Page 28 of Shadow Ticket

“What I mean is here on this boat, see, I don’t remember ever…really…coming on board?”

“I shouldn’t wonder, you were altogether blotto.”

“Mickey on the menu. Anything else?”

“Some sort of American government vessel, chasing after us, at flank speed.”

“Bureau of Prohibition?”

“Declined to identify themselves,” Alf recalls, “behaved as if they didn’t have to, no hull number, nothing at the jackstaff, put a shot across our bow, actually,” whereupon the Stupendica had dutifully matched course and speed with the pugnacious little cutter, which sent over a line, and soon after that Hicks, winched across in a canvas sling, above a furious aftward rush of ocean whitecaps…

—

“How’s the amnesia, forgotten anything interesting lately?”

The del Vasto broad again. Carrying a Jack Rose the size of a birdbath.

“Yeah, what’s the legal age for one of these? I believe it’s proper etiquette for the gentleman to go first?” Grabbing her glass and swilling down about half what’s in it, “hmm, old enough maybe, too soon to tell, let’s just…”

“How about leaving me some, all right? You’re…how old again, thirty? Older? You don’t know how young I can play,” Glow warns him. “Or the trouble it’s likely to get you into.”

Nothing personal, as Hicks will discover.

Glow has a way of flirting with everybody on the ship, pursers and underpursers, bridge officers and suspected stowaways.

She seems to have Hicks tagged as the philosophical type, at least he can’t make out much of her conversation.

“And while he was down there, he bit my ankle. Rather like human existence, wouldn’t you say. ”

“Y— well, no. Sure. Um—”

“Leave the deep thinking to others and get on with the action, that about cover it?”

“Action, well, I try to avoid that too, when I can.”

“Oh, dear.”

“Don’t worry, it doesn’t always avoid me.”

“I may need protection,” taking him by the necktie and pulling him closer, expressing herself meantime by way of hips and legs, like a tango partner.

“Things been a little slow, Gingersnap, back where is it you’re from again?”

“Slow as it gets, any thoughts occur to you?”

Despite a lifetime of easy-to-grasp lessons about getting mixed up with anybody he just met while still recovering from a mickey of unknown recipe, Hicks finds himself hopefully admitting, “Well, standing up in a hammock was one I always wanted to try.”

“Sailors everywhere on this tub, where there’s sailors there’ve got to be hammocks, wouldn’t you think?”

And so forth. Things are rolling along just jake till here in off one of the less familiar decks comes breezing the Latin lover no Anglo wants to see inside manhandling range of any dame in whom he may have taken an interest, however faint—Glow’s ex- or possibly current husband, Porfirio del Vasto, smooth as a ten-cent panatela, in a white dinner jacket and one of those halos of entitlement to behave as unpleasantly as he likes.

A slick customer. Ramon Novarro could learn makeup tips.

“And jealous?” according to Glow, “he should run a correspondence school. Advertise on the radio. A professor of jealousy.”

One of the side effects of private op work is you do see a lot of jealousy.

Previously inattentive husbands are suddenly underfoot all the time, taking chances with their personal safety that would make Harold Lloyd think twice.

Telephones and binoculars become everyday attachments to ears and eyes, and “As long as none of it’s happening to you,” the Gumshoe’s Manual advises, “it’s funny—but then, when it does happen to you, you wonder why you ever thought it was funny. ”

The unspoken kiss-off, which the Manual doesn’t include but experience in the field confirms, being that after a while, if you should live so long, it gets funny again.

The tricky part is recognizing when each of these happens.

Too many colleagues you would’ve thought experienced enough have ended up in Forest Home or Pilgrim’s Rest from not judging the timing accurately enough.

“Couple of foxtrots,” Hicks meantime is busy protesting, “a Lindy hop for instruction-purposes only, maybe a waltz, but no funny business, solemn promise—I could lose my license.”

“How much?”

“Beg pardon?”

“I provide a substantial source of income for a population of gigolos, seducers, and impulsive youths smitten by my wife. Fortunately, it is but petty cash to me. La Gloriosa refuses to accept a centavo,” now producing from some inside pocket a respectable wad of U.S.

currency, “though the same can seldom be said of those who profess to have fallen under her spell.”

“Best not be waving that stuff around too much, folks could get the wrong idea.”

“If cash offends you, we could arrange for compensation in lieu, coupons, vouchers…if you’re interested I could get you a nice price on an autogyro. Tip-top condition, barely flown.”

“Matter of fact, Senora del Vasto did mention that you’re planning to, uh, offer her one of those?”

“To be precise, not give but sell, and meaningfully below cost, I can show you the invoicing. The only thing I ever tried to give her once was a castle. In Spain. Well, twice in fact, first time it only embarrassed her, next time, I admit, was a terrible mistake. She may have laughed briefly yet scornfully…‘How can you expect any woman to be stupid enough to fall for that? Even once? What kind of amateur do you take me for?’ I thought it was a serious question. ‘A gifted amateur,’ I suggested. Not what she wanted to hear.”

“Maybe you’ll have better luck with the gyro.”

“I sense a certain reluctance to bargain. If you’re unwilling to be bought off, I might begin to believe you really are in love with her, may even somehow be making a serious claim, in which case I should have to kill you.”

“Oh. Sure, well…mind my asking, does…that happen a lot, in your, um…”

“My accountants assure me it’s a legal business expense. Usually written off under ‘Postnuptial Miscellaneous.’ ”

By now they have strolled out on deck, into Atlantic moonlight.

Hicks feels strangely sophisticated. Most matrimonials, the husbands he runs into are nervous wrecks, not so much love-happy as preoccupied with making sure the wife knows how much he’s paying the U-Ops Agency, and somehow always expecting Hicks to be the one to tell her the amount.

Playboying his way around the hemispheres, Porfirio now confides with a sinister amiability perfected over the years, he’s grown a little blasé about the sultry senorita package.

“A man’s eye is inevitably drawn elsewhere.

These days, I’m sure you’ve seen them out on the dance floors, an ‘American type,’ not too much makeup, hair kept a little longer than bob length, as if reluctant to let go of girlhood—athletic grace, straight talking, somehow immune to or unable to reach a fully adult stage…

the current expression is I believe ‘wholesome’…

” Who but Glow would he be going on this way about?

They happen to be passing a bar with a couple of empty spaces.

Against his better judgment, Hicks accepts Porfirio’s offer of a drink, and next thing he knows he’s hearing, “?Ay, ay, Porfirio infelíz! how was it possible not to fall into unqualified surrender at the mere first glimpse? Call it obsession but it is in fact a duty, an all but sacred obligation to remain faithful to the moment of love at first sight, for who knows how many years to follow, keeping it uncorrupted, not allowing a day to pass without in some way returning to it—The Moment. El Momento, you might say.”

“Sure—used to smoke them all the time, before I moved on to nickel cigars.”

“I love her!” the disoriented Spaniard raves on.

Known to happen of course, even in matrimonials.

But given the man is a smooth talker by profession, how sympathetically should Hicks be listening to this?

“Not to get metaphysical, but she is an angel, you see, being an angel is a fate she moves toward blindly, believing herself no more than a gold digger like everyone else.”

Shifting uncomfortably, “Hot tomato with a soul, not for everybody o’course but if that’s your pipeful, Jack, just keep puffin away, peace be with you and however the rest of that goes.”

Porfirio brings out a gold case full of Kyriazi Frères, Hicks takes one and lights up, grabbing another to put behind his ear. “For later.”

“An optimistic thought, ‘later.’ ” A pause to inhale. “I assume you’re taking precautions.”

“Against…?”

“There’s a betting book already open on you.

The smart-money narrative has it that you are an American gangster, being deported to somewhere in Eastern Europe.

Traveling in the custody of Lieutenant-Commander and Mrs. Quarrender, of the British Intelligence, currently under contract to forces unnamed to provide secure shipment and delivery. ”

“The British what was that again?”

“It’s an open secret. You might want to have a word with them. Try not to bring my name up if you can help it.”