“You didn’t give it to him?”
“Never even mentioned it to him.”
“Do you still have the tape?”
“I’m sure I do.”
“May I see it?”
“I’m not sure I know where it is.”
“Could you look for it?”
“I’d be happy to. But as I told you...”
“I know. An early dinner date.”
“Yes.”
“Mr. Diaz,” I said, rising and putting my empty glass down on the coffee table, “here’s what I think. I think you called Brett Toland the minute you spotted Lainie on that tape...
“No, I’m sorry, I didn’t.”
“I think you told him he had nothing to worry about anymore because...”
“He had nothing to worry about, anyway. The bear was ours. Lainie stole it.”
“How’d that happen to come to mind just now, Mr. Diaz?”
“What?”
“How’d you happen to make that connection?”
“Because the only thing Brett had to worry about was Lainie’s false claim.”
“So now he didn’t have to worry about that anymore, did he? Because you had a tape of Lainie Commins masturbating.”
“Please.”
“Well, isn’t that what she was doing, Mr. Diaz?”
“Well, sure, but...”
“What’s the matter? Does the word bother you?”
“No, but...”
“Does the act bother you?”
“No, but...”
“You’re the one who ordered that tape, you know?”
“I realize that. But what an adult does privately...”
“Ah.”
“...isn’t always a suitable matter for discussion.”
“Do you think Mr. and Mrs. America would buy a teddy bear from someone who’d masturbated in a porn flick?”
“I don’t know what Mr. and Mrs. America would buy.”
“Well, you design toys for Mr. and Mrs. America, don’t you?”
“I design toys for children.”
“The children of Mr. and Mrs. America.”
“I’m telling you I never once discussed this with Brett Toland.”
“Never told him you’d watched Lainie Commins masturbating on your birthday?”
“My birthday was a coincidence.”
“Never called and said, ‘Hey, Brett, guess what’?”
“Never.”
“Never gave him that tape.”
“Never.”
“Never told him he now had a bargaining tool...”
“Never! He didn’t need a bargaining tool. Lainie stole my design for that bear, the bear was ours!”
“What?”
“I said...”
“No, no, just a minute, Mr. Diaz. The last time we...”
“Look, this is ridiculous, Mr. Hope. Truly. I never gave that tape to Brett, I never discussed...”
“Forget the tape! The last time we spoke, you told me Lainie delivered working drawings of the bear...”
“No, you must have misunder—”
“I didn’t misunderstand you, and I didn’t misunderstand Brett, and I didn’t misunderstand Etta, either. All of you said the idea for the bear was Brett’s and that he’d assigned its design to Lainie while she was still working for Toyland. Isn’t that what all of you said? You were there at the meeting, Mr. Diaz, isn’t that what you told me? You were there when Brett gave Lainie his brilliant idea and asked her to design the cross-eyed bear and its corrective eyeglasses. You were there, Mr. Diaz. You told me you were there!”
“Yes, I was.”
“Okay. And you also told me she delivered working drawings of the bear by the end of last September...”
“That’s where you’ve got it wrong.”
“Oh? What have I got wrong?”
“I told you I saw some drawings...”
“Yes?”
“...but I didn’t know if they were Lainie’s.”
“Then whose drawings...?”
“Sketches, actually.”
“Sketches?”
“Yes. Of a bear with glasses.”
“Well, who did you think made these drawings, these sketches, whatever the hell they were?”
“I thought maybe Brett did.”
“I see, you thought maybe Brett did. So the bear was Brett’s idea, and these sketches you saw were maybe Brett’s, so Lainie’s out of the picture altogether, right? She never did design the bear while she was working for Toyland, is that what you’re saying now?”
“I’m saying...”
“No, no, Mr. Diaz, you’re saying now what you didn’t say earlier. You told me you saw working drawings before you...”
“I told you I didn’t know if they were working drawings.”
“Then what the hell were they?”
“Sketches.”
“When did you see working drawings?”
“I told you I didn’t remember when I saw working drawings.”
“Okay, Mr. Diaz, flat out. A few minutes ago you said Lainie stole your design for that bear.” I looked him dead in the eye.”What design?”
“I said she stole our bear. The bear she designed for Toyland.”
“No, that’s not what you said.”
“Are you telling me what I said?”
“Yes.”
“You’re wrong. Mr. Hope, I have a date at the Plum Garden at six-thirty. It will take me half an hour to get there, and it’s now five to six. If you’ll excuse me...”
“Sure,” I said, and gingerly picked up the photograph and dropped it into my briefcase.
Dr. Abner Gaines was sitting on a high stool drawn up to a counter upon which were microscopes, test tubes, pipettes, Bunsen burners and a dozen other scientific measuring tools and instruments I could not have named if you pulled me apart on a rack or burned me at the stake. As sole proprietor and principal analyst at Forensics Plus, the private lab with which I had worked on several other cases, Ab was a scientist with exacting standards and meticulous work habits, a faultless professionalism belied by his uncombed hair, his nicotine-stained fingers, his rumpled trousers and unshined shoes, and an allegedly white lab smock stained with the residue of God knew how many previous tests here at this very same counter.
He was expecting me, and so he greeted me with his customary gruffness and the impatient air of a very busy professor who had very little time to spend with inquisitive students. Actually, he was a very busy professor at the University of South Florida.
I tented a handkerchief over my hand, and showed him the black-and-white glossy of the dancing fingers on the white silken crotch of the Victorian-ringed lady on the Idle Hands cassette box. I showed him the actual black vinyl cassette box, with the original color photograph on its front cover, and then I opened the case to reveal the cassette within.
“There should be one set of fingerprints on the photograph,” I told him. “I’m looking for a match with anything on the cassette or its case.”
“When?” Ab asked me.
“Yesterday,” I said.
“Tomorrow,” he said.
I went back to the boat again that night.
The yellow CRIME SCENE tapes were down, there was nothing to prevent me from going up the gangway and onto the boat itself, but I simply stood there on the dock, looking at her. If I’d ever known the lines that follow “I must down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,” I’ve forgotten them since the coma. I’ve forgotten a lot of things since the coma. I was dressed in the colors of the night. Black denims and black loafers and a black T-shirt and a black windbreaker. A mild breeze blew in off the water, riffling my hair. Sniffing the salt air that spanked in off the Gulf, I think I realized something of what John Masefield must have felt when he wrote his poem. Toy Boat’s outline was sharp against a moonlit, midnight sky. A man had been killed aboard this boat. And my client had been with him on the night he’d died.