“You don’t give me orders.”
“I give you orders.” Donny took the Luger out of his waistband. “And you obey them.”
“You crazy boy, Donny. You mixed up in the cabeza.”
“Don’t bother rolling your eyes at Cleo for help. She’s on my side and she has a gun, too. How do you like that?”
“It’s bad,” Manny said. “Very bad.”
“So don’t make it worse by trying anything funny. You stay down here with Cleo while I go up on the bridge. Cleo will entertain you. She does a great striptease. She has nothing much to show, but she shows it anyway.”
“This very bad, Donny.”
“I’m not Donny. I’m your captain.”
After Donny left, Cleo picked up the .22 from the table and began clicking the safety catch off and on for practice. She forgot about Ocho until he spoke to her in the voice he used to shout orders to his crew:
“Stop that.”
Cleo was so surprised by his tone that she almost dropped the gun. “I’m not doing anything.”
“Maybe by accident.”
“No. Donny showed me how to use it.”
“You going to use it?”
“Not really. I mean, I guess not unless Donny wants me to.”
“You reaching for big trouble, Cleo,” Ocho said. “This Donny, he a bad boy, you a nice little girl. You stay nice, you stay away from him.”
“I can’t. I want to get married.”
“You going to marry Donny?”
“No. It’s... well, it’s like this.”
She tried to reconstruct the movie she’d seen where the captain married two people as soon as the boat left the dock. But Ocho kept shaking his head and muttering to himself.
Up on the bridge Donny kept the binoculars focused on his father’s condominium on the beach. The binoculars were too heavy to allow continual observation, so he raised them every three or four minutes on the lookout for his father’s silver-grey Cadillac. He spotted it shortly before ten o’clock, parked in its slot beside the condo. There was no sign of his father or his companion, if any.
He hurried down to the cabin where Ocho and Cleo had turned on the television set and were watching a children’s cartoon, Ocho from the captain’s swivel chair, Cleo from the table with the gun in front of her.
Ocho switched off the television set and stood up. “Hey, Donny, you listen to me.”
“You got nothing I want to hear,” Donny said. “Cleo, make that call now.”
“I can’t remember the number.”
“Jeez, I’ve told you twice: 9694192. Now have you got it?”
“I guess so.”
“You remember what to say?”
“Sure. I’m the secretary and then that business about Donny’s curliculum.”
“Cur-ri-cu-lum.”
“Okay, don’t scream. Curriculum.”
“You listen now, Donny,” Ocho said again. “This Cleo, she a nice little girl, you leave her alone, you put her ashore.”
Donny turned to Cleo. “You want to go ashore, kid?”
“No, I don’t.”
“In fact, you invited me here, didn’t you? You phoned Holbrook Hall and told me to come down. We were going to have a party, right?”
“Yes.”
“So you’re not such a nice little girl after all, are you?”
“I didn’t mean any harm, Donny.”
“I want Manny clued in on what actually happened. You started the whole damn thing, didn’t you?”
“Sort of.”
“You hear that, Manny? You’re not a hero trying to rescue a poor, innocent girl. She’s none of those things: not poor, not innocent, not a girl. She’s a rich woman, five years older than I am. So I’m the one you ought to feel sorry for.”
“I do,” Ocho said. “I feel very sorry for you, Donny.”
“Then get ready to cast off. As soon as my father leaves his condo we’re moving. We’re moving.”
Ocho shook his head. “I got my family to think of, my job—”
“You got your own hide to think of first.” Donny patted the Luger in his waistband. It was beginning to feel uncomfortable poking into his stomach, so he transferred the gun to his coat pocket. “Look at it this way. It’s your hide against my hide and I like my hide better. Isn’t that reasonable?”
“Yes, sir.”
“And you’ll spell it out to the crew?”
“Yes, sir.”
Donny returned to the bridge to watch the condo for any further signs of activity. As soon as he saw the silver Cadillac leave its parking slot he called Ocho, and the two of them went to the navigation room.
The engine wouldn’t start.
“Good,” Ocho said. “Stiff. Not used for a whole month.”
“Goddamn it, you’re supposed to keep the thing ready to go at any time.”
“You goddamn it yourself. I keep it good. I keep it the best.”
“Then start it the best.”
On the second attempt the engine turned over, but almost immediately Donny reached out and switched it off.
“The phone’s ringing. Answer it.”
“What you want me to say?”
“Just answer it.”
The call was from the harbormaster’s office and they both knew trouble was coming. That it came in the form of Aragon was the only surprise.
“Well, well,” Donny said when he jerked open the door and Aragon almost fell into the cabin. “Look who’s dropped in, my old pal that leaves his car keys in the ignition.”
14
It took a moment for Aragon to regain his balance and somewhat longer for his eyes to adjust after the brilliance of the morning sun. The curtains were closed and the cabin seemed relatively gloomy. Donny Whitfield sat at a rolltop desk with a gun in his hand, and standing near him was a short, wiry-looking Mexican wearing a blue-and-white diagonally striped shirt and a light-blue peaked cap. Aragon assumed this was Manny Ocho who had answered the phone.
He started to address Ocho in Spanish but was immediately interrupted.
“Only English spoken here,” Donny said. “Well, nice of you to drop in, pal. Now suppose you drop out.”
“Is the girl here?”
“What girl?”
“You know what girl.”
“Oh, her. Yeah, sure. She’s around someplace trying to find the bridegroom. You walked into a wedding. How’s that for luck?”
“The wedding had better be postponed,” Aragon said. “I intend to take Cleo back to her family.”
“You’re going to poop the party, right?”
“Right.”
“Uh uh. Wrong... Manny, you have your orders. Obey them.”
“Please, you wait,” Ocho said. “Donny, you listen a minute.”
“Hurry up.”
Ocho turned to leave, shaking his head. As he passed Aragon he muttered a warning about a gun.
“You can be best man,” Donny told Aragon. “Or Cleo might even want to change bridegrooms. You’re not bad-looking and at least you aren’t related. What’s your name?”
“Tom Aragon.”
“Cleo Aragon. Hmmmm, sort of a nice ring to it. Not that Cleo’s particular. She’d marry any guy that’s still breathing. Weird thing is, I never knew she was like that when we were at school together. Maybe it’s the sea air.” Donny laughed. “How’s the sea air affecting you, Aragon?”
“Who’s the bridegroom?”
“She calls him Ted.”
“You’ve got to stop this crazy thing, Donny. She’s his aunt.”
“If that doesn’t bother Cleo, why should it bother me?”
“Who’s going to perform the ceremony? Did they have the necessary blood tests? Did they take out a license?”
“Details. Screw details.”
“And did you know that you’re violating the terms of your probation by having a gun?”