A hiccup of morbid derision sounded in Fredericks’ throat.
“Eighteen,” he repeated.
Cotter slapped their car to a collision-like stop. They flung out of it as though the jolt itself had hurled them forth, leaving the doors gaping open on both sides.
They ran into the pier building, through its walled-in forepart, and down toward the far end, where gaps showed at the side, as if a long row of sliding doors had been left open. Opposite these, close enough to touch, a hue of portholes studding weather-beaten iron hull plates was creeping unnoticeably along, like something on a moving belt. The ship was still so close alongside its berth it was hard to tell whether it was actually under way or not. The water strip between was still so narrow it was invisible from above.
The newly retracted gangplank was still partially in position, but now it led off into vacancy. Cotter had leaped up on it and covered half its distance before he was collared and hauled back by two or three of the pier crew. “Hey, there, mister,” one of them grinned, “what you trying to do, dunk yourself?”
“Quit it, you fool,” Fredericks advised him from below. “It’s no use any more.”
They finished rolling the mobile structure back out of the way. Cotter stepped down and rejoined Fredericks. “Look at it,” he fumed. “Still close enough to touch!”
“Two minutes sooner,” Fredericks agreed bitterly. “Maybe that last traffic light did it. Or maybe that wrong turn you started to make, on the way down.”
“There comes the name,” Cotter said. He started to spell it out in reverse as the letters cleared the pier hatch one by one. “A-I–L — Santa Emilia. Do you see them? Maybe they’re not on it after all.”
Fredericks grabbed him by the arm suddenly. “There they are! Look, up there, on the second deck. In a straight line over that rust streak on the hull.”
They were standing there in a long line of others lining the rail. The man was hatless, tow-haired, everyday-looking; they probably wouldn’t have recognized him on his own account. But the girl next to him, nestled within the protective curve of his arm, would have stood out even at a greater distance. Black-haired, dark-eyed, with high cheekbones; there was something oddly exotic about her. Byzantine or Polynesian.
“Here goes; this is our last chance,” Cotter said grimly. He cupped his hands like a funnel out before his mouth. The taut line of his throat quivered with the volume of voice he was forcing out. But not a sound could be heard, even by Fredericks, at his very elbow.
For at that instant, with perfect synchronization, an abysmal, long-drawn blast sounded from the ship’s siren, drowning out everything in a tornado of din.
The man and the girl were slowly borne past. They were both looking up, in the direction the blast was coming from. The girl stuck a fingertip into each ear and shuddered. The man laughed. Then the two of them turned inward toward the deck. An empty space was all that remained to show where they had been, and even that didn’t last long.
The ship continued to glide past with mocking, trance-like slowness.
Cotter lit a cigarette, “No Smoking” signs papering the pier shed notwithstanding, and blew a shaft of smoke dejectedly down his shirtfront. A peculiar sort of fatalism seemed to have taken possession of him. “We know,” he said sepulchrally. “But they don’t. He doesn’t. Even she doesn’t herself. Maybe knowledge is the only real danger in this case. Why don’t we let them alone, let them work it out for themselves?”
Fredericks turned on him fiercely. “Do you know what you’re saying? Marriage is a sacrament. Any man who takes a woman to be his wife! I don’t care who he is, is entitled to—”
“To what?” asked Cotter presently, with a flicker of mordant amusement. “Entitled to what?”
Fredericks didn’t answer that.
“Come on,” he said in an oddly quiet voice, turning away. “We’re going to send a wire to San Francisco, to be delivered to him when the ship docks there, after it’s run up from the Canal.”
“Why not at sea?” Cotter queried. “Why not a radiogram while they’re still at sea, right now?”
“Because while they’re still at sea, he can’t get away from her. Once they’ve docked at San Francisco, he can.”
“If,” said Cotter sardonically, “he wants to. He just now married her, remember? They go blind in the heart when they do that.”
“He’s got to be given the chance,” Fredericks fumed. “He’s got to be told. They’ve got to be separated.”
Cotter snapped his half-finished cigarette into the mucous eddy the ship had left in its wake, and watched it go around in insane circles.
“Whom God hath joined together,” he murmured half audibly, “let God have mercy on. They’re going to need it.”
Chapter Three
Two a.m. The ship lay at rest now, anchored in Havana harbor. The stateroom was lighted, but no one was in it. The stewardess had turned back the covers of the double berth, awaiting occupancy for the night. On one side lay a pale pink nightdress, on the other a pair of pajamas.
Outside somewhere there were the lights of Havana, sprinkled on the black surface of the harbor like nuclei of colored confetti soaking in the stagnant water. Morro Castle was like a stubby stick of gray chalk poised against the blackboard of the sky. A blue diamond near its tip twinkled, then dimmed, twinkled, then dimmed; over and over.
A key turned in the stateroom door. He came in backward, pushing the door inward with his shoulder. He was holding, her in his arms, like a groom is supposed to carry his new-made bride. He was in white evening jacket, she was in black lace.
He was smiling. She wasn’t. Her eyes were downcast, as if there were fear hiding in them and she didn’t want him to see it. She even held her head a little averted.
He backed the door closed with his heel. He released her, and she dropped to her own feet, the black lace settling about her like a puff of black smoke.
“What a town!” he exhaled. “You don’t need alcohol in you: drinks here — the town itself supplies the lift.” He yanked out his tieknot.
She was very quiet; she didn’t say anything. He glanced over at her, as if for the first time noticing that her mood didn’t match his. The black evening gown fell to the floor. He saw her hang her head a little.
“Tired?” he asked gently.
She shook her head, but without lifting it. It was so low he could see the part in her hair now, the gardenia she wore at the back. She sat down, pulled off one of her dancing shoes. Then the other.
He wasn’t smiling now any more, himself. He was thoughtful, downcast. “I know,” he told her quietly. “You’re frightened. Still frightened.”
She inclined her head still more abjectly forward, but didn’t answer.
“But we were married Tuesday. This is Friday. How long...?” Then he didn’t finish it. He shrugged his coat back on again. He went over toward the door.
While his back was turned, there was the silken sound of her slip, and the pink nightdress was suddenly whisked from the bed, spilled itself over her, like some kind of rosy foam.
“Do you want me to go outside for a while again?” he asked her. “Like the other nights?”
She wouldn’t answer, or she couldn’t.
“What is it? Don’t you love me?”
She raised her head suddenly. She forced herself to. He could see that she was trembling a little, although the night temperature ashore in Havana was eighty degrees. “I love you, but I’m afraid of love. I’m both at once,” she said in a low, muffled voice at last.