“I’m sorry,” I said inadequately.
“Pete,” she said with a dry sob, “I can’t even cry any more. I’m just a crazy cardboard cutout of a woman. I loathe the man I can’t get away from. The people who live around me sicken my stomach. My nerves torture me, all the time.” Her mouth was petulant. She put her hands flat against her stomach, smoothed the nightgown close to her skin, pressing the hands as far as her rounded thighs. “I haven’t slept with him in months and months. The thought of him touching me makes me retch.” She was whispering now. “I’ve tried others. They... handled me as though I were a common streetwalker. It was no good — no good at all.”
She reached out and took my hand, laid it against her side. “Can’t you feel it? It twists and turns and jumps — they’re knots and coils, tight and squirming — ” She let go of my hand. She took the nightgown in both hands, twisted it, tore it, an expression of anguish on her glistening face. The gown was ripped, it hung away from her slim body. She fell against me, kissing me anywhere her lips touched my flesh. Her cheeks were hot and wet. “Make them still,” she said urgently. “Give me rest, Pete. You can do it. Do it — do it.”
I should have forced her away then but I hesitated an instant, and when the instant had passed it was too late. She was keyed to the point of hysteria. I was afraid of what might happen if I left her then.
“It won’t be an answer,” I whispered as I put her on the bed. “For a little while, maybe. That’s all.” Then I couldn’t say any more. She moaned once and held me tightly, tightly, with all her strength.
When I left her, she was sleeping. Even in sleep the tenseness hadn’t left her features. I wished I could help her. But there was nothing I could do. It was a lonely struggle. She would be the only winner, or the only loser.
I went downstairs and walked toward my room. Beyond the French doors I saw a man standing on the patio. From the size of him I knew it must be Taggart. He stood there without moving for half a minute, smoking slowly. Then he dropped the cigarette, walked down the terrace toward the bay.
I opened the doors and stepped outside. Taggart had reached the sand. I could see him against the sheen of moonlight on the water. He walked along at the edge of the tide, his head turned toward the bay as if he were searching for something. He carried a large towel over one arm.
When he passed from sight around a bend in the island, I walked away from the house toward a growth of trees that covered the northern tip of the island. Most of the tangle of scrub had been cleared from among the palms, and hardy grass matted the rocky ridge of land almost to the slap of the waves.
Through the bent shadowy trunks with their saw-toothed thatching I picked up Taggart again. This time he wasn’t alone. In a sheltered cove he extended the towel to a naked, dripping Diane. Her hair was silver in the moonlight, the lift of her arm liquid. Taggart didn’t take his eyes off her as she dried herself, turning to cape the towel across her back, lifting one foot and then the other to the grasp of it. When she had finished she spread the towel on the wind-decked sand, lay down on it.
Taggart turned his head to follow her movements as she laid down on the towel. His hands came up unhurriedly and he unbuttoned his shirt, took it off, folded it and put it beside the towel. Then he unbuckled his pants, stepped out of them. When he had finished undressing he lowered himself to her.
I was about to trudge back to the house when I noticed a movement behind one of the trees not more than ten yards from where Taggart and the blonde Diane embraced. It was a man, shifting his weight very slowly to obtain a better view, taking care not to be heard. I put a hand on the square butt of the .38, then relaxed. The observer had turned his body just enough for me to recognize him. It was Owen Barr. I strained my eyes toward the tree behind which he had concealed himself, but I couldn’t see him any more.
I was a little surprised at the eagerness with which Diane was receiving the huge, slow-witted gunman. I had a feeling this was only a repetition of other meetings between them. Then I grinned a bit wryly, realizing it didn’t make much difference, and went back to my room.
Once there I felt I could use a drink and walked to the living room, helped myself to a bottle of good Scotch from the bar there. I took that and a glass of ice with four fingers of soda back to the bedroom, propped myself up on the bed and had a long cold one in the dark.
I thought about the strange crew assembled in this house. They made my head hurt. Sleep poured down on me like an avalanche. Before I was buried in it there was a warm clear light shining through the murkiness of twisted, pulped lives. Elaine. I reached out to her, forgetting all the rest.
I don’t know how long I slept. When I awakened I stared into darkness as if I hadn’t been sleeping at all, just dozing. I listened to a ratlike scratching, located the source of the sound near the dresser. I thought I heard someone breathing. Without moving on the bed I took my .38 from the nearby table, transferred it to my left hand. I reached up and found the light switch, turned on the lamp.
Owen Barr lurched away from the dresser, turned to me with a foolish grin. He took his hand out of the top drawer but kept it pressed against the front of the dresser for support.
“Well,” he said, his lips loose, his eyes feverishly jovial, “am I in the wrong room? Huh?”
“It would seem that way.” I kept the automatic pointed at him.
He gestured stickily with his free hand, listed unsteadily. I wondered if he was as drunk as he was trying to make out.
“Well, ’scuse me,” Owen said, sniffing wetly. He took a step forward, but had to return to his support. “Y’see, I was looking for whisky. I thought this was my room, ‘r somethin’.”
“Sure.”
He pointed. “Y’got some whisky over there.”
“Don’t you think you’ve had enough?”
He blinked. Then he leered knowingly. “Never have enough whisky.”
I put my fingers around the bottle, without looking away from him and heaved it suddenly in his direction. He caught it with surprising deftness.
“Well,” he said, licking his lips. “Well, thanks.”
“Suppose you could drink it someplace else?”
“Oh, sure,” he said airily. He put both hands around the bottle and set a course for the door, pausing once to lean against the wall. Then he was gone and I heard him mumbling in the hall. The door to his room clicked shut.
I got up and looked into the hall. He was gone, all right. I shut my own door and looked at the drawer Owen had been fumbling through. There was nothing in it but the large envelope containing the newspaper clippings Macy had turned over to me. The envelope had been opened. A couple of the clippings were loose in the bottom of the drawer. I assembled all of them, counted. There were only three stories about the fire left. I wondered what Owen was going to do with the other one. But I didn’t really care.
Chapter Nineteen
Clouds boiled in off the Atlantic early next morning and it rained until after lunch, then cleared off.
In the afternoon some of us, including Macy and Evelyn Rinke, put on suits and went swimming. Taggart, Diane, and Charley Rinke didn’t participate. They sat together on the terrace and drank Planter’s Punch and Salty Dogs. Diane’s face was as bland as ever. She paid no attention to Taggart. Now and then he would look at her over his lifted glass, a hint of pleasure in his eyes. Rinke was sprawled on a chaise longue, as if his long hours in the hidden room in the garage had depleted him. The lines of his down-turned mouth were still sharp, though. He looked as if he played lightly and skillfully with thoughts. Like juggled steel splinters, they could be potentially dangerous if he wasn’t careful with them. He seemed to be the sort of man who would be careful.