The Green Ripper near the left margin of the print, in sharp focus. He was going down, but his knee had not yet touched. His head was tilted back from impact, with the tiny death mark visible next to his nose.
Handing it back, I said, "Is this some kind of leverage?"
"It is, Brother Thomas, but not the way you think. Call it a verification of my instinct, useful when I go after permission for what I have in mind."
'I don't know what you mean."
"Ahman, arrange burial. Full roster except, of course, for Barry down on the gate. Have Haris read the service. I am going for a walk with Mr. McGraw."
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11
Persival did not walk well. He moved slowly and seemed to have trouble with his balance. The sky was turning gray, and the wind was cooler. We walked to the end of the small plateau. He seated himself on the trunk of a large pine which had fallen at the edge of the slope.
He lowered himself carefully. With a wry Lincolnesque smile he said, "I have what the young call bad wheels. I was the guest for a memorable period of time of an amiable old park named Somoza. He had my legs broken."
I sat astride the log about eight feet from him. "This," he said, "is the ancient definition of the best
The Green Ripper kind of education, the pupil on one end of a log and the teacher on the other."
"What do I "
He stopped me with a raised hand. "Just let me ramble a bit. Answer me when I ask you a question. You would seem to know small boats and know the sea. And with your background, no one would question your interest in purchasing a certain sort of small boat."
'I don't want to use my search money for a boat."
"You are talking trivia, and when you do, you bore me."
"I came here to find my kid. Maybe that's boring to you, but it's not to me."
'McGraw, you are going to have to learn how to accept discipline."
'fir. Persival, you can't run me the same way you run those people of yours. I'll answer you when you ask questions, and 111 answer the questions you don't ask. I talk when I please."
He looked me over. He was patently exasperated.
"Brother Thomas, can you swim?"
"Yes."
'Em glad to hear that. A lot of commercial fishermen can't. Do you know how to use scuba gear?"
'~es."
"Do you know what a limpet mine is?"
"Yes."
"Can you tell me? I want to be sure you know."
"It's a mine that sticks to what it is going to blow up. It can be magnetic, or covered with stickom. It can have a timer or be blown up by a transmitter."
'~Very good! You've worked around explosive charges?"
Enough to be careful."
"Suppose I gave you the task of fastening a limpet mine to the hull of one of those new tankers which carry frozen liquefied gas. How would you go about it?"
I recalled what he had said about the boat purchase. It was enough of a clue. 'In the area where the tanker is, I'd get hold of a commercial fishing boat, small. One-man operation, with an inboard or outboard. I'd dress right for the climate and the place. I'd fish the area, catch fish, sell the catch. [d keep track of the winds and tides, and when everything was right, I'd have a breakdown and get carried up against the hull of the ship, maybe forward where the flare would hide me from the weather decks. Maybe if I had a little electric outboard let down through the hull, and concealed somehow, I could count on drifting to exactly where I would have to be. The breakdown should be about dusk. I'd place the mine, arm it, then get my breakdown fixed and get out of there."
"Suppose you were stopped and searched by a harbor patrol?"
"I could explain the electric outboard. The limpet would have to look like something else."
The Green Ripper
"Such as?"
I shrugged. "Maybe a mushroom anchor, threaded so you could unscrew the shank."
I could see that he liked that. "I believe I was right in deciding we can find a use for you, Brother McGraw."
"Not blowing up a ship. I won't do that."
'whether or not you will do it or won't do it is not the point at issue right now. It would be a con- siderable time in the future. Things can be worked out, I'm sure."
And I could certainly guess how they'd be worked out. I had been wrong about Nicky. But this was a certainty. The little limpet mine would have a trigger and a timing device and there would be careful instruction on how to set it. But the act of placing it against metal would activate it. I wasn't one of the true believers. I was expendable.
'A don't hold with killing people that never did anything to me. That's terrorism."
"Terrorism? Beware of tag words. General Sherman was a terrorist. The Continental Congress was a terrorist society. How about Pancho Villa, air strikes on cities, the torpedoing of ocean liners? Beware of semantics."
I played dumb. What do you mean? I've got nothing against the Jews."
"Semantics, Brother, not Semitics. The study of words. In World War Two, the Londoners worshiped their heroic young men who risked heavy
167
Jolm D. MacDonald flak to drop bombs on Germany and despised the degenerate fiends in human form who flew over, risking heavy flak, to drop bombs on English cities. Begin calls Arafat a terrorist Begin led a squad which blew up a British hotel, killing scores of people, when he was a young so-called terrorist."
A light rain began to fall, steeply slanted by the increasing wind. Persival got up. "Well go into all this, Brother Thomas, after you have a chance to hear Sister Elena Marie and think about the message she brings us. Incidentally, you will have been moved by now into one of the travel trailers. T-Six. The green-and-white one. You'll be much more comfortable."
"Is it okay to ask if I can have my money back now?"
'No. It isn't acceptable to ask at this time."
'Jo you know when I can ask, Mr. Persival?"
"You will be told. livery effort is being made to locate your daughter. I want you to know that. While you are here, records are being searched."
We were walking back in the light rain, at his pace.
'us it okay to mention I never had breakfast this morning?"
"You have the run of the place, Brother. Stay up on the flats. Do not head down the hill at any point. I am sure you can locate the kitchen."
A small group was straggling ahead of us toward the buildings. Chuck, Nena, Stella, Sammy, Haris,
The Green Ripper
Ahman,and Alvor, all but Alvor in the short white robes which looked like smocks except for the monk's hoods attached to them. The women and Haris wore the hoods pulled up, and Haris carried a book.
'I see the service is over," Persival said.
Yhey dig a fast grave."
"It was all prepared," he said. He smiled at me in a fatherly way. He laid his hand on my shoulder. "Actually, Brother, there were two. Just in case."
In case I couldn't shoot him?"
He took his hand away. "Let's say it was just in case."
I checked out my green-and-white travel trailer. It was an old Scottie, sifting on cement blocks. It had recently been cleaned. There were some water droplets on the flat surfaces. There were two folded blankets, no sheets. There was a tiny gas heater, a hand-pumped water supply and a Porta-Potty. My duffel bag was on the fact of the bed. There was no way to lock it. I had the uneasy feeling that Nicky had lived here in this constricted space, had curled his long bulk on the bed that was built across the rear end of the trailer. I kept seeing that Polaroid shot. It was curiously more vivid than what I had actually seen.
I went looking for the kitchen. The steel warehouse building was tightly secured. I came upon Alvor and asked him. He did not answer. He merely pointed. It was the only frame building in the group of structures, about twelve feet by twenty, with unfinished open studding on the inside. There was a kerosene stove, an old kerosene re- frigerator, two plank tables on sawhorses, and some unmatched chairs and camp stools
. The utensils and plates and cups were on open shelves made of planks and bricks. There was a big blackboard at the other end of the room.
I found butter and eggs, scrambled four eggs, and sat at the plank table and ate them. Barry came in, relieved of guard duty, and smiled at me. "Got everything you need, Brother?"
This one, thanks."
Avant some coffee?',
Thanks, yes."
He brought it over, as well as a cup for himself. and sat across from me. "Everybody gets tested, one way or other," he said.
'~Sure."
Eve all liked Nicky, but he was a fuck-off. You can't have your life depending on a fuck-off."
"I reckon so."
"Sorry it had to happen the way it did. Must of made you feel bad."
Barry hadn't been there when I lost my cool. The tone, the eyes in the dark face were innocently sym- pathetic. But he could have heard about it by now and could be faking to draw me out.
"I was a mite shook up," I said. "But when you
The Green Ripper come right down to it, I didn't really know him. Or any of you."
"You know me, Brother Thomas. And you know the other brothers and sisters. We your home, man. We all part of the same thing."
Chow do you know I'm not like Nicky?"
"AII it needs is Brother Persival saying you are part of it. That's all that makers. We all came up through the Church, but that don't mean everybody has to. You got family in the Church, that daughter, right?"
Wherever she is." '
'Whey looking for her. Don't worry."
As there any rule about taking a bath in the creek?"
"None at all. The best bath hole is upstream from the great big rocks, past the little trees. Take a towel off the line if there isn't one in your trailer."
It was a good solid yellow soap, and it worked well enough in ice water. I took my change of clothes with me and washed out the dirty ones, carried them back to the encampment, and hung them on the community line, along with my washed-out, wrung-out towel.
Then Chuck came and got me for lunch. With his drooping mustache, he looked like a Scandinavian travel advertisement Haris had made some deerburgers, fried with onion. They sat me at the middle of the table, where I could get the full benefit of the love-buzzing, the hush whenever I spoke, the smiles and eye contact and shameless flattery. Yes, they all knew as soon as they saw me that I would be a wonderful addition to the group. Just wonderful. Just what they had been waiting for. Persival and Alvor sat alone at the other table, talking in low voices.
The conversation was slightly strained, and I guessed it was because they felt they should not talk about Nicky, but he was ever-present on the edge of memory. I made a few fruitless-efforts to steer the conversation toward politics and violence, but they fielded them deftly and threw to another base.
After cleanup, a screen was set up and a projector wheeled out. I thought I was going to hear a tape by the celebrated Sister Elena Marie, but it was a creaky old black-and-white motion picture about The Long March, with a noisy sound track, a voice-over with a marked British accent, a lot of ruing, shooting, and gesticulating. They marched across China and up into the hills and caves, while my chin kept dropping onto my chest and I kept waking with a start. It ended with a loud blast of martial music which roused me enough to get up and say good night and go back to my trailer. I couldn't find the light switch and finally gave up and went to bed in the dark.
I was awakened by the click of the latch on the flimsy door of the trailer, a stealthy and barely au- dible squeak as it was opened. I wondered if one of
The Green Ripper the team had decided to correct Persival's decision to keep me alive. I moved in the bunk until I had my shoulders against the wall, until I was braced to move as quickly as I had to.
The generator was silent, the encampment dark. Just enough starlight came through the window above the bunk for me to make out a pale figure moving toward me. It stopped a couple of feet away, and I heard a silky whisper of fabric, caught a faint scent of female, and realized that Nena or Stella was paying me a visit. I guessed I had been asleep for an hour.
She picked up a corner of the blanket and came sliding into the bunk, shuddering with the cold, reaching to embrace me. I faked a great start of surprise.
"It's me, Brother Thomas," she whispered. Yt's Stella."
So I was being gifted with the sallow blond lady with the inadequate jaw. '~Vhat's going on?"
'dwell. whatever you want to go on. Okay?" Vhose idea is this?"
What difference would that make?"
"lid like to know."
"You do a lot of talking, huh?"
I caught her questing hand by the wrist and took it away from me and said, "Is there anything wrong with wanting to know?"
"Look, are you okay? I mean, you make it with women?"
"Jesus Christ!" she said. And then, 'Tm sorry. That's blasphemy. But, you know, you are something else."
She turned onto her back, trying to separate herself from me totally, but the bunk was too narrow. Hip rested against hip, shoulder against shoulder.
"All it is," she said patiently, "you're new. Probably they don't want you being restless and wanting to sneak off or anything. So you get food and shelter and, once in a while, a piece of ass. What does it cost? Nothing but time, right?"
'Lou sound as if you did some hooking."
"I was into it. So?"
"Where was that?"
"So you're another one of those."
"Another what?"
'~hen I was a hooker, there was always a trick who wanted to know how I got into that line of work."
"Stella, settle down. Where are you going, anyway? Why the hostility? I can ask about you because I'm interested in you, can't I? Is there a house rule against that?"
She took in a deep breath and let it out slowly. Novell, okay. I'm sorry. When I came in here, I was really ready, you know? I don't feel that way very often. But what happens, you want to talk. So I'm losing the edge. It's fading on me. I think I got that ready on account of Nicky dying. Death does it to
The Green Ripper me in a funny way, I guess. When somebody you know is suddenly dead forever, then I want to get laid. I've heard lots of people are like that. Like in shelters when there's bombing going on. Maybe it goes back to instinct. Like in animals. If people are dying, it's time to make more people and keep the population up. But there was a couple of years there when I couldn't have come no matter what."
"What do you mean by that?"
Of you want talk instead of tail, 1~11 give you talk. I'm from an absolutely nowhere place. Opportunity, Montana."
"Little west of Butte? South of Anaconda? Flint Creek Range and the South Fork?"
"Hey, you heard of it!" She turned and settled herself more comfortably, fitting the nape of her neck to my arm, one hand resting on my chest.
"Been through there. When did you leave?"
"A long time ago. I don't know who's left there, if anybody."
"Run away?"
"Sort of. With a girl friend. We got in with some rough people in Miami. I got busted for possession, and when I got out, I couldn't find her. A cop put me on the streets, hustling. Then one day he beat me up bad because he thought I was holding out, and I met some people from the Church of the Apocryphal"
"In Miami?"
"You'll find the Church everywhere these days.
What I was thinking, I could use the Church. They'd take care of me and keep that freak cop away from me. I'd been beaten real bad. What I was then, I was a dumb, selfish, ignorant teenage hooker. What I needed most was some rest from cruising the streets and taking the marks back to that motel room. When I was rested up, I'd take off. But the people in the Church, they knew what I was thinking every minute. They never gave me a minute alone. They loved me. They believed I was precious and they made me think of myself as pre cious to them. I was a lazy little slut, and they cured me of that. My God, I never worked so hard and so long in my lif
e. It made hooking seem like picnics. Dumb dreary food and not enough sleep ever. Fifteen hours at a stretch, seeing stuff to strangers, walking the streets carrying candy and thread and junk, begging money, making quotas. My weight went down to minus nothing. A lot of my hair fell out. I had a scaly rash all the time. I forgot about sex. I stopped menstruating. My tits and my ass like to shrunk away to nothing. And when I was about to believe the life was going to kill me, suddenly I realized I was doing God's work, and that I wanted to drive myself even harder than they were driving me. And once I saw the Light and heard the Word, I started to get bet ter. I ate tons of that sorry food they served at the dorm, and it tasted delicious. And I began to seD more stuff. I made people buy it. I turned in big
John D MacDonald - Travis Mcgee 18 - The Green Ripper Page 12
