The Good Old Stuff (25 page)

One whole wall of the bedroom was of glass, looking out over a small private terrace and over the sea. Park Falkner padded out across his terrace and looked down to the next one below. It extended farther out than did his own.

The conversation below had ceased. The two wheeled chaise longues were side by side. The little waitress from Winter Haven, Pamela, lay glassy and stunned by the heat of the sun, her lips swollen. Carlos Berreda, his brown and perfect body burnished by the sun, insistently stroked her wrist and the back of her hand. He leaned closer and closer to her lips. Park Falkner went quickly back into his bedroom and returned with the silver-and-mahogany thermos jug. He lifted the cap and upended it over the two below. Slivers of ice sparkled out with the water.

Carlos gave a hoarse and angry shout and Pamela screamed. Park held the empty jug and smiled down at them. They were both standing, their faces upturned. Pamela was pink with embarrassment.

“Have you forgotten?” Park said in Spanish. “Tomorrow in Monterrey you will meet two friends, Carlos. Friends that weigh five hundred kilos apiece and have long horns. This is no time for indoor sports.”

The angry look left Carlos’s face, and he gave Park a shamefaced grin. “
Muy correcto, jefe
. But the little one is so … is so …”

“She’s all of eighteen, Señor Wolf.”

“What’re you saying about me?” Pamela demanded.

“That you’re a sweet child, and we want you to come and watch the practice.”

They went down to the patio behind the house. Carlos’s sword handler brought the capes, laid them out on a long table, and, with weary tread, went over to the corner and came back trundling the practice device, the bull’s head and horns mounted at the proper height on a two-wheeled carriage propelled by two long handles.

Carlos grinned at Pamela. “Watch thees,
muñequita
.” He snapped the big cape, took his stance, made a slow and perfect and lazy veronica as the horns rolled by. The sweating assistant wheeled the horns and came back from the other direction. Carlos performed a classic gaonera. Pamela sat on the table by the capes and swung her legs.

She frowned. “But it isn’t like having a real bull, is it?” she said.

Park laughed, and Carlos flashed the girl a look of hot anger. “Not exactly,
niña
.” The sword handler guffawed.

After Carlos went through his repertoire with the big cape, Park Falkner took the muleta and sword and, under Carlos’s critical eye, performed a series of natural passes, topping them off with manoletinas to the right and to the left.

“How was it?” Park asked.

Carlos grinned. “The sword hand on the natural passes. Eet ees not quite
correcto
, señor, but eet ees good. You could have been a
torero
had you started when young.”

“Let me try!” Pamela said.

Park moved over into the shade. Carlos had to reach around her to show her the correct positions of the hands on the cape. Three more of the houseguests came out to the patio. Taffy Angus, a hard-voiced, silver-haired ex-model, over forty but still exceedingly lovely. Johnny Loomis, the loud, burly, red-faced sports reporter from Chicago, ex-All American, current alcoholic. Steve Townsend, the small, wry, pale man who had arrived in response to Park Falkner’s enigmatic wire.

Park pushed a handy button and a few moments later Mick Rogers, wearing his look of chronic disgust on his battered face, appeared in the opposite doorway, which opened into the kitchen. He winked at Park, disappeared, returned almost immediately, pushing a pale blue bar decorated with coral-colored elephants in various poses of abandon. The glasses clinked as he rolled it over into the shade in the opposite corner.

The others moved over toward the bar in response to Mick’s nasal chant: “Step right up and get it. Give yourself a package, folks. The cocktail hour has been on for five minutes.”

Taffy stayed
next to Park. “What is it this time?” she asked in a low voice.

He clicked open her purse and took out her cigarettes and lighter. “What do you think it is?”

“Damn you, Park! One of these times you’re going to go too far. Why can’t you just relax and enjoy it?”

“Baby mine, I’d go mad in a month. Don’t ask me to give up my hobby.”

“Twisting people’s lives around is a hell of a hobby, if you ask me. I don’t know what you’re doing this time, but it has something to do with that horrid puffy little man named Branneck and that unwholesome Laura Hale and that Steve Townsend.”

“How sensitive you are to situations, Taffy!” Park said mockingly.

“Sensitive? I saw Branneck when he got his first look at Laura Hale five minutes after he arrived. He changed from a smug little fat man into a nervous wreck. And she looked as though she had just found a million dollars. I’m just not going to come here to this private island of yours any more.”

“You’ll keep coming, Taffy, every time I ask you. You have a woman’s curiosity. And deep down in that rugged old heart of yours, you have a hunch that I’m doing right.”

“Are you, Park?”

He shrugged. “Who can tell? I’ll be serious for a second or two. Don’t be too shocked, lambie. My esteemed ancestors had the golden touch. Even if there were any point in making more money, it would bore me. The company of my Big Rich friends and relatives bores the hell out of me. So I have some clever young men who dig around in disorderly pasts. When they come up barking, carrying a bone, I just mix some human ingredients together and see what happens. A tossed salad of emotions, call it.”

“Or dirty laundry.”

“Don’t scoff. I just make like fate, and certain people get what my grandmother called their comeuppance.”

“It always makes me feel ill, Park.”

“And—admit it—fascinated, Taffy.”

She sighed. “All right. You win. Fascinated. Like looking
at an open wound. But someday one of your salad ingredients is going to kill you.”

“One day a
toro
may kill Carlos. The profession gives his life a certain spice. And I’m too old to take up bullfighting.”

She gave him a flat, long, brown-eyed stare. “I wouldn’t want you dead, Park.”

“After this shindig is over, Taffy, can you stay here for a few days when the others have left?”

“Have I ever said no?” She grinned. “Goodness! I blushed. I’d better rush right up and put that in my diary. Say, are you flying Carlos to Mexico in the morning?”

“I can’t leave now, the way things are shaping up. I’ll have Lew earn his keep by flying Carlos and his man over.”

“And the little girl too?”

“No. I don’t throw canaries to cats, my love. This evening I’m having Mick drive her back to Winter Haven.”

Taffy whispered, “Here it comes!”

Carl Branneck came slowly out onto the patio. He wore pale blue shorts and a white nylon sleeveless shirt. He was lobster red from the sun and his glasses were polished and glittering. His stubby hairy legs quivered fleshily as he walked. He gave Park a meek smile.

“Guess I overslept, eh?”

“Not at all, Mr. Branneck. Festivities are just starting. Step over and tell Mick what you want.”

Branneck moved away uncertainly. Taffy said, “By tonight that poor little man is going to be one large blister.”

Lew Cherezack, Park’s pilot and driver, came in at a trot. He was young and he had the wrinkled, anxious face of a boxer pup. He grinned and said, “Hello, Taff! Why didn’t I meet you before the war?”

“Which war?” Taffy asked coldly.

“What’s up?” Park asked.

“Well, I see this car boiling out across our causeway, and so I go over to the gate. This large young guy jumps out with a look like he wants to take a punch at me. He tells me he’s come after his girl, Laura Hale, and, damn it, he wants to see her right away and no kidding around. He says his name is Thomas O’Day. I got him pacing around out there.”

O’Day spun around as Park approached. He glanced at the sarong, and a faint look of contempt appeared on his square, handsome face. “Are you Falkner?”

“It seems possible.”

“Okay. I don’t know what the hell you told Laura to get her to come down here without a word to me. I traced her as far as the Tampa airport, and today I found out that your driver picked her up there and brought her here. I want an explanation.”

“Is she your wife?”

“No. We’re engaged.”

“I didn’t notice any ring.”

“Well, almost engaged. And what the hell business is that of yours? I took time off from my job, Falkner, and I can’t stand here arguing with you. I want to see Laura and I want to see her right now. Go get her.”

“You’re annoying the hell out of me, O’Day,” Park said mildly.

O’Day tensed and launched a large, determined right fist at Park’s face. Park leaned away from it, grabbed the thick wrist with both hands, let himself fall backwards, pulled O’Day with him. He got both bare feet against O’Day’s middle and pushed up hard. The imprisoned wrist was like the hub of a wheel, with O’Day’s heels traversing the rim. He hit flat on his back on the sand with an impressive thud. Park stood and watched him. O’Day gagged and fought for breath. He sat up and coughed and knuckled his right shoulder. He looked up at Park and glared, then grinned.

“So I had it coming, Mr. Falkner.”

“Come on in and have a drink. I’ll send somebody after your girl.”

He took O’Day in with him, made a group introduction. O’Day asked Mick for a Collins as Park sent Lew to find Laura. O’Day watched Townsend, finally went over and said, “I’ve got a feeling I’ve seen you before, Mr. Townsend.”

“That could be.”

“Are you from Chicago?”

“I’ve been there,” Townsend said and turned away, terminating the conversation.

Pamela was working the cape and Carlos was charging her with the wheeled horns. She was very serious about it, her underlip caught behind her upper teeth, a frown of concentration on her brow.

“A second Conchita Cintrón!” Carlos called as she made a fairly acceptable veronica. Johnny Loomis, his tongue already thickened, began a braying discourse on the art of the matador.

Lew appeared and caught Park’s eye. He left. Park caught him outside. Lew looked upset. “Park, she isn’t in her room and I’ll be damned if she’s on the island. Come on. I want to show you something.”

The two men stood and looked down at the blanket. The sun was far enough down so that their shadows across the sand were very long.

Park sighed heavily. “I don’t like the way it looks. Break out the Lambertson lungs and be quick about it. Tide’s on the change.”

“How about O’Day?”

“If he can swim, fix him up. It’ll give him something to do.”

The sun rested on the rim of the horizon, a hot rivet sinking into the steel plate of the sea. The angle made visibility bad. Park Falkner was forty feet down, the pressure painful against his earplugs, the lead weights tight around him in the canvas belt. It was a shadow world. He saw the dim shape of a sand shark stirring the loose sand as it sped away. A sting ray, nearly a yard in diameter, drifted lazily, its tail grooving the bottom. The oxygen mixture from the back tank hissed and bubbled. He swam with a froglike motion of his legs, using a wide breaststroke.

The last faint visibility was gone. He jettisoned some of the lead and rose slowly to the surface. The sun was gone and the dusk was gray-blue. He pulled out the earplugs and heard Mick’s shout. Mick was far down the beach. He squinted. Mick and Lew and Townsend were standing by something on the sand. O’Day was running toward them. Park shoved the face mask up onto his forehead and went toward the shore in a long, powerful, eight-beat crawl.

He walked over and looked down at her. She was as blue as the early dusk.

Mick said in a half whisper, “The crabs got her a little on the arm but that’s all.”

“Wrap her in a blanket and take her over to the old icehouse. Lew, you phone it in. Take O’Day with you.”

O’Day stood and looked down at Laura’s body. He didn’t move. Lew Cherezack tugged at his arm. Park stepped over and slapped O’Day across the face. The big man turned without a word and went back toward the house with long strides.

Mrs. Mick Rogers
had laid out a buffet supper, but no one had eaten much. The certificate stating accidental death by drowning had been signed. Mrs. Rogers had packed Laura Hale’s suitcase and placed it in the station wagon. The undertaker had said, over the phone, that he couldn’t pick up the body until midnight.

Johnny Loomis had passed out and Mick had put him to bed, just before leaving for Winter Haven with a subdued and depressed Pamela. Carlos had complained bitterly about the death, saying that it was bad luck before tomorrow’s corrida. He had gone nervously to bed after the arrangements had been made for Lew to fly him and his helper to Monterrey at dawn. Park Falkner sat on the lowest terrace facing the sea. Taffy was in the next chair. Townsend, Branneck, and O’Day were at the other end of the terrace. A subdued light shone on the small self-service bar. O’Day, with an almost monotonous regularity, stepped over and mixed himself a Scotch and water. It seemed not to affect him.

The other three were far enough away so that Park and Taffy could talk without being overheard.