Now You See It... Part 51

"Very dose now," said The Great Delacorte. "Can you feel it? Feel the presence? The still, cold presence . . of the dead?"

He flung open the cover of me burial case.

Ca.s.sandra screamed. The Sheriff gasped. I almost filled my pants.

Harry looked exactly as he had m the globe, features gray in death, a dark, blood-clotted gash across his throat

"Behold your lover!" cried The Great Delacorte

Max scowled.

"And the crummiest agent I ever had," he added pet- tishly.

Oh, Max. I thought. Oh, Son.

The scene was frozen; a tableau: Max immobile, the pistol in his hand; Ca.s.sandra and the Sheriff looking toward the burial case, their features and bodies as unmoving as stone;

me immobile (same old thing), my heartbeat thudding, my heart breaking for my son's atrocity.

Harry staring, throat cut, dead.

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"Don't you want to take a closer look, Ca.s.sandra?" asked her husband.

She averted her face with a choking sob.

'Take a closer look, Ca.s.sandra," Max urged.

"Give me the pistol, Delacorte," the Sheriff told him.

He twitched back as Max thrust out his arm, pointing the pistol at him-

"Take a closer look, Ca.s.sandra," Max ordered.

The Sheriff swallowed with some effort. With an attempt at professional demeanor, he suggested, "Better do as he says, Mrs. Delacorte."

"Good advice, Grover," my son complimented him.

"You're a pip of a lawman, has anyone ever told you that before?"

The Sheriff did not reply. (I didn't blame him.) He edged slowly toward the burial case as Ca.s.sandra approached it, gaze averted.

Max backed off several paces, eyeing them with guarded care. And all I could mink was: Why did you want me here, Son? To see this?

The Sheriff stopped, peering closely at Harry's face, gri- macing at the sight-the bluish Ups; me gla.s.sy, staring eyes;

me deep, blood-rimmed indsion across his throat.

Then he c.o.c.ked his head, a look of curiosity on his face.

"Can I-" He gestured toward the body.

"Be my guest," said Max.

The Sheriff took a few steps closer to me burial case and laid me palm of his right hand against Harry's gray cheek.

What's he doing? I wondered.

Noting the Sheriff's movement, Ca.s.sandra raised her eyes, emitting a sound of sickened pain at the sight of Harry's face.

She tensed as me Sheriff reached up to me top of Harry's head and took hold of his hair.

Now You See It- 173

"What are you doing?" she asked in a faint voice. What are you doing? I thought.

He did not respond, but started to tug upward at Harry's hair.

Ca.s.sandra looked aghast. "What are you doing?" she de- manded again, this time in a breaking voice.

"We are about to surprise you, my friends," said Max, once more The Great Delacorte addressing his audience.

"Are you ready? Prepare yourselves. Here it comes!"

Plum pulled up hard at Harry's hair.

With a sound of revolted anger, Ca.s.sandra moved to stop him.

Suddenly, a skintight rubber mask-fastened loosely at the back-tore free from Harry's head, revealing him gagged but quite alive, making tiny sounds of protest- which the Sheriff had heard, I a.s.sumed.

Ca.s.sandra cried out with intense relief.

"Restoration, my friends'" cried The Great Delacorte.

He held out the pistol.

"Here's your weapon, Grover," he said.

Plum turned, regarding Max with a blank expression.

Max made a rapid, blurring movement with his hands and held out the handcuffs to Plum-

"And your little manacles, too," he said, sounding like the Witch of the North.

He looked at me.

"Sorry again. Padre," he said. "Hope it wasn't too much of a shock."

fust how much do you think this battered old heart of mine can take. Son? I thought. I was relieved that he wasn't a mur- derer. Resentful that he'd forced me over the jump like that.

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