“Linda,” he said. “Linda.”
Her voice was muffled. “Go walk or something. Leave me alone.”
He reached over and took her cigarettes, lit one, and noted dispassionately that his fingers trembled. He looked down at her sleek tan back, at her firm, round legs and the way they tapered to the slenderest of ankles.
After a time, she hunched herself up onto her elbows and stared down at the blanket. Then she turned and sat up, keeping her face away from him. She held her hand out, half behind her. “Cigarette.”
He fixed one for her. “Careful. It’s lighted.”
“Thanks.”
After a long time, she said, “Pretty impulsive, wasn’t it?”
“Very pleasant, though.”
“Don’t make standard answers. I’m trying to think out loud. I’m trying to figure out why it happened. I’ve told myself enough times that once is enough. I thought Eddie had all the love I had to give. And I thought of what you were going to do. And I thought of what they’d do to you afterward, because you’d do it boldly and go and tell them what you’d done and why. And you said there wasn’t any reason. No reason in the world why you shouldn’t, and right then it seemed to me as if I could be a reason if you gave both of us enough time. Am I making any sense?”
“I think so. I feel close to you in an odd way. Without very much reason for it. I mean, any reason that’s easy to understand. Turn around.”
“I can’t. I don’t want to look at you. I’m ashamed.”
“Maybe you shouldn’t be. I think it worked. It gave me a different way to look at killing them. That would be a sort of self-indulgence. A dramatic kind of selfishness. And it wouldn’t do Valerie any good. Or me, either. Or, of course, you.”
“What will you do?” she asked so quietly he had to lean a bit closer to hear her.
“I think I’ll go in there tonight and find out what they’re doing.”
“Can you do that?”
“I built that place. I could walk around it for hours blindfolded. I know how to move in the dark. I’ll find out and I’ll tell you, and if it’s something the law should break up, then we’ll fix that up, too. Now, turn around.”
She turned around, lifted her eyes shyly to his, and looked away. “If it worked, then maybe it was all right.”
“Maybe it was.”
“But I wish I didn’t feel like such a fool.”
“Smile and look casual.”
“Like this?” She made her eyes wide, her smile broad, and stuck her tongue out of the corner of her mouth, to give herself a look of idiocy.
“That’s my girl.”
Her face saddened. “Oh, Paul. Coming back to life hurts, doesn’t it?”
“We can be experts on that.”
“With a lot of time. Give me a lot of time, will you?”
He knew he could use the moon shadows. He turned the house lights off at nine-thirty and sat in the dark for an hour. He wore dark trousers, a dark shirt, sneakers. He rubbed his face and neck and hands with insect repellent. He walked out into the night and saw the vague light through the trees. He turned on the hose faucet and let water dribble into the black earth under it. He puddled the water with his fingers, made a black paste, and carefully smeared his face and hands. He made certain that there was nothing in his pockets to chink or rattle. The trousers fitted snugly at the waist; there was no need of a belt, which might creak. He could hear, in his ears, the thud of his heart, quickened by adrenalin. Yet he felt the familiar coldness that came over him before every patrol. The difference was that this time he carried no weapon. He drifted noiselessly across the silver patch of moonlight and entered the brush that separated the house from the cabañas.
Some small creature scampered away in panic, and a bird made a sleepy croaking sound. Mosquitoes whined nearby, and he heard the slow wash of the surf.
He stood in the shadow of a palm bole and saw the two cars parked there, the familiar gray sedan and the black one he had seen that morning. The moon gleamed on the black satin of the hood. The palms of his hands were sweaty. He moved off to his right, then circled around and came up to crouch in the black shadow of the gray sedan, one knee against the ground. He heard a man’s heavy laugh, a deep mumble of voices. Venetian blinds closed out most of the light that came through the two windows on that side of the cabaña. He knew they were the side windows of the living room. He was between the two cars. He looked at the windows and saw that the blind on the farthest one was about a half inch clear of the sill. As he was about to move silently to the side of the house and risk the full slant of moonlight, a door opened, and light poured out across the yard.
The voices were suddenly louder, and he recognized Winkler’s saying, “Here, let me get that for you.”
Paul froze for a moment, then lay flat on the ground between the two cars. He looked under the cars and saw two pairs of feet heading for the black sedan. He rolled silently under the gray one.
A strange man said in a thickly accented voice. “Wait, I unlock the trunk.”
Paul heard the trunk lid go up, heard Winkler grunt, heard a heavy thumping noise. “There. That do it?”
“Thank you. It is fine.”
“Remember what I told you. If you fellas have bad luck, you don’t know where it came from.”
“There will be no bad luck, señor. We are careful people.”
“Not any more careful than we are.”
“Perhaps.”
Paul saw others coming, three more pairs of feet. One of them was a woman’s. The car doors opened, and Paul heard a faint creak as the body of the car tilted when someone heavy got in.
“We are indebted,” the woman said. “You must forgive the precautions. It is not like a purchase from an established institution.”
“It don’t bother me,” Winkler said. “I want you folks satisfied. Then you’ll be back.”
“When would the same quantity be available?” the woman asked.
“Hard to say. We can’t run it like a sausage factory. Tomorrow I take a party down the line after grouper.”
“You are intelligent, señor.”
“I’m just not too greedy. Next time bring the kind of money I want, you hear? I don’t like the new stuff. Especially that big. It makes questions.”
“Do you have other customers?” the woman asked.
“Now, I got a feeling that would be tellin’,” Winkler said, chuckling. “You know where to leave the car?”
“You have told us at least six times,” the accented man said irritatedly.
“Now, don’t go getting mouthy on me, my friend.”
“In a month, then, señor.”
“I’ll let you know if we got it.” The car started, bright lights flicking on. Paul tautened, wondering if the headlights would sweep under the gray car when they backed away. But they backed the other way, and the headlights swung away from him.
The car sound faded, and Winkler said, “How about that bunch. Donny?”
Paul heard Donny spit, then say sullenly, “I get tired of being treated like a servant by that crowd.”
“They pay nice. Donny. Right up there close to market price.”
“What good does that do when you stash everything. I’m getting sick of—”
“Shut up, kid. Do just like I tell you, and you’ll live nice the rest of your life. Now, go get that bottle away from Corson. We got a party to take out early.”
“He said he isn’t going. He says it took him three days on that last batch while we loafed, and he says it’s hot work this time of year, staying inside there with the blinds closed, and he says his wrist hurts where he burned it on that last batch. Why don’t you let him pass out, and maybe he’ll stop singing.”