face. I rolled him onto his back. He was in the shade. He was snoring. His pulse was strong and regular. He stopped snoring, swallowed, opened his eyes and looked up at me.
“Take a little rest before you try to get up.”
“Baasard,” he mumbled.
I went back inside, picked my beer off the table and went back to the bar. “Awful goddamn quick, you know it?” Gus said. “One big thump on the building, and here you are. I don’t go out ever on account of blood turns my stomach.”
“No blood,” I said. I rubbed my left arm. He had numbed it a little.
“He still out there, Sam?”
“Maybe.”
“Some tourist could take his shoes and money, you know it?”
I finished my beer and walked back and looked. Scotty was gone. I went back and told Gus and he seemed relieved.
* * *
That evening I received my punishment for working off my frustration at Scotty Gantry’s expense. I had gone to bed, after setting the alarm early enough to give me time to get over to the damn beach. I was leafing through a magazine. There was an article on Hawaii, with colored photographs. I turned a page and Judy smiled out at me. It was like forgetting you have pleurisy and trying to take a deep breath. But all the pain was in the heart.
She wore a blue swim suit, spangled with stars. She sat on a hatch cover in the sunshine, smiling happily into the lense. Water droplets stood on the honeyed perfection of her shoulders. A towhead about a year and a half old was leaning against her thigh beaming up at her. Behind her I could see a section of ship’s railing, blue water, and a tropical shoreline.
“Mrs. Timothy Barriss Falter, the former Judy Caldwell, and one of the most charming young hostesses in the Islands, is shown here with her daughter, Gretchen, aboard the family schooner,
Halekulani Girl.
Tim Falter, one of the best known architects in Hawaii, often entertains friends and clients aboard the schooner, with the help of his lovely wife, by taking cruises to the outlying islands. The schooner, which sleeps ten in addition to crew quarters for captain, mate and steward, was built in California two years ago to Mr. Falter’s specifications.”
I knew she was out there. I had heard her married name, but I had managed to forget it, an exercise in amnesia I would be unable to perform twice.
“—the former Judy Caldwell—”
Not the former Mrs. Sam Brice. No mention of three years and three months of marriage to Sam. I had been expunged from the record. It put me in the category of a childhood disease. She had had measles, whooping cough and Brice’s disease.
I knew how gratified her imperious little father felt about the way things had worked out. He had faced the fact of our elopement with the same joy and understanding he would have displayed if he had found out she had been carted off to a tree house by an ape. After he had wheeled a battalion of lawyers into battle formation, she was able to forestall annulment only by convincing him she would kill herself if he pressed it through. He did not give up until after he had sent a man to see me, a dim, spindly, hesitant man bearing a check with so many zeros it gave me vertigo to look at it. But she was worth that amount per minute.
But after the inconceivable lapse of marrying me, she had steadied back onto course, regaining the lost image.
She stared at me out of the sunshine, with a Kodak smile. I threw the magazine against the wall and turned out the light, but she was still there, smiling.
“You see, Sam,” she said. “It’s all right with me now. I’m sorry about us. But I have what I must have. I guess I loved you, but you couldn’t keep up the payments. You wouldn’t have wanted what I would have become.”
As long as I was drawing my pay, shrewd little Damon Caldwell had kept up his daughter’s hefty allowance. It was more than I was getting for having my brains clouted loose every Sunday. Hers all went for clothes, cars, fun and half the rent.
“Take a little rest before you try to get up.”
“Baasard,” he mumbled.
I went back inside, picked my beer off the table and went back to the bar. “Awful goddamn quick, you know it?” Gus said. “One big thump on the building, and here you are. I don’t go out ever on account of blood turns my stomach.”
“No blood,” I said. I rubbed my left arm. He had numbed it a little.
“He still out there, Sam?”
“Maybe.”
“Some tourist could take his shoes and money, you know it?”
I finished my beer and walked back and looked. Scotty was gone. I went back and told Gus and he seemed relieved.
* * *
That evening I received my punishment for working off my frustration at Scotty Gantry’s expense. I had gone to bed, after setting the alarm early enough to give me time to get over to the damn beach. I was leafing through a magazine. There was an article on Hawaii, with colored photographs. I turned a page and Judy smiled out at me. It was like forgetting you have pleurisy and trying to take a deep breath. But all the pain was in the heart.
She wore a blue swim suit, spangled with stars. She sat on a hatch cover in the sunshine, smiling happily into the lense. Water droplets stood on the honeyed perfection of her shoulders. A towhead about a year and a half old was leaning against her thigh beaming up at her. Behind her I could see a section of ship’s railing, blue water, and a tropical shoreline.
“Mrs. Timothy Barriss Falter, the former Judy Caldwell, and one of the most charming young hostesses in the Islands, is shown here with her daughter, Gretchen, aboard the family schooner,
Halekulani Girl.
Tim Falter, one of the best known architects in Hawaii, often entertains friends and clients aboard the schooner, with the help of his lovely wife, by taking cruises to the outlying islands. The schooner, which sleeps ten in addition to crew quarters for captain, mate and steward, was built in California two years ago to Mr. Falter’s specifications.”
I knew she was out there. I had heard her married name, but I had managed to forget it, an exercise in amnesia I would be unable to perform twice.
“—the former Judy Caldwell—”
Not the former Mrs. Sam Brice. No mention of three years and three months of marriage to Sam. I had been expunged from the record. It put me in the category of a childhood disease. She had had measles, whooping cough and Brice’s disease.
I knew how gratified her imperious little father felt about the way things had worked out. He had faced the fact of our elopement with the same joy and understanding he would have displayed if he had found out she had been carted off to a tree house by an ape. After he had wheeled a battalion of lawyers into battle formation, she was able to forestall annulment only by convincing him she would kill herself if he pressed it through. He did not give up until after he had sent a man to see me, a dim, spindly, hesitant man bearing a check with so many zeros it gave me vertigo to look at it. But she was worth that amount per minute.
But after the inconceivable lapse of marrying me, she had steadied back onto course, regaining the lost image.
She stared at me out of the sunshine, with a Kodak smile. I threw the magazine against the wall and turned out the light, but she was still there, smiling.
“You see, Sam,” she said. “It’s all right with me now. I’m sorry about us. But I have what I must have. I guess I loved you, but you couldn’t keep up the payments. You wouldn’t have wanted what I would have become.”
As long as I was drawing my pay, shrewd little Damon Caldwell had kept up his daughter’s hefty allowance. It was more than I was getting for having my brains clouted loose every Sunday. Hers all went for clothes, cars, fun and half the rent.
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