When I held the lighter, she smiled at me over the flame. “I’m not, as a matter of fact. If you’d asked me for the world’s record Striped Limbo, I’d still have tried to look it up.”

“Then why the book?” I asked.“Your boy friend a fisherman?”

She shook her head. “No, it’s not that. I just wanted to try it.”

“Why?” I asked. She still didn’t look like an outdoor type.

“A man I used to work for. He talked so much about marlin and sailfish I decided if I ever had a chance I’d see what the attraction was. Maybe you could tell me something about the boats.”

“Sure,” I said. “The charter fleet ties up over in Garrison Bight. Along Roosevelt Boulevard, I think it is. Most of them charge sixty a day, but a few are higher. The only one I’ve fished with is Captain Holt, of the Blue Runner. He’s good, and so is his Mate; they’ll put you into fish if anybody will. He charges sixty-five.”

“They’re rather expensive, aren’t they?”

“Nothing’s ever cheap about boats,” I said. “And don’t forget you’re hiring two men all day, plus gasoline, tackle, bait, and so on. Plus a lot of skill you can get only with experience. Are you alone?”

While I was speaking I noticed the same intent expression on her face I’d seen before. It puzzled me. “Oh,” she said abruptly, as if she’d been thinking of something else. “I—yes, I’m alone.”

“Well, look,” I said, “if you want to go out tomorrow, why don’t we team up? It’s a lot less expensive—thirty-two dollars fifty apiece.”

She appeared to think about it. “We-ell—”

”Come on, I’ll buy you a drink,” I told her. “We can talk it over.”

She smiled. “All right.” I helped her up, and gathered up her towel and my robe. She was a little over average height, I noted, and very slender. Too slender, I thought, to attract much attention among all the stacked and sun-gilded flesh lying around on Florida beaches, but she was smart-looking and exquisitely feminine and she moved nicely. She appeared to be around thirty.

The bar was located on a screened porch at one end of the dining-room. It was empty at the moment except for the white-jacketed barman and two men arguing about the Detroit Lions. We sat down at one of the small tables along the screened wall facing the beach. The barman came over. She ordered a Scotch on the rocks, and I asked for a Martini.