But after one or two indirect attempts, I gave up asking Rose what she was running from. Merely asking could send her into a rage. In a way it didn't make sense; even if she had killed somebody, Rose shouldn't have been so scared outside the USA.
Once in Trinidad I met up with a retired army officer from Chicago. He was under forty-five and a real angle sharpie. He had retired on physical disability—“something” wrong with his back—and we met while racing underwater. Once a month he received the Chicago papers and had about a year's backlog in his bungalow. Since murder is generally nationwide news, I told my swimming buddy I wanted to check an old track bet and spent a few hours thumbing through the papers—starting two weeks before I found Rose on the Key. All I came up with was bloodshot eyes.
Of course, in various ways, I found out a great deal about Rose. Sometimes I was blunt about it. The day we sailed from the Key for Cuba I asked, “What's your name?”
“I told you, I'm Nancy and...”
“Honey, remember the dream-busters? We may be stopped by custom and/or the Coast Guard in Cuba, or anyplace else. My papers are okay: I have to keep them that way.”
“Can't you put me down as your wife?”
“Sure, but what's my darling wife's name?”
“Rose Marie Brown.”
“Brown? Come on, papers are the one thing on a boat that can throw...”
“It happens to be true! There are people named Smith, Brown, and Jones.”
“Okay. You're now Mrs. Mickey Whalen. We were married this morning in Key West but left the license and other papers at 'home.' The name is spelt M-i-k-i but pronounced Mickey. I'm part Greek and Portuguese. My grandpop came out of the Cape Verde Islands.”
“Whalen isn't a Greek name.”
“I once asked my old man about that. He said his father was a sailor and called Whalen because he was always on long whaling voyages. Anyway, it's my legal name. My old man was born and died in the USA with it. He was a sponge fisherman.”
“My Dad is dead, too. He was a streetcar conductor. When I was a kid, I'd spend some afternoons riding up front with him. It was a charge.”
The trip to Havana was rough and most of the time she stayed in the cabin, seasick. I tried to explain she would do better stretching out in the cockpit but she kept to my bunk.
As we neared Havana I went below and told her, “There's an even chance customs will board us. Open your suitcase and put some clothes over the money. Keep it open and sloppy looking.”
She groaned and mumbled, “I've only the clothes I have on. Can't we hide it in the bilge, or someplace?”
“If they're looking, the first place they'll search will be the bilge or the rope locker. In the drawers, under the bunk, you'll find some of my shirts and stuff. Use them.”
She groaned again, put her hand over her mouth.
“I'll do it,” I said, glancing up through the hatch at the wheel.
Rose staggered to her feet, shaking her head.
I said, “Okay, you do it. And don't make with the suspicious eyes, you can handle the money.”
We slipped into the port of Havana without any trouble. It was late afternoon and the water smooth as glass. Rose came on deck, feeling fine and hungry. I said, “Let's get washed and see the town.”
“You go. I'll stay here.”
“Look, stop worrying about the dough. I'll put it in a safe place and get a kid to watch the boat. A kid I know. Nobody would think of robbing a tub like this.”
She shook her head, staring at the lights on the streets beyond the dock—fright in her eyes. She said, “My dress is wrinkled and dirty.”
“Rose, this ain't no tux I'm wearing.”
“There's too many Americans in Havana—for me!”
I shrugged. “We need food and supplies.”
She turned abruptly, went below. I wondered what she had steam up about. Rose came back on deck, holding a roll of money. “Here's $200, buy what you need. I'll wait.”
I went ashore and shopped fast, certain I'd return to find her gone. But I came back to see her underwear, stockings, and dress, drying on the boom. It was a warm sight. Rose popped out of the cabin with one of my sweatshirts over her bathing suit. She was sure a big woman, the shirt wasn't too loose on her.
We ate the meal I cooked, then sat up on deck, smoking. Glancing at the lights of the city, I said, “Tomorrow night we ought to step out. Havana is noted for its night life. Castro is lifting the lid.”
Rose tossed her cigarette over, watched it fizz out in the water and then went down into the cabin. In the dim light of the one bulb I watched her take off the sweatshirt, peel away the bathing suit. She stood at the steps of the hatchway, her body sun-red and white, shivering slightly, beautiful as every man's dream.
“Can't we make our own night life, Mickey?” she asked.
I tried to be casual as I flew down into the cabin.
We sailed from Havana late in the morning and spent the next few weeks working our way around Cuba. If we saw more than one American tourist in a town, we took off. In Matanzas Rose purchased shorts, jeans, a few plain dresses. Then we sailed to Cabanice Bay, Baracoa, skipped the US navy station near Guantanamo, went on to Manzanille and Cienfuegos. Of course, being a big woman—especially a big platinum blonde—Rose stood out like a Rolls-Royce in these little towns. But when I pointed this out she didn't seem disturbed. In a few weeks I learned her hair was dyed and its natural color was a mild, dirty-brown, which the sun soon bleached to a sandy tan.
In a tiny port called Banes we came across a wonderful cabinet maker. For fifty dollars he came aboard and made a false bottom in the cabinet on which the old alcohol stove rested, and fitted this with a concealed combination lock. Rose put the money in there and seemed more at ease once she had burnt the suitcase. It didn't take me long to make the combination. One morning while she was poking the boat pole in the sand for turtle eggs, and I was supposedly fixing the old motor, I counted the dough. There was $63,500—along with several pads covered with foreign writing: a tight, stingy, and neat penmanship. I thought it was Dutch or Swedish. I couldn't make it out. Rose had this and the money wrapped in oilskins.
Aside from that fast count I never touched a buck she didn't give me. There wasn't any need to. And the loot had me more than a little worried at first—if it was hot green, a place like Cuba is an absolutely wrong spot for passing it; they've seen too much queer money. But the money seemed okay, although often I found myself wondering what my story would be if the police ever came down on us. Not that I worried myself sick over this: most days I'd wake up with the sunlight flooding through one of the portholes and look at Rose sleeping in my arms, and nothing mattered very much.
Rose seemed happy. Unless we were in a fairly large town, or she saw an American man (she wasn't afraid of any women tourists) she didn't seem nervous. Of course living on an old tub like the Sea Princess wasn't exactly luxury. The cabin was cramped and lacked headroom. When it rained it was like being cooped up in a damp cell. Twice I saw her break down and bawl.