Jack and Susan in 1953 (21 page)

“No,” replied Susan out of the corner of her mouth, which was smiling at some further inanity of the woman in white fox and diamonds. “As a single woman, I did not run away. I don't intend to start now, just because I'm married.”

“I was only thinking of you,” said Jack under his breath.

“I'm not the one who threw myself out of a twenty-third story window,” Susan pointed out.

“And I'm not the one who accepted first-class boat tickets from my fiancé and then went off with another man entirely,” returned Jack.

Suddenly the music started up, and to show everyone that they didn't care what was known or suspected about them, Jack and Susan danced through the night.

Rodolfo had taught Susan the cha-cha, and now she taught it to Jack.

The
Andrea Doria
was to dock in Havana about one o'clock on Thursday afternoon. The morning dawned fair, and Jack and Susan breakfasted, endured what they hoped would be the last of a series of wearisome honeymoon jokes, visited Woolf in the hold, and returned to their cabins to pack. Leaving their bags to be taken ashore by the steward, they went up on deck and watched for Cuba to come into view.

Already many tiny fishing boats were visible. The fishermen waved to Jack and Susan, and Jack and Susan waved dutifully back.

A number of passengers crowded on deck, scanning the fishing boats in hope of seeing the great bearded man in the wide hat, scribbling on a pad. The great bearded man never waved back to the tourists who screamed at him, but as the captain pointed out, it was an honor just to see so great a writer at work.

“What are you thinking about?” asked Jack, noticing that Susan looked pensive.

“My uncle.”

“I wish you'd saved that telegram.”

“I told you what was in it,” said Susan. “Someone's been trying to kill him. He thought the poison and the gunshot were just accidents—that sort of thing is evidently fairly common around here. Food going bad. Clumsy servants dropping firearms. But the exploding Jeep evidently convinced him that someone was trying to kill him.”

“Why
did
you burn the telegram?”

“I didn't want it around. I didn't want there to be any possibility of Rodolfo coming across it.”

“Was Rodolfo in the habit of prowling about your apartment, reading your telegraphic correspondence?” asked Jack dryly.

“No,” said Susan, “but better safe than sorry. I suppose I was overly cautious.”

“But the telegram didn't implicate Rodolfo, did it?” said Jack.

Susan shook her head, and pointed toward the south. The island had just come into view, a nubby line of brown floating on the blue water. “No, but he did speak of Rodolfo's family—”

“But anything specific?”

“No. My uncle is a great one for hints and for dramatizing things. I don't even know if any of this is true—it's not clear yet that he actually
is
in danger. And there's certainly no motive that he can make out. I have the only motive, he says, because I'm the one who's going to inherit everything.”

“In the meantime,” said Jack, “do you think he can find me a job?”

In another hour the ship had docked. Susan and Jack stayed out of the way of the crush on the deck, not only because they didn't want to be mangled in the crowd, but also to avoid the final barrage of honeymoon jokes.

The afternoon was hot and bright. Jack and Susan wore light clothing and wide-brimmed hats and sunglasses, and kept in the shade as much as possible. Susan scanned the crowd on the dock below looking for her uncle, whom she'd telegraphed of her arrival.

“I don't see him,” she said.

The gangplank was lowered, secured, and the passengers began to debark. The
Andrea Doria
was to be in Havana for two days, but all the passengers seemed to be taking the opportunity of going ashore immediately. Susan still searched for her uncle in the quayside crowd. “He's fat and he always wears white. He has a white moustache, blue eyes, and carries a cane and usually he has about three little boys along with him to run errands—at least that's what I remember from ten years ago. And people like my uncle don't tend to change much—they just get more so.”

“I don't see anyone like that at all,” said Jack. “Are you sure he's—”

“Of course I'm sure,” said Susan. “He said he will use
any
excuse to come to Havana for a few days.”

When the stream of disembarking passengers had thinned a bit, the newlyweds made their way down the gangplank. They finally located James Bright—far away from the crowd. He was on an adjoining pier, his enormous weight delicately perched on a piling. The pier itself was old and filthy, but James Bright appeared fresh and cool. His eyebrows and moustache were a glistening white, as white as the three-piece linen suit he wore. His skin was nearly as pink as the linen tie about his neck. He wore tiny round glasses with emerald green lenses, and was delicately spooning a yellow ice out of a tiny paper cup.

“I was avoiding the crush,” he said to them, without apparently looking up.

“Hello, James,” said Susan.

“Susan darling, I am so glad you've finally come to visit me again,” James Bright replied, still not looking up at her. “Not only are you no longer fifteen years old, but you also seem to have acquired an entourage. I approve of entourages, and yours makes up in good looks what it lacks in numbers. Is this a hired chaperone? Or Prince Charming perhaps—who broke his arm wielding a sword in your defense? Or is this a chance acquaintance made on the deck of the
Andrea Doria
? Is this a man who would be willing to accept my meager hospitality on this strange little island?”

“I'm married, James. To Prince Charming here.”

“I'm pleased to meet you.”

James Bright extended his left hand—the one with the paper cup in it—out to the side, and a little dark-skinned boy ran up out of nowhere, snatched it away, and fled with it.

Then James Bright held out his right hand, and shook Jack's.

“Jack Beaumont,” said Jack. “Susan and I were married on board the ship.”

“How romantic.” At last he seemed to look up at them. He smiled a fragile, melancholy smile. He shoved his glasses down a bit on his nose and squinted up at them in the harsh sunlight. “Susan darling,
do
you forgive me for an unforgivable decade of callous neglect?”

His eyes were sad, Jack thought. Weary.

“Of course, I forgive you,” said Susan quickly. “I told Jack what you told me in the telegram. Your German is atrocious.”

“But perhaps necessary,” James Bright said, turning his sad, weary eyes full upon Jack. “I have been watched.”

Jack believed him, and thought how odd it was—to have so suddenly married Susan, and been plunged into a delirious happiness that had been totally unanticipated, and now here they were suddenly plucked out of it all again. It was like a fast-moving merry-go-round that's halted with a wrench, the calliope music giving way to the scream of someone who was injured. That's what it felt like, standing on this decaying pier in the massive shadow of the
Andrea Doria
talking to this fat, pastel, courtly gentleman with the sad, weary eyes.

He glanced at Susan and knew that she was feeling the same thing. She probably felt the difference even more keenly, for James Bright was a relative for whom she had maintained a real—if distant—affection for many years.

“I've reserved us rooms at the Internacional,” said James Bright. “Though now I think we ought to see if the presidential suite is available—for the happy couple. Susan, I hope—”

“No, no, don't say a word.” Susan seemed to anticipate her uncle's apology. “Jack and I came down here to help you in any way we can—didn't we, Jack?”

Jack nodded yes, of course.

“As long as you need us, we'll be here.”

“That's right,” affirmed Jack.

“Jack was fired from his job last Friday—”

“I'm sorry,” said James Bright politely.

“—and I quit my job on Tuesday, so we are as poor as churchmice, and for the time being we're going to make you support us.”

Jack was about to protest, but James Bright's smile of pleasure at this declaration was so manifestly sincere, that he contented himself with, “Susan and I
would
like to help you, Mr. Bright, if we can.”

“And I'm sure that with you two here, everything will be right as rain,” said James. He started to raise himself from the piling, but it wasn't a real attempt—he merely seemed to lift his shoulders and torso a few inches before settling himself back down again. It was an indication of a desire to get up, rather than anything more substantial.

Susan looked around the pier.

“Where are your boys?” she asked.

James whistled once, surprisingly shrilly, with two manicured fingers placed delicately behind his lower lip.

Immediately, five small boys—including the one who had run off with the empty cup a few minutes before—converged on the man. Like an ancient Roman emperor beyond the responsibility even of moving himself about on the earth over which he reigned, James Bright was raised up with the coordinated efforts of the five small boys.

“Five,” said James Bright looking around, as he was being arranged for movement, it was to be supposed, in the direction of the Hotel Internacional. “There are five of you. Why?”

He looked around at the children, who seemed to move faster and faster, and counted them off, “Manuel One. Manuel Two. Felicio. Roberto. Then who are—”

He stared with alarmed curiosity at number five. He was a bit older than the others—about nine, perhaps, and wore short yellow trousers and a dirty white shirt with all the buttons gone.

In an instant, the older boy took a knife out of his trousers, jumped up into the air, and slashed it across the throat of Susan's uncle. James Bright gave a startled gurgle as his emerald green glasses slipped off his perspiring nose and his enormous bulk sank to the planks of the pier.

Jack and Susan rushed forward—Susan to help her uncle, Jack to grab the tiny assassin with his good arm.

Manuels One and Two, Felicio and Roberto had drawn back in stunned horror at what had happened. Then with one movement they ran off down the pier, setting up a little thunder of bare feet on the planks, leaving their employer behind, and incidentally, crashing into Jack. Jack was knocked over, not only landing on his cast-bound arm, but also losing the grasp that he had gotten on the shirt of the knife-wielding child.

The boy flung the knife into the water and took off toward the quay, his short legs pumping like pistons.

Jack struggled to his feet, and found that the massive bulk of James Bright, with shining red blood covering his white suit, was hanging over the side of the dock. Susan, who weighed no more than a third as much as her uncle, was holding onto his trouser legs, valiantly attempting to prevent his slipping away completely.