Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43 (45 page)

 
          
Kirby
sighed. Valerie said, “Mister St. Michael, what does this mean?”

 
          
“It
means if Kirby’s smart,” Innocent told her, “he’ll leave
Belize
. Just for a while, till it all blows over.
Say three or four years.” Kirby sighed again. Innocent smiled amiably and said,
“That’s why I worked so hard to get you just the best deal I could before you
leave. A nice ten-year mortgage. And if you add up the purchase price and all
the interest payments over the ten years, you’ll find it comes out to
precisely
what you paid me for the land
in the first place.”

 
          
“And
you get to write off interest payments and ...” Kirby shook his head,
disgusted. “You’ll put the whole amount in a high-yield investment, make my
payments out of the interest, and it’ll never cost you a thing.
And
you’ll have the land. You’ll
make
money on this!” “You’ll have your
purchase price back, Kirby,” Innocent pointed out, and spread his hands.
“That’s what you wanted, isn’t it?” Kirby gave Valerie a long-suffering look.
“Valerie,” he said, “if you ever see me even
talking
to this fella again, run over and knock me down. ”

 
          
Valerie
laughed, her eyes gleaming as she watched them both, enjoying herself.

 
          
Innocent
pointed to the folder. “And down in there, Kirby,” he said, “you’ll find a
check for the first month’s payment. How’s that?” “Terrific,” Kirby said
bitterly. Then he shook his head again, and sighed, and said, “Okay, Innocent,
you win. Where do I sign?”

 
          
Trump
Glade,
Florida
. Route 216 south 8.4 miles from the movie
house. Left at the sign reading Potchaw 12. Whitman Lemuel peered out the
windshield of the rented car and there it was, a battered old metal sign, shot
to death by any number of retarded louts but still discemibly reading, “Potchaw
12.” And the odometer showed exactly eight point four miles since he’d passed
the movie house in Trump Glade.

 
          
The
Potchaw sign included an arrow, which pointed off to the right, where a
blacktop road ran away between orange groves, but Kirby Galway’s directions
said to go the other way, so Lemuel spun the wheel and the rental turned left
onto the dirt road meandering out across the flatness of
Florida
’s scrub.

 
          
Now
it was supposed to be 15.2 miles on to where he would find a red ribbon on a
barbed wire fence. Turning up the air conditioning slightly, Lemuel relaxed a
bit against the seat, and drove slowly but steadily toward his meeting with
Kirby Galway.

 
          
Of
course
Galway
expected those two
New York
merchants, Witcher and Feldspan, but he
would certainly be willing to make his arrangements with Lemuel instead, once
he understood that Witcher and Feldspan were now out of the picture completely.

 
          
The
memory of Feldspan on that airplane, and the revolting horror he’d created up
and down those aisles, came back suddenly into the forefront of Lemuel’s brain,
complete with sensory elements, and his lip curled in remembered disgust. It
was
better
those two were out of it,
much better.

 
          
Actually,
Alan Witcher would have been prepared to go forward, but Gerry Feldspan was
just too nervous for the job. Some other passenger had looked at him wrong and
the result was absolute chaos; fortunately, Feldspan at least did manage to be
sick at one point on the passenger who’d started all the trouble, apparently
ruining a quite valuable harmonica.

 
          
But
the upshot—well; perhaps we’ll find a better word—the result of it all was
that, in the Miami Airport, Feldspan absolutely
shrieked
that he was never going to commit another crime, he wanted
nothing to do with smugglers, on and on and on, it was a miracle he didn’t get
the entire terminal arrested. Witcher, alternating between icy embarrassment
and quite touching concern for his friend’s well-being, at last agreed it was impossible
for them to go forward, they would have to abandon the project forever. They
would turn around at once and fly right back to
New York
—“And get back that
letter
somehow,” Witcher had said mysteriously—and leave the field
to Lemuel.

 
          
Which
they had. So here he was, driving 15.2 miles down this dirt road to his first
rendezvous with Kirby Galway.

 
          
It
was better for it to end this way, really. Witcher and Feldspan, apart from
their rather nauseatingly blatant homosexuality, were merely merchants, the
exact kind of money-grubbing art-denying dealers who had given the import of
precious antiquities such a bad name, so it was just as well they wouldn’t be
getting their greedy little hands on any of the treasures from Galway’s temple.
As for Galway himself, the man was merely a thug, wasn’t he, personally beneath
contempt but useful as a tool in rescuing these treasures from the ignorance of
the Central Americans and the venality of the likes of Witcher and Feldspan, so
he could turn them over to selfless, dedicated, intelligent, learned, honest,
unimpeachable scientists like himself.

           
He was the only truly
decent
character in the whole story, and
he knew it.

 
          
And,
as happened far too rarely in real life, this time the decent character was
going to win. The meeting with Kirby Galway would happen in just the next few
minutes, and whatever Kirby Galway was bringing to give to Witcher and Feldspan
he could dam well just give to Whitman Lemuel instead.

 
          
“I
deserve it,” Lemuel muttered, as he drove.

 
          
The
next section of barbed wire fence beyond the red ribbon had fallen in, making
access easy, so Lemuel was already out on the weedy spongy field when the
airplane first appeared. It circled overhead, he waved, and down it came,
landing at the opposite end of the field and roaring over to come to a stop
just near where Lemuel was standing.

 
          
The
door opened in its side as Lemuel came around the wing, and there was Kirby
Galway clambering out, seeming in an awful hurry. In fact, the engines still
ran, propellers spinning, plane all atremble to be off.

 
          
Galway
looked at him in surprise. (There was
someone else in the plane.) “Where’s Witcher and Feldspan?” he shouted, above
the engine noise.

 
          
For
some reason, Lemuel gestured behind himself, saying, “They went—”

 
          
“Still
in the car? Okay, this is for them.”

 
          
“No,
they—”

 
          
Galway
turned back and wrestled with something in
the seat behind the pilot’s, the other person helping. Lemuel stared,
bewildered, and some sort of bale of hay came free at last, dropping out of the
doorway, bouncing off the wing, landing on the ground at Lemuel’s feet. “What—”

 
          
“Sorry
you’re getting it, too,”
Galway
told
him, grinning, not looking sorry at all. “Tell your pals in the car, I know all
about
Trend.”

           
“Oh, my God. What have you—”

 
          
“Anonymous
call to the DEA,” Kirby told him, with nasty satisfaction.

 
          
“The
what? What’s that?”

           
“Drug Enforcement Administration,”
Kirby said, and climbed back up into the pilot’s seat. “Sorry you’re here,” he
called. “You should watch the company you keep.”

 
          
Which
was when Lemuel recognized the second person in the plane, and it was Valerie
Greene. “YOU!” he cried.

 
          
She
nodded and smiled, with a little wave.

 
          
“Every
time I see you something terrible happens!” Lemuel shrieked, pointing at the
girl. Kirby pulled his door shut and the plane moved away. “This is the third
time!” Lemuel screamed, following after, shaking his fist. “You’re a jinx!”

 
          
The
plane picked up speed, leaving him. Lemuel stopped, suddenly panting for some
reason. And now that the engine roar was receding, the plane was way over there
lifting into the air, Lemuel could hear another sound, behind him, far in the
distance.

 
          
Sirens.

 
          
Getting
closer.

 
          
He
turned and looked back toward the rental car parked on the little narrow dirt
road, and his eye fell on the bale Kirby had pulled from the plane.

 
          
“That
isn’t hay,” he said aloud.

 
          
Third
time lucky.

 
          
Valerie
sewed with tiny stitches. Perched naked tailor-fashion on a beach blanket
bearing a picture of Mickey Mouse surfing—seated mostly on his smile—she was up
from the beach just far enough to be in the dappled shade of the coconut palms.
Behind her, just visible through the ring-necked trunks of the trees, was the
island’s only enclosed structure, a low house of unpainted concrete block with
a slanted metal roof, flanked by the television satellite dish on the left and
the electricity-generating windmill on the right. In front, the calm blue
Caribbean
folded itself time and time again on the
beige sand.

 
          
Deceptively
calm. The unnamed wee island on which Valerie sat and sewed the hem of a full
white cotton skirt lay deep within the perimeter of a well-known nautical
hazard, the Banco Chinchorro, about 16 miles off the Yucatan coast of Mexico,
due west of Chetumal Bay. At latitude 18 degrees, 23 minutes north and
longitude 87 degrees, 27 minutes west, and existing mostly just below the
surface of the sea, the four-mile-wide area of Banco Chinchorro is described in
the United States Government publication
Sailing
Directions (En Route) for the Caribbean Sea
, which Valerie had looked at
shortly after arrival here, as “a dangerous steep-to shoal” with “numerous
rocky heads and sand banks. The stranded wrecks which lie along the E side of
the shoal were reported conspicuous both visually and by radar.” This
navigators’ guide finishes its description with a
^u
Caution
.—In the vicinity of Banco Chinchorro there is
usually a very strong current that sets toward its entire E side.”

 
          
Commercial
shipping and pleasure craft alike steer well around Banco Chinchorro. And yet,
on a few of its tiny islets, the beach is wide and clean, the sea is blue and
gentle and nearly transparent, the air is warm and soft with a delicious
easterly breeze. If you’d like to be alone with your sweetheart, there are few
better spots on Earth than this.

 
          
Apart
from Valerie herself, and the small house with its dish and windmill, the only
other sign of human incursion on this island was Cynthia’s wheelmarks on the
hardpacked sand, off to Valerie’s right. The first few times Kirby had flown
down to San Pedro on the Belizean island of Ambergris Caye, 45 miles to the
south, to pick up supplies or to be sure Innocent’s check had been deposited
into their account (the bank branch in San Pedro is open three mornings a
week), Valerie had flown with him, telling herself she needed the change, the
opportunity to shop in the hotel boutique, walk around among other people, but
in fact she didn’t need any of that at all. The truth was—and she soon realized
this—the truth was, if she left the island with Kirby every time he was going
somewhere, it meant she was afraid he wouldn’t come back, he’d strand her here.
And
that
meant she didn’t trust him.

 
          
And
if she didn’t trust him, what was she doing with him?

 
          
True,
this life was a jolly and an easy one, particularly after all the running
around just before they came here, but even more particularly after the total
earnestness of her entire life prior to
Belize
. Thinking of that earlier self, of her
earnest minister father and her earnest teacher brother, thinking of her own
earnestness in pursuit of the dry joys of archaeology, she found it hard to
believe she had spent so much time not being silly.

 
          
Not
being silly.

 
          
What
was the name of that book she’d read when she was a kid?

           
Green
Mansions.
The idea inside that book had been an idea of
fun,
an idea of adventure and travel and
strangeness and beauty, and what had she taken from it? In order to become Rima
the bird girl, she had gone to college.

 
          
Not
that college had been wrong for her, only that college had been wrong to be
everything
for her. A life circumscribed
by the graves of the Mayas and the computers of UCLA is not
a full life.

 
          
On
the other hand, if she had always been too serious, Kirby had never been
serious enough. They were good for one another, she felt. He took her out of
herself—mm, yes, in several ways—he made her less self-consciously earnest and
intense. At the same time, Valerie was leading Kirby slowly into the simpler
forms and nearer waters of responsibility, showing him that a life spent in
constant flight above the surface of things really isn’t very satisfactory in
the long run.

 
          
And
that was why, about three months ago, she’d said to him one day, “I don’t think
I’ll come along to San Pedro this time. I want to do more digging on the other
side of the island.” (There were traces of ancient occupation buried over
there, bits of rubble that might have been pots, small pieces of charred wood.
Toward the end of the Mayan civilization, after their great days of temple
building, they had become merchants awhile, sailing their goods up and down the
east coasts of
Mexico
and
Central
America
, with
outposts and warehouses on various islands along the way. Had this been one?
Valerie was still an
archaeologist.)                                              
.

 
          
Kirby
had argued against her staying that first time, but she’d been adamant, and at
last he’d agreed, and kissed her, and flown away. She’d watched Cynthia rise
above the blue water into the paler blue sky, waggle her wings in farewell and
roll away to the south, and she’d had no idea then if he would come back or
not. If he did return it would mean he loved her as she loved him, they could
trust one another, they were right to be together. And if he never came back,
that would at least be a good thing to know.

 
          
And
if he didn’t come back she was sure that, sooner or later, once again she would
be rescued.

 
          
But,
as it turned out, she was past rescue now; Kirby had come back. Now she
traveled with him perhaps one time in three, and mostly only went up in Cynthia
for her flying lessons, which progressed slowly but steadily.

           
Valerie finished the hem, knotted
the thread, bit off the end, and put the needle away in the little terracotta
incense pot (fake-ancient, a gift from Tommy Watson). Standing, she shook out
the skirt, looked at it, decided it was all right, and folded it over her
forearm; there was a mirror in the house, she’d try it on there. She was
stooping to pick up the incense pot when the buzz first became audible.

 
          
Cynthia.

 
          
She
could always hear the plane some time before she saw it. Staying back in the
shade, nevertheless holding one hand out above her eyes, Valerie searched the
skies, and there it was, just circling by to come in from the northwest,
against the easterly breeze. Cynthia disappeared briefly behind the cocoanut
palms, then emerged again, much lower, about to touch down on the sand far to
Valerie’s left.

 
          
It
took airplanes such an amazingly long distance to stop after they’d landed.
Still moving quite briskly, Cynthia rolled down the beach past Valerie, who
waved, then continued on a while farther, and at last stopped. A brief engine
roar, and then the plane turned around and trundled back, wingtips bobbing
slightly. Smiling, Valerie started out of the tree shade, when all at once she
realized Kirby wasn’t alone. There were other people in the plane.

 
          
Oh,
dear; and she naked. Quickly she stepped into the skirt and fixed the snaps at
its side. There was nothing she could do about her top, and it would just be
too silly and childish to run away to the house. Well, she’d just have to
pretend everything was perfectly normal.

 
          
Kirby
had climbed down from the plane and waved to her, and now two people were
getting out, a man and a woman. A brave smile on her face—I am
not
embarrassed at being
bare-breasted—Valerie walked down like a proper hostess to greet her guests.

 
          
The
man and woman were both under 30, and extremely unalike. The woman was a skinny
little ash blonde, with dry-looking skin the color of mahogany and a very
attractive but tough-looking face. The man was very tall and gawky and
pale-skinned, with a layer of soft baby fat all over his body. He was very
slightly bucktoothed, and looked eager and naive and innocent and
well-intentioned, whereas the woman looked like somebody who’d seen everything
and believed nothing.

 
          
“Valerie,”
Kirby said, grinning, as she arrived, “I’d like you to meet a couple people I
just ran into down in San Pedro. Ran into
again
.
This is Tandy; she’s a
Texas
girl with a rich daddy.”

 
          
“How
do you do,” Valerie said.

 
          
Tandy
looked her up and down, taking it all in, the unusually tall girl with the
all-over tan and the flowing white skirt, and she shook her head. With a
crooked smile, she said, “You win.”

 
          
Valerie
wasn’t sure what that was—a compliment?—but she knew it was meant in friendly
fashion, so she smiled back and said, “I’m glad Kirby brought you.”

 
          
“And
this is Tandy’s friend—” Kirby began.

 
          
“In
a manner of speaking,” Tandy said.

 
          
“Aw,
Tandy,” said the man, grinning and gawking.

 
          
“He’s—”
Kirby frowned, then leaned toward the man. “I’m sorry, I forgot your name
again.”

 
          
“Oh!
Wull, uh, it’s Albert.”

 
          
“Albert,
this is Valerie.”

 
          
“How
do you do?”

 
          
“Wull,
this is
wonderful
You live here, do
you? On this
island
.” “For now,”
Valerie said.

 
          
Smiling
at Valerie, Kirby said, “You’ll never guess. Albert has a
great
interest in pre-Columbian art.”

 
          
Valerie
found herself grinning from ear to ear, enjoying Kirby’s pleasure. “Is that
right?” she said.

 
          
“Oh,
wull, yes. Back in
Ventura
, I converted the entire west
wing
to a kind of
museum
.”

 
          
“That
sounds wonderful.”

 
          
“You
must come
see
it.”

 
          
“Maybe
we will,” Valerie told him.

 
          
“Albert
is very interested,” Kirby said, “in Mayan treasures in particular. I thought
we might have a nice talk about that.”

 
          
“That
would be fun,” Valerie said.

 
          
Kirby
put an arm around her shoulders, saying, “We’ll unload Cynthia later. First I
think we ought to go up to the house and settle in and have a drink. Tandy and
Albert are gonna stay over, we’ll do a little cookout, then all four of us go
back to San Pedro tomorrow, have a nice sit-down restaurant dinner. What do you
want? El Tulipan or The Hut?”

           
“Let me think about it,” Valerie
said. I’ll wear this skirt, she thought.

 
          
They
started up from the beach toward the house. Still with his arm around Valerie’s
shoulders, Kirby bent his head and gave her a quizzical look, saying, “Don’t
you think you’re overdressed?” Valerie laughed.