“It’ll be a pretty night all right. Let me have another, will you?”
Just then in came the tall tourist and his wife.
“If it isn’t my dream man,” she said, and sat down on the stool beside Harry.
He took one look at her and stood up.
“I’ll be back, Freddy,” he said. “I’m going down to the boat in case that party wants to go fishing.”
“Don’t go,” the wife said. “Please don’t go.”
“You’re comical,” Harry said to her and he went out.
Down the street Richard Gordon was on his way to the Bradleys’ big winter home. He was hoping Mrs. Bradley would be alone. She would be. Mrs. Bradley collected writers as well as their books but Richard Gordon did not know this yet. His own wife was on her way home walking along the beach. She had not run into John MacWalsey. Perhaps he would come by the house.
Chapter Eighteen
Albert was on board the boat and the gas was loaded.
“I’ll start her up and try how those two cylinders hit,” Harry said. “You got the things stowed?”
“Yes.”
“Cut some baits then.”
“You want a wide bait?”
“That’s right. For tarpon.”
Albert was on the stern cutting baits and Harry was at the wheel warming up the motors when he heard a noise like a motor backfiring. He looked down the street and saw a man come out of the bank. He had a gun in his hand and he came running. Then he was out of sight. Two more men came out carrying leather brief cases and guns in their hands and ran in the same direction. Harry looked at Albert busy cutting baits. The fourth man, the big one, came out of the bank door as he watched, holding a Thompson gun in front of him, and as he backed out of the door the siren in the bank rose in a long breath-holding shriek and Harry saw the gun muzzle jump-jump-jump-jump and heard the bop-bop-bop- bop, small and hollow sounding in the wail of the siren. The man turned and ran, stopping to fire once more at the bank door, and as Albert stood up in the stern saying, “Christ, they’re robbing the bank. Christ, what can we do?” Harry heard the Ford taxi coming out of the side street and saw it careening up onto the dock.
There were three Cubans in the back and one beside the driver.
“Where’s the boat?” yelled one in Spanish.
“There, you fool,” said another.
“That’s not the boat.”
“That’s the captain.”
“Come on. Come on for Christ sake.”
“Get out,” said the Cuban to the driver. “Get your hands up.”
As the driver stood beside the car he put a knife inside his belt and ripping it toward him cut the belt and slit his pants almost to the knee. He yanked the trousers down. “Stand still,” he said. The two Cubans with the valises tossed them into the cockpit of the launch and they all came tumbling aboard.
“Geta going,” said one. The big one with the machine gun poked it into Harry’s back.
“Come on, Cappie,” he said. “Let’s go.”
“Take it easy,” said Harry. “Point that someplace else.”
“Cast off those lines,” the big one said. “You!” to Albert.
“Wait a minute,” Albert said. “Don’t start her. These are the bank robbers.”
The biggest Cuban turned and swung the Thompson gun and held it on Albert. “Hey, don’t! Don’t!” Albert said. “Don’t!”
The burst was so close to his chest that the bullets whocked like three slaps. Albert slid down on his knees, his eyes wide, his mouth open. He looked like he was still trying to say, “Don’t!”
“You don’t need no mate,” the big Cuban said. “You one-armed son-of-a-bitch.” Then in Spanish, “Cut those lines with that fish knife.” And in English, “Come on. Let’s go.”
Then in Spanish, “Put a gun against his back!” and in English, “Come on. Let’s go. I’ll blow your head off.”
“We’ll go,” said Harry.
One of the Indian-looking Cubans was holding a pistol against the side his bad arm was on. The muzzle almost touched the hook.
As he swung her out, spinning the wheel with his good arm, he looked astern to watch the clearance past the piling, and saw Albert on his knees in the stern, his head slipped sidewise now, in a pool of it. On the dock was the Ford taxi, and the fat driver in his underdrawers, his trousers around his ankles, his hands above his head, his mouth open as wide as Albert’s. There was still no one coming down the street.
The pilings of the dock went past as she came out of the basin and then he was in the channel passing the lighthouse dock.
“Come on. Hook her up,” the big Cuban said. “Make some time.”
“Take that gun away,” Harry said. He was thinking, I could run her on Crawfish bar, but sure as hell that Cuban would plug me.
“Make her go,” said the big Cuban. Then, in Spanish, “Lie down flat, everybody. Keep the captain covered.” He lay down himself in the stern, pulling Albert flat down into the cockpit. The other three all lay flat in the cockpit now. Harry sat on the steering seat. He was looking ahead steering out the channel, past the opening into the sub-base now, with the notice board to yachts and the green blinker, cut away from the jetty, past the fort now, past the red blinker; he looked back. The big Cuban had a green box of shells out of his pocket and was filling clips. The gun lay by his side and he was filling clips without looking at them, filling by feel, looking back over the stern. The others were all looking astern except the one that was watching him. This one, one of the two Indian-looking ones, motioned with his pistol for him to look ahead. No boat had started after them yet. The engines were running smoothly and they were going with the tide. He noticed the heavy slant seawards of the buoy he passed, with the current swirling at its base.
There are two speedboats that could catch us, Harry was thinking. One, Ray’s, is running the mail from Matecumbe. Where is the other? I saw her a couple of days ago on Ed. Taylor’s ways, he checked. That was the one I thought of having Bee-lips hire. There’s two more, he remembered now. One the State Road Department has up along the keys. The other’s laid up in the Garrison Bight. How far are we now? He looked back to where the fort was well astern, the red-brick building of the old post office starting to show up above the Navy yard buildings and the yellow hotel building now dominating the short skyline of the town. There was the cove at the Fort, and the lighthouse showed above the houses that strung out toward the big winter hotel. Four miles anyway, he thought. There they come, he thought. Two white fishing boats were rounding the breakwater and heading out toward him. They can’t do ten, he thought. It’s pitiful.
The Cubans were chattering in Spanish.
“How fast you going, Cappie?” the big one said, looking back from the stern.
“About twelve,” Harry said. “What can those boats do?”
“Maybe ten.”
They were all watching them now, even the one who was supposed to keep him, Harry, covered. But what can I do? He thought. Nothing to do yet.
The two white boats got no larger.
“Look at that, Roberto,” said the nice-speaking one.
“Where?”
“Look!”
A long way back, so far you could hardly see it, a little spout rose in the water.
“They’re shooting at us,” the pleasant-speaking one said. “It’s silly.”
“For Christ’s sake,” the big-faced one said. “At three miles.”
“Four,” thought Harry. “All of four.”
Harry could see the tiny spouts rise on the calm surface but he could not hear the shots.
“Those Conchs are pitiful,” he thought. “They’re worse. They’re comical.”