How Like an Angel (13 page)

“I'll ask the pharmacist, the man who sells it.”

She turned and looked up at him, very earnestly. “Do you think I will be pretty, as pretty as the girls at school?” “Of course you will.”

It was getting quite dark but she made no move to get out of the car and go back to the Tower. “Everyone here is so ugly,” she said. “And dirty. The floors are cleaner than we are. At school there were showers with hot water and real soap, and each of us had a big white towel all to ourselves.”

“How long have you been here at the Tower, Karma?”

“Four years, since it was built.”

“And before then?”

“We were at some place in the mountains, the San Gabriel Mountains down south. It was just a lot of wooden shacks. Then Mother Pureza came along and we got the Tower.”

“She was a convert?”

“Yes, a rich one. We don't get many rich ones. I guess the rich ones are too busy having fun spending their money to worry about the hereafter.”

“Are you worried, Karma?”

“The Master scares me with his funny eyes,” she said. “But with Sister Blessing I'm not scared. I don't really hate her the way I said I did. She prays every day for my acne.”

“Do you know where she is now?”

“Everyone does. She's in isolation.”

“For how long?”

“Five days. Punishment always last five days.”

“Do you know the reason she's being punished?”

Karma shook her head. “There was a lot of whispering I couldn't hear, between her and the Master and Brother Crown. Then when my mother and I went to make dinner yesterday at noon, Sister Blessing was gone and Brother Tongue was crouched by the stove, crying. He just worships Sister Blessing because she babies him and makes a big fuss over him when he's sick. The only one that acted glad was Brother Crown and he's meaner than Satan.”

“How long has Brother Crown been a convert?”

“He came about a year after the Tower was built. That would be three years ago.”

“What about Sister Blessing?”

“She was with us in the San Gabriel Mountains. Nearly all the rest were, too, including a lot that have gone away since because they quarreled with the Master, like my father.”

“Where's your father now, Karma?”

“I don't know,” she said in a whisper. “And I can't ask. When someone is banished his name can never be mentioned again.”

“Have you ever heard anyone here refer to a man called Patrick O'Gorman?”

“No.”

“Can you remember that name, Patrick O'Gorman?”

“Yes. Why?”

“I'd appreciate it if you'd keep your ears open for it,” Quinn said. “You needn't tell anyone I asked you to do this, it's strictly between you and me, like the ointment. Is it a bar­gain?”

“Yes.” She touched her cheeks, her forehead, her chin. “Do you really and honestly think I will be pretty when my acne goes away?”

“I know it.”

“How will you send me the ointment? The Master opens all the mail packages and he'd just throw something out if he thought it was drugs. He doesn't believe in drugs or doctors, only faith.”

“I'll bring the stuff to you myself.”

It was too dark now to see her face but Quinn felt her little movement of protest or dissent. “They don't want you to come here anymore, Mr. Quinn. They think you're trying to make trouble for the colony.”

“I'm not. The colony, as such, doesn't interest me.”

“You keep on coming.”

“My first visit was an accident, my second was to give Sister Blessing the information she asked for.”

“Is that the honest truth?”

“Yes,” Quinn said. “It's getting late, Karma. You'd better start back before they send out a lynching party for me.”

“I won't be missed. I told mother I was going to bed because I had a sore throat. She'll be busy in the kitchen until late. By that time,” she added bitterly, “I expected to be half­way to the city. Only I'm not. I'm right here. I'll be right here until I die. I'll be old and ugly, and dirty like the rest of them. Oh, I wish I could die this very minute and go to heaven before I commit all the sins I'll probably commit when I get the chance, like having beautiful dresses and shoes and talking back to the Master and washing my hair every day in perfume.”

Quinn got out of the car and held the door open for her. She climbed out slowly and awkwardly.

“Can you find your way in the dark?” Quinn said.

“I've been up and down this road a million times.”

“Good-bye for now, then.”

“Are you really coming back?”

“Yes.”

“And you won't forget the stuff for my acne?”

“No,” Quinn said. “And you won't forget your part of the bargain?”

“I'm to keep my ears open if anyone mentions Patrick O'Gorman. I don't think they will, though.”

“Why not?”

“We're not allowed to talk about the people we knew be­fore we were converted, and there's no one in the colony called O'Gorman. When I'm looking after Mother Pureza I often read the book the Master keeps with our other-world names in it. There's no O'Gorman in it. I have a very good memory.”

“Can you remember Sister Blessing's name?”

“Naturally. Mary Alice Featherstone and she lived in Chi­cago.”

Quinn asked her about some of the others but none of the names she mentioned meant any more to him than Mary Alice Featherstone did.

In the light of the rising moon he watched Karma walk back toward the Tower. Her step was brisk and buoyant as if she had forgotten all about wanting to die and was concentrating instead on the sins she intended to commit when her chance came.

Quinn drove to San Felice, checked in at a motel on the waterfront and went to sleep to the intermittent croaking of a foghorn and the sound of surf crashing against the break­water.

TEN

By nine o'clock
in the morning the sun had burned off most of the fog. The sea, calm at low tide, was streaked with colors, sky-blue on the horizon, brown where the kelp beds lay, and a kind of gray-green in the harbor itself. The air was warm and windless. Two children, who looked barely old enough to walk, sat patiently in their tiny sailing pram waiting for a breeze.

Quinn crossed the sandy beach and headed for the break­water. Tom Jurgensen's office was padlocked but Jurgensen himself was sitting on the concrete wall talking to a gray-haired man wearing a yachting cap and topsiders and an im­maculate white duck suit. After a time the gray-haired man turned away with an angry gesture and walked down the ramp to the mooring slips.

Jurgensen approached Quinn, unsmiling. “Are you back, or haven't you left?”

“I'm back.”

“You didn't give me much chance to raise the money. I said a week or two, not a day or two.”

“This is a social call,” Quinn said. “By the way, who's your friend in the sailor suit?” “Some joker from Newport Beach. He wouldn't know a starboard tack from a carpet tack but he's got a seventy-five-foot yawl and he thinks he's Admiral of the fleet and Lord of the four winds. . . . How broke are you, Quinn?”

“I told you yesterday. Flat and stony.”

“Want a job for a few days?”

“Such as?”

“The Admiral's looking for a bodyguard,” Jurgensen said. “Or, more strictly, a boat guard. His wife's divorcing him and he got the bright idea of cleaning everything out of his safe deposit boxes and taking it aboard the
Briny Belle
before his wife could get a court order restraining him from disposing of community property. He's afraid she'll find out where he is and try to take possession of the
Briny
and everything on it.”

“I don't know anything about boats.”

“You don't have to. The
Briny's
not going anywhere until the next six-foot tide can ease her past the sand bar. That will be in four or five days. Your job would be to stay on board and keep predatory blondes off the gangplank.”

“What's the pay?”

“The old boy's pretty desperate,” Jurgensen said. “I think maybe you could nick him for seventy-five dollars a day, and that's not seaweed.”

“What's the Admiral's name?”

“Alban Connelly. He married some Hollywood starlet, which doesn't mean much, since every female in Hollywood under thirty is a starlet.” Jurgensen paused to light a cigarette. “Think of it, loafing all day in the sun, playing gin rummy over a few beers. Sound good?”

“Neat,” Quinn said. “Especially if the Admiral's luck isn't too good.”

“With ten million dollars, who needs luck? You want me to go and tell him about you, give you a little build-up?”

“I could use the money.”

“Fine. I'll skip down to the
Briny
and talk to him. I suppose you can start work any time?”

“Why not?” Quinn said, thinking,
I have nothing else to do
:
O'Gorman's in hell, Sister Blessing's in isolation, Alberta Hay­wood's in jail. None of them is going to run away.
“Do you know many of the commercial fishermen around here?”

“I know all of them by sight, most of them by name.”

“What about a man called Aguila?”

“Frank Aguila, sure. He owns the
Ruthie K.
You can see her from here if you stand on the sea wall.” Jurgensen pointed beyond the last row of mooring slips. “She's an old Monterey-type fishing boat, anchored just off the port bow of the black-masted sloop. See it?”

“I think so.”

“Why the interest in Aguila?”

“He married Ruth Haywood six years ago. I just wondered how they were getting along.”

“They're getting along fine,” Jurgensen said. “She's a hard­working little woman, often comes down to the harbor to spruce up the boat and help Frank mend his nets. The Aguilas don't socialize much, but they're pleasant, unassuming people. . . . Come along, you can wait in my office while I go out to the
Briny Belle
to see Connelly.”

Jurgensen unlocked his office and went inside. “There's the typewriter, you can write yourself a couple of references to make Connelly feel he's getting a bargain. And you don't have to bother with details. By ten o'clock Connelly will be too cockeyed to read anyway.”

When Jurgensen had gone Quinn looked up Frank Aguila's number in the telephone directory and dialed. A woman who identified herself as the baby-sitter said that Mr. and Mrs. Aguila were down in San Pedro for a couple of days attending a union meeting.

When Quinn reached the
Briny Belle
a young man in over­alls was painting out the name on her bow while Connelly leaned over the rail urging him to hurry.

Quinn said, “Mr. Connelly?”

“Quinn?”

“Yes.” “You're lace.”

“I had Co check out of my motel and make arrangements for my car.”

“Well, don't just stand there,” Connelly said. “You're nor about Co be piped aboard if that's what you're waiting for.”

Quinn walked up the gangplank, already convinced that the job wasn't going to be as pleasant as Jurgensen had let on.

“Sit down, Quinn,” Connelly said. “What's-his-name, that jackass who sell boats—did he tell you my predicament?”

“Yes.”

“Women don't know anything more about a boat than its name, so I'm having the
Briny's
name changed. Pretty clever, no?”

“Fiendishly.”

Connelly leaned back on his heels and scratched the side of his large red nose. “So you're one of those sarcastic bastards that likes to make funnies, eh?”

“I'm one of those.”

“Well, I make the funnies around here, Quinn, and don't you forget it. I make a funny, everybody laughs, see?”

“You can buy it cheaper in a can.”

“I don't think I'm going to like you,” Connelly said thought­fully. “But for four or five days I'll go through the motions if you will.”

“That sounds fair.”

“I'm a fair man, very fair. That's what that little blonde tramp, Elsie, doesn't understand. If she hadn't grabbed for it, I'd have thrown it to her. If she hadn't gone around bleating about her career, I'd have bought her a career like some other guy'd buy her a bag of peanuts. . . . What's-his-name said you play cards.”

“Yes.”

“For money?”

“I have been known to play for money,” Quinn said care­fully.

“O.K., let's go below and get started.”

That first day established the pattern of the ones that fol­lowed. In the morning Connelly was relatively sober and he talked about what a good guy he was and how badly Elsie had treated him. In the afternoon the two men played gin rummy until Connelly passed out at the table; then Quinn would de­posit him on a bunk and go up on deck with a pair of binoc­ulars to see if there was any sign of activity on Aguila's fishing boat, the
Ruthie K.
In the evening Connelly started in drink­ing again and talking about Elsie, what a fine woman she was and how badly he had treated her. Quinn got the impression that there were two Elsies and two Connellys. The evening Elsie who was a fine woman should have married the morning Connelly who was a good guy, and everything would have turned out fine.

On the fourth afternoon Connelly was snoring on his bunk when Quinn went on deck with the binoculars. The Captain, a man named McBride, and two crewmen Quinn hadn't seen be­fore had come aboard with their gear, and there was a great deal of quiet activity.

“We get under way at midnight tomorrow,” McBride told Quinn. “There's a 6.1 tide. Where's Nimitz?”

“Asleep.”

“Good. We can get some work done. You coming with us, Quinn?”

“Where are you going?”

“Nimitz is dodging the enemy,” McBride said briskly. “My orders are top-secret. Also our friend has an engaging little habit of changing his mind in mid-channel.”

“I like to know where I'm going.”

“What does it matter? Come on along for the ride.”

“Why the sudden burst of friendship, Captain?”

“Friendship, hell,” McBride said. “I hate gin rummy. When you play with him, I don't have to.”

Quinn focused the binoculars on the
Ruthie K.
He couldn't see anyone on board but a small skiff was tied up alongside that hadn't been there on the previous days. After about fifteen minutes a woman in jeans and a T-shirt appeared on the bridge and hung what looked like a blanket over the railing. Then she disappeared again.

Quinn approached Captain McBride. “If Connelly wakes up tell him I had to go ashore on an errand, will you?”

“I just took a look at him. He'd sleep through a typhoon.”

“That's fine with me.”

He went back to Jurgensen's office, borrowed a skiff and rowed out to the
Ruthie K.
The woman was on deck, and the railing by this time was lined with sheets and blankets airing in the sun.

Quinn said, “Mrs. Aguila?”

She stared down at him suspiciously like an ordinary house­wife finding a salesman at her front door. Then she pushed back a strand of sun-bleached hair. “Yes. What do you want?”

“I'm Joe Quinn. May I talk to you for a few minutes?”

“What about?”

“Your sister.”

An expression of surprise crossed her face and disappeared. “I think not,” she said quietly. “I don't discuss my sister with representatives of the press.”

“I'm not a reporter, Mrs. Aguila, or an official. I'm a private citizen interested in your sister's case. I know her parole hear­ing is coming up soon and the way things are she's pretty sure to be turned down.”

“Why? She's paid her debt, she's behaved herself. Why shouldn't they give her another chance? And how did you find me? How did you know who I was?”

“I'll explain if you'll let me come aboard.”

“I haven't much time,” she said brusquely. “There's work to be done.”

“I'll try to be brief.”

Mrs. Aguila watched him while he tied the skiff to the buoy and climbed awkwardly up the ladder. The boat was a far cry from the spit and polish of the
Briny Belle
but Quinn felt more at home on it. It was a working boat, not a plaything, and the deck glistened with fish scales instead of varnish, and Elsie and the Admiral wouldn't have been caught dead in the cramped

little galley.

Quinn said, “Mrs. King, an associate of your brother, told me your married name and where you lived. I was in Chicote the other day talking to her and a few other people like Mar­tha O'Gorman. Do you remember Mrs. O'Gorman?

“I never actually
met
her.”

“What about her husband?”

“What is this anyway?” Mrs. Aguila said sharply. “I thought you wanted to discuss my sister, Alberta. I'm not interested in the O'Gormans. If there's a way I can help Alberta I'm willing to do it, naturally, but I don't see how the O'Gormans come into it. All three of them lived in Chicote, that's the only connection.”

“Alberta was a bookkeeper. So, in a sense, was O'Gorman.”

“And a few hundred other people.”

“The difference is that nothing spectacular happened to the few hundred other people,” Quinn said. “And within a month both Alberta and O'Gorman met up with quite unusual fates.”

“Within a month?” Mrs. Aguila repeated. “I'm afraid nor, Mr. Quinn. Alberta met up with her fate years and years be­fore that, when she first started tampering with the books. Not to mince words, she was stealing from the bank before Patrick O'Gorman even came to Chicote. God knows what made her do it. She didn't need anything, she didn't seem to want any­thing more than she had except possibly a husband and chil­dren, and she never mentioned even that. I often think back to the four of us, Alberta, George and Mother and I, eating our meals together, spending the evenings together, behaving like any ordinary family. And all that time, all those years, Alberta never gave the slightest hint that anything was wrong. When the crash came I was already married to Frank and living here in San Felice. One evening I went out to pick up the news­paper from the driveway and there it was on the front page, Alberta's picture, the whole story. . . .” She turned her head away as if the memory of that day was too painful to face again.

“Were you close to your sister, Mrs. Aguila?”