Big Kiss-Off Read Online Free Page B

“What could I do?” he asked. “Throw you off the boat? Put you back on the levee in nothing but a pair of sheer scanties and a bra?”
    Mimi met his eyes. “You know what I mean.”
    A long moment of silence followed, relieved only by the creak of the mooring ropes and the faint swish of the water in the bilge. A new feeling, a feeling of strain, filled the cabin. Cade refilled the girl’s glass. She liked him. He was affecting her just as she was affecting him. Under her calm exterior, she was as excited by the night and their mutual closeness as he was. He could tell by the beat of the pulse in her throat, the way she looked at him from time to time.
    “All right. Let’s go on with the story,” he said. “You had no money and no passport.”
    “No.”
    “But you wanted to come to the States. You
had
to come to the States?”
    “Sí.”
    “Why?”
    Mimi ran the tip of a pink tongue across her full lips.
    “Why?” Cade repeated. “Let’s have it. Being as pretty as you are, you could have been, well, let’s say you could have had a bad six days between here and La Guaira, if one or more of the crew had happened to discover you and failed to report you to the captain. Or you might have been drowned swimming ashore. Or I might have been a heel. I still might be, for all you know.”
    Although the hips of the white pants fit snugly, the legs were loose. Mimi thrust out her right leg and pulled up the leg of the borrowed pants to disclose a small but efficient looking knife strapped high on the inside of her cream-colored thigh.
    “So you have a knife,” Cade said. “Why have you taken the chances you have?”
    “To find Captain Moran.”
    The name meant nothing to Cade. “What’s this Moran to you?”
    Mimi’s Latin accent was more pronounced this time. “My ’usband. We were married in Caracas almost a year ago.” Her voice barely audible, she continued, “When my family find out, they were ver’, how you say,
irritado
!” She found the word she wanted. “Angry. We are ver’ ol’ family. They did not like I should marry foreigner.” Her lower lip thrust out in a sullen pout. “I am not so pleased myself.”
    “Why?”
    “He was supposed to send for me, but he did not. That is why I stow away, to come to him.”
    Realizing the leg of her pants was still pulled high on her thigh, Mimi blushed and rolled down the leg.
    Cade returned his eyes to her face. Of course. She had told him her name — Mimi Trujillo Esterpar Moran, and he had kidded her about the Moran sounding Irish. For some reason the thought of any other man having had Mimi made him furious. He asked, “How long were you together?”
    Mimi said, “One week. Just the week he was in Caracas.”
    “He hasn’t been back since? That is, to Caracas?”
    Mimi continued to pout. “No.”
    “He was Army?”
    Mimi’s smile was small. “A flyer. Just like you. He was on what you call mission.” She accented the
on
in mission.
    It was an effort for Cade to talk. “Where in the States is he stationed?”
    The black-haired girl shook her head. “That I do not know. I ’ave not heard from him since he left Caracas. But I ’ave written many letters, here. To the adress he gave me — Captain James Moran, Bay Parish, Louisiana, in care of one Tocko Kalavitch. That is why I stowed away in the boat that I did.” She seemed to be trying to convince herself. “And in the morning I will find him.”
    “Yeah. Sure. Maybe.” Cade said.
    If there were a Moran in Bay Parish, the man was new since his time. He didn’t know any Morans on the river. There were Morgans and Monroes and Moores and Mooneys. There was even a Serbian family that had changed its name to Morton, but he didn’t know any Morans. Cade felt deflated, let down. He poured more wine in his glass, wishing it were rum, wishing he had a case of rum. It would seem that the wrong people always got together.
    The things that could happen to a man.
    First, Janice.
    Then the