18mm Blues (7 page)

He went back to opening oysters and getting pearls.

But couldn't keep his eyes off those clouds.

Possibly they were a baby tropical cyclone, he thought, and perhaps not so much of a baby. It would be just his luck, now that he had so much, never to live to enjoy it because of the boat getting swamped and he drowned or bashed to death up against the reef.

Fuck that, he said aloud.

He went forward as Setsu and Michiko were arriving again, each with another sackful of oysters. They had been working the lagoon simultaneously, going and coming together, enjoying the task more because of that. This time as Bertin and William lifted the sacks aboard, Bertin complained with an agreeable grin that they were too efficient for him, were bringing too many at a time, so the unopened oysters were piling up on him. It was a compliment the way he said it. He suggested they stagger their trips, coordinate so when one was returning the other would be going.

Michiko climbed aboard to rest on the foredeck while Setsu swam back over the reef to the lagoon. William dragged one of the full sacks to the stern. Bertin lugged the other.

William was removing the oysters from the sacks and arranging them neatly so they could be systematically opened when Bertin struck him. William was about to look up and perhaps he had somewhat, perhaps he got a glimpse of the blow just before it landed. A snapping, back-handed blow to the side of his head, huge right-hand knuckles against boy cheekbone. Such force it lifted William off his feet, sent him flying into the wheelhouse and against the bulkhead there, transformed into a limp, contorted heap.

Bertin went to the foredeck. Michiko was sitting with her legs drawn up, hands clasped at her ankles, her head resting on her knees. She seemed unaware of Bertin there, or at least she wasn't aware of the danger of him.

He looked down upon her from behind. Saw the definition of her bowed spine, her black hair wet tendrils against the skin of the back of her neck. He thought from her position she was practically offering herself.

He grabbed her throat with both hands, hands so large and throat so small his thumbs and fingers overlapped. Gave her no chance to cry out, applied more than enough sudden pressure to prevent that, and what resistance she put up was no match for his hold, merely some futile flails and twists and kicks. He enjoyed killing by hand, had done it twice before, felt the spasms, the voice box crush, the cartilages and vital passages compact.

He didn't release until she was surely dead. He picked her up and dumped her over the outboard side.

It wasn't only that he didn't want to share the blue pearls and their worth with the Japs. Just as important, perhaps more so, he didn't want anyone else knowing the source, this island. He was confident that he'd be able to find it again, and if
he
could, certainly so could they. Typically, they'd return and load up on these blues, might bring other people as well, and before long there'd be who knew how many on it. Killing, as Bertin saw it, was justifiable, in fact, called for.

The body of Michiko floated for a few minutes alongside the boat, eerily banged against it some, then sank. At about a fathom down a current caught it, carried it beneath the boat and in the direction of the reef.

Thus, as Setsu was returning with a full sack, had swum over the reef and was proceeding to the boat, for a moment the body of Michiko was directly under her. Her kicks came within inches of hitting upon it.

Bertin awaited Setsu, extended his hand to receive the sack. He tossed it on the deck, turned away and feigned being busy with it for a long moment, then turned back.

Setsu had climbed aboard and removed her mask. As she took off her cap she looked around for Michiko.

Bertin got her by the hair, from behind. His right leg wrapped around the front of her legs to clamp her in place. It happened so swiftly she didn't have a chance to struggle. Bertin jerked her head far back, so her long neck was stretched, arched up. In practically the same motion he drew the
dah-she
, that Burmese knife, across her throat from just below her left ear to just below her right. Not even so much as half a scream from her as her carotid arteries were severed and her jugulars and facial veins. Her windpipe and esophagus sliced clear through.

At once there was a great deal of blood, a lot of it on Bertin. He didn't mind. He picked up Setsu and dropped her overboard like so much waste.

Went aft then to finish up with the boy.

The boy wasn't where he'd been in the wheelhouse. Hiding, Bertin thought, but the boat didn't offer many places for that. He searched the cabin thoroughly, even looked into the cupboards and other storage spaces obviously too small to contain anyone. The engine compartment too, which was crowded with engine. He went over the boat systematically stem to stern, searching again where he'd already searched. He concluded that the boy had come conscious and dived overboard. That had to be it, and in that case, the boy was as good as dead.

Bertin started the engine.

Hoisted the anchor and pulled in the drogue.

Glanced hard at the storm and the descending mercury in the barometer. Swung the boat around sharply to an easterly course and said a prayer on behalf of the engine.

CHAPTER ONE

Grady Bowman caught on a thought and paused about halfway through his shave. He looked out the bathroom, through the dressing room to Gayle's unmade bed. It had been unmade when he'd arrived home at three
A.M.,
and although he'd about 98 percent expected Gayle wouldn't be there, the bed bothered him.

He'd been making the circuit for the past sixteen days. Starting with Denver, then Houston, New Orleans, Atlanta, Boston, New York, and, finally, Chicago. At least twice a year, some years three times, he traveled around and met in person with clients of the firm he worked for, the Harold Havermeyer Company. Havermeyer himself used to go on such trips, and so had the Havermeyer before him, but it had been left up to Grady since he joined the firm nearly ten years ago. Some of those trips had been successful, others not so. This one fell somewhere in between, would have been really good had Lawler in Boston been able to decide on that lot of emeralds. There'd been no way for Grady to sell him. All Grady could do was stand there and watch Lawler sell and unsell himself and finally end up unsold.

Last night's flight in from Chicago was one of those evidently destined to misfortune. It was an hour and a half late taking off, and after a half hour in the air had to return because of a mechanical problem. Then there was the hour and some wait for another plane to be readied and the problem Grady had had with his pistol. As usual when he flew with goods, he'd turned in his pistol to airport security for safekeeping in the plane's control cabin. However, with the switch of planes and crews the pistol was forgotten in the copilot's flight case, which was finally located but was locked and had to be broken into.

So, altogether, the last leg of the journey had been everything but good for Grady and a measure of amend was surely called for. Gayle's bed, however, was unmade and empty. Grady believed he was too exhausted to think about it. He let his clothes drop anywhere, vetoed a shower and got into his own bed. Eyes shut, Grady felt sinking and drifting, but then the emptiness in the bed turned his mind back on, and his mind did the same to the rest of him.

He switched on the bedstand light. How long was it that she hadn't been there? he wondered. Got up to perhaps find out. Went nude out to the landing and downstairs to see if there was a dated note from her where she usually left them whenever it occurred to her. Nothing was on the hall table nor propped against the black-and-white photograph of them framed in ornate English silver. It was an enlarged version of the submitted flash shot that had appeared seven years ago on the wedding page of
Town & Country
.

In his semisomnambulant state it was easy for Grady's attention to get held by something. Such as Gayle as she'd appeared that day, well tanned, slick lipped, haloed by a white floral headpiece, no claim of chastity in that audaciously beautiful face. He doing the mild hug, sort of smiling, certainly not his best smile, dazed really, trying to nonchalant it.

He went into the study and played back the messages on the answering machine. Days and days of them, including the six or seven long-distance that were him and his wordless disconnects. Otherwise only trivial calls such as from the pesticide service a week ago and some woman friend of Gayle's miffed because Gayle hadn't shown up for a dinner party last week, hadn't even called with excuse or apology.

The kitchen. It was clean, the sink was dry, the counters a bit dusty. The coffee left in the coffee maker had evaporated three inches and was scummed blue-white.

Grady didn't really need further indications, such as the ten days' accumulation of newspapers on and around the front entrance or the avalanche of mail beneath the slot or the total vacancy of the second right-hand built-in-dresser bottom drawer where Gayle kept her better, trickier lingerie.

Gone again, he thought, mentally sighing. This time for longer. Ten days at least.

He roamed the house. There wasn't much of him in it the way it was done. She hadn't let him contribute except when it came to some of the outside plantings. So the house was her. Every room and every area of every room and every possible surface within every room was intentionally cluttered. With tasteful and expensive things but nonetheless cluttered.

The low burled chestnut table that served the fat-armed sofas of the living room seating area, for example. There was hardly room left on it to place down a wineglass. A leather case with its lid ajar just so contained a set of nineteenth-century bone dominoes with several spilled out just so, never to be further disturbed. Packets of letters postdated early 1900s, British stamped and addressed in the very practiced hand of the time to several someones in Yorkshire and Northumberland, were tied by dainty silk ribbons, the curled strands of which invaded perfectly an antique brass spyglass positioned just so next to an antique sterling silver porringer stuffed just so with dried pink miniature roses in slight disarray. Lorgnettes, things of tortoise, a just so stack of old leather-bound books of odd sizes buffed and so patined they looked as though they'd been adored, read and reread countless times.

Highly polished pairs of used riding boots in the rear hall, floral-banded, wide-brimmed straws on brass hooks or supposedly tossed over the knob of a chair. Persian carpets, varnished woodwork, paintings of high-strung dogs, cats, horses and boats.

The arranged disarrangements overfed the eyes. But that wasn't how Gayle saw it. To her it was accomplishment worthy of not admitting she'd been assisted by one of San Francisco's most sought-after interior decorators.

To Grady the decor was paradoxical, very much like Gayle and very much unlike her. He never came right out and said it reminded him of a Ralph Lauren display.

He was up for the night now, he believed. Too tired to get to sleep, that was actually it, nothing to do with Gayle, he told himself. Went to the kitchen to warm some milk, but the half carton of it in the refrigerator had gone sour. He settled for a twenty-three-ounce-size Perrier that he twisted open with more strength than was needed and took swigs from on his way to the study. Such large, fast swigs the burst of its fizz burned his palate and the start of his throat.

He sat on the green leather Chesterfield sofa with the cold green bottle in his hand, the base of it resting on his knee. Thought a while about tomorrow, which already was, thought he'd call in at nine and say he wouldn't be in until two. Thought about how he must look from across the room, bare ass adhering to leather in the low light. Did an alone thing, brought the bottle to his crotch, between his thighs, snugged it with a squeeze. After the initial sensation, he couldn't tell which was winning, chill or warmth, the bottle or his balls. He set the bottle on the side table where its sweat might very likely leave a ring. Toppled over onto the sofa's hard arm and brought his legs up, shifted onto his side, knifed his legs to himself and, without another thought, slept for four dreamless hours.

Now it was eight-thirty and he was finishing his shave, giving his cheeks and chin some upward strokes. He splashed his face with two handfuls of hot and dried briskly with one of the fine linen hand towels Gayle had asked him never to use. No aftershave or cologne, this wasn't an aftershave or cologne day. He'd smell his true clean self.

From his suits he chose a slouchy, double-breasted brown light wool that was fresh from the cleaners. Liberated it from the plastic bag, suspendered it and got into it, along with a soft cream cotton shirt and the tidy small knot of a brown grounded tie. Didn't appraise himself in Gayle's full-length mirror. Put his pistol into the everything drawer of his dresser, put his ready cash to pocket, put at once out of mind the suggestion to himself that he make the bed, took his attaché case and went down and out.

He used the twenty-minute drive from Mill Valley to the toll bridge to make friends with the day. It was something he frequently did, left off the radio because the music would likely be either songs involving emotional situations unlike his own or abrasive hard rock stuff that would only potentiate anyone's early morning hostility. As for the news, was it ever really news? Just a carousel of public affairs with seldom a happy horse.

Anyway, this day was a pretty June day, nice sky and everything. Some clouds around but none that looked like they'd form a gang and cause rain. The tie-up at the toll was, as usual, worth it for the bridge, so cheerfully painted and strong and complicated. Since 1981, the first time Grady ever saw the bridge, he hadn't ever taken it for granted. Even on the way home after his most devastating days he was able to get out of himself enough to appreciate it, let it lift him.

As it did today.

By the time he reached Market Street and parked the Ford Taurus in the open lot opposite the Phelan Building, his spirit was boosted two, going on three notches. The old ivory and black marble lobby of the Phelan was as impeccable and deserving of appreciation as ever, and five of the seven people Grady shared elevator number two with were gingerly carrying cardboard containers of coffee and the slight steam from the tiny puncture holes in the lids of the cartons seemed playful.