Night Walker by Donald Hamilton Page B

Last known to be reposing in my pants pocket, this morning discovered on the living room easychair.”
    “Why,” she said, “I was scared he might come back.”
    “So you stood watch all night? Thanks.”
    “I’m not asking you to believe it, honey.”
    “I didn’t say I didn’t believe it.”
    “I declare, it’s pretty obvious what you think. Well, go do your sweeping, hear? These eggs won’t wait forever.”
    When he returned, she was setting two places in the breakfast nook. He put the broom away where he had found it and paused by the adjacent window to look out. There was a low fog on the river, just dissipating in the sunlight, and a white sloop, sails furled, was gliding down the channel with the magical look of a sailboat proceeding through a flat calm under auxiliary power.The masthead remained in sight at all times, but the lower rigging and the hull kept losing themselves in the mist.
    Young said, “Well, she’s right on schedule.”
    “Who?”
    “The Decker kid.”
    “Oh.”
    The sloop slid past the dock and the big power cruiser moored there, and swung away out of the mist, toward open water. Young watched it for a while, with uneasy speculation. The small figure slouched in the cockpit looked harmless enough at this distance; she was wearing a short, bright green jacket and a matching hat that hid the color of her hair. She appeared to be smoking a cigarette; presently she rose and pitched the butt over the side and went below, leaving her ship to shift for itself. After a while the little vessel began to swing off course. The girl came out of the cabin carrying what seemed to be a mug of coffee, glanced casually around, and remedied the situation. Then she stood there, facing forward, drinking her coffee and steering with the tiller between her bare knees, with a kind of negligent and arrogant confidence. Confident people annoyed Young, and he looked away, to find Elizabeth beside him.
    “What is it, honey?”
    “Nothing,” he said. “I wish I knew how the kid fitsinto this.” Then he shrugged his shoulders. “That’s a lot to ask. Hell, I don’t even know how I fit into it, do I, Elizabeth?”
    “David,” she said. “Honey—”
    He swung away from her. “What’s that cruiser doing down there, anyway?” he asked abruptly. “It couldn’t have wintered there; even if you don’t have enough ice here to cut it to pieces one good storm would have finished it. It’s a hell of an exposed location to keep a boat tied up to a dock, even in summer.”
    She said, “Why, Larry used to — Does it matter, honey?”
    “I’m asking,” he said.
    She sighed. “All right. Larry used to keep it at a mooring you had to row out to, but before he left he took the boat to the yard and pulled the mooring up on shore. This spring I — I got a letter from him asking me to have the yard fix it up and bring it around; it — seemed like little enough to do.”
    He did not look at her. He knew her well enough now that he did not even have to see her face to know when she was lying, although her reasons were not always clear.
    “I declare,” she said, “I didn’t know I was going to have to look after it like a baby or I’d never — Bob had to show me how to pump out the water and fix the ropes and the bumpers or whatever you callthem....” Her voice died away. “Breakfast is ready, honey,” she said at last.
    He nodded, not trusting himself to look at her. He held tightly to the thought of the gun, heavy in his pocket. Liar or not, she had sat up all night with a gun to protect him as he slept. He wanted to believe that.
    There was an uncomfortable intimacy to the breakfast nook in the corner; it was hard to retain an attitude of aloofness toward a girl when you had to face her in a cramped space where your knees met, across a tiny table over which your hands were bound to collide in reaching for one thing or another for which neither of you had wanted to ask, not wanting to accept any