Fatal Flaw Part 22

"So you're the mystery man who was sleeping with Hailey Prouix," she said.

I played it nonchalant. "Except when she was out on the town with Juan Gonzalez."

"He looked at that moment when he made his wild accusation as if he wanted to strike you dead."

"Like a protective papa bear."

Beth didn't reply.

We were driving slowly on the road, enjoying the scenery. A big black Lincoln, with its windows up and air conditioner undoubtedly blasting, blew by.

"I had this image when he was talking," I said, "of him in the slaughterhouse, surrounded by carca.s.ses, ankle deep in blood. It was something, what he did, sacrificing almost a decade of his life so his sister and his nieces could live decently. However he wasted his life before or after, and it seems he wasted it badly, at least he did that one n.o.ble thing."

"Was it n.o.ble?"

"You don't think so?"

"I don't think," said Beth, "I've ever met a more vile man."

I was stunned by what she said. He seemed ornery, sure, small-minded and bigoted, with a foul word for everyone, but nothing worse than expected from a decrepit old goat. "You're not serious."

"Something about him, Victor, creeped me to the bone. His fake tears when you pressed him about being more concerned about the check than the death of his niece."

"I thought they were genuine."

"Please. And his little protestations of sacrifice, of how hard it was to take care of that family, of how much his firmness was needed."

"You don't think it was a sacrifice?"

"Do you remember in David Copperfield David Copperfield when David's sweet mother marries Murdstone, and Murdstone comes in with his sister and takes over the house, bending everyone to his will until he destroys his new wife and forces David out?" when David's sweet mother marries Murdstone, and Murdstone comes in with his sister and takes over the house, bending everyone to his will until he destroys his new wife and forces David out?"

"Murdstone with the big black sideburns?"

"Yes. What did Uncle Larry say, the girls needed a firm hand in that house? I shivered when I heard that."

"Your imagination is running amok. This explains her travel to Vegas. She didn't go with a lover, she went to visit her uncle. And I was curious why Hailey transferred the bulk of her Gonzalez fee, after taxes, to Las Vegas, and now I know. To pay for the uncle's nursing home."

"But why?"

"Loyalty."

"Maybe," said Beth. "But if you ask me, there's something else going on. Something that ruined him, too. Do you know what beriberi is?"

"Some exotic South Seas disease, it sounds like. How do you think he caught it in the desert?"

"Beriberi is not a virus. It's a vitamin deficiency that sailors used to get because of unbalanced diets. You can also get it from drinking, but not just a little light tippling. They see it in drunks who drink so much that nothing matters but the drinking and the forgetting, who drink so much they forget to eat."

A flight of warplanes flew low overhead, banking to the left, blowing away the soft rush of the wind with the roar of their engines, leaving thin trails through the pale blue as if the fabric of the sky itself had been ripped.

"Remember when I kept asking about the death of that boy?" she said. "What was his name?"

"Jesse Sterrett."

"That's right. You know what we should do? We should go back to Hailey's old hometown and find out what really happened to him."

"He said it was ruled an accident."

"Maybe it was, if you can trust old Doc Robinson to know the difference between an accident and a murder."

Behind us a white muscle car, its windows darkened, came up on us at a high rate of speed and shifted into the pa.s.sing lane.

"If you ask me," said Beth, "I'd guess there was a link between Hailey Prouix's murder and the death of that boy. If you ask me, there's something malignant that was alive back then that still exists, just as strong, today."

"You're creeping me out, Beth."

"He creeped me out, Victor."

"I don't understand why."

"Neither do I. But you know what? It gets me to wondering. It gets me to wondering if maybe we don't have it all wrong. It gets me to wondering if maybe-"

Just then the white muscle car roared alongside us. It was a Camaro, the noise of its engine exploding without the restraint of a m.u.f.fler. I expected it to zoom on past, but it didn't, it stayed even with us, like a shadow.

I pulled my foot off the accelerator and slowed down to let it go on by, and it slowed down with me.

I sped up, and it kept pace.

I tried to peer inside but the windows were tinted so dark it was impossible to see who was driving.

I glanced at the road in front and saw a huge red pickup truck, hauling a motorboat, coming our way in the muscle car's lane.

The truck blared its horn.

I sped up.

The muscle car veered away to the left and then, as if it were a yoyo on a string, came back and slammed us hard in the side.

The crash of metal, the crack of gla.s.s, the horn of the red pickup, and then a strange sound like the flap of a huge wing, followed by silence.

The straight road twisted sharply to the left, the soft shoulder tossed us, the great singed desert opened its arms to us, and, like children of the earth, we fell into them, spinning into the arms of the earth as the pale blue of the sky and the rocky surface of the desert revolved one around the other and became for us as one.

25.

MY FIRST words when I came to were for Beth. I called her name, I called her name and heard nothing. The sun was brutal in my eyes, three dark things circling about it in the sky. My back ached so badly I thought it was broken, but I realized that as long as it hurt like h.e.l.l it was still together, still together, and I called out for Beth. words when I came to were for Beth. I called her name, I called her name and heard nothing. The sun was brutal in my eyes, three dark things circling about it in the sky. My back ached so badly I thought it was broken, but I realized that as long as it hurt like h.e.l.l it was still together, still together, and I called out for Beth.

From behind I heard voices. I twisted my head and saw the car, our car, the convertible, on its side, twisted grotesquely, the windshield shattered, fingers of flame lapping out the side of the hood. The red pickup truck was parked off a ways in the distance, the huge boat still hitched behind it. A man in jeans and a tee shirt stood in front of it, talking into a cellular phone.

"Beth," I called out as loud as I could. "Where's Beth?"

And then a face appeared over me, blurry and in shadow against the harsh sun. A man's face, round, with its ears sticking out.

"She's all right," came a soft, scarred voice, strangely familiar, though badly out of place. "I think something in her arm, it snapped, but other than that she's doing fine. You, too, mate. You was both wearing seat belts, good thing, or you'd be vulture bait."

"The car..."

"I hope you took out insurance on your rental, is all I can say."

"Beth's all right?"

"Yeah, Vic, she's fine. Just fine. I took her out of the car first, you second. Didn't want to move you but I had to with the engine burning like it was. What's that?" he called out to the man on the phone.

He turned to hear what the truck driver had to say and the sun lit up his face and I recognized him, I recognized him. That b.a.s.t.a.r.d.

"The ambulance will be along any minute. Don't worry, Vic. Don't you worry. I'm here to help. I'll take care of everything."

And he would, I was sure. I recognized him all right, no doubt about it, and I knew he would take care of everything, that b.a.s.t.a.r.d, just like he promised.

Phil Frigging Skink.

26.

IN A curtained alcove of the emergency room of the St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson, Nevada, a uniformed police officer took my statement as I waited for the results of the X-rays. They had strapped me to the stretcher in the ambulance to ensure I wouldn't further injure my back, and the doctor had urged me to lie still on the table until he could review the film. curtained alcove of the emergency room of the St. Rose Dominican Hospital in Henderson, Nevada, a uniformed police officer took my statement as I waited for the results of the X-rays. They had strapped me to the stretcher in the ambulance to ensure I wouldn't further injure my back, and the doctor had urged me to lie still on the table until he could review the film.

"Any sudden movement could cause irreparable injury," he had said.

So I was lying as motionless as I could manage while the cop asked her questions. She was slight and cute, and I would have flirted her up in any other circ.u.mstance, but just then she was not at all what I wanted to see in the way of law enforcement. Just then what I wanted to see in the way of law enforcement was a burly bruiser who would take Skink by the scruff of his neck and toss him straight into the slammola. I told the cute police officer what happened with the white Camaro, about the way it smashed me in the side and sent me spinning off the road and how I was ready to sign a complaint for attempted murder as soon as she had it prepared.

"The truck driver said you did a full turn in the air before hitting the ground and spinning onto your side," she said.

"Degree of difficulty six-point-nine." Well, maybe I couldn't help doing a little flirting, and she did have a pretty smile, and I always admired a woman in a uniform with a gun strapped to her hip.

"You were d.a.m.n lucky, Mr. Carl. If you had dropped upside down, you likely both would have been crushed."

"That's just how I feel, lucky lucky lucky. It's because my lucky jacket was in the trunk."

"Is it bright?"

"Blinding," I said.

"Lovely. Did you happen to see the license-plate number of the Camaro?"

"No, I'm sorry, I was busily spinning in the air as it drove away."

"Did you see the driver?"

"I couldn't see inside," I said. "The windows were a dark blue, but it was Skink driving."

She flipped through her notepad. "You mean the Mr. Skink who gave the statement?"

"That's right, Phil Frigging Skink."

"Calm yourself down, sir."

"Sorry. But it had to be him. He obviously followed me here to Vegas. There's something he's desperate to hide, desperate enough for him to try to kill me. My guess is he was in on a murder that happened in Philadelphia and he knows I'm hot on his trail."

"A murder?"

"That's right."

"In Philadelphia."

"Yes."

"You're talking about the Mr. Skink who ignored the smoke pouring from the front of your hood and dragged you and Miss Derringer out of the vehicle and maybe saved your lives?"

"Exactly."

"And you think he's a murderer?"

"Doesn't what he did prove it?"

"Why would he try to kill you, Mr. Carl, and then save your lives?"

"I don't know. Ask him."

"I will. But I have to tell you, the truck driver who saw the whole thing said Mr. Skink drove up in a blue Taurus about three minutes after it happened, moving in the same direction as the Camaro, so he couldn't have been involved in the accident."

"Accident? It was no accident. The d.a.m.n Camaro slammed into me."

"The truck driver said the Camaro was trying to pa.s.s and it looked like you sped up and blocked it in."

"I was speeding up to get away from him."

"And the truck driver said the Camaro tried to get out of the truck's lane but you stayed in its path and that's why it tapped you."

"It wasn't a tap."