Part 16 (1/2)
”Is that a good thing to have?”
”They have finished the noisy parts of repairing the Flush. I think I better pay my motel bill and move my toothbrush back to the boat.”
She showed quick sharp dismay and disappointment before she caught herself. ”Anything you wish, dear.”
”If you want to bring a small portable fire extinguisher, I'll talk Meyer into cooking some of his renowned chili tonight.”
”That would be nice,” she said, forcing it.
”Anything wrong?”
”Nothing at all, thank you.”
”Are you sure?”
”Certainly I'm sure!”
There is no going past that point. All the roads are barricaded and all the bridges are blown. The fields are mined and the artillery has every sector zeroed in.
So I went and moved my toothbrush and accessories out of the unit, went to the front, and paid a fat lady my acc.u.mulated charges. She asked me if I was feeling better, and I said I was feeling just great. She said, ”It's so nice that Mrs. Birdsong has a friend nearby in her time of need. Have you known her long?”
”A very long time.”
”He drank, you know.”
”Yes. Cal drank.”
”In a way, it's a blessing.”
”There are a lot of ways of looking at everything, I guess.”
”Oh, yes, that's so true.”
A small fire fight, with no decision. Both sides retreated.
When I got to the boat, the gla.s.s people had arrived. There were four of them, in white coveralls, with the pieces all cut to size, tempered gla.s.s for marine use. The foreman said they would be through by four at the latest. Jason and Meyer were celebrating the completion of the vinyl job on the sun deck by having a cold beer in the shade of the canopy over the topside control panel. I inspected the job and gave my approval. I am skeptical of all of the so-termed marvelous advances of science. And I am suspicious of anything which tries to look like something it isn't. Thus it would seem that a coal-tar derivative patterned to look like bleached teak would turn me totally off. But it is so d.a.m.ned practical. If you should ever have an artery which can't be repaired, it can be replaced with woven Dacron. And, wearing that in your gut, it would be unseemly to go about muttering about the plastic world full of plastic people.
So I stand on my plastic deck and mutter whatever I please. When did I make any claim about being consistent? Or even reasonable?
I went below and checked out my stereo set. I put on the new record, Ruby Braff and George Barnes. It is nice to have one that is just out and know that it is destined to become one of the great jazz cla.s.sics. I knew I had lost one speaker. I suspected I had lost more. Delicate microcircuitry cannot take that kind of explosive compression. When the noise came out, sounding like someone gargling a throatful of crickets, I snapped it off in haste.
Back to the shop. No new components. Get the Marantz stuff fixed. I did not think I could placidly endure another gleaming salesman tell me that I had to have quadraphony sound, coming at me from all directions. I have never felt any urge to stand in the middle of a group of musicians. They belong over there, d.a.m.n it, and I belong over here, listening to what they are doing over there. Music that enfolds you, coming from some undetectable set of sources, is gimmicky, unreal, and eminently forgettable.
Jason went back to work his turn in the office. Meyer and I made some sardine sandwiches. He was glad to learn I was back aboard for good. We out at the booth in the galley and ate. And compared notes and reports.
”We are absolutely nowhere,” Meyer said.
”A perfect summary.”
”Are you sure you feel okay?”
”Don't I look okay?”
”Gla.s.sy. You stare at me in a... goggly way.”
”Come to think of it, I feel goggly and gla.s.sy.”
”Just this minute. Or...”
”Most of the time. The light seems too bright.”
”When the windows are done-”
”The ports.”
”When the windows are done, we could go.”
”Home?”
”And forget this whole mess, Travis.”
”Tempting. Who are we supposed to be, going around finding out who did what and why?”
”That's why they have police.”
”Right!”
We beamed at each other, but we both knew we were talking nonsense. The habit of involvement is not easily broken. It is even more pervasive than the habit of noninvolvement, the habit of walking away when the action starts.
I told him we couldn't leave because we had a guest coming for dinner. I told him he was cooking chili.
Fourteen.
WE THREE had sat with tears running down our cheeks and told each other in choked voices that the chili was truly delicious. She and Meyer had cleaned up, telling me that I was still on semnvalid status.
By the time they were through, there was a large dark night outside, wide as a country, high as the stars, and hot with the night winds of June.
We killed the lights and went topside to a shadowed part of the sun deck, out of the reach of dock lights. The sky was pink orange over Bayside, all its outdoor advertising glowing against a mist made of hydrocarbon fartings of trucks and other vehicles. We aligned deck chairs on the newly repaired decking so as to look out at the stars over the Atlantic. We were into the rainy season now. The night of June tenth. Bulbous black lay low to the southeast, sullenly flickering an unseen artillery of lightning.
She on my left, Meyer on my right, the night alr stirring across us and then fluttering back to stillness. Her hand had crept over to my thigh, wtealthily, nudged a welcome, and was enclosed my my hand, unseen by Meyer, as if we were children in church. With my thumb I rubbed the thick warm pads at the base of her fingers. I wondered if she had been told or had guessed that her husband had not died of natural causes. They would have to tell her, sooner or later, no matter how pessimistic the law felt about catching whoever had done it. Harry Max Scorf had indicated quite plainly that she was on his list of suspects. Though I knew her very well in certain limited ways, I knew her not at all in many aspects. But I could not imagine her killing in that stealthy way, jabbing a wire into the great chest while the king slept.
Harry Max Scorf, in a dogged and plodding pattern, would have long since established the ident.i.ty of every person who could have gotten close to Cal Birdsong long enough to do him in.
”It always seems such a waste when it rains way out there,” she said. ”Sort of badly managed, to rain into the sea.”
”It's moving this way,” Meyer said. ”But your average thunderstorm has a total life span of fifty-five minutes.”