Valhalla (37 page)
When he felt empty finally, he sat up on the edge of the bed and pulled her onto his lap, facing him. He buried his face in her neck and breasts, and he kissed her on the eyes and on the mouth, deeply. When he tried to speak, he cried again.
It was after five o’clock when he was ready to relieve Eddie. Before going outside he got the General’s grease gun and his own forty-five, plus the bottle of champagne, which was almost empty now. Opening the front door, he saw that the sky had cleared and the moon was out, so he turned off the outdoor lights. As he started across the stone patio in front of the house, he experienced a momentary feeling of weakness, almost as if his heart had reverted to pumping blood instead of adrenalin. And for a few seconds he stopped and braced himself against the back of a redwood recliner. Then he went on, walking more carefully now, heading toward the Jeep beyond the pool, at the far corner of the courtyard. He felt no pain, just this sudden drop in energy, combined with a growing sense of fear, a cold, inchoate fear that slowly began to reveal itself.
Soon it would be light. Soon they would all see each other in daylight. They would see with a new and terrible
clarity what they had done and where they were. They would see that Valhalla was as much a prison as it was a citadel. Above all, Eve would see
him
. And he could not help wondering if in the pitiless reality of light and time she would not retreat behind her wall again and be lost to him. But then he reminded himself that all this was something he already knew, one of the few things he had learned beyond all forgetting in his thirty-four years. In life, victories tended to be brief. Time was more generous with failure.
When he reached the Jeep, Eddie asked him what had happened with the lights.
“I turned them off,” he said. “Maybe for good. No sense advertising we’re here.”
“You got a point.” Standing, Eddie finished off his own bottle and tossed it over the parapet. “How’d it go with Eve?”
“Well enough.”
“That’s all?”
Stone changed the subject. “Any sign of Jagger yet?”
Eddie shook his head. “Naw. It’d take him a day to waddle up here, the shape he’s in. But don’t sweat it, he’ll make it. With bells on.”
“Yeah, I imagine so.”
Turning, Eddie looked back at the house and grinned. “You know, I can’t figure what to do first—take a hot bath, eat a T-bone steak, try to score with one of the girls, or just go to bed.”
Stone smiled too. “It’s gonna be a problem.”
“Kind of like the tennis tour. Incidentally, just how big is the field?”
“You mean, your field as against mine?”
“That’s what I mean.”
“Mine is Eve. That’s all.”
Eddie looked surprised. “Really?”
Stone stood there by the Jeep waiting for the little man to leave. But Eddie had something more to say, something not as easy. Finally he got it out.
“Tell me—does it bother you much? What you had to do? The killing, I mean?”
Stone did not want to talk about it, not yet anyway. So he lied. “No. I figure it was necessary.”
“Me too.” Eddie slapped him on the arm and headed back toward the house.
Alone finally, Stone found that he could not just sit in the Jeep and wait for the hours to pass. Still unable to relax, he walked back and forth along the parapet, stopping finally at that point where he had first seen the junkman’s daughters. Even though it was still dark out, he could see Baggs’ Point clearly. He could make out the blocky shape of the lodge and he could see wisps of smoke rising through the trees. It crossed his mind that in time he probably would see other people down there, other faces gazing up at him, wanting what he had. But the prospect did not frighten him. Like the junkman, he would fight to keep what he had. And if he lost, so be it. No one lived forever.
Because of the moon, he was able to see the other side of the lake and the high dark ridge running north to Spalding. But he saw it all only as varying shades of darkness. There were no lights anywhere. In fact, wherever he looked over the great bowl of the lake valley, there was darkness. And it made him wonder if there would ever come a time when he would be standing where he was now, looking out upon the night—and the lights would
come on again, not just down at the Point and on the other side of the lake, but all across the country.
Strangely, even as he was thinking this, a faint gray haze of light began to form in the east, along the rim of hills above the blacktop. It took him a moment to realize that it was only the dawn.
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