Masters Of Noir Vol Iv Part 9

After supper she wanted a drink to celebrate the end of our first flight. All I had was a few cans of warm beer. We drank that. She laughed and talked, teasing me about being a farmer stuck away from the world. Suddenly for no reason we stopped laughing and we stopped talking.

Crickets and frogs screeched outside the windows. It was so quiet I heard mosquitoes frantic against the screens.

I tried not to stare at her, but I couldn't keep my gaze off her. I asked if she were sleepy. She said no. We sat for a long time and listened to the crickets. That night I didn't sleep much....

Next morning I was out of bed and dressed hours ahead of Celia. I fixed breakfast but not even the odors of coffee and eggs wakened her. I let her sleep. I didn't trust myself in that room. I remembered why she was here-a husband lost in the swamp. I had to keep remembering that.

At a quarter of seven she came out, voice angry. "Why didn't you wake me up?"

I stared at her, knowing how I'd fought to keep out of that room. "Why didn't you bring an alarm clock?"

We stood tense across the table. Then she smiled and looked very pleased about something....

We'd been flying about three hours and suddenly Celia grabbed my arm. An electric charge went through me at her touch. Maybe you don't know what it is to want like that. I was sick, wanting just two things: never to find her husband and to have money so I could afford Celia Carmic.

She pointed to something glittering. I engaged the pedals, idled off the engine and we settled in a cleared s.p.a.ce six inches above water.

She scrambled out of the plane, ran through muck and saw-gra.s.s. I plodded after her. When I reached her, she was swearing, words she shouldn't even have known.

Somebody had cut open a five gallon oil can, tossed it beside the creek. She followed me back to the 'copter.

We retraced and she was silent, did not even mention learning to handle the 'copter. We set down in the yard about four and she walked silently into the house.

After supper she discovered the old wind-up phonograph in the front room. She played an ancient record. "Sweet-Stay As Sweet As You Are." "Sweet-Stay As Sweet As You Are." She wound it, played it again. She wound it, played it again.

"Reminds me of you," she said. "Sweet and innocent."

I remembered her disappointment this afternoon when she thought we'd found a sign of her husband. This was a different woman.

"Come on, Jim, dance with me."

"I don't dance."

"I'll teach you." She came over, took my hands. Hers were like ice. I stood up. She came into my arms, moved closer. Her hands slid up my back....

I wanted to sleep through next morning. It was good burying my face in the warm fragrance of her hair. But when I thought about the flight, I thought about her husband. I didn't like that.

I pulled her closer. She went taut. "No, Jim. We're going to search." She pulled away, eyes hard. "We're going to search all day. Everyday."

In the plane, I felt her nearness, I could smell her. All day she kept binoculars fixed on that changeless land.

"We're not staying out long enough," she said.

My voice was hard. "We'll look as long as you like. That doesn't keep me from hoping we-don't find him."

Her fingers closed on my arm. "Don't say that, Jim. Pray we do find him."

How could she do that, turn her emotions off and on? I could not forget last night; for her it had never happened. She loved her husband. She came to me. It didn't make my kind of sense. I clammed up.

We reached the end of the pattern. She dropped the gla.s.ses, rings deep about her eyes. But when she dropped the binoculars, she dropped the search. Now her brown eyes sought something else. "How long, Jim, before we get home?"

Her voice was breathless. I went empty. Her hand gripped me. "It's too far. Hurry."

I tried to hurry but they never built enough speed in a flying windmill for us. I set the 'copter down in the yard, killed the engine. We ran across the yard. That was when I saw the car tire tracks.

I stopped. The tracks came in from the road. "Somebody's been here." I sounded like Papa Bear.

Celia frowned, but pulled me toward the house. "Probably some salesman."

Footprints in the sand led around the house, paused at every window. "Persistent." I said.

For no reason I could explain, I felt that old sense of wrong mixed with unexplained fear. "I'll take the 'copter. Maybe I can catch him before he gets back to the Trail."

"Don't be a fool." She pressed against me. "I've waited all day. You're not chasing down some salesman. You're not going to leave me tonight."

I didn't, either....

Next morning I woke up thinking about those tire tracks and footprints. Too many things were unexplained, wrong. I fixed breakfast but didn't eat anything. Celia ate like a plowman.

I followed the flight pattern but my mind wasn't on it. Celia never relaxed. We'd not found one encouraging sign, yet she never mentioned quitting. One thing was now certain. She was compelled by something stronger than that love she'd talked about the first day. Did she love Carmic at all? She never discussed him outside the 'copter. She never worried about the h.e.l.l he endured if he were alive in that swamp country. All she did was glue her gaze to that ground.

When we returned, I searched first for new tire tracks. There was none. I couldn't say why, but I felt no better.

Celia pretended disinterest, but she looked for them, too.

After supper, she started the phonograph. It blared but only intensified the silence. She toppled into my lap. "It's too quiet, doll. I'm a big city girl. The Emba.s.sy-F Street. Got to have excitement. Where you going to take me?"

I smelled the warm fragrance at the nape of her neck. "I know where I want to take you."

"There's a juke joint about a mile down the Tamiami Trail from your road."

"Twenty miles. Nickel juke. Ten cent beer and mud farmers."

"That's where I want to go."

I looked at her squared chin, didn't even bother to argue.

She drove recklessly on the twisting roadway, parked beside the Seminole Inn. An anaemic neon glowed fitfully. There were gas pumps out front, motel cottages in the rear. Inside was boot-scarred bar, small dance s.p.a.ce, unpainted tables, candles in beer cans, booths. There were half a dozen customers. We sat at a table, ordered beer. She seemed to have forgotten her husband, so I tried to.

A man sat alone at the end of the bar near the juke. I didn't pay any attention to him at first. I noticed he was pretty-boy handsome, with a golden, sculptured profile, thin mouth.

We'd been there about ten minutes before I realized he was watching every move we made. Every time I looked up, his eyes would go flat and he'd stare beyond me.

"You know that character?" I said to Celia.

"Who?" She said it too carelessly. There weren't that many people in there. I got that old empty feeling.

"Handsome," I said. "The blond G.o.d over there. He must know you, he's staring at you."

Celia looked dutifully. Her eyes met Handsome's for an instant. I saw something flicker in his flat eyes-something green like jealousy, red like hatred. It flashed and was gone. He looked at his beer.

"I'm sure I never saw him before," Celia said. "Want to dance?"

What I wanted was to hit somebody or something. If she knew the guy, why didn't she say so? I had to be sure. I excused myself, went through the door marked "His'n."

From inside I watched Celia. She got up after a moment, walked over to the juke. Handsome swung around at the bar as I'd known he would.

For a moment I was ill. I pressed my ear against the pine paneling, trying to hear what they said. Celia punched coins into the juke. "Stay away." Her voice was a sharp whisper.

"I've got to see you!"

"You can't. I told you you couldn't."

"You're crossing me-" The blaring music drowned his words. I washed my face, rinsed out my mouth, staring at my reflection in the dirty window.

I was silent driving home. Celia laughed, teased, called me a baby. She slid over close, laid her head on my shoulder. It was a gray night, strung with stars and full of wrong.

"I wish you'd teach me to run the 'copter, Jim."

I felt pebbles in my throat. I wanted her to tell me the truth, but by now I knew better. I wouldn't waste my breath. "You couldn't take your eyes away from those binoculars long enough to learn."

She sighed. "That's right. That's most important, isn't it?"

I didn't say anything. It didn't seem important at all.

When we got back next afternoon from the fifth flight pattern, I saw the new tracks. "Well, he was back again," I said.

She took it big. "Somebody is trying to sell you something."

"That's G.o.d's truth."

"-and just can't believe you're gone so much!" She met my gaze evenly when she said that and didn't even blush.

We ate supper silently. Afterwards she marked out the next flight pattern. I didn't even bother to look at it. I told myself I was going to bed alone. I didn't. She had me all clobbered, but I wanted her worse than ever.

The next morning we took off as usual. I asked her to explain the prowler.

She said it must be a neighbor of mine, or a salesman.

I shook my head. "Don't give me that. I have no neighbors. A salesman would travel that road once, maybe; never twice."

She shrugged. "It's your country."

"It's your boyfriend," I told her.

"My boyfriend!" She laughed. I let her laugh. She got tired and stopped, cold.

"I heard you two at the juke." My voice was as tired and empty as I felt.

Her eyes flickered.

"Why not level with me, Celia? What are you looking for? What do you want?"

She stared out at the horizon. She bit her lip and closed her eyes tight, but didn't speak. My heart hurt against my ribs. I wanted her to be something she wasn't and never would be.

I wanted her and hated her, and wondered what she was really here for.

We reached the beginning of the flight pattern, the same parched pepper gra.s.s, same tufted pines and endless silence. This was the next to the last day. I heard her sigh; she placed the binoculars against her eyes. After a moment, she removed them, wiped her tears. "I love you, Jim."

"Sure you do."

"I didn't mean to, I didn't even consider it. But-you don't know what it means to me to find Curt." She sank her fingers into my arm. "You won't be sorry, Jim."

"I'm already sorry. I went nuts when you walked on my place. All I've thought about was having you-and I couldn't afford you, even if I could overlook the rest of it."

"We've got to find him." She turned back, put gla.s.ses to her eyes. "And we will."

Time slipped away. And miles. I was about to make the circle, but she told me to go on a bit further. Then I heard her catch her breath, but I'd already seen it. You don't need field gla.s.ses to see smoke in that flat wasteland. She dropped the binoculars, looked at me, face rigid.

She touched my arm, then her fingers were clinging to me. "We've found him, we've found Curt."

"Sure," I said. "Didn't you know we would?"

I set the plane down near the black river. We saw the man standing beside the smudge fire. He was alone. Celia and I got out of the 'copter and went toward him.

He wasn't dirty, ragged or bearded-his face wasn't swollen with mosquito poisoning-the way it should be with a man lost in the Everglades. He'd built himself a hut of a parachute, sheltered by rude ribs made of pine limbs. I looked around. There was no sign of the plane.

I congratulated him under my breath. He was a smart guy, all right. He had survived. He had been ready. He'd had a parachute. What had happened to the plane-or what had been made to happen to it-I'd never know. Neither would anyone else. Sixty feet under, in the Gulf, no doubt.

"Well, baby," he was saying to Celia, "I see you finally made it." His voice was angry.

She snarled back at him. "I came as soon as I-could."

"Well thanks." His gaze raked me and his mouth twisted. "Not bad," he said. "Not bad at all."

She said, "I had to wait for the air forces to call off the search. I had to get a pilot."

His brow tilted. "Yes, I see you got a nice young one. Another in your long list? Is this what delayed you until the last day, Celia?"

"We did the best we could, Curt." Her breath was sharp. "Did you have sense enough to save the money along with yourself?"

Carmic laughed. "Well, your grief hasn't changed you, pet. You've still got to have money, haven't you?" He glanced at me. "My wife has some kind of complex-maybe it's an allergy-she can't stand poverty. She was born in it and she scratched her way out. G.o.d help anybody who stands in her way. My dear little wife. Never wanted anything but old money and new men."

Celia said, "Your exile didn't improve your disposition."

"Nothing will improve my disposition except a long rest in Rio."

She shrugged. "Where is the money? I'm ready to get out of here."