Train by Pete Dexter Page B

fisherman in a small aluminum boat pulled her out. He had two days’ worth of whiskers and bloodshot eyes, and smelled of the bait he’d been tossing into the hold. He straightened his T-shirt across his stomach before he introduced himself.
     
     
“Harry Marquart,” he said, and offered her his hand. The blood from her breast trickled down her stomach and her eyes burned from the salt water. He was staring at her, and she asked for a blanket. He might have been sixty years old, and his head and hands were crusted with sun cancer. He had no blanket, but he found a worn checkered shirt without buttons and gave it to her, apologizing for the smell of gasoline, and then he stepped back and stared past her for a moment, out over the water at the sailboat.
     
     
“You’re a strong swimmer,” he said.
     
     

She was still on the fisherman’s boat when the police arrived. There were only two of them: one in uniform and a sergeant in a suit. The uniform had a patch that said Orange County Sheriff’s Department. The sergeant’s suit was tailored, and his hair had just been cut and his shoes were expensive and shined. He stepped easily from the pier into the small boat, and said “Excuse me” when he moved the fisherman out of the seat next to her and took it himself. The fisherman had been holding on to her shoulder, sneaking looks beneath the shirt. She could not say if he was drawn to her, or simply to the grotesque, or if those were different things.
     
     
“They’re still on the boat,” the fisherman said. “Drinking beer and laughing, having themselves a big nigger party.”
     
     
She did not like that word, and particularly did not like being the cause of its use. The fisherman handed the sergeant his binoculars.
     
     
The sergeant studied the sailboat, using the same hand to hold the binoculars and focus, then looked back at her.
     
     
“That’s a long way out,” he said. His voice was calm and sensible, in no hurry. She nodded, feeling herself shake. She had been shaking ever since Mr. Marquart pulled her out of the water.
     
     
The sergeant moved— he was over on her right side, and she couldn’t see him well— and then she felt his coat on her shoulders. The lining was smooth and had a nice weight. “Let’s see what we’ve got,” he said, and he gently touched her face and turned it. He leaned closer, looking at one side and then the other. “It’s not so bad,” he said. He touched her lips, looking at her teeth, and then moved her jaw back and forth. “Does that hurt?”
     
     
“My breast,” she said.
     
     
“I know,” he said. “Mr. Marquart mentioned it when he called in his report.” He turned and told the uniformed cop to find out what had happened to the ambulance. When he looked back at her, she saw that his eyes were dark brown, almost black. He smiled at her, as if to tell her losing a nipple wasn’t so serious. She shook violently, cold and frightened.
     
     
“Is it all right if I look?” He had a soft way of speaking that made things seem easier than they were.
     
     
And she nodded, wanting him to see what they’d done. He opened the jacket, holding it carefully away from her skin. A moment passed. “The bleeding’s almost stopped,” he said. And then a moment later: “They’ve got doctors up in Hollywood, they can fix things so they won’t even show.”
     
     
She shook her head. She didn’t want it fixed, not when nothing else could be. She touched herself, pressed her fingers into the spot, and for a moment the pain seemed to block out the sun, and she bent over it, trying to stay inside that one moment, trying to stop shaking, bending into her own lap.
     
     
He laid his hand across her spine and waited.
     
     
He seemed to know when it had passed, even though she hadn’t moved. He took his hand off and said, “So there they are, just sitting out on the boat, waiting.” He made things simple. It was reassuring to have them laid out in