“Captain Frank, what about Commissioner?”
“We’ll burn him, Rupert old boy.”
“God bless you, Captain Frank,” Rupert said. “Care for any rum?”
“I’m fine, Rupert,” Frank told him. “Everybody down now.”
“Everybody down,” Rupert ordered. “Down flat.”
Frank fired over the edge of the dock and the flare lit on the graveled walk just short of the Commissioner’s porch and burned there. The boys on the dock groaned.
“Damn,” Rupert said. “You nearly made her. Bad luck. Reload, Captain Frank.”
The lights went on in the cockpit of the cruiser astern of them and the man was out there again. This time he had a white shirt and white duck trousers on and he wore sneakers. His hair was combed and his face was red with white patches. The nearest man to him in the stern was John, who had his back to him, and next to John was Roger who was just sitting there looking gloomy. There was about three feet of water between the two sterns and the man stood there and pointed his finger at Roger.
“You slob,” he said. “You rotten filthy slob.”
Roger just looked up at him with a surprised look.
“You mean me, don’t you?” Frank called to him. “And it’s swine, not slob.”
The man ignored him and went on at Roger.
“You big fat slob,” the man almost choked. “You phony. You faker. You cheap phony. You rotten writer and lousy painter.”
“Who are you talking to and about what?” Roger stood up.
“You. You slob. You phony you. You coward. Oh you slob. You filthy slob.”
“You’re crazy,” Roger said quietly.
“You slob,” the man said across the space of water that separated the two boats the same way someone might speak insultingly to an animal in one of those modern zoos where no bars, but only pits, separate the visitors from the beasts. “You phony.”
“He means me,” Frank said happily. “Don’t you know me? I’m the swine.”
“I mean you,” the man pointed his finger at Roger. “You phony.”
“Look,” Roger said to him. “You’re not talking to me at all. You’re just talking to be able to repeat back in New York what you said to me.”
He spoke reasonably and patiently as though he really wanted the man to understand and shut up.
“You slob,” the man shouted, working himself further and further into this hysteria he had even dressed up for. “You rotten filthy phony.”
“You’re not talking to me,” Roger repeated to him very quietly now and Thomas Hudson saw that he had decided. “So shut up now. If you want to talk to me get up on the dock.”
Roger started up for the dock and, oddly enough, the man came climbing up on the dock as fast as you please. He had talked himself into it and worked himself up to it. But he was doing it. The Negroes fell back and then closed in around the two of them leaving plenty of room.
Thomas Hudson didn’t know what the man expected to happen when he got up on the dock. No one said anything and there were all those black faces around him and he took a swing at Roger and Roger hit him in the mouth with a left and his mouth started to bleed. He swung at Roger again and Roger hooked him hard to the right eye twice. He grabbed hold of Roger and Roger’s sweatshirt tore when he dug the man in the belly hard with his right and then pushed him away and slapped him hard across the face backhand with his open left hand.
None of the Negroes had said a word. They just kept the two men surrounded and gave them plenty of room. Someone, Tom thought it was John’s boy Fred, had turned the dock lights on and you could see well.
Roger went after the man and hooked him three times fast to the head high up. The man grabbed him and his sweatshirt tore again as he pushed him away and jabbed him twice in the mouth.
“Cut out those lefts,” Frank yelled. “Throw your right and cool the son of a bitch. Cool him.”