“Edgar Hoover exaggerates his publicity,” said Frederick Harrison. “I feel we’ve given him about enough rope. Pull alongside,” he said to Captain Willie. Captain Willie threw out his clutch and the boat drifted.
“Hey,” Captain Willie called to the other boat. “Keep your heads down.”
“What’s that?” Harrison said angrily.
“Shut up,” said Captain Willie. “Hey,” he called over to the other boat. “Listen. Get on into town and take it easy. Never mind the boat. They’ll take the boat. Dump your load and get into town. I got a guy here on board some kind of a stool from Washington. More important than the President, he says. He wants to pinch you. He thinks you’re a bootlegger. He’s got the numbers of the boat. I ain’t never seen you so I don’t know who you are. I couldn’t identify you—”
The boats had drifted apart. Captain Willie went on shouting, “I don’t know where this place is where I seen you. I wouldn’t know how to get back here.”
“O.K.,” came a shout from the booze boat.
“I’m taking this big alphabet man fishing until dark,” Captain Willie shouted.
“O.K.”
“He loves to fish,” Captain Willie yelled, his voice almost breaking. “But the son of a bitch claims you can’t eat ’em.”
“Thanks, brother,” came the voice of Harry.
“That chap your brother?” asked Frederick Harrison, his face very red but his love for information still unappeased.
“No, sir,” said Captain Willie. “Most everybody goes in boats calls each other brother.”
“We’ll go into Key West,” Frederick Harrison said; but he said it without great conviction.
“No, sir,” said Captain Willie. “You gentlemen chartered me for a day. I’m going to see you get your money’s worth. You called me a halfwit but I’ll see you get a full day’s charter.”
“Take us to Key West,” Harrison said.
“Yes, sir,” said Captain Willie. “Later on. But listen, sailfish is just as good eating as kingfish. When we used to sell them to Rios for the Havana market we got ten cents a pound same as kings.”
“Oh,
“I thought you’d be interested in these things as a government man. Ain’t you mixed up in the prices of things that we eat or something? Ain’t that it? Making them more costly or something. Making the grits cost more and the grunts less?”
“Oh, shut up,” said Harrison.
On the booze boat Harry had the last sack over.
“Get me the fish knife,” he said to the nigger. “It’s gone.”
Harry pressed the self-starters and started the two engines. He’d put a second engine in her when he went back to running liquor when the depression had put charter boat fishing on the bum. He got the hatchet and with his left hand chopped the anchor rope through against the bitt. It’ll sink and they’ll grapple it when they pick up the load, he thought. I’ll run her up into the Garrison Bight and if they’re going to take her they’ll take her. I got to get to a doctor. I don’t want to lose my arm and the boat both. The load is worth as much as the boat. There wasn’t much of it smashed. A little smashed can smell plenty.
He shoved the port clutch in and swung out away from the mangroves with the tide. The engines ran smoothly. Captain Willie’s boat was two miles away now headed for Boca Grande. I guess the tide’s high enough to go through the lakes now, Harry thought.
He shoved in his starboard clutch and the engines roared as he pushed up the throttle. He could feel her bow rise and the green mangroves coasted swiftly alongside as the boat sucked the water away from their roots. I hope they don’t take her, he thought. I hope they can fix my arm. How was I to know they’d shoot at us in Mariel after we could go and come there open for six months. That’s Cubans for you. Somebody didn’t pay somebody so we got the shooting. That’s Cubans all right.
“Hey, Wesley,” he said, looking back into the cockpit where the nigger lay with the blanket over him. “How you feeling?”
“God,” said Wesley. “I couldn’t feel no worse.”
“You’ll feel worse when the old doctor probes for it,” Harry told him.
“You ain’t human,” the nigger said. “You ain’t got human feelings.”
That old Willie is a good skate, Harry was thinking. There’s a good skate that old Willie. We did better to come in than to wait. It was foolish to wait. I felt so dizzy and sick-like I lost my judgment.
Ahead now he could see the white of the La Concha hotel, the wireless masts, and the houses of town. He could see the car ferries lying at the Trumbo dock where he would go around to head up for the Garrison Bight. That old Willie, he thought. He was giving them hell. Wonder who those buzzards were. Damn if I don’t feel plenty bad right now. I feel plenty dizzy. We did right to come in. We did right not to wait.
“Mr. Harry,” said the nigger, “I’m sorry I couldn’t help dump that stuff.”
“Hell,” said Harry, “ain’t no nigger any good when he’s shot. You’re a all right nigger, Wesley.”