Burt groaned and sat up, blinking his eyes. “What happened?”
“Burt! I was telling Mr. Keener—”
“I’ll explain,” said the man, and without halting his nail-cleaning operation, regarding his hands from time to time in the lamplight, he introduced himself as Rolf Keener. He’d rented a power-launch in St. Vincent and piloted himself to the island. The surf must have covered the sound of his arrival, since nobody had met him at the jetty. However, since he remembered the island from his last visit, he’d gone directly to his own cabin. He’d just arrived when he heard a prowler outside. Nervous in a strange land, he’d waited behind the door. When the prowler attacked, he’d simply defended himself.
“You swung first,” said Burt, aware of a throbbing pain in the back of his neck.
“That may be true.” Keener smiled. “I was frightened, you understand.”
Yeah, thought Burt, you looked scared with that smile on your face. Keener told a logical story — within the limits of his own logic. If Keener hadn’t stopped to see his wife, then she couldn’t have told him about the man in cabin one. But why hadn’t he stopped to see her? And it was possible that he’d failed to see Burt’s suitcase under the bed, or his wet swim trunks on the porch railing, since he hadn’t lit a lamp. But if a man is so scared that he attacks the first man who enters, why would he himself enter a strange cabin without a light? There was something wrong here...
Keener rose from the bed and walked to the door. “I’ll sleep in my wife’s cabin tonight; tomorrow we can make other arrangements.” He turned on a smile which did nothing but display perfect white teeth. “You were rather lucky, March. Trespassers are often shot.”
Burt stood up and walked toward Keener. He felt tight, ready. “That has a sound I don’t like, Keener. If there’s anything left to settle, let’s do it now.”
For a second their eyes locked. Burt glimpsed something hooded and watchful in the other’s eyes; maybe it was only his imagination, but there seemed to be a small wizened creature with gray leathery wings, folded and waiting, behind the smooth face. Then Rolf Keener smiled.
“Let’s forget it, March.” Half-ruefully, he touched the bump on his cheek. “We’ve drawn each other’s blood. That means we can dispense with a lot of needless formality. Why not step next door for a drink?”
“No, thanks,” said Burt. “I seem to have acquired a headache.”
Rolf Keener chuckled and walked away. Burt walked through the door and watched him disappear around the banyan; he moved quickly and surely, like a night-hunting animal.
As Burt started back to his cabin, he saw the half-moon sinking down through a pale mist in the west. With a shock he realized that it must be nearly three A.M. It couldn’t have been past eleven when he’d left Joss—
The screen door opened softly behind him. Burt jumped, then saw it was Joss, clutching her robe together at the neck.
“Joss, what time did Keener come up and get you?”
“He... didn’t.” She bit her lip. “I came down to see you.”
“Why?”
“I don’t know. I guess, to finish the mess I started, really botch it up good.” She shrugged. “I was still drunk. I’m sober now. When I came in and saw you lying on the floor—”
“Where was Rolf?”
“Sitting on the bed. Said he was waiting for you to wake up so he could ask why you’d broken in.”
“Four hours, just sitting there?”
“I guess.” She frowned up at him. “You sound suspicious.”
“Suspicion is an occupational hazard, Joss. But there’s something damn strange about both those people. You may have drawn a couple of nuts.”
“Oh, well, aren’t we all? I was lying on my hammock a week ago and my first husband came walking up. Wearing hip boots and carrying a fishpole. He asked me if it was a good day for surf-casting and I said sure. He started walking to the beach and disappeared. Next day I decided I was going nuts.”
“Not that way, Joss. This guy... if the way he jumped me is any sign, has a more dangerous problem. It’s called paranoia.”
“I’ve never tried it.”
“Don’t, Joss. You can’t enjoy it like you enjoy your everyday run-of-the-mill hallucinations. And it’s so logical it’s hard to see through it. If a man’s trying to kill you, and you’re sure of it, you’d probably try to get him first. Right? Sure, that’s logical. Or call the cops. Well, a paranoiac works the same way. The only thing is, nobody’s trying to kill him. It’s all delusion. He tells the cops and they say sure and do nothing. So the nut decides everybody’s against him, the cops, the whole world. A guy reaches in his pocket for a cigarette, blam! The nut shoots, figuring he was going for a gun. I remember a case, a man was cutting a roast at Sunday dinner, then suddenly he turned and stabbed his wife in the stomach: She’d poisoned the meat, he said. Another guy shot a man because he bumped into his car. Later he told the cops the other guy had done it in order to hold him there until help arrived. They were all plotting to kill him—”
“Oh, Burt. Mr. Keener was so calm, relaxed—”
“Yes. And wasn’t that strange, under the circumstances?”
“Maybe. I’m not sure what you mean.”
“Well, I didn’t think he was really relaxed. He could have been wound up so tight that he didn’t dare allow a single emotion to disturb the surface. That’s another mark of the psychopath, Joss; he’s so torn up inside that he can’t let his mask slip for fear the whole thing will collapse.”
“Burt...” She shivered and drew her robe tighter. “You’re giving me the creeps. I’ll give back their money and tell ’em to leave.”
“No, I’m only guessing. I think I’ll have another look at him, right now. He did invite me for a drink.”
“What’ll I do?”
“Go to bed. I’ll see you tomorrow.”
The lamp was lit on the veranda of cabin two, and Rolf Keener was seated at the hand-hewn wooden table with a glass before him. When Burt tapped on the door, Rolf waved at a glass on the other side of the table. “Come in. There’s yours.”
Dazed, Burt walked in and sat down. “I said I wasn’t coming. Why did you expect me?”
“Because you are what you are, Sergeant.”
A physical shock tingled along Burt’s nerves. His mind whirled for an instant, then he remembered he’d been out four hours. “You went through my things.”
Rolf shrugged. “I checked your identification. Wouldn’t you have done the same to me?”
Thoughtfully, Burt had to admit to himself that it was true. “It isn’t the same thing—”
“Why not? Are you on duty now? Do you carry any warrants?”
Burt frowned at Keener. The subject of his status had been dragged into the conversation by the scruff of the neck; Burt wondered why the man had been so eager for that piece of information.
“I’m not on duty, Keener. But if you found out I was a cop, why the big act with Joss?”
Rolf nodded. “You’re good. Very sharp. I put on that act because...” He shrugged. “I like to keep as many people as ignorant as possible.”
“But you let me know. You didn’t have to.”
Rolf closed his eyes a minute, then opened them. “That confuses things even more, doesn’t it?”
He gave a hollow laugh which sent a prickle of dread up Burt’s spine. Here was a man not entirely in control of himself; a man who could work himself into a corner where he’d have to shoot his way out. You never knew what would seem a reason for killing, to a man like that, and Burt began to feel jumpy. He couldn’t remember ever having been afraid of a man before, but Rolf came close to filling the bill.
Something else. The silence between their words was filled with the rustle of a mattress, the scrape of sandals on concrete, the crackle of a match. Burt smelled cigarette smoke through the closed door. Mrs. Keener was awake and attentive, but apparently he still wasn’t to see the woman of mystery.