Whistler's Angel (The Bannerman Series)

by Maxim, John R.

  He said, “Hmmm.” Non-committal. Still neutral.

  “Okay, wait.”

  She repeated the procedure with the other two blouses, two more intervals of unabashed nudity. All three had long sleeves, open throats, high wide collars. She seldom wore any other cut. She rolled the sleeves to mid-forearm, tucked in the hems, and each time made a slow pirouette for his benefit. The first blouse had been pink, the second, emerald green. The third had blue and white vertical stripes and little epaulets on the shoulders. He guessed that she might have saved her favorite for last.

  He said, “I like all three.”

  “I’m not keeping all three. That’s extravagant, Adam. Pick one.”

  Three blouses were too much of an indulgence for Claudia. Never mind that they were living on a luxury yacht. The cost of painting the hull alone would have bought her five years worth of clothing.

  “Okay, the striped one. Very sharp. Very nautical.”

  “You don’t like the second one? The green one?”

  Bad guess, thought Whistler. “I like that one even better.”

  Her lips formed a pout. “You don’t mean that.”

  “Claudia...listen. You’d look good in a trash bag. But if I have to pick one, it’s the green one.”

  She fingered the fabric. “You should feel it,” she said. “It’s so very soft, very feminine.”

  “You don’t need any help being feminine.”

  She blushed. A shy smile. “Let me see what I’ve got that goes with it.”

  She disappeared below. He could hear what she was doing. He heard the sound of hangers scraping as she rummaged through her locker. She would end up choosing white slacks, maybe tan. The slacks would determine the shoes. The bulk of her time would be spent on accessories. She would go through a half-dozen junk jewelry earrings before deciding, he hoped, on the emerald studs that he thought went so well with her coloring. He had lied about the studs. He had told her they were fake. Otherwise, she might not have worn them.

  She would rummage through her necklaces and try several on before

  settling on a simple gold chain. The right knotted scarf would come next. Rings and things would take a few minutes more. Hair and make-up perhaps another ten. When satisfied with the overall effect, her eyes would glaze over just a little bit as if asking the mirror, “What now?”

  Whistler knew the answer because Whistler knew his lines. He called, “Are you dressed yet?”

  “I guess. Want to see?”

  She appeared in the hatch. She had opted for the studs. She had brushed her hair back so that they showed.

  “Well, now you’re too elegant for the meal I had in mind. Now we have to go someplace expensive.”

  “Oh, no. You bought that beautiful fish.”

  “We’ll have it for breakfast. Let’s go. Name the place.”

  “We don’t need expensive. Someplace casual, okay? Let’s just go grab a bite at Jump & Phil’s.”

  She liked Jump & Phil’s for a number of reasons, not least that it was moderately priced. And unlike most island restaurants that catered to tourists, Jump & Phil’s clientele were predominantly locals who had moved to the island years before.

  Conversations with the locals were generally more relaxed than those with short-timers or tourists. The latter always asked, “So, where are you from?” The locals seldom did because they didn’t much care. Nor did they ever ask, “What do you do?” In that regard, they were like cruising yachtsmen. This island was a place where people started new lives. Who you’d been, what you’d done, no longer mattered.

  They’d been to that restaurant nine or ten times in the weeks since they’d put in to Hilton Head. The young owners, Jump and Phil, had both introduced themselves and now greeted them on a first name basis. When these two weren’t tending to business, the one called Jump liked to work on his golf game and his partner, Phil, was a fisherman. Phil’s boat, in fact, was berthed near his own at the Palmetto Bay Marina.

  Their favorite bartender was a pleasant young woman who had made them feel like old friends. Her name was Leslie. She had a wonderful smile. She was very good natured, very bright, quick witted, and she seemed to know everyone on the island. Leslie, early on, had noted what they drank. Their drinks would sometimes be sitting on the bar by the time he and Claudia walked through the door. Scotch and water for him, a Chardonnay for Claudia. He would get a small wave from people he’d met there, but their eyes were always really on Claudia. Aside from her looks, it was that elegant carriage. Her neck had still not fully regained the suppleness that it once had.

  Claudia never said so, not in so many words, but the other thing that she probably liked was how the place was laid out. It had a U-shaped bar set against a solid wall. The other three walls were mostly glass. If they sat, as they did, on the far side of the bar, they could see everyone who came in.

  Whistler himself saw no great advantage in finding a bar with a wide field of view. If trouble did find them, it would choose its time and place, and not where he could see it approaching. It would certainly choose a quieter place, one with fewer pairs of eyes than were present. Although Claudia’s vigilance had gone for little thus far, she was nonetheless convinced that a guardian angel ought always to be on her toes.

  They were seated at the bar; their drinks were in place, and the tables were filling up quickly. Only one, by the fireplace, remained unoccupied and that one had a sign that said “Reserved.” He’d thought that this restaurant didn’t take reservations. But it was a Wednesday and the Wednesday night special was always a decent roast beef. That usually drew a good crowd. Among the other specials were a pasta creation and the catch of the day, another grouper. The sign called it Mustard Crusted Grouper.

  He did have his heart set on a good piece of fish, but to order it might have made Claudia feel guilty. He also wasn’t sure that he could pronounce it without tripping over his tongue. A Mustard Crusted Grouper. Try saying it fast. So he sniffed the air and said the roast beef smelled good. A nice end-cut would really hit the spot.

  “You’re not sorry that we came?” she asked.

  “I’m with you. What’s to be sorry?”

  She poked his arm. “You’re so full of beans, Whistler. But you’re also very sweet and I love you.”

  They both ordered the beef. She liked hers’ blood rare. He did not share her taste for almost raw meat. He’d told her that he’d known cows to get well after they’d been hurt worse than some he’d seen on her plate. Then she’d look down her nose at his blackened end-cut slab. She’d say she had beach thongs that were juicier.

  Whistler had noticed the two men outside. They appeared a few minutes after sundown. For an instant his thought was, “Oh no, not the twins,” because the first one he saw had their shape. But it wasn’t the Beasleys. The two men were strangers. There was nothing especially remarkable about them. Both in their forties, both of medium height, one a little more portly than the other. The stockier one wore a baseball-type cap. His companion went bareheaded and he wore his hair short. Whistler might not have given them a second look except that they both wore zippered up jackets. The evening was too warm for outer garments.

  They were probably tourists, new to the island. Perhaps they thought it might rain. Nor did their manner seem in any way furtive. They were standing perhaps twenty yards from the entrance, peering into the restaurant, scanning faces. The one with the cap shook his head; he seemed annoyed. He muttered a few words to the other. The other one nodded in apparent agreement. He gestured as if to say, “Let’s go see what’s in the back.” Perhaps whoever they were looking for was in one of the neighboring establishments.

  There were three other restaurants behind Jump & Phil’s. A seafood house, a brewery and an Irish Pub, plus a billiard room and cigar bar called The Lodge. Whistler followed their progress as they rounded the perimeter. They glanced in once or twice but at no one in particular. He half turned in his stool as they passed the wall of windows behind him. He made e
ye contact, briefly, with the one who wore no hat. The man showed no surprise, no hint of recognition. The other one never looked at him at all.

  Whistler and Claudia had finished their salads and the bartender, Leslie, had brought their roast beef. Whistler, ordinarily, would have asked for a steak knife. His end-cut, while tender, had a thick outer crust. But Claudia was blithely dissecting her steak with an ordinary table knife’s serrated edge. She was showing off, he thought. He resolved to make do. He would try to avoid grunting as he sliced it.

  The table by the fireplace had been occupied by then. A middle-aged couple, well dressed, had come in. The man wore a blazer; he had on a necktie. Whistler hadn’t seen anyone wearing a tie in the weeks that he’d been on the island. They must have just got here. Complexions still pale. Hadn’t doped out the dress code as yet.

  The woman sat facing him, the man was in profile. The woman glanced up at Whistler, met his eyes for an instant. She looked away, then she looked back again. The second time around, she was squinting. For a moment, she looked as if she thought she might know him. Just as quickly, she apparently decided that she didn’t. She apologized for staring with a flicker of a smile before turning her attention to the man she was with.

  Her face had seemed vaguely familiar as well. Or not familiar, perhaps. She was more of a type. She impressed him as having that easy self-assurance that comes from good schools and good breeding. She had put him in mind of his mother. The man had more of a blue-collar look, but one that had picked up some polish over time. Gray haired, he wore it combed forward, uneven. It was sort of a Julius Caesar cut. A waitress was taking their order for drinks.

  A woman who was seated at a table in between appeared to know the man, or at least who he was. She leaned in toward the people who were with her at her table. She was whispering to them. They turned their heads to look. The man noticed and he answered with a shy little wave, but he did not encourage a further exchange. Someone famous, apparently. An actor, perhaps. That would have explained why they saved a table for him.

  Claudia nudged him. “Those two outside are back.”

  Whistler hadn’t realized that she’d noticed the two men. He looked up at them without raising his head. They were in the same spot, scanning faces again. And again they were standing well away from the entrance, just out of the reach of its lights. The bareheaded one had reached into his pocket and pulled out a stack of what looked like brochures. The other one took them, put them in his own pocket. They huddled together for a few seconds more. The hatless one seemed to be giving instructions.

  “You don’t know them?” she asked.

  “No, and they don’t know us. Claudia, it’s nothing. Eat your dinner.”

  She said, “They’re behaving pretty oddly, don’t you think?”

  Whistler thought of the diver whom she’d almost clubbed and the man on

  Grand Cayman who needed a rest room. “Claudia, they’re tourists. They just look a bit lost.”

  “No. It’s not that. They’re looking for someone.”

  He tossed a hand. “I’m sure that they are. They were probably supposed to meet up with some friends and they got their signals crossed as to where. It happens all the time. No more to it than that.”

  She squinted. “I suppose. Look, one of them’s leaving.”

  Whistler saw that the bareheaded one was walking toward the parked cars. He watched him climb into the only car there that had been backed into its space. That alone made Whistler pay more attention. The car was a Buick, older model, dark in color. Whistler noticed that the dome light never went on. In his own cars, Whistler always kept the dome light switched off. It was one of those things that he’d learned from his father. Don’t illuminate yourself unnecessarily. It was possible, he supposed, that the bulb had burned out, but it made him increasingly wary. He saw a puff of exhaust; the man had started the engine, but he still hadn’t turned on his headlights. He was obviously waiting, but his friend had disappeared.

  “Where’d the other one go?” he asked Claudia.

  “In those trees.”

  Whistler searched. He found him. The man’s back was to the restaurant. “What’s he doing now? Can you tell?”

  “He’s pretending that he’s taking a whiz.”

  From his posture and from the hunching of his shoulders, he did appear to be relieving himself. Why there, however? There were rest rooms all over. “You say he’s pretending. Why makes you think that?”

  “He’s...using his hands for something else.”

  Whistler watched him more closely. She seemed to be right. When the man finally straightened, there was no little hitch that is seen when men fix themselves. His shoulder never dipped to reach the bottom of his fly. Instead, both his hands came up to his face. They were busy there for a few seconds. When he turned, Whistler saw that he had altered his appearance.

  He had put on dark glasses but that wasn’t all. He had placed a strip of bandage over his nose and another across his right eyebrow. His face was effectively disguised. He paused for a moment and looked down toward his companion. His companion revved his motor. Whistler saw the exhaust. This one nodded in response. He unzipped his jacket. He took a deep breath and walked toward the restaurant. His right hand had reached inside the jacket.

  “He’s here to hurt someone,” Claudia whispered. “I think he has his hand on a gun.”

  “More likely a practical joke. Just be cool.”

  “Then stop him and ask him. What if you’re wrong?”

  “If I’m wrong, it’s still none of our business.”

  “I’ll ask him.”

  The man pushed through the door without breaking stride. Claudia had already slid off her stool. He grabbed her arm and hissed. “We need to stay out of this.”

  In the second and a fraction that it took him to say it, the man had crossed half the width of the restaurant and was headed toward the table by the fireplace. Too late, Whistler saw that he did have a pistol. He was pulling it from his waistband. It looked like an old Army issue automatic. As he cocked it, he shouted “God is not mocked.” In another half second, he fired.

  The sound was a thunderclap. The pistol spat flame. The man at that table had seen what was coming. He had shoved the table forward, tried to tip it toward the gunman. The shot, aimed at his heart, struck the table’s edge first and then caught him high in the chest. It spun him, knocked him down, but he hit the floor crawling. He gasped, “Not my wife. Don’t hurt my wife.”

  There was instant pandemonium. Many screams, many shouts. Men were dragging women and children to the floor and some women were dragging their men. The man with the gun shoved the table aside, knocking the man’s wife down with it. He was trying for a second killing shot.

  Whistler was already on his feet. He had picked up his barstool and was ready to throw it. He felt Claudia’s hand on his shoulder. He snapped, “Get down. Stay behind me.” But her hand had now gripped the back of his collar. She said, “No, you. You stay behind me.” She pulled him aside and then backward, off balance. He felt her free hand whip past his ear. He saw something silvery spin through the air and he realized at once what she had done.

  The man with the gun went stiff, then lurched drunkenly. He tried to bring his left hand to his head, to feel for the thing that had struck him. But his fingers were flaccid; they would not obey his brain because his brain had lost much of its function. The handle of a table knife jutted out from his temple at a spot just behind his left eye.

  That was Claudia’s knife. Whistler couldn’t believe it. It was simply not possible that Claudia could do that. And not only Claudia. No one could do that. No one makes a killing throw with that kind of a knife.

  The searching hand quivered. It was going into spasm. It knocked the shooter’s cap and dark glasses askew. His other hand, the gun hand, began clenching on its own. It jerked off several shots that went into the floor and into a neighboring table. The recoil was forcing his hand to rise up and the man was still
stumbling about drunkenly. Now the bullets were spraying the restaurant at random. One struck a woman who had gotten up to run. She fell on her face without a sound. Another smashed the back window that faced a garden path. A man outside, watching, clutched his stomach as if punched. Others near him by were hit by flying glass. The whole pane collapsed, raining shards.

  Again, all this happened in not more than three seconds, in the time it took Whistler to take several long strides. He had let the barstool fall and had focused on the gun. The man who held it was no was no longer the issue. He seized the man’s wrist and jerked the arm downward, taking care to jam his thumb inside the cocked hammer so that the gun could not be fired again. The man was still flailing; he was clawing at nothing. Whistler looked into his eyes as he pried the gun loose. His eyes had no life. He’d been blinded.

  Whistler grabbed him by the hair and twisted his head until the man fell heavily at his feet. The impact altered the angle of the knife, causing the blade to slice more of his brain. The man reacted as if he had touched a third rail. He stiffened, bucked wildly, then stiffened again. Whistler dropped to one knee; he pinned the man with it. He felt for the knife sticking out of his skull and ran his fingers over its handle. He glanced back toward the bar where he had last seen Claudia. He still could scarcely believe she had done this. She was no longer there but he heard her voice behind him. She called, “I’ve got your back. Watch the front.”

  The place was still bedlam. Patrons scrambled toward exits; some climbed through the smashed window; others tried to crowd into the restrooms. Whistler saw that one man in a loudly striped jacket had stayed at the bar with a beer in his hand. Straw hat, tinted glasses, mid-forties. Whistler had seen him in this restaurant several times. The man’s expression was one of detached fascination as if this were a play he was watching. Whistler glared at him. “You! Get off there. Get down,” and the man quickly slid out of sight.

  Whistler turned his attention to where he’d last seen that Buick. The driver, thought Whistler, might still try to help the shooter. He could not have seen the knife. He could have only seen the struggle. Whistler spotted the Buick, its high beams now on. It was coming, not quickly, but deliberately. Whistler could make out the driver’s head and shoulders. He was stretching and craning, looking for his confederate. As he neared, the passenger window slid down, perhaps to give the driver a better view, but perhaps for him to fire a weapon. Whistler raised the automatic. He tracked the opened window in its sights.