Mystery. Part 21

"So you do the accounting work relating to Elysian Courts and the old slave quarter?"

Mr. Spence nodded. "It's all revenue."

"I never saw any champagne that came in a clear bottle before," said Mrs. Spence, refilling her gla.s.s. "Doesn't it spoil that way, or something?"

"You might not know this," Mr. Spence said, "but your grandfather did me a big favor once. Your grandfather is the reason I work for Ralph now."

"Oh, yes?"

"I come from Iowa, orginally, and Mrs. Spence and I met in college there. When we got married, she wanted to live back on Mill Walk, where she was from. So I came down here and got a job with your grandfather. We had a nice little place out in Elm Cove. In ten years, I was doing about half his total accounting work-your grandfather does everything by the seat of his pants, you know-and we could get our house on The Sevens."

"One of the oldest houses in the far east end," said Mrs. Spence.

"Hadn't been lived in for better than twenty years. Like a museum in there when we moved in. Couple years later, he sold us our lodge-same deal. Sealed up since h.e.l.l froze over. Anyhow, once we had the lodge, we came in contact a lot more with Ralph and his bunch. And when Ralph dropped into my office one day and said he'd like to give me a job, your grandfather gave me his blessings." He finished off his first beer while he spoke. "So everything worked out just right, you could say."

"Didn't a man named Anton Goetz own that house?"

"Nope. He worked for your grandfather-made a lot of money too! For an accountant, I mean. The actual ownership of the place was held by a shadow corporation that was part of Mill Walk Construction, if you looked hard enough. Same was true of our lodge. Saved a few pennies in taxes that way, I guess."

"I thought I heard once that Goetz owned the St. Alwyn Hotel," Tom said.

"He might have said he did, and he might have been listed here and there as the owner, but your grandfather still owns the St. Alwyn. In conjunction with Ralph, of course."

"Oh, of course," Tom said. "And I guess my grandfather owns part of Elysian Courts."

"And the old slave quarter. Sure. Way back when, Glendenning Upshaw and Maxwell Redwing pretty much divided up the island. All on the up and up, of course. So Glen and Ralph are pretty much partners in a lot of things these days. There's a lot of overlap in my work."

"That's enough talk about business," said Mrs. Spence. "I didn't come on this plane to hear about the slums of Mill Walk and who owns what. Sarah is going away to college in the fall...Tom"-it seemed difficult for her to utter his name-"we all thought that a year or two of college at a good school would help prepare her for the life we want her to have. I had two years of college myself, and that was all I needed. Of course"-she looked coyly at her daughter-"if she transfers out to Arizona, which is a wonderful school too, things might look different."

"Tom and I are going on an excursion together, Mother," Sarah said. "We are going to explore the back of this plane, and see if hidden recording devices have been placed in the ashtrays." She took Tom's hand and stood up.

"It's an interesting fact," said Mr. Spence, "that no Redwing I ever heard of ever married a woman who didn't come from his own crowd. They all marry people they've known most of their lives. That's how they keep that dynasty going. And I'll tell you another interesting fact"-he winked at Tom-"they all marry pretty women."

"And they find them at the pretty women discount outlet," Sarah said. She tugged Tom away from the table.

She stopped at the bar, and the steward leaned forward. "What do pretty women drink? What's a pretty drink?"

"Watch yourself, Sarah," her mother said.

The steward said that he knew a pretty drink, and poured a small amount of ca.s.sis into a flute gla.s.s, then filled the gla.s.s with champagne from a fresh bottle.

"This is certainly what pretty women drink," Sarah said. "Thank you. Tom, I'm sure there are some lascars hidden in the rear of this plane. Let's go consort with them."

She strode down the length of the jet and looked into each of the compartments until she came to the last, opposite the baggage compartment. "Here they are." She went inside and sat down on one of the long seats, sipped at her drink, and placed it on the table. Tom sat down opposite her. "The lascars are us," she said. "Drink half of this."

He sipped a little of the drink and put it back before her. Sarah's eyes burned toward him. She picked up the gla.s.s and gulped. "I'm going to chop off my hair. I'm going to wear turtlenecks and jeans and have a silent brother named Bill. I'll get my furniture from the dump. All the really tasteful stuff is there anyway."

Captain Ted Mornay's soothing voice came over a hidden speaker, advising them that they were flying at thirty thousand feet over South Carolina, that they were expected to land at Eagle Lake as scheduled, and that they should have a smooth flight.

Sarah took another swallow of the drink. "I could begin to see certain advantages in prettiness. Do you think it might be possible for you to go up to the bar and get another drink from that lovely man? I want to split these the way Nancy Vetiver splits beers."

Tom went back to the bar and got a second Kir Royale. Neither of the Spences looked at him.

When he got back to the compartment, Sarah said, "Good. Now you're a pretty woman too. Probably you'll marry very well."

He sat down beside her. The sweet, light drink fizzed on his tongue.

"Is it tacky to apologize for your parents even if they're really horrible?"

"You don't have to apologize. I liked talking to your father."

"Did you especially like the interesting facts?"

They both sipped from their drinks.

"At least now I understand what you were saying about other people making you do things."

"Well, that's something," Sarah said. "It's not just my parents, who are so thrilled they can't contain themselves, it's his parents too. Ralph Redwing sends his carriage to pick me up after dancing cla.s.s! I'm escorted home! Katinka Redwing wants to give me golfing lessons! Why do you think we're in this plane?"

"They can't make you marry Buddy," Tom said.

"Ah, but it's like being the Dalai Lama. They pick you out in childhood, and plan the whole rest of your life. They surround you with thoughtfulness and gifts and their wonderful conviction that you're really special because you can be one of them, and then you are are one of them. And your father gets a great new job, and your mother just a.s.sumes that-well, she just a.s.sumes, that's all. All of a sudden she's the Queen Mother." one of them. And your father gets a great new job, and your mother just a.s.sumes that-well, she just a.s.sumes, that's all. All of a sudden she's the Queen Mother."

"You still don't have to marry him," Tom said.

"Drink some more of that," she ordered.

He drank.

"More."

He took two swallows, and Sarah pointed at his gla.s.s. He drank again. Sarah's gla.s.s was empty.

Then her arms were around him, her face was a blur against his, and her mouth brushed his. Her tongue slid into his mouth. They kissed for a long time, and then she moved onto his lap, and they kissed even longer. Tom heard the Spences' voices come to him from a great distance away. "What do you think these compartments are for?" Sarah whispered. "We can barely hear them, and they can't hear us at all."

"Won't they come back here?"

"They wouldn't dare." Their faces were so close that Tom felt engulfed by Sarah Spence. "Do this," she said, and licked his upper lip. "And do this." She closed his right hand on her left breast.

It was as if a warm cloud had settled around him, infusing him with its warmth and softness. The Spences' voices receded. Sarah's face swam before him, ideally beautiful. Her shoulders, her small round b.r.e.a.s.t.s, her straight slim back and her round slender arms, all of these surrounded him. Sarah hitched herself up on her knees, straddling him, and quickly, smiling, undid his belt. "Get rid of those clothes," she whispered. "I want to see you."

"Here?"

"Why not? I can feel you."

Her hand slipped under the waistband of his underwear, and she ran her fingers along the length of his erection. Her fingers wrapped around him. "You feel beautiful," she breathed into his cheek.

"You are are beautiful," he said, uttering the truest thing he knew. beautiful," he said, uttering the truest thing he knew.

She rubbed the tips of her b.r.e.a.s.t.s against his chest, and he levered himself up and pushed down his trousers. "Well, what shall we do with this thing?" Sarah said. "Here we are, aren't we? In this traveling Redwing love nest." In a flash she was naked, and all of her beautiful body had wrapped around him. She guided him between her legs, and they held to each other and moved as much as they could. Tom felt his entire body gather and gather itself, and she twisted back and forth upon him; and it felt as if he were exploding. Sarah bit his shoulder, and he stiffened again instantly. She tightened around him; her body quivered; and he felt all her warmth embracing him, and after some endless minutes it was as if he turned inside out, as if he were a tree turning into a river within her. Trembling and shaking with pa.s.sion and what felt like a final, ultimate blessedness, he felt her trembling too. Finally she collapsed against him. Her face was wet against his cheek, and he saw that she had been crying.

"I love you," he whispered.

"I'm glad," she said, and he remembered her saying it at Miss Ellinghausen's.

She pulled away from him, and kissed him; and stepped into her shorts and hooked on her bra and pulled her shirt over her tender shoulders. He rearranged his clothing, feeling as though an aura clung to him. And then they were seventeen years old again, seated side by side and holding hands, but everything had changed forever.

"I can still feel you inside me," she said, "How can I marry Buddy Redwing, when Tom Pasmore is still inside me? I'm branded branded. There's this big TP on me somewhere."

They sat in silence, and the jet pushed its way through the air.

"How are you kids getting on?" Mr. Spence yelled from the bar.

"Fine, Daddy," Sarah called out in a clear, high-pitched voice that sounded like bells and made Tom's heart dissolve. "We have a lot to talk about."

"Enjoy yourselves," he yelled back. "Within reason, of course!"

"Reason had nothing to do with it," she whispered, and they leaned against one another and laughed.

Mrs. Spence shouted down the length of the plane: "Why don't you kids come up here and be sociable?"

"In a minute, mother," Sarah called back.

Again they sat in silence, looking at one another.

"I think it's going to be an interesting summer," Sarah said.

Grand Forks was a small town twenty miles from Eagle Lake, and because of travelers from Canada as well as Mill Walk, its little airport had a Customs and Immigration section, located in a concrete block shed adjacent to the terminal. Captain Mornay escorted his pa.s.sengers and their bags to the Customs desk, where the inspector greeted him as Ted and chalked their bags without bothering to open them. Immigration stamped their crimson Mill Walk pa.s.sports with tourist visas.

"I suppose Ralph sent a driver?" said Mrs. Spence, managing to sound offended by the necessity of asking the question.

"He generally does that, yes, ma'am," the pilot said. "If you'll take your bags through that gla.s.s door just ahead and take them into the main terminal, you should find the driver waiting for you."

The customs inspector and the Immigration official were staring raptly at Mrs. Spence's long legs, as was a young man in a brown leather jacket sprawled out in a chair against one of the grey walls of the shed.

Mrs. Spence covered most of her handsome face with the enormous sungla.s.ses and swept toward the gla.s.s door, carrying nothing but a handbag.

"Enjoy your stay," the pilot said, and turned away to walk toward the grinning man in the leather jacket.

Mr. Spence picked up the Papa Bear suitcase and went after his wife.

One of Tom's cases had a long strap, which he put over a shoulder. He picked up his other, heavier suitcase by the handle, and with his left hand took the leash of the Mama Bear suitcase.

"Oh, let me do it," Sarah said. "After all, she's my awful mother, not yours." She took the thin strap from his hand, and Tom rearranged his own cases to balance the weight, and they went through the gla.s.s door.

Between the jet and the customs shed Tom had been too preoccupied with Sarah Spence to notice anything else except the freshness of the air and the unusual intensity of the sky; in the shorter distance between the customs shed and the terminal building, he felt the edge in the air, the hint of chill at the center of its warmth, and realized that he was thousands of miles farther north than he had ever been before. The sky here made the sky over Mill Walk seem to have been washed a thousand times. Sarah opened the door to the terminal with her hip, and he went in before her.

Mr. and Mrs. Spence stood at the opposite end of the terminal, talking with a stocky young man in his early twenties with a chauffeur's hat jammed low on his forehead and a dark blue sweatshirt that bulged over his belly. All three scowled at Tom and Sarah.

"Come on, kids," said Mr. Spence. "Let's get this show on the road."

"Give him my bag bag, Sarah," Mrs. Spence said.

The young man came forward and held out a thick hand for the strap of Mrs. Spence's suitcase. Mr. Spence coughed into his fist, and the young man picked up the big case with his other hand. He began moving toward the door.

A long black Lincoln sat at the curb. A policeman in a tight blue jacket and a Sam Browne belt jumped up from the fender. The chauffeur loaded the bags into the trunk and came around to open the back door. The Spences got into the back of the car, and Tom climbed into the pa.s.senger seat.

The Spences began talking to one another as the Lincoln rolled away from the curb. Tom leaned back and closed his eyes. Mrs. Spence was saying things she wanted the chauffeur to hear, and now and then some of the words blurred together. Tom opened his eyes, and caught the chauffeur glancing at him stonily.

They came out on a four-lane macadam highway. Thirty-foot pines crowded up to the gravel shoulder on both sides. Little tourist motels and fishing camps appeared at wide intervals, set deep down narrow gravel drives in the spreading trees as if far back in caves. Hand-painted signs shouted their names to the empty highway: MUSKIE LODGE MUSKIE LODGE and and GILBERTSON'S HARMONY LAKE CAREFREE CABINS, LAKEVIEW RESORT GILBERTSON'S HARMONY LAKE CAREFREE CABINS, LAKEVIEW RESORT, and BOB & SALLY RIDEOUT'S AAA FISHING CAMP & GUIDES BOB & SALLY RIDEOUT'S AAA FISHING CAMP & GUIDES. Little bars and bait shops sat back from the highway in sandy parking lots filled with old cars, LAKE DEEPDALE-DEEPDALE ESTATES LAKE DEEPDALE-DEEPDALE ESTATES, read a larger, professionally painted sign beside a glistening asphalt road on the right side of the highway. YOUR KEY TO THE NORTH COUNTRY YOUR KEY TO THE NORTH COUNTRY! Dead racc.o.o.ns lay flattened on the highway like overgrown cats.

"Jerry," said Mrs. Spence, who had fallen asleep for several minutes, "is Mr. Buddy at the compound yet?"

Tom turned his head to look at the scowling profile beside him. The chauffeur's right eye drifted toward him. He had small scars like tucks in his skin beneath the corner of his mouth.

"Yeah, Buddy's there. Got in two weeks ago with a bunch of friends."

"I thought you called him 'Mr. Buddy,'" said Sarah's mother, sounding a little put out by the chauffeur's tone.

"Some of the older help call him that," the man said. The shadowed eye drifted toward Tom again.

"Do you good to meet some of Buddy's friends, Sarah," her father told her. "You're liable to be seeing a lot of these people."

"Most of 'em left Friday," Jerry said. "Drove 'em to the airport myself. Had to spend about a hour cleaning out this car. One of those dopes drank about half a bottle of Southern Comfort in ten minutes, blew his guts apart right back where you're sitting."

"Oh!" said Mrs. Spence. "Where who who is sitting?" is sitting?"

"I had to drive him back to the compound. Buddy threw him off the dock to clean him off."

"Oh, my." Tom heard the rustle of Mrs. Spence moving around to inspect the seat.

"You ever try to clean puke off cloth?" asked the driver. "The Cadillac's got fabric seats, I think that's why Ralph always sends the Lincoln for Buddy's pals."

"You must see a lot of Buddy," said Mr. Spence in a bright, hollow voice.

"Well, I do a lot of other stuff for Ralph most of the year. I hang out with Buddy when he's around." The eye shifted toward Tom again.

"Haven't we met?" Tom asked.

The eye seemed to widen and flare like the eye of a horse.

"I'm Tom Pasmore. I came to your house once."

"Never happened," Jerry said.

"Your friends Nappy and Robbie chased me around the corner and out into the traffic on Calle Burleigh, and I got hit by a car. They must have thought I was dead."