by Philip Craig
I tapped her diamond with a forefinger and raised a brow.
“Oh, that,” she said, leaving her hand near my arm. “Don’t mind that.”
“I’m tempted, but like you I’m already taken,” I said. “Oh; if only I were free.”
She took back her hand and sighed then grinned. “Oh, well.”
I took my tux and left, thinking that I was probably old enough to be her father although I didn’t feel that way.
I drove home and fixed myself a late lunch. Precombat food. Carbohydrates. Pasta with pesto made from my own basil. Since neither Thornberry nor Ms. Johanson had mentioned food for the security folks and since both had ordered no drinking on duty, I washed my pasta down with lots of good cheap red jug wine, just so I wouldn’t waste away to nothing before the evening was over.
I ran off several Bad Bunnies who were snooping around my garden fence, then weeded the garden for an hour (about my weeding limit on my very best weeding days), gobbled up a few asparagus sprouts sneaking up through the seaweed I’d spread over the asparagus bed, admired my fine tomatoes, thinking I should can a few tomorrow, after the Sarofim emeralds were safetly transferred and Manny Fonseca’s pistol was back in his armory, picked two zooks that were threatening to get out of hand, and took a shower. Outside, of course. I have two showers, one inside and one outside. The outside one is much superior. It doesn’t steam up the place, there’s plenty of room, you don’t have to clean out the drain because there isn’t any, and you can walk directly from the shower to the solar-powered drier to hang up your towel. Only in the wintertime do I use my indoor shower.
I shaved, wondering again if I should grow a beard but once more deciding not to. How about a mustache, one with maybe waxed curls on the end? I placed a finger across my upper lip and looked at myself in the mirror. Nah.
A bit of toothbrushing, then into clean skivvies, pants, frilly shirt, cummerbund, and shiny black shoes. One thing the armed services teach you is how to shine shoes. The black tie was the snap-on variety, thank goodness. I can tie a bow tie, but I don’t like to. It takes me a long time to get the ends even.
I strapped on the shoulder holster. It was the kind where the pistol hangs horizontal under your left arm. Under the other arm is a unit to hold extra clips. A real shootist’s sort of rig, irresistible to a guy like Manny Fonseca. I made sure there was not a round in the chamber before I stuffed the .45 into the holster. I did not want to accidentally shoot a hole in anyone standing behind me if I actually had to draw the weapon. Manny would be disappointed with me if he ever found out, but I didn’t plan on telling him.
I put on the tux jacket and admired myself. Not bad. You really had to look to see the lump under my arm. Very sophisticated. James Bond would approve.
I was tempted to phone Amelia Muleto’s house to ask Zee if she wanted to change her mind and ride to the party with me in my LandCruiser. But I could imagine what she’d say: no, she would see me over there. Right now she was very busy, so goodbye. Click.
What do women do during these primping sessions?
I poured vermouth in a cold martini glass, sloshed it around and poured it out again, got the Absolut out of the freezer, and filled the glass to the brim. The perfect martini. Just enough vermouth. I had heard about an atomic scientist, out in Nevada in the bomb-testing days there, who had tied a bottle of Noilly Prat Dry to the bomb tower before the detonation and thereafter claimed to get exactly the right amount of vermouth from fallout. I preferred mine not quite so dry.
I drank my martini in elegant solitude, and when I was finished it was time to drive to Chappaquiddick.
The On Time ferry, so called, some say, because it has no schedule and is therefore always on time, carries three or four cars at a time and runs back and forth between the Edgartown town dock and the Chappy landing. After four o’clock the beachers were headed for home, so there were a lot of cars coming off Chappy and only a few going back. I drew a curious look from the ferry captain, who had never seen me looking so splendid.
“Dare I ask?” he asked.
“The Damon party,” I said, glancing at my nails.
“You’d better park your car where nobody can see it, then.” He brought the ferry smoothly into the Chappy landing.
A lot of people were picking on my car lately. I drove it right up to the Damon gate, showed the guard my badge and ID, and parked behind the barn where the rest of the help had parked their cars. Ms. Johanson could park her car down the road if she wanted someone to park there.
Inside the house I came face to face with Jason Thornberry. He was suave and comfortable in his tux. He’d come a long way from wearing blue on the Boston PD.
“J. W. Jackson, isn’t it?” He put out a hand. I took it. His was still a strong one. “I thought your face was familiar when I saw you this morning. I remember offering you a job a few years ago, just after you retired from the force.”
“Maybe I should have taken it.”
“The offer is still open. Thornberry Security can always use a good field man.”
“I spend more time on the beaches than in the fields these days.”
“But here you are on security detail.”
“Tomorrow I plan to be canning tomatoes.”
His sharp eyes looked me up and down. “You wear formal clothing well. The same cannot be said for many agents. You have police experience, you have a college education, you were well thought of by your superiors on the Boston PD.”
“You’ve done some digging.”
He nodded. “I’m in the business of finding things out. Thornberry Security can offer a man of your qualifications excellent opportunities for interesting and remunerative work.”
“I’ll keep that in mind.”
“Do. Good to have you working with us, Jackson.”
He moved off, a tall, sophisticated figure with sharp eyes examining once again the physical layout of the house and the people who were responsible for house security. He had been one of the most youthful captains in the history of the Boston Police Department and had had a reputation for being honest, ruthless, and politically astute. Probably you had to be ruthless and politically astute to become a youthful captain in the Boston PD. I wasn’t so sure about honest. I did know that a lot of people on the shady side of Boston life had breathed easier when he left the force to form Thornberry Security, Inc. Some of the remaining PD brass had not been as pleased when he siphoned off several of their best men to work for him.
I walked on into the house and into the ballroom. It was large, high ceilinged, and like the library, was hung with crystal chandeliers. At its far end, doors opened onto a veranda that overlooked the northern part of Katama Bay. Next door, also with doors opening out onto the veranda, was the dining room. I strolled there and found linen-clothed tables set with silver and summer flowers. The head table was opposite the doors to the veranda. I went out through the doors and found more linen-clothed tables. Not even the Damon dining room was large enough to hold a hundred guests. Some people would be obliged to eat in the open air. I wondered if they would mind. Personally I preferred the view from the veranda, but I imagined that many would consider that lovely vista of blue water and boats greatly inferior to one of the Padishah of Sarofim seated with various Damons at the head table.
In the library I found Ms. Johanson looking exquisite in an evening dress of blue, which set off her blond hair nicely. Gold gleamed from her wrists and throat. She would fit right in with the evening’s crowd. She was reading something on a clipboard. Just as good pilots, before taking off, do not depend on their memories but on checklists, so Miss Johanson was checking off her duties. Having forgotten a lot of things myself, from time to time, I approved. She looked up. I raised a friendly hand. She stared, then looked down at her clipboard and up again.
“Jackson, yes?”
Alas. She’d had to read my name to remember it. On the other hand, she had remembered it after reading it.
“Jackson. Yes.”
>
She looked me over and nodded. “Very good. Are you an island policeman, Jackson?”
“Only a special officer. I’ve retired from real work.”
“Indeed?” She glanced at her clipboard and turned a page. “Ah, yes. You were once on the Boston PD, I see.”
“Long ago.”
“You were shot and you retired on a disability pension.”
“I could never keep secrets from a woman like you.”
“You are to be on duty in the ballroom, principally. Should anyone speak to you, be casual. Smile, move off as soon as you can. Keep alert to anything unusual. Drink only soda water. After the guests leave there will be food in the kitchen for you, should you want it.” She glanced at a small golden watch on her left wrist. “The guests should begin arriving about six. Have you any questions?”
“Only one. Your first name.”
She looked at me the way women look whenever some man is impertinent and stupid. “My subordinates address me as Ms. Johanson.”
I waited. She frowned and looked down at her clipboard.
“Helga,” she said after a moment, touching a hand to her hair. “My name is Helga. Now go to work, please, Mr. Jackson.”
I went.
A few minutes before six, Edward C. Damon, his wife by his side, their daughter and her husband close behind, all gloriously yet tastefully attired and bejeweled, descended from their rooms upstairs. As they did, the front door opened and Amelia Muleto was bowed in by the butler. There were embraces between the members of the two parties, those careful kinds that occur when no one wants tulle crushed or makeup smudged. I was standing in the ballroom, half hidden by a marble statue of Nimuë that stood at one side of the doorway. No one saw me or my glass of soda with lemon peel. And I did not see Zee.
Amelia wore a dress of silver gray silk which was both elegant and simple. The gray sash at her waist matched her hair, and I saw her suddenly as a lady of high caste, quite a change from the vegetable and flower gardener I’d come to know over the years.
I stepped away from Nimuë, which was more than Merlin had been able to manage, and walked across the hall. Amelia looked up and saw me and smiled. She gave me her hand and lifted her head for a kiss which I, caught off guard but ever suave, gave her.
“You look splendid,” I said. “But where is your lovely niece?”
She looked distressed. “Oh, dear. I tried to call you, but you weren’t in. There was an emergency at the hospital. Zee had to fly to Boston with a patient. The hospital phoned me about noon. Poor Zee didn’t even have time to phone me herself. She may not get back until Monday.”
The front door opened, and the first of the guests was announced. Amelia and I were looking at each other. Suddenly Emily Damon was at Amelia’s side, taking her arm, smiling vaguely at me. “Amelia, dear, do come and meet our very good friends the Leaches and the Alexanders. You’ll excuse us, I’m sure, young man . . .”
I was distracted. “Of course,” my voice said.
Amelia gave me a gentle look, briefly gripped my arm, and was gone.
8
Zee in Boston for the whole weekend. And I had a date to take her home after the party, too. Rats! I leaned against the wall while black-uniformed waitresses carrying trays of exotic appetizers brushed by me on their way to the celebration. I snagged a crabmeat canapé as it passed. Not bad. I felt lonesome. Then I felt sorry for Zee. It was going to be quite a party from the looks of things, and she was going to miss it. I decided to do my duty and enjoy myself too. It’s a nice combination when you can pull it off. I wandered around a bit, trying to look unobtrusive. I seemed to be good at it. Nobody paid any attention to me. They were all busy discussing and looking at More Important People, of whom there were apparently quite a few.
By six-thirty, everyone was there awaiting the descent of the Padishah’s party down the great stairway. The liquor had begun to flow freely. The guests were gathered in knots in the entrance hall, on the veranda, and in the ballroom and library. Among them I recognized the grandfatherly figure of a famous retired television newsman, two famous once-married but now divorced pop singers from up island, an actor who had become a star after his film portrayal of a comic-book hero, and a famous but secretive painter who preferred the fishing at Wasque Point and Lobsterville to the New York gallery scene and with whom I had shared coffee a few times during Bass and Bluefish Derby time when the winds were raw. I heard talk and saw sidelong looks that indicated that other celebrated folk were among the crowd, but since I did not own a television set and did not like or listen to popular music, most of the names and faces were unknown to me.
There were readily identifiable reporters and camera people circulating and recording the events of the evening while they liberally partook of champagne and hors d’oeuvres. All of them wore formal evening dress, I was glad to see. The reporters I know are not normally so properly attired. It was not hard to keep track of the hired security people: they were the only ones not drinking. The guests, like the reporters, were keeping the bartenders busy and were primarily there, I guessed, to see the famous emeralds. Until the emeralds appeared, they were still interested in seeing who else of importance was there and in having those important people see them. They took no heed of the dozen busy-eyed soda sippers who moved through and about the crowd trying to notice everything and hoping that no one was noticing them.
Helga Johanson, of course, was watching them to make sure that they were on the job. She had emerged from the library and was a graceful and alert figure who captured the attention of more than one admiring man or envious woman, but who slipped charmingly away from invitations for drinks or extended conversations so that she could better do her double job of watching for the bad guys while checking on her own people. Her dress was form fitting. Where did she carry her trusty Colt .45?
I went away into various rooms and looked for suspicious people. I found none. The most suspicious-looking people at the party, I thought, were those hanging closest to Edward C. Damon. They were a shifty-looking crowd. In a corner, apart from other guests, I saw Amelia Muleto talking with a tall, cadaverous man whom I recognized as Willard Sergeant Blunt. Was he really her wooer, as Zee had theorized? His head was bent toward hers. Lovers wishing they were alone? Could be, I thought.
I heard a sigh rise collectively from the ballroom and returned in time to see an entourage descend toward the Damons awaiting below. The Padishah, wearing an extraordinary military uniform, led the way and was the principal focus of attention. He was followed by a less brilliantly attired party of five. All of the faces were familiar to me from the morning’s briefing. Colonel Ahmed Nagy, his personal bodyguard; his elderly and frail-looking physician and political advisor; his secretary; his number one wife; and the curator of the National Museum of Sarofim. I gave Colonel Ahmed Nagy a good look. His face still looked like an axe, and his hooded eyes went everywhere. When they reached mine, they stopped. Mine stared back. Finally his moved on.
I thought (correctly, I was later informed) that the Padishah’s uniform looked modeled after those worn by generals in Hollywood films about the nineteenth-century British Empire. Medaled and feathered hat, very red coat very hung with braid and medals, very blue trousers with red stripes down the sides, very shiny black boots with spurs, and a very black belt and pistol holster.
The hat went to the secretary, and amid the flashes of photographs being taken, the guest of honor and his host and hostesses met.
There was no formal receiving line, but in the ballroom the Padishah took a position at the head of the room and accepted introductions of the guests, who were awed perhaps by their first sight of official royalty. The ladies curtsied; the men bowed and briefly shook the royal hand. The Padishah bestowed the kingly smile and made small talk. He had been educated in England, according to the gossip I had overheard in my wanderings, and knew how to murmur the right things. The wife of the Padishah was not included in the formal introductions, I noted.
When the handsome young man who had portrayed the comic-book hero in films was introduced, the Padishah, overcome by the appearance of a genuine movie star, welcomed him with even more enthusiasm than he had shown for some of the younger ladies, over whose hands his own had lingered longer than absolutely necessary. The young man only escaped after laughingly agreeing to consider making his next comic-book film in Sarofim. The Padishah seemed overjoyed by the prospect.
I discovered Helga Johanson beside me. She gestured toward the guest of honor. “Do you suppose he likes boys best?”
“I hear he has a collection of women.”
“People who collect women don’t necessarily like women. Is everything going smoothly?”
I said that it was, and she was gone. Shortly afterward dinner was served. On time, too. Whoever was orchestrating this event was doing a good job of it.
I’d seen the work going on in the kitchen. No rubber chicken was served. Instead, a delicate cold soup; a choice of lamb, shelled lobster, or a fragrant vegetable dish native to Sarofim; champagne and vintage wines to wash everything down; and a cordial-soaked tart for desert. Coffee and brandy and more cordials to end the meal.
If there were any dietary laws in Sarofim, they were not revealed by the Padishah, who ate and drank everything offered with regal gusto.
I had another soda with lemon at the bar so I wouldn’t drool all over my shirt while everyone else was eating. As I sipped, I thought about cordial-soaked tarts. I’d known a few in my lifetime, and they were generally not bad women at all.
Thinking of this, I heard, over the drone of voices at the dining tables, the sound of distant shouts from down toward the Damons’ dock. I walked out onto the veranda and found some diners standing and looking toward the water. Shadowy figures ran down the hill and joined other figures on the dock where the Damons’ boats were tied. Shouts and yells floated up to the house. Some were in slurred English, but others were in a tongue I did not know.
