The Wizard of Death (20 page)

Yes, it would be like that.

He pulled the ripping panel. As hot air was released from the exposed side of the envelope, the balloon began a rapid descent. When he was twenty feet from touchdown, he called down to the waiting Rocco.

“From the east, Rocco. From the east.”

“What in hell are you talking about?”

“Danny Nemo. He'll come from the east between eight and nine tonight.”

“Will you get down here and tell me what you're talking about?”

Since Lyon didn't really think he was going to get any work done, he opened a new bottle of Dry Sack and poured a neat vodka for Rocco.

“It's going to occur to Danny,” Lyon said after the first sip, “that it will occur to me sometime today or tomorrow that he won't go far without getting to his safe-deposit box, that there is a safe-deposit box.”

“You've already thought about it,” Rocco replied.

“That's something he doesn't know, and a risk he'll have to assume. He will come up the quarry road, leave the car, and approach the house from behind the barn. He'll attempt entrance from the patio area. I'd say a few minutes after sunset.”

“To kill you?”

“I would imagine so.”

Rocco looked deeply into his glass. “Makes sense. I'll get one of my men with your approximate build to wear some of your clothes and walk around the house with the lights on. We'll lay for the fink.”

“I'd suggest some men in the barn with radio communications to the house, and another man near the wall switch that turns on the outside floods. When he passes the barn and is midway to the house, turn on the lights, and you have him from both directions.”

“I'm with you. You and Bea had better stay in the cellar, where you'll be safe.”

“Oh, no. Bea and I are going to be far away.”

It was near eight when Lyon and Bea pulled into the parking lot of the Sound View Motel. The bright smile of the bellhop faded and his pace noticeably slowed as he approached the dusty pickup truck.

“Checking in, sir?” he asked.

“I called ahead for a reservation,” Lyon said. He followed the bellhop to the registration desk with the sinking feeling that they'd request payment in advance, and he hoped Bea had enough with her to cover the room and dinner.

“Congratulations, Senator Wentworth.” The manager's hand reached for Bea's and she smiled. “I saw your nomination on television this afternoon, and it's an honor to have the next secretary of the state at the Sound View.”

“Thank you, Mr.—” She peered at the small red name tab on the manager's lapel. “—Mattaloni. Are you any relation to—”

“My cousin.”

Lyon wasn't quite sure whether the suite with private terrace overlooking the ocean was the bridal or the presidential suite, but the complimentary bottle of sherry was excellent. As Bea showered, he sat on the terrace and flipped idly through the large menu, debating about calling down for room service.

“YOU KNOW, WENTWORTH,” Bea shouted from the shower, “I really should be caucusing.”

“I had something else in mind.”

“Uh-huh. Maybe after.”

“First, a magnificent steak with good wine in celebration.”

Bea came out of the shower wearing a terry-cloth robe and toweling her hair as she moved behind him and kissed his neck. “You know, I still can't believe it.”

“I'm very proud of you, Bea. You've been given a great honor.”

She took the glass from his hand and sipped. “I meant your solving the murders.”

“I'm sorry I brought the pickup to the convention hall. I couldn't find the keys to your car.”

She laughed. “I didn't mind that, and the TV people thought it was funny. But what took you so long?”

“I went for a balloon ride.”

“YOU WHAT? Never mind. I'm not going to ask why.” She sat next to him as they watched the sun settle over the water. “No one in the world knows where we are. No reporters, no politicians, no Rainbows.” She rolled the towel into a turban around her head. “What about the police captain in Breeland—what's his name?”

“Murdock. For a while I thought he was mixed up with Rainbow, but actually he's just overzealous. Rocco and Norbert are going to set up something next week.”

“That sounds like entrapment.”

“Bea, if you'd heard what Rocco told me, how the man hits people with complete disregard for their rights …”

“It's still entrapment, and I think … I think I'll change the subject for the time being. All that's happened was Danny Nemo's plan to con Dawkins for the money?”

“It was almost as if Dawkins had asked to be conned. He saw in what Danny was offering a method of control that could be used again and again.”

“That's rather horrifying. But you knew it was Danny before the convention.”

“I suspected, but we had to have the definite proof and the tie-in with Dawkins and the bank records. His reaction to seeing you was the final requirement.”

“And the final clue.
Les jeux sont fait
, the play is made. Danny was the only suspect who was an inveterate gambler. ‘The play is made,' the last thing said before the wheel is spun at Monte Carlo.”

“Where Danny was last year.”

“Exactly.”

They ate on the terrace as the last vestige of summer light streaked the sky.

“For some reason motels make me feel wanton,” Bea said softly.

“Things from your dark past that you haven't told me about?”

“Nope. Just being so alone together and—”

They both jumped as the phone rang.

“WENTWORTH, YOU TOLD ME NO ONE KNEW WE WERE HERE!”

“Well, just one,” Lyon said as he picked up the phone. “Wentworth here.”

“We got him, old buddy. Just like you said,” Rocco roared exultantly over the phone. “A few minutes ago when it turned dark, between the house and the barn, gun in hand and a safe-deposit box key on a chain around his neck.”

“Trouble?”

“We had him in a crossfire. He froze and dropped his gun without a whimper.”

“Thanks, Rocco. Thanks for everything.” Lyon clicked off the connection.

“It's over.”

“Yes.” The phone rang again, and he lifted the receiver with a movement of resignation. “Hello.”

“It's your illustrious illustrator,” Stacey's jubilant voice said on the other end of the line.

“One question, one small question. How in the hell did you find out where we were?”

“Somebody named Hocco or Locco answered your phone at home. I told him it was a matter of life and death, and that I had to talk to you.”

“I think we've had enough of the life-and-death business for a while,” Lyon said almost in-audibly. “What is it, Stacey?”

“Knew you'd want to know that Robin and I have been collaborating on the new book drawings. We've really got it, and we're catching a plane and will be up there in four hours with the preliminary sketches.”

“Not tonight, Stacey.”

“First thing in the morning.”

“Day after tomorrow,” Lyon said hopefully.

“We've got the motif for the whole book. I've got a hell of a talented kid here, Lyon. We're putting both our names down as artists.”

“What about the Point?”

“Plenty of others for that. I've got a girl here who's an artist. How many do you find like that? Besides, I never was that happy in the military myself.”

“In Korea, I sometimes felt that way.”

“See you the day after tomorrow with the drawings. I'll pick up the manuscript then.”

“It's not quite finished,” Lyon replied. “But I'll get on it.”

“Do that, Wentworth. You do that.”

Lyon hung up, rang the switchboard to cut off further calls, and then turned to face Bea. “That was—”

“Stacey, and he's very excited.”

“Exactly.”

“Maybe you should work on the book tonight.”

“That wasn't exactly what I had in mind.”

“What did you have in mind?”

As he watched her stand in the doorway with a penumbra of waning light surrounding her, a montage of recent events shuttled before him. Bea on the green introducing Randy Llewyn as Junior Haney's carefully placed shots barely missed her. Bea standing by the kitchen window as high-velocity bullets shattered the glass inches from her head.

She gave him a hesitant smile and slowly opened her robe and let it fall to the floor. She was very alive, and he loved her.

“You still haven't said what you had in mind.”

“I'll explain later,” Lyon Wentworth said as he stepped toward his wife.

Turn the page to continue reading from the Lyon and Bea Wentworth Mysteries

1

He awoke with a start.

A stream of early-morning day through the easterly window brushed across his face as he stared up at the unfamiliar ceiling. Alarmed at his momentary disorientation, he sat up abruptly. The other half of the bed was empty. Bea was gone.

The feeling dissipated as he remembered they were spending the weekend at Damon Snow's beach house. He yawned and looked out the window, where a slowly circling sea gull nonchalantly rode the air currents in easy sweeping motions.

The bedroom door cracked back against the wall.

Lyon Wentworth's muscles tensed as he involuntarily shrugged back against the headboard.

“Surprise!”

They tumbled into the room like rampant children and swirled around the bed in a dervishlike dance. Rocco Herbert's six-foot-eight bulk loomed at the foot of the bed as he lifted its legs from the floor and dropped them.

“Wakey, wakey!” the large man's voice boomed.

Robin Thornburton grasped the edge of the sheet as Lyon clutched it to his neck. “Come out of there.”

“If that sheet comes down any further, we'll have a second surprise party,” Bea Wentworth said.

“What's going on?”

Bea leaned over to kiss him. “Happy birthday, darling.”

A beach robe hurtled across the room and entwined itself around Lyon's head and shoulders. “You've got three minutes to get downstairs,” Damon Snow said.

They trooped from the room, laughing. Robin turned at the door and gave him a long look. “Hurry up, now.”

He leaned contentedly against the pillow and let the luxury of early-morning sluggishness engulf him for a few moments before he jackknifed to the floor and reached for his clothes. He pulled on a rumpled pair of khaki slacks and a tee shirt and stepped into scuffed boat shoes.

In the cramped bathroom Lyon brushed his teeth and made a few comb passes over a shock of sandy-brown hair. He paused as his eyes caught themselves in the mirror. They had a mildly troubled look, which deepened as he frowned at himself. After thirty, birthdays seemed to arrive with alarming frequency, and he wasn't quite sure he was ready for another one. He refused to accept the possibility that today's artificial demarcation might mean life's midpoint. He felt twenty—he gave a short laugh and amended that to twenty-five—and decided to live to ninety so that today would not be a halfway point.

He and Bea had occupied a rear bedroom, so he took the narrow back staircase down to the kitchen. The room was empty, although the stove and counter space were cluttered with used pans and dishes. A piercing laugh, followed by raised voices, echoed through the house from the area of the dining room, and he walked in that direction through the pantry.

Built near the turn of the century for some now-forgotten Hartford scion and his family, the massive frame house was perched at the end of a point overlooking Long Island Sound. The carpenters had obviously served their apprenticeship in nearby shipbuilding yards, to judge from their use of heavy timbers. The construction had stood the house well, and it was one of the few in the area to survive the ravages of the 1938 hurricane.

Lyon entered the dining room to find the others standing behind their chairs as if awaiting the signal for a formal seating.

“Everyone's here,” Rocco said, while eyeing the dishes strewn across the table.

“Where's Giles?” Bea asked.

“Never showed.”

Damon Snow raised a glass of champagne. “To Lyon. May he have many more years, with a new book in each one.”

“Hear, hear!” Martha Herbert clinked the edge of her glass with a spoon.

At the head of the table was a large crumb cake with one lone flickering candle. “Blow it out,” Bea ordered.

Lyon bent over the candle, coughed, and finally managed to expel a breath that extinguished the flame. A glass of champagne was thrust into his hand. “What time is it?”

“Six.”

“In the morning?” He looked down at the sparkling wine. “Oh, what the hell.” He drained the glass as the others applauded and took seats. The wine caused a small glow in his stomach that gradually reached toward the rest of his body with slim tentacles of warmth.