Carrion Comfort (94 page)

The Cessna banked hard right once more and they came around over the sea, losing altitude. Saul tightened his seat belt and braced himself against the console. In the backseat, Natalie secured her camera gear, tucked the Colt automatic under her loose blouse, checked her own seat belt, and braced herself.

Meeks throttled back so that the Cessna dropped in so slowly that it seemed to hang over the waves east of the island for a full minute. Saul saw that their trajectory would take them into the surf rather than onto the sand, but at the last second Meeks gave the Cessna a burst of throttle, sideslipped over a cluster of rocks that grew alarmingly to the size of boulders as they dropped toward them, and set the light aircraft down firmly on wet sand ten feet beyond.

The nose came down fast, saltwater whipped across the windscreen, Saul felt the left wheel slew to one side, and then Meeks was very busy as he seemed to work throttle, rudder, brakes, and ailerons all at the same time. The tail came down and the plane was slowing but not quickly enough as the tidal inlets that had seemed so far away on the northwest corner of the beach rushed at them through the blurred disk of the slowing propeller. Five seconds before they tumbled over the banks of the ravine, Meeks brought the right wheel down low enough to throw spray onto Saul’s window, burped the throttle and brakes to bring the tail up and around as they skidded in a broad, sweeping turn that lifted the left wheel off the ground and brought the right wheel within inches of inlet and dunes before the aircraft stopped, prop turning idly, windscreen looking due east back along a strip of wet beach sand marked with three parallel lines that were not straight at all.

“Three minutes,” said Meeks, already pulling back the throttle. “I’ll be at the east end of the beach and if the wind dies or I see their boat comin’ around Slave Point, adios. Lady stays in the plane to help me lift the tail at the turnaround.”

Saul nodded, clicked off his belt, and was out the flimsy door, his long hair blowing in the wind and propeller blast. Natalie shoved out the long, heavy bag, wrapped in plastic tarp with leather handles protruding.

“Hey!” yelled Meeks. “You didn’t say anything about . . .”

“Go!” yelled Saul and ran for the edge of the forest near where the tidal inlet disappeared under thick palm fronds and tropical blossoms.

It was a swamp. Saul was up to his knees within ten yards of the beach, the fringe of magnolias and palmettos giving way to ancient cypress and gnarled oak draped with Spanish moss. An osprey exploded from a large nest six feet from Saul’s head and something swam away ten feet to his right, leaving a large V in its wake and making Saul remember what Gentry had said about catching snakes in the dark.

Saul’s three minutes were almost up when he took his compass reading and decided that he was far enough in. He was carrying the heavy bag on his right shoulder and now he looked around and saw an ancient cypress scarred by fire or lightning, its two lower branches extending over the brackish water like the charred arms of a screaming man. He waded toward it and was up to his waist before he reached the massive trunk. The lightning strike had ripped open a jagged cleft on this side, exposing the rotted interior.

Mud and currents tugged at Saul’s left pant leg under the water as he jammed the long bag into the cleft, pushing it up and out of sight, wedging it securely with pressure and a cross brace made from short, dead limbs snapped from the gray trunk. He waded back ten paces, satisfied himself that the heavy bag was invisible, and began memorizing the shape and location of the old tree in relation to the inlet, other trees, and a patch of sky visible above between hanging moss and contorted limbs. Then Saul turned and tried to hurry toward the beach.

The mud held him, tried to pull him down, and threatened to pull his boots off or snap his ankles. A layer of brackish scum coated his shirt, the dead water smelling of sea and corruption. Fronds and ferns batted at his head while a swarm of stinging insects hovered in a thick cloud around his sweaty face and shoulders. The vegetation seemed immeasurably thicker going out, the struggle endless. Then he was through the last barrier of branches and stumbling across the sandy, shallow inlet, struggling up the deep ravine onto the beach and realizing that even with the compass he had come out thirty yards farther west than he had entered.

The Cessna was gone.

Saul stopped in a second of throat-filling disbelief and then ran forward fifty feet, seeing the glint of sunlight on metal and glass where it sat a seemingly impossible distance away around a curve of low dunes. He could hear the engine pitch rising even as he sprinted toward it down the wet sand, noticing with an almost detached sense of detail that the tide seemed to be coming in; it already covered the seaward wheel track and was quickly narrowing the usable expanse of sun-baked beach. Two-thirds of the way there he was panting so loudly that he did not hear the higher drone of a speedboat before he saw it, white spray flashing, arcing around the northeast point of the island. At least five dark figures with rifles were visible. Saul ran faster, his boots kicking up water as he sprinted to the edge of the surf directly in front of the Cessna. If the aircraft started its takeoff run now, Saul would have the choice of diving into the water or being cut in half by the propeller.

He was ten yards from the plane when three small plumes of sand leaped up under the left wing; a strange sight, as if some burrowing creature or giant sand flea was stitching its way toward him. He heard the sharp
crack-crack-crack
of shots a second later. The speedboat was two hundred yards out, well within rifle range. Saul assumed that only the rough chop of the surf and the boat’s speed had ruined the marksman’s aim.

The left door opened as Saul sprinted the last twenty feet, jumped from the strut to the passenger seat, and collapsed, soaked with sweat. The aircraft leaped forward even as he came through the opening, pitching and slewing its way down the narrowing strip of wet beach while Natalie struggled to secure the banging door. There was a heavy thunk of a bullet striking metal behind them and Meek cursed, did something with an overhead control, pulled the throttle full back, and wrestled with the vibrating control yoke.

Saul sat up and looked through the windscreen just as the Cessna reached the end of the beach, still not airborne, and roared off the sandy ramp over the saltwater inlet and narrow streams. Sharp rocks and low foliage faced them on the western side.

The three feet of air under them made the difference. The right wheel splashed spray once and they were airborne, clearing the rocks by less than a foot, banking right over the waves as they climbed to twenty feet, then thirty. Saul looked right and saw the speedboat still coming, bouncing wildly. Muzzle flashes flared directly at Saul’s eyes.

Meeks kicked hard at the pedals and pulled the yoke back and then forward, sending the Cessna into a strange, skidding arc and left bank that left them five feet above the waves and accelerating, lunging to put the wall of the western point and its screen of trees between them and the patrol boat.

Still not strapped in, Saul struck his head against the roof, ricocheted off the unlatched door and grabbed the seat and console to keep himself from falling against the pilot and control yoke.

Meeks looked at him sourly. Saul strapped in and looked around. Trees flashed by to their left. A half mile ahead, three speedboats were headed directly toward them, their bows lifted completely out of the water.

Meeks sighed and banked right so steeply that Saul could make out the dark shape of a manta ten feet under the water, directly below him. He could have spanned the distance between wingtip and wave with his forearm.

They leveled off and flew west, leaving the island and boats behind but staying low enough that their sense of speed was tangible as they accelerated through 150 m.p.h. Saul wished the Cessna had retractable landing gear and found himself resisting the urge to lift his feet off the floor. Meeks braced the yoke with his knees while he removed a red kerchief from his pocket and loudly blew his nose.

“We’re going to have to fly all the way up to my friend Terence’s private field at Monck’s Corner and call Albert and have him file that alternate flight plan,” said Meeks, “in case they’re checkin’ the coastal airports that far north. What a damned mess.” He shook his head but ruined the effect by grinning.

“I know we said three hundred dollars,” said Saul, “but I don’t think that’s the price for this junket anymore.”

“No?” said Meeks. “No,” said Saul. He nodded at Natalie and she fumbled in her camera bag for the four thousand dollars bundled in fifties and twenties. Saul set it on the edge of the pilot’s seat.

Meeks set the bundle on his lap and thumbed through it. “Look,” he said, “If any of this’s helped you get any information on who killed Rob Gentry, then that’s worth it to me without this bonus.”

Natalie leaned forward. “It’s helped,” she said. “But keep the bonus.”

“Are you two going to tell me anything about how that bastard Barent had anything to do with Rob?”

“When we know more,” said Natalie. “And we may need your help again.”

Meeks scratched at his sweatshirt and grinned. “You bet, ma’am. Just don’t let the revolution start without me, all right?”

Meeks turned on a transistor radio hanging by a strap from a knob on the dash. They flew toward the mainland to the beat of steel bands and Spanish song lyrics.

N
ina’s catspaw took Justin for a drive on Sunday.

She knocked at the gate shortly before eleven
A.M.
, when decent people would be in church. She declined Culley’s invitation to enter and asked that Justin— she said “the boy”— come out for a ride.

I considered for a moment. The thought of having Justin leave the compound was disturbing— of all of my family he was my favorite— but not allowing the colored girl into the house had its advantages. Also, there was the chance that the excursion might shed some light on the mystery of Nina’s whereabouts. In the end, the girl waited by the fountain until Nurse Oldsmith had dressed Justin in his cutest outfit— blue shorts and a sailor’s shirt— and he joined the young Negress for the ride.

Her car told me nothing; it was an almost-new Datsun with the look and smell of a rental vehicle. The colored girl was dressed in a tan skirt, high boots, and beige blouse— no purse or sign of a billfold that might carry identification. Of course, if she were Nina’s conditioned instrument, she would no longer have an identity.

We drove slowly up East Bay Drive and then north along the highway to Charleston Heights. There, at a small park that looked down on the navy yards, the girl parked, took a pair of binoculars from the otherwise empty rear seat, and led Justin to a black iron fence. She studied the thicket of dark gantries and gray ships across the water and turned to me.

“Melanie, are you willing to help save Willi’s life as well as protect your own?” she asked.

“Of course,” I said in my childish contralto. I was not concentrating on what she said but on the station wagon that had pulled into the parking lot and stopped at the far end. There was one man in it, his face concealed by shadows, dark glasses, and distance. I was sure that I had seen that vehicle behind us on East Bay Drive shortly after we had turned left from Calhoun Street. It had been easy to conceal Justin’s covert glances behind the facade of childish wiggles.

“Good,” said the Negro girl and repeated the farfetched story of others with the Ability staging a bizarre version of our Game on an island somewhere.

“How can I help?” I asked, contorting Justin’s face in what I was sure was an expression of interested concern. It is hard to distrust a child. While the Negro girl told me how I could help, I thought about my options.

Previously it would have benefited me little to Use the girl. My experimental probe had shown that either—a) Nina was Using her but showed absolutely no willingness to fight to keep her should I attempt to usurp control b) the girl was a superbly conditioned cat’s-paw, demanding no supervision from Nina or whoever
had
conditioned her or c) she was not being Used at all.

Now things had changed. If the man in the station wagon was connected with the colored girl in some way, Using her might be an excellent way to gain information.

“Here, look through the binoculars,” she said and held them out to Justin. “It’s the third ship from the right.”

I took the glasses and slid into her mind. I sensed her shock and the image of a strange pattern on a machine called an oscilloscope— familiar to me only from the equipment Dr. Hartman had arrayed in my bedroom— and then I had her. The transition was as effortless as I had come to expect with my enhanced Ability. The Negro girl was young and strong; I could feel the vitality in her. I thought that such strength might be useful in the minutes to come.

I left Justin there, still holding the absurd binoculars, and walked quickly back toward the station wagon, wishing that the colored girl had brought something that might be used as a weapon. The vehicle was at the far end of the parking lot and because of the sun glare on the windshield I was halfway to it before I realized that it was empty, the driver’s door open.

I had the girl pause a moment and look around. There were several people in the park: A colored couple strolled near the fence; a young woman in jogging attire reclined shamelessly under a tree, her nipples clearly visible through thin fabric; two businessmen were talking earnestly near a drinking fountain; an older man with a short beard stood watching me from his place near another car; and an entire family sat at a nearby picnic table.

For a second I felt something like the old panic well in me as I searched the area for Nina’s face. It was noon on a bright, spring Sunday and I felt that at any second I would see a rotting corpse sitting on a park bench or staring at me from the front seat of a car, blue eyes rising into place on a tide of maggots . . .

Justin picked up a fallen branch in the carefree manner of a playful child, and swinging it in front of him, came near the colored girl, staying close behind her as I had her approach the station wagon. Peering in the window on the driver’s side, I could see the profusion of electronic instruments and cables snaking over the seat into the back of the vehicle. Justin turned to keep watch on the people in the park.

I had the colored girl move to look in the backseat. There was a sudden, slight impression of pain which I quickly damped, and I felt myself losing control of her. For a second I was sure that Nina was attempting to seize her, but then I realized that the girl was collapsing onto the pavement. I shifted full awareness to Justin in time to see the girl fall heavily, her head sliding against the metal of the car door. She had been shot.

I backed away on Justin’s short legs, still holding the branch that originally had seemed so formidable from Justin’s point of view, but which I now realized was an absurd little twig. The binoculars still hung around my neck. I backed toward an empty picnic table, swiveling my head, not knowing who my enemy was or from which direction he might come. No one seemed to have noticed the colored girl’s fall or to see her body where it lay between the station wagon and a blue sports car. I had no idea who had killed her or what method they had used. Justin had caught a glimpse of a spot of red on the back of her beige shirt, but it had not seemed large enough for a bullet hole. I thought of silencers and other exotic devices in the movies I had watched on late shows before I had Mr. Thorne get rid of the television set forever.

It had not been a good idea to Use the colored girl. Now she was dead— or so I assumed, I had no interest in having Justin approach her body— and Justin was trapped in this park miles from home. I backed farther away from the parking lot, moving toward the fence. One of the men dressed in a business suit turned and began walking in my direction and I swiveled toward him, raising the branch and snarling like a feral creature. The man merely glanced at me and continued on his way toward the picnic pavilion where the rest rooms were. I had Justin turn and run toward the fence, stopping at the far corner of the park, his back against cold iron.

The colored girl’s body was not visible from this angle. Two men stepped off large motorcycles at my end of the parking lot and walked toward me.

Culley and Howard ran to the garage to get the Cadillac. Howard had to get back out of the vehicle to open the garage door. It was dark in there.

Nurse Oldsmith gave me a shot to slow the mad beating of my heart. The light was strange, falling across Mother’s quilt at the foot of my bed, reflecting off the water on Cooper River into Justin’s eyes, through the grimed window of the garage as Howard fumbled for the latch.

Miss Sewell stumbled on the stairs, the colored boy in the kitchen moaned and held his head for no reason, Justin’s vision blurred, cleared again, there were more men on the grass . . . it was
hard
to control so many at once, my head hurt, I sat up in bed, watching myself from Nurse Oldsmith’s eyes . . .
where
was Dr. Hartman?

Damn Nina!

I closed my eyes. All of my eyes except Justin’s. There was no reason to panic. Justin was too short to drive the car, even if he found the keys, but through him I could Use anyone he could see to have them drive him home. But I was so tired. My head hurt.

Culley backed the Cadillac through the closed garage doors, almost striking Howard, driving off down the alley without him, fragments of rotted wood on the trunk and rear window.

I am coming, Justin. There is nothing to worry about. And even if they take you, there are others to stay here with me.

What if it is all a diversion? Culley gone. Howard crawling in the garage, trying to get to his feet. What if Nina’s agents were approaching through the front gate at that moment? Crawling over the fence?

I concentrated on sending the colored boy named Marvin out front with an ax from the back porch. He struggled to resist. It lasted only a second, less than a second,
but he struggled.
My conditioning had been too lax. Too much of him remained.

I forced the colored boy into the courtyard, past the fountain. No one was there. Miss Sewell joined them and they kept watch. I awoke Dr. Hartman from his nap in the Hodgeses’ parlor and brought him to me on the run. Nurse Oldsmith fetched a shotgun from the closet and pulled the chair close to the bed. Culley was on Meeting Street, approaching the Spruil Avenue exit near the navy yards. Howard stood guard in the backyard.

I felt better. Control returned. It had been only that old panic that only Nina could cause. It was over now. If anyone threatened Justin, I would have that person impale him or herself on the iron fence. I would happily help him rip his own eyes out and . . .

Justin was gone.

While my attention had been diverted I had left him to his own conditioning. Left him standing with his back to the fence and river, a six-year-old boy holding the world at bay with his stick.

He was gone. There was no sensory input at all. I had felt no impact, sensed neither bullet nor knife. Perhaps it had been clouded by Howard’s pain or the struggle with the flicker of consciousness in the colored boy or Miss Sewell’s awkwardness. I did not know.

Justin was gone. Who would comb my hair at night?

Perhaps Nina had not killed him, only taken him. For what purpose? As a trade because I had caused the death of her silly little pickaninny messenger? Could Nina be so petty?

Yes, she could.

Culley arrived at the park and lumbered around until people stared at him. Stared at me.

The rental car was still there and empty. The station wagon was gone. The colored girl’s body was gone. Justin was gone.

I leaned Culley’s massive forearms against the metal railing and stared down at the river forty feet below. Gray currents rippled and swirled.

Culley wept. I wept. We all wept.
Damn you, Nina.

It was late that night as I hung in the half sleep the drugs provided that there came an angry banging at the front gate. Groggily I had Culley, Howard, and the colored boy go outside. I saw who was there and froze.

It was Nina’s colored girl, face ashen, clothing soiled and rent, eyes staring. She held Justin’s limp body in her arms. Nurse Oldsmith parted the drapes and peered through the shutters to give me another angle of view.

The colored girl raised a long finger and pointed directly at my room, directly at
me.

“You,
Melanie!
” she shouted so loudly that I was sure it would awake everyone in the Old Section. “Melanie, open this gate
immediately.
I want to talk to
you
.”

Her finger remained raised and pointing. It seemed that a very long time elapsed. The green spikes of the monitor near the bed pulsed wildly. All of us closed our eyes and then looked again. The colored girl was still there, still pointing, still staring imperiously with an arrogance I had not seen since the last time I had foiled one of Nina Drayton’s plans.

Slowly, hesitantly, I sent Culley forward to unlock the gate and step back quickly before the thing Nina had sent could touch him. She entered briskly, striding toward and through the open front door.

The rest of us made way and drew back as she entered the parlor. She laid Justin’s body on the divan.

I was unsure of what to do. We waited.