Part 28 (1/2)

”Model citizens,” said Bud Schwartz. ”That's us.”

He lowered himself into a walnut captain's chair but stood again quickly, as if the seat were hot. He'd forgotten about the d.a.m.n thing in his pocket until it touched him in the right t.e.s.t.i.c.l.e. Irritably he removed it from his pants and placed it on an end table. He had wrapped it in a blue lace doily.

He said, ”Can we do something with this, please?”

”There's a Mason jar in the cupboard over the stove,” Molly said, ”and some pickle juice in the refrigerator.”

”You're kidding.”

”This is important, Bud. It's evidence.”

In the hall he pa.s.sed Danny Pogue carrying a teapot on a silver tray. ”You believe this s.h.i.+t?” Bud Schwartz said. He held up the doily.

”What now?”

”She wants me to pickle the G.o.dd.a.m.n thing!”

Danny Pogue made a squeamish face. ”What for?” When he returned to the living room, Molly was rocking tranquilly in the chair. He poured the tea and said, ”You must be feeling better.”

”Better than I look.” She drank carefully, watching Danny Pogue over the rim of the cup. In a tender voice she said: ”You don't know what this means to me, the fact that you stayed to help.”

”It wasn't just me. It was Bud, too.”

”He's not a bad person,” Molly McNamara allowed. ”I suspect he's a man of principle, deep down.”

Danny Pogue had never thought of his partner as a man of principle, but maybe Molly had spotted something. While Bud was an incorrigible thief, he played by a strict set of rules. No guns, no violence, no hard drugsa”Danny Pogue supposed that these could be called principles. He hoped that Molly recognized that he, too, had his limitsa”moral borders he would not cross. Later on, when she was asleep, he would make a list.

He said, ”So what are you gonna do now? Stay at it?”

”To tell the truth, I'm not certain.” She put down the teacup and dabbed her swollen lips with a napkin. ”I've had some experts go over Kingsbury's files. Lawyers, accountants, people sympathetic to the cause. They made up a cash-flow chart, ran the numbers up and down and sideways. They say it's all very interesting, these foreign companies, but it would probably take months for the IRS and Customs to sort it out; another year for an indictment. We simply don't have that kind of time.”

”Shoot,” said Danny Pogue. He hadn't said ”shoot” since the third grade, but he'd been trying to clean up his language in Molly's presence.

”I'm a little discouraged,” she went on. ”I guess I'd gotten my hopes up prematurely.”

Danny Pogue felt so lousy that he almost told her about the other files, about the blackmail scam that he and Bud Schwartz were running on the great Francis X. Kingsbury.

He said, ”There's nothing we can do? Just let him go ahead and murder off them b.u.t.terflies and snails?” Molly had given him a magazine clipping about the rare tropical snails of Key Largo.

She said, ”I didn't say we're giving upa””

”Because we should talk to Bud. He”ll think a something.”

”Every day we lose precious time,” Molly said. ”Every day they're that much closer to pouring the concrete.”

Danny Pogue nodded. ”Let's talk to Bud. Bud's sharp as a tack about stuff like thisa””

Molly stopped rocking and raised a hand. ”I heard something, didn't you?”

From the kitchen came m.u.f.fled percussions of a strugglea”men grunting, something heavy hitting a wall, a jar breaking.

Danny Pogue was shaking when he stood up. The b.u.m foot made him think twice about running.

”Hand me the purse,” Molly said. ”I'll need my gun.”

But Danny Pogue was frozen to the pine floor. His eyelids fluttered and his arms stiffened at his side. All he could think was: Somebody's killing Bud!

”Danny, did you hear me? Get me my purse!”

A block of orange appeared in the hallway. It was a tall man in a bright rainsuit and a moldy-looking shower cap. He had a damp silvery beard and black wraparound sungla.s.ses and something red fastened to his neck. The man carried Bud Schwartz in a casual way, one arm around the midsection. Bud Schwartz was limp, gasping, flushed in the face.

Danny Pogue's tongue was as dry as plaster when the stranger stepped out of the shadow.

”Oh, it's you,” Molly McNamara said. ”Now be careful, don't hurt that young man.”

The stranger dropped Bud Schwartz b.u.t.t-first on the pine and said, ”I caught him putting somebody's fingertip in a Mason jar.”

”I'm the one who told him to,” said Molly. ”Now, Governor, you just settle down.”

”What happened to you?” the stranger demanded. ”Who did this to you, Miss McNamara?”

He took off the sungla.s.ses and glared accusingly at Danny Pogue, who emitted a pitiful hissing noise as he shook his head. Bud Schwartz, struggling to his feet, said: ”It wasn't us, it was some d.a.m.n Cuban.”

”Tell me a name,” said the stranger.

”I don't know,” said Molly McNamara, ”but I got a good bite out of him.”

”The finger,” Bud Schwartz explained, still gathering his breath.

The stranger knelt beside the rocking chair and gently examined the raw-looking cuts and bruises on Molly's face. ”This is...intolerable.” He was whispering to himself and no one else. ”This is barbarism.”

Molly touched the visitor's arm and said, ”I'll be all right. Really.”

Bud Schwartz and Danny Pogue had seen men like this only in prison, and not many. Wild was the only way to describe the face...wild and driven and fearless, but not necessarily insane. It would be foolish, perhaps even fatal, to a.s.sume the guy was s.p.a.ced.

He turned to Bud Schwartz and said, ”How about giving me that Cuban's nub.”

”I dropped it on the floor.” Bud Schwartz thought: Christ, he's not going to make me go pick it up, is he?

Danny Pogue said, ”No sweat, I'll find it.”

”No,” said the man in the orange rainsuit. ”I'll grab it on the way out.” He squeezed Molly's hands and stood up. ”Will you be all right?”

”Yes, they're taking good care of me.”

The stranger nodded at Bud Schwartz, who couldn't help but notice that one of the man's eyes was slipping out of the socket. The man calmly reinserted it.

”I didn't mean to hurt you,” he said to Bud Schwartz. ”Well, actually, I did mean to hurt you.”

Molly explained: ”He didn't know you fellows were my guests, that's all.”