They looked at each other silently. Irma opened the St. Petersburg directory to the yellow pages. After a moment she said, "Here's an Aldridge and Lafler Realtors."
"Call them."
She punched the number. A woman's voice said, "Aldridge and Lafler, serving the Suncoast, may I help you?"
"I'd like to speak to Russ Lafler, please."
"I'm sorry, he's out of town till the twenty-first."
Gene nodded; she said, "Thank you," and turned off the phone.
For a moment no one spoke; then Pongo asked, "You think this is some kind of scam?"
Gene spread his big hands on the table. Margaret, watching him, thought she had never seen him look like this before. He said slowly, "It might be. Or maybe that really is McIver. But I don't think so. I think it's a man who tried to kill me in nineteen sixty-five. It's been twenty years; he's an old man now. I thought I was all through with him. Irma, call information in Amherst, Massachusetts, and get a number for Thomas or Tom Cooley. What time is it there?"
"Same as here -- we're in the same zone." She made the call, wrote a number on her pad, and looked questioningly at Gene.
"Dial it."
They heard the buzz of the ringing signal. Then a woman's voice: "Hello?"
"Mr. Cooley, please," said Gene.
"He ain't here."
"Can you tell me where to reach him?"
"He went to New York Sunday. I told him, but would he listen to me? No. Why would he listen to me, I'm just his damn housekeeper. You call back next week." The telephone clicked and buzzed.
"What are you going to do?" Irma asked.
"I'm going over there."
"That's dumb. Let me call the police."
"And tell them what? He hasn't committed any crime that I can prove. He's an old man -- they'd laugh at me. If they question him and let him go, what will he do next?"
"I'm going with you," said Pongo. "I'll bring the Monster around -- give me a couple of minutes."
Pongo backed the motor home out of the garage, drove it around to the cottage, and got his gun. He tucked the gun under his waistband, put on a Madras jacket to cover it, and a hat to go with the jacket.
Gene was waiting outside the kitchen door. "All dressed up?" he said as he got in.
"Sure. Social occasion."
Gene was silent and glum on the way over to Tampa. It was a fine winter afternoon, cool and clear. Pongo pulled into the motel parking lot; there were only a few cars there. The motel was two stories tall, with stairs and balconies all around. They walked in; the lobby seemed empty. "I'll ask at the desk," Pongo said. The desk clerk, a slender young man, was looking at them with round eyes.
"Wait a minute," said Gene. He nodded. "Over there."
At the far end of the lobby, partly concealed by a planter, there was a pair of green upholstered chairs. In one of the chairs an old man was sitting quietly, looking at nothing.
"Is that him?" Pongo asked in an undertone.
"I don't know."
The old man looked up as they approached. His bald head shone; what hair he had left was wispy and white, as fine as milkweed floss. His skin was baby pink, with an underlying waxy pallor. He watched them without expression through his rimless spectacles.
"Are you Mr. McIver?"
"That's right." The old man put out a flaccid hand. "'Scuse me if I don't get up; I've got some trouble with my legs."
"This is Bill Richards, Mr. McIver." Gene sat down facing the old man, and Pongo pulled over another chair.
"Glad to know you," said McIver in his piping voice. "Now, Gene, I s'pose you know that whatever I tell you is between us. Your folks are dead and gone, nothing we can do about that. But it just kind of nagged at me, you know -- " He was craning his neck and blinking as he looked up at Gene. "My gosh, they told me you was big, but I didn't have any idea. How tall are you, anyway?"
"I'm a little over eight and a half feet, Mr. McIver. Now about this information you say you have -- "
The old man sighed and groped for something in the pocket of his jacket. The jacket was too big for him, and so was his shirt collar. There was something wrong with his hands: they were limp and hung unnaturally from his wrists. "Back in 'fifty-six," he said, "I was visiting your folks in Chehalis." He seemed to be struggling to grasp something in his pocket; at last he brought it out, holding it awkwardly between thumb and two fingers. It was a pack of cigarettes. "Smoke?" he said, holding it out.
"No, thanks," said Gene, and Pongo shook his head.
The old man fumbled a cigarette out of the pack and put it in his mouth. "I was staying with them when it happened," he said. "This isn't easy to talk about, Gene, but you know the house burned down and they was both killed in the fire."
"Yes."
The old man reached into his other pocket and brought out a heavy chrome lighter. When he tried to press the lever down, his fingers slipped; they seemed to have no more strength than a baby's. "Would you mind?" he said, holding it out. "Tell you the truth, it isn't just my legs -- it's my hands, too."
Gene lit the lighter and offered it. The old man leaned forward, but did not touch his cigarette to the flame. "Now, Mr. Anderson," he said, "keep your thumb on that thing if you want to stay alive." His voice had changed; it was a little deeper and firmer. "If you take your thumb off," he said, "there's a plastic bomb under your chair that'll blow sky high. And if you try to get up, that'!l make it blow too."
Pongo reached under his jacket, put his hand on the gun.
"Don't do that, Pongo," said Gene without looking around. He bent forward and blew out the lighter flame; his thumb was steady on the mechanism. "You're Tom Cooley," he said.
The old man blinked, then chuckled a little. "Didn't think you'd recognize me."
"I didn't. It's been thirty years -- you must be close to seventy, and you're ill. What's the matter with you?"
"Not a damn thing that concerns you," said the old man, coloring a little. "Well, I guess it does, though, because if it hadn't of been for you, my boy Paul and my cousin Jerry would be alive, and my wife too, probably. You killed them, all three."
"If there's a bomb under my chair, and if it blows up, it'll kill you too," said Gene.
"It's what they call a shaped charge. It'll blow straight up, right through your ass, Mr. Anderson. Probably cut off your legs and leave 'em flopping on the floor, while the rest of you goes splat on the ceiling. Yes sir, just a big red smear on the ceiling." He took the unlit cigarette out of his mouth and dropped it.
"Did you kill my parents?"
The old man snorted. "Hell, no. I wasn't even there. That was just a story, but it got you here, didn't it?"
"What do you want?"
The old man smiled, with a gleam of false teeth. "Just want to watch you hanging from the ceiling, and your legs flopping on the floor."
Pongo moved slightly; the old man turned to look at him. "That bomb is armed now," he said. "Touch it or try to move it, and that'll set it off too."
Gene closed his eyes. One hand held the lighter steady; the other dropped between his knees, near the skirt of the chair. "Careful!" the old man said sharply.
After a moment Gene withdrew his hand; his eyes opened. "I want you to know," he said, "that Paul's death was an accident. About your cousin, I don't know what happened. I think he shot me."
"Well, you sure as hell shot him," said the old man. A curious look of anxiety came into his eyes.
"No," said Gene. He set the lighter down on the arm of his chair. The old man's eyes bulged in horror, and his body jerked once.
Gene was bending forward, groping with one hand under the chair. After a moment he brought out a cylindrical object about the size of a Frisbee. He held it up solemnly, then opened his hands: the thing was gone.
"God almighty!" said the old man. His body was trembling all over. "How did you -- Where -- ?"