Area of Suspicion [antikvár]

Chapter 1HiiiniiiHiiiiBiiaiiinH^^^I woke with the feeling of disorientation an unfamiliar bed gives you, woke in a room too small, and too still. It took long seconds to remember this was George Tarleson's cruiser, the "Vunderbar," to remember I had borrowed it yesterday noon, Saturday noon, teUing George I had fishing on my mind. Actually my motive had been to get away from the Tarleson's usual noisy week-end house party.My bachelor beach cottage is a few hundred yards from their big house at Indian Rocks Beach. It is a good little party house, and when I bought it four years ago, I wanted the gay lifeand got it. The cottage was the setting for a party that lasted one year. The personnel changed, but the party went on. For the next two years the parties were shorter, but just as loud. I endured tiiem. During this past year, my fourth in Florida, I tried to escape whenever possible.So yesterday noon I had borrowed the cabin cruiser from George, and cast off just in time to avoid the unwanted company of a brown and Bikinied maiden who had decided it would be joUy to shanghai herself. She stood in pigeon-toed wistfulness on the dock and watched me out of sight.I trolled north, glad to be alone, and at dusk I found a secluded, mangrove-bordered bay near Dunedin Isles and dropped the hook far enou^i from shore to avoid the bugs.So this was an April Sunday and I had slept long and well. I pulled on swimming trunks and padded out onto deck. The day was stiU and gray and silver. Mullet leaped and the ripples circled outward. The water was clear and deep. I balanced on the stem rail and dived, and the water washed away the last mistiness of long hard sleep. I swam straight and fast until I was winded, then rolled and floated. The "Vunderbar" was a blue and white toy resting on a display window mirror. This year I was sun-darkened, as during other years, to the shade5I I