"She was just a woman I once knew."
"You loved her, yes?"
"Well--" Parker was silent.
"Tell me what 'appened."
"Nothing," Parker said. "Oh, hell--all right. Up in LA three years ago I
knew Effra. She was a pilot too, and we got to running around together.
She liked to fly out over the Pacific all by herself. I don't know why;
she just liked to flirt with danger, maybe. One time she came in a
couple of hours over-due. Figuring she was down in the drink, I was
about to rouse out the Navy to hunt for her when she came in." He
paused.
Mercedes was silent. In the front of the raft, Retch said nothing. His
eyes were still searching the skyline.
"She was wildly excited," Parker went on. "She said she had made a
forced landing on an island somewhere off the coast of Southern Cal. She
also said there were a lot of strange people living on the island." He
shook his head. There was a feeling in him he did not like.
His eyes came to focus on a ripple in the water. A shark. It made him
think of Dr. Yammer.
"What 'appened then?" Mercedes asked softly.
"I helped her look for the island," Parker said. "We spent months
looking in our spare time. We flew over more ocean than I ever knew
existed. But we didn't find it."
"No?"
"That island was awfully important to her. She thought something
wonderful was there, what it was, she could not tell me, just that it
was there. When we could not find it, she began to doubt herself, to
think perhaps she had not seen it, that she had not landed there. She
reached the conclusion then--well, she went to see one of these fancy
mental specialists who know everything about nothing and nothing about
anything."
Under the water, he could see the eyes of the shark. They reminded him
of the expression in Dr. Yammer's eyes, except that the shark's eyes
looked more honest.
"And then?" Mercedes said, very softly.
"She--vanished," Parker said. "Yammer was going to stick her into a
hospital, use something that he called 'shock' on her, maybe operate.
She ran away."
"Did you try to find her, Beel?"
"For asking that question, Mercedes, I ought to choke you!" Parker said
hotly. "I hunted high and low. All we knew for certain was that her
plane was missing. I think she decided she would simply fly out to the
sea she loved, and never come back." Again his voice sank to a whisper
as he visualized Effra of the Green Eyes flying out over this wilderness
of waters.
"I am sorry, Beel," Mercedes said gently. "Will you remember one thing,
Beel?"
"Sure. What is it?"
"You saved my life back there. I will not forget it. If the time ever
comes, I will pay my debt."
"Thank you," Parker said. "But there is no debt."
"You think this island we are hunting might be the same island your girl
claimed she found?" Retch spoke from the front end of the boat.
"And if it is the same island?" Mercedes said.
Anger came boiling up in Parker. "If it is that island, and if I ever
get back to Los Angeles, I am going to hunt up a psychiatrist by the
name of Yammer and take care of him!" Parker dug the water savagely.
Gradually, his anger subsided. "Where did you run into the rumor about
this island?"
Retch shrugged. "It was just one of those things you hear." He studied
the landscape. "We should spot a boat soon."
"We are not exactly on the well-traveled ocean lanes," Parker pointed
out. "Does it happen that there are any other little things about this
island that you forgot to tell me when you chartered my ship to fly you
down here?"