Chapter 14

What you've just read, if you've read it, is the statement. It took me five days to write it, but at last, on Thursday afternoon, I got it done. That was yesterday. I sent it out by the orderly to be registered, and around five o'clock Keyes dropped by for the receipt. It'll be more than he bargained for, but I wanted to put it all down. Maybe she'll see it some time, and not think so bad of me after she understands how it all was. Around seven o'clock I put on my clothes. I was weak, but I could walk. After a bite to eat I sent for a taxi and went down to the pier. I went to bed right away, and stayed there till early this afternoon. Then I couldn't stand it any longer, alone there in the stateroom, and went up on deck. I found my chair and sat there looking at the coast of Mexico, where we were going past it. But I had a funny feeling I wasn't going anywhere. I kept thinking about Keyes, and the look he had in his eye that day, and what he meant by what he said. Then, all of a sudden, I found out. I heard a little gasp beside me. Before I even looked I knew who it was. I turned to the next chair. It was Phyllis.

"You."

"Hello, Phyllis."

"Your man Keyes-he's quite a matchmaker."

"Oh yeah. He's romantic."

I looked her over. Her face was drawn from the last time I had seen her, and there were little puckers around her eyes. She handed me something.

"Did you see it?"

"What is it?"

"The ship's paper."

"No, I didn't. I guess I'm not interested."

"It's in there."

"What's in there?"

"About the wedding. Lola and Nino. It came in by radio a little after noon."

"Oh, they're married?"

"Yes. It was pretty exciting. Mr. Keyes gave her away. They went to San Francisco on their honeymoon. Your company paid Nino a bonus."

"Oh. It must be out then. About us."

"Yes. It all came out. It's a good thing we're under different names here. I saw all the passengers reading about it at lunch. It's a sensation."

"You don't seem worried."

"I've been thinking about something else."

She smiled then, the sweetest, saddest smile you ever saw. I thought of the five patients, the three little children, Mrs. Nirdlinger, Nirdlinger, and myself. It didn't seem possible that anybody that could be as nice as she was when she wanted to be, could have done those things.

"What were you thinking about?"

"We could be married, Walter."

"We could be. And then what?"

I don't know how long we sat looking out to sea after that. She started it again. "There's nothing ahead of us, is there Walter?"

"No. Nothing."

"I don't even know where we're going. Do you?"

"No."

"…Walter, the time has come."

"What do you mean, Phyllis?"

"For me to meet my bridegroom. The only one I ever loved. One night I'll drop off the stern of the ship. Then, little by little I'll feel his icy fingers creeping into my heart.

"…I'll give you away."

"What?"

"I mean: I'll go with you."

Keyes was right. I had nothing to thank him for. He just saved the state the expense of getting me.

We walked around the ship. A sailor was swabbing out the gutter outside the rail. He was nervous, and caught me looking at him. "There's a shark. Following the ship."

I tried not to look, but couldn't help it. I saw a flash of dirty white down in the green. We walked back to the deck chairs.

"Walter, we'll have to wait. Till the moon comes up."

"I guess we better have a moon."

"I want to see that fin. That black fin. Cutting the water in the moonlight."

The captain knows us. I could tell by his face when he came out of the radio room a little while ago. It will have to be tonight. He's sure to put a guard on us before he puts into Mazatlan.

The bleeding has started again. The internal bleeding, I mean, from the lung where the bullet grazed it. It's not much but I spit blood. I keep thinking about that shark.

I'm writing this in the stateroom. It's about half past nine. She's in her stateroom getting ready. She's made her face chalk white, with black circles under her eyes and red on her lips and cheeks. She's got that red thing on. It's awful-looking. It's just one big square of red silk that she wraps around her, but it's got no armholes, and her hands look like stumps underneath it when she moves them around. She looks like what came aboard the ship to shoot dice for souls in the Rime of the Ancient Mariner.

I didn't hear the stateroom door open, but she's beside me now while I'm writing. I can feel her.

The moon.

James M Cain

James M. Cain was born in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1892. Having served in the US Army in World War 1, he became a journalist in Baltimore and New York in the 1920's. He later worked as a screenwriter in Hollywood. Cain died in 1977