My feet were beginning to trail outward in the increasing strength of the outgoing tide. Had she been dropped five minutes later I wouldn’t have been able to get down to her against that tide run.
I wormed up over the transom, sat there gasping. “While you were down there,” Meyer said, his voice distorted by effort, “I went over to town and had a couple of beers.”
“She was alive when I got there, buddy. She grabbed my wrist. So I had to unwire her from her anchor on the first trip.”
“Some tenderhearted guy,” Meyer said, “didn’t have the heart to tell her they were all through. Easier to kill them than hurt their feelings.”
“Is that the best way to do that?”
“Shut up. It’s my way. And I think it’s working.” I fumbled in the tray of the tackle box and found my small flashlight. I’d recently put new batteries in it. Her soaked skirt was bunched, covering her from mid-thigh upward. Quite a pity, I thought, to discard such a long and lovely pair of legs. I rested the flashlight where it shone upon her ankles and hunched down with the fish pliers and nipped the wire. Freed of that stricture the legs moved a little apart, bare feet both turned inward. Bent over in that position, I saw a glitter under the edge of the bunched skirt, reached and lifted it slightly and saw my Wounded Spook against the back of her left thigh, the rear set of gang hooks set deeply. I clipped the leader off it right at the front eyelet, and just as I did so she gave a shallow, hacking cough and spewed water into the bilge, then gagged and moaned.
“Any more criticisms?” Meyer asked. “What ever happened to mouth-to-mouth?”
“It sets up emotional entanglements, McGee.” After more coughing, she made it clear she wanted no more punishment. Meyer, deft as a bear, rolled her over, scooped her up, placed her in the bow, fanny on the floorboards, shoulders and back against the angle of the gunnels. I put my light on her face. Dark hair was pasted down over one eye. She lifted a slow hand, thumbed the hair back over her ear, squinted, turned her face away from the light, saying, “Please.”
I turned the light away, totally astonished to find that it was a face which lived up to the legs, maybe more so. Even in the sick daze of waking up from what could have been that last long sleep, it was delicately Eurasian, sloe-eyed, oval, lovely.
As he moved to reach the lines to free them, Meyer said, “Damned handy, Travis. As soon as you run out, they drop you another one. Stop panting and start the motor, eh?”
Back at Thompson’s, I ran the skiff up alongside the starboard stern of The Busted Flush. She was tied up with the port side against the pier. While Meyer held it there, I scrambled aboard. He lifted her to her feet, and I reached over the rail, got her, swung her aboard, tried to put her on her feet and had to hold her to keep her from falling. Meyer went chugging off in the skiff to leave it over at the small boat dock where it belonged.
I took her down into the lounge and on through, past the galley to the master stateroom. She stood braced, holding tightly to the back of a chair while I turned the lights on and pulled the pier-side draperies shut. Her head was bowed. She looked up at me and started to say something, but the chattering of her teeth made it unintelligible. I took my heaviest robe from the hanging locker and tossed it onto the big bed, then got her a big towel from the locker in the head and threw it in onto the bed and said, “Get out of that wet stuff and dry yourself good.”
I went to the liquor locker, found the Metaxa brandy and poured a good three inches into a small highball glass. I carried it to the stateroom and knocked, and in her chattery voice she told me to come in. She was belting the robe. Her clothing was in a sodden little pile on the floor. I handed her the glass. It chittered against her teeth. She took it down in three tosses, shuddered, then sat on the edge of the bed, hugging herself.