An audience. Before I could put the threat in place, figure out what to do, a man emerged from the shadows at the other end of the pier. Approached us.
Cheryl turned her back and walked toward him. He was barely visible because, unlike her, he'd dressed for concealment.
Black sweatsuit, black shoes. He and Cheryl met in the center of the pier. Everything rehearsed—I'd been the only one ad-libbing.
"He thinks he's smart," said Cheryl.
Kent Irving said nothing. His brassy hair had been tied back in a pony-tail, emphasizing the breadth of his round, ruddy face. Impassive face. Something silvery and reflective in his right hand.
Cheryl flashed teeth and tucked her white T-shirt tight.
"Baby," she said.
Irving's one-lipped mouth stayed shut.
"It's good you came when you did, baby," she told him. "He was ready to fuck me blind, would've raped me and tossed me over the edge."
She kissed his ear. Irving still didn't react. He stepped closer. I had nowhere to go but into eternity, but I stepped backward anyway. The automatic in his hand was level with my face.
"He thinks we're stupid, baby," said Cheryl. "Thinks he can just happen to be boating by, just happen to be sitting there doing his crossword puzzle like it's some big fucking coincidence and we're not gonna suspect anything. Asshole."
I said, "Suspicion's a two-way street. The police know I'm here."
She said, "Right." Irving remained silent and still. How far was the drop? How high was the tide? Would I hit water or slam into hard-packed sand, collapsing my spine like a twig? If I could calculate the drop in the darkness, would rolling on my side help, allow me to escape with only crushed ribs, internal injuries? I hadn't consulted a tide chart, had no reason to, terrific planning—
Kent Irving walked some more, and I stood my ground. The barrel of the gun was ten feet away. Chromium lips and a tiny black mouth that said, "Oh."
Cheryl stayed behind Irving, yammering, showing all those teeth, tossing her goddamned hair—
"Enough," Irving told her, in that thin, high voice.
She pouted. "Sure, baby—you saved me, baby. He was an animal, would've rammed me without mercy, just used me and threw me away." She placed a hand on his meaty shoulder.
"Yeah," he said.
"Yeah, baby, so you saved me. You're gonna be happy you did."
"You really think it's happy days?" I said. "The police really do know I'm here. Meeting you, Cheryl. He can't afford that. You're expendable— just like Baxter and Sage—"
"Enough," Irving said, softly. Same word he'd used with Cheryl. The lack of inflection said it all.
No sweat, no strain. Eyes as animated as gravel. Business as usual.
Maybe he'd hired someone to shoot Lauren and Michelle and Lance and Jane, but if he had, it had been out of convenience, not apprehension. He could pull that trigger like brushing his teeth. Eat breakfast moments later without giving it a second thought.
I said, "You know I'm right, Kent. You can't chance her talking to the police. Sooner or later, she's got to go anyway. She's stupid and nuts and undependable. Actually thinks you'll leave Anita for her and the two of you will end up with all of Tony's money and live happily ever after, the Prince and Princess. You know better. She's no princess, you've had dozens like her. Just another stupid hooker with plastic tits—"
Cheryl charged toward me, but Irving blocked her with his free arm.
"Fuck you!" she shrieked. "Fuck you in hell— Don't let him talk to me like that, baby. He can't dis me like that—don't fucking let him!"
Pushing against Irving's arm. He closed his hand on her wrist. The gun arm had never wavered. If he'd blinked I hadn't seen it. Giving him a polygraph would be academically interesting.
Cheryl said, "Give me the gun and let me do him— I can do it, you know I can. I'll do it right now, just like I did her, come on."
"Her," I said. "Lauren or Michelle or Jane or Shawna?"
The last name caused Irving's eyes to wander for the tiniest fragment of a second. Uncertainty. Lack of familiarity.
"Bitch Lauren," said Cheryl, smugly. She spat on the pier. "Cunt Lauren. She thought she could be my friend. Thought we had raff art, that I was just like her—"
"She had a point," I said. "You both sold sex—"
"Fuck you."
"Quiet," said Irving. His hand was still clamped to her wrist. Something he did made her say, "Ouch."
Then: "Baby?"
"Hurts so good?" I said. "What a fun couple. So how'd you lure Lauren?"
"Art," said Cheryl, making it sound like a disease. "She thought she was so cool—we made a date to meet at the art museum and then—"
A twist of Irving's wrist shut her mouth. "Easy," he soothed.
"He's the boss, got you to set up Lauren, then do her," I said. "With a woman she'd let down her guard—two girls and pretty pictures. She'd already told you her secret— Tell me, did you watch while he hog-tied her? Did you help him toss her in the trash?"
"It was great—"
Irving rotated his hand again, and she cried out.
I said, "You're toast, Cheryl. Maybe it won't happen tonight, but don't make any long-term investments. Even if you weren't stupid and unpredictable, you wouldn't figure into his plans, because your kids are a problem. Think about that gas leak— What's the next installment, Kent? Tossing Baxter over the cliff? Then Sage happens to toddle over to the pool? Or maybe you'll just disappear them in the ocean."
Irving smiled. Cheryl never saw it, but his silence made her eyes go wide and scared.
"Maybe I will let you do him," he told her.
"Creative," I said. "Her prints get on the gun, then a bullet finds its way into her head—murder-suicide, lovers' quarrel out on the pier. You're an old hand at that kind of thing—took Lauren's gun out of her purse after Cheryl shot her and used it a week later on Jane Abbot. Setting the old man up. How'd you get Lauren alone for the kill, Cheryl?"
"Girl talk, asshole—"
"Shh," said Irving. "No more dialogue— Yeah, I will let you do him."
"Lots of bodies piling up," I said. "At least it's not one of those senseless crime sprees. You've got a definite goal in mind. Tony'11 be dead soon, and what he leaves behind is sure worth working for. You're doing Ben and Anita's dirty work, and maybe they'll even let you stick around to enjoy the windfall. But you never know—the rich can get funny with hired help."
Irving didn't move.
Cheryl said, "Baby?" very softly. "You do love them, right? Bax and Sage?"
"Sure," said Irving.
"He's capable of love like you're qualified to be a nuclear physicist," I said. "He'll love them as two cute little corpses. No way will they make it to first grade. Baby. You sure are a great mom. Baby,"
Cheryl raised clenched fists. "Shut up! Gimme it, let me do him now!"
Irving didn't budge.
"Ke-ent!" she whined.
"Okay, c'mere," said Irving.
He removed his hand from her wrist, and as she stepped forward lowered his arm and circled her waist. Keeping the gun trained on me. Reaching around, he squeezed her breast. Pinched her nipple.
"Umm," she said.
He pinched her again.
"Ow, that was too hard!"
"Sorry," said Irving. Cradling her chin, he kissed the tip of her nose. Shoved her hard.
As she staggered backward, he moved fast. Staring at me as he swung the gun around. He shot her twice in the face, stepping back to avoid the blood spray. By the time she hit the boards, the gun was back on me.
She landed on her side.
"Thanks," he told me. "You gave me a good idea. Yeah, I had plans for her, but this is even better."
"Happy to oblige," I said. "But maybe she wasn't the only one with delusions. Think about what I said: Will Anita and Ben really be happy sharing? Spoiled rich kids aren't big on gratitude."
He shrugged. Blood streamed from under Cheryl's head, oil black in the starlight, and he inched away from the welling pool.
"Doesn't matter, does it?" I said, not looking at the body. "You've got plans for them too. Really think you're going to walk away with everything."
He snorted, sighed. "Let's get this over with."
"I wasn't lying about the police," I said. "You're a prime suspect. They know about your garment biz days, meeting Lauren back when she worked the Mart. Must've been a shock when she showed up at the estate with Ben—good old Ben screwing up again, picking up another dumb blonde. He's got a thing for them, doesn't he? Uses his experiments to find them and to hit on them, but once he gets them, the poor schmuck doesn't know what to do with them. Cheryl, Lauren, Shawna Yeager— what happened to her? How did she get in the way?"
That same flicker of confusion in his dead eyes. Cheryl's blood kept spreading closer to his shoes, and he sidled away, again. Despite myself I looked at her. Life juice leaking from the mop of blond hair, dipping to a low spot between the boards, trickling through. They say sharks can smell a drop in millions of gallons. Was the shark Internet buzzing?
Irving raised the automatic.
"Another blonde," I said. "But Lauren wasn't dumb. Anything but. She was a double threat—knew you from the bad old days, the hooker-a-night days. Knew stuff you strongly preferred Anita didn't find out about. And on top of that, she tells you who she is—what she wants. Talk about insult and injury."
Irving sighed again. The sweats made him look pudgy. His ponytail made him look like nothing but Mr. Midlife Crisis, and as he aimed the gun at my face, a sick, sour thought flashed in my head: So this is how it happens, a, clown like this. Then: Sorry, Robin.
Then a voice behind Irving shouted, "Kent? What're you doing? What's going on?" and Irving blinked and turned as footfalls twanged the pier.
A man running toward us. Irving moving reflexively, the gun arm wavering, realizing his error and pivoting back toward me, but I'd already thrown myself at him and was grabbing for the automatic.
Managing only to jar his elbow.
He fired up in the air.
The new voice said, "Oh, my God!" and Irving slashed out at me and I chopped at him, keeping myself close, fighting for the weapon. A new set of hands grabbed for Irving. Irving, growling now, fired again.
The new voice said, "Oh!" and went down, but Irving had been thrown off balance, and I brought my knee up hard into his groin and, as he doubled over, stabbed at his eyes with my fingertips.
I made contact with something soft, and he screamed and stumbled and I shoved him, kept shoving him, down to the planks, got on top, straddled him, kept hitting him. It had been a while since I'd messed with karate, and what I did to him was more blind rage than martial arts, chopping at his head and his neck over and over and over, using stiff fingers and frozen fists, bloodying my knuckles, slashing and slamming until well after he'd stopped moving.
The gun had landed several feet from his arm. I picked it up, aimed it at Irving.
He didn't move. His face was pulp.
A few feet away, Ben Dugger moaned. I went to see how he was doing.
35
"WRONG," I SAID. "Bylight-years."
Dugger smiled. "About what?"
"About you. About lots of things."
It was eleven A.M., three days after I'd watched Cheryl Duke die.
During that time Robin had left one message on the machine. Sorry I missed you. I'll try to call again. . . . No home number was listed for her friend Debby, and when I tried Debby's dental office, I got voice mail informing me the doctor was out for a week.
For three days my life had been stagnating, but Ben Dugger had traveled: from the ambulance I'd called, to the E.R. at St. John's, to three and a half hours of surgery—tying together blood vessels in his thigh—to recovery, then two nights in a private room at the hospital.
Now this place, bright yellow and vast and dim, the air sweet with cinnamon and antiseptic, lots of inlaid French furniture—everything ornate and antique except the bed, which was all function and much too small for the room. The IV stand, the bank of medical gizmos.
The room was on the third floor of his father's mansion. Doting nurses hovered round the clock, but he seemed mostly to want to rest.
I'd phoned yesterday to request permission, waited half a day for the call back from a woman who identified herself as Tony Duke's personal assistant's assistant, had been allowed through the copper gates an hour ago.
I'd driven up, sat scrutinized as the closed-circuit camera rotated for several minutes, then the tentacles parted and a mountainous bouncer type in a fudge brown suit stepped out and showed me where to park. When I exited the car he was there. Escorted me through a fern grove and a pine forest to the peach-colored, blue-roofed house. Stayed with me as we entered the building, exerting the merest pressure at my elbow, propelling me across an acre of black granite iced by two tons of Baccarat chandelier hanging three stories above, the entry hall commodious enough for a presidential convention. Flemish paintings, carved, gilded baseboards and moldings, gold velvet walls, the elevator cut so seamlessly into the plush fabric that I could've walked past it.
Finally, this room, with its canary-colored damask walls. Bad color for recuperation. Dugger looked jaundiced.
He coughed.
I said, "Need anything?"
Smiling again, he shook his head. Pillows surrounded him, a percale halo. His thin hair was plastered across his brow, and beneath the sallow-ness his skin tone was dirty snow. The IV taped to his arm dripped, and the instruments monitoring his vitals blinked and bleeped and graphed his mortality. The ceiling above him was a trompe 1'oeil grape arbor painted in garish hues. Silly in any context, but especially so now. If not for the way I felt, I might've smiled.
"Anyway," I said. "I just wanted to—"
"Whatever you think you did, you made up for it." He pointed shakily at his bandaged leg. Irving's stray bullet had passed through his thigh, nicked his femoral artery. I'd tied back the wound, stanched as much of the bleeding as I could, used the cell phone in the pocket of Irving's sweatpants to call 911.