In the silence she reached for him again, took his cigarettes from his shirt pocket, took one out of the pack and put the pack back.
“Get carried away by the decor?” she asked.
“I just thought—”
“Maybe Charla has warped your values, pal. Maybe with her it’s a social gesture, like passing the butter. Or asking for the next dance. Not with me, Winter. I put a higher value on myself.”
“She said it was the other way around,” he said miserably.
“How many lies are you going to believe?”
“From now on — not very many.”
“I didn’t mean to hit quite that hard, Kirby.”
“I’ve had better days than this one, I guess.”
She got up and moved across the room. Again he marveled at her talent for expression. The stretch pants projected demureness, regret and impregnability. She fiddled with a panel board on the far wall. Suddenly he heard a rising, hissing scream and knew a jet was diving into the building. As he sprang to his feet, the great sound turned into an infantry barrage. She twisted the volume down and it suddenly was Latin music, bongos, strings, a muted trumpet.
“High fidelity is part of the treatment, too. Two hundred watts, maybe, with tweeters and woofers hidden all over the place.”
“Loud, wasn’t it?”
“The records are down here. There’s no activity you can think of that he hasn’t got music to do it by. But I’ve got it on FM radio now.” She moved restlessly across the room, moving to the rhythm, half-dance, half-stroll. “If we just knew exactly what they’re after.”
“Well — I better go back there and see if I can find out.”
“Don’t let them know where they can find me.”
“I won’t. But what would they do?”
“Find a way to keep us apart. It might be something unpleasant.”
He tried to think of Charla doing something unpleasant. But when he thought of Charla, the air seemed to get too thin. He saw her, vividly, wearing Wilma’s smoky wisp, smiling at him, and the image was combined with the tactile memory of Betsy’s small firm breast against his hand. Betsy came over and stared at him. “Do you have some kind of seizures?”
“Me?”
“Try cold showers, deep breathing and clean thoughts, Winter. Now take off, so I can take a nap.”
Chapter Six
He arrived at the Elise at quarter to five, and though he went directly to his room without stopping at the desk, the phone began to ring ten seconds after he had closed the door. It rang and it also flashed an imperative red light at him.
“Couldn’t you have let me know you’d be delayed, dear?” Charla asked.
“I’m sorry about that.”
“Do you have anyone with you?”
“No.”
“That seems very odd.”
“What’s odd about it?”
“Don’t public figures usually have a swarm of people around them, eh?”
“Public figures?”
“Kirby dear, you’re so lovably obtuse. You better scoot right down here before the sky falls on you. Down the hall, dear. To the suite. I guess we’re lucky we didn’t try to do any shopping. We’ll be lucky if we can make it to the Glorianna, dear. She got in this morning.”
“What are you talking about?”
“Dear God, don’t you really know?”
“No.”
“Didn’t you stop at the desk?”
“No.”
“Then you better hustle down here and let me tell you about it.”
She hung up. As soon as he hung up the phone began ringing again. He answered it. A tense male voice said, “Kirby Winter?”
“Yes?”
“Look, fella. I won’t horse around. If nobody’s got to you, twenty-five hundred bucks on the line for a twenty-four-hour exclusive. This is Joe Hooper. Remember that name, hey? And I’ll see you get protection from everybody else until this time tomorrow. Is it a deal?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Don’t be coy, sweetie. You got to move fast. You sneaked by pretty good, but word got around and they’re on their way up there now.”
“Who?”
“Are you Kirby Winter, for Crissake?”
He heard a commotion in the hall, and people began pounding on his door. “Excuse me, but there seems to be somebody at the door.”
“That’s them, you nut! Is it a deal?”
Kirby sighed and hung up. He started toward the door and hesitated. It sounded like a big crowd out there. Suddenly there was a sharp rapping on the locked interconnecting door at the other end of his room, and a muffled voice. “Kirby?” He recognized Charla’s voice. He went over to the door and answered her. “Open the latch, dear,” she said.
He opened the door. She smiled at him and tilted her head and listened to the commotion in the hall. “My word, they gather quickly don’t they?” She wore a yellow mandarin coat over white Bermuda shorts, and she was wearing huge opaque sunglasses.
“Who?”
“All the news people, lover. All jostling and pushing and despising themselves and each other and you, their nasty little strobe lights and pencils and tape machines all aimed and ready. I thought it might be like this, so just in case, I had Joseph pick up this room in between you and the suite. These interconnect so this whole oceanside can be turned into a big suite. Joseph had to get a dear little honeymoon couple moved out of this room to arrange it.”
“What do those people want?”
“Don’t stand there like a ninny, dear. They sound as if they might actually break the door down.”
He went with her through the extra bedroom and into the suite. She closed the interconnecting door behind them. In the suite she handed him an afternoon edition of the Miami News. They had a two-column picture of him on page one. It was an old picture. The head said, MYSTERY NEPHEW IN KREPPS TAX DODGE. He sat down very abruptly.
“At noon today Walton Grumby, Executive Vice President of Krepps Enterprises, revealed that serious estate tax problems are anticipated in the Omar Krepps estate because of the refusal by Kirby Winter, nephew of the late Krepps, to reveal the whereabouts of approximately $27,000,000 diverted over an eleven-year period from Krepps Enterprises into a mystery company known as O.K. Devices, entirely owned by Krepps.
“Grumby told reporters that O.K. Devices occupied a small rental office in the Fowler Building, employing only a Miss Wilma Farnham of Miami, and Kirby Winter. The day after the death of Krepps, Miss Farnham, either on her own initiative, or on the advice of Winter, destroyed all the files and records of O.K. Devices and closed the rental office. Grumby stated that Krepps was always highly secretive about the operations of O.K. Devices, and it seems possible that the company was merely a device for draining off the liquid assets of Krepps’ other ventures and placing them out of the reach of the Internal Revenue Service.
“Grumby stated that Winter traveled to all parts of the world on confidential orders from Krepps, returning infrequently to Miami. Earlier today, Winter refused to disclose his confidential activities to Krepps Enterprises executives or to state what had happened to the $27 million. The Farnham woman also refused to reveal any details of the operations of O.K. Devices or to state on whose instructions she had burned all the records.