Part 17 (1/2)
”I don't know. I guess I was guilty of something, all right. I mean when somebody is attracted to you, you know about it. And it feels good to be admired that way. So you... respond to it. Do you know what I mean? It changes the way you look at the other person, and the way you walk when you walk away from them, and it changes the pitch of your voice when you laugh. So I guess... those little things would add up, and maybe that's why he did what he did. If he did it.”
”Don't go around looking for guilt.”
”I miss Cal. I miss him every single day of my life. It had gotten to be a rotten marriage, and I miss him terribly.”
”Involvement doesn't have to be good or bad. It just is. It exists. And when it stops, it leaves emptiness.”
”Something happens, and I think how I'll have to tell Cal about that. Then I know I can't. Oh, h.e.l.l.”
She began to weep, without particular emphasis. Gentle tears for a rainy night. When they subsided she began an imitation of need, a faking of desire. But the textures of her mouth were unconvincing. The storm time had worn us both out. I was glad she did not persist, as male pride would have made the responsive effort obligatory. The second storm was upon us, the wet wind blowing across weary bodies. I covered us with the sheet. The lightning once again took still pictures of the room, of her head on the pillow beside me. After the cras.h.i.+ng downpour turned to a diminis.h.i.+ng rain, she slept. When the rain stopped I slipped out of the bed, closed the draperies, groped my way into my clothes, and left without awakening her, testing the door to be sure it had locked behind me.
The storm had knocked the power out. There were stars in half the sky. My eyes were accustomed to darkness. I found the path without difficulty and walked between the black shapes of shrubbery, down the slope past the office, and out onto the dock.
Meyer had locked the Flush and gone to bed. I found the right key by touch. In the darkness of the lounge I gave my left s.h.i.+n a nasty rap against the new coffee table. I limped to the head and, by darkness, took a long hot sudsy shower. The great bed swallowed me up like a toad flicking a fly into the black belly.
Fifteen.
BY THE time I came out to fix my breakfast, Meyer was having his second cup of coffee. ”You are running for office?” he asked.
”I thought you knew I owned a white s.h.i.+rt and a tie.”
”I guess I'd forgotten.”
”I want to look safe and plausible.”
”To whom?”
I poured my orange juice and selected a handful of eggs.
”Five eggs?” he asked.
”These are the super supreme extra large eggs, which means they are just a little bit bigger than robin eggs. Stop all this idle criticism and take a look at the back of my head, please. I took the dressing off.”
I sat on my heels. He came from the booth and stood behind me and turned my head toward the light. ”Mmm. Looks sort of like the st.i.tching on a baseball. Nice and clean, though. No redness that I can see.”
He went back to his coffee. I broke the eggs into the small skillet, sliced some sharp cheddar and dropped it in, chopped some mild onion and dropped it in, folded that stuff in with a fork, took a couple of stirs, and in a couple of minutes it was done.
When I sat down to my breakfast Meyer said, ”You were saying?”
”I'm saying something new now. We've been playing with a short deck. With a card missing, the tricks won't work. Maybe it is a variation of your invisible planet theory. I'll describe the missing card to you. The Van Harn airplane comes winging through the blue, and in the late afternoon it spots the Bertram off the north sh.o.r.e of Grand Bahama, as before. There are eight or nine bags of gage, plastic-wrapped to keep the water out. They are about a hundred pounds each. Van Harn makes a big circle at an alt.i.tude of a couple of hundred feet. The circle is big so that each time he comes around, Carrie has time to pull and tug and wrestle one of the bags to the pa.s.senger door and shove it out on his signal. That would be the way to do it, right? Nine pa.s.ses. They hope to drop them close enough so they can be picked up quickly with a little maneuvering and a boat hook. Cal Birdsong and Jack Omaha are busily and happily hooking the bags aboard. Probably Birdsong is running the boat and Omaha is doing the stevedore job. Van Harn and Carrie are having a dandy time too. A little bit of adventure, a nice piece of money, and all the bugs have been worked out of the system. The payoff is big. Have you got the picture?”
”It seems plausible. What are you getting at?”
”Cindy told me that a week before he died Cal had a nightmare about something falling out of the sky and killing him.”
I saw Meyer's face change. I saw the comprehension, the nod, the pursing of lips.
”One drop was too good,” he said.
”And Jack Omaha was careless. He wasn't watching. He was maybe leaning to get the boat hook into a floating bag. There would be a h.e.l.l of a lot of impact. A good guess would be that it hit him in the back of the head and snapped his neck. And all of a sudden it wasn't a party any more. It wasn't fun any more.”
Nodding, Meyer spoke in an introspective monotone. ”So Birdsong wired weights to the body and dropped it into the deeps, after dark. Van Harn flew back to the ranch with Carrie. When Birdsong was due in, she was waiting here at the marina with one of the little panel trucks. Birdsong loaded the sacks into the truck. They got their stories straight. She drove to Fifteen Hundred where the truck was unloaded and Walter J. Demos paid her off. She drove the truck down to Superior Building Supplies. She had probably left her car there. She put the money into the safe and took her share, because she knew the game was over. And she brought her share to you to hold. Travis, how do you read Van Harn's reaction?”
”Sudden total terror. I don't think the money mattered one d.a.m.n to him any more. Marrying Jane Schermer would take care of the money problem forevermore. He knew he had been taking a stupid chance, perhaps rebelling against a career of fronting for Uncle Jake and his good old boys. He would know that if it all came out, it would finish him. It wasn't a prank. He was involved in the death of a prominent local man while committing a felony. Good old Jack Omaha of Rotary, Kiwanis, and the Junior Chamber. He wouldn't even keep his ticket to practice law. So I think that all of a sudden he was very anxious to please Uncle Jake.”
”The eyewitnesses were Carrie Milligan and Cal Birdsong.”
”Exactly, Meyer. A hustling lady and a drunk. I just thought of something else: Freddy's matinee with Chris Omaha. There probably isn't a better way of finding out how much the lady knows about anything. He wanted to know how much Jack had told her about the smuggling, or if he had told her anything at all. He evidently hadn't.”
”And the burgled apartment?” Meyer said.
”Same reason. Find and remove any written evidence.”
”What about Joanna and the bomb?”
”That won't make any sense until we know more.”
”If you can ever make sense out of a bomb. The Irish tried it. Except for the people getting killed, it's turned into a farce to amuse the world. The Irish have forgotten why they set off bombs, if indeed they ever knew. It's probably because there's so d.a.m.ned little else to do in that dreary land.”
”You won't be popular in Ireland.”
”I've never had any urge to go back, thank you.”
”Joanna came aboard bearing goodies. A little feast left off at the cottage for her. Meyer, we were both moving toward her as she started to open the box. If she had been a string-saver, a careful untier of knots, we'd both be dead. But she was the rip and tear type. G.o.d, I can still smell the stink of explosion in here.”
”I know. It's a little less every day.”
After I finished off the eggs, I answered his first question. ”I am going to visit the brilliant young attorney at his place of business. And I may have to see Judge Schermer. And I may have to see the Judge's niece.”
”With what objective?”
”Application of pressure.”
”What do you want me to do?”
”Be right here where I can get you if and when I need you.”
Cindy Birdsong was alone in the office when I walked up there from the docks. She got up from the desk and came around the end of the counter quickly, then glanced guiltily out of each of the windows before tiptoeing to be kissed. A brief kiss, but very personal and empathic. ”You sneaked away,” she said.
”Like a thief in the night.”
”I slept like dead. I woke up and didn't know where I was or who I was, darling.”
”I'll try to keep track.”
She became more brisk and businesslike as she backed away from me. ”Something strange, Travis. Jason was supposed to tend the office this morning. Ollie says he isn't around. And Ritchie has got some kind of a bug.”