Color Him Dead (22 page)

“I have to swim back.”

“Then you’d better unhand me right now.”

His hands felt empty and cold when she was gone. He watched her dress, enjoying the hunched wriggle with which she confined her breasts beneath the halter, and the spraddled pelvic thrust which got the shorts up over her full hips. He was sorry to hear the final
snick
of her zipper.

“About tonight,” he said. “This time you follow orders.”

“Yes, sir,” she said, bending to pick up her belongings. “I’ll Simonize my watch.”

“You’d better. I’ll be watching your place at ten. If it’s safe, flick your lights off, then on again. If it isn’t—”

“I’ll
die.
”

“Just don’t do anything. If it isn’t safe to meet me it isn’t safe to signal. Otherwise I’ll be waiting under the big banyan.”

She turned, frowning. ”
That
isn’t safe.”

“We’ll just meet there. I’ll think of a place by then.”

“Build me a bower in the grass. I want to look up at the stars.”

He helped her get the dinghy beyond the surf line, then steadied it while she settled herself at the tiller. “You haven’t forgotten that I leave in two days?”

She looked desolate. “I
had
forgotten. I hoped we could go on and on—”

“We can. Meet me with your bag packed.”

“Oh, Seright! Where could we
go?
”

“There are some small French islands thirty miles north of here. We’ll take the launch, some extra fuel, food and water. If we leave at midnight we’ll be there by dawn.”

“He knows those islands. He’d kill you. And me—” She shuddered. “Don’t mention it again. Don’t even mention the two days we have left. Something will happen by then.”

As he listened to the fading purr of her dinghy, he thought:
Yes, it sure as hell will.
He repacked his waterproof bag, hoping that Charles had returned with the launch—and without Ian. Edith would probably get violent when her love tryst turned into an abduction, but he had no more time to be subtle. He decided to bring a clean cloth when he met her. No need to stuff a dirty sock in her mouth….

It was nearly dark when he dragged himself up to the shack, feeling drained and cold. Leta turned from the cookpot with a white smile. “I fix you
langouste.
”

He wanted to rest, but on his last night he could be kind. He bent over the pot. “Good.”

She slid an arm around his waist and pressed her hip against his. He stiffened involuntarily, and she drew away. “You have no fire in you.”

“I … swam too much.”

“Yes,” she said in a flat, dead voice, turning back to the cookpot. “Too much time in the sea.”

At nine the launch returned with Charles and Ti-cock aboard and anchored twenty yards out from the jetty. Drew made a single bundle of his clothes, food and a bottle of water, and stowed it in the grass behind the banyan. When he returned, Leta lay on her cot in the dark, smoking. She’d wake up in the morning and assume he’d run from Chaka. It was cruel, but it was the lesser of two cruelties.

He strapped the plastic-handled diving knife to his belt, shoved the gun in his pocket, and climbed up the fort with his binoculars. A light burned behind the closed drapes of Edith’s room. He waited, slapping at mosquitoes. Usually the wind kept them off, but the night was still. Minutes dragged by. The moon would be up in less than an hour; he’d hoped to be at sea—

There. Movement behind the drapes. One of those figures had to be that cook, Meline. And there was Lena.
Where’s Edith? I’ll count to ten, then go down on some pretense—

Grass whispered behind him. He whirled with his hand on his knife.

“The woman is waiting,” came Leta’s voice from the blackness.

“Where?”

“In our house.”

Edith sat at the table in the yellow light of the kerosene lamp. Her appearance gave advance notice of disaster. Her white blouse was torn; her hair hung over her forehead entangled with blades of grass; a leg protruded from the slit in her wraparound skirt, and Drew saw a dark wetness oozing from a skinned knee. Her eyes looked glazed in the lamplight, then he saw the rum bottle before her.

“It’s all off,” she said flatly. “Ian knows.”

Drew felt the icy calm settle over him as he sat down opposite her. “Don’t say it’s off. What happened?”

She sighed and reached for the bottle. Drew caught her hand. “Save it until you tell me.”

She clenched her fists on the table top. “He flew over in his plane this afternoon. Then he went home and sent Charles back with this note—”

She opened her left hand and a sweat-damp ball of paper plopped on the table. He flattened it and read the message written in a precise, unhurried hand:

Drew looked up. “Is Doxie back?”

“Why … I don’t know. Why?”

Drew wadded the note in a tight fist. “He must be. Did anyone see you come here?”

“I don’t know. They were busy packing and I … went out the bathroom window, came down a tree, and crawled through the grass. But I can’t stay—”

“Good God! You plan to just walk back to him?”

“I’ve got to. But you don’t.” She opened her right hand, and a half-dozen glittering objects rattled on the table. Drew saw the sparkle of diamond earrings, the red glow of a ruby brooch, the green fire of an emerald ring. “Take these and go to those islands you told me about. I’ll try to join you … someday.”

“I won’t go without you.”

“Seright, you can’t stay!” Her voice trembled on the edge of hysteria. “He won’t give you that job—he wants you at Diamond so he can amuse himself before he kills you! He saw us out there and he’d never let a man get away with that. I can’t understand why he’s given you a choice, but—”

“He gave me no choice. Don’t you remember my other patron was the State of Indiana? I was doing life for murder.” He leaned toward her. ”
You
remember. You put me there.”

She stared, her mouth open. “What?”

“You’re the girl who killed her husband.”

Her tongue came out and wet her lips. “Oh, no. No. The girl in that story … she was a selfish bitch. I didn’t even like her. I couldn’t do the things she did. I couldn’t kill—”

“You did. You held the gun two feet from his head and pulled the trigger. The bullet went into his forehead. The impact knocked his glasses down on his nose but he didn’t need them any more.”

Her face was twisted as though she were about to cry. “Why … why are you saying these things? I came up here to help you. I …” She pushed the jewels toward him. Her hands were shaking. “Here, they’re yours …”

He struck the table with his fist. “Think, dammit! These are worthless to me. If I tried to sell them I’d go back to prison, where you put me.
You!
Remember? You could have gotten away with five years, or maybe ten, but no, here was this stupid kid standing by, loyal jackass. So you took the stand and you made it look so bad that they sentenced me to death—”

“It wasn’t me!”

“Ask your husband if it was. He knows. He has to, if he knows about me. He must have known before I came. Why else would he talk about your killer instinct?”

She jumped up, her eyes wild. He caught her wrist and yanked her back into the chair and held her there. She stared in trapped fear as he took the knife from his belt and walked behind her. Leaning over her shoulder, he saw a sheen of sweat on the full swell of her breasts. It did nothing for him; Whale Rock seemed long ago and far away.

“You’re going to remember, Edith.” He spoke in a cold calm voice, vaguely aware of Leta watching from the doorway. “You’re going back to that apartment we shared. I’ll help you.” With the point of his knife, he etched a square on the table top. “Here’s the living room. The body lay here, halfway between the door and the coffee table. On the coffee table was that silver ashtray you’ve got up in your room—”

“Was there a telephone?” Her voice was dull, her face looked gray and old.

“Yes.”

“What …” She licked her lips. “What was the number?”

“Talbot 4-1315.”

Her face turned the color of a mushroom. “Oh, God! No!”

She jumped up, cracking her head against his chin. It stunned him for an instant, and when his head cleared, he saw the table overturned and the lamp sputtering on the floor. He grabbed for a white shape in the darkness. A slashing pain raked his forearm. He felt a trickle of warm blood and realized she had the knife. He lunged for her, but his legs tangled in the overturned chair and he fell. He heard her running footsteps out the door as he got to his feet, holding his thumb inside his elbow to stop the blood. The acrid stench of kerosene filled the air; flames began to flicker up the wall. He saw Leta starting out the door with the long curved cutlass in her fist.

“Leta! Give me that!”

“I go kill her for you.”

He wrenched the cutlass from her hand. “Throw dirt on the fire. If that doesn’t stop it, run!”

He hurried down the path. Edith would be harder to handle now, but none of his plans had to be changed. The moon sat on the
cap
like a halved yellow orange. He saw Edith waiting halfway down the slope. She held out her hands in an attitude of supplication.

“Please, Drew, forgive me….”

It was the first time she used his real name. He stopped, feeling the hair prickle at the back of his neck.

“You’ve got it back now.”

“All of it, Drew. But it’s too horrible. I can’t bear—”

“Who killed your husband?”

“I did. But please let me—”

Something exploded in the back of his head. He fell to his knees. Edith screamed—a high, shrill sound which ended abruptly. The path was filled with men who darted out from the bordering grass. Drew swung the cutlass and heard the solid thunk! of steel on bone. A crushing weight landed on his back, forcing him down. He tasted dirt and felt a sharp toe hammering against his head. He tried to cling to consciousness, felt it slipping away, and told himself that this time Doxie would not stop until he was dead.

Sensation reached into the depths and stirred his sleeping mind. He felt a nipping pain in his right earlobe.
Go away,
he thought.
Nibble-nibble,
answered the tiny, curved yellow teeth. He tried to move his arms but couldn’t find them. Thirst was like steel wool scratching his throat. He tried to scream, but managed only a dull croak. He heard a scurrying in the grass, then the
chitter-cheep-cheep
of surprised indignation. Damn rats, can’t let a dead man lie in peace….

But no, he wasn’t dead. Puzzled, he tried to open his eyes. Ohh, God. It felt like they’d been sewed shut with coarse thread. Setting his teeth, he managed to raise his arms and pry apart the tender, swollen lids. He saw a dim, pain-streaked world, lighted by a gray metallic dawn. Tall grass rattled over his head. He decided they must have dragged him off the path and left him for dead.

He lay still, trying to divide the universal ache of his body

into its component parts. Pain stabbed his side each time he breathed. Could be a rib cracked or broken. His groin ached, and for an instant he feared that Doxie had exercised a warped revenge for his own condition. No, he was all right. Stomach ached. He rolled onto his side and spat dryly on the ground. There was no blood in his spittle, so probably his insides were okay.

His head was splitting. He touched it gently, felt a crusted mat of blood and hair. Concussion? He was thinking straight, wasn’t he? Sure, he remembered everything. Edith had gotten her memory back. He could still hear her remorseful voice:
“Drew, forgive me….”

Goddamn her remorse, and damn him for listening. Could it have been coincidence that she’d stopped exactly where the men waited? She’d screamed, yes, but women scream at movies.

He felt a sour, futile rage, so strong that his stomach twisted with nausea. He put his aching head between his knees and vomited. A succession of dry, wracking seizures left him weak and boneless, and he lay back to wait for the pain to recede from his head.

Next time, he told himself. No talk. Just … kill her.

He struggled to his feet, surprised to find that his bad leg supported his weight. Either the strength had come back to it, or else it was hurting like hell and he just had too many other pains to notice. He walked in an awkward, spraddled fashion, following the trail of crushed grass back to the path. He searched the gouged earth where the fight had taken place, but found no sign of his gun. He made his way to the beach and peered through the branches of the banyan. There were no boats at the jetty; no signs of life around the big house. The evacuation had come off as planned; he was alone on the island….

He was washing himself in the surf when he remembered Leta. He had left her in the burning shack, forgetting that she’d nearly died when the harem burned. She was probably scared to death of fire.

He waded out of the sea and became aware that the smell of smoke hung heavy in the air. Halfway up the hill, he looked toward the fort and saw a boiling thunderhead of black smoke. He started running. He came to the edge of the fire, caught a deep breath and plunged into a smouldering wasteland of burning stalks. He decided the fire had started downhill, then shifted back as the morning breeze blew from the East. He understood why Doxie had failed to make sure he was dead. He’d expected the fire to do the job.

Burning stalks whipped his arms, and his shoe soles grew so hot he felt like kicking them off and running barefoot. Each breath was like a hot iron pushed down his throat. His hair caught fire and he beat it out with his hands, stopping only when he reached the concrete platform which had held the shack.