Hawkes Harbor Part 3

They're scared they won't get back out."

"This isn't a jail, it's a hospital."

Jamie gave him a long look, then sighed. "Anyway, who'd-" Then he grinned. "I take that back."

"Yes?"

"Kell visited me in jail. I have to give him that..."

Saint-Tropez, French Riviera September 1964 Jamie had no idea what was going to happen to him when the guards took him from the large holding cell he shared with seven other prisoners-none of them American-to the small room that held two chairs on either side of a small table.

For all he knew, it was the first stop on the way to being put up against the wall and shot.

It had been hard enough to keep the American laws straight-once Jamie started s.h.i.+pping out on foreign vessels, he paid little attention to laws except for the basics. Some places frowned harder than others on drugs, some disliked their natives being beat up by Americans, some were unbelievably picky about papers. Jamie had both legitimate papers and very good forgeries, tried to think twice about fights, and unless getting paid top dollar for smuggling, left drugs alone.

But now, without the excuse of poor papers, no recent fights, and a long abstinence from drugs for personal use, much less distribution, here he was.

And here he might stay. For a long, long time.

He sat in the small room, s.h.i.+vering slightly-he'd been running a fever since the gendarmes roughed him up, arresting him. He shouldn't have tried to run. Easy to say, now.

He didn't expect to see Kell Quinn being ushered in as a visitor. He hadn't seen Kell in months.

And he didn't expect to be so glad he could have burst into tears.

And so mad he could have slugged him. But mostly, and for the first time in the twenty-four hours since the arrest, hopeful.

Kell sat across the table from him. To break the silence, but especially to keep Kell from saying, "I told you so," Jamie said. "Got a cigarette?"

Kell took a pack and a matchbook from his blazer pocket and tossed them.

Jamie lit up and offered the pack back. Kell shook his head.

"Keep them." He paused, knowing almost anything he said would make Jamie angry, but he was angry himself ... fool kid.

"Well, Jamie, this is a mess you've got yourself into. A diplomat's daughter, a count's fiancee, and not out of her teens. You might try keeping your brains where you don't have to unzip your pants to get at them. It's wonderfully convenient."

"Not my fault," Jamie said sullenly.

"Sure it's not, lad. The lady raped you, instead, is that what you're sayin' now?"

Jamie knew it sounded ludicrous. "Yeah, that's about it."

Kell almost got to his feet and left-he wasn't in the mood for nonsense.

But poor Jamie looked so miserable....

"You're needing st.i.tches in that." Kell gestured toward the split on Jamie's cheekbone.

"It don't matter," Jamie said.

"Resisting arrest on top of everything else."

"I panicked," Jamie said. "You know I don't speak French, I didn't know what they wanted...." But at the sight of the gendarmes coming up the gangplank, Jamie had had a horrible feeling it was something to do with him. And something to do with that rich b.i.t.c.h...

"Jamie," Kell said, "surely a fine lad like yourself, in a place like the Riviera, doesn't need to be forcing himself on a girl."

"Didn't force her."

"I saw the police report. Her lip required st.i.tches- bruises all over her body-"

Jamie yanked down the neck of his T-s.h.i.+rt. "See that?"

He pointed to a festering sore on his collarbone. "Bit me clear to the bone."

Kell could see his neck was bruised black-and-blue with bites.

"And my back's clawed raw-if she'd been trying to get away it'd been my face, right?"

Kell thought about it, studying Jamie's face. Jamie was not a good liar, which did not mean he would not lie.

Jamie went on: "Remember Cahill-how he said he liked to hurt them-couldn't get off, he said, unless they were trying to get away-said nothing turned him on like real screams?"

Kell nodded. "Go on."

"Remember what you said about it-it must be like being addicted or something? They even threw him out of that wh.o.r.ehouse in Bangkok. Well, Kellen, you ever know me to hurt a woman? I never have, don't want to, ain't my style. h.e.l.l, if I never screw again it's fine with me ... that sick rich c.u.n.t..."

"Jamie," Kell said, "they took photographs. Somebody roughed the girl up. Are you saying it wasn't you?"

Jamie slumped in his seat.

"It was me all right," he said, defeated. "But it's not what you think."

Jamie and Kell had had one of their occasional fights in Monte Carlo.

They could get along most of the time. Their flare-ups were usually caused by Kell's natural desire to be the boss-he was older and much wiser, after all-and Jamie's natural desire not to be bossed, because he didn't give a f.u.c.k who was older and wiser, after all.

In the very foreign ports, the dangerous ones, they never let a quarrel last.

They were far too dependent on each other, if for no other reason than for the comfort of knowing someone else would care if you died.

Tough, streetwise, good at self-survival in their very different ways, Jamie and Kell together added up to much more than the sum of their parts. They were too aware of this to easily surrender that advantage. What would surprise most people about their relations.h.i.+p was their total lack of trust in each other, which in no way interfered with their sincere affection-Jamie liked to listen while Kell liked to talk; it was perhaps the strongest of their bonds.

Still, in circ.u.mstances that gave each confidence in his power to survive on his own, tempers weren't so pliant.

And the French Riviera held no terror for either of them. They could afford the luxury of smoldering resentment.

In Sri Lanka, Kell had collected a small debt owed him and sold the pitiful boat. They had joined a crew on one of the last of the tramp steamers to Bombay, where there was again something owed to Kell Quinn.

Still insisting on working their way, much to Jamie's irritation, since in his opinion Kell could easily afford at least two third-cla.s.s tickets, they gradually floated west.

"It'll do us good to work, Jamie," Kell said. "Keeps you from getting flabby and soft. And I'll need a large stake on this next caper."

"Easy for you to say," Jamie muttered. "You ain't working half skinned."

Jamie's disposition, which coped easily with sudden violence, wore ugly under constant pain.

And at Monte Carlo, every previous irritation swirled together into a vortex of anger.

Kell went to the casino every night and his moderate stake grew larger.

Jamie promptly lost everything he had.

Kell, ready to move on, told Jamie the only way he would accept him as a partner in his next scam-fleecing rich older ladies-was if Jamie pretended to be his valet.

Kell knew how to act in the playground of the rich; Jamie would be tossed out the first day.

Jamie didn't know how to dress for what occasion, what fork to use at dinner; his ignorance of even everyday manners, not to mention common grammar, would brand him as an impostor within minutes.

Kell might as well bring an orangutan and try to pa.s.s him off as a duke, and said so.

Jamie knew most of this made sense-it didn't hurt any less for that fact.

And he wasn't going to be anybody's manservant.

They had ended up swinging on each other-each claimed victory publicly, and privately conceded it.

And even just a few hours later, each missed the other, but not enough to reconcile.

Kell promptly moved into the upper circles, where his easy Irish charm, his quick wit, his careful wardrobe with scrupulous attention to details made everything so natural for him.

Jamie walked the other way and promptly got a job on a private yacht.

He was overqualified for a deckhand.

Though there were many young men looking for yachting jobs on the Riviera, Jamie definitely had an advantage. He could chart, navigate, steer, keep a log, as well as do the usual deckhand duties of bartending and lifeguarding.

The fact that he could also fix almost anything short of major engine problems cinched him the first job he applied for.

He was one of two deckhands-one of seven crew members.

The other deckhand was a Frenchman who spoke little English but knew enough to understood the captain, a tough, bald Brit. He and Jamie shared a crew cabin but little else.

The crew cabin on this boat was the most luxurious quarters Jamie had ever had.

Besides the captain and Jamie's bunkmate, there was a French chef who considered his importance on a par with the captain's and the Italian engineer who had been with the boat since its maiden voyage and referred to the s.h.i.+p as a person.

There were two stewardesses, to housekeep, help wait tables, and do laundry. One was old enough to be Jamie's mother and- typically-mothered him. He was constantly being plied with pastries and cheeses.

And since the food on the last freighter had been nearly inedible, Jamie had gone from slim to gaunt-he was grateful for the pastries and cheeses.

The other stewardess was cute and clean-cut and sleeping with the captain-Jamie steered clear.

Jamie respected the captain, who was tough but fair, always a important factor in what kind of job he did-given a task, he would do a good job. Given an order, he would rebel.

He couldn't take orders from someone he considered a fool; he'd had enough of mindless regimentation in the orphanage, the navy.

Captain Hughes was no fool.

But Captain Hughes had a word of caution for him.

"You ever deal with the rich before?"

"No." Jamie thought bitter thoughts of Kell.

"I'll tell you this, young Sommers-there's law, and there's rich man's law. There's manners, and there's rich man's manners. The sun s.h.i.+nes differently for them, the sea rocks special. If you can't live with that, you can't work here.

"Stay away from them, Jamie. They can crumple you like a paper cup and give you as much thought when tossing you overboard. Especially the girls."

It only took a few days to see what the captain meant.

La Pet.i.t Trope was a million-dollar motor sailer; she housed twelve guests in six staterooms; there was a bar saloon, an awning to unroll on the upper forward deck for outdoor dining, and a swimming platform in the bottom of aft deck, where the ski boat could dock.

There were teak decks, Lalique winegla.s.ses; the silverware was silver. The suns.h.i.+ne did seem different, more expensive, somehow.

Jamie had learned a lot about sails in the South Pacific; it was his favorite form of boating now, and he loved it when they cut the motors to be wind-borne.

This was a dream job. But there were days when he thought he wasn't being paid enough.

Jamie had always connected riches with old people.

Like the benefactors at the orphanage, who seemed to visit only to make sure their names were slapped on a piece of bronze somewhere.

Even at the age of nine, Jamie thought they might be more concerned with the quality of the food served at the orphanage, with the fact that the nuns thought the cure for everything from stammering to cursing to poor reading skills was a good las.h.i.+ng.

Even at nine Jamie thought there might be different approaches to education.

This was his first experience with rich young people.

And Jamie, not at all easily intimated, was intimidated.

They were so sleek, so confident, so sure of who they were. Even the ones who weren't physically beautiful (and there were only a few) had an air of knowing they owned the world.

The girls, especially.

Jamie knew he was attractive to women. He was only five-foot-seven, but he had the muscled shoulders, the slim waist and hips of a swimmer. His hair was a gleaming mane of six different shades of gold, his eyes clear and direct. The women who could resist his slow hot smile fell for his boyish grin. Experienced at sixteen, now twenty-two, with five years at sea behind him, he thought he was expert.

So it was a new sensation-to feel awkward, clumsy, even tongue-tied in the presence of girls. Not that he should be speaking to them anyway, except to ask politely if they would like another drink, another soda.