Home is the Sailor (2 page)

Now I didn’t even have any pockets. The thought made me sad. I’d never been so sad. I watered my sadness with rum, listening to the dame with the nasal voice arguing about the rate. She thought eight dollars for five people was too high. I wondered what she wanted for her money, oysters in her beer and dancing boys?

Then there had been a fight. I remembered the fight distinctly. The Mexican had accused me of switching dice. He’d pulled a sap, shouting, “Kill the big Swede!”

And he and the construction stiffs had tried. But a lot of lads with cracked skulls had tried that. Men who were good at the business. In Mozambique. In Alexandria. In Tangiers. With brass knuckles and curved knives.

Then what had happened? I tried to remember, and couldn’t.

Outside on the drive the penny-pinching dame decided not to take the cottage. She said she thought she could get one cheaper closer to L.A.

There was a grind of gears. Wheels crunched on gravel. In the hot silence that followed the departure of the car, the smell of the nicotiana seemed even sweeter. I could hear the whir of a sprinkler. The
re-teat, re-teat
of cicadas was added to the swish of fast-moving traffic and the slap of the waves on the beach. Then high heels tapped across the wooden porch. The spring on the screen door screeched like an angry cat. The brunette I’d seen on the drive came into the cottage, smoking a cigarette. My lack of clothes didn’t seem to shock her.

“How you feeling, sailor?” she asked.

“Fine,” I lied. “Just fine.”

I hadn’t paid much attention to her. Not half enough. Her hair was brown and straight. Her cheeks were flat, her cheekbones high. She was striking rather than pretty. Her yellow two-piece bare-midriff play suit accentuated her figure. It was as nice as her smile. The top half of her breasts were bare and straining against her bodice. Her stomach was concave. She curved in in back, then out. The skin I could see was tanned, as if she spent a lot of time in the sun.

I patted the bed. “Come here.”

Her smile turned wry. “Any port in a storm, eh, sailor?” She lifted her hair away from the back of her neck. “What would Corliss say?”

“Who’s Corliss?” I asked her.

She came part way into the room. “You don’t even remember her, huh?”

“No,” I admitted. “I don’t. What’s the name of this joint?”

“The Purple Parrot.”

The name meant nothing to me.

Her smile turned nice again. “Just get paid off, mate?”

I lighted a cigarette from the butt of the one I was smoking. “That’s right.”

“What ship?”

“The S. S. Lautenbach.”

“Long trip?”

“Three years.”

“No ports?”

“Only in the islands. We got caught on a shuttle run when that business in Korea started.”

“Oh,” she said. “I see.”

“What’s your name?” I asked her.

She said, “Mamie.”

“I’m Swede Nelson,” I told her.

I wanted to ask her who Corliss was, what kind of joint I was in, if she knew whether I had any money. And if I hadn’t, what had happened to it. But something about her stopped me.

She wet her lips with the tip of her tongue and gave me a long once-over. From my feet to my bandaged head. Pausing where her fancy pleased her. Not the way most women look at a man. The way most men look at a woman. Appraising. Weighing. Speculating. I patted the bed again.

She was breathing harder than she had been. “I’m tempted, Nelson,” she said. “Believe me. I’ve watched you sleep all day.”

“Then why not?”

She said, “For various reasons.”

Her eyes were gray and smoky, like ashes over a wood fire. They made me feel like a fool.

I said, “Do one of two things, will you?”

She asked, “What?”

“Either come here or get out.”

Her smile turned wry again. “I think I’d better go. But if I were you, mate, I’d get dressed and walk over to the bar.”

I asked her why I should.

She said, “For some food to cushion that rum. You were drunk when Corliss brought you here. You’re not much soberer now.” The taut spring screeched as she opened the screen. Then she closed the screen door and came back. All the way to the bed this time. “No,” she said. “Don’t do it. You look like a nice guy, Swede. The kind of guy I used to think maybe I’d meet someday. Where were you headed when you got drunk?”

I told her, “Hibbing, Minnesota.”

“Why?”

“To buy a farm. To get married.”

Her eyes searched mine. “Then get out of here, Swede. Don’t even stop at the bar.”

“Why not?”

“Because I’m telling you.”

I got to my feet and pulled her to me. “Look, honey—”

Breathing as hard as I was, she said, “No. Please. Don’t. The screen’s unlocked.”

I said, “To hell with the screen,” and kissed her.

She crushed her lips against mine, then pushed me away and slapped me. “Men,” she said. “Men.” Like it was a dirty word.

Then the spring screeched again. She was gone.

I drank from the bottle again. Then I looked in the clothes closet of the cabin. My uniform was hanging on a hanger. Someone had washed and ironed my shirt. My shoes were shined.

I looked in the pockets of my coat. Then in and under the bed. My papers were intact, but my money belt was gone. So was the money I’d made in the crap game.

I even looked in the bathroom. There was a safety razor and some brushless shaving cream. I shaved and showered, staying under the cold water a long time. Then I put on my shorts and skivy and walked back and sat on the bed.

The name Corliss was vaguely familiar. I tried to tie a girl to the name.

The Mexican had accused me of cheating. He had yelled, “Kill the big Swede!” He and the construction stiffs had tried. Then what had happened?

Then I remembered Corliss. Gold and white and smiling. I began to breathe hard even thinking of her. God almighty. Of course. How could I forget Corliss? How could any man, drunk or sober, forget her?

The whole of the night just past came back.

She’d come in right after the fight. Or maybe while it was still going on. But the first time I had seen her was when she had sat down in the booth.

Blonde. And tiny. And pretty. Wearing a white off-the-shoulder evening gown. With a white rose in her hair. She’d laid her hand on mine. Smiling. Her voice was as nice as the rest of her.

“What’s the matter, mate? They pushing you around?”

She’d laughed with me, not at me. I’d liked her from the start. I’d offered to buy her a drink. She said that she’d like that, but wasn’t I pretty drunk already?

To prove how sober I was, I drank another double rum. Then there was a gap. I tried to remember leaving the bar with her. I couldn’t. The next thing I remembered was riding in an open car, the wind whipping my face. The little blonde was doing the driving. I asked her where we were going.

She glanced sideways at me, smiling. “Home,” she said.

And that was fine with me.

I remembered the fragrance of flowers and the shrill of cicadas as she parked the car. My bus had been gone for hours. Dawn wasn’t far away. I lurched into a cabin after her, intent on only one thing. Corliss. Sure. That was her name. Corliss had fended me off, laughing. She said, “What you need is some sleep, mate.”

I grabbed her and tried to kiss her. Still laughing, she parked me in a chair and stepped into the bathroom to change into a negligee. Then, while she was undressing, we went through the same routine that I had just gone through with Mamie. Almost verbatim.

I called into the bathroom that she was very pretty.

“Thank you,” she called back. “Just get paid off, mate?”

“This morning.”

“You mean yesterday morning.”

“That’s right.”

“Long trip?”

“Three years.”

“No ports?”

“None as nice as this one.”

It was a thirsty business, waiting. I remember wishing I’d brought a bottle with me. Then Corliss came out of the bathroom, wearing a clinging white silk negligee. Her loveliness was a flame reaching out and burning me.

I got to my feet and leaned against the wall by the bed to keep the cottage from capsizing. The floor was beginning to heave. Corliss floated always just out of my reach.

“How much money do you have, sailor?” she asked me.

Drunk as I was, I played it cagey. I was still going home to Hibbing. I was still going to buy a farm. I pulled a handful of the crap-game money from my pocket. “Plenty, baby,” I told her.

I flopped down on the bed and patted it. “Come on, baby,” I said. “Remember I’ve been at sea three years.”

Corliss smiled at me, amused. “Let’s have a drink first,” she suggested.

She reached on a shelf for a bottle. As she lifted her arm, her robe gaped. My breathing almost choked me. I
had
to have her. I meant to. I’d never seen anyone so lovely.

She wasn’t more than twenty-three or twenty-four. Her hair was the color of honey. Her eyes and quarter-inch lashes were brown. She didn’t weigh a hundred pounds stripped, but her hips and breasts were exquisitely molded.

She floated toward me with the bottle in one hand and a water glass in the other. I reached out and caught my fingers in the neck of the white negligee.

She filled the glass three-fourths full of rum. “Here. Drink this first.”

I sipped the rum, pulling her toward me. She put the bottle on the deck, patted my hand, and sat on the bed beside me, smiling. “I’m awfully sorry, but you’re in for a sad awakening, mate.”

I reversed my hand. The skin on her stomach was soft and silky.

She took my hand away. “Don’t. What you need is some sleep.”

I finished the rum in the glass. “And then?”

“And then,” she said, “we’ll see. What’s your name, mate?”

I told her. “Swen. But everyone calls me Swede.”

She laughed, and it sounded like the tinkling of glass bangles in the doorway of a Chinese shop. “I wonder why.”

Her robe had gaped open again. When she laughed I could see her muscles ripple. I put my hand on her leg this time. She liked it. I could tell. The muscles in her leg twitched spasmodically. Then she pushed my hand away. Her eyes filled with tears.

“What’s the idea?” I asked her.

She said, “I wish I were what you think I am. But it so happens that I’m not. So — sorry, Swede. All you get is a cottage and some shut-eye. I have to have love with mine.”

I pushed her back on the bed and pressed my face against hers. “Don’t give me that.”

Corliss clung to me, quivering, demanding. But only for a moment. Then all her fire was gone. Even her flesh felt different. I’d hooked one finger in her bra and ripped it. Her breasts were cold white marble.

“Don’t,” she said sharply. “Don’t.”

I laughed and kissed her again. Then, moaning, she picked the rum bottle from the deck and smashed it over my head and both of us were standing in the middle of the room, rum mixed with blood on my face, the little blonde panting:

“I warned you.”

She had blood on her, too. My blood. My knees were rubber. I was out on a stormy sea in the dead eye of a calm with the start of a nasty roll making. One eye was blinded with blood. I clung to the rail of the bridge to keep from going over.

Then Corliss was on the bridge with me, pressing herself against me, holding me up.

“Oh, God,” she whimpered, “I’m sorry.”

Then a big green wave had swept over the bridge and carried me down and down into the cool black depths.

I sat on the bed feeling cheated. I’d made a fool of myself for nothing. The little blonde had been clever. She’d clipped me for my entire roll and hadn’t bothered to try to earn her money. As if any dame was worth fifteen thousand dollars.

Boy. Would Ginty laugh. “Back for a job, eh?” he’d roar, his fat beer belly bobbling. “I thought you were quitting the sea, Swede. I thought you were going back to Minnesota and buy a farm and get married and settle down.”

Then he’d give me some goddamn guano run. Or maybe a nitrate freighter. Just to teach me a lesson.

The more I thought, the madder I got. It had taken me three years to save twelve thousand dollars. Now the little blonde had my dough. And all I’d got out of it was a night’s lodging. In a single bed. Alone.

The little brunette had known her. They should know her last name at the bar. Also where I could find Corliss. I wanted my money back. I meant to have it. If I had to wreck the joint.

There was a handful of silver on the dresser. I dressed and put it in my pocket. Then I crossed the drive to the bar, the big purple neon parrot watching me.

The bar part of the restaurant was small but expensive-looking, with big white leather booths against the wall. The fat barman looked vaguely familiar.

I laid a silver dollar on the bar. “Bacardi. Light. A double.”

He served me without comment. I drank it in two gulps and pushed the glass across the wood.

“Let’s go again.”

I fumbled for more change. The barman shook his head. “Don’t bother with the chicken feed. You don’t remember me, do you, mate?”

I admitted, “No. I can’t say I do.”

“I put you to bed,” he told me. “After you insulted Miss Mason this morning.” He filled my glass and set the bottle beside it. “Go ahead. Drown yourself. Your credit’s good. You even got enough in the safe to bury you.”

I asked what he meant by that.

He rested his weight on his palms. “You may or may not remember it, mate, but when you make an ass of yourself this morning and Miss Mason is forced to conk you with a bottle, you are carrying almost fifteen thousand dollars. Fourteen thousand, eight hundred and seventy-five, to be exact. And Miss Mason puts it in the safe so some two-year-old kid don’t roll you.”

It wasn’t the setup I’d expected. I felt the back of my ears get hot. “Corliss is Miss Mason?”

The fat barman nodded, keeping his voice down for the benefit of the other patrons. “That’s right. She picks you out of a clip joint yesterday morning. Because she can see you’re headed for trouble and due to wind up dead broke. She tries to save your dough for you. And how do you repay her? You insult her. That’s how.” His bulk quivered with indignation. “If it had been me, I’d have thrown you out on the beach and kept the dough. But Miss Mason is a lady. And when she comes back from San Diego she’ll give you all your money, minus the rent on the cabin and what you swill at the bar.”