The Melting Man

'All right. Just forget I ever came.' I gave her a brotherly grin. 'But if ever you want a shoulder to cry on, somebody to talk to — just get in touch.'

She dropped a hand and touched one of the loose pieces of the puzzle and, without looking at me, said, 'Thank you, Mr Carver.'

Hand on the door, I said, 'Think nothing of it. But don't forget I've got a broad pair of shoulders.' So they were, almost as broad as hers. I went out, thinking of what Robert Burns had said about waiving the quantum of the sin, the hazard of concealing. If ever a woman had hardened all within and petrified the feeling, then Zelia had done it since leaving the Ombremont Hotel. And I meant to know why.

* * *

But first I had to get by the silver-haired, purple-rinse number in the red shorts. I didn't have a hope and in the end I was glad of it, because although I couldn't use Zelia the way I ought to have done, it was easy with Mirabelle Heisenbacher, nee Wright, stage-name Mirabelle Landers, age thirty-eight, friendly, bored, and all set to marry O'Dowda when she got her divorce from Mr Heisenbacher, a rot-the-bald-headed-bastard-of-a-shoe-manufacturer (her words).

As I stood by the gang ladder wondering where my boy with the pram dinghy was, she came down the deck, changed into a green silk beach-suit, cigar in one hand and the other reaching for my arm as she said, 'Unless you have a drink first, you've got to swim back. Come on.'

She led me up to the stern where, under an awning, chairs, tables and drinks waited. She was as friendly as a puppy and just as restless.

She said, 'Did you get anything out of Zelia?'

'No — she's still in some kind of personal deep freeze.'

'I can't think why Cavan is riding the child about the damned car. He's so loaded, what does a car matter?'

'He was tough with her, was he?'

'Originally. I thought he was going to go into orbit. Gave me a few moments' doubt. Such a temper. After all, he's the guy I'm going to marry. Then I thought, what the hell? All men have something and, unlike most, he's got millions so I didn't see why love's blossom should be allowed to wither. Why's he so stuck on getting the car back?'

'I wish I knew. You known him long?'

'Three, four years. Nice guy — except I don't like the side he's been showing since the car went. It's got to be more than the car. You know my theory?'

Tell me.'

'Sometimes I think Zelia lost the car on purpose to annoy him. She must have guessed there was more to it than the car and she ditched it to get back at him. Some kind of emotional compensation for something or the other.'

'You've been talking to a psychoanalyst.'

'Not me. Any time I spend on couches is strictly for pleasure. Not that I'm like that now. I'm strictly a Cavan O'Dowda girl these days.'

'If he got that car back he'd be nicer than he is at the moment, wouldn't he?'

'Sure. And I wouldn't be stuck here, keeping an eye on Zelia. I hate boats. She wants to be out here. She hasn't been off this yacht for weeks. What are you driving at?'

'Was I?'

'Come off it, buster, I know the look in a man's eyes when he wants something and at the moment you've got that look — though it isn't asking for the usual thing which, in a way, is no damned compliment to me.'

'I just want to satisfy O'Dowda.'

'Snap. So?'

'Is there a shore-going telephone from the Ferox?'

'No.'

'What happens about the mail? When you write to O'Dowda, for instance?'

'Now we're getting down to business. Why not be direct? You think Zelia might want to write to someone now that you've seen her?'

I looked at her over a large gin-and-tonic she'd fixed for me. She was a woman who knew where she was going and how to handle herself. She was going to marry O'Dowda. What she didn't know about men would probably make only two dull lines of addenda to a large volume of personal reminiscences. She had to be like that because I hadn't said anything of note yet and already she was with me. I gave her a wink. She tossed the end of her cigar over the rail and winked back.

'Level,' she said, 'and Mirabelle might help — just so long as it all adds up to making O'Dowda sweet and getting Zelia out of the doldrums.'

'I've mentioned a little fact to Zelia which may make her want to write to someone. If I could have the names and addresses of all the people she writes to in the next twenty-four hours it could help a lot. Difficult?'

'No. All the ship's letters are put in the mail-box in the saloon and one of the stewards takes them ashore late afternoon. Any name and address in particular?'

'Not really.'

'Liar. Where are you staying?'

'The Majestic'

'You like your kind of job?'

'I travel and meet people, and help some of them.'

'Then I wish to God you'd help Zelia to come out from under the glacier. I'm liable to be stuck here for weeks and that adds up to a lot of lost fun. It's a man, of course, isn't it, that she'll be writing to?'

'I wouldn't bet on it.'

'Why not, it's an even money chance? Anyway, it's got to be. Any girl ever needed a man, she does. My bet is she found one and he went bad on her. For the first time in her life she went into it starry-eyed and then — bam! the bastard ran true to form. They all do, even the nice ones, but she didn't have any experience to help her ride the punches. Correct?'

'You'll make a first-class stepmother.'

'Wife is all I'm interested in. I thought I had it made with Heisenbacher, but he developed nasty habits, and when I broke him of those he just withdrew and started collecting Japanese ivory carvings, netsukes and all that stuff. I gave up. You like to stay for lunch?'

I said regretfully that I couldn't and it took me another half-hour to get away. I was run ashore in the yacht's launch and on the quayside waiting for me was Mr Najib Alakwe, Esquire.

He fell into step alongside me, handed me the ignition key, and said, 'Okay, Mr Carver, wrong car. You get anything from Miss Zelia?'

'No. But why should I keep you up to date on things?'

'Two thousand pounds, Mr Carver. Damn generous offer. Cable from Jimbo this morning. Two thousand pounds you resign from Mr O'Dowda's employment now, or three thousand you go on, find car, and hand same over to us intact.'

I shook my head.

His eyes spun in just the same way as his brother's had. 'This is a serious refusal, Mr Carver?'

'Absolutely.'

He took a deep, sad breath and said, 'Then all I can indicate is that the consequences for you, Mr Carver, may be—'

'D for drastic?'

'Absolutely.'

* * *

I had lunch at the hotel and then went up to my room and lay on the bed and stared at the ceiling. It was a boring kind of ceiling to stare at, not a crack or a stain on it, so I had to fall back on pure thought. What kind of people, I asked myself, would employ the Alakwe twins? The best answer I could come up with was probably people of their own race. O'Dowda, for instance, would never have employed them — except on an African assignment where they would not be conspicuous, though I had an idea they would still be just that even in an Accra bazaar. In Europe they stuck out like a couple of sore black thumbs. Probably their employer or employers didn't mind this. The Alakwes wanted whatever was hidden in the Mercedes, and they knew that O'Dowda knew they wanted it and — almost certainly — that O'Dowda knew who their employers were.