Paw and Order (26 page)

There were two seats—like bucket seats only deeper—in the kayak, bow and stern, stern being more boat lingo in case you're new to this. Bernie tapped the side of the bow seat. “In you go, Chet. And not a sound.”

I hopped in, making no sound, and stood tall, facing the bay. Bernie got in the stern—far from silently, sorry to have to point that out—and pushed off. He got going with the paddle. It, too, made some sound, but lovely, all burbles and swishes.

The cabin cruiser—
Horsin' Around
, if I was getting this right—took shape despite the darkness, got bigger, and then we were right beside it. Bernie glided us around to the stern. A platform hung down, and the rowboat was tied to it. Bernie made a little clicking sound in his mouth meaning jump onto the platform, so I did. He jumped out, too—more like he wriggled out—and pulled himself onto the platform, then dragged the kayak up with him. We glanced down into the rowboat. Mr. York lay on the bottom, totally still, a small dark pool spreading beneath him. We climbed onto the deck of
Horsin' Around
and approached the cabin door, the kind of door with slats. Light leaked out and so did sound. I heard General Galloway saying, “I'm completely baffled.” Bernie drew the gun, and we burst in, hard and heavy, the door flying off the hinges.

“Hold it right there,” Lizette said, her voice rising, but not much—reminding me of how Bernie would be in her place. A weird thought, but there it was.

The cabin was like a living room with a couch and two chairs. General Galloway sat on the couch, wearing tightie whiteys and nothing else. Suzie sat on one of the chairs, wearing jeans and a T-shirt. Lizette stood at one side of the room, wearing a long man's shirt and bare-legged. Not sure why I'm including all this clothing information: it seemed important at the time, no telling why, at least by me. Way more important was the gun in Lizette's hand, pointed at Suzie, although Lizette's eyes were on us.

“Drop it or I kill her,” Lizette said. “It's very simple.”

“The Château Frontenac's in Quebec City,” Bernie said. “Not Montreal.” He lowered the gun.

“Don't, Bernie,” Suzie said. “She's going to kill us anyway.”

“Not me, surely?” said the general, rising to his feet.

Lizette laughed. “That's the funniest thing you've ever said.”

“What do you mean?” he said. “I don't understand what's going on. What's happened to you?”

“Try this,” said Lizette. “The orgasms, quote end quote? Faked, each and every one.” The general staggered, and his skin went white; he slumped back on the couch. Lizette gestured at Bernie with the gun. “I'll count to one half.”

Bernie dropped his gun. Nobody did anything, but wasn't it a time for doing something? I was gathering my strength beneath me, when a terrifying kind of human figure appeared in the doorway, stepping between me and Bernie. Something real bad had happened to his nose, and his hair, not gelled now, was still slicked back, although with blood. A moment passed before I realized it was Mr. York, a shoeless Mr. York, leaving red footprints on the deck. He picked up Bernie's gun, gazed at it like he didn't know what it was.

“Look at you,” Lizette said.

Mr. York turned that same unknowing gaze on her.

“You've fucked up everything,” she said. “And for what? You couldn't be more Russian. Didn't you just hear what I told him? He's a toad. The orgasms were faked, each and every—”

Mr. York shot her right in the middle of her forehead, the sound so loud I thought the boat would break up around us. Lizette fell to the floor and lay still. I considered taking the gun from Mr. York, the right move for sure, but instead found ­myself moving away from him. Bernie was doing the same thing.

“Russian?” said the general. He covered his mouth with both hands, the first time I'd seen a man do that.

Mr. York shifted his gun toward him in a slow and wobbly way. “Is there any point . . .” He paused there, tried to breathe, had trouble.

“In shooting me?” said the general. “No, none at all. Didn't you hear her? There's no cause for jealousy. I didn't even know she was married until—”

Mr. York's voice rose. “Speak of her with respect!”

“Of course! I was. Please don't misconstrue—”

Mr. York waved the gun at the general, like a man shooing flies. Somehow, the action took him with it. He lost his balance, toppled over, landed hard, and lay motionless on the floor, blood and more blood everywhere. I could smell nothing else.

Silence. Bernie knelt and put his finger on Mr. York's neck. Then he went over to Suzie and held her close. Engine sounds rose up on the bay.

“What's that?” said the general, moving toward a window.

“Trouble for you,” Bernie said. He stroked Suzie's hair.

“I thought you were on my side.”

“That would be a lonely place,” said Bernie. “You're not even there yourself.”

• • •

Not long after that, we were in Ludmilla's house, although some of Mr. Ferretti's guys had taken already her away. Others were out working on the boat. A car came and drove the general home. That left us—meaning me, Bernie, Suzie, and Ferretti—alone in Ludmilla's kitchen.

“He didn't actually abduct you?” Ferretti said.

“I went willingly,” said Suzie. “He promised the story of my life.”

“But he made you hand over your cell phone?” Ferretti said. “That sounds coercive.”

“Only in the sense that I wanted that story.”

“Suppose I asked you not to print it.”

“That's for you to take up with the paper,” Suzie said. “But I'm writing it tonight.”

“Starting with the affair?” Bernie said.

Suzie nodded. “Isobel Galloway got Eben going on that, when they met at the stable. That led to Eben contacting Jean-Luc, far gone with jealousy.”

“And the carriage house?” Bernie said. “Why did Eben want you there?”

“He must have been using me to keep an eye on Lizette,” Suzie said. “But Lizette already had a close eye on him, complete with access to his office. Jean-Luc sent me the keys, of course.” She shook her head. “I made so many mistakes, Bernie.”

“Not that I can see,” Bernie said.

“Telling Lizette about you, for example. You, and Chet, and the Porsche, and your adventures—all that.”

“So?”

“Including the glove box.”

Bernie shrugged. “You didn't know what she was.” He turned to Ferretti. “I get that Lanny Sands was waiting to see if Galloway won the nomination, with the idea of blowing him out of the water deep in the campaign, but how did he find out in the first place?”

“No idea,” said Ferretti.

“From you?”

“We stay out of politics—I told you that.”

“Maybe not everyone on your team. Maybe Sands had a buddy in one of your cubicles, tapping away at a keyboard.”

Ferretti's eyes shifted.

“Maybe there are all sorts of unimagined ramifications to what you do,” Bernie said.

“Easy to say from a seat in the audience,” Ferretti said. “But suppose Galloway had gotten himself into the White House.”

“You'd have turned Lizette and fed the Russians anything you wanted,” Suzie said.

“That's off the record,” Ferretti said.

“Is it also off the record that you and your people would have been in position to run the White House?” Bernie said.

Ferretti smiled. First time I'd seen him smile: he had small teeth, nice and even. “Isn't that on the melodramatic side?” he said. “But information is power. That's not my fault.”

“Here's the piece of information I'm interested in,” Suzie said. “Was the president aware of all this?”

“I have no facts on that,” Ferretti said.

“But what do you think?” said Suzie. “Sands was close to him.”

Ferretti nodded. “The president's totally broken up about his death, from what I hear, bawling his eyes out. He's got his top speechwriters working on the eulogy.”

“You didn't answer the question,” Bernie said.

“Here's your answer,” Ferretti said. “It depends on the definition of the word
know
.”

Bernie gave him a look and said, “So long.”

“Do I thank you or do you thank me?” Ferretti said.

“Neither feels right,” Bernie said. “But you could do me a favor.” He told him about Sonia. “Get her a new identity, put her somewhere safe.”

“Can do,” said Ferretti. “Especially if there's some cooperation on Suzie's end.”

“I can keep your name out of the initial story,” she said. “You'll be a high-ranking officer.”

“Let's go with midlevel, if you don't mind,” said Ferretti.

Bernie and Suzie started toward the door, hand in hand. Was that a wrap? It didn't feel like a wrap to me.

“Chet?” Bernie said. “What are you doing?”

“He seems to have grabbed my pant leg,” Ferretti said. “I thought he liked me.”

“Chet!” Bernie said, but he wasn't angry at all, far from it. Had knowing come up in their conversation? I know pretty much all there is to know about Bernie's voice.

We made tracks. I reached the car way before Bernie and Suzie, but it made no difference. I was back on the shelf. For a while, I did some pawing of the seat backs. Bernie and Suzie leaned against each other, shoulder to shoulder, and ignored me. How could that be? Wasn't seat-back pawing an annoyance, big time?

I tried to think of something even more annoying. That made my eyelids heavy.

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