Alibi for Isabel: And Other Stories Read online

  Well, as I said at the beginning, I gave Minnie her permanent that night. Dinner had been late, for when the fish are in, meals are served if and when people come for them. Minnie was full of talk. She told me about Mack eating alone that night, and so on.

  “He must be feeling terrible,” she said. “No boat and no guide.”

  But I didn’t want to talk about him. I was seeing the Pass at night, as I’d seen it now and then when some guide had an evening off: the boats with their white lights like drifting stars, the splash of the fish when they rolled, the blood-chilling snort of a porpoise when he came up to blow close at hand, and the dim outline of the palms. And Mack out of it, sulking alone some place. Not even with the Jeffries girl. I felt uneasy somehow. But there is no shutting Minnie up.

  “Slim says he put forty dollars in the fifty-cent machine after dinner and lost it all,” she said. “Ouch, you hurt, Ethel.”

  “That’s right.”

  “What’s right?”

  “I hurt,” I said.

  She looked at me, and I pulled myself together. “Somebody’s going to get that jackpot soon,” I said. “Maybe I’ll get my fare North after all.”

  I got her wrapped and under the machine. Then I borrowed fifty cents from her and went upstairs. But there was no sign of Mack, and after I’d lost the money I went back to Minnie. It was almost one o’clock by that time, and I was dead on my feet. Minnie was peevish.

  “What’s the idea of leaving me alone?” she said. “What if the place caught fire?”

  I didn’t answer, for I had just seen a funny thing. I’d seen Mack sneaking down the back stairs, and unless I was seeing things he had his heavy tarpon rod with him. It just didn’t make sense. What is more, I realized all at once that a storm was coming up. It’s like that down there. One minute it’s clear and calm, with the stars as big as saucers. Then the palms begin to rattle, there is a warning shower or two of rain, all at once it’s blowing hard, and there is enough thunder and lightning to make one want to crawl under a bed.

  I got Minnie shampooed and under the drier. Then I stepped outside. It didn’t look too good. The palms had stopped rattling and begun to swish, and there wasn’t a star in sight. Far away too I could hear the boats coming back. The Pass is no place to be in a storm.

  When I went back the Jeffries girl was in the hall. She hadn’t much on under her bathrobe, and she looked young and sort of helpless, if you know what I mean.

  “I wonder if you’ve seen Mr. McKnight?” she said breathlessly. “I’ve tried to get him on his room telephone. I wanted to tell him something, but he doesn’t answer.”

  I felt sorry for her. She looked like a kid, and she looked worried. Minnie was watching us both, but of course she couldn’t hear anything with the drier roaring in her ears.

  “The last time I saw him,” I said, “he was going up the beach with a tarpon rod in his hand. Don’t ask me why. I couldn’t tell you.”

  She seemed relieved.

  “Are there tarpon around the island?” she asked.

  “Not unless they’ve got legs to walk here.”

  All at once she began to cry. She didn’t have a handkerchief, so I got her a towel.

  “I’ve been such a fool, Ethel,” she said, wiping her eyes. “Why didn’t he tell me? I’d have understood. I thought—I thought he just liked playing around.”

  “Playing your game,” I said coldly.

  She looked at me.

  “I’d have thought more of him if he had played his own,” she said.

  I remember that now. It didn’t register then, because at that moment I heard a boat engine starting up. That was queer, because there wasn’t a boat left on the island. Then I remembered the old speedboat tied up at the dock off the golf course, and I knew.

  That fishing fool had got the engine going and was on his way to the Pass, storm and all, to fish the two o’clock tide alone.

  You’ve got to know what that means. It takes two people to manage a tarpon. One is the person who has it on the line. He has a man-size job from the start. He’s got a fighting devil to try to hold, unless he wants to throw away a hundred and fifty dollars’ worth of tackle. And you can’t tell what the fish will do. It may come up under and knock a plank of two out of the boat. I’ve heard of that happening. It may even jump into the boat, in which case it’s ten to one somebody is knocked overboard, or gets a broken leg. So the minute a fish is on, the guide starts the engine and keeps moving. Not fast. Just enough to keep the big boy out of mischief.

  So now Mack was on his way alone to the Pass in that leaking wreck of a boat. Not only that. The other boats were coming back, which meant that he would be alone in the Pass in a gale of wind; and the Pass in a stiff blow looks like the North Atlantic in a hurricane.

  And I knew him. He would get a fish, storm and all.

  I guess I was pretty excited.

  “Do you hear that boat?” I said. “That’s your young man going out to commit suicide. That’s what it amounts to. Just hope I can get a boat and a guide there in time. That boat’s fast, when it goes at all.”

  She didn’t cry any more. I’ll say that for her. She just stiffened.

  “I’m going with you,” she said.

  “You’re staying right here,” I told her. “I won’t answer for what Joe will do if he sees you.”

  I clean forgot about Minnie. I grabbed a raincoat and headed for the dock. Joe had just come in. He was helping Mr. Renwick out from under the canvas, but when he saw my face he let him go.

  “Anything wrong, Ethel?”

  “You and your sickly pride!” I yelled, over the wind. “Mack’s on his way to the Pass in the old speedboat.”

  “The goddam jackass,” said Joe.

  I jumped in and he cast off. But just then the Jeffries girl landed beside me. However, Joe didn’t throw her out. There wasn’t time. He merely gave her a look of hatred and pushed off.

  Well, of course we couldn’t catch Mack. He had too good a start for that. But we went all-out to the Pass, and Joe saw him in a flash of lightning before I did. There was a big sea on, waves coming in from the open Gulf so that I could hardly stay in the boat. As for the thing Mack was in, it was riding as if it was half full of water. Joe headed straight for it, and I didn’t like his face. He looked scared. He was muttering to himself too, and if I hadn’t known him I would have said he was praying.

  Then suddenly something leaped out of the water not far from us, and we heard Mack’s voice above the wind.

  “Keep back, you fool,” he shouted. “I’m all right. It’s a big one.”

  He was standing up, trying to hold that excuse for a boat into the sea with one hand and gripping his rod with the other. And he was laughing. I’ll never forget that. He hadn’t really laughed since he hit the island. Joe had edged up as close as he dared, but when I urged him to go nearer he shook his head.

  “If I make him lose that fish he’ll kill me,” he said.

  “He’s crazy. You’re all crazy!” I yelled. Joe shook his head.

  “He’ll play it until it’s tired,” he said. “Then I’ll pick him up.”

  I knew it wasn’t any use. They were both fishing fools, and it’s against the rules to touch another man’s tackle when he has a fish on. All this time the Jeffries girl hadn’t spoken a word. I thought she was scared dumb. But I just didn’t know her.

  Because the next flash of lightning showed no boat and no Mack, and while I was screaming my head off she was taking off her shoes. Joe caught her just in time.

  “Stay where you are,” he said. “I suppose you can’t run a boat?”

  She didn’t answer. She merely went forward in her stocking feet and took the wheel.

  “Don’t go over until you see him,” she said, as quietly as if we weren’t alone in the Pass in the middle of the night and a storm on. “Get your searchlight, I’ll manage the boat all right.”

  Well, even Joe says she handled the boat as if she had been born in one
. But at first it looked pretty hopeless. It’s all right in the Pass when it’s smooth and the head of a big loggerhead turtle looks like that of a man swimming; but in that rough water there wasn’t a sign of Mack where the boat went down, and even Joe looked hopeless. It was the girl who found him.

  She was dead white, but still quiet. Using her head too, for she said:

  “What way would that fish go? Toward the Gulf?”

  “What the hell does that matter?”

  “He might still be holding on to it.”

  Well, I know it sounds crazy, but that is the way we found him. She took a big circle toward the Gulf, and we picked him up just inside the bar. He was pretty well winded. Joe got him aboard, and if you’ll believe it, he still had his rod in his hand. What’s more, the fish was still on!

  I just went up to the girl and kissed her. Then I shoved her away from the wheel and took it myself. When Mack looked around he saw me there and grinned.

  “Good work, Ethel,” he said. “Never knew you could handle a boat.”

  “I can do a lot of things,” I told him.

  He didn’t even hear me. He was sneezing and dripping salt water all over the place, but he had only one thing in mind. He sat down in the swivel chair, put the butt of his rod into the rest, took a breath or two and began to pump the fish in. He looked happier than I had seen him since he came.

  “Golly,” he said. “I feel like myself again, Joe. How much would you say that cockle-shell will set me back?”

  I had a chance to speak to the girl. Mack hadn’t seen her at all.

  “Listen,” I said. “I’m sorry about taking that wheel. But you’ve done enough to him, you and your golf. Better not let him know you saved his life.”

  She got it that time all right. When at last the fish came in and Joe leaned over the side of the boat with the release hook, Mack saw her for the first time. He looked stunned.

  “What on earth are you doing here?” he asked.

  And I’ll give that girl credit. If she was acting, it was swell. I didn’t think she was, however. She was the complete female then, all scared and shaky.

  “I was frightened, Mack,” she said, in a small voice. “I made them bring me.”

  “It’s no night for you to be out,” he told her, all male and disapproving. “What have you got on, anyhow? Get a coat or something. You’ll take cold.”

  I knew then it was all right. He had stopped being a doormat, and from the way she smiled I knew she liked it.

  Joe was holding the fish.

  “Big boy, Mack,” he said. “Looks like a diamond-button to me.”

  Mack looked down. In the light from the mast the fish was lying on its side. It must have been seven feet long—at least it looked it. Mack stared at it and grinned.

  “He gave me a good fight,” he said. “Let him go, Joe. I owe him something.”

  I think Joe’s heart almost broke at that. He didn’t even measure the fish. He took out the release hook and stood back, and maybe the water on his face was sea-water and maybe not. We all watched as the fish began to move a little, his tail first, then the big smooth muscles of his sides. Even then he stayed awhile, getting his breath, and the girl reached down and touched his silver body with her hand just before he moved off.

  “Good-bye,” she said.

  It gets you, you know. I was darned near crying myself, what with excitement and everything. A game fish and a game man—but what am I rambling about anyhow? If you’ve never seen it you wouldn’t know.

  All this time, remember, we’d been rolling about like nobody’s business. I felt queasy myself, and I’m a good sailor. It was after we’d started for home that the Jeffries girl spoke.

  “Does the Pass ever get much rougher than that?” she asked.

  “Not unless there’s a hurricane,” said Joe.

  She laughed. It was a shaky laugh, but it was real enough.

  “Then I guess I can fish after all,” she said. “I haven’t been seasick at all.”

  I think that was the first time Mack had looked at her with any real expression since Joe had quit.

  “What’s this about getting seasick?” he said.

  “I used to. Dreadfully. I have to stick to rivers and things. That’s the reason I couldn’t fish. Not with you anyhow, Mack. I was ashamed to let you know.”

  If ever I’ve seen a man with a load off his mind it was Mack just then. He clean forgot that Joe and I were there. He leaned over and put his hand under her chin, so she had to look him.

  “Listen, my darling,” he said. “Did you really think that a man would care less for you because you up-chucked your last meal? What do you think love is?”

  “I don’t really know, Mack,” she said softly.

  I guess he told her. I know I turned my back after that, but from the way he helped her out of the boat when we got back I gathered it was all right. But he stopped me and held out his hand.

  “Thanks a lot, Ethel,” he said. “If you hadn’t been in the boat I guess I would be fighting the sharks about now. Joe too.”

  “Don’t be a fool,” I said sharply. “I don’t know a thing about—”

  And then the girl pinched me. It was a hard pinch. I think I have said she had good strong hands.

  “Wasn’t she wonderful?” she said. “She heard you start out, too, Mack. If it hadn’t been for her—”

  Yes, she had learned her lesson all right. Unless Win McKnight reads this he will always think I saved his life. Maybe I did, at that.

  Minnie was still under the drier when I got back. She was sound asleep, but she roused when I went in.

  “Where have you been?” she said fretfully. “I’ve read this whole magazine.”

  I turned the clock so she couldn’t see it.

  “Well, you’re good and dry,” I told her, and took the pins out. That was one set that lasted, if I do say it. She still talks about it. But I got her off at last. She paid me in half dollars and quarters out of her tips, and I locked it away in the cash drawer and started up to bed.

  The hotel was quiet. The night clerk was asleep behind the desk and the bar was dark and deserted. The storm was over, too. All I could hear was the dripping of the trees. But there was a light on over the slot machines, and tired as I was I went down again and got a half dollar of Minnie’s money. I had a feeling that it might be my lucky night.

  It was. I pulled the lever, and in a minute there was silver money all over the place. I’d broken the jackpot.

  The Clue in the Closet

  I WAS READY TO make the rounds with Johnny O’Neil that night. Every now and then Johnny calls me up and asks me if I want to see the other side of life, and I always do. It isn’t only because in wartime there isn’t much else to do. I like Johnny. And after all day at the Red Cross it is a change.

  Sometimes I merely sit in his office at headquarters and wait for something to happen. If nothing interesting turns up the detectives sit around and smoke and talk about old cases. It is a shabby room, with holes in the plaster which they gravely tell me are from the bullets they use to scare people into confessions.

  “You’d be surprised,” they say. “The noise, and thinking maybe the next time they’ll be hit. Remember that Chink, Joe?”

  I look shocked, because they expect me to. Something mildly interesting comes in now and then, women complaining about their husbands, or a lost child, or a sneak thief, or even a gunman, picked up on suspicion. But most of the time the only excitement is on Saturday nights. That they say is murder night; family fights over the pay envelope, too much to drink because the next day is Sunday, and so on.

  Only this was not Saturday. It was a dull Tuesday. I had been going to a dinner which had been called off, and father and I were playing double solitaire when Johnny called up at ten o’clock.

  He sounded excited. He is a big good-looking Irishman who had worked his way through college, and my interest in crime amused him. He lived with his mother in a neat small house in Brookl
yn, and this was his night to go home to her. I hadn’t expected to hear from him.

  “Doing anything?” he said over the phone.

  “Merely trying to keep father from going out on the town.”

  Father looked outraged, and Johnny said he would come around and pick me up. When he came in he looked rather grim, and my parent eyed him with suspicion.

  “What is it tonight, Lieutenant?”

  “Just a round to show Miss Anne the taxi dance high spots. Nothing to worry about, sir.”

  Father grunted.

  “After considerable thought,” he said, “I have decided that there was a mistake at the hospital when my child was born. Nothing else will explain her avid interest in the underworld.”

  Johnny smiled.

  “It’s better than sitting around in nightclubs.”

  “It isn’t essential that she do either.”

  “Look,” said Johnny. “Maybe a girl gets bored. I wouldn’t know. Maybe she wants to write a book. I don’t know that either. But I’ve got an idea that the less you keep her wrapped up in feathers the better she’ll be able to take care of herself.”

  They were still at it when I came down after changing into a plain hat and an old dark suit. Johnny gave me an appraising look.

  “You know,” he said to father, “she might even be useful some day. She’s smart, and she knows the way people like you live. Take a house like this. What do I know about it? But every now and then somebody who lives this way gets killed. Read the papers if you don’t believe me.”

  “I don’t read about crime in my newspapers,” said father stiffly.

  Johnny got me out to the street in a hurry. Usually he moves slowly, like most big men, but I was down the steps and on the pavement before I knew it. I saw at once that something had happened. He didn’t have his own car, for one thing. A police car was waiting, with a uniformed driver, and the three of us squeezed into the seat.

  “Step on it,” said Johnny briefly.

  It was a pretty wild ride, but a short one. The car drove up in front of a high stone house, much like our own. There as an officer on duty at the door, and he let us in. I did not know the house, but it was a familiar type: a marble-floored hall, a reception room to the right, a broad iron-railed staircase to the left. Johnny took me into the reception room and closed the door.