“Prove to him you’re just a friend.”
Doug laughed and said in a soft, low voice, “Does that feel like a friend?”
She laughed too. “Stop it. I’m trying to have a serious talk here.”
“So, what? We go to a ball game together?”
“No, it’s got to be more than that. Ask him to come visit you.”
“Oh, that’d be fun.” With that same snotty tone that Mo sometimes used.
She continued, “No, I like it. Ask him to come down. Pretend you’ve got a girlfriend or something.”
“He won’t believe that.”
“Pete’s only smart when it comes to computers and baseball. He’s stupid about everything else.”
Pete wrung his hands together. Nearly sprained a thumb — like the time he jammed his finger on the basketball court.
“That means I have to pretend I like him.”
“Yeah, that’s exactly what it means. It’s not going to kill you.”
“You come with him.”
“No,” she said. “I couldn’t keep my hands off you.”
A pause. Then Doug said, “Oh, hell, all right. I’ll do it.”
Pete, crouching on a strip of yellow grass beside three discarded soda cans, curled into a ball and shook with fury. It took all his willpower not to scream.
He hurried home, threw himself down on the couch in the office, and turned on the game.
When Mo came home — which wasn’t at five at all, like she promised, but at six-thirty — he pretended he’d fallen asleep.
That night he decided what he had to do and the next day he went to the used-book store and stole the copy of Triangle.
On Saturday Mo drove him to the airport.
“You two gonna have fun together?” In the car she lit a cigarette. She’d never smoked before she met Doug.
“You bet,” Pete said. He sounded cheerful because he was cheerful. “We’re gonna have a fine time.”
On the day of the murder, while his wife and her lover were sipping wine in a room at the Mountain View Lodge, Roy had lunch with a business associate. The man, who wished to remain anonymous, reported that Roy was in unusually good spirits. It seemed his depression had lifted and he was happy once more.
Fine, fine, fine...
At the gate Mo kissed him and then hugged him hard. He didn’t kiss her but he hugged her back. But not hard. He didn’t want to touch her. Didn’t want to be touched by her.
“You’re looking forward to going, aren’t you?” she asked.
“I sure am,” he answered. This was true.
“I love you,” she said.
“I love you too,” he responded. This was not true. He hated her. He hoped the plane left on time. He didn’t want to wait here with her any longer than he had to.
But the flight left as scheduled.
The flight attendant, a pretty blond woman, kept stopping at his seat. This wasn’t unusual for Pete. Women liked him. He’d heard a million times that he was cute. Women were always leaning close and telling him that. Touching his arm, squeezing his shoulder. But today he answered her questions with a simple “yes” or “no.” And kept reading Triangle. Reading the passages he’d underlined. Memorizing them.
Learning about fingerprints, about interviewing witnesses, about footprints and trace evidence. There was a lot he didn’t understand, but he did figure out how smart the cops were and that he’d have to be very careful if he was going to kill Doug.
“We’re about to land,” the flight attendant said. “Could you put your seat belt on, please?”
She squeezed his shoulder and smiled at him.
He put the seat belt on and went back to his book.
Hank Gibson’s body had fallen one hundred and twelve feet. He’d landed on his right side and of the more than two hundred bones in the human body, he’d broken seventy-seven of them. His ribs had pierced all his major internal organs and his skull was flattened on one side.
“Welcome to Baltimore, where the local time is twelve-twenty-five,” the flight attendant said. “Please remain in your seat with the seat belt fastened until the plane has come to a complete stop and the pilot has turned off the FASTEN SEAT BELT sign. Thank you.”
The medical examiner estimated that Hank was traveling eighty miles an hour when he struck the ground and that death was virtually instantaneous.
Welcome to Baltimore...
Doug met him at the airport. Shook his hand.
“How you doing, buddy?” Doug asked.
“Okay.”
This was so weird. Spending the weekend with a man that Mo knew so well and that Pete hardly knew at all.
Going hiking with somebody he hardly knew at all.
Going to kill somebody he hardly knew at all...
He walked along beside Doug.
“I need a beer and some crabs,” Doug said as they got into his car. “You hungry?”
“Sure am.”
They stopped at the waterfront and went into an old dive. The place stunk. It smelled like the cleanser Mo used on the floor when Randolf, their Labrador retriever puppy, made a mess on the carpet.
Doug whistled at the waitress before they’d even sat down. “Hey, honey, think you can handle two real men?” He gave her the sort of grin Pete’d seen Doug give Mo a couple of times. Pete looked away, somewhat embarrassed but plenty disgusted.
When they started to eat Doug calmed down, though that was more likely the beers. Like Mo got after her third glass of Gallo in the evenings. Doug had at least three that Pete counted and maybe a couple more after them.
Pete wasn’t saying much. Doug tried to be cheerful. He talked and talked but it was just garbage. Pete didn’t pay any attention.
“Maybe I’ll give my girlfriend a call,” Doug said suddenly. “See if she wants to join us.”
“You have a girlfriend? What’s her name?”
“Uhm, Cathy,” he said.
The waitress’s nametag said: Hi. I’m Cathleen.
“That’d be fun,” Pete said.
“She might be going out of town this weekend.” He avoided Pete’s eyes. “But I’ll call her later.”
Pete’s only smart when it comes to computers and baseball. He’s stupid about everything else.
Finally Doug looked at his watch and said, “So what do you feel like doing now?”
Pete pretended to think for a minute and asked, “Anyplace we can go hiking around here?”
“Hiking?”
“Like any mountain trails?”
Doug finished his beer, shook his head. “Naw, nothing like that I know of.”
Pete felt rage again — his hands were shaking, the blood roaring in his ears — but he covered it up pretty well and tried to think. Now, what was he going to do? He’d counted on Doug agreeing to whatever he wanted. He’d counted on a nice high cliff.
But then Doug continued. “But if you want to be outside, one thing we could do, maybe, is go hunting.”
“Hunting?”
“Nothing good’s in season now,” Doug said. “But there’s always rabbits and squirrels.”
“Well—”
“I’ve got a couple of guns we can use.”
Guns?
Pete said, “Okay. Let’s go hunting.”
“You shoot much?” Doug asked him.
“Some.”
In fact, Pete was a good shot. His father had taught him how to load and clean guns and how to handle them. (“Never point it at anything unless you’re prepared to shoot it.”)
But Pete didn’t want Doug to know he knew anything about guns so he let the man show him how to load the little .22 and how to pull the slide to cock it and where the safety was.
I’m a much better actor than Mo.