“Lady Godiva, don’t get on that high horse. I’m sorry if I—”
Sassi picked up the phone and said, “Los Angeles, please. J-K Films.”
“Sassi—”
She turned her back on him.
“All right,” he said. “I’m going, I’m going. Our plane leaves at three, I’ve got the tickets.”
When the door closed, she hung up. “What does he know?” she asked.
(3)
Fishing
“Ready?” asked Major ffork-Linton.
“Quite,” said Miss Adelaide Rushby. She dibbled at her throat lace.
Outside, Jamaica lay obedient, a quiescent flying island in a crayola-blue sea. The yachts and clippers and runabouts were moored in rows, as though in the parking lot of a nautical supermarket. Inside, in the saloon of Major Alfred ffork-Linton’s yacht Redoubtable, a cool dim British calm prevailed. A Victorian setting and a tweedy couple, Adelaide Rushby with her throat lace and her several chins, the Major with his leather elbow patches and peper-and-salt mustache.
“We’re off, then,” said the Major, and there was a knock at the door.
The Major and Adelaide looked at one another. “It can’t be anything,” she whispered.
“Of course not,” agreed the Major. “Foolish of us.” He raised his voice and called, “Come in!”
The young man who diffidently entered was that nice Mr. Bullworth Spence from United Kingdom Films. He was casually dressed — short-sleeved white shirt, no tie — but at least he carried his pipe. “Afternoon, Major,” he said. “Afternoon, Miss Rushby.”
“Dear boy,” the Major said, and Adelaide smiled a greeting.
“Are you off somewhere?” Spence asked. He was looking at the purse Miss Rushby was holding in her hands.
“Just a walk,” she said.
“Well, I can’t stay in any event,” Spence said. “I just dropped round to tell you I did manage to wangle those tickets for that Italian film after all. Abortion, Italian Style.”
“Did you!” cried the Major. “Well done!”
“Also,” said Spence, “to tell you there’s a party at Sir Albert’s tonight. In honor of Miss Sassi Manoon.”
The Major and Adelaide looked at one another. She said to Spence, “But Miss Manoon is American.”
“We want her for a co-production. American brawn, British brains. Besides, she’s one of the festival judges. Would you be interested in coming?”
“To the party? We’d be delighted. Wouldn’t we, Alfred?”
“Definitely,” said the Major.
“Then what say I send a car round for you nineish.”
“That would be lovely,” said Adelaide. “And we do thank you.”
“Not at all.” He glanced at his watch. “Now I must be off,” he said. “Picking her up at the airport, you know. See you this evening.”
“This evening,” the Major agreed.
Spence left, and Adelaide said, “Now, that’s an unexpected blessing.”
“Should prove helpful,” the Major said. “Shall we see about our new neighbors?”
“Oh, yes! I’d forgotten.”
They left Redoubtable and walked along the dock to the boat next door, a cabin cruiser named Nothing Ventured IV which had just arrived this morning with a crew of three, two whites and a black. The Major and Miss Rushby wanted to know if these new arrivals were likely to cause any trouble or hitch in the plan. They had previously paid calls on the other ships resident near their own, finding all of their passengers apparently harmless, and now it was time to reassure themselves about this latest addition.
All three young men were on deck on their vessel. The Major stopped at the foot of their gangplank and gazed at them. “ffork-Linton,” he announced, smiling falsely. “And this is Miss Rushby.”
“D’je do,” said Adelaide, touching her throat lace.
There followed a long moment of awkward silence. The three young men appeared to be barbarians, total and entire. Not a one of them thought to introduce himself or respond in any way at all. In fact, they merely stood looking at one another, blank expressions on their faces, as the silence stretched into discomfort.
Dammit, it wasn’t good manners to come aboard a man’s vessel uninvited. The Major stood at the foot of the gangplank, waiting in Vain for an invitation, and at last forced the issue by saying, “Neighborly visit, you know. Thought we’d drop in and say how d’je do to our new neighbors. We’re from Redoubtable over there.”
The black seemed suddenly to come awake, as though he’d been in a trance — did they take opiates? — and said, “Of course. Forgive us, Mr. ffork-Linton. Won’t you and Miss Rushby come aboard?”
The white with the eyeglasses gave the black a swift and murderous look, which the Major chose not to see. Starting up the gangplank, Adelaide behind him, he said, “It’s Major, actually.”
“How do you do, Major?” The black extended a beige-palmed chocolate hand, saying, “Robert Creswel. And may I introduce Frank Ashford and Kelly Bram Nicholas IV.”
“D’je do.”
“How are you?”
“Plan to be in Jamaica long?” the Major asked. It was a bit disconcerting to have the Negro be the only one of the three to show any of the social graces, but the Major was not one to allow such irrelevancies to distract him from his main purpose.
“We’re just here for the festival,” said what-was-his-name? Ashford. Frank Ashford.
“Are you connected with the film world?”
“No,” said the third, the one outlandishly called Kelly Bram Nicholas IV, while at the same time Frank Ashford was saying, “In a manner of speaking,” and chuckling to himself as though he’d just remembered a joke. The IV character gave him a murderous look.
The black, Robert Creswel, said, “We’re fans, is all.”
Adelaide, her arm looped through the Major’s, said, “Have you any favorites among the film stars?”
This time, as IV was saying, “No,” Frank Ashford was saying, “Sassi Manoon.” More daggers were looked at him, and Robert Creswel hastily said, “I think my favorite is Sidney Poitier.”
How those people stuck together. Worse than Jews. But odd that Ashford should mention Sassi Manoon, odd and troubling. Still, she was the biggest attraction at this festival, so perhaps it wasn’t that odd after all.
Adelaide was saying, “We have so much admired your boat. So trim-looking.”
It was an obvious, almost blunt, hint, and of course it was Creswel again who took it up. “Would you care for a look around?” he asked, and got one of IV’s looks for his trouble. What was the matter with that one?
In any case, “We’d love to,” said Adelaide, and the Creswel boy proceeded to take them on the grand tour. Frank Ashford, who appeared to be the comedian of the group, or at least to think of himself as the comedian of the group, made smallish nautical jokes as they moved along, and Kelly Bram Nicholas IV trailed after everybody, lowering and glowering.
The boat was not at all bad. The gallery was small but well constructed, complete with electric refrigerator, and the main cabin was very nearly as comfortable as that on Redoubtable.
Only one oddity. The forward cabin was almost entirely given over to some sort of electronic machine, which looked vaguely menacing and science-fictionish in the swaying electric light. “Our fish finder,” the Creswel boy said, showing it to them.
“Fish finder?” The Major stared at the machine in some bewilderment. There seemed to be a great deal of it.
“Uses radar,” Creswel said.
Ashford said, “You can really catch them with that.”
“Interesting,” said the Major, who found it boring. He never had liked to fish and couldn’t understand those who did.