Wind Raker - Book IV of The Order of the Air (38 page)

For an instant, Jerry considered the outright lie, then looked away. “I’d rather not say.”

“Can you tell me truthfully that Peter Buck won’t be there?”

Jerry didn’t answer, and Willi shook his head.

“I can’t believe this. You’re going to go behind my back simply because I won’t indulge in gross speculation.”

“If I were going behind your back,” Jerry said, “I’d hardly have asked you to vacate the house for me. I have plenty of time to talk to Dr. Buck or anyone else when I’m at the Museum.”

Willi looked somewhat mollified at that. “All right, yes. But then why won’t you tell me what this meeting is about?”

Jerry took a long drag on his cigarette. There were only three options: lie, refuse to say, or tell the truth. Willi wasn’t about to accept
I can’t tell you
, that was clear in his stance and his scowl, and to lie now would make it harder to tell the truth later. And he wanted there to be a later. It was all well and good to say this was a summer fling, to remind himself that he’d only known Willi for nine weeks. He wanted the chance for more. “It’s not entirely my business to talk about.”

“Oh?”

“It’s — I suppose you’d say it was a religious meeting,” Jerry said.

“I cannot think of a single religion that meets in secret on Tuesday nights.”

“It’s the full moon,” Jerry said. “We’re Theosophists, more or less —“

Willi’s head came up sharply. “You have more sense than that, surely.”

“It’s what I believe.”

“You’re an intelligent man — an educated man,” Willi said. “You cannot seriously expect me to believe that you take that nonsense about spirits and blood secrets and hidden knowledge manifesting in nature.”

Jerry took a careful breath. “You know as well as I do that there are gaps in the scientific understanding of the universe. A hundred years ago flight was a fantasy, and the steam engine was just coming into its own. A hundred years from now, who knows what apparently fantastic belief will be solid fact?”

Willi shuddered, and stubbed out the last of his cigarette. “That is utter bullshit.”

“Can you allow that I believe it?” Jerry asked. He hated the note of pain in his own voice, and cleared his throat. “I’m not asking you to believe it, just to let us use the house Tuesday night.”

“To work magic?” Willi glared at him.

“And that would be my business,” Jerry snapped. “Common courtesy —“

“Common courtesy would be not involving others in this sordid business.” Willi straightened, his expression bleak. “Very well. The house is yours Tuesday. I will stay away until midnight and you and your friends may do as you please. But we will not speak of this again.”

“If that’s how you want it.” Jerry reached for his cigarettes, lit one with hands that did not shake, and pointedly did not offer the pack to the other man.

“Yes. It is. And now, if you will excuse me —“ Willi fumbled in his pockets, came up with the keys to the Museum’s truck. “You have given me much to think about, Dr. Ballard, and I prefer to do that thinking elsewhere.”

“Suit yourself,” Jerry answered, but Willi was already gone. He took a deep breath, the tobacco stale on his tongue, stubbed out the cigarette with a grimace of distaste. Where had he gone wrong? Surely there was something he could say that would mend this… He had been lucky with Gil. What were the odds that he’d get that lucky twice?

The music was still playing inside, bright and peppy, Mitch and Stasi’s shadows swirling past the shade in some complicated figure. He ought to go inside, get himself a very stiff drink, or maybe two, and hope that he was sound asleep before Willi came home. But that would mean passing the others, answering questions he wasn’t prepared to hear, and instead he slumped down lower in his chair. He’d wait until they went upstairs, and maybe then he’d know what to say.

J
erry stared into his coffee nursing a headache that had nothing to do with alcohol. It was barely dawn, the house still quiet. Mrs. Fong hadn't even arrived yet. He'd made the coffee himself, unwilling to wait for someone else. He'd better get used to doing things alone.

There was a step at the door and Mitch came in, the faint shadow of stubble on his face, a sure sign he hadn't shaved in a few days. He checked when he saw Jerry. "You're up early."

"Yeah," Jerry said.

Mitch got a cup from the cupboard. "Hung over?"

Jerry laughed mirthlessly. "Would be nice."

Mitch got the milk from the icebox and mixed his coffee weak and sweet, his back to Jerry. Obviously he couldn't help but hear some of the discussion the night before, and even if he hadn't understood a word of it, the raised voices told their own story. "Radke upset that we went over to the Patton's for cocktails?"

"Not exactly," Jerry said dryly.

"You told him about the Lodge."

"I tried to. It didn't go well." Which was an understatement if there ever was one. Jerry took a long drink of his black coffee.

Mitch sat down opposite him, scrubbing his chin. "That's Pelley. Sowing disorder."

"Why doesn't Pelley's vision appeal to you?" Jerry asked curiously. "Why aren't you sold?"

Mitch thought about it for a long moment, long enough that Jerry thought he could almost see the wheels turning. "I suppose because I'm happy," Mitch said.

Jerry snorted. A simple answer, and yet at the bottom of it right. Mitch had a way of cutting through the smoke to the fire.

"I think that's the bottom line," Mitch said. "People who are miserable are looking for something to save them. They're looking for answers. And right now there are a lot of miserable people in the world who don't see any way to be happy or to get the things they need. So when somebody sells them a picture that explains it all and helps them out, they buy the whole thing without thinking any harder about it." He shrugged. "But I'm lucky."

Jerry shook his head. "Not so much." Only Mitch would say that when he was a certifiable lunatic missing an entire year of his life and two nuts short of a pound.

"I am," Mitch said. "I've got everything I need. So Pelley's got nothing to offer me."

"A lot of people buy it anyway," Jerry said. "The happy and the smug. The people who are sure that everyone in the world would be happy if they were just as good as
they
are." There was a bitter sound in his voice that surprised him. "The people who hate you aren't nearly as bad as the ones who feel sorry for you. They have no idea what they're missing. Some of the clubs, some of the people…" He broke off, looking for words to explain the inexplicable. "There's an entire world they don't see value in. An entire world they don't imagine. If they ever looked under their fat, happy toes…"

"I'll go with you anytime you want."

Jerry looked up, startled.

"I'm serious," Mitch said. "I'll come with you. Meet your friends." He grinned. "Confuse everybody a little bit."

Jerry could easily imagine that, the speculative glances that would follow Mitch, the innuendo about Jerry finding some fresh corn-fed beef. "You wouldn't like that," Jerry said. "People would…."

"They might make me queer?" Mitch grinned again. "I think if I was going to be queer I would have gone and done it a long time ago. And if you're thinking someone might get the wrong idea and come on to me, I think I can take care of myself." He took a drink of his coffee. "I'll come anywhere you want, Jer. I'm happy to meet your friends. Anytime."

Jerry felt an unaccountable warmth in his chest. "Some of them are campy and outrageous."

"I reckon I can handle campy and outrageous."

Jerry had to laugh. "Yeah," he said. "I guess you can. You know, that suddenly makes sense. Stasi reminds me of a drag queen. Only she's actually female."

"She is," Mitch laughed. "She's a drag queen. Well, when she's not 'being good,' which I wish she'd stop. Right now it's sort of an
American Gothic
parody of my mother. Jesus, if I'd wanted to marry my mother I wouldn't have married a jewel thief!"

Jerry nodded seriously. Something clicked into place, the reason he and Mitch would never have suited, aside from Mitch never seeming to have the faintest interest in men — they liked exactly the same type. Excitable, voluble, brilliant, irritating… "Damn," Jerry said.

"What?"

"Willi is just like her."

"Willi is a drag queen? Jerry, I don't need to know that."

"Not literally. I mean, maybe, but not here. I mean, if so I haven't…" Jerry flailed.

Mitch was grinning. "Yeah, Jerry?"

The door to the kitchen swung open. Alma came in carrying Dora on her shoulder, pudgy little arm around Alma's neck. "Good morning."

"Hi!" Dora shrieked. Dora seemed to have one volume setting — the top of her lungs.

"What are you talking about so seriously?" Alma asked, going to the icebox.

"Nothing," they said in chorus.

Alma got out the milk. "Where's Dr. Radke this morning?"

Jerry winced. "He already left for the dig."

Mitch leaned back in his chair. "Hey, Jerry, I've got an idea. If there's nothing urgent on the dig, you could come with us today. We're going to overfly the Big Island. You could look for sites down there. After all, who's to say your Chinese ships made landfall on Oahu? Isn't it just as likely it was Hawaii?"

Alma looked at Mitch quizzically, then at Jerry. Whatever she saw in his expression decided her. "Sure," she said. "We could give you a good aerial look at the coastline. Why not?"

"What about Jimmy?" Jerry asked. "He usually goes with me to the dig."

"We'll bring Jimmy with us too," Alma said. "He can help you on the plane. You're going to want to correlate with a map. Jimmy can get down in the turret and spot for you. He'd probably enjoy that."

And why not? At the least it would postpone the inevitable scene of polite professionalism, worse than any cutting remark. At best — at best — what if he found where the
Wind Raker
had made landfall? What if he found the site that proved that the Chinese had discovered Hawaii? He'd be willing to bet any money that nobody had ever done an aerial archaeological survey of the Big Island, not even a cursory one. Maybe there was a site. Maybe it was extraordinary.

Jerry smiled at himself. And that was the eternal optimism of the archaeologist. Maybe this pile of tumbled stones hides something fantastic!

"Ok," he said. "That sounds fine."

T
he rented car was packed to overflowing as Alma drove them down the mountain to the hangar, with Jerry and Jimmy both packed into the back seat with Lewis, Jimmy in the middle with Stasi’s picnic basket balanced on his lap. It had taken Jerry a couple of false starts to compose his note to Willi, and Alma had tried not to see the pinched look on his face. He had looked like that right after he’d lost his leg, and she didn’t like the implications. Didn’t go well, Mitch had murmured in her ear as they were loading, and she would have to leave it at that for now.

To her surprise, Lily was nowhere to be seen. Lately, she’d been the first one in, sometimes even before Finch’s secretary, and Finch had given her keys to the kitchenette so that she could start the coffee perking, a job she did without complaint. In fact, Finch himself was coming out of the kitchen, scowling and wiping his hands on his pants, and Alma waved a greeting.

“Good morning! I guess Lily’s not here?”

“I haven’t seen her.” Finch gave a wry smile. “I’ve been spoiled. Aolani’s a nice kid, but she can’t make coffee to save her soul.”

“Maybe she had a date,” Lewis said, coming up with the picnic basket under his arm. “I’ve been thinking, Al, if Jerry didn’t mind being manhandled a bit, we could probably set him up in the nose turret. That’s the best view he could possibly have. And Jimmy could make notes on the map for him.”

“I’ll talk to him,” Alma said, though she was dreading it. She’d asked him to talk to Willi, after all. To her surprise, though, he listened and nodded.

“Sure, why not? It’s worth it for the view.”

And that was unlike Jerry, who hated to show weakness, but there was nothing she could say, no question she could ask here that wouldn’t make things worse. She swallowed what she might have said, turning as she heard another car pull in beside the hangar. It was Lily, sunglasses firmly in place beneath her scarf as she hauled herself out of the battered runabout. She lifted a hand in greeting, but there was something odd about her stance. Alma frowned again, and started toward her.

“Morning!”

“Good morning.” Lily’s voice was colorless, and Alma cocked her head to one side.

“Everything all right?”

“Not — exactly.” Lily took a deep breath. “Can I have a quick word with you? In private?”

“Of course,” Alma said. Finch was in his office along with Aolani, and there wasn’t anyplace else except the tiny Ladies’. She caught Lily by the elbow and drew her into the narrow bathroom. The tiles were cracked, but it was clean, smelling strongly of bleach, and Alma latched the door behind them.

“All right. Give.”

“My ex is in town.” Lily took off her sunglasses, revealing reddened eyes. “He sent me his card. I burned it, but I couldn’t sleep all night, and — honestly, Mrs. Segura, I don’t know if I’m safe to have in the air right now.”

“You burned it,” Alma repeated. Pelley seemed to have a narrow range of tricks, or maybe they were just the ones he knew would work. After what she’d felt when they warded the plane, she didn’t want to underestimate him.

Lily nodded. “I set it on fire, and then I ground up the ashes in the ashtray and put a glass over them — you know, upside down — and this morning I tipped them down a storm drain.”

That would break any connection. Alma said, “Good. That’s good work. How did he know where you were?”

“I’m not hard to find. He knows Floyd would give me a job, so all he’d have to do was ask around.”

Alma considered the possibilities. From everything they’d seen, Pelley had bigger fish to fry than tormenting his old girlfriend. Sending her his card was easy, and didn’t even require any magical exertion on his part; she’d panic and that would be enough to get results. Lily had done the right thing to destroy it, and even if Pelley was willing to waste more power to keep chasing her, the wards on the plane should be enough. “Let me talk to my husband,” she said. “He’s our clairvoyant. But if he doesn’t see anything, I don’t see why you should stay behind.”