The Right Jack

Navy though, aren't you? Not Coast Guard."

With prodding, Kryschevski described a little scrape the Peconic Pearl had gotten herself mixed up in late one night back in the summer. The Coast Guard accused her of rendezvousing with a Colombian freighter a few miles off shore and perhaps taking on a few bales of drugs. By the time they overtook her and searched her, though, the Peconic Pearl seemed to be clean and there was no proof.

"Was Early aboard the Pearl that night?"

"Yeah. The Coast Guard was around next day to talk to him."

"What about this past weekend?" asked Sigrid.

"This weekend?";

"Friday night or Sunday morning?"

"Well, Friday night he helped me work on the engine of the Seabreeze II till after midnight. Sunday? I don't know. Seems like he might've gone out on the Pearl Sunday. You'll have to ask him."

Kryschevski told them they were welcome to wait inside the garage, but Sigrid and Knight decided to poke around the small town instead.

It had rained during the night and heavy gray clouds overhead promised more, but they left the car parked near the berth of the Margie Q and walked up the main street, a tree-lined thoroughfare that led directly from the waterfront. They walked past two pharmacies, a bank, a grocery, and a tackle shop-the usual small town assortment-and paused before a window full of what would be antiques over in the Hamptons but were here unpretentiously labeled Frank's Used Furniture.

They had excellent coffee in the Chowder Bowl, browsed through the reduced book table at the Inglenook Book Shop, and read all the tombstones in the tiny graveyard surrounding the Mantausic Anglican Church at the end of First Street.

Beyond lay a marshy area that had been designated a wildlife refuge for sea birds. Knight was ready to explore it, but Sigrid became uneasy whenever her feetl eft concrete, so they turned back.

It was a little past eleven.

They crossed to the other side of the street and Knight paused in front of the Lobster Pot Café. "Want another coffee?"

"Not really."

"Too bad they don't have a movie or something."

"You didn't have to come," Sigrid reminded him.

"I wanted to come. I just didn't know we'd have to hang around doing nothing for three hours in the world's most boring town."

"Why don't you buy a paper and go read in the car?" she suggested, drifting on to the next shop.

It was a small beauty parlor with a dozen or more sun-faded pictures in the windows of an eclectic range of hair styles, from rock punk to country club conservative.

"That cut would look good on you," said Alan, pointing to a multilayered style very short on the top and what looked like a rattail hanging down the back.

Mantausic on a gray Tuesday morningd id not seem to have provided the fortyish 'tyoman inside the shop with any customers and she peered out at them with a hopeful air. Sigrid shook her head.

"What makes you so afraid of looking feminine?" Alan asked curiously. "Worried that you can't command if the troops find out you're a woman? Or that Oscar Nauman will wrestle you to the nearest bed?"

"Don't be an ass," she snapped and started past.

Possessed by a sudden spurt of mischief, he grabbed her free hand and brashly tugged her into the shop. "Good morning," he caroled before Sigrid could protest. "Do you have time to style my friend's hair?"

"I think I can work her in," the woman answered solemnly. "Let's see. Yes, I believe station three has just opened up."

To Knight's complete surprise, Sigrid strolled over to that chair and sat down without any argument.

"You'll really do it?" he asked, stu

"And a cut," said Alan Knight, refusing to give up.

"And a cut," Sigrid agreed serenely. "I usually take about an inch off every month, but that's something else I can't do with my arm out of commission."

The beautician began pulling pins from the braided bun at the nape of Sigrid's neck. "Did you break your arm?" she asked in a sympathetic tone.

"I meant a real cut," Alan protested. "Throw away your inhibitions.

"Go away, Alan," Sigrid said. "I'm not going to have you stand there and nag me for the next forty minutes. Go torpedo something in the bay."

"A real cut," Alan begged the beautician. "Something wild and completely different."

"I'll meet you back at the car," Sigrid said in a voice that brooked no further argument.

He went.:

The beautician loosened the thick braid. "Your hair's as fine as babys ilk. Doesn't hold much curl either, does it?"

She lifted the soft dark mass in her capable hand and looked at Sigrid in the mirror, considering the younger woman's thin face, high forehead, and wide gray eyes.

"Have you ever worn bangs?" she asked.

At 12:35, the car door opened and Sigrid got in beside him. Alan Knight lowered his newspaper and his jaw dropped.

"Don't say a word!" Sigrid said in a strangled voice. "Not a single word. I mean it, Alan."

A light misting rain had begun and Sigrid stared through the windshield, straight out at the steel gray water. One of the half-day charter boats had returned but it was not the Margie Q.

"Couldn't I please say just one word?"

"Well?"

"Wow!" he breathed.

She looked at him anxiously. "Honest? Do you like it?" f

"It's terrific," he assured her. "God, it looks great! I can't believe you really did it."

Gone was the bun and the pulled-back severity. The silky dark hair was now feathered and full on top and very short on the sides and back. Wisps of bangs softened her high forehead. Freed of the heavy mass of hair, the newly defined shape of her head sat more elegantly on her long neck.

She ran the tips of her fingers through the ragged bangs experimentally. "It's going to be easier to take care of, I think. Ida showed me how to use a blow-dryer to give it more body."

"Ida?"

"The beautician. She was really rather nice."

"I bet she could sell Chryslers to the Japanese," said Alan, peering at her more closely. In the overcast daylight, it was hard to tell. "Are you wearing blusher?"

"What do you know about blusher?"

"My six sisters," he reminded her. "And is that eye shadow too?"

Sigrid tilted the rearview mirror so shec ould examine her face. "It's not too much, is it? I've never felt comfortable with makeup before, but Ida took some of the mystery out of these things."

She opened the pink plastic bag she'd brought from the shop to show Knight an assortment of small bottles and tubes.

"I always thought you had to use a lot and I hated all that thick goop. It's the first time anybody's ever explained the theory to me," she confessed almost shyly. "Ida says there are books in the library."

He was touched by her delight in her new look yet he couldn't help laughing. "Trust you to approach the frivolity of makeup in a rational, systematic way."

"I don't have six sisters," she replied with some of her usual tartness.

Ahead of them out in the bay, the shape of a trim little fishing boat emerged from the foggy gray of sky and water.

The Margie Q was heading in.

Val Sutton had remembered Victor Earle as short and getting thin ont op. Seventeen years later, Earle was completely bald. Even his eyebrows were scanty. All the hair on his head seemed to have repositioned itself around his mouth. His top lip supported a thick brown handlebar moustache that swirled out with exuberant panache on either side of his mouth. He had very pale blue eyes and a disconcerting stare.