Big Kiss-Off by Day Keene Page B

over. If rank had its privileges, it also had its responsibilities. There were certain things an officer and a gentleman didn’t do. As long as the black-haired girl even thought she was married to Moran, it would be a hasty, meaningless meeting of two bodies. It wouldn’t be the dream he’d dreamed. If flesh were all he wanted he could have stopped at any number of places in New Orleans and spent five or ten of the thousand dollars for which he had mortgaged his cruiser.
    “I’m sorry. So sorry,” Mimi said.
    Cade stood up on the wide transom of the boat and split the water in a clean dive that carried him three-fourths of the way to shore. The cold water felt good on his body, but even this close in, the current was strong. Cade swam the few remaining feet in a powerful crawl, then, fighting his way through the inevitable tangle of hyacinth, he climbed up the side of the levee and stood panting for breath. The cruiser was lost in the darkness of the river but from where he stood he could see the business district of Bay Parish and Sal’s new red neon sign. Carried faintly by the off-shore wind, the strains of the Harry Belafonte recording of
Mathilda, Mathilda
came to his ears.
    Cade marked the spot where he’d come ashore. Then unwrapping his pistol, he walked toward the red sign and the juke box music. Sal could tell him where he stood with the law.
    Except for the lights in the houses, the back streets of Bay Parish were as dark as the river had been. Now and then he passed or was passed by a colored man or woman. Cade walked without any attempt at concealment. His long years as a pilot, of seeing men die beside him, of kissing death daily without the union being consummated, had given him an unshakable belief in preordination. When the time came you got it. Until then, the wheel could spin like mad without anything worse than a two-timing wife and a dame you wished you could stay with, and couldn’t, happening to you.
    Sal’s combination bar and restaurant was an isolated building with two vacant lots on one side and a sour orange grove on the other. Cade looked in one of the open windows. The familiars were bellied up to the bar. Tocko was sitting in a booth with the Squid and a bronze-faced young man in his early thirties. The heavy-set Slavonian was pounding lightly on the table with one fist but only the Squid seemed impressed. Cade decided the strange one could be either a flyer or a seaman with his master’s papers. He had that look in his eyes.
    Cade walked around the building to the back door. The door was open to catch what breeze there was. Through the screen he could see Mamma Salvatore busy at her stove, pausing from time to time to refresh herself from a big glass of iced orange wine.
    Cade tapped on the wood of the screen softly. “Mamma. Mamma Salvatore,” he whispered.
    The big woman picked up her glass of wine and waddled casually toward the screen as if to get a breath of fresh air. Between sips of wine, she said softly, “Don’t come in and don’t talk too loud.”
    “Why not?”
    “Tocko and the Squid are in the bar.”
    “I know. I saw them.”
    “And you are in bad trouble.”
    “How bad?”
    “The beeg trouble. The law is looking for you. Tocko has sworn out a warrant charging you weeth keeling that dog Joe Laval.”
    Cade started to open his mouth and closed it for fear one of the butterflies fluttering in his stomach would fly out. When he could, he asked, “How does Tocko know Joe is dead?”
    “A shark fisherman snagged his body late this afternoon.” Mamma was pleased. “You keeled him, Cade?”
    “No.”
    “Who did?”
    “I imagine Tocko. Or had him killed. Anyway I found him on my boat this morning.”
    Mamma Salvatore shook her head. “No. Eef that was how it was, Tocko would not be so angry. No. Joe was too valuable to Tocko. Now he has no one to do his dirty work.”
    “He has the Squid.”
    Mamma was pleasantly high. “The Squid doesn’t know pee from