“That's right.”
“From where?”
“Right here.”
“With the binoculars?”
“Yeah.”
She giggled. “I didn't know I was going to have an audience. Why didn't you tell me you'd watch it?”
“I didn't want to cramp your style,” he said.
“Nonsense. I always play better with an audience. You know that, darling.” she reached out and touched him.
“Anyway,” he said, leaning to her and kissing her lips, “you were quite fine. You even scared me.”
“I scared her witless.”
For a few moments, then, they were silent, letting the cool breeze wash over them, enjoying the soft grass on which they lay.
“Light me a cigarette?” she asked.
He rolled onto his back, extracted a pack from his shirt pocket, lit one for her, passed it over.
When she'd taken a few drags, she said, “I still don't feel a hundred percent right about this.”
He snorted derisively and lighted a cigarette for himself, puffed out a long stream of white smoke. “With what we stand to make from this little charade, you don't have to feel a hundred percent right about it, love. You don't even have to feel a full ten percent right about it, as far as that goes. All that lovely cash money will do a lot to soothe the conscience.”
“Maybe,” she said.
“I know it will.”
“But, basically, she's such a sweet girl,” the blonde said. “And she's had it pretty rough to date, what with her sister and her parents dying—”
“For God's sake, enough!” he bellowed, flicking his cigarette over the edge of the cliff and rolling onto his side to face her and be closer to her. He was the strength that kept them going, he knew, and he had to raise her spirits now. “You can't afford to be empathetic, Penny.”
“I know.”
“It'll get us nowhere.”
She nodded.
“We've had a good stroke of luck, to fall into this deal, and we've got to be ruthless about exploiting it.”
She smiled. “I'll stay up tonight and practice being ruthless before my mirror.”
He hugged her and said, “That's more like it.”
“I just hope it doesn't have to go on much longer,” Penny said. “It's fraying my nerves.”
He said, “Just remember what it was like when you hadn't any money, when you had to — take to the streets. And remember how bad it's been for us to get going, to get any roles worth dirt. What we make here will give us a chance to set up our own productions and to hell with all the casting directors we've had to bow to.”
“I guess I can hold up,” she said, finishing her cigarette.
He said, “Besides, it won't be more than a day or two now. Gwyn's ready to go over the edge. Maybe tonight. Maybe tomorrow. But soon.”
BOOK THREE
THIRTEEN
Louis Plunkett, the county sheriff, was a huge man, three inches past six feet tall, weighing two hundred twenty-five pounds, all of it muscle; his friends called him “Tiny.” An ex-marine in his mid-thirties, he kept himself in tip-top shape and was more than just a little bit impressive. When he served a summons or a warrant or made an arrest, he was seldom resisted by those to whom he was bringing the force of modern law; and those who were foolish enough to argue with him and make his duty a difficult one, always wished, later, that they had been less caustic and less belligerent.
Yet, despite his size, Louis Plunkett's face gave evidence of a gentle soul lying close beneath all that hard-packed muscle. His hair had receded back from his forehead, giving him a high-domed, extremely vulnerable look that accentuated his soft, brown eyes that were far too large for his face. His nose was small, almost pug, his mouth not hard but soft and sensitive. His face was splashed with freckles, giving him the look of a young farmboy; indeed, almost all that he required to complete that image was a pair of bib overalls and a length of dry straw dangling from the corner of his mouth.
To a stranger, he might look too big, too clumsy, and somewhat unsophisticated. If the stranger with such an opinion of Plunkett were a law violator and acted on that judgment, he would be sorry indeed, for Plunkett was exceptionally intelligent, in his own way.
Louis Plunkett's personality was as at odds with itself as was his formidable appearance, containing opposites that somehow worked in perfect harmony: inside, as well as out, he was half man and half boy, half the weary cynic and half the gay innocent, the pessimist and the optimist rolled into one, choosing to love but often hating as well. He did not like to see violence, and he went out of his way to avoid causing it. He disliked having to use his fists on a man — or his gun — and he preferred even to avoid verbal force when persuading a lawbreaker to see the light. He always tried to reason with an opponent or a potential opponent, using his deep calm voice as a tool to settle other people's bubbling anger. Yet, when the occasion demanded, he could easily hold his own in any fight, against anyone, even against two or three adversaries — as he had proven twice during his career as a law enforcement officer. He held back none of his great strength when he had to fight, and he was brutal to the end of it — after which he had to take a couple of Alka-seltzer tablets in order to settle his stomach, which had been turned by the sight of blood.
Plunkett was also scrupulously honest and fair-minded. Yet he knew that a man in his position had to provide special favors to certain influential citizens — or find himself out on his ear come election time. He did not have to permit the wealthy and the well-known to break the law, though he did have to let them stretch it a bit, now and then. And, on occasion, he was expected to assist them in a matter he would have preferred to be left out of.
It was just such a matter that had brought him to the manor house at William Barnaby's request, the morning after Gwyn's near-breakdown on the beach. He arrived in the county sheriff's car, with the gleaming gold-colored shield on the door, exactly at 8:00, prompt as always. Five minutes later, he had been ushered into William Barnaby's study and seated in the visitors' easy chair.
“How are you this morning, Sheriff?” Barnaby asked.
Casual friends of Louis Plunkett's called him Lou, while close friends called him Tiny. William Barnaby, however, to both their satisfaction, merely called him Sheriff.
“I'm fine,” Plunkett said, his voice soft and without edge.
“You've had breakfast, I trust?”
“Yes, sir.”
“I could have Grace whip up a batch of hotcakes or something,” Barnaby told him.
Plunkett sensed that the invitation was not genuine, only what the other man thought was expected of him. But he had eaten, so the answer was easy to make. “Really, sir, I've been well fed by the wife.”
Barnaby sighed, almost as if he were relieved the formalities were over with, and he handed the sheriff a set of papers which was the only thing on the top of his desk.
The big man looked through them, nodded.
“Do you foresee any trouble?” he asked.
“When I post them?” the sheriff asked.
“Yes.”
“Not then,” Plunkett said.
“But later?”
“Yes, there'll be trouble later.”
“I'll expect your support.”
Plunkett frowned at the papers in his large hands, and he said, “I had heard you were trying to buy the Niche, but I didn't know that the deal had already gone through.”
“Just yesterday,” Barnaby said. “You've seen the deed transfer; it's all perfectly up-and-up.”
Plunkett considered this for a moment and said, “According to law, don't tenants have as much as thirty days to vacate the premises when a new landlord takes over and wants them out?”