Part 17 (1/2)

”Well, suppose Pidge does want to sell. It's her boat to do with what she wants. Once repairs are made, I'd like to go over to the Society Islands and the Marquesas, then maybe Easter island, and run from there to Santiago and up the coast, back through the Ca.n.a.l, up through the Straits of Yucatan and home.”

He tried to laugh. ”Hey. You're confusing me. She isn't for sale, McGee. No way.”

”Here's what I'd like you to do, Howie. I've got an open airplane ticket back to Lauderdale. I can turn that over to you. Then Pidge can help me sail the Trepid home.”

”That's a pretty dumb kind of joke there. It really is. I could get sore about something like that. You're talking about my wife.”

”And that offends your sensibilities, Howie? That inflames your sense of righteousness and rect.i.tude?”

”Well... why wouldn't it?”

”No more games, Howie. No more pretend. I got interested in you. I checked you out.”

”Checked me out? For what?”

”Shut up, Howie. You are right at the end of the line.”

”Line?”

”Shut up. I don't have to go into how and when and why. I couldn't get very far into why because only you would, know why. But there are some names I know. Meeker. Rick and Molly Brindle. Dr. Fred Harron. Susan Fahrhowser. Joy Harris. There are a lot of names I don't know, but it doesn't matter, because any one will do. Fred Harron will do. You put that killing on tape, for Tom Collier. Why don't you just fly home on my ticket and talk to Tom?”

He kept the baffled look almost all the way. It slipped just once, and gave me a quick glimpse of what he was. I can remember exactly when I felt that same way before. I was eleven years old. My uncle sent me down to the lake sh.o.r.e for a bucket of water at dawn. My sneakers didn't make a sound on the packed dirt of the trail. The wind was blowing off the lake. The old sow bear was black and huge, drinking at the sh.o.r.e with a pair of cubs. She reared silently, facing me, blotting out all of the sky except the little bit around the edges. She did not move. She looked at me. I could smell her. My bones had turned to stalks of ice, and my heart was empty as smoke. Then she wheeled and dropped, grunted at the cubs, herding them ahead of her, along the sh.o.r.e and up into the alders.

I couldn't tell anyone how it was. They would think it was just a bear. It could kill you, but it was just a bear. It was more than a bear. It was something out of the blackness. It was night. It was evil. It colored that whole year of my life with a taste of despair.

The blackness was there in Howie Brindle, and then it was gone. ”What the h.e.l.l are you talking about, Trav? I mean. This is the weirdest conversation I ever heard anywhere. Tape? Killing? You've spent too much time out in the sun.”

He looked up and past and smiled and said, ”Hi, honey!”

As I turned my head, he hit me. I don't know how or what with. A quiet time of morning. A few people around, and doubtless he knew that n.o.body was looking our way. The sky spun over and around me, and there was a ringing crack of my skull against the stone, a dim and distant roughness against my cheek. Then there were gabblings, excited chatter, with the voices sounding as if they were down in deep barrels. I was jostled, tugged, s.h.i.+fted, then lifted into the air. ”Just show me the way to his room,” a huge voice said. It was a blurred voice with double images, like a badly tuned television set. I was jolted rhythmically as somebody walked with me. Stairs. A rap against the anklebone, which meant a doorway. All my wiring was ripped loose somehow, left in a listless dangle.

”Touch of the sun,” the huge voice said. ”See, he's coming out of it. A little rest is all he needs.”

I was indeed coming out of it. I could wave my putty arms and open my fried eyes. The throng murmured from the bottom of their barrels. Through a doorway. Door slammed behind us. Sits me on the bed, holding s.h.i.+rt bunched in left hand. Glimpse of a big brown fat fist floating toward my face. Turned with it. BAM, with rockets and red glare and so forth. Hang on the edge of the world. Breathe in, breathe out. Stretched on bed. Undoing of b.u.t.tons, undoing of belt. Sandals off. Secret giggling, tucked way inside of me, saying, But sir, we hardly know each other. Hoist naked and carried and put down thumpingly on the tile floor. Cool tile. Bathroom. Thunder of water into the tub. Very strong flow. Fills fast.

Hands grasping again. Take a deep and stealthy breath and let it all out and take another. Out, take another and the cool water closing over me. Hold breath. Legs all upbent, jammed against faucets. Big hand pus.h.i.+ng down on the middle of my chest. Aimless thras.h.i.+ng of arms. Okay. Let some of breath out. Boinking of bubbles in tub water. Face probably a foot under water. Hold the rest of the breath but with mouth open, back of throat closed. Eyes half open? Yes. Wavery brown face above me, parched hair. Heavy pressure of hand gone from chest. Brown face further away. Brown face, brown chest, red pants. Hold entirely still. You can do three minutes, McGee. You claim you can. Don't let the chest start those involuntary heavings, trying for air.

At the very last moment, he turned very swiftly and left the bathroom. I resisted the urge to come lunging up out of the tub. I put my nose and mouth out into the air, into the sweet, delicious, beautiful air and lifted further, breathing deeply, until my ears were out. I heard him talking. ”He's coming around fine, thank you. Just fine. I'll tell him you asked.” A man answered, and I heard the door close, and I sank back to the same position as before, but this time good for three minutes more if need be.

I don't think the inspection lasted more than ten seconds. But I remained under. I sneaked up for air finally, then went under again. That little turn ahead of the slow-motion fist had softened the BAM just enough. Play it safe, McGee, or the bear will get you for sure.

It took time and courage to climb out of that tub. He was gone. I tottered out and locked my door and sat on my bed. I lay back on my bed. My head had begun to ache, the whole left side of it where it had been hit, twice by him and once by the stone of the terrace.

When I left his room he was just fine. I should have stayed with him. I guess he must have decided a cool bath would make him feel better. He got in and... pa.s.sed out again. I blame myself for this. I thought he was perfectly all right... Impulse and opportunity. The sow bear had had a chance at me and didn't take it.

What now, hero? Rescue the maiden. How? And did she want to be rescued, to be jolted miserably upon her caudal end against the silver-worked saddle of the rescuing knight as they hie away into the sunset?

First find the maiden fair. No. First identify that little tune he kept humming as the tub was filling. b.u.m-de-dum-b.u.m, b.u.m-de-dum-b.u.m, b.u.m b.u.m b.u.m b.u.m b.u.m. Oh, h.e.l.l. Of course. ”On, Wisconsin.” Also any high school which happened to steal the tune. On, Shamokin. On, Poughkeepsie.

Get up! Why? So he can get another chance to kill you, stupid!

Eighteen AT FIVE minutes of noon, I finally discovered that the Brindles had gone out, that they were not in the hotel. Everybody asked me how I felt. I said I felt rotten. I said it had been one of those long mornings.

There were two cabs drowsing in the shade, apathetic about any chance of midday trade. I asked if a great big young man with long white hair had left while they were there. The second driver knew-a dollar refreshed his memory. He remembered that they had taken a taxi. Yes, it had turned left out at the end of the hotel driveway.

The other driver shrugged, pointed a thumb skyward, and said, ”Maybe the tram.”

It has happened before. It happens to everyone. That curious miracle inside the skull, when a hundred bits and pieces suddenly stop endless movement and become fixed in a pattern. This was the far end of the world, measuring from the United States. Any incident in a foreign country would receive police attention, professional inspection. This was still part of the United States, but due to the strange channel of authority, it was part of the impenetrable bureaucracy, lost. in committee structures within the Department of the Interior, left to the indifferent mercies of civil servants who have learned, soon after receiving their first rating, that survival depends on always giving the impression of taking action on controversial matters, while actually merely moving papers from desk to desk.

There were doctors in Hawaii and a doctor in Samoa who would confirm mental problems, depression. People around the yacht basin in Honolulu would have been made aware of the problem. Tom Collier would verify, if necessary. There would be a very slow pickup by the news media here, and whenever news is stale, coverage is meager or nonexistent. Depressed heiress to treasure fortune jumps off a Polynesian mountain after prior suicide attempts.

I laid a five-dollar bill upon the palm of the driver and asked him how quickly he could get me to the tram station on Solo Hill. He was under way as I pulled the door shut, saying that it would be no time at all. He was very good. Though he went sideways up a good part of the hill road, he did not lose momentum or traction. I was out of the taxi as the final shriek of brakes and rubber ended. The dark red car was not waiting in its slot. I stared along the down-dangle of cable and up toward the summit, and I did not see it in motion against the blue harbor or the far green slope.

My larcenous acquaintance took my five-dollar bill and gave me two, and went through his nochange charade.

”I think some friends of mine are up there.”

”Yes?”

”A very big man. As tall as I am, but a lot heavier. A very brown face, bald in front, long blond hair. With a young woman.”

”Oh, yes. A big, happy man. Laughing.”

”Are they up there alone?”

He looked at some kind of record on the inside wall of his cubicle. ”Right now, I think, yes, there are nine. Your friends and seven more.”

I tried to exhale completely, to calm myself, but I could not empty the bottom third of my lungs. Too much adrenalin was making me shake and sweat. I knew that if they put the two of us out in the middle of a field, I might just be able to take him. But this was not a time for pride, for n.o.ble games, for a test of skills. I looked around and saw that my driver, evidently reluctant to give up a customer who was making a good day for him in a slow season, had parked in the shade in the turnoff. On request he unlocked his trunk. The lug wrench was the most suitable. It was an L with a short base, with the socket on the base. He looked at me with alarm and disfavor as I tried it on. It fitted down the right leg of the shorts, and with my s.h.i.+rt worn outside the shorts, the socket end, hooked over my belt, was concealed.

”This is not a good thing,” he said.

”What thing?”

”That wrench.”

”Wrench? I asked you to open the trunk so I could see how much luggage you can carry in there. Remember?”

”How much luggage?”

”And I handed you this ten-dollar bill for your trouble. Sorry! I didn't mean to drop it. I suppose that if a man wanted to steal a lug wrench, he could grab it and shove it out of sight while you were picking up that bill.”

The smile started slow and became vast. He bobbed his head. He slammed his trunk. ”As you can see, it is a big trunk. Lot of suitcases.”

”Thanks for showing it to me.” He had a merry smile. With filed teeth and blue tattoos, he could eat you, still smiling.