Dead on the Island (24 page)

"She shouldn't," I said. "Ray was just
waiting for something. He would have made a move sooner or later,
no matter what. And he would have made it on Sharon. Believe
me."

"How can you be so sure of that?"

I hadn't told anyone about Ray's dying
words, and I didn't intend to. That was my business. Mine and
Ray's. "I'm just sure," I said. "That's all. You can tell Sharon
that. If she thinks she had a rotten break, tell her a little about
Ray. She's still got a chance. Ray hasn't."

"I'll tell her," she said.

She asked what else she could do, and I
asked her to call Vicky. Vicky came by the jail not too long after
that.

"Nice place," she said. "You trying to
impress me?"

"Sure," I said. "All the best people stay
here. You selling any soap?"

"A little," she said. She was wearing the
pink workout suit again. "I didn't realize what a dangerous man you
were."

Her tone was light, but there was something
in her eyes that showed me she meant it.

"I don't mean to be," I said. "Things just
worked out that way."

"Ms Matthews made it sound as if you were
hurt."

"It's just an old football injury," I said.
I told her about the knee and how it got that way.

"You mean you were almost an
All-American?"

"Yeah," I said. "Almost."

We talked for a bit longer, and she agreed
to go by the house and look after Nameless. It turned out that she
was a cat lover.

"You won't love this one," I said. "He's not
very affectionate."

"Sort of like his owner?"

"I can be very affectionate. In the right
circumstances. These aren't the right circumstances."

"I see what you mean. Can we discuss this
after you get out of here?"

"Absolutely," I said. Then I told her were
my spare key was hidden and asked her to go up to the bedroom and
bring me the copy of
Absalom, Absalom
, the Faulkner book
that I'd been reading. I figured I'd have plenty of time to finish
it now.

She brought it back later that day. "I read
this one time, in an English class," she said. "It was all right,
but I didn't like the way it ended."

"I'll let you know what I think. What about
the cat?"

"He was very sweet. Sitting right by the
porch as if he was waiting for me. Rubbed all around my legs while
I was unlocking the door."

"He didn't try to scratch you?"

"Of course not. I gave him a good rub after
I fed him. You ought to pet him more."

"I'll give it a try."

"I'll be back tomorrow," she said.

~ * ~

It took three days for Dino's lawyer to get
through all the roadblocks Barnes threw in his way, including one
of Barnes' pet judges, but he finally got me out. He assured me
that with Hobbes' testimony and the statements from Sharon, Dino,
and Evelyn, I wouldn't have to go back to the jail, at least not
for anything that had happened recently.

"It's clearly all self-defense," he said.
"I'm sure that all charges will be dropped and that you won't even
have to appear before the grand jury." He was a young man in a
sharp suit that he hadn't bought at the mall. I figured that he
must know what he was talking about.

By the time I was released, I'd finished
Absalom, Absalom
. It bothered me more than I wanted to tell
anyone, and I hoped Vicky wouldn't ask me about it. Colonel
Sutpen's son, tainted by the wrong blood, denied by his father,
eventually killed by his half-brother--it all reminded me a little
too much of Ray and Dino. And even a little bit of myself. Goodhue
Coldfield, living out his life in his attic and dying there, well,
at least Dino and Sally West hadn't retreated that far yet. Not
quite. I left the book in the cell. Maybe the next inmate would
find it more enlightening than I had. Or less.

I went by the hospital to see Dino, who was
ready to leave. "It's not too bad here now," he said. "I got a TV,
at least." He pointed to the color set that was held high on the
wall opposite his bed on some sort of metal holder. The controls
were pinned to his bed. "I'll have some more money for you when I
get out of this place."

"Don't worry about the money," I said.

"I know what you mean," he said. "Old Ray."
He shook his head. "I've been thinking about what he said, you
know? And what worries me is that he might even have been right. I
mean, I did order him around a lot. But hell, I did that with
everybody. When you grow up like I did, you get to thinking it's
all right. I'd even forgotten that I'd asked him to pick up some
beers on the night of that wreck. I'm not the one who caused it,
though. That wasn't my fault." He looked around the hospital room.
"Or was it?"

I couldn't help him there. I was wondering
how much of it was mine. "What about you and Evelyn?" I said.

"What does that mean?"

I felt awkward. "I don't know. I just
thought, well, maybe the two of you . . . . " I didn't know how to
finish.

Dino reached for the TV control and fiddled
with it. I could tell he wanted to turn the set on, but he
resisted.

"I don't know," he said finally. "All those
years. You were right about me. I was one step from being a hermit.
But it wouldn't be easy to change. Not now. I'm not too sure about
Sharon, either. I don't think she likes me very much. This whole
thing wouldn't have happened if she hadn't wanted to get back at
me. It wouldn't be easy to make up for all those years."

I didn't try to reassure him the way I had
Evelyn. "I see what you mean," I said.

"Yeah. And Evelyn, she's OK, and she saved
my ass twice, but I'm not sure that she'd want me around all the
time. There'd be a lot of talk."

I laughed. "There was a lot of talk before,
remember. I'm sure half the town knew about you and Evelyn. And
these days no one would be surprised by anything. If you two got
together, it wouldn't make a ripple. People have got a lot more to
talk about than your love life."

Dino managed a wry grin. "You may be right
about that. My family's not exactly front-page news around the
Island anymore."

"You must not have seen a paper lately," I
said.

"Sure I have, and you'll notice that I was
able to keep most of what happened out of it. It was just an
ordinary kidnapping as far as anyone knows."

"Don't count on that," I said. I was
thinking about Sally West. "Not everyone gets the news from the
papers. But in a week or two, everyone will be talking about
something else. There's nothing as boring as old news."

"I guess so," he said. "Still--"

I left it like that. What Dino did with his
life was his own business, and maybe Evelyn and Sharon's business,
but it wasn't mine. Not any longer.

I left the hospital and bought a bottle of
Mogen David. Then I drove to Sally West's home and told her the
whole thing, more or less unedited.

"You know," she said, taking a sip of the
sweet wine, "hearing that story almost makes me feel young again."
She sipped again. "Almost."

"Not me," I said. "It makes me feel a
hundred years old."

"You don't remember the old days," she said.
"Not the way I do, at any rate. Dino's uncles were always living on
the edge. Oh, not of kidnapping or anything like that, but it made
life on the Island exciting. The place had personality then, even
if it did mean that the Texas Rangers were always trying to close
things down. It could be that way again, you know."

"I wouldn't want it to be," I said. "Not if
it meant doing what I've had to do."

"No, I suppose you wouldn't." She sipped.
"What do you suppose Ray meant by that remark?"

I didn't have to ask her which remark she
meant. She was the only one I'd told about what Ray said just
before he died.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe someday I'll
find out."

"You'll be sure to let me know, won't
you?"

"You'll be the first," I said.

~ * ~

My sweatshirt was soaked, and the cardboard
box holding the cheese had just about turned to mush in my hand,
but there was still no sign of the rat.

There was a rumble of thunder, and a gust of
wind blew the rain right through the legs of my jeans.

I looked over the seawall one last time, and
I thought I saw a shadow move from one of the granite boulders to
the next. The rain slid over their slick pink and black
surfaces.

I took the cheese out of the box. Then I
mashed up the box and stuck it in my back pocket. No sense in
adding to the clutter already there. I peeled the cellophane off
the cheese and put the cellophane in my pocket with the box.

"That you down there, rat?" I said.

There was no answer, but of course I hadn't
really expected one. I tossed the eight ounces of cheese down to
where I'd seen the shadow move, turned, and jogged away.

The rain stung my face, but my knee hardly
hurt at all.