Pale Gray for Guilt Read Free Page B

to come to a stop once she was humming along. So she and I were slowly becoming a highway hazard, the narrow shaves getting narrower. So I had gone shopping, test driving, and found they all had fantastic acceleration, and they'd all stop on dimes, and they all bored me to hell.
    So I went looking for a boat I could use as a car. I would keep Miss Agnes for back roads and the Flush for open waters, and use the Munequita for errands, and if I had to have a car, there was Mr. Hertz trying hard, and Mr. Avis trying harder, and Mr. National hoping they'd run each other into the ground. Anything in Lauderdale that I wanted to buy, and I could lift, if I couldn't buy it right at Bahia Mar, I could go off in the Munequita and buy it. And it was nice to poot along an urban waterway and hear the distant clashing of fenders, gnashing of bumpers, and the song of the ambulances.
    ***
    Janine and I ate ham and cheese sandwiches at the breakfast bar, and every time Jimmy came stomping by he got a couple of loving pats from his mother. I had forgotten the names of the older two boys and had to pick them up out of her conversation. Johnny and Joey. Joey was the big kid. Six. Johnny was four and a half.
    I realized I hadn't seen Tyler around, the Negro who had been working for them the other times I'd been there, a tall, stringy, cheerful, ageless man, dark saffron in color, and with a scholarly face, plus an uncanny knack of diagnosing the ailments of marine engines. I asked her if it was his day off.
    "Oh, Tyler quit us… it must be eight months ago. Tush was very upset about it. You know how good he was around here. But now… it's just as well, I guess, because we couldn't afford to pay him anyway, the way things are."
    "On account of the road?"
    "And a lot of other things."
    "Such as?"
    "I think if Tush wants you to hear the tale of woe, he better be the one to tell you. But I'll tell you one thing, Travis McGee!" Her eyes narrowed, and she thumped her fist on the formica counter top. "We are not going to be run off this place!"
    "Is somebody trying?"
    "You'd best talk to Tush about it."
    "Can you get a sitter for tonight?"
    "Huh?"
    "Wear your pretties and the three of us will go run-abouting into Broward Beach and track down some booze and some meat and come home late, singing all the way"
    Her narrow face lighted up. "I would love it!"
    And when Tush got back with the other two towheads, he approved. The sitter was handy. Jan explained they had made a special rate on a houseboat rental to a couple. Young kids. About twenty-one years old. They were in the houseboat where the old yellow station wagon was parked. There was a retired couple in the one on the far end. Those were the only two rented at the moment.
    "Arlie and Roger Denn, their names are," Janine explained. "They're a little on the weird side. Sort of untidy-looking. He makes little funny figurine things and he makes shell jewelry She does handweaving and she paints these insipid little seascapes, and when they have enough, they fill up the station wagon and go around and sell them to gift shops. Sometimes it takes two days, and sometimes it takes a week."
    Arlie Denn arrived for sitter duty right on time, and I could agree about the untidy part. She was a soft, doughy, pallid girl with a long tangle of dark blonde hair, wide, empty, indifferent blue eyes, a little sing-song voice and a mouth that hung open. She wore a man's white shirt, dirty. Pale blue denim walking shorts, ditto. Bare feet, also dirty. I could see why Janine had fed the kids before we left.
    Once I had the little boat away, from the dock, I turned it over to Tush. And with the sun lowering behind us, we skimmed down the long, broad curves of the Shawana River, past the mangrove and the white herons, and out into the big bay where, corny as any postcard, a ketch was moving northward up the Waterway, sun turning the sails orapge, while a ragged flight of pelicans passed diagonally in front of her, heading