He nodded. “Power of attorney. Doctor’s affidavit.”
“Was it the money?”
He took his hand away, but kept his eyes closed. “No. If she’d asked me to crawl through fire, I’d have done that too. She knew I was hooked. She knew I’d been hooked for a long time. When she could use me, she sent for me.”
“It seems strange. You’re good-looking, and in a show biz area, and I’d think you could round up forty duplicates of her in one month.”
He turned his head and looked at me. “Don’t ask me to explain it; McGee. Infatuation. Sex. Put any word on it you want to. She was selfish and cruel and greedy. I know all that. She had a ring in my nose. And even when… it was the best for her, I had the idea it just happened to be me, and it could have been anybody. You know a funny thing? The closest I ever felt to her was the day before yesterday. She was out almost all afternoon. I don’t know where she went. She didn’t usually go out much at all. I didn’t hear her come in. I didn’t see her until she came out of the shower. She had a white robe on. She came to me and just wanted to be held. That’s all. Just held close. She cried for a long time. She wouldn’t tell me what was wrong. It was the only time… it was ever tender. He did it so quickly. He just yanked her head way back and… Jesus, I am never going to be able to forget it. How could a man do a thing like that to so much loveliness?”
“How did you meet her?”
“Down here a year ago. I was at Claude and Ellie Boody’s house, and the two house parties sort of got combined.”
I wondered if I should tell him that his little cruel darling had been a big help in getting four people murdered, and that was why Miguel had finished her off before leaving. A last minute errand.
But Mr. Day had all he could manage. And I decided I might as well leave her one mourner. Suddenly he realized what he had been saying.
“There was no conspiracy involved, Mr. McGee. Almah was going to get that money out and bring it back to Mr. Garcia. That was the basis on which I agreed to help her.”
“Sure, Gabe. They’ll get a court order and open the box. A couple of bonded officials will discover about ten thousand dollars there, just enough to cover Menterez’s hospital bills from now until he dies. But, of course, you didn’t know his name was Menterez and his residency here wasn’t entirely legal.”
There was one knowing glimmer in the mild blue eyes. “I thought his name was Carlos Garcia.”
“If we don’t know our lines, they can make an investigation down here drag on forever.”
“I… I’m sorry about that friend of yours, Mr. McGee.”
I gave him a big empty glassy smile and got out of there. Later I watched them load him and his luggage aboard the amphib. They joggled him and he let out a very sincere yell. It taxied out and turned into the wind. There was a pretty good chop, and I could hear the distant sound of the aluminum hull going bang bang bang before they got up enough flying speed to lift off. Gabriel Day was paying for his sins out there.
I went back into the lobby just in time to be told my call had come through. It was my first chance to get through the heavy traffic on the single phone line. Shaja’s voice was very faint. Apparently she could hear me all too well. It was the first inkling of disaster she’d had. Nora had been accidentally killed when a boat had blown up. Her people would probably want the body sent to New Jersey. There was a lot of red tape. No need for her to come down. I was all right. I would try to handle everything. I heard that faraway voice break into drab little heartsick fragments. I told her to inform Nora’s local attorney.
The big league baseball players live by an ancient myth. Watch the next one get hammered in the shoulder muscle by a wild pitch, or get slammed in the meat of the thigh by a line drive. They believe that if you rub it, you make it hurt worse. The impulse is always to rub the place that hurts. They are very stoic. They walk around in little circles, moaning, but they don’t rub it.
That was the only way I could handle Nora. I would get right up to the edge of taking a second look at that deadly shard of mahogany, and then I would walk off in my little circle, not rubbing it. I didn’t want to get into all the ifs. You can kill yourself with ifs. If I hadn’t had my little emotional tantrum which had dropped me into the tequila bottle, we would have been long gone. If I’d told her to stay the hell away from the boat basin… If she had been standing three inches to one side or the other… If my luck had gone bad long ago, I wouldn’t have been around to bring her down and get her killed.
The it’s can kill you, and the never agains can gut you. Never again to feel the smooth and eager musculature of that smooth narrow back. Never again to hear the smug and murmurous little pleasure sound. Never again to watch the lilt and swing of those marvelous legs as she walked with the guile of the trained model. Never again to make her laugh.
So what you do, if you have been down that road other times, is unhook the little hook and let the metal shutters bang down. When things have quieted down back there, you can lift them again. Time, divided by life, equals death every time. It is the deadly equation, with time as the unknown.
I heard one of those heavy Germanic jokes one time. An enormously wealthy industrialist fathered an only son and, knowing death is often a matter of luck and circumstance, vowed to give the boy maximum protection. He was raised behind steel walls mid shatterproof glass, breathed filtered air, was tended constantly by doctors, dieticians, tutors. He was permitted no toy or tool which could harm him in any way. On his twenty-first birthday, when they let him out into the world, the kid died of excitement.
Almah, Miguel, Nora. They had gone in quick succession like popcorn. And Carlos, the half-man, was still breathing. And his wife was still rocking.
I completed the necessary arrangements, with plenty of official help. To the couple of wire service stringers who filtered in, I was a very dull party. I was the fellow who answered the first question with a half hour lecture on boating safety. Newsmen have a very short attention span. It is a prerequisite in the business. That is why the news accounts of almost anything make sense to all ages up to the age of twelve. If one wishes to enjoy newspapers, it is wise to halt all intellectual development right at that age. The schools are doing their level best to achieve this goal. For the first time in history it is possible to earn doctorates in obscure professional techniques without upsetting the standard of a twelve year old basic intellect.
But after all the white-washers had moved along, back to other pressing PR problems, a little man moved in on me who was considerably more impressive. He was bald and wide and brown, and had a face like the fake Aztec carvings gullible tourists buy. He had an eye patch, and carried himself as if he were in uniform. His name was Marquez. I had been vaguely aware of him in the background, coming and going, keeping to himself. He came to me at the bar and suggested we go over to a table. He smiled all the time. He had a tiny gold and blue badge, and something that said he was Colonel Marquez, and something else that said he was in Investigationes Especiales for some kind of national bureau.
“That boat went up with one hell of a bang,” he said.
I gave him my water safety lecture. He listened to it with total attention, and when I ran down, he said, “That boat went up with one hell of a bang, eh?”
“Yes it did indeed, Colonel.”
“Down in Puerto Altamura, in the village, you’re a pretty popular tourist, McGee.”
“Every tourist should be an ambassador of good will.”
“That Garcia house, it’s like a fortress, eh?”
“Maybe they have sneak thieves around here.”