glow on the good flat lines of her back and shoulders. He sat on the bunk behind her and toweled the mat of wiry gray on his chest and the thick crop of white hair on his broad skull. He leaned forward, pawed her hair out of the way and gave her a noisy kiss on the nape of the neck.

  She flinched, swung around and sat the other way on the bunk and pulled the sheet across her lap. "No. No thanks."

  "That was just for good morning, that's all."

  Her face was in shadow. The gray of predawn made a moist highlight on the curve of her left breast. "Where are we, Tuck? Back at the dock?"

  "We're way out on the sandy flats, honey. Ten miles about. Half a mile off Bernard Island. Flat calm."

  She combed her tangled hair back with the splayed fingers of both hands. "Jesus, Tucker! This is dumb. What if Buddy phoned last night, or this morning even?"

  "Why should he all of a sudden phone you? You told me last night he's been staying at his sister's place for a month. And you told me he's up in Washington this week."

  She frowned at him. "I told you all that? Well... I guess I remember. What more did I tell you?"

  "People are forever telling me all kinds of stuff. I listen good, sweetie. I like people. I really do. I like to listen to the problems they got. Everybody's got problems."

  "Anyway, this is Friday and I've got to go to the office. And my car's at the club! I'm going to be pretty damn conspicuous trying to get to my car from the dock. In my long blue dress."

  "There's some stuff aboard should fit you okay. Good as the swimsuit did. T-shirts, shorts. Under that other bunk. You can dig around in there, see what you find. Feel free. Nobody to see you but some early morning tennis freaks."

  "Look, can we get started back?"

  "Not yet."

  "Why not?"

  "Honey, how long is it since we had us like they call it, a relationship? Three years? Four?"

  "Let me see. How long has Cordell been dead? Then it would be more like five years ago, Tuck. We started a month after he hit that tree. And we were together the best part of a year."

  "Then you should remember, little buddy, how pissed I get when people keep asking me fool questions. Just you relax."

  The small cruiser stirred suddenly, lifting and rolling in the slow swell from a distant barge train going up the waterway. It settled slowly back to stillness, but it had swung far enough on the anchor line to bring the morning light against her face. Smudge of lipstick, smear of mascara. It was a handsome and vital face, with large features, a strong jawline and brow. But it bore the lines and folds of her thirty-five years.

  "I'm a mess," she said. "I feel rotten. I haven't had that much wine in years. You woke me up sloshing around out there. I think a swim is probably a pretty good idea for starters. Okay? But you keep an eye on me. I don't like to swim way out here without somebody watching out."

  The sun came up as she was swimming back and forth behind the transom, about thirty feet each way like someone in a small swimming pool instead of in the endless serenity of the Sound. She climbed out and sat on the transom and scrubbed her face and her teeth with a wet corner of the towel he handed her.

  "Better get below and fix yourself up," he said.

  "Are we heading in?"

  "You go on down. I'll be there in a minute and tell you what's going to happen, Helen. And what you have to do."

  "What's going on?"

  He sighed. "Just shut up and move it."

  He put on old khaki pants and a torn white shirt. Their good clothes were in the hanging locker. When he went below she was fixing her face. She had brushed her hair, and picked out a pink shirt and white shorts spotted with green paint, and he recognized them as a pair one of his daughters-in-law had left aboard long ago.

  "Okay, here's what's going to come down, as they say on the television. A man is going to meet me out here in the next ten or fifteen minutes. He's coming in a float plane. He's a very careful man. The deal was just him and me and the pilot, but I don't like that setup. I'm supposed to be out here by myself. I decided I better have co
mpany."

  She stared at him, her eyes narrowing. "Oh dear God! And all the time I was thinking this was some kind of sentimental journey. Kind of a sweet idea, on account of the real good times we used to have together. Tuck, you miserable son of a bitch! You are the worst!"

  "I guess you could call it an impulse."

  "If it was all planned out, it's some funny kind of impulse. Tell me about it."

  "What I thought I'd do, I was going to tell Mike Wasser to come along."

  "Who's he?"

  "He works for me. Big fella. Hell of a linebacker at State. Anyway, I hadn't phoned him yet to show up at the club, and I was sitting there at the corner of the bar and you came walking by in your blue dress and I thought you'd be a lot more fun than Mike. And you were, up until just now when you started fussing."

  He watched her decide how she was going to react. He remembered those two deep little vertical lines which appeared between her brows when she was selecting the right part to play. She laughed and shook her head. "You are something," she said. "You are really rotten. Okay. What do I do?"

  "You can keep right on doing what you're doing until the seaplane lands, which won't be long now. I'm going to leave this hatch door open so he can see right down into here and see it's empty. I want you all scrunched up at the foot end of this port bunk, all the way out of sight. Not a sound out of you. And sooner or later I'll call to you and then you come on up on deck. Smile sweet at him. His name is Wilbur Barley and he works for the government, and he is going to be a little bit pissed. Just play it by ear from there on in. You're a smart lady, and I'm glad it's you on board instead of Mike."

  He heard the seaplane before he saw it. The sun was above the horizon and the mist was burned away. The sea was the color of lead, hinting of blue to come. A flurry of bait sparkled in the sunshine as something made a pass at it, scaring it into the air. He waved as the aircraft circled the boat, then moved away and turned and came toward him, skimming, touching, landing, taxiing close. Tuck was amused to see that the I.D. numbers on the plane were covered with tape. Barley was cautious.

  Barley climbed down onto the port pontoon. Tuck threw him a line and they pulled the two vessels close enough for Barley to step onto the platform and climb onto the transom and jump down into the cockpit. The aircraft pulled away and the pilot cut the engine, making the morning a lot quieter.

  "How you been?" Tuck asked.

  "You bring it?" Wilbur Barley asked. He was a pale puffy man in his thirties, with blonde hair combed forward, a small blonde mustache, glasses with thin gold rims. This was the third time Loomis had seen the man. The other two times, in Biloxi, Wilbur Barley had worn a pale gray three-piece suit, white shirt, blue tie, shiny black moccasins with brass buckles. Now he looked unlikely in his white slacks and running shoes, in his green short-sleeved shirt with a gator on the left breast out of sync in time and space, like a piece of miscasting in an amateur play.

  Loomis stuck his hand out and, grinning, left it there until Barley had to take it. Tuck shook the soft white hand and said "Hey, you set yourself down, man. Right here. Let me get these swim pants out of the way. We're not in all that big a hurry, are we?"

  "Listen, I don't want to be seen here, Mr. Loomis. You can understand that."

  "By who? That there gull? Or a fish maybe. The charter boys won t be starting out until about now, so it'll be a half hour anyway before we see one heading this way "

  "Mr. Loomis, are you stalling because you weren't able to bring it?"

  "Why wouldn't I be able to bring it?"

  "Well, it is a lot of money."

  Tuck was amused at the innocence and the slyness of the man, at the naked attempt to find out just how much the money meant to him.

  "I guess anybody could call half of it a pretty good piece of money."

  "Half is not acceptable."

  "Now why wouldn't it be?"

  "Because to get the other half we would have to arrange to meet one more time. And once is quite enough risk. I think we better call this whole thing off right now "

  Loomis sighed and went over to the wheel and unlocked the flat drawer below the instrument panel. He took out the thick, heavy mailing envelope and flipped it onto Barley's lap. Barley slapped at it and caught it before it fell to the deck.

  "Half," Loomis said. "In hundreds. I'm not a total damn fool, in spite of what a lot of people will try to tell you. If that old seaplane falls out of the sky on the way home, I'm only half as sorry. If you find out you just can't do what you allowed you could do, then we dicker about how much of that you give back."

  "Give back!" Barley said, shocked. "I'm taking a terrible risk with my career, and the risk is the same whether it works out or not."

  "One thing for sure. If it doesn't work out, you don't get the other half. And if it does, you'll get the rest in a nice safe easy way. No sweat and no strain. And we'll most probably never see each other again."

  Barley lifted the tape on the envelope flap and looked inside. Tucker Loomis felt the inner relaxation. The look of the money always makes the deal. And he noticed that Barley swiveled the fishing chair just enough to turn his back toward the waiting seaplane before he looked into the envelope at the two bulky packets.

  "I don't like this," Barley said.

  "Wilbur, most people feel a little edgy about taking a risk. We're both clear on what you're going to do. You're going to make damn well sure the U.S. Attorney's Office fumbles the ball real good when we come to trial."

  "I'm going to try to make sure. It isn't an easy thing to do, to make it look as if it... just happened that way."

  "You do your best, hear? Helen, honey! Come on out and meet somebody."

  He watched Barley's face as Helen, ducking to clear the upper part of the frame, came up out of the hatch, smiling.

  "Honey, this is Mr. Wilbur Barley and he works for "

  Barley was on his feet, no color left in his face. "I told you to be alone, dammit! What are you trying to pull, you son of a bitch?"

  "I don't like being called names, Wilbur. It upsets me a lot."

  "I'm pretty upset too, Mr. Loomis."

  "You can trust Helen here. You don't have to worry about her."

  "I didn't want to have to worry about anybody but you."

  "And that would leave two of you for me to worry on."

  "Oh, that's my sister's husband flying the plane."

  "And your sister knows about this too I suppose."

  "She's been in a coma for over a year."

  "I'm sorry to hear that."

  "She fell in the bathtub and hit her head. It's a terrible expense. I wouldn't have gotten into this if... But I guess you don't give a damn about my motives."

  "Well, I did wonder why a man with your reputation for being a straight arrow would be willing to deal. It's comforting to know you haven't got in the habit of flying off to Vegas or Atlantic City."

  Barley stared at Helen and then at Loomis. He glanced at the rail and Loomis knew that for an instant the thought had crossed Barley's mind that it might be a good idea to toss the package overboard in a gesture of despair. He looked strangely close to tears. "You promised you'd be alone!"

  Loomis smiled broadly at him. "I guess I lied. You don't have to worry about Helen. She's just here in case you decide sometime to swear you were never here at all. That's all. She's just a precaution, isn't that right, little lady?"

  "If you say so, Tuck. Glad to meet you, Mr. Barley."

  He stared at her for ten long seconds and then nodded. He pulled his green shirt out of his slacks, laid the mailer against his plump belly and tucked the shirt in again.

  "Just don't try to get in touch with me in any way until the trial is over. Is that quite clear?"

  "Don't use that prosecuting attorney tone of voice on me, Wilbur. Just call your brother-in-law and fly away."

  Tuck and Helen Yoder stood side by side and watched the little seaplane skim and roar and lift, then make a shallow turn and head nor
thwest by west.

  The water was turning blue, and a breeze ruffled the surface. The mainland was invisible under smog and clouds. Heavy weather by nightfall. The marine forecast had been right on. He slid his thick hand down Helen's back, and gave the far buttock a hearty, honking squeeze.

  "Hey!" she said, and sprang away from him. "I've really got to go to work today. I've got appointments."

  "Every little love pat, you think I'm about to jump you."

  "That's the way you always used to be."

  "But now I'm fifty-damn-eight years old."

  "Can we go now? Please?"

  "Get your cute ass up there on the bow and bring in the anchor line as I run up on it. If it don't come free, take a turn around "