Gulf Coast Girl Read Online Free PDF Page B

they want with me? We went out. She locked the door and we walked out to the car.
    She got behind the wheel, but made no move to turn on the ignition. She slipped around facing me, with her elbow on the back of the seat. It was very quiet, and her face was deadly serious. She had made up her mind.
    I gave her a cigarette and lit it, and lit one for myself. I dropped the lighter back in my pocket.
    “There’s one thing,” I said. “Maybe I don’t want to know where he is.”
    She gave me a quick glance. “You don’t need a lot of explanation, do you?”
    “It was just a guess,” I admitted. “But I’m still not sure I want to know anything Tweed Jacket is trying to find out. I don’t like that efficient look of his.”
    “You won’t have to know,” she said. “At least, not until we’re ready to go. I’m just offering you a job.”
    “Before we go any further,” I said, “what kind of jam is he in? Not the police?”
    “No. You’ve seen two of them. They didn’t look like police, did they?”
    “Hardly,” I said. “But what does he want with me?”
    “He needs help. Specifically, a diver.”
    I took a puff on the cigarette and looked out through the moss-hung dimness of the trees. “The world is full of divers. They run into each other nowadays, spearing fish.”
    “A diver is not quite all,” she said. “Remember—”
    I began to get it then, all the questions about boats and offshore sailing and navigation. He needed several people, actually, but in a thing like this the fewer you told, the better.
    “So that’s why the gun business?” I said.
    She nodded. “I’ll admit it was rather theatrical, but you understand, don’t you? When I read that story about you in the paper I thought you were just the man we were looking for, but I had to be sure. Not only that you could handle the job, but also just what kind of man you were.
    There are a couple of reasons why a mistake could be absolutely fatal. That seemed like a good way to do it. It would give me most of the day to size you up, and in a place where we wouldn’t be seen together. Unfortunately, I was wrong about that. I knew I was being followed, but I thought I’d gotten away from them. However—” She blushed slightly and looked away from me in confusion. “I don’t think there was too much harm done, since he took it for something else—”
    I was ill at ease myself. Tweed Jacket hadn’t been the only one.
    “What is it you want me to do?” I asked. “Don’t forget, I’m merely an employee of a salvage company. Any job negotiations are supposed to be handled by the owner—” She shook her head emphatically. “No. That’s out. We don’t want a corporation, or a committee, or an expedition. It has to be one man, and one man only, and it has to be one who’ll keep his mouth shut for the rest of his life. If you do it, you’ll have to quit your present job, giving some other reason, of course—”
    “It doesn’t involve breaking any laws?”
    “No,” she said. “But I’ll warn you. It could be quite dangerous. Even afterward, if they found it out.” She stopped suddenly, frowning a little. “No. Wait. Since you’ve brought up the question, I’ll be perfectly frank with you. There is one aspect of it that probably isn’t quite legal. That is taking a boat into the waters of a foreign country and landing two people secretly. But there’d be no chance of your getting caught, and it doesn’t sound like a particularly reprehensible crime—”
    “Depends on what they were being landed for,” I said.
    “Simply,” she said, her eyes somber, “so they could live in peace. And go on living.”
    I nodded, thinking about it. I had a hunch she was telling it to me straight. She and her husband were running from Tweed Jacket and God knew how many more for some reason, but somehow I couldn’t connect her with anything criminal. Of course, I didn’t know anything about him at all, but I was beginning to like