Larry closed the door. “Are we being too obvious?” he fretted.
“Nobody seems to be paying attention,” Julia answered. Her tone was indifferent. “They’re wrapped in their personal troubles and fears. I’ve noticed for a long time, even in ordinary life, how few people are really aware of what happens outside their own skins.”
Larry glared at a wall. “Haverner, though. His electronics somewhere behind that pretty paper, recording for him to listen. I don’t like that.”
“Nor I. But we can’t do much about it, can we? And after all, it’s his whole purpose in bringing us here. To observe. We won’t hurt our cause with him by furnishing him data. I don’t believe the information will go any further.”
“Is what you just said a data too?”
Julia laughed. “Yes. And by the way, dear, the singular is ‘datum.’ ”
“Okay,” Larry said. “Here’s another datum for you, Haverner. You are a turd.”
He cast himself into a chair. His neck drooped; his shoulders slumped. “The worst is,” he mumbled, “I’ve become the same.”
“No, Larry. Never.” Julia came to stand beside him. She stroked his hair. “What happened? You beat a man, a younger man, in a fight. He was ready to hurt you, wasn’t he?”
“I picked that fight. You helped. We planned it.”
“For Kilby. For Morgana le Fay and the saving of the oceans. And maybe for survival. I tell you, Byron Shaddock is dangerous to more than our pocketbooks, quite likely to our lives. Or he was, till you cut him down to size. At worst, if I’m mistaken about him, he took an undeserved beating. He’ll soon recover. Innocent bystanders always suffer in war, and this is a kind of war we’re in, isn’t it?” Julia laid hands along his jaw and raised his face. “Lord, Lord, Larry,” she breathed, “how lucky that you’re strong!”
He reached to enfold her waist and lay his cheek on her belly. “I need you worse’n you need me, Julia.” But when he tried to unzip her dress, she stopped him.
“Not yet. You’ve something left to do this night.”
“What?” he asked, weakly dismayed.
She sat down in the second chair and captured his gaze. “We’re not through. You want justice for Orestes, don’t you? And safety for us. That means finding out for certain who shot him, and why, and where the gun is.”
His countenance tightened. “Yeah.”
“We haven’t eliminated Matthew Flagler. In fact, he’s the likeliest of the lot, at any rate as the actual killer.”
“What’m I supposed to do? Give him the same treatment? I’m pretty sure he’d pull a switchblade if the gun wasn’t handy.”
“There’s Gayle. They have a relationship going.”
“I wondered—”
“I didn’t. I knew from the start. It’s obvious. Equally obvious is that it’s his idea and she’s frightened and miserable.” Larry winced. “Poor kid.”
“You two were making beautiful music together for a while, weren’t you?” It was hardly a question.
“Well, uh …”
Julia stroked his arm and smiled. “I’m not jealous. You’re mine now, and that’s what counts. But I’d like to see Gayle made happier.”
“Hey, wait!” Larry cried.
“If you went to her, right away, while Matt’s downstairs in his drunken stupor, and treated her kindly, she’d tell you what she knows.”
“But … no, darling, you can’t mean it.”
She fended off his hands. “Can and do, lover,” she snapped. “It’s absolutely necessary to us, and it’ll help her. You can go to her, and I’ll wait for you here. Or you can go, but not to her, and you needn’t bother coming back. Take your choice.”
Larry regarded her for an entire minute. The window was now full of stars. Against the light in the chamber they showed small and cold.
Julia gentled with a slow smile. “ ‘The female of the species is more deadly than the male,’ ” she said low. “Conceded.” Then, urgent once more: “But will you concede that deadliness is the name of this game?” She got him to his feet, kissed him at length, smacked him between the shoulderblades. “On your way, lad.”
Gayle had asked for sandwiches to be brought her, had eaten them and fallen back into troubled sleep. The soft knocking hauled her from it. She sat up amidst tangled sheets in darkness and called, “No, Matt. Please. Tomorrow. Please. Please.”
“Larry here,” came the muted answer. “Let me in, will you?”
“Matt—” She shuddered.
“Passed out. He won’t count for anything till morning, I’m certain. Gayle, I’ve got to talk to you.”
She switched on the bedside lamp, made an uneven way to the door, and admitted him. He shut it as soon as he was through and turned the latch. For a space they stood breathing. He was still in sports clothes. She had the same nightgown she wore when first she sought him; but it was crumpled and there were stains on it.
“Julia throw you out?” she asked shrilly.
“I, uh, I’ve missed you,” he said.
She collapsed into his embrace. He led her to the bed, sat down and held her till she had finished sobbing.
Finally she blew her nose, dabbed at eyes gone red and puffy, said with a forlorn giggle and several hiccoughs, “Oh, my, I bet I look like billy hell.”
Larry grimaced above her head and hugged the plump shoulders. “You’ll always look good to me, Gayle.”
“L-l-let’s share a joint.”
“Fine. Thanks.”
They took chairs and passed the twisted cylinder back and forth. At each exchange their fingers brushed more lingeringly, and she pressed her knee against his. Before long the room was full of the harsh smell, and a measure of peace had come upon her.
“Sweet Jesus, I’ve been scared, Larry.”
“Why?” he insisted.
She squirmed. “Well, Matt, he’s, he’s a scary type. I mean, well, he wants what he wants, when an’ how he wants it, an’ he’ll hit you, an’ wave that knife o’ his around, if you don’t …”
“Bad, huh?”
She took a long draught. “What he makes me do, well, sure, I don’t believe God’ll punish us or anything, but most of it I don’t like—I’d throw up if I dared—and some of it hurts.” She gave him the reefer. “Oh, Jesus, how glad I am you’re back!”
He was not inhaling the smoke, a fact unobservable from outside. “Why do you stand for it?” he demanded. “You could come to me or—or Haverner himself—and ask for protection.”
“Well, I, I …” She sucked frantically on the roach. It burned her. She dropped it.
He leaned forward, laid hands on her thighs, and said, “I want to help you, Gayle. We could become partners again, maybe.” He swallowed. “Well, at the very least, I want to help you out of this swamp you’ve fallen into. But you’ve got to cooperate. Understand? You’ve got to trust me.”
And the story spilled from her.
In Julia’s room he concluded bleakly, “I told her to play along for the time being. Do no good if we came straight out and accused El—Nordberg and Flagler—would it? They’d deny everything, and Gayle’s life wouldn’t be worth a second mortgage on Haverner’s soul.”
“Right.” The tall woman nodded where she stood athwart the midnight in a window. “Did you tell her to try wheedling from him the hiding place of that rifle?”
“No. I didn’t think of that.”
“Probably just as well. She’s no actress. He could see through her and … We’ll have to do something. I’m not sure what. But if they were prepared to commit one murder for the prize, they won’t stop at a second or third.”
Julia shook back her hair, came to him, took his hands and brushed her lips across his. “Good work, though, you lovely boat bum,” she said. “We know who the enemy is, who to beware of, and that’s a long forward step. Your doing!” She paused. “Now we’d better get some sleep. We have to be fresh for Nordberg’s test. He said breakfast at nine, and it’s almost two.”
<
br /> “I s’pose,” he muttered.
She cocked her head. “Troubles? You’ve done marvelously. And there’s a way of getting sleepy, you know, the best in the world.”
He shook his. “No. Thanks.”
“Too tired? How understandable. Never mind, dearest. Tomorrow.”
His voice plodded. “Not that. I mean, I did have to convince Gayle I’m on her side, didn’t I? It turned out that involved screwing her.”
Julia’s chuckle was tender. “I’m glad. She needed to be screwed by someone who cares how she feels.”
“But I’m not used up,” Larry said. He stood passive in her presence, in the night. He might almost have been a small boy trying to explain to his mother how he had come to do wrong. “It’s that … proceeding straight on to you … would make things worse. I don’t know why, but it would. I’m going after a drink, and I’ll take it to bed with me—my bed—and hope it’ll relax me till I can sleep.”
He turned from her. Gripping the doorknob, he said, “I’d feel better, Julia, if I hadn’t been able to make it with her tonight.”
ELLIS NORDBERG
Therefore wait ye upon me, saith the LORD, until the day that I rise up to the prey: for my determination is to gather the nations, that I may assemble the kingdoms, to pour upon them mine indignation, even all my fierce anger: for all the earth shall be devoured with the fire of my jealousy.
Who’d have thought to hear words out of Zephaniah from the pulpit of a barebones church on a forgotten island, or expected majesty like that in the dialect of a half-breed preacher? That was a good sermon he gave on the text, too. He really laid it on the line. I wish I could have gone to hear him again this Sunday.
I truly do, Lord. You know I don’t often miss a chance to attend divine service. If the chances come kind of seldom these days, why, that’s because you keep me busy. You want me to prosper, for an example of your mercy and to become able to do your work in this world.
For that which I am about to receive, I thank you, Lord, in the name of Jesus Christ our Saviour. Amen. You understand why I can’t say grace aloud at the table of the heathen. You read it in my heart, every meal. I am a miserable sinner and not worthy, of course, but you are always with me, you deliver me from evil, because I am your servant.
Light sheens off the silver coffeepot as the waitress pours for me. I’m first at breakfast. It’s sunny outside, Sabbath quiet, most of the staff gone to chapel in town. I don’t do wrong to take my turn on Sunday, do I? You made those cards come up the way you wanted them. It’s actually a sign that my day is yours, isn’t it?
A clatter. Blast it, can’t people be decently quiet in the morning? Gayle Thayer comes in. “Hello,” she says. I only nod. That woman doesn’t rate courtesy; still, I’d better stay polite till I can figure how to get rid of her. Matt could doubtless handle it, but that’d make him still more of a problem in himself…. They deserve each other, those two, the hairy swine and the fat sow, honeying and stewing over the nasty sty. (Funny how that line of Shakespeare sticks in my mind. Mainly he’s overrated, a windbag.) The wicked shall feel the wrath.
She looks happier than she did, these past days. Maybe because he was too besotted to come to her last night? Or—she simpers when Rance appears. “La-a-rree-ee!” What’s been going on?
He doesn’t give her more than a grunt. He brushes past her, prowls to the French doors, stands looking out. I can see how tense he is. Well, me too. My heart flaps and my ribs prickle. This is my day. It is, isn’t it? Unless that miserable Shaddock puts things off.
Here he comes, limping. From Glamor Boy to Wounded Hero. You can practically hear him creak, though no injuries show. He stops cold when he sees Rance, who turns about. Silence stretches and stretches between them.
Julia Petrie! I don’t believe she arrives at this exact minute by accident, that witch. She lays a hand over Shaddock’s. “How are you, Byron?” Oh, she really knows how to sound concerned, that cunning, cunning harlot. She doesn’t want any delays either. So we’re on the same team right now, Julia. I’m rooting for you as hard as x many men have rooted in you.
“I’ll live,” Shaddock says with his Errol Flynn leer, “in spite of not being terribly enthusiastic at the prospect.”
Rance clears his throat and shuffles his feet. His mistress. (I’m not blind) maneuvers for him. “That was a dreadful thing yesterday,” she says. “Can’t we make it up before it festers worse?”
“Well,” Rance says, and he must have rehearsed his lines with her, “I’m sorry it happened, Byron. We both flew off the handle, right?”
“I tried to observe a few elementary decencies,” Ivy League tells him.
“Well, I wasn’t sure. I mean, a fight to me’s not a, uh, sporting event, it’s something to get over as fast as may be. I suppose I should’ve realized you might see the matter different. I tried not to hurt you badly.” Rance is not an experienced hypocrite. But he’s learning.
The Petrie woman is in charge anyway. “I’m afraid I owe you both an apology. I lay awake the whole night, or so it felt, [like fun you did, sister!] trying to figure out what went wrong, and the more I thought, the more it seemed my words, my actions, provoked you both. Before God, I’d no such intention! [The Lord will remember how you take his name in vain.] But there the horrible result was. Must we fall apart?” she whines. “Can’t we be civilized human beings again? No prize is worth what we’ve been doing to ourselves.”
So she gets them to shake hands, and she sits down between them, opposite me. Larry, by quick footwork, puts himself on her right, next to Haverner’s empty place. That way he avoids having to sit by Gayle, who’s at the foot of the table as usual and watching him like a … a brat outside a candy store, I guess.
But I can’t hold back. “Do you feel up to playing today, Byron?” I ask. My heart bumps.
He rubs his forehead. “Pretty woozy, I’m afraid.”
“That needn’t make any difference,” I say. Julia’s glance crosses mine. She knows better.
“If you possibly could, Byron,” she oozes, “it’d be one day less for us all.”
No doubt she composed Rance’s line. “Don’t lean on him, Julia. Frankly, in his condition, I doubt if I’d be man enough to play.”
Shaddock flushes (under the sunburn that Commie bequeathed to us. Mine still feels hot, and it’s begun to itch, and I hope you enjoy yourself, Orestes Cruz, looking up from hell). She soothes him. After a minute or two of wheedling, he yelps, “All right! All right!” She kisses his cheek, the she-Judas.
York escorts Haverner in. I’m the only one who’s not surprised at this first breakfast appearance of his. He must have figured out what’s coming and wants to witness the confounding of mine enemy.
We rise while he is seated. What a head he’s got! If you think of him as human, he’s pretty hideous, but you mustn’t. Inhuman, he’s beautiful, like an eagle, the eagle of John; and the computer inside that skull …!
I gather he’s not a Christian. Nevertheless the Lord has seen fit to make him mighty upon the earth, even as Cyrus was made mighty to free Israel, as Augustus was so there’d be a Roman peace wherein the words of our Saviour could be heard. My Cyrus, my Augustus. “Good morning, Mr. Haverner.”
If only he’d join me in some projects, once I have his million, once I’ve shown him what I can do. He never had children, did he? Is he maybe sifting men in search of a worthy heir?
Since everybody’s here, except for Matt who’s sleeping it off, the servants take our orders and bring us our food. “You will be playing today, then?” Haverner asks.
“Yes, fortunately,” I say. “The material I wanted is on hand, isn’t it?”
“Indeed. At your disposal.”
The three rivals I have left grow tight where they sit facing me. “When do we start?” Rance wants to know.
“Directly after breakfast,” I tell him. That’s when we start. And that’s when you finish, Rance.
None of them eat or speak
a lot.
After my third cup of coffee, I say, “Does everyone feel ready?” May as well be polite. Julia can’t quite hide the stiffness of her nod. “Where do we go?” she says.
“We stay here for the first round,” I reply. “Mr. Haverner?”
He signals to York, who goes out.
Triumph beats in my temples. “I’ve planned a couple of very simple, fair games,” I hear myself announce. “Nothing that you can’t do if you put your minds to it.”
York comes back and sets a bowl in front of Haverner. (The Islandman still looks shocked. I wonder how he can be religious and not rejoice that we’re afflicted with one less godless Communist.) The bowl is full of assorted nut meats.
“Help yourselves,” I invite.
Rance jumps nearly out of his seat. “No!”
“That’s the first round.” I meet his eyes and know I am his master. “Each of us eats a one-fourth part of this dish.”
He collapses back into the chair. For a minute Julia is as horrified as him. But she’s quick to mask her feelings, except that she caresses his arm, shameless before us all. Byron doesn’t get the idea at once, he’s dullwitted and pain-distracted for sure, but he’s grimly pleased to see his rival shaken. Gayle puts hand to mouth and squeaks, “Larry, honey, what’s wrong?” Haverner—who can read Haverner?
“You son of a bitch,” Larry whispers.
He whirls on our host and bawls, “I can’t! I’m allergic to nuts! This bastard knows it. He … yes, he must’ve slipped some grated nut meat into my eggs, a week ago, to test—I wondered—it’s not fair!”
“You made me risk my life in the surf,” I remind him, and smile, because I’ve already gotten this test approved. “Youth and experience were on your side then. If chemistry [and the Lord, the Lord] is on my side now, you’ve got no complaint coming.”
He babbles at Haverner. Adulteress Julia takes his part in a more reasonable style. But of course the eagle head shakes; the desert voice answers, “It is legitimate. You would not be fatally stricken, would you, Mr. Rance?”
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