Mystery. Part 17

"We should let Bill back into his room," she said. "It's been so good to see you again, Tom. And you too, Sarah. I shouldn't have let you get me talking, though."

She stood up and ruffled her hands through her hair.

"You'll be back at work soon?" Tom asked.

She glanced at Hattie. "Oh, I reckon Boney'll get word to me in a couple of days. d.a.m.n him anyhow."

"You got that right," Hattie said.

They began to move toward the door. Nancy suddenly hugged Tom again, so hard that he couldn't breathe. "I hope-oh, I don't know what I hope. But be careful, Tom."

They were out on the ramshackle wooden walkway in the dismal air before he was entirely aware of having let go of her. Bill straightened up from the railing and drew on his pipe.

"She look okay to you, Hat?" he said in a low growl that cut through the hum of noise from all about them.

"That girl's strong," strong," Hattie said. Hattie said.

"Always was," Bill said. "Folks."

Tom put his hand in his pocket and pulled out the first note he found. In the gloom, it took a moment to see that it was a ten dollar bill. He put it in Bill's hand and whispered, "For whatever she needs."

The bill disappeared into the shabby clothes. Nancy's brother winked at Tom, and began to make his way toward the door at the end of the walkway. "Oh," he said, and turned around. The three of them stopped at the top of the stairs. "You got by." He must have seen that Tom did not understand. "Didn't spot you."

Sarah clamped herself on Tom's arm, and together they followed Hattie beneath the overhanging pa.s.sages, through the narrow streets with mocking names, along the tilting walls. The air stank of sewage. Children jeered at them, and hard-faced men moved toward Sarah until they noticed Hattie, and then backed away. Finally they hurried across the crazed concrete of the First Court, through the darkness of the arch, and back out into the shadowy street, which seemed impossibly sweet and bright.

Even Percy's dusty emporium, with its dim parlors and endless stairs, seemed sweet and light after Maxwell's Heaven. Down in the small cobbled court, Percy and Bingo sat companionably on a bus seat from which horsehair foamed through slashes and split seams. Bingo's nose was deep in the folds of Percy's leather ap.r.o.n, and his tail moved frantically from side to side. "The girl okay?" Percy asked.

"Nothin' can get that girl down," Hattie said.

"That's what I said." Percy handed the whining, wriggling Bingo back over to Sarah, and Bingo continued to give longing, ardent glances to the leather ap.r.o.n until they had turned into the narrow uphill drive, and even then whined and looked back at it. "Fickle animal," Sarah said, sounding genuinely grumpy.

When they came to the top of the drive and out on the street, a police car sped past them and squealed around the corner down the south end of Elysian Courts, its siren screaming. Another screaming police car followed it.

Sarah drove, more slowly than before, downhill toward the sea, the dump, and the old slave quarter.

"I have a high opinion of you, young lady," Hattie said from her perch on Tom's lap. "And so did Nancy Vetiver."

"You do?" Sarah seemed startled. "She did?"

"Otherwise, why did she say so much? Ask yourself that. Nancy Vetiver's not a loquacious fool, you know."

"Not any kind of fool," Sarah said.

At her shack, Hattie took the cape and kissed them both before saying good-bye.

Sarah leaned over and rested her head on the steering wheel. After a moment, she sighed and started the car.

"I'm sorry," Tom said.

She gave him a smoky look. "Are you? For what?"

"For dragging you into that place. For mixing you up in everything."

"Oh," she said. "That's what you're sorry about." She rocketed away from the curb, and Bingo flattened out in his well behind the seats.

She did not speak until they were past Goethe Park and maneuvering through the eastbound traffic on Calle Burleigh. Finally she asked him what time it was.

"Ten past six."

"Is that all? I thought it was a lot later." Another lengthy silence. Then: "I guess because it seemed like night inside there."

"If I'd known how bad it was going to be, I would have gone alone."

"I'm not sorry I went there, Tom. I'm happy I saw the inside of that place. I'm happy I met Hattie. I'm happy about everything."

"Okay," he said. She pa.s.sed three cars in a row, causing temporary pandemonium in the westbound lanes.

"I meant everything I said to you today," she said. "I'm not Moonie Firestone or Posy Tuttle. My idea of paradise isn't a rich husband and a lodge at Eagle Lake and a trip to Europe every other year. We really did see the Tuaregs and the lascars, and I saw places I'd never seen before in my life, and I really found out found out some things, and I met two amazing women who haven't seen you in seven years and some things, and I met two amazing women who haven't seen you in seven years and still still think you're wonderful." She floored the Mercedes to pa.s.s a carriage on the right. "Every time Hattie Bas...o...b.. said 'Mr. Rembrandt' I wanted to hug her." think you're wonderful." She floored the Mercedes to pa.s.s a carriage on the right. "Every time Hattie Bas...o...b.. said 'Mr. Rembrandt' I wanted to hug her."

She cut in front of the carriage, and its driver shouted a string of four-letter words. Sarah flipped her hand up in a mocking wave and tore off through the traffic again.

"Oh, well," she said when they skirted Weasel Hollow, and when they pa.s.sed the St. Alwyn Hotel on Calle Drosselmayer, "She is is really beautiful, isn't she?" really beautiful, isn't she?"

"Every now and then I thought she looked sort of like her stuffed hawk," Tom said.

"Her stuffed hawk?" Sarah turned to him with her mouth open and an expression in her eyes that convicted him of a profoundly irritating idiocy.

"Inside that big cage."

She snapped her head forward. "I don't mean Hattie. I mean that Nancy Vetiver is really beautiful. She is, isn't she?"

"Well, maybe. I was sort of surprised by her. She turned out to be another kind of person than I thought she was. My mother used to say she was hard, and she certainly isn't, but I can see what she meant. Nancy's tough."

"And she's beautiful besides."

"I think you're beautiful," Tom said. "You should have seen yourself in that cape."

"I'm pretty," Sarah said. "I own a mirror, I know that much. People have been telling me I was pretty all my life. I was just lucky enough to be born with good hair and good teeth and visible cheekbones. If you want to know the truth, my mouth is too big and my eyes are too far apart. I look at my face and I see my baby pictures. I see a perfect Brooks-Lowood girl. I hate prettiness. It means you're supposed to spend half your time thinking about how you look, and most other people think you're a sort of toy who will do whatever they want. I bet Nancy Vetiver hardly ever looks in the mirror, I bet she cut her hair short because she could wash it in the shower and dry it with a towel, I bet it's a big deal for her to buy a new lipstick-and she's beautiful. Every good thing in her, every feeling she ever had, is in her face. When I was in that little room, I even envied her those little lines on her face-you can tell she doesn't let other people make her do things. In fact the whole idea of being like me would strike her as ridiculous!"

"I think you ought to marry her," Tom said. "We could all live together in Maxwell's Heaven, Nancy and you and me. And Bill."

She punched him in the shoulder, hard. "You forgot Bingo."

"Actually, Bingo and Percy seemed made for each other."

She smiled at last.

"What's all that stuff about being a toy, and doing what other people want?"

"Oh, never mind," she said. "I got carried away."

"I don't think your eyes are too far apart. Posy Tuttle's eyes are actually on opposite sides of her head, and she sees different things out of each of them, like a lizard."

Sarah had turned from Calle Berlinstra.s.se into Edgewater Trail, and coming toward them from the opposite direction, smiling and raising his homburg from the seat of his trap, was Dr. Bonaventure Milton. "Sarah! Tom!" he called out. "A word, please!"

She pulled up alongside the pony trap, and the doctor looked earnestly down at them, removed his homburg, and wiped his sweaty head with a handkerchief. "I have an apology for you, Sarah. I saw your little dog running loose around the hospital earlier this afternoon, and took him up here with me-thought I'd drop him off at your place when I was through with my calls. The little fellow got away from me somehow, I'm sorry to say, but I'm sure he'll come back as soon as he gets hungry."

"No problem," she said. "In fact, Bingo's been with us all afternoon."

Hearing his name, Bingo popped his head out of the well. He barked at the doctor, whose horse twitched sideways in his traces.

"Well," said the doctor. "Well, well, well. Hah! Seems I was in error. Hah!"

"But you're so sweet to worry about him, Dr. Milton. You're the nicest doctor on the whole island."

"And you're looking remarkably pretty today, my dear," the doctor said, smiling and bowing in a ghastly attempt at gallantry.

"You're so complimentary complimentary, Doctor."

"Not at all." He raised his hat again, and shook his reins. His trap rolled away toward the hospital.

"I'm going home," Sarah declared. "The Redwings are coming over in a little while, to discuss airplane etiquette or something, and I have to take a bath. I want to look just just like my baby pictures." like my baby pictures."

"You're pretty quiet," Victor Pasmore said. "Excuse me, did somebody say something? Did I say 'you're pretty quiet' just now? n.o.body said anything back, so maybe I was just dreaming." They were eating a dinner Victor had prepared with many grumbles and complaints, and though Tom's mother had not emerged from her bedroom since he had returned home, a plate of unidentifiable meat and overcooked vegetables had been set for her. Booming noises from the television mingled with the dim sound of music that drifted down the stairs.

"What the h.e.l.l, you're always quiet," Victor said. "This is nothing new. I oughta be used to this act by now. You say something, and your kid plays with his food."

"I'm sorry," Tom said.

"Jesus Christ, a sign of life!" Victor shook his head sourly. "I must be dreaming. You think next your mother will come downstairs and eat this food? Or will she just stay up there listening to Blue Rose Blue Rose over and over?" over and over?"

"Blue Rose?"

"Yeah, you mean you never heard of it? Your old lady plays the d.a.m.n thing over and over, I don't think she hears it anymore, she just-"

"Blue Rose is the name of a record?" is the name of a record?"

"'Blue Rose is the name of a record?'" His father's voice was a mincing drawl. "Yeah, it's the name of a record. Glenroy Breakstone's famous all-ballad record, which your mother would rather listen to than come down here and eat the dinner I made. Which is par for the course, I suppose, like you sitting there looking goofy when I ask you what you did all day." is the name of a record?'" His father's voice was a mincing drawl. "Yeah, it's the name of a record. Glenroy Breakstone's famous all-ballad record, which your mother would rather listen to than come down here and eat the dinner I made. Which is par for the course, I suppose, like you sitting there looking goofy when I ask you what you did all day."

"I went for a ride with Sarah Spence."

"Big man, aren't you?"

Tom looked across the table at his father. A smear of grease shone on his chin. Sweat stains darkened the armpits of the shirt he had worn to the office. Broken veins and black pores covered his nose. Dark, wet-looking hair stuck to his forehead. His father was hunched over his plate, holding on to a gla.s.s of bourbon and water with both hands. His black eyes glittered. Hostility seemed to come from him in an icy stream. He was much drunker than Tom had realized.

"What did you do all day?" he asked.

Tom saw his father considering saying something he thought astounding-he really wanted to say this astounding thing, alcohol and anger pushed it up into his throat, and he lifted the gla.s.s and swallowed whiskey to keep it down. He grinned like an evil dwarf. His eyes had absolutely no depth at all, and the pupils were invisible-light bounced right off them.

"Ralph Redwing came to my office today. The big man himself. To talk to me."

His father could not reveal what to him was surpa.s.singly good news without gloating-his news was an insuperable advantage over the person to whom he presented it. He took another swallow of his drink, and grinned absolutely mirthlessly. "The Redwing building is a block away from my building-but do you think Ralph Redwing walks anywhere? Like h.e.l.l he does. His driver brought him over in his Bentley-that's serious business, when Ralph uses a car. He bought two five-dollar cigars at the stand in the lobby. 'What floor is Pasmore Trading on?' he asks-like he doesn't know, see? He just wants 'em to know that Ralph Redwing respects Vic Pasmore."

"That's great," Tom said. "What did he want?"

"What's the only reason Ralph Redwing pays a call on Vic Pasmore? You don't know me, Tom-you think you know me, but you're fooling yourself. You don't. n.o.body knows Vic Pasmore." He leaned over his plate and showed two rows of small peglike teeth in what was less a smile than the gesture of a disagreeable dog guarding some nasty treasure. Then he straightened up, looked at Tom as if from far above him, and cut a bit of meat. He began chewing. "You still don't get it, do you? You don't have the faintest idea what I'm talking about, do you? Who do you think Ralph Redwing visits? Who do you think he gives five-dollar cigars to?"

Whoever he wants to bamboozle, Tom thought, but said, "Not too many people, I guess."

"n.o.bODY! You know what your problem is? You don't have the faintest idea what's going on. The older you get, the more I think you're one of those guys who never gets anywhere. There's too much of your mother in you, kid."

"Did he offer you a job?" Tom said. His father had no awareness that what he was saying might be insulting; he had the air of offering great impartial truths.

"You think a man like that comes waltzing into an office and says, hey, how about a new job, Vic? If that's what you think, you got another think coming."

This was what his father was like when he was really happy.

"He says he's been noticing how well I run my little business-maybe not the past few years, when things haven't been so good, but right up to that. He hints hints. Maybe he needs what he calls a good general businessman-someone who isn't wearing blinders, like most of the a.s.sholes on Mill Walk. Maybe he was thinking of buying my business and letting someone else run it, so I can handle bigger things for him."

"Is that what he said?"

"He hints hints, I said." More chewing; more swallowing; more bourbon. "But you know what I think? I think I'm gonna finally get out from under the thumb of Glendenning Upshaw. And there isn't a good G.o.dd.a.m.ned thing I'd rather do than that."

"How are you under his thumb?"

"Oh, Jesus." His father shook his head. The triumph had left his face, leaving only the sour temper. "Let's just pretend it takes a lot of money to live on Eastern Sh.o.r.e Road, okay? And let's say this this-when I first came here, Glen sort of got me started-but how did he do it? Did he make me vice-president of Mill Walk Construction, which is what I thought he'd do? Is that how he takes care of people? h.e.l.l, no. I kept my nose clean for seventeen years, now it's time for me to get some of the gravy. I G.o.dd.a.m.n deserve it."

"I hope it works out," Tom said.

"Ralph Redwing has this island in his hip pocket, don't you kid yourself about that. Glen Upshaw is an old man, and he's on the way out. Ralph has things worked out."

"What kind of things?"

"I don't know, kid, I just know that. Ralph Redwing sets things up way in advance. You think he's gonna let Buddy go on being wild? Buddy's on a shorter leash than you think, kid, and pretty soon he's gonna find himself with responsibilities-gonna wander into the honey trap. The man doesn't take any risks."

The look of malignant triumph was back in full force now.

"What do you mean, the honey trap?"

"Finish your dinner and get out of my sight."

"I'm finished now," Tom said. He stood up.

"You get one more year in this house," his father said. "That's it. Then you go to the mainland, and Glen Upshaw pays a quarter every time you take a p.i.s.s." He smiled, and looked as if he were going to take a bite out of something. "Believe me, it'll be better for you. I told you that already. Take what you can get, as long as you can get it. Because you don't exist."

"I DO!" Tom yelled, pushed too far now. "Of course I exist!"