As we came to the side of the house, I noticed a late-model green Cadillac parked in the driveway behind Mary's Wagoneer. I said, "It looks like you've got company."
Garth merely shrugged, then led the way through the screen door at the side of the house. "Mary?" he called cheerfully. "Guess who's back? It's just like Mongo says: there's nothing like a short sail before dinner to whet your appetite. Mary?"
There was no response, and we walked into the spacious living room with its pine walls and fireplaces at the north and south ends. "Mary?" Garth called again. "You home?"
"We're in here, Garth." Mary's voice, coming from the music room off to our left, sounded strained, nervous.
Garth and I exchanged glances, and then I followed him into the music room, which was essentially a large, enclosed deck overlooking the river. It was my favorite room; despite the clutter of cables, amplifiers, and huge, studio-quality speakers, I found it comfortable and cozy, a place where you could sit in an easy chair and look out over the river through the wraparound windows, read, or listen to music, or just think.
But now the room was filled with an almost palpable atmosphere of tension apparently generated by the lanky stranger who was slumped in Garth's favorite chair, a leather recliner, with his long legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles.
Mary was seated on a straight-backed chair between two five-foot-high floor speakers. Her back was stiff, not touching the chair, and both feet were flat on the floor. Her large hands with their long fingers were clenched tightly in her lap. She was wearing her waist-length, gray-streaked yellow hair in a ponytail that was pulled back tightly from her face and held in place with a calico ribbon. As usual when she was home, she wore no makeup, and her flesh, normally a golden brown in the summer from the sun, now looked pale, almost translucent, like delicate china. Her blue eyes seemed cloudy, and she appeared to be very tense, perhaps afraid.
The man in Garth's recliner did not rise, but instead stared intently at my brother and me with cold, black eyes that were bright with intelligence, but also tinted with cruelty. I judged he would be six-four or six-five if he were standing, a couple of inches taller than Garth, but much thinner. He wore jeans, the bottoms tucked into the tops of highly polished black cowboy boots with silver chains draped around the ankles. His black T-shirt was too large for him and hung loosely on his tall frame. Crawling out onto his flesh from both sleeves were black tattoos that appeared to be the clawed, hairy legs of some creature, perhaps a spider that might be tattooed on his chest. He had angular features, with high cheekbones, long nose, and pronounced chin. His hair was black-too black, with a flat, matte appearance that made me think the color had come out of a bottle. I put his age at around forty-five. His thin lips were slightly parted in what seemed to me an insouciant, arrogant smile. I instantly disliked the man and was certain that his presence in the house meant trouble. He was obviously in no hurry to introduce himself, and Mary was too distracted, or fearful, to do the honors.
Garth walked to the center of the room, stopped. "Who are you?" he asked in a soft, even tone.
Now Mary rose to her feet in a quick, jerky motion. Her hands remained clasped together. "Garth," she said nervously, "this is Sacra Silver, an old. . acquaintance. Sacra was in town, and he stopped by to say hello. Sacra, this is my husband, Garth, and his brother, Robert."
The man Mary had introduced as Sacra Silver pointed a long index finger at me. "Brother Robert is the famous one, isn't he?" he said in a raspy, nasal voice. "Former circus star, unlikely martial arts expert, Ph.D. in criminology, ace private investigator, and darling of the media. Mongo the Magnificent."
Having delivered this pronouncement in his gravelly voice, the man ran both hands through his long, bottle-black hair and smirked. Sacra Silver was a man who could insult you without half trying, and was obviously willing to go out of his way to do so. "You've got quite a stage name there yourself, Sacra Silver," I replied. "I can't say I've heard of you. What's your act?"
"You don't want to know."
"Actually, you're right," I said. The dislike I had instinctively felt for this sour man was rapidly turning to anger, and I didn't like that. I felt I was somehow being emotionally manipulated, although I couldn't, for the life of me, understand what would motivate somebody, a guest in a couple's home, to go over-the-top obnoxious immediately. Most obnoxious people take at least a minute or two to get properly warmed up, but Sacra Silver had seemed full-bore intent on offending Garth and me from the moment we'd walked into the room. I wondered why, and I wondered where Mary knew him from. I shrugged, continued, "Just trying to be polite. It's always a pleasure to meet one of Mary's friends."
His response was to laugh; it was an unpleasant, grating sound. I glanced at Mary, waiting for her to say something, anything, that might short-circuit the tension that was rapidly building in the room, but she seemed almost paralyzed with fear or anxiety. She remained mute, lips tightly compressed, looking at the far end of the room.
"So you're Mary's latest old man," the man who called himself Sacra Silver said to Garth. "Looking at you, I wouldn't think you're her type."
Finally Mary spoke. "Sacra," she said quickly in a tight, anxious voice, "Garth is my husband."
"It's true, babe," Silver said with a dismissive wave of his hand. "He certainly does not look like your type, and you know exactly what I mean."
"Sacra, please. ."
Garth walked the rest of the way across the room, to his wife, pointedly turning his back on the tall man sitting in the leather recliner. My brother's movements were slow, lazy, almost to the point of exaggeration. If I'd been Sacra Silver, I'd have begun giving quick and serious thought to abandoning my present position. He obviously had no idea at all of what type Garth really was. I did. I knew the warning signals when I saw them, and when Garth spoke, it only confirmed my suspicions that Mr. Sacra Silver was shortly about to encounter more trouble than he was likely to know how to handle. I wasn't inclined to warn him. Silver remained serenely stretched out in the chair, his fingertips pressed together and forming a tent under his chin as he stared at my brother's broad back.
"What is it, Mary?" Garth asked in a soft, perfectly calm voice.
"Talk to me. Who is this man, and what does he want? Tell me what's going on."
"Sacra and I have known each other a long time, Garth," Mary said in a voice that trembled. "He and I-"
Suddenly the man in the recliner snapped his fingers, producing a loud, popping sound. Mary immediately fell silent, turned away from Garth, and covered her face with her hands. Her reaction startled me.
Garth didn't appear to react at all. His movement as he turned to face Sacra Silver was even more exaggeratedly slow. "Tell me why you're here," he said to the man in a voice that was only a half decibel above a whisper.
"I'm going to cut through all this bullshit," Silver announced to my brother, not even bothering to look at him. "It will save us all a lot of trouble and aggravation. Mary and I go back a long time. You may be her husband now, but believe me when I tell you that doesn't mean jack shit-not to her, and certainly not to me. We've shared more than she and you ever could. She may be married to you, hiding out here in Cairn, but all the time she's really been waiting for me to come back around. Well, I have. I'm here. If I know Mary, she's never even mentioned my name. But I can tell you that there hasn't been a moment of your life together that she hasn't been thinking of me. She belongs to me, Frederickson. That's it. Nobody's going to sneak around doing anything behind your back. I've given it to you straight and up front; she's mine, and I'm here to reclaim her. It's very simple, so don't make the mistake of trying to make anything complicated about it. You're out of the picture, out of this house. She doesn't want you here any longer. Now, let me hear you say you understand what I've just said."