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.ponderous.""So he was there when your husband had his accident?"She raised the glass to her lips so deliberately I wondered if she was tryingto buy time, and why.She took a deep swallow and said, "Whatever would thathave to do with anything at all, Travis?""I'm just guessing, but I'd say that there'd be some relationship between howthese deepwater people react to emergencies and their desire to get away fromthe world.""He reacts beautifully.""What happened? I mean, where was he when it happened?""You have no idea how many times I told this, over two years ago, how manytimes a new official popped up and had to hear it all over again.""I'm sorry.Forget it.""It doesn't matter as much now as it did then.It so happened that Howie and Iwere both below.The three of us had been swimming.We were anchored justoutside Little Harbor.It was a very calm sea.It was about three thirty inthe afternoon.Both Howie and I heard this strange thumping sound.He ran upand as soon as he saw what had happened, he yelled to me.Fred was on his facein the dinghy with his legs trailing in the water.The dinghy had shipped somewater.Somehow we got him up onto the deck and got shade over him.Howie goton the emergency frequency right away and pretty soon there was a doctor onthe way in a seaplane, but Fred stopped breathing before the plane landedeven.There was an investigation and all that.And I flew back in the samechartered plane with Tom Collier and with the body.Tom has been an absolutedoll about everything.I don't know what I would have done without him.""So you think that Howie Brindle would be a good person to sail around theworld?""I guess so.""Some reservations?""Not really.It's just that I thought people like that were great readers, andkept journals and did a lot of heavy thinking.Howie is just sort of aphysical person.I don't think he really has much going on up here.You know?He's terribly pleasant, and he figures out the little problems, the best wayto do things, but if you said to him, 'Howie, do you think there is ahereafter?' he would look sort of startled.I can tell you almost exactly whathe would say.He'd say, `Some people believe there is and some people believePage 58ABC Amber Palm Converter, http://www.processtext.com/abcpalm.htmlthere isn't.I guess there's no way to find out for sure.'""Do you feel you really got to know him?""You know as well as I do that six weeks aboard anything the size of theSalamah is no way to remain strangers.After Howie brought her back toLauderdale, Tom asked me if I had any objection to Howie living aboard her andcaretaking.I said none at all.I went down and removed the personal stuff,and Howie helped me load it all in the station wagon.Funny.I was so positiveI wanted to sell her until the day she was sold.And then I was sorry."The young were shrieking and yelping.She took her last sip of drink, lookingat me across the rim of the empty glass.The ice chinked as she put the glassdown.A handsome woman with the eyes of a gambler.I've got aces back to back,and I dare you to bet into them.Good smile lines.She said, "I'd like to come see your houseboat some day when things aren't sodrunk.I remember an absolutely gigantic shower stall, or did I dream it? Muchtoo big for a boat.""It's there.It's real." She was waiting for the definite invitation.Nothanks, widow lady.With that figure and mouth, you can get all the safe,healthy fellows you want.I stood up."Thanks for letting me bother you withthese weird questions.""It's okay.I needed a break.I hate cleaning the place.If I can't findsomebody soon, I'm going to have to sell it before it works me to death.""It's the right time of year to advertise in Boston or Chicago.""You just may have something there.After school opens, I could fly up andinterview applicants and bring the best one back.See you around the marina,Travis."I went back to Bahia Mar to fill in a very troubling blank in Brindle'shistory.Meyer had stimulated my memory to the point where I knew Howie hadbeen aboard the Salamah until she was sold.But she was sold before ProfessorTed was killed.So he would not have met Pidge until she came down from schoolwhen Ted died, and to meet her and to be available to give her a helping hand,he had to be living somewhere else in the marina complex.The cold wet wind had swept the area fairly clean of both residents andtourists.The parking meters at the beach area stood like a small lonelyforest of Martian flowers.Some young folk in wet suits were trying to findbreakers to ride.They weren't breaking often.They were sliding in round andgray and slow, as if quieted by oil.The black suits are the last step inunisex.Out there with their boards they looked as neuter as black seals.I checked out several neighborhoods before I came up with anything.Any bigmarina has neighborhoods.The charterboats, the rag bums, the fat cruisercrowd, the horsepower freaks, the roundthe-worlders, the storekeepers, thestaff.Fat Jack Hoover was replacing a compressor aboard the Miss Kitty, the ornatetop-heavy old single-crew mahogany yacht he captains for a crazy old lady fromDuluth [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]