Blonde Bait Read online

  We sailed from Havana late in the morning and spent the next few weeks working our way around Cuba. If we saw more than one American tourist in a town, we took off. In Matanzas Rose purchased shorts, jeans, a few plain dresses. Then we sailed to Cabanice Bay, Baracoa, skipped the US navy station near Guantanamo, went on to Manzanille and Cienfuegos. Of course, being a big woman—especially a big platinum blonde—Rose stood out like a Rolls-Royce in these little towns. But when I pointed this out she didn't seem disturbed. In a few weeks I learned her hair was dyed and its natural color was a mild, dirty-brown, which the sun soon bleached to a sandy tan.

  In a tiny port called Banes we came across a wonderful cabinet maker. For fifty dollars he came aboard and made a false bottom in the cabinet on which the old alcohol stove rested, and fitted this with a concealed combination lock. Rose put the money in there and seemed more at ease once she had burnt the suitcase. It didn't take me long to make the combination. One morning while she was poking the boat pole in the sand for turtle eggs, and I was supposedly fixing the old motor, I counted the dough. There was $63,500—along with several pads covered with foreign writing: a tight, stingy, and neat penmanship. I thought it was Dutch or Swedish. I couldn't make it out. Rose had this and the money wrapped in oilskins.

  Aside from that fast count I never touched a buck she didn't give me. There wasn't any need to. And the loot had me more than a little worried at first—if it was hot green, a place like Cuba is an absolutely wrong spot for passing it; they've seen too much queer money. But the money seemed okay, although often I found myself wondering what my story would be if the police ever came down on us. Not that I worried myself sick over this: most days I'd wake up with the sunlight flooding through one of the portholes and look at Rose sleeping in my arms, and nothing mattered very much.

  Rose seemed happy. Unless we were in a fairly large town, or she saw an American man (she wasn't afraid of any women tourists) she didn't seem nervous. Of course living on an old tub like the Sea Princess wasn't exactly luxury. The cabin was cramped and lacked headroom. When it rained it was like being cooped up in a damp cell. Twice I saw her break down and bawl.

  But to make up for any hardships, we had many fine days. It would be sunny and dry and we'd wake up and horse around in the bunk, enjoying each other and then maybe sleeping away the whole day. We both loved to sleep. We also enjoyed the same corny jokes and sometimes we'd get off on an old one and laugh all day like kids as we lounged around and maybe killed a bottle. Or we might get up at dawn and fish all day, or when we got the swimming lungs, swim and spear-fish until we were dead tired. We'd anchor off miles of perfect white beach and have it all to ourselves as we swam and made love. Except for this business about what she was running from, we hit it off, really got to know each other. I guess it was like one of these puzzle pictures—bit by bit as I put the pieces together I got a bigger and clearer picture of Rose.

  We were resting on the beach outside Camechuela, broiling some rock hinds we'd just reeled in. I'd managed to open several drinking coconuts without hacking off my fingers and Rose was sitting near the fire, combing out her long hair. Suddenly she began to sing.

  It was one of these old and always popular torch songs, “Melancholy Baby,” I think. For a second—the clean beach, the mild sun, the fire, a beautiful girl singing—it was all one big movie scene. Except, what was a mug like me doing in the scene? Her voice was okay. I said, “Honey, I never knew you could sing.”

  “I really can't sing for Dooley's squat.”

  “For—what?”

  She smiled. “Expression my Pop used a great deal. It means: for nothing. But I've sung with a few small bands, worked as a solo in some so-called hot spots, and even had a singing number in a movie once.”

  “Hey, you been in the movies?” I figured she'd probably been a chorus girl, or a cigarette gal.

  Rose laughed. “Take the awe out of your voice—you sound like a true movie fan. Yes, I've been in several movies. Mostly roles one step above extra bits and usually ended on the cutting room floor.”

  “Keep singing. I think you sing real fine.”

  She laughed again. “Would you think I sang 'real fine' if I was a plain chick, didn't have breastworks?”

  “What kind of a crack is that?”

  “Don't get sore, I didn't mean it as a crack.” She slid over beside me. “I want you to know something, Mickey: the way we were thrown together—it didn't have to work out so good. But it has. I mean, I knew you'd go for me, for a time, because of my looks. But it's been so much more than that. Honestly, I like you. That's something I haven't told a man in a long, long time, if ever.”

  I kissed her as roughly as I could—glad she wasn't a delicate chick. Feeling the cool warmth of her big body next to my hairy chest I knew she was right.

  “Rose, honey, sure I go for your looks. How often does an average slob like me get to hold something like you? But...”

  “You're not a slob, Mickey. Believe me, I'm an expert on slobs.”

  “But that isn't all of it. I like you. Really.”

  “You're the beautiful one, Mickey, after a gal gets to know you. Now don't laugh, I'm serious. You're so homely and powerful and good. You're not a phony, which is about the highest compliment I can give a man. The way you just said you liked me. Didn't try to corn me with any love pitch.”

  “Could be I love you. I don't know what love actually is.”

  “It's hot air, a knife in the back.” Rose pulled out of my arms and jumped to her feet. She walked a few steps and suddenly did a cartwheel on the sand.

  I didn't know if that was her way of changing the conversation, or what. I sat there open-mouthed. She motioned for a cigarette from my shirt pocket. Sitting down beside me again she blew smoke at me as she said, “The fish need turning. And don't make with the pop-eyes like a hick. I've been a show girl, too, and for that I had to learn ice skating, dancing, tumbling, and a dozen other things. I've been a stripper, and not only in burlesque. And of course, an 'actress.' I used to be a real ambitious kid, until I learned better. Ambition is a bum sales talk.”

  “I went through that routine myself—once.”

  “If you have talent I suppose you need the push of ambition. The trouble was, I'm a big no-talent girl.”

  “But with your looks?”

  “My looks! Know something, Mickey, often I've wished I'd been born plain. Sure I have all the curves and whistle stops and they gave me dreams, ambitious dreams that ran me up a couple of roads—all the lousy ones.”

  Turning the fish over carefully, I squeezed wild limes on them as I said, “I know, I've been through the same wringer.”

  “No, you haven't, Mickey. You don't know what it means to be so positive you'll make it because you have the talent, and then the awful empty let-down when you find you're rather average. That would be tough enough, but there's an even bigger kick in the heart when you see talent doesn't matter much anyway; it's connections. Talent you're born with, but connections are made. That makes you drive harder. You push yourself until... It made me a bitch. Oh, I snapped out of the swindle when I finally realized that. Or I could be kidding myself, I was only getting old.”

  Rose stared at the sand for a moment, then she said— almost to herself, “My Dad did it for me. He was the greatest guy. He told me something I've never forgot. 'Marie—' that's my middle name and he liked it best, 'Marie, the secret of happiness is to go through life without being a pain in the neck to anybody, including yourself.' Think it over and you'll see it's quite a philosophy. World would be smoother if everybody followed that.

  “It was only when I realized life wasn't my oyster because I had looks, that I was becoming a stiff pain—to myself then I was able to relax, stop driving. It's the reason I enjoy living like we do. I think you would have liked my father. He would have hit it off with you.”

  “Yeah?” I said politely, washing a couple of palm leaves in the surf, serving the fish on them. We ate like pigs and di
dn't talk for a while.

  Full of food, I stretched out beside Rose and puffed contentedly on a cigar. “Rose, you and I are more alike than you know. I had that driving bug, too. You had your body, your looks, and I had my muscles and dreams of being a big time pug.”

  “One look at your face tells me that.”

  I tried blowing a smoke ring. “Never got my face from boxing. Of course at no time was I ever a pretty boy. The ring gave me the scar tissue over my left eye. Wrestling presented me with the tin ear, the busted nose.”

  “You were a wrestler! That's a crazy racket.”

  “I was even a honest one—as an amateur. From my kid days all I could think about was muscles. It was my religion. My old man had a Greek buddy who'd been a wrestler in the old country and he showed me a lot of holds. Wrestling won me a college scholarship—only they went football crazy in my freshman term and cut out wrestling. I was a third team tackle but gave it—and college—up because you could get hurt easily and by this time I saw myself fighting Louis some day. My legs and punch were going to bring me to the big paydays. But I lacked connections, ended up as the local ring cop.”

  Rose gave me a quick glance. “What's a ring cop?”

  “This was before the war, before TV, and there were small fight clubs in every big city. They had a kind of syndicate running most of them. I had a sharpshooter for a manager, a guy trying to climb himself. As he explained it, I had to wait my turn and play ball. So I'd fight every month or so, getting about twenty bucks a fight for myself. Sometimes I'd win, sometimes I'd go into the tank—which ever way I was told. If one of the other pugs got out of line, they'd match me with him and I'd flatten him. That was being a cop.”

  “Oh.”

  “I was twenty when the war came and had about that many bouts. I was twenty-four when they gave me my ruptured duck and I knew I couldn't wait much longer. All the time in service, I kept in shape. So I came back to find my manager is hanging around the top and I thought I was set. He had me take three dives in a row against stumblebums who'd been making it while I was overseas. He kept telling me my break was coming. It never did.

  “Anyway, when I finally realized I was just another two-bit fighter, I became a wrestling clown. I grew my hair long and they dyed it bright red and had me sporting a devil's costume in the ring. But there wasn't any money in it, I was wrestling five times a week for ten bucks a night. It wasn't any snap. You had to be an acrobat, have perfect timing, and I was clumsy. Those falls hurt if you landed wrong, and I got my features scrambled. Also I felt like a freak walking around with the long red hair. My old man had died while I was overseas and the boat was mine, so I began going in for charter fishing... and taking it easy.”

  Rose rolled over and fondled my tin ear. “We are alike.”

  “Aha. You ever been married?”

  My hand was resting on her stomach and I felt it stiffen. 'Twice. It never worked.” She jumped to her feet. “I'm going in for a dip. The fish left me greasy.”

  “Let me finish my cigar, first,” I said. “Then I could use a swim.”

  I watched her walk to the water and dive in—feeling very proud this big and beautiful woman was mine. So she'd been married twice. She must be on the run from one of her husbands. Still, she had a lot of dough and a lot of fear. Running away wouldn't make her that scared. Had she killed him?

  That might explain the fear, and the money—if she had knocked off a big racket guy. Sure, that could be it.

  Her husband was a racket biggie and she killed him, lifted his loot and the rest of the goons were looking for her.

  It made sense—maybe. I killed my rope in the sand and walked leisurely toward Rose and the sea.

  III

  I anchored in a small cove not far from Port Antonio shortly before dusk. I'd been here once before with Rose in the old Sea Princess. I suppose at one time or another we'd dropped anchor off most of the Caribbean ports— which isn't covering too much territory.

  I took a sounding by throwing a large conch shell I'd been keeping for no reason overboard and watching the number of circles it made as I turned the boat into the slight wind. I figured I was in about sixteen feet so I lowered the Danforth and let out thirty feet of chain, waited for the anchor to set. The wind increased and the Sea Princess began to buck and bounce a little. I stripped and dived over to make sure the anchor was really holding. Although I wasn't wearing a face mask, I could see pretty good. Underwater swimming always bugs me, gives me a sort of religious feeling.

  What I enjoyed about it was the constantly changing picture, the various new shades of color. Rose was that way: there were so many sides to her mind. Sometimes she'd be so moody and low I figured she was fed up with me, ready to take off. Then for days on end she'd be a ball of fire, full of her own pep as we ran along the beach, rowed, or took long swims. She could be as simple and gentle as a young girl, and most times hardened and tough. I liked the hardboiled times best, for that was the real Rose. And in this very cove I'd learned how tough she could be.

  A tiny girl on skinny legs, and a belly swollen from a steady fruit diet, had stopped to squat on the sand and solemnly watch us digging canals in the sand like mad. We were “busy” letting water out of a deep tide pool high up on the beach. A dark-skinned child of about six dressed in a ragged, white flour sack, she watched without a single smile, refused to join us. Rose got very motherly, took the kid out to the boat for a decent feed and a tin of candy. She played with the child all afternoon and at night the kid simply disappeared, only to be waiting on the beach again next morning at the first crack of sun.

  For the few days we anchored here, Rose was a busy mama. She and the girl played house in the dink or cooked supper with a beach fire. Rose seemed to enjoy it more than the kid. One hot night as we were trying to sleep on deck I asked, “You ever think about having a kid?”

  Her short, harsh laughter chilled the humid night. “Me? That motherhood bit is for the birds. This isn't the best of worlds to ask any kid into.”

  “I've never had any desire to make a kid, either. You know, fish and crabs—most sea animals—they spawn thousands of eggs and perhaps five per cent of them survive. Sometimes I think it's getting to be like that with us humans. All this sickness in the air, kids cutting each other up, increase in accidents—”

  “Cut the damn lecture! My kid will be sixteen years old this August 25th.”

  I turned to stare at her in the moonlight. “Your kid?”

  “What's the matter, don't you think I can have a baby? Well, I had one and I gave it away!”

  “Boy or girl?” I asked like a cluck, as though it mattered to me.

  “I had a boy and he was a beautiful big baby. I was a real dumb broad then, didn't know how to take care of myself. I was three months gone before I knew it. I was dancing in a flea-bag club and started growing big as a house, so they bounced me. I managed to work as a sales girl for a few months, then it got rough. You never saw anybody as big as I was—a regular sideshow character. But no jobs. I was going to a clinic for medical care and a sweet doc there got talking to me, arranged everything. Some couple I never saw paid my room and board, then the hospital bills, and gave me five hundred dollars. I took a bus to Hollywood, did some movie work.”

  I counted stars and didn't say anything.

  Rose suddenly sat up and cursed me. “Don't be so goddamn smug about it! I did the right thing!”

  “What? Look, honey, it was your business so whatever you did was the right thing.”

  “I agreed with the doc, what could I offer the child? I'd seen too many dumb babes who in the name of 'mother-hood,' or 'love,' or some other phony tag, dragged their kids around with them. It doesn't do a child any good to be alone, live out of a damn suitcase. This couple that took him, they had everything to offer, money, a regular home. If I dragged the kid around with me, he'd only grow up knowing his mother is a tramp. I did the right things by.... Oh, Mickey, why am I lying to you? The true reason was I thought
the boy would interfere with my lousy 'career.'”

  “And the poppa?”

  She faced me, said fiercely, talking right into my eyes, “What about him? I didn't even give that miserable male bastard the satisfaction of knowing he had a child!”

  Grabbing her shoulders I told her, “Now take it easy, Rose.”

  “Keep your hands off me!”

  I held her shoulders down. She tried to twist out of my hands, brought up her knee. I pinned her legs with mine, pushed her down to the sleeping mat; pushed hard. “Cut it out. I wasn't a part of any of that. I didn't even ask you about this. Let's forget it.”

  She relaxed suddenly. “Of course, Mickey, you didn't ask.” She was silent for a long time and I went back to examining the stars. “I was certainly a simple tomato then. I wasn't even sure who the poppa was.”

  I toweled myself down and started supper. The Sea Princess was bouncing pretty bad. I always carry a big cinder block—a hangover from my old man who insisted a rock was the best anchor ever made. I tied about sixty feet of rope to this, pulled the dink around and rowed out, dropped it ahead of the anchor. It cut the bouncing a lot.