“Does he have your power of attorney?”
“I never gave it to him. There never was any need.”
“You can do that easily enough. Then he can handle the house. Dealing with the insurance company, stuff like that.“
”Will I ever be able to go home?“
”I think so.“
It took another moment for the implication of that to settle. Her eyes opened wide and she said, ”You’re going to kill him.“
”That’s not something you should worry about.“
”Oh please. Don’t treat me like I’m some fool who’s not involved.“
”I told him what would happen. He decided not to listen. At this point it’s him or us.“
She shook her head, horrified.
“Don’t waste your tears,” I said. “He’s a brutal man. He’d kill us without a thought.”
But she couldn’t get past the idea of it. “What if it wasn’t him?”
“That’s pretty unlikely, under the circumstances.”
“But what if it wasn’t? I don’t even know how the house caught fire at this point.”
“Yeah, you do.”
“Cliff…what if you’re wrong?”
“Then I’ll be a monkey’s uncle.”
“Don’t make a joke of it, please. This is too awful to joke about.”
“It’s him or me, Koko. Think about that.”
“What about the others?”
“They don’t matter. They’ll fold up like a house of cards when Dante’s gone.”
Suddenly her eyes opened wide. “Oh my God.”
“What?”
“I just remembered. I think I did something stupid tonight.” She closed her eyes and muttered what sounded like a curse. “I told my friend where I am.”
“Did you tell her not to tell anybody?”
“I didn’t think of it.” She put her hand over her eyes. “I didn’t think!”
Almost a full minute passed.
“Oh, I am so stupid!”
“It’s okay, Koko,” I said softly. “We’ll work with it.”
CHAPTER 27
The telephone rang at seven-fifteen. I rolled over on the bed, thanked the desk man for the wake-up, sat up, leaned over my knees, and stared at the phone. First thought of the day—call Denver. It would be like calling pest control for a rat problem. Call Denver from Charleston and a rat would die in Baltimore tonight.
I was first amazed by the detachment I felt and then by its slow reversal. It was as if only now had I begun to see the consequences, not for Dante but for me. To get this far, to be sitting here looking at that phone, I must have stepped naively indeed through the first half of my life and never thought about what such acts make of the men who do them. I had spent a lifetime on the right side of the law. Could I really be thinking now of becoming a cold-blooded killer? Never mind the reasons or the justifying. Never mind that someone far away would pull the trigger or that I had killed men myself in more forgivable ways. Make this one call and I’d be going all the way over to the dark side: I’d be an animal, just like him. And I knew that Dante, one of the real dark men, had seen this weakness in me that night at Treadwell’s. For all my tough talk, he was betting I’d never make that call, and in the end it would just be him and me.
I shaved, took my shower, and dressed well. I combed my hair for Erin’s sake.
It’s a beautiful day, I thought as I stepped out into it. Not too hot, not too much Charleston humidity. I left Koko a note and let her sleep. She needed it and her presence would only inhibit whatever was about to happen with Erin.
I stood at a traffic light on Market Street and thought about Dante. The light changed and I walked across Meeting and down the street to the Mills House.
Erin was at a table in the corner, looking through the News and Courier. She folded the newspaper and put it away as I came in. I sat across from her, waiting for her lead. The waitress hadn’t even brought my coffee when she said, “Lee wants to talk to you.”
“Okay. Any idea what’s on his mind?”
“He’s thinking of opening a bookstore on East Colfax and he wants your advice.”
I laughed politely. “Ask a stupid question, get a stupid answer.”
“We’ll call him in a little while.” She looked at her watch. “It’s still only six forty-five back there. In the meantime you can eat your breakfast and talk to me.”
“I won’t complain about that. Is this going to be a business talk or pleasure?”
“All business, I’m afraid.”
I snapped my fingers. “Alas.”
She regarded me with quiet amusement, then said, “As you guessed, we are involved with Archer in a delicate negotiation for a book Lee wants. We’re afraid your sudden appearance will complicate things and might make it impossible for us.”
“Well, so far Archer has no idea I’m here.”
“We’d like to keep it that way.”
“I hope you’re not going to offer me money to go away.”
She shook her head a little, but I didn’t think she meant no.
“That would be very disappointing, Erin.”
I could almost see her changing tactics. “We certainly don’t want to insult you,” she said.
“Glad to hear it. I like Lee and I respect him greatly. As for you…”
She raised an eyebrow.
“I like you too.”
“That’s nice to know.”
“Yeah. But it does make things difficult.”
“I don’t see why it should.”
I smiled. “I think you do.”
She said, “Look, would we rather you weren’t here? Yes, we would. Would we rather you went away? Yes, we would. Lee likes you more than you know, but he will be very upset if you get into this and mess it up. So will I.”
“Is that supposed to make me cut and run back to Denver?”
She looked unhappy, and this time I did not smile. I said, “So far you’re not doing too well, Erin. I know you’re a better negotiator than this. I know you know not to come into a situation and ruffle your adversary, unless it’s some knucklehead like Archer who takes offense at everything. And at this moment I am your adversary. If you want me to be your friend I’ll be happy to do that. But my friend is dead and, frankly, whether Lee gets another book or not doesn’t matter much alongside that fact. If you want peace between us, you two had better level with me.”
She leaned back in her chair. “God, you’re touchy this morning. Did you have a bad night?”
“You might say that. I’ve got my own moral dilemmas to work out.”
The waitress brought my coffee. I ordered lots of calories and she wrote that down and went away. Erin said, “The last thing we want is to get in the way of finding out who killed Mrs. Ralston.”
“Now that’s a much better start.”
“But I don’t see how we’re doing that.”
“That’s why I’m here. I’ll tell you if you do.”
Abruptly she said, “Okay, we’ll level with you. That’s what I was told to do anyway.”
“Told when?”
“Last night after you left I called Lee from my room. I told him you’re here asking questions about the book. His instructions to me were simple. ‘Tell him the truth,’ he said. That’s all.”
“That’s what I would expect from Lee. So why didn’t you just do that?”
“My own judgment call. A lawyer never wants to tell a third party anything about her client’s business, even when the client tells her to.”
“See? Right has a way of winning out over treachery and guile after all. Now you can get off to an even better start by telling me what book we’re talking about.”
“A handwritten journal kept by Richard Burton when he was here.”
“Gosh, that almost sounds like one of the Charlie Warren books.”
“At this point we don’t know whose it was, originally.”
I looked dubious.
“Look,” she said testily. “Archer has a book. He wants to sell it. He claims it’s been in his family for generations. He says he has rock-solid provenance.”