She looked again at her reflection in the mirror. “So let’s go,” she said, and her reflection nodded, tight-lipped. She left the bathroom and went downstairs to the room Miss Rushby shared with the Major — that was part of the enigma of Miss Rushby — and knocked softly on the door.
Miss Rushby opened almost at once, nodded, touched her finger to her lips, and tiptoed out. “I thought it was you,” she whispered, when she had the door closed behind her. “He’s asleep. Come along.”
They moved silently down the hall and into a sitting room, where Miss Rushby carefully shut the door before switching on the lights. Then she said, “Well? Any success?”
“I got something better than the boat key,” Jigger told her. “I got the key to the radio room.”
Miss Rushby, an anticipatory smile left hanging on her face like Christmas wreaths in February, said, “Eh? You did what?”
Jigger told her the plan all in a rush, sensing from the outset that Miss Rushby wasn’t entirely pleased by the turn of events. But when she was done, Miss Rushby merely nodded in a thoughtful sort of way and said, “May I see the key?”
Jigger handed it over.
Miss Rushby took it, and said, “Thank you, my dear. You may go to bed now.”
“What? What about—?”
“No, dear.” Miss Rushby, smiling sadly, shook her head. “There will be no messages. No rescues. No escapes. I’d thought you would prove useful, but a workman is no better than the tools he uses, as they say. Well, well, I’ll think of something else. Good night, my dear.” And she left the room.
Jigger’s mouth hung open five seconds while her mind rearranged the facts at its disposal — Miss R one of the kidnappers, in league with the Major, using her to help double-cross Kelly and the other two — and then it shut with a snap and she stormed purposefully back up to the third floor to let Kelly know what she’d done and what Miss Rushby and the Major had been planning to do.
He wasn’t there. She went looking for him, getting more and more frantic, and fifteen minutes later she found him in the library on the second floor, listening to Miss Rushby.
Jigger stopped in front of them. “You gave him back the key,” she said.
Miss Rushby smiled her sad smile. “Of course, dear,” she said. “Good night, Kelly.” She got to her feet and left the room.
Jigger said, “Kelly—”
“Never mind,” Kelly said. He was looking at the key in his hand. “A long long time ago,” he said, “I learned something. I forgot it for a while today. Now I remember it again.” He got to his feet. He wouldn’t look at her, she couldn’t see into his eyes.
“Please, Kelly,” she said. “Let me explain.”
He walked out of the room.
Jigger stood there a minute or two longer, but there was nothing to do. She couldn’t run after him, she couldn’t explain, she couldn’t say a word. So she went off to bed instead, where she amazed and infuriated herself by crying herself to sleep.
(4)
Smiles and Frowns
Robby loved mornings like this — the sky a cloudless blue, the air soft and warm, the sea calm and sparkling beneath the sun. There’d been another great communal breakfast this morning — though Jigger and Kelly had both been absent this time — and there’d been a feeling of their all being on vacation somehow, at a camp or a lodge, off with a congenial group for a special time separate from everybody’s normal life. And now here he was standing on the deck of Nothing Ventured IV, about to sail out across the beautiful blue and yellow day and come back with armloads of beautiful green. Who could ask for anything more?
Kelly came up on deck now, apparently having spent the entire night playing kalah with Starnap, and Robby said, “You ready?”
“Of course I’m ready,” snapped Kelly. “Don’t I look ready?”
“You don’t have to bite my head off,” Robby said. “I just asked if you were ready.”
“Well, I am.” Kelly’s mouth was curved down at the corners.
“You’re in an awful mood today,” Robby said.
“Is it any of your business?”
Robby shook his head. “No. It’s just that, for a man about to go out in the ocean and pick up four hundred thousand dollars, you don’t act very happy, that’s all. All right, I’m going.”
He went on down to the main cabin, where the Major was sitting at his ease, a gin and tonic in one hand and a plastic-tipped cigar in the other. “I guess we’ll be on our way in a minute,” Robby said.
The Major looked at his watch. “Excellent,” he said.
Robby went over to the bar and made himself a drink. Through the porthole he could see a bit of the beach, see Frank and Sassi Manoon sitting there on a blanket with bathing suits on. He wondered if Frank was making out with Sassi Manoon. Today would be a good time for him to do it, while he was alone on the island with just the women.
The boat abruptly started, with an unnecessarily severe jerk, making Robby slop tonic water. He said something about Kelly under his breath, wiped it up with a bar rag, and went over to sit down opposite the Major, who seemed absorbed in contemplation of his cigar smoke.
Robby cast about for a minute or two, trying to find a topic of conversation, but finally admitted to himself that there was none, that he and the Major were not destined to sit around together and chat. He knew about people like the Major. They still lived in another age, where all the people around them were white, and if a black skin did show up, it was a uniform for a servant. It confused them to have the servant sit down like anybody else. Robby thought sometimes he should feel compassion for people like that, locked into unreality, but he couldn’t quite get that objective. What he felt was irritation. They bugged him.
Speaking of which, he wondered what was the matter with Kelly. Something sure had him in a hell of a mood.
Well. With Kelly carrying on up on deck and the Major being rigidly polite down here, it was going to be a great trip. Wonderful trip.
Robby put his nose in his drink.
Sassi rolled over, stretched, opened her eyes, and said, “You know what?”
Frank, sitting beside her with a cigarette dangling in his mouth, looked away from his study of the blue horizon and said, “No, what?”
“I hope you don’t get it.”
Frank took the cigarette from his mouth. “You hope I don’t get what?”
“The money.”
He grinned. “Sure.”
“No, I mean it.” She sat up. “Can I have a cigarette?”
“Sure.” He lit one from his and gave it to her. “You want to call our bluff, huh?”
“Heck, no,” she said. “I’m just enjoying it here, that’s all.”
Frank smiled experimentally. “Of course you are,” he said.
“Brother,” she said, “you should have my life for a week. It’s like an iceberg: the ten percent you see is all white and sparkly, but the other ninety percent is cold and wet and dark and no fun at all. Sassi Manoon is mostly done with mirrors.”
“I would’ve brought my violin,” Frank said, “but salt water plays hell with the wood.”
She grinned at him and shook her head. “You bastard, you won’t ever let me have my big scene. How can I feel sorry for myself with you around?”
“How can you help but?”
“You’re not so bad,” she said “In fact, you’re pretty good.”
“Yeah,” he said, “but don’t spoil it, you know? No kissing me or making out or anything like that.”
She laughed aloud. She didn’t know when she’d been happier. “Frank,” she said, “I hope they never pay. I hope you have to keep me here forever!”