‘I can’t. Because of my fear, you know? Are you a good swimmer, a real good swimmer?’
‘Good enough.’
‘If this boat sinks or anything, you won’t leave me, will you ? You’ll help me get to shore.’
If the boat sank, Parker knew this girl would be hysterical and would drown with her anyone she could get her hands on. If the boat sank, Parker would get as far from her as he could as fast as possible. But he said, ‘I’ll help you. Don’t worry about it.’
‘I can’t stop myself, I do worry, that’s all. I just can’t stop myself.’ She leaned closer and lowered her voice. ‘This is stupid, I know it’s stupid, but would you mind if I held your hand? Just while we’re on the boat, you know? Just for like moral support.’
There was nothing else to do. Parker gave her his left hand, and she put into it a hand cold and damp and trembling. She wasn’t inventing the fear, it was real. The talk, he supposed, was a way to siphon off some of the nervousness. Maybe most of the time she wasn’t a nonstop talker after all.
That was the way the Outfit worked, though. Have a job that means going for a boat ride, get somebody afraid of water. Brilliant.
Four more people came down into the boat, and settled in the row behind Parker and the girl. A minute later the stocky guy came down, cast off the lines, and his younger brother up front started the engine. The girl squeezed Parker’s hand, and now she stopped talking. She didn’t say a word all the way out to the island.
At night Cockaigne was a lot more impressive. It was just a dark bulk in the water from the landward side, but circling around it the boat abruptly came upon lights and colour and the sounds of music.
Spotlights played on the main building and the piers and the surrounding jungle and the water. Coloured lights lined both piers just below the water line, making the ocean here look green and red and yellow. Loudspeakers played lush string ensemble music with a fidelity that was surprisingly good for an outdoor system. On the paths and stone benches among the rock gardens between piers and casino sat or strolled a dozen or more of Baron’s customers, dark-suited men and bright-gowned women carrying iced drinks and talking together. A score of small boats were docked at the two piers, and at least as many larger boats were anchored offshore, many of them adding their own bright lights and music and laughter.
‘My God,’ said the girl. She seemed to forget for a second her fear of water, but her hand didn’t loosen its
grip. There was a reserved space for this shuttle boat at the shoreward end of the lefthand pier, and once they were settled in it the girl hurried ahead of Parker, scrambling up the steps as though the boat were sinking right now. She waited for him on top of the pier, smiling sheepishly. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said, taking his hand in a more relaxed way now. ‘I tried to keep it in.’
‘It’s all right,’ he said, although it wasn’t. But he’d have to make the effort to keep her in a good mood so she’d do good work.
The ground sloped upward from the pier to the blankfaced brick casino, looking strong and blind up there with its white pillars and its lack of windows. The rock gardens through which they had to walk to get to the casino had an intricate, fussy, Japanese look about them, full of varicoloured odd-shaped stones and tiny gnarled bushes. The stone benches here and there were grey, weathered, like Aztec ruins. Farther along, knotted jungle growth filled the slope up behind the casino, framing it in dark green.
As they moved away from the pier, Parker said, his voice low, ‘Start taking pictures.’
‘I already took two,’ she said. ‘One coming in and one on the pier.’
He was surprised. ‘Good,’ he said.
‘Don’t worry, I’ll do my job.’
He believed her.
Tall broad glass doors led into the casino. Outside the night had a tropical heat and mugginess to it, but inside there was the coolness and dryness of air conditioning.
The glass doors had led them into a large high-ceilinged anteroom. The walls were a pale cream colour, the far ceiling iced with hanging glass chandeliers, the floor a checkerboard of huge black and white tile squares. Renaissance paintings hung on the walls, and dark wood antique chairs and love seats were spotted here and there along the sides of the room.
Broad arched open doorways led off on three sides, each with an identification in black discreet block letters on the wall above the arch. To the left, the dining room. Straight ahead, what were gently termed lounges. To the right, the casino proper.
Parker said, ‘Food now or later?’
‘Later. When my nerves calm down.’
‘This way, then.’
Parker and the girl went through the archway on the right, into the casino.
The ceiling here was lower, and modernistic; acoustical tile spaced with inset fluorescent light fixtures. The walls were pool-table green, done in a fabric wallpaper. The floor was carpeted in a darker green. Gaming tables were set at random throughout the room, facing this way and that in a careful, tasteful simulation of disorder. To the left, behind gleaming mahogany and a brass wire mesh, stood the cashiers, in black sleevebands and green eyeshades.
Parker bought two hundred dollars worth of chips, gave the girl a hundred, and spent some time moving around the room. He won a little at a crap table, betting against the point, lost a little on the red at roulette, won and lost and won again at chemin de fer.
There were no slot machines, only gaming tables of every kind. Parker and the girl stood at a poker table till a chair became free, and then the girl sat down and played half a dozen hands. She won a large pot with jacks full, squealed with joy, kissed the cards, clutched handfuls of chips to her breast. She called attention to herself, but in a good way, in a way that called no attention to the man with her. She played the sexy, nadve, gold-digging, wide- eyed blonde to the hilt, and the looks she got were compounds of amusement and lust.
