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back to Texas, and we were divorced that summer 1946.
I never saw him again, or even heard of him, until the
afternoon four months ago when I was flying to Miami to
see about selling the Dragoon. He boarded the plane in
New Orleans, and took the seat next to mine.
Those things when you re very young are apt to be
pretty intense, but no bitterness lasts for thirteen years,
and after the first shock wore off it was more like a
meeting of old friends than anything. It took us all the
way to Tampa to get caught up. I told him what I was
going to Miami for, and I ll have to admit it didn t lose
anything in the way I said it: I was running over to see
about disposing of my late husband s yacht. That was a
little childish for a woman almost thirty-five years old,
but for some reason I seemed to think I had to impress
him maybe because he was so obviously successful
himself. But anyway, that s probably when he began to
form the picture of the wealthy widow.
He told me about himself. He d got his M.D. from the
University of California medical school and had quite an
extensive surgical practice in the San Francisco hospitals
specializing in chest and heart surgery. He was also
connected with the medical school as a part-time lecturer
on surgical techniques, which brought him to the subject
of this trip he was on. It seemed he and some scientist
from Cal Tech had worked out a new and more simplified
type of heart-lung machine for use in operations where
the heart had to be by-passed. I didn t understand any of
it, of course, but it sounded very impressive to me. He
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was demonstrating it at a series of operations that had
been scheduled at a number of medical schools. He d just
been at Tulane, and he was on his way to Miami, and he
was as tickled as a young boy when he learned I was
living in Houston, because he was going to be in
Galveston in another week or so, at the University of
Texas medical school.
You ve met him. You know what he s like. He s a very
handsome man with a world of drive and charm, and
frankly I was flattered by all the attention he gave me. He
took me out for dinner and dancing both nights I was in
Miami, and rented a car to drive me down to Key West to
look at the Dragoon. We were aboard her most of one
afternoon. He gave me a lot of advice about what price to
hold out for, and said he had a thirty-five-foot yawl of his
own on San Francisco Bay. I knew he had sailed small
boats on Puget Sound when he was a boy. He was very
sharp with Tango for not keeping the cabins and the
decks cleaner, and they got in an argument, which is
probably the reason he was sure Tango would remember
him if he saw him again.
Well, to cut a long and humiliating story down to a
short and humiliating story, about a week after I got
home he showed up in Houston. He was busy down in
Galveston during the day, of course, but he took me out
somewhere every night, and told me a lot more about
himself. He was a lonely and unhappy man. He said he d
been married again but it hadn t worked out, and he was
divorced now. Of course, by this time I d dispelled the
myth of the wealthy widow, but still one of the most
infuriating parts of the whole thing was the precise way
he sized up just exactly how much he could take me for.
Seven thousand, five hundred dollars. Any more and I
might have balked because I couldn t afford it. Any less
and it might not have been worth all his trouble.
Apparently he must have spent his days appraising
everything I owned, like a professional weight-guesser.
The actual mechanics of the swindle were simple
enough. He and the Cal Tech scientist were forming a
small company to produce around a hundred of the heart-
lung machines already contracted for by hospitals all
over the country, and one of the original five
stockholders had dropped out. And while there was no
question that the company would make a great deal of
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money, the main thing was to be careful about letting
control fall into the hands of sordid businessmen who
might try to cut corners and cheapen the machine. So for
the sake of having the odd share in the hands of
somebody with sympathy and understanding, and for old
times sake . . . You can take it from there. I gave him a
check for seventy-five hundred dollars. After two days
went by without any word from him, I called the dean s
office at the medical school, and of course they d never
heard of anybody named Patrick Ives. I hired a private
detective agency to find out if there was any truth in
anything he said. There wasn t. He was wanted in several
places on the Coast and in the Middle West for cashing
worthless checks, always posing as a doctor. This was
probably the first time he d used his real name for years,
and then only to me. And when the Miami police told me
about that watch found in the Dragoon s dinghy I had a
feeling it must be his.
Ingram nodded. And you thought if you could catch up
with him you might get some of the money back?
No. It was four months ago, and the way he lives he d
have spent it all by now. I just wanted to try to get the
schooner back, to salvage something out of the mess. I d
been kicked where it hurt right in the pride and I was
pretty bitter about it. I think I even took some of it out on
you, that first night. When you said you weren t going to
charge me anything for helping me find her, I didn t
believe you, frankly. I thought you had an angle too.
Great little judge of character, this Osborne girl.
Well, you couldn t be blamed too much for believing
him, he said. After all, he wasn t a thief when you knew
him before.
Don t be so modest, Ingram. I was talking about how
wrong I was about you.
Apparently there was an epidemic of it that night. I
was wrong too. In fact, I was convinced I wasn t going to
like you, so I may have set a new record for being
mistaken.
Her face was a pale blur across from him in the
thickening dusk. Thanks, Skipper.
He came alert then, suddenly aware it had been twenty
minutes or more since they d heard a shot from
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