Chapter 2
Let’s Pretend
The boy picked up the empty glasses, handed full ones deferentially to Carla, Billy and the stranger, set one in the sand near the blonde’s elbow.
Cooper said, “Bring me a bourbon and water, boy. A heavy shot and mix it.”
The boy looked at Carla. She nodded. He turned and hurried away, two of the empty glasses tinkling against each other. The venom in Billy’s small blue eyes was as unwinking and contained as the look of a caged snake.
Cooper grinned lazily at Billy. “They shouldn’t let you play with firearms, Luke.”
The boy hissed and gathered his thin legs under him. “Settle down, Billy,” Carla said in a quiet voice. “Allan, this is Bud Schanz.”
Schanz was exceptionally handsome. His features were even and regular without being pretty. His hair was brown and crisp. His body was symmetric, well muscled. It was the eyes, Cooper decided, that gave him away. They were bland and cold and absolutely empty. The eyes of a pure psychopath — a person born without the ability to distinguish between right and wrong — conscienceless, ambitious and utterly dangerous.
“You saved me a trip, Farat,” Schanz said in a soft cultured voice.
“Maybe an unsuccessful trip,” Cooper said.
Schanz looked at him for a moment and yawned like a tawny cat. “I hardly think so.”
“I look easy to take?” Cooper asked.
“Quite,” Schanz said.
“Wake her up, Bud,” Clara said. Schanz reached out a bare foot, planted it on the taffy blonde’s shoulder and shoved hard. The blonde didn’t respond until the third push. Then she muttered angrily and came up onto her elbows, blonde hair across her face. She threw it back with a quick toss of her head. “Say, whataya trying to...”
Her eyes were pallid, robin’s egg blue. They locked on Cooper. The pupils were tiny and black from the sunglare. She looked at him with complete, helpless, desperate horror. She was the girl in the photograph Abelson had showed him. And even while she stared at him, Cooper noted the odd resemblance between her and Barbara Hutcheon. Their faces were the same shape — broad through the high cheekbones, uptilt noses, wide mouths. Yet, while Barbara’s face gave an unforgettable impression of strength, this face was weakness — a China doll, vacuous weakness.
“Allie!” she wailed. “They got you too!”
Billy laughed helplessly. Schanz smiled gently. Carla let out one hoarse yell of laughter.
“Worth the price of admission,” Carla said. “She’s been telling us that sooner or later you’d hit here with a group of boys and tear this place apart and rescue her just like the movies.”
Alice had put her face in her hands, flat against the blanket. Her shoulders shook with the force of her sobs.
“She says she’s too young and too pretty to die,” Schanz said. “She ought to hire somebody to write better lines for her.”
The boy came up with Cooper’s drink. He sat in the sand beside Carla and drank deeply. Alice said, between sobs, a glimmer of hope in her voice, “It’s some kind of a trick, isn’t it, Allie?”
“Sure,” Billy said. “He’s got it all figured out. He’s got an atom bomb in his pocket and a helicopter in his suitcase. Right, Farat?”
Barbara turned up toward the group. “Cut it, all of you,” Carla rasped. “You hear me, Alice?”
“I hear you,” she said in a small dismal voice.
Barbara stopped a few feet away. “What’s wrong with her?” she asked.
“Billy hurt her feelings. He called her a lush,” Carla said.
“That’s right,” Billy said, “didn’t I, Alice?”
“Yes,” she said in a dull tone. She swiveled around and sat up. She reached for a small towel and wiped her eyes. She saw the glass. She grabbed it up, tilted it high and finished it, her throat working, her hand shaking so that some of it spilled from the corner of her mouth and dripped from her chin.
“Swim, Bud?” Barbara asked.
Schanz rose effortlessly to his feet. “Sure thing,” he said.
Cooper glanced over at Carla and saw her mouth tighten. The two of them walked side by side down toward the surf.
“Nice looking couple,” Billy said nastily.
“Shut up, Billy. She’ll be leaving soon. Before Rocko comes.”
“That’s what you’ve been saying right along, Carla. And she’s still here. I got it that Bud is sweet-talking her on the side.”
“I’ll kill him,” Carla whispered.
“Now why do you act like that?” Billy said lazily, his eyes a-gleam. “Bud is a promising guy. Look how Rocko trusts him. Hell, if you weren’t too good for Nick, why should she be too good for Schanz?”
Carla got up without a word and picked up her striped towel and spread it out fifty feet away and a dozen yards nearer the surf. She kept her eyes on the two who were swimming with lazy, long strokes out beyond the whitecaps.
Billy chuckled evilly, stood up and stretched his thin arms. “I’ll go shake ’em up about lunch. Have a fine time, lovers.” He put on the beach coat and walked toward the house.
Alice lay back and rolled onto her side, her cheek propped against her palm. Her body lacked the compactness of Barbara’s. It had a lushness that was overwhelming, even embarrassing. The sea masked her low tones. Carla couldn’t hear at that distance.
“What’re we going to do, Allie?”
“What can we do?” he said.
The pale blue eyes stared widely and solemly at him. She pouted. “You haven’t kissed me yet. You mad or something?”
He looked at her. The blue eyes were faintly narrowed, speculative. To refuse would be out of character, he decided. He kissed her. Her mouth had a soft wet lack of substance, a melting, distasteful looseness. She pushed him away and there was an odd look on her face. She grabbed his wrist with surprising strength, turned his hand palm-up and looked at it before he could think to close his fingers.
“Who are you? You’re not Allie. Who are you?”
“Have you gone nuts, kid? Is the sun getting you?”
Her voice was low. “I’m not that drunk, baby. How many times you think I read Allie’s palm? A hundred times maybe. I know how. Lines don’t change. Not like that. Who are you?”
“Allan Farat, kid.”
“How’d you get his clothes? I know that outfit.”
He yawned. He could hear the quickened thud of his heart, feel the greasiness of the cold sweat on his ribs. “You better go see a good head doctor, honey.”
“Even the voice is wrong now I listen good. And the hair above your ears is wrong. You think I don’t know Allie better than I know myself? Mister, you’re good enough to fool anybody except me. But this is little Alice, friend. Allie’s girl. You can’t fool me.”
“I say you’ve gone crazy, kid.”
She got up onto her knees and sat back on her heels, her mouth going firm. “All right, mister. What have I got to lose? I’ll tell the others. Maybe they can check good and find out you’re a fake. Maybe it’ll be so interesting, they’ll give me a break.”
“Not so loud,” he whispered tensely.
She smiled. It wasn’t a pretty smile. “That’s as good as telling me, isn’t it? Now give with the rest.”