He could put Mackey out; send him away like a scalded dog. Judging by the man’s woebegone aspect, he expected as much. But who knew what Hugh Mackey would do next. No. A walk was the best solution; get him away from the house. It was nearly sunset.
Dexter left him in the front room with Harriet and went upstairs to knock on Tabby’s bedroom door. She was seated at her new vanity, a sixteenth-birthday present. A ring of small electric lightbulbs surrounded its mirror, creating the impression of a Hollywood starlet in her dressing room. What better name for a device that encouraged all the wrong elements of the female personality?
“Tabby,” Dexter said brusquely. “Let’s take a walk.”
“I don’t care to, Daddy.”
He took a long breath, muzzled his impatience, and crouched beside her chair. Heat from the mirror bulbs magnified the dusty floral scent of the powder she’d received with the vanity: Charles of the Ritz, if he remembered correctly.
“I’m asking a favor,” he said. “I need your help.”
Her curiosity was a well whose waterline often seemed a long way down. But at the word “help,” Dexter heard the splash.
“There’s a gentleman here, an associate of mine, who’s—who’s sore about something. If you come with us to the beach, he won’t beef about it.”
“Because I’ll be there?”
“That’s it.”
She rose from her vanity and disappeared inside her closet—“dressing room,” as she’d taken to calling it. After several minutes she reappeared in a colorful patchwork skirt, cable-knit sweater, and sailor hat. Apparently, she presumed that comeliness would be part of her assignment.
They found Harriet and Hugh Mackey sitting in silence in the parlor, Mackey staring out the windows at the sea. “My daughter, Tabatha,” Dexter said, introducing them. Mackey trained upon Tabby a look of exhausted appraisal, as if sizing up a burden he’d no choice but to heft. He could not—would not—play his part.
They left the house and walked along the path toward the beach, Dexter taking care to keep Tabby positioned between himself and Mackey. The sand looked unusually white, almost lunar under the changing sky. Normally, Dexter would have remained on the path, but Tabby went nearer the sea, and he followed her onto the sand.
“Daddy, take off your shoes,” she said. “It’s not so cold.”
She’d slipped off her own, barely more than slippers, and Dexter realized that one of her goals in changing clothes had been to remove her wool stockings so she could go barefoot. It was the beach, after all. Her slender feet glowed a whiter shade of white against the sand, and seeing them sparked in Dexter a wish to take off his oxfords. Then he remembered the ankle holster. “That’s all right, Tabs,” he said. “I’ll leave mine on.”
Tabby didn’t suggest that Mackey remove his shoes; it was hard to believe, from his weary clown’s face, that Mackey had feet.
There was no such thing as silence on a beach; wind, gulls, and splashing waves filled the void of conversation. Ships were visible toward Breezy Point, their lights already snuffed. Dexter began to relax. He sensed Mackey longing for some way to begin, but the obstacle of Tabby prevented him. They walked east, toward the dusk. Tabby skipped a little, which took her a few paces ahead.
Mackey seized his chance. “My position has become quite difficult, Mr. Styles,” he said in a high, peevish voice.
“I’m sorry to hear it.”
Tabby paused to wait, and Dexter hastened to rejoin her. He could feel Mackey straining to channel the enormity of his discontent into language that would not disturb the placid surface of this beach walk. That effort, at least, he was making.
“I don’t see that things can continue this way, Mr. Styles,” he began again in a pleasanter tone, this time in full hearing of Tabby.
“I should say not,” Dexter rejoined.
“I’m telling you,” Mackey said. “They cannot.”
Dexter was briefly silenced by this affront. With Tabby there, he’d no choice but to respond in the same affable tone Mackey had used. “I’m afraid it’s out of my hands, Mr. Mackey,” he said. “You and Mr. Healey must sort this out.”
“Mr. Healey and I don’t understand each other.”
His voice, at once wheedling, injured, and menacing, revolted Dexter. “I’ve known Mr. Healey for twenty years,” he said. “And he’s never—not once, in all that time—turned up at my house on a Sunday.”
“What else could I do?”
The exchange had an offhand quality, as if they were discussing baseball scores. Dexter moved between his daughter and Mackey and said, in a hard clear tone intended to end the discussion, “I can’t help you, Mr. Mackey.”
“It might be worth your while to try,” Mackey said. “To save yourself trouble later on.”
“Trouble?” Dexter asked lightly. Tabby had taken his hand. It felt cool and delicate as a bracelet.
“I know what I know,” Mackey said. “But I don’t know what other people might say if they knew it, too.”
The man’s sheepish, hooded eyes were fixed straight ahead, to the east, where darkness was falling. Dexter’s ears began to ring. He had an urge to spit into the sand. Through the twilight, he saw the dregs of sunset glittering on the fences of the Coast Guard training station. He understood then what would have to happen.
“I’ll see what I can do,” he managed to say.
“Why, I’m glad to hear that. I’m—relieved,” Mackey said. “Thank you, Mr. Styles.”
“Don’t mention it.” Dexter, too, was relieved. The only difficulty now was finding himself still on the beach with Mackey. Had he foreseen this outcome, he would have handled the matter differently. He never would have involved Tabby.
“Look what I found,” she said, holding up a scallop shell. It was pale orange. She positioned it against the sky and examined its ruffled edge in silhouette.
“Say, that’s a beauty,” Mackey said.
“Let’s turn back,” Dexter said.
Reversing directions, they confronted wild celebration in the western sky: streaks of gaudy pink like the delayed aftermath of a fireworks show. The sand was pink, too, as if it had absorbed the sunset and was releasing it slowly.
“Son of a gun, would you look at that,” Mackey said to the sky. He seemed a different man now that he’d unburdened himself and been reassured.
“Isn’t it grand?” Tabby cried.
Dexter tried to move between them. He no longer wished them to speak. But Tabby stuck to Mackey, seeming heartened by his improved spirits.
“Have you children, Mr. Mackey?” she asked.
“I’ve a daughter, Liza, she’s around your age,” he said. “She likes Tyrone Power. He’s got a new picture coming soon, The Black Swan, I promised I’d take her to see. You like Tyrone Power?”
“Sure I do,” Tabby said. “And Victor Mature has a new one opening this month, Seven Days’ Leave. He made it right before he joined the Coast Guard.”