The Passenger (The Passenger, #1)(19)

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There was what looked to be a game trail running through the sparse parkland. The stunted liveoak. A scattering of down timber from Hurricane Camille. The two hundred mile an hour winds that had cut Ship Island in two. He could hear turkeys chittering in the ground cover but he couldnt see them. He followed the trail for perhaps a quarter of a mile until he came to a clearing and he was on the point of turning back when a bit of color caught his eye. He left the path. Separating the palmettos before him with his stick as he went.

It was a yellow two-man rubber raft that had been deflated and rolled up and wedged under a fallen tree and then covered over with brush. He dragged it out and stood looking at it. He turned and studied the parkland. A light wind among the oaks and the faint wash of the tide out there in the shallows. He squatted and unfastened the straps and rolled out the raft.

It was still wet. Seawater in the corners. He spread it out. Brand new. He ran his hands up under the bolsters where they joined the sheetrubber floor. He unsnapped and went through the pockets. There was a plastic inspection tag in one of them but that was all. He squatted there studying the thing. In the end he rolled it back up and rebuckled the straps and shoved it back under the tree and raked the brush and dead palmetto leaves over it and went back out the path to the beach. There’d been no oars with the raft but he’d no notion what that meant. When he got to the beach the sun was low over the water and he stood there looking out to the west, the slow gray swells and the thin bight of shore beyond and somewhere beyond that the city where the lights would be coming up. He sat in the sand and dug in his heels and crossed his arms over his knees and watched the sunset and the light on the water. The thin reach of land to the south would be the Chandeleur Archipelago. Beyond that the hydra mouth of the river. Beyond that Mexico. The low tide lapped and drew back. He could be the first person in creation. Or the last. He rose and walked up the beach to the boat and pushed off and climbed in and went to the rear to ballast it off the sand. He took up the oar and poled his way out through the shallows and then sat there watching the deep red of the sunset darken and die.

He motored slowly down the point and along the south shore of the island. The gulf was calm in the last of the light and lights had begun to come up along the shore to the west. He swung the boat around and twisted the throttle slowly forward and headed north, taking his bearings by the lights along the causeway. It was cold out on the water with the sun down. The wind was cold. By the time he got to the marina he thought that the man who’d gone ashore on the island was almost certainly the passenger.

When he pulled into the yard at Taylor’s it was ten oclock. He sat in the quiet under the mercury lights and then he turned the key and started the truck again and drove back up to Gretna and across the bridge to the Quarter. He ate a bowl of redbeans and rice at the little cafe on Decatur Street and then drove up St Philip and parked the truck and let himself in at the gate.



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He had another two days off before going on a job downriver at Port Sulphur. Late morning he walked up Bourbon Street to meet Debussy Fields for lunch at Galatoire’s. She was already in line and she waved to him extravagantly. Turned out in an expensive dress and four inch heels. Her blonde hair piled on top of her head. Shoulderlength earrings. Everything was pushed just to the edge including the cleavage at the front of her dress but she was very beautiful. He kissed her on the cheek. She was taller than he was.

Nice perfume, he said.

Thank you. Can we hold hands?

I dont think so.

You’re not any fun. I thought this was going to be a date.

When they got inside there was some conversation with the maitre’d about the table. I’m not sitting at the rear, she said. And I’m not sitting against the wall.

I can seat you here, said the maitre’d. But of course there’s the traffic.

Traffic will be fine, Darling.

She took an antique silver cigarette case from her purse and fitted one of the dark little cigarillos she smoked into an ivory and silver holder and slid her Dunhill lighter across the table to Western. He lit the cigarillo for her and she leaned back and crossed her rather remarkable legs with an audible rustle and blew smoke toward the stamped tin ceiling with a sensuous and studied ease. Thank you, Darling, she said. At nearby tables diners of both sexes had stopped eating altogether. Wives and girlfriends sat smoldering. Western studied her pretty closely. In the two hours they were there she never once looked at another table and he wondered where she’d learned that. Or the thousand other things she knew.

I came by your club on the way down. You’re headlining.

Yes. I’m a star, Darling. I thought you knew.

I knew it was just a matter of time.

You’re looking at a woman of destiny.

She leaned to adjust the strap of her shoe. She was almost out of her dress. She looked up at him and smiled. Tell me your news, she said. You dont call you dont write you dont love me anymore. I dont have anybody to talk to, Bobby.

You’ve got your own crowd.

God. I get so tired of faggots. The things they talk about. It’s so tedious.

The waiter came and placed menus before them. He poured water from the table carafe. She held the little black cigarette at shoulder level like a wand and reached and tipped open the menu with her other hand.

Tell me what to eat. I’m not eating that wretched fish in a bag.