“I’m sorry,” I said. “You shouldn’t have come up behind me like that.”
For a few seconds she didn’t speak. She sat in the sand, legs crossed at the ankles. “It’s... all right,” she said in a strained voice. “I’m sorry I... startled you.” Her hands came away from her breasts slowly and dropped to her knees. She sat very still, apparently looking toward me. I hadn’t held her long, but long enough for her to be perfectly aware I wasn’t dressed either. Not that it made any difference, in the dark.
“Who are you?” I said.
“I’m Diane. You... must be Pete. Pete Mallory.”
“That’s right.”
“I’ve been swimming, too. I was in the water when you came down here.” She paused. “I don’t sleep well.”
I swallowed something hanging in my throat. I could see just enough of her to make me wish I could see more. The face was probably beautiful. The bone structure seemed good. She made no effort to move further away from me.
“How did you know me?”
She turned her head so that I could see the curve of her throat. “I know everyone else who is here. I didn’t recognize you. Macy’s talked about you. He brought you here to find the person who’s going to kill him.”
“Yes.”
She was silent for a moment. Then, “Do you have a cigarette, Pete?”
I went to my clothes and took a pack from the shirt, and matches. I returned to her, lit one, held it to her, seeing her features emerge in a scarlet glow. A fierce look narrowed her eyes as a hand hit the inside of my wrist hard, knuckles sharp against the tendons. The cigarette spun to the sand, glowed bravely for an instant, went out.
“You don’t need to look,” she said crossly.
I was surprised. She got to her feet stiffly. “I’ve seen it all before,” I told her.
She stood for a long time without paying any attention to me, not even looking in my direction. I had been right in my guess. She was beautiful. The skin of her face was smooth and unlined, lips full and shaped for hungry kisses. Then she stretched, rising to her toes, and relaxed. Her voice was calm again.
“Macy will tell you about me,” she said. “I’m supposed to be a little bit crazy.”
“Are you?”
She laughed girlishly. “I suppose so. I suppose I am. But I’m harmless. Macy must think I’m all right. He trusts me to take care of Aimee.”
“Aimee? Who’s that?”
“You’ll meet her in the morning. You’ll like her. She’s a lot like me. She has a wildness like me, tied down inside.” She turned toward the bay. “Right now I want to go swimming.”
“You ought to wear more clothes around here,” I advised.
She laughed again. “It doesn’t make any difference. Nobody will touch me. Macy wouldn’t let them. Besides, I told you I’m supposed to be a little bit crazy.”
She walked close to me, and I felt her fingers light against my shoulders. I had the scent of her and my heart beat too fast.
“I like you, Pete,” she whispered to me, and then she was gone, running through the sand to the water and diving in with a hushed splash.
I pulled on my pants and slipped into socks and shoes, walked leisurely back to the house with my shirt over my arm.
Chapter Six
On the terrace I looked down the drive. Through the trees I saw a thin border of light in one window of the small gabled gatehouse. The thought of sleep wasn’t right for me yet and the thought of Elaine was a gathering misery deep in my stomach, so I walked down the drive and knocked at the door.
“Who is it?” Rudy said. I told him. He came and opened the door timidly. He wore nothing but the old hat and a pair of underwear shorts pulled high over his sagging, stuck-out belly. In one hand he held an Italian automatic. His pinkish skin glistened wetly.
It was hot in the one-room house. The windows were open but Rudy had drawn the blinds. A slow-turning fan kept the air from becoming stifling. On a hot plate coffee bubbled in a glass percolator.
He offered me a chair and sat down in another, stuck the automatic into a shoulder holster hanging by the strap from the back of the chair.
“Where’s the other fellow?” I asked Rudy.
“Reavis? Up at the house. One of us always sleeps in the room next to Macy’s.”
“Feel any better?”
He shook his head. “I cleaned up. I won’t be able to move tomorrow.”
“Thought you’d be in bed by this time.”
He gave me a bleary look. “I don’t sleep much these days.”
“That gate outside doesn’t look very sturdy to me. Fence wire won’t hold back anybody who wants in bad enough.”
He chuckled and got to his feet. “Want to see something?” There was a small control panel with three knife switches beside the door. Rudy pried one up. He opened the door. Outside, tiny spurts of blue flame along the wires accompanied the crisp sounds of frying insects. Rudy shut the heavy door and locked it, turned off the electricity.
“Enough juice to kill a cow,” he said. “There’s a fence operating on another circuit slung halfway around this island.”
“Why no sleep, Rudy? You waiting for somebody to come along?” I was sorry for the cruelty in my voice.
“Get off it, will you?” he said. His tone was defeated. “You saw what happened tonight. I almost got it tonight. You would have got it right along with me if I hadn’t been able to drag that carbine from under the dash.” He took the percolator from the hot plate and poured coffee. He had to hold the cup close to his face to keep from spilling too much as he drank. As it was, some of the coffee trickled through the discolored hairs of his chest and stomach. He didn’t bother to wipe the drops away.
“You been around a long time, Rudy,” I told him. “You won’t be as easy to get to as the others were.”
He banged the cup against the table. “This guy,” he said, swallowing hard, “this guy — ” His eyes wandered helplessly as he tried to find the right words to tell me what he was feeling, what had been building inside him as he saw himself earmarked for a quick, bloody death. “I been around too long, Pete,” he said. “I’ve slowed down. I’ve known too many other guys, quicker and smarter than me, who couldn’t find any place to hide once the finger was on them. Oh, he’ll get me, all right. He’ll get me.” His fingers touched the butt of the automatic, lifted convulsively. “Unless you—”
“How many people in the house knew which road you’d take tonight?” I asked him.
His shoulders lifted. “It was no secret around here that I was going to Orange Bay.”
“Who’s living here besides Macy?” I thought of Diane, the girl I hadn’t been able to see quite well enough. “He got a woman around?”
“Macy? No. He don’t care nothin’ about women any more. Once in a while I guess he can use one. Like me. I got to rub up against one all night before I—”
“There’s a girl I met on the beach a few minutes ago. She was swimming.”
“Diane.”
“That’s her name.”
“She takes care of the kid. Aimee.”
“Who is this Aimee?”
Rudy scratched fingers through his hair. “Macy’s pet. A little nine-year-old girl. She’s Cuban, I think.”
“How’d he come by that?”
“You remember Chilly Rosales?”
“Yeah.”
“One of Chilly’s cousins was a Spanish Town whore. This Aimee was her kid. The whore’s husband may or may not have been her father. He wasn’t home much. One night when he was home he took a butcher knife and cut up the whore. Aimee was watching. Then he went after the kid and chased her down three flights of stairs. He got close enough once to take a swipe at her and opened one of her arms from the elbow down. So there they were, both of them bloody as Jesus and the girl screaming and running out into the street. A cop heard the screaming and shot the guy dead. Since the whore was his cousin, Chilly took care of the girl for a while, until he creamed himself and his Cadillac in an accident one night.”