Dust Devil (38 page)

Mentally,
Sarah had begun to steel herself against these potentialities, to
admit to herself that it was possible she would lose her son, even
though she would fight tooth and nail to hold on to him. She hoped
Renzo would not prove so
cruel
as
to try to wrest the boy from her. But then, it had doubtless never
occurred to Renzo that if he had left her pregnant, she herself could
be so cruel as to keep their child from
him.
In
such an event, he had probably expected to be informed in no
uncertain terms, to be hit up by her for money for an abortion.
Wasn’t that both the risk and the responsibility all decent men
assumed when they slept with a woman? But then, of course, decent men
didn’t casually take a seventeen-year-old girl’s
innocence, carelessly impregnate her and then callously abandon her,
either. After all, she had only Renzo’s word and her own gut
instinct to tell her he had spoken the truth to her that
night
at the Grain Elevator, that he really
had
tried
to get in touch with her all those years ago. And if he were lying to
her, how could she trust her own intuition, when it would have played
her false before where he was concerned?

Obviously,
for her own peace of mind, she should drive over to the Woodlands
Nursing Home and speak to her mother, Sarah told herself. She would
do it today, on her lunch hour, even though it wasn’t her
regular day to visit. Still, Sarah hoped that maybe it would prove to
be one of Iris Kincaid’s increasingly rare, “sensible”
days. Because if it had only been arthritis from which Mama suffered,
Sarah would never even have considered putting her in a nursing home.
That had become necessary when the doctors had diagnosed her mental
decline as a result of Alzheimer’s disease. At first, it had
been only little things, like Mama forgetting what she had intended
to take out of a cupboard or the refrigerator. But then she had not
been able to remember her own telephone number—or where she had
lived for over twenty-five years. She had begun to do bizarre things
like putting silverware in the freezer and the ice trays in the
silverware drawer. Now, on her more lucid days, she frequently
believed her husband, Dell, was still alive and that Sarah was still
a child.

Mama
didn’t remember Alex at all, even though she had practically
reared him until he was seven and Sarah—feeling then that she
and Alex had needed their own home, away from all of Mama’s
anger and bitterness, and away from Sarah’s own unhappy
memories, too—had bought the old Lovell place when it had come
on the market. Sarah didn’t blame Mama anymore for the anger
and bitterness.
She
understood now how loss and grief could cause a person to do terrible
things to someone she loved.

Sarah
took a bouquet from the Flower Garden to the nursing home. But much
to her disappointment, Mama was having an especially bad day and only
looked at her blankly, bewildered, when asked about Renzo’s
letters, whether or not he had ever written. After an hour, Sarah
left the Woodlands, knowing no more than when she had arrived and
thoroughly saddened and depressed by her mother’s condition.

In
the Jeep, Sarah noticed lying on the floor a tiny white flower that
had fallen from Mama’s bouquet. The bloom made her think
suddenly of the delicate white orchid Renzo had sent her on prom
night so many years ago, of the white organza gown Mama had worked so
hard to make for her to wear that evening and of Daddy with his
Polaroid camera, snapping pictures of her and teasing her gruffly
about her secret admirer. And sitting there in the nursing-home
parking lot beneath the fierce, hot sun, Sarah abruptly laid her head
on the steering wheel and cried.

Initially,
the fact that the battery in his Rolex wristwatch was dead had been a
source of great annoyance to Renzo. But now, as he stood grimly at
the glass counter in Goldberg’s Fine Jewelry, listening to
Bubba and Mrs. Goldberg discuss the merits of various diamond
engagement rings, Renzo could only count the dead battery as a
blessing. Because until this moment, he had not, in his heart, truly
believed Sarah Kincaid was going to marry Bubba Holbrooke.

“
I
declare, Bubba,” Gladys Goldberg said, shaking her head and
beaming jovially. “I’ll bet you’re just plumb
tickled pink that that pretty little gal of yours is finally going to
walk down the aisle with you after all this time!”

“
Well,
Sarah hasn’t exactly said yes yet, Mrs. Goldberg,” Bubba
confessed a trifle reluctantly. “Still, she’s softening.
Yes-siree-bob, she is definitely softening, leaning in my direction.”
The smug smile on Bubba’s face made Renzo’s fingers itch
to throttle him. “That’s why I thought an engagement ring
might just do the trick. You know. Might show her I really do mean
business, that I really am serious about her. I’m just not sure
which one of these she’d like the best.” Bubba gazed
uncertainly at all the diamond solitaires in the display case.

“
Renzo,”
Mrs. Goldberg called. “Why don’t you come on over here a
minute and give us another opinion, while Isaac’s popping the
back off your watch to replace that battery.”

“
Well,
I would, Mrs. Goldberg,” Renzo answered politely, “except
that I can’t imagine my opinion would be of any interest
whatsoever to Holbrooke there.”

“
Oh,
now, you never know, Cassavettes,” Bubba rejoined carelessly,
much to Renzo’s surprise, and smiled contemptuously. “It
might. In fact, I expect it would prove real amusing, actually, to
find out just what sort of ring a man from your side of the tracks
would choose from out of this case—and for what sort of female.
Just exactly what kind of taste you have.”

“
In
rings—or women?” Renzo lifted one eyebrow coolly, a
mocking half smile—which didn’t quite reach his
hard,
narrowed eyes—playing about the corners of his mouth.

Bubba
shrugged nonchalantly. “Both.”

“
Now,
why should either be of any interest to you?”

“
Oh,
I don’t know. Just plain old curiosity, I reckon.”

“
I
do believe that’s what killed the cat,” Renzo drawled
softly. “Ah, Mr. Goldberg, you’re done with my
wristwatch, I see.”

“
Yes,
I am.” Isaac Goldberg nodded. “It’s running just
fine now, Renzo. Do you want to wear it out of the shop?”

“
Please.”
Renzo chatted congenially with old Mr. Goldberg long enough to
observe Bubba pick out an engagement ring, pay for it and have it
gift wrapped, telling Mrs. Goldberg he planned to give it to Sarah
this coming Saturday night.

On
Thursday afternoon, while Sarah was visiting the nursing home and
after both Renzo and Bubba had departed from Goldberg’s Fine
Jewelry, Lamar Rollins was at the town square, choosing a public
telephone from which to place his all-important call. He had got the
unlisted number he needed from a Rolodex at Field-Yield, Inc., and he
knew from what had been written on the card that the line was a
private one that rang directly into the office of the person he
wanted to reach, bypassing the switchboard. Lifting the receiver and
dropping a quarter into the slot, he punched in the number. For a
long moment, he thought no one was going to answer.

“
Come
on, come on,” Lamar muttered to himself, cursing under his
breath as the ringing continued to resound in his ear.

“
Yes?”
The single word was low, quietly spoken, so that with all the noise
in the town square, Lamar hardly heard it. Perhaps using a pay phone
hadn’t been such a good idea, after all. But he had had some
bizarre notion that his call might somehow be traced otherwise.

“
Don’t
talk,” he ordered tersely, nervously. “Just listen—and
get all this straight, ’cause I’m only gonna say it one
time. I know ’bout the quarries... what you been dumpin’
out there. And I got me copies of them secret files of yours to prove
it. So if you don’t want me to turn ’em over to the Feds,
it’s gonna cost you. It’s gonna cost you big time, man!

“
Now,
you’d probably like to tell me I don’t know what I’m
talkin’ ’bout, but you’d be a fool, tryin’ to
jive me. And just in case you don’t believe me, you go on ahead
and try and access those files yourself. ’Cause you won’t
be able to... will find yourself locked out of your own directory.
’Cause, you see, I changed your password, so you’d know I
ain’t lyin’ ’bout all this and that I mean
business.

“
So
here’s the deal. In exchange fo’ my password and my
copies of your files—not to mention me keepin’ my mouth
shut ’bout all this—I want twenty-five grand to start.
Now, I reckon you might think that’s too much money—’specially
seein’ as how it’s just a little down payment, so to
speak. But, hey, it’s gonna cost you a helluva lot more ’n
that if I talk to the law. ’Cause if that happens, you be goin’
away fo’ a long,
looong
time,
man! To a place where they ain’t too nice to fish, if you get
my drift—and if you don’t, fish is green inmates in the
pen, fool, nice, fresh meat fo’ all them big, mean homeboys.

But
then, you
do
got
connections, so maybe it won’t be too bad. With time off fo’
good behavior, you might even get out in, say, fifteen or twenty
years—if you is still alive by then, that is. So I figger you
is gettin’ off cheap, payin’ me.

“
Now,
I ain’t a fool. So I know it ain’t take long fo’
you to get me my money. Hell. You probably got that much stashed in
your safe. And if you don’t, if you have to go to the bank,
cash in some bonds or CDs or somethin’, you do it tomorrow
mornin’, first thing. You get small, ole bills, nothin’
larger than a twenty—and they better not be marked or have none
of that dye shit on ’em, neither!

“
Then
you meet me out by the railroad tracks on the ole town road tomorrow
night, at midnight. That way, I can see you comin’. And you
best be by your lonesome self, man! ’Cause I be watchin’
you, and if you ain’t come alone, if I see any sign of that
asshole Sheriff Laidlaw or that dumb Deputy Truett, I won’t
hang ’round to get caught. And I’ll turn those files over
to the Feds fo’ sho’. And not only to them, neither!

“
So
don’t you go gettin’ any bright ideas ’bout gettin’
rid of me, permanent-like. ’Cause I have taken myself out a
little insurance policy, you see. I made copies of those files of
yours and mailed ’em to a friend of mine, along with a note,
sayin’ as how if anythin’ happens to me, he’s to
open the envelope I sent him and take a look at what’s on them
diskettes inside. I figger that if anybody will, he’ll know
what to do with your files. So you just think ’bout bein’
spread out all over the TV and newspapers! You’ll be front-page
headlines, man! For all the wrong reasons!

“
Now,
did you get all that, fool?”

“
Yes.”
“
Then,
like the man says, be there or be square. Later, dude.”
Grinning with elation, Lamar abruptly severed the connection.

The
party at the other end listened furiously to the resulting dial tone
that buzzed from the receiver. And in that moment, Lamar Rollins was
already a dead man.

He
just didn’t know it yet.