Do Evil In Return

22

The breakwater was dark but there was light in the harbor master’s little office and the door was open. A young man was sitting on top of the desk examining the sole of one of his canvas shoes. He was about seventeen, clad in skin-tight levis and crew shirt, with a yachting cap pushed back on his head. He was full-grown but his face was beardless, and his manner had the uncertainty of adolescence.

When he saw Charlotte in the doorway he jumped down from the desk with an embarrassed grin.

“I’m looking for the harbor master,” Charlotte said.

“He went home, ma’am.”

“Are you in charge?”

“Well, kind of. I mean, he’s my uncle and I’m just kind of hanging around for the summer vacation.”

“There’s a boat anchored here called the Mirabelle.”

The boy’s uncertainty vanished. “Oh sure, that’s Mr. Johnson’s cruising sloop. He let me go aboard her tonight when I asked him if I could.”

“Tonight?” If Vern had been on the boat tonight it meant that her whole theory was wrong, that Lewis wasn’t hiding there after all. She felt defeated, exhausted, like an animal that had been trying for hours to find its way out of a maze of closed traps and blind alleys.

He was looking at her curiously, his brown eyes as round and alert as a spaniel’s. It was apparent that he wasn’t used to well-dressed women coming alone to the breakwater at nearly eleven o’clock at night. “You want to go out to the Mirabelle, ma’am?”

“Yes. I... Mr. Johnson’s a friend of mine.”

“Oh, he is?”

“A very good friend. You can verify that if you like.” She couldn’t understand the sudden blush that stained his cheeks and the lobes of his ears. “I guess you can take one of the skiffs that’s down there on the float, ma’am, if you bring it back in the morning.”

“I’ll have it back in half an hour.”

He didn’t say anything, he seemed too embarrassed to speak.

“Look,” Charlotte said. “If you’re in any doubt, you can phone Mr. Johnson. I believe he’s still at his office.”

“Mr. Johnson’s on board.”

“On board?”

“Yes ma’am.”

“I saw him at his office half an hour ago.”

“No ma’am,” the boy said stubbornly. “He’s aboard. He said he was going to s-sleep there.”

She went down the gangplank to the float, thinking, Vern can’t have reached here ahead of me. But if he did, why? Did he suspect all the time that Lewis was hiding on the boat? Did he come to warn him? No, that’s absurd. Vern doesn’t even know what kind of trouble Lewis is in.

The heavy float was rolling gently in the ebbing tide. Half a dozen skiffs were drawn up on it, bottoms up. The boy eased one into the water and walked back up to the top of the gangplank silhouetted against the light of the tiny office.

The Mirabelle was anchored a hundred yards off shore, its sails furled, its cabin portholes dark. She tied the skiff up at the stem and climbed awkwardly up the ladder.

“Vern?”

She crossed the deck and opened the door of the cabin. Her eyes had adjusted to the darkness and she could make out the figure of a man lying on the lower bunk, face down.

She descended the five narrow steps, slowly, as if her legs were numb. “Vern?”

He stirred, moaned; one of his hands came up to his head as if to ward off a blow that he saw coming in a nightmare. She found the light and turned it on.

It wasn’t Vern. It was Lewis.

He was sleeping, but still moving, moving his head back and forth, and shielding his face with his arms. The dream stopped as suddenly as it began, his hands dropped, the fight was over.

She knelt down and touch his cheek gently. “Lewis, it’s me, Charley. Wake up, Lewis.”

He opened his eyes. They were pink and swollen, as if from tears. In the dream he had fought and won — or fought and lost — and the fight, the effort, was real; his forehead was drenched with sweat

“Lewis...”

He turned his face to the bulkhead. The back of his neck looked very young and vulnerable. “I have nothing to say, Charley.”

“You can’t go on hiding like this. They’ll find you just as I did.”

“I don’t care.”

“You must care. Things will be so much harder for you if they have to come and get you, harder for — for all of us.”

He got up off the bunk without answering. There wasn’t enough headroom in the cabin for him to stand upright. The portholes were closed and the air was suffocating and heavy with the odor of Bourbon. He seemed not drunk, but stunned, as if he had used the Bourbon not as a method of escape, but as a weapon against himself, had hit himself over the head with it in self-punishment.

“I must talk to you, Lewis. Come up on deck.”

“It’s too late for talk

“No, no, it isn’t.” But her voice held no conviction, she knew it was too late. Easter had given her three hours and two of them were gone.

She went up on deck and he followed her. The shore looked far away, and the lights of the city as remote as stars.

While the little harbor waves slapped and sucked at the stem of the boat, she told him everything that Easter had said. Her voice was quiet and calm. It had no relation to the things she was saying or to the fear and pain and pity in her heart. Evidence, she repeated, evidence, and it seemed to her a word as final as death, more terrifying than murder.

When she had finished Lewis was silent for a long time, his head buried in his hands so that she couldn’t see his face, find on it the expressions any innocent man would be wearing — shock, denial, protest.

When he finally looked up at her, there was no expression on his face at all. He spoke flatly, “On advice of counsel, I have nothing to say.”

“You must say something, you must!”

“I’m sorry, Charley.”

“Sorry. Sorry.” She felt hysteria rising in her throat like bile. She swallowed, fighting it down, but the harsh bitterness of its taste remained. She knew that he would say nothing to incriminate himself, not even if it meant saving her. She remembered the words Easter had spoken a few hours ago: “He loves himself, too, and that’s the big passion. You’re running a poor second, Charlotte.”

“If I could only understand,” she said painfully. “If I knew why, why...”

He took her hand and pressed it against his hot dry cheek. “Perhaps some day you’ll know all the answers... Don’t draw away, don’t be afraid.”

But she was afraid. She looked down into the black water and thought of Violet.

“Tell me you loved me, Charley.”

“I... I did love you.”

“And now?”

“I don’t know... You lied to me about Violet. You said you’d never even heard of her.”

“It wasn’t a lie then. I didn’t know it was the same girl until I saw her picture the next morning. I... God, she was just a kid. I’d been drinking quite a bit. She kept hanging around me, I couldn’t get rid of her, I... But it’s too late now for excuses, explanations. No, you mustn’t cry, Charley, please don’t.” She hid her face against the sleeve of her coat. He stroked her hair, awkwardly. “Tell me, Charley, do you believe in another life, a second chance?”

“I... I try to, but I can’t.”

“I can’t, either. This is all there is, there isn’t any more. No second chances.” His eyes were fixed blindly on the dark horizon. “It’s a funny ending to a dream, isn’t it? Stop now. Stop crying, Charley. You’ll come out all right I promise you.”

She wept for a long time, like a child, her fists jammed into her eyes. When she had stopped he wiped her face with his handkerchief and raised her to her feet. “You’d better leave now, Charley. Perhaps we’d both better leave.”

“Where will you go?”

“I’ll go home.”

“Home?”

“Yes. You can tell Easter I’ll be there waiting for him.”