“It’ll mean more work for you.”
“So it’s more work. We fish all this week?”
“While we’ve got neighbors. There’s enough for Corson to work on, anyway, when you figure in this morning’s take.”
“I got to have a day to go in and get the tanks filled.”
“You got a new place lined up?”
“Sure. Like you said. Up in Hollywood. How about the neighbor, Moss?”
“Don’t know if she got him to promise anything. I sure can’t ask her, and I don’t want to ask him until the week is up. He’s got a thick head on him. In a way, Donny, it was a break, the way it worked out. She was acting funny. Like she might have a chat with Rayder. Like she was cracking up.”
Their voices were soft and guarded in the night. Donny spat again. “You sweat too much, Moss. I had her under control. I had to give her just one taste to let her know I was serious. After that, she’d turn green and start rubbing her wrist every time I’d light a cigarette. She wouldn’t dare talk too much. I’m sure going to miss that little old gal.”
Their voices faded as they moved toward the door. Paul heard the door shut. He lay under the car for a time, anger and outrage in him like a sickness, like a disease that could smother him. It would be no great trick to ambush them and kill the three of them. Silently, with a knife, out of the darkness. He clung to the memory of Linda on the sun-hot sand until slowly the rage began to fade.
He slid out from under the car and went quickly to the window. All the lights were on, and the room was unkempt, battered. The thin, dark man he had seen driving the black sedan was on the long couch, a glass in his hand, balanced on his chest. Donny went over and gently eased the glass out of Corson’s hand, turned, and said to Moss Winkler. “He’s out already.”
“Leave him be, then.”
Donny went over and sat in a chair and picked up a newspaper. Paul could hear Moss rattling dishes. From the stillness, it seemed evident that nothing more of interest would happen. He decided it would be a good time to take a look at the boat, to see if it would add any of the missing parts of the puzzle. He moved back into the shadows and circled the house back to the main path that led down to the swimming pool. Just as he reached the pool, he heard the door open again. He wasted no time staring back. He dropped almost noiselessly into the empty pool. Half of it was in bright moonlight, and he flattened himself against the shadowed side.
Someone came down the path, whistling softly, bare feet padding by within inches of Paul’s head. After the sound passed. Paul risked a look, and saw Donny’s white hair in the moonlight.
He waited and heard Donny on the cruiser, rattling something metallic. Minutes later, Donny went back to the cabaña. Paul looked again and saw that he was carrying a pair of small cylindrical tanks. Paul waited five minutes. One of the lights went out in the cabaña. He pulled himself up out of the swimming pool, remembering the day it had been finished, remembering Valerie grinning up at him from the dancing green water, her dark wet hair pasted to the fragile line of her skull.
He went down to the crude boat basin, stepped over the low rail, and went into the cruiser’s cabin.
The air was thick in there, smelling of sweat and fish. He had no idea what he was looking for. He found a gear locker, fumbled inside it, touched a tangle of lines and pulleys. He had brought no light, and he would not dare use one in any case. He went back up on deck and found, near the wheel, in a protected place, a locked gun rack with two rifles. Something rattled under his foot. He felt for it, picked it up. It was a thick, rusted object shaped like a ringbolt, half the size of his hand. The rust powdered away, and the metal itself felt rotten. On impulse he put it in his pocket. The boat had nothing further to offer, at least in this darkness. He moved slowly back up toward the cabaña, keeping in the shadows, and each time he paused to listen, he could hear the slow hard beat of his heart. He stood in the deep shadow of a thick palm bole and wondered if it would be worth while to risk again the bright moonlight by the window. He could hear no sound. The door opened suddenly, and Moss Winkler stood framed against the light. Paul stood motionless, barely breathing. The big man seemed ill at ease, as if some animal caution warned him that something moved silently through the night.
He came out into the darkness, out of the light that came from the doorway. Paul saw the cigarette end glowing, saw the silent bulk of the man. Winkler moved slowly toward the palm tree, until he stood within six feet of Paul. Paul gingerly worked the heavy piece of rusted metal out of his pocket, put his two middle fingers through the ring, and waited.
Winkler was so close he heard the man’s faintly asthmatic breathing. Winkler moved slowly away, stood for a time, then shrugged and went back into the house. Paul let his breath out slowly, shoved the ringbolt back into his pocket. After a few minutes, he turned and worked his way back to the small house.
He went into the bedroom, turned on the lights, and looked at the heavy bolt. It was crudely fashioned, and so rusted he could not tell whether it had ever been threaded. The circle was a bit lopsided, and it looked as if the metal, which he could almost pinch off between thumb and finger, had been a bit thicker on one half of the circle than on the other when it was new.
He sat, bouncing it lightly on the palm of his hand for a long time, and by the time he was ready to go to bed, he believed that he had almost everything he needed. Almost everything. Corson would sleep late tomorrow. Winkler and Donny would be off with some apparently innocent and uninvolved fishermen.
Paul was waiting at the restaurant when Linda arrived, in the morning. She looked at him questioningly. He said, “I think I know the score. But it’s going to take some looking, and I need help. Can you come along when Marie and your mother show up?”
“Of course.”
He liked her instant awareness and acceptance of his not wishing to say more about it, not until he knew more.
She made breakfast quickly for both of them. Then, after Marie showed up, she went with him to Al Wright’s small bayside house, on the Gulf side. Al’s wife, a small, tight-faced woman, was reluctant to wake Al up. Finally he came into the kitchen, his thin hair tousled, his wide face puffed with sleep.
“Al,” Paul said, “this is weird-sounding, but it’s important. Is the Baby Barnacle in the water?”
“Sure. She’s running, but not so hot. You want to take her?”
“I’d like to.”
“She’s gassed up. Give her a lot of choke.”
“Did your boy leave any of his skin-fishing stuff here?”
Al looked at his wife, and she said acidly, “There’s things in the closet.”
They looked, and Paul found a face mask that fitted him. The swim fins would be a tight squeeze, but they seemed to measure close enough. He found a wide web belt with snap pockets for the lead weights and a quick-release buckle in the front. He packed it with weights while Al watched silently.
“You said it’s important?”
“That’s right.”
“But you don’t want to talk about it.”
“Not yet, Al.”
“You got the answer to what Winkler’s doing?”
“I might have it. I’m not sure yet.”
“You want to watch it, then. I think he’s pretty rough. And I think Donny and that Corson are pretty rough. She going with you?” He pointed a thumb at Linda.
“It’ll be all right, Al. They took an early party out. I saw them head south. Out of sight. Corson is sleeping it off. It’ll be all right. It won’t take long.”
“You know where you’re going?”
“I’ve got it marked.”
“Well, let me know.”