The Mountains Bow Down (29 page)

“My kicks, man. I can't walk anywhere. I got blisters all over my feet. Like walking on knives.”

I was hoping Jack would just grab him and drag him out of the Tiki Bar.

Instead, he said, “What size do you wear?”

Milo looked down at Jack's feet. “Eleven.”

“Mine are twelve. You want to try them on?”

“Hey, man, that's cool.” Milo nodded. “Real FBI agent shoes. Yeah, I can get inside my character.” He set the paper cup down on a copy of the script for
Northern Decomposure
. Maybe this script had the new spiffy ending, where the wife dies.

Milo yanked off his right shoe. Alcohol had slowed his movements, and his toenails peeked through threadbare socks. “Someday you'll tell your kids Milo Carpenter wore your shoes.”

“A real honor.” Jack handed Milo his brown Clarks.

He managed to tie the shoes by himself and was standing to test the shoes when the woman primping Larrah rushed over. Her graying hair escaped from a topknot, looking like wisps of smoke. She was breathless.

“You can't wear those,” she said. “They're
brown
.”

“The black ones gave me blisters.” Milo slurred the last word. “I've got, like, twenty pivots in this scene—and a roundhouse—and then I have to walk over and tell those dirtbags at the table what I think of them.” He pointed at Jack. “And he
gave
me these shoes.”

Her eyes looked tired. She stared at Jack's socks. Then his face. “Who are you?”

“He's my consultant,” Milo answered. “A real FBI agent, Jack Stephens—”

“Stephanson.”

“—meet Mary quite the contrary. Mary's our head of wardrobe.”

“Don't remind me.” Her mouth was grim. “Wardrobe, makeup, set design.” She pointed at Milo's feet. Jack's russet brown Clark's were creased across the toes from heavy wear. “Are they real?”

Jack looked confused. “They seem real to me.”

“What I'm asking,” she said peevishly, “are these shoes what an FBI agent actually wears?”

“Hey, Mary.” Milo hung on the
M
too long. “If Judy knew I had to work in those cheap shoes, she'd be taking names right now. Don't talk to me about the budget.”

At the mention of Judy, she placed a hand on Milo's shoulder, the back of it covered by swaths of eye shadow and lipstick. She gave Milo a maternal squeeze, then turned to Jack with the hard look from before. “I can't pay you for those things. We don't have money in the budget.”

“Mary,” Milo said, “he wants to be part of movie history. The shoes are a
gift
.”

I glanced at Jack. The shoes would be better if we used them for hitting Milo over the head. But Jack said nothing and pulled on the black shoes.

Mary said, “Martin throws one of his fits about continuity, I'm not taking the blame.”

“We'll do retakes.”

“On this budget? Think again.” She hurried back to the bar and picked up her makeup kit, rushing over to the tables where the extras played cards.

Milo stared down at the brown shoes. “I'm walking in my character's heart and soul. I can feel his pain.”

“Me too.” Jack winced. “These shoes don't fit. I need mine back.”

“You can't—I've got a fight scene.”

“I've got a life.” Jack yanked one of the black shoes off, holding it out to Milo.

But before Milo could reply, Martin Webb raised a compact megaphone. “We roll in one minute.”

“I can't wear those again.” Milo bent down to the floor, grabbing a leather satchel. He made two passes through the contents before coming up with a keycard. “There's a pair of brand-new sneakers, top-of-the-line, in my closet. They're too big for me.”

Jack hesitated.

“C'mon, man, they're yours, no charge. I'll even autograph 'em.”

Webb lifted the megaphone. “Let's move, people!”

With a sigh, Jack took the keycard.

Milo gave a soft bounce on his toes and lifted the paper cup, downing the amber liquid. He continued to stare up into the Tiki Bar's rafters, and when I followed his gaze, I saw fake parrots roosting over the tables. “Judy, baby,” he said. “Check it out. It's just like the fat suit. Now I got this character nailed.”

“Let's go!” Webb yelled.

Milo grabbed Jack's arm. “And grab me some thick socks, will ya? I got a little too much room in the toes.”

He strode for the grass-skirted bar and waited while Mary buffed his face with a powder puff. Behind him Larrah Sparks closed her eyes and clutched a stone in one hand—undoubtedly something from my aunt—chanting some kind of incantation for idiots.

Quietly, Jack and I turned to leave. He walked like an old man with bunions.

“That bad?” I asked.

“Unbelievable.” He smiled, slipping the keycard in his back pocket.

“That was pretty smart.”

“All in a day's work, Harmon. All in a day's work.”

Chapter Twenty-five

M
ilo Carpenter's cabin smelled of scotch and a sour stench that made me wave my hand in front of my nose. I followed Jack into the living room, and neither of us said a word.

We both knew what was about to happen.

Jack stood at the desk, running his eyes over a laptop that had been turned off, while I walked into the bedroom.

The king-size bed was made, undoubtedly by a steward, and the white pillowcases looked clean as frost. The closet's door was open and Judy Carpenter's clothes hung, the draping silks and satins waiting for her return. She favored the same sort of tunics as my aunt, paired with palazzo pants. Her sandals were high glittery things in gold and silver and brought to mind the image of her bare feet, how the dying skin had matched her blue nail polish.

In the other room, I heard a closet door sliding open, and it brought another unexpected wave of admiration for Jack. He had played Milo like a Stradivarius. There was a legal term, called “the expectation of privacy,” and it was no small thing. In multiple cases, the courts had upheld the idea that if a person didn't expect privacy, he couldn't sue over the loss of it later. If a cop pulls over a driver and asks for permission to search the trunk, the driver who says yes loses any expectation of privacy. The same held true for people who left their curtains open on windows that faced public roads. When Milo gave Jack his room key, asking an FBI agent to get his shoes and socks, he also surrendered an expectation of privacy.

On the small bureau by the closet, two clean drinking glasses waited on paper doilies. Next to that was yet another copy of the script, the title page covered with notes. A woman's handwriting, curls and flourishes. I read the words. Movie talk, about scenes, where people should stand.

“Grab the socks,” Jack called from the living room.

I opened the top drawer and found underwear. Women's. Expensive, lacy. And sad, given what we knew about their marriage. Searching for the socks, I pushed the lingerie aside and saw a wooden box. Rectangular, about six-by-eight inches. I stared at it, convincing myself that it wasn't inconceivable a drunk would keep socks in a box.

I lifted the lid.

The jewelry was mostly heavy, ornate necklaces, the type that anchored blousy tunics and wide satiny pants. Sets of matching earrings were equally elaborate. But the only blue piece was a turquoise combination of hammered silver, done in a southwestern style. The rest were reddish stones—pink quartz, some garnets, even a necklace with watermelon tourmaline where the pink graduated to green. Nothing like the blue bracelet.

On the inside of the lid, below the small mirror, a brass plate held an inscription.

To Judy, the real gem in my life.

      —M.C.

M.C. Milo's initials. And it was dated six weeks back. Was the jewelry box some kind of truce?

Or a parting gift?

I dropped the lid.

And heard an odd
plunk
.

Opening it again, slowly, I could hear something roll. Picking up the box, I tilted it from side to side, then rapped my knuckle across the lid. The hollow sound was almost as loud as the debate inside my head, the one insisting Milo gave the FBI permission to enter his room. Permission to look for socks. And socks, they could be anywhere.

Using the small pocketknife that Geert allowed me to keep, I shimmied the thin blade between the lid's mirror and the wood. Working it carefully so I didn't crack the glass, I caught a glimpse of my face. Strands of brown hair hung over my face. My forehead rippled with worry. But that was nothing compared to the expression in my eyes. Not just tired. Not just worn out. I looked like somebody tired of listening to some story, yet afraid to hear the ending.

The mirror popped off. And a large blue stone tumbled into my palm.

“Bingo,” I said.

“What?”

I whirled around.

Jack waited in the doorway, wearing the new tennis shoes. “This is not what I wanted to see.”

“Then don't look.” I turned my back to him.

The blue stone winked with chameleon charms, its color shifting with the fluidity of warm water. To my naked eye, it looked similar to the gemstones in the gold bracelet, only this stone was much larger. Close to ten carats, it had been cut into a cabochon shape to highlight the intense internal fire. I lifted the box and peered into the secret compartment. One corner looked shiny and when I touched it with my knife blade, a black prism rolled out. It was a slender double-terminated crystal—both ends perfectly formed, closing the prism—and it seemed genuinely black. Not darkest purple, not midnight blue. Black.

Earth didn't produce many black crystals. There was onyx and some forms of hematite. Even fewer black crystals occurred naturally as prisms. Black tourmaline came to mind. Or this could be a synthetic stone, cut into form. But none of those stones were worth hiding.

Unless somebody else wanted them, badly.

Pulling several sheets of Kleenex from the dispenser on the bureau, I wrapped the stones and dropped them into my pocket. I replaced the mirror, wiped my fingerprints off the glass, then returned the box to the top drawer, once again covering it with Judy Carpenter's futile lingerie.

When I turned around, Jack was still in the doorway.

“He gave you the key,” I said, my cheeks reddening. “There was no expectation of privacy and socks can be kept anywhere.”

“Did you get the socks?”

My face was on fire when I turned around, opening the drawers again. “It's not breaking and entering.”

“Harmon . . .”

“Jack, we'll never get a search warrant in time. In two days the killer walks off this ship. I just want to check out these stones, especially since I don't have that bracelet anymore.”

“Check out the stones,” he repeated carefully. “Then what?”

“Then back in the jewelry box.”

“You don't think he's going to miss them?”

“Give me thirty minutes. He won't even know they're gone.”

“And if he comes back before thirty minutes?”

“Just don't give back the key until I'm done.”

“Oh, is that all?”

“C'mon, Jack. You'll think of something. McLeod always says you have a silver tongue.”

“
Sliver
. He says I have a
sliver
tongue. And how did it become my responsibility to cover up for your problem?”

“He didn't give me his shoes.” I looked at his feet. The shoes were pale blue, almost glacial, glowing like a really bad wedding tuxedo. No wonder Milo didn't want them. Even a drunk could see they were hideous. “How do they feel?”

“Expensive. I can sell them for food when we get fired.”

“
I'll
get fired. You didn't do anything wrong.” I hesitated. “Did you?”

“Harmon.”

“Please, Jack. Thirty minutes.” I reached over, touching my pocket. The stones felt heavier than their actual weight.

“I didn't think you had it in you,” he said.

Neither did I
.

While Jack tried to figure out how to evade Milo, I raced down the stairs, trying to decide who was lying.

This was Hollywood, after all. Land of make-believe, where lying wasn't just a profession, it was something you won awards for. It was possible that MJ was covering up an affair with Milo, telling an elaborate and twisted story about an attack. By the time I'd reached Deck Six, it was occurring to me that her hands might be raw from rope burns, and from helping Milo lower his wife over the rail. Since I was passing the hospitality desk, I stopped and asked if the ship had a chaplain. They did, indeed, said the nice clerk behind the counter. I was welcome to leave a message and the chaplain would get back to me. I gave my cell phone number, holding back two questions. One, did the chapel have a cross until Monday night? And two, could the chaplain please pay a visit to my mother in the infirmary?

I was turning away when the elevator next to the desk
bing
ed open. The car was empty and I jumped in, hoping to save time bypassing the crowd in the atrium. I hit the button and was taken immediately to my floor.