“It’s not a good idea to take a small boat out of the harbor,” I said. “The ocean along here is pretty rough—”
“I don’t want advice,” he said. “I want a boat big enough to get me out to Smuggler’s Island and back. Now who do I see about it?”
“Smuggler’s Island?” I looked at him more closely. “Your name happen to be Roger Vauclain, by any chance?”
“That’s right. You heard about me buying the island, I suppose. Along with everybody else in this place.”
“News gets around,” I said mildly.
“About that boat,” he said.
“Talk to Ed Hawkins at Bay Marine on the wharf. He’ll find something for you.”
Vauclain gave me a curt nod and started to turn away.
I said, “Mind if I ask you a question now?”
He turned back. “What is it?”
“People don’t go buying islands very often,” I said, “particularly one like Smuggler’s. I’d be interested to know your plans for it.”
“You and every other damned person in Camaroon Bay.”
I held my temper. “I was just asking. You don’t have to give me an answer.”
He was silent for a moment. Then he said, “What the hell, it’s no secret. I’ve always wanted to live on an island, and that one out there is the only one around I can afford.”
I stared at him. “You mean you’re going to build on it?”
“That surprises you, does it?”
“It does,” I said. “There’s nothing on Smuggler’s Island but rocks and a few trees and a couple of thousand nesting gulls. It’s fogbound most of the time, and even when it’s not the wind blows at thirty knots or better.”
“I like fog and wind and ocean,” Vauclain said. “I like isolation. I don’t like people much. That satisfy you?”
I shrugged. “To each his own.”
“Exactly,” he said, and went away up the ramp.
I worked on the Jennie Too another hour, then I went over to the Wharf Café for a cup of coffee and a piece of pie. When I came inside I saw Pa, Abner, and Handy sitting at one of the copper-topped tables. I walked over to them.
They already knew that Vauclain had arrived in Camaroon Bay. Handy was saying, “Hell, he’s about as friendly as a shark. I was over to Ed Hawkins’s place shooting the breeze when he came in and demanded Ed get him a boat. Threw his weight around for fifteen minutes until Ed agreed to rent him his own Chris-Craft. Then he paid for the rental in cash, slammed two fifties on Ed’s desk like they were singles and Ed was a beggar.”
I sat down. “He’s an eccentric, all right,” I said. “I talked to him for a few minutes myself about an hour ago.”
“Eccentric?” Abner said, and snorted. “That’s just a name they give to people who never learned manners or good sense.”
Pa said to me. “He tell you what he’s fixing to do with Smuggler’s Island, Verne?”
“He did, yep.”
“Told Abner too, over to the Inn.” Pa shook his head, glowering, and lighted a pipe. “Craziest damned thing I ever heard. Build a house on that mess of rock, live out there. Crazy, that’s all.”
“That’s a fact,” Handy said. “I’d give him more credit if he was planning to hunt for that bootlegger’s treasure.”
“Well, I’m sure not going to relish having him for a neighbor,” Abner said. “Don’t guess anybody else will either.”
None of us disagreed with that. A man likes to be able to get along with his neighbors, rich or poor. Getting along with Vauclain, it seemed, was going to be a chore for everybody.
In the next couple of days Vauclain didn’t do much to improve his standing with the residents of Camaroon Bay. He snapped at merchants and waitresses, ignored anybody who tried to strike up a conversation with him, and complained twice to Lloyd Simms about the service at the Inn. The only good thing about him, most people were saying, was that he spent the better part of his days on Smuggler’s Island — doing what, nobody knew exactly — and his nights locked in his room. Might have been he was drawing up plans there for the house he intended to build on the island.
Rumor now had it that Vauclain was an architect, one of those independents who’d built up a reputation, like Frank Lloyd Wright in the old days, and who only worked for private individuals and companies. This was probably true since it originated with Jack Kewin; he’d spent a little time with Vauclain and wasn’t one to spread unfounded gossip. According to Jack, Vauclain had learned that the island was for sale more than six months ago and had been up twice before by helicopter from San Francisco to get an aerial view of it.
That was the way things stood on Sunday morning when Jennie and I left for church at 10:00. Afterward we had lunch at a place up the coast, and then, because the weather was cool but still clear, we went for a drive through the redwood country. It was almost 5:00 when we got back home.
Pa was in bed — his lumbago was bothering him, he said — and Davey was gone somewhere. I went into our bedroom to change out of my suit. While I was in there the telephone rang, and Jennie called out that it was for me.
When I picked up the receiver Lloyd Simms’s voice said, “Sorry to bother you, Verne, but if you’re not busy I need a favor.”
“I’m not busy, Lloyd. What is it?”
“Well, it’s Roger Vauclain. He went out to the island this morning like usual, and he was supposed to be back at three to take a telephone call. Told me to make sure I was around then, the call was important — you know the way he talks. The call came in right on schedule, but Vauclain didn’t. He’s still not back, and the party calling him has been ringing me up every half hour, demanding I get hold of him. Something about a bid that has to be delivered first thing tomorrow morning.”
“You want me to go out to the island, Lloyd?”
“If you wouldn’t mind,” he said. “I don’t much care about Vauclain, the way he’s been acting, but this caller is driving me up a wall. And it could be something’s the matter with Vauclain’s boat; can’t get it started or something. Seems kind of funny he didn’t come back when he said he would.”
I hesitated. I didn’t much want to take the time to go out to Smuggler’s Island; but then if there was a chance Vauclain was in trouble I couldn’t very well refuse to help.
“All right,” I said. “I’ll see what I can do.”
We rang off, and I explained to Jennie where I was going and why. Then I drove down to the basin where the pleasure-boat slips were and took the tarp off Davey’s sixteen-foot Sportliner inboard. I’d bought it for him on his sixteenth birthday, when I figured he was old enough to handle a small boat of his own, but I used it as much as he did. We’re not so well off that we can afford to keep more than one pleasure craft.
The engine started right up for a change — usually you have to choke it several times on cool days — and I took her out of the slips and into the harbor. The sun was hidden by overcast now and the wind was up, building small whitecaps, running fogbanks in from the ocean but shredding them before they reached the shore. I followed the south jetty out past the breakwater and into open sea. The water was choppier there, the color of gunmetal, and the wind was pretty cold; I pulled the collar of my jacket up and put on my gloves to keep my hands from numbing on the wheel.
When I neared the island I swung around to the north shore and into the lee cove. Ed Hawkins’s Chris-Craft was tied up there, all right, bow and stern lines made fast to outcroppings on a long, natural stone dock. I took the Sportliner in behind it, climbed out onto the bare rock, and made her fast. On my right, waves broke over and into the mouths of three caves, hissing long fans of spray. Gulls wheeled screeching above the headland; farther in, scrub oak and cypress danced like bobbers in the wind. It all made you feel as though you were standing on the edge of the world.