All the way - By Charles Williams Page 0,2

ever tries to tout off that chignon, shoot him.”

“That seems a little drastic, doesn’t it? But—if you insist.” Then she added, “Incidentally, I’m not Irish. I’m Scottish. My maiden name was Forbes.”

I was reaching for cigarettes in the pocket of the robe, which was on the chair beside me. When I glanced up at her, there was nothing in her face but that same cool good humor. “Oh?” I said. Then I remarked, “I didn’t know you were married.” She wore no ring.

“I’m divorced,” she said. “Where are you from, Mr. Hamilton?”

The barman brought over the drinks. “Texas,” I told her.

She took a sip of the Scotch and looked at me thoughtfully. “I’d never have known it. You don’t sound a bit like a Texan.”

“I’m not a professional,” I said. “It’s a fallacy, anyway. All Texans don’t go around saying ‘Howdy, pardner.’”

“Yes, I know. I’m from Louisiana, myself. But I do have a pretty fair ear for accents. You’ve lost yours entirely.”

“I never really had one,” I said. “But while we’re on this Professor ‘Iggins kick, you can spot it if you listen closely. I still boot one occasionally. Thanksgiving, for instance. And afternoon. That over-stressed first syllable is pure Texan.”

She nodded. “And Southern. You must have a good ear yourself.”

I shrugged. “I had a little speech training. At one time I was going to be an actor.”

She regarded me with interest. “But you’re not in show business?”

“No,” I said. “Advertising. But how about the fishing? Do you want to try it?”

“Oh, yes. Very much. But I’m not sure yet I can make it tomorrow. Could I let you know tonight?”

“Sure,” I said. “Why don’t we have dinner together?”

She smiled. “I’m afraid I couldn’t, tonight. But thanks, anyway. Suppose I call you around ten or eleven. Will you be in then?”

I said yes. She asked several more questions about fishing, refused the offer of another drink, and left to go back to the motel. I swam for a while, wondering about her. I couldn’t place her at all. Was she really interested in fishing, or was she just a girl away from home looking for a little fun? If the latter, I thought, she had a very cool approach to it. I wondered if she had money. A bathing suit revealed a lot of interesting statistical data, but it didn’t say a damn thing when it came to financial status.

I was lying in bed around eleven reading The Hidden Persuaders when the phone rang. “Well, I can go,” she said eagerly.

“That’s great. Here’s hoping you land a sail.”

“I just hope we can still get a boat. Do you think they’ll all be taken?”

“No,” I said. “It’s the off-season. And I’ve already talked to Holt; he’s open tomorrow. I’ll call now and confirm.”

“I hate to keep bothering you with questions,” she apologized, “but what shall I take? What time do we leave, and how long are we out?”

“What room are you in?” I asked. “If you’re dressed, I could come over—”

The brush was polite, but firm. She was about to go to bed. She repeated the questions.

“Hat, or fishing cap,” I said. “Long sleeves, dark glasses, tan lotion. That sun is murder. We’ll leave the dock at eight, and come in around four-thirty or five. They furnish the tackle; all we have to bring is our lunch. There’s a restaurant on Roosevelt that’ll be open. I don’t have a car, but I’ll call a cab—”

“I have one,” she interrupted. “I’ll meet you in the parking area behind the motel at seven-thirty. Will that be all right?”

“Fine,” I said.

“Just one other thing,” she asked. “Could you tell me what the outriggers are for?”

I wondered why she wanted to go into that in the middle of the night over the phone, but shrugged. She seemed to have an insatiable curiosity about the mechanics of big-game fishing.

“They serve several purposes,” I told her. “The line is run out from your rod tip and trolled from the end of the outrigger, clipped in a gizmo like a big clothes-pin. Takes the load off your arms, for one thing. And it’s springy on the end, so it gives the bait a good action. But the big reason, of course, is the automatic dropback when a sail-fish strikes. I suppose the book told you that a billfish of any kind always stuns his bait before he takes it in his mouth. So when he raps it with that bill, it snaps the line off the outrigger; that