Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43 (20 page)

 
          
Vernon
resisted the bait:
I am not
Vernon
,
he reminded himself, and said, “Is it
valuable? Rich things there?”

 
          
She
gave him the exasperated look of the professional faced with the amateur. “How
am I supposed to know
that
? I haven’t
investigated the site, that man drove me off with a sword!”

 
          
“A
sword?”

 
          
She
made swishing gestures, saying, “You know, that thing,
you
know. ”

 
          
“Machete,”
said the skinny black man from the other room. “You keep out of this!”
Vernon
yelled. With his free hand, he punched his
hipbone. Inside the pillowcase, his head was getting hotter and hotter, in more
ways than one. Everything was out of control. There was no way to buy this
woman off, or force her silence, except . . .

 
          
Ohhhhh,
ohhhhhh.
How
had he gotten into this?
“That’s all for now,” he said, backing away to the door. He thought, I’ll go to
the land, I don’t know how we all missed the temple, but it must be there, I’ll
go there, I’ll hunt around right now, tonight, if I’m lucky I’ll find some
jade, maybe some gold, a couple hundred thousand worth (U.S.), I’ll skip the
country
tomorrow
. Start all over
again somewhere else, where nobody knows me, change my name, do things right
this time. At the same time, he knew he wouldn’t. He wouldn’t go there tonight,
and even if he did he wouldn’t find anything useful by stumbling around in the
dark, and even if by some insane chance he did happen upon something valuable
he still wouldn’t flee
Belize
.

 
          
Where
would he go? What would he do there? Who would he know there?

 
          
“Leave
me the candle,” Valerie Greene said.

 
          
“What?”
he asked, disturbed from his reverie.

 
          
“It’s
dark in here. I need the candle.”

 
          
“Oh,
no,” he said. He’d seen
that
movie,
too. “You’ll set fire to the place and escape.”

 
          
“I
just wanted some light.”

 
          
“You
don’t need light,” he said ominously, holding the candle closer to himself, not
quite igniting the pillowcase. He pushed on the door, and nothing happened. His
partner had locked it. So much for his exit line; hating the sense that he was
somehow becoming a figure of fun,
Vernon
resignedly knocked on the door.

 
          
“Who
goes there?”

 
          
“Oh,
open the goddam door!”

 
          
The
hasp rasped, the door swung open, and
Vernon
glared back through the pillowcase eyes at
Valerie Greene: “I’ll see
you
later,”
he said, and this time made his exit.

 
          
“I
have to go to the bathroom!”

 
          
The
skinny black man shut and locked the door. The sun would soon be setting;
orange rays crossed almost horizontally from the doorway to soften the
roughness of the dividing wall.
Vernon
put the candle down in its comer, still
burning. “I have to get back,” he said.

           
The skinny black man nodded at the
locked door. “Do I take care of that?”

 
          
“Well,
of course, man, you brought her here, didn’t you?”

 
          
The
skinny black man leveled on
Vernon
a cold and impatient gaze, and waited.

 
          
Vernon
dithered. Unwillingly, he said, “We can’t
have her walking around the streets now, can we?”

 
          
“Say
it out,
Vernon
. Say what you want.”

 
          
There
was to be no escape from responsibility.
Vernon
looked aside, out the doorway at trees,
brush, vines, heavy greenery turning black in the orange light. He shook his
head. “She has to die,” he muttered, and hurried away.

 
          
Home.

 
          
An
accumulation of mail. No burglaries, thank God. The cats and plants
had
been taken care of after all by
Richie from across the hall; what a relief. Sour milk in the refrigerator, but
otherwise fine in there. Seltzer gone flat, so the homecoming Cutty Sarks had
to be splashed with water from the kitchen sink. And among the messages on the
answering machine was the hearty robust cheerful voice of Hiram: “Hanging by my
thumbs down here, can’t wait to hear all. Give a buzz the
instant
you get in.”

 
          
“Oh,
dear,” Gerry said. “I’m not sure I can face him.”

 
          
Back
on home ground, Alan was less judgmental, more compassionate. “I know what you
mean,” he said, “but we might as well get it over. ”

 
          
“Can’t
I at least shower first? We just walked in, we haven’t even unpacked. ”

 
          
“You
go shower,” Alan told him. “I’ll call Hiram and tell him to give us half an
hour, and then
I'll
unpack.” (Alan
was feeling a bit guilty at the memory of his tension-caused snappishness down
there in
Belize
.)

 
          
“Oh,
I do appreciate that,” Gerry said. “Thank you, Alan.” The Scotch had made him
feel better already, and so had Alan’s supportive mood, and so had the very
fact of being home, here among the things he loved.

 
          
Before
showering, and while Alan made the call to Hiram’s apartment three floors
below, .Gerry went back to the living room simply to drink in the atmosphere
for a moment; the reassurance of one’s own nest. Coming in from Kennedy in the
cab through the evening rush, smears of wet dirty snow beside the roadway, Gerry
had
yearned
to be home, and now at
last here he was, in his own living room.

 
          
On
a basic motif of French Empire gilded furniture, Gerry and Alan had overlaid an
eclectic mix of other items, all a little outrageous, and yet all coming
wonderfully together, like a perfect little ragout. The nineteenth century
English rhinoceros horn chair, for instance, made a blunt masculine statement
that eased somewhat the overly pompous and delicate Napoleonic pieces, while
the heavy window treatments of fringed green velvet against the slightly darker
green of the lacquered walls created an inferiority, a
hereness
saved from claustrophobia by the leopard skin casually
thrown on the Aubusson rug. The dark Coromandel screen in the corner served as
a focus for the room’s
objets;
teakwood Balinese demons grinning at brass manyarmed Indian goddesses under the
baleful gaze of English cathedral stone gargoyles and medieval icons, lit by
Tiffany lamps.

 
          
Home!

 
          
Actually
smiling, for the first time in who knows how long, Gerry went on through to the
bedroom, hearing the murmur of Alan on the phone in the office, and if the
eclectic living room had soothed him the bedroom, designed for comfort and
solace, made him almost weep with pleasure. The pattern here was English pastel
flowered chintzes, basically in soft pinks and blues on a setting of cream. The
king-size bed stated the motif, with a chintz spread tossed with lacy pillows,
each in its own patterned cover reflected elsewhere in the room. The walls were
sheathed in the softest and most delicate of cloth, with a slightly stronger
statement made by the thick chintz window draperies sweeping the floor, backed
by lacy sheers. The only strong note in the ensemble was a brass-legged glass
table, flanked by low broad armchairs, very overstuffed beneath their chintz
covers, soft and squishy and wonderfully comforting to sit on.

 
          
Gerry
and Alan hadn’t gotten around to doing the bathroom yet, unfortunately—they
wanted to get it exactly
right
before
calling in the workmen—so it still reflected the taste (for lack of a better
word) of the landlord. Still, the shower was as wonderful and restorative as
anticipated.

 
          
Thirty
minutes later, wearing a black muumuu decorated with dragons, and carrying a
fresh Scotch and water in a wide, heavy'based glass, Gerry answered the
doorbell to let in Hiram Farley, a tall barrelchested balding happy man, an
important local magazine editor, which means a man who found it impossible to
take life seriously. “Gerry, my darling, you’re tanned!” Hiram said, grabbing
Gerry by both cheeks and tilting his face down so he could be kissed on his
tanned brow. “How beautiful you are,” Hiram said, “and how beautiful that drink
looks.”

 
          
“No
soda, I’m afraid. Plain water all right?”

 
          
“Fish
fuck in it,” Hiram said, “but on the other hand birds fuck in midair. ”

           
“Hiram,” Gerry said, “was that a
yes?”

 
          
“The
day I say no to a drink,” Hiram said, “any drink, that’s the day for you to
arrange for the six black horses, and the six good men well- hung and true.”

 
          
Hiram’s
words generally went by Gerry like traffic; in the pauses, he crossed the
conversational street: “I’ll make your drink.”

 
          
“Thank
you, sweetness.”

 
          
They
bifurcated, Gerry moving kitchenward, Hiram toward the living room, Gerry
saying, “Alan will be right in, he’s just finished his shower. ”

 
          
When
Gerry returned to the living room, in fact, carrying Hiram’s drink as well as
his own, Alan was already there, dressed in his black- sashed white kimono and
seated crosslegged on a white-and-gold chair. Hiram had, as usual, settled his
bulk onto the chair framed in rhinoceros horn, which made him look like the
white villain in a Tarzan movie. Gerry’s spot was the Madame Recamier.

 
          
“To
your happy return,” Hiram said, raising the glass Gerry had handed him.

           
“Here, here,” said Alan, and
everybody took a ritual sip.

 
          
Hiram
smiled hopefully at his hosts. “And to a successful trip?” “Not entirely,” Alan
said.

 
          
“Not
at aii,” Gerry said. “In fact, a disaster.”

 
          
“Oh,
I wouldn’t go that far,” Alan said. “We know a lot more about how it’s done.
You’re too pessimistic, Gerry.”

 
          
“The
tapes are gone!”

 
          
“Hold
on,” Hiram said. “Do what the King of Hearts told
Alice
to do, and what I tell writers every
blessed day, ink-stained wretches, prose from amateurs, talentless bastards.”

 
          
Gerry
blinked. “Pros from amateurs?”

 
          
Hiram
leaned forward, assuming a pedantic yet royal posture. “‘Begin at the
beginning,”’ he quoted, gravely, “‘and go on till you come to the end: then
stop.’”

 
          
Alan
said, “Everything seemed fine until the very end.”

 
          
“And
then it
wasn't,”
Gerry said.

 
          
“No,
no,” Hiram said. “Listen more carefully this time. ‘Begin at the beginning—’”

 
          
“Oh,
Hiram
J” Gerry said, at wit’s end.
“The tapes are gone, okay?” Alan said, “Wait a minute, Gerry. Hiram’s right.”
Turning to Hiram he said, “From the beginning, then,” and went on to give a
mostly coherent account of their time in Belize, fictionalizing only their
reaction to the presence of the mobster at their hotel, and finishing, “Now,
obviously somebody
knew
we’d made
those tapes, and guessed we’d try to sneak them out in our Walkmans.”

 
          
Hiram
nodded, thinking about it. “
Galway
, do
you think?”

 
          
“I
just don’t know,” Alan said. “There wasn’t the slightest hint of such a thing,
he doesn’t seem the type to be able to dissemble that well, and yet, who knows,
really?”

 
          
“Oh,
it was
Galway
, all right,” Gerry said. “He’s very
devious,
that one.”

 
          
“Well,”
Hiram said, “if
Galway
has those tapes, that’s that.” Alan said,
“Must it be? We remember exactly what he told us, the whole method to smuggle
everything out and all that, what he’s going to do to that poor temple—”

 
          
Gerry
said, “I was a bit tempted, I must say. Just go ahead and do it; we could make
a
lot
of money.”

           
Alan gave him an arch look. “Yes, I
could tell what you were thinking. ”

 
          
“Well,”
Gerry said, “after all, we could, couldn’t we? I mean, we’re not police, are
we?”

 
          
“You’re
good citizens,” Hiram told him. “Remember how sickened you were when I showed
you those pictures of the looted graves?” Gerry laughed, with a negative
hand-wave. “Oh, I don’t mean I was
seriously
tempted,” he said. “Just a little bit.”

 
          
“Anyway,”
Alan said, “we still have the facts, even if we don’t have the tapes. Wouldn’t
that be enough?”

 
          
Hiram
shook his head. “Your unsupported word,” he said. “Even if the lawyers would
let us publish,
I
wouldn’t. It’s just
hearsay, puffed up. If we don’t nail a villain, we don’t have a story.”

 
          
“It’s
too bad, really,” Alan said. “I was rather enjoying being a spy.” Hiram looked
as wistful as a large heavyset bald man can: “An expose of illegal art
smuggling, leading right here to
New York
. What a nice change of pace that would have
been. I can’t tell you guys how tired of it all I get. The fifty-seven best
pizza parlors in the
Hamptons
; your guide to a chiropractor on the
West Side
; questions raised about real estate
developers. And here we had something
real
for once: antiquities, villains, airplanes, clandestine meetings in
cornfields—” “I think it’s some kind of ranch,” Alan said.

 
          
“Same
idea,” Hiram told him. “Trickier footing, of course. Well, it’s all over now.”
He sighed, and swigged half his drink. “You’ll never hear from Kirby Galway
again.”