Condominium (40 page)

“I found a pretty good place,” she said. “It’s called Insta-Print. They can reduce the charts to eight and a half by eleven, no problem. And they can do the binding too. They showed me samples. Any hang-ups about color?”

“Whatever you choose is fine.”

“Do you want to sign every copy?”

“I think it would be best to do it that way.”

“Lee thinks so too. Well, if I can get it to Insta-Print before noon Friday, tomorrow, they’ll have it all ready by next Tuesday afternoon. That’s the …”

“Thirteenth.”

“And then we can drop it on the world, Sam.”

“Just like dropping a piece of lint into a snowbank. Terrific impact.”

She had the old hat off. She spun it around her finger and frowned at the marine horizon. She has such a look of lovely vitality in that bright shade, he thought. That strong throat, the good shoulders, the limber tan of midriff, the way that dark blond hair springs from the scalp like fine gold wire.

“They won’t listen?”

“Barbara, let’s say one person listens—aside from you and your husband and Gus—and that person gets out of Golden Sands in time, when a storm is coming, and gets to safe ground,
only
because Gus got nervous and got Mr. Messenger to finance a study, and Mr. Messenger decided to let the residents know.”

“You mean is that enough return on the investment? Come on! You’re getting into kid games. If I push this button I get ten thousand dollars and ten thousand Bulgarians die. Do I push it or not? Okay, a life is valuable. Saving a life is a useful thing to do. But dropping lint into the snow doesn’t turn me on very much.”

“You want a world view, historical perspective and so on?”

“Try me.”

“Suppose a hurricane does exactly what I say it can and probably will do. It is still a ripple. A little readjustment of the surface of the earth. Okay? Now try to comprehend what a major adjustment might be. Go to north Florida or to Louisiana, and dig a hole
four miles straight down. Four miles! And at the bottom of the hole you might find hydrocarbons, and they would be the result of life forms of the past: forests, animals, marine creatures. Okay? Now try to comprehend the forces involved, the fantastic upheavals plus the length of time involved to put living things
four miles
below what we recognize at this moment as the surface of the earth.”

Her gray eyes were wide and she wore a dazed expression. “Good heavens, Sam!” she said faintly.

“Drive down a dirt road squashing frogs, and it is a hell of a serious matter for the frogs. But if they wrote up a report and circulated it, saying that this was a dirt road and cars used it, and regardless of how delicious the mud puddles, they better hop the hell off it, how many would leave?”

She laughed. “You are some variety of strange, sir.”

“And you are some variation of lovely.”

Her face went blank. “No,” she said. She stood up and put the hat on and slung the bag over her shoulder.

He stood up and moved in front of her when she tried to turn away from him. He did not touch her. He said, “You said that the last time. No. Like that. One word. I take one hell of a lot of pleasure in your company. I think you like being with me. I like to watch you laugh. I like looking at you. I go past a certain line one tenth of an inch, and that’s what I get. No. Can you embellish that refusal just a little bit?”

She stepped around him and started back. He caught up and walked in stride with her.

“Embellish?” she said. She glanced at him with a brief smile. “My surface has been readjusted, Sam. If you dug down through my crust and went down four miles, you would find no evidence of any past life forms at all. I am a dead lady, floating in space.
What there is left of me, Lee rescued. So what there is of me, he owns.”

“I don’t want to dispute the ownership.”

“So keep it impersonal.”

“Even though we are both aware that it
is
personal, Barbara?”

“Oh? Are we?”

“Come
on!
Why are you so defensive?”

She touched his arm so that he turned and faced her as she stopped, looking up at him from under the ragged hat. Her eyes were narrow, the pupils small with the brightness of the beach. “No games,” she said. “Believe me, no games. I took a little bit more than I could endure, and that was some time ago. It broke me, Sam. I am placing no more bets on the table. I won’t talk about it, and I won’t explain anything. Think what you like. Imagine what you please. I couldn’t give less of a damn, really. What’s left of me is totally
totally
committed to the old man who saved me.”

“But I told you I don’t want to—”

“But I might want to, if I could afford to let go. And I could go crazy too, like I was before. I’ll call you when the reports are ready for signature.”

She set off at a fast pace. He started to follow her and then slowed down. He strolled along, following her footsteps in the damp sand. She had a high arch, a long slender foot. The tide was moving in again. When he came to the place where her footsteps had been washed away, he looked up and discovered he was almost opposite the Islander.

On Thursday, August eighth, at noon, the tropical disturbance appeared on the satellite photographs as a poorly organized cloud mass with narrow bands of high cirrus clouds radiating toward the
west and north. The center of the main cloud body was roughly positioned at 7 degrees north, 25 degrees west. The motor vessel
Mabel Warwick
, Captain R. F. Jackson commanding, en route from Porto Salazar, Angola, to Hartlepool, sent in a radio report of heavy rains and some sharp and significant variations in barometric pressures. These were confirmed later in the day by reports from the steamship
Esso Ulidia
, Captain K. Mackenzie commanding, en route from Ra’s Tannurah to Milford Haven, and the steamship
Botany Bay
, Captain R. A. Wilson commanding, en route Fremantle to Genoa.

At Miami a composite chart was prepared showing the position, track and speed of the vessels involved, along with the pressure readings and wind directions transmitted. From this they were able to say with reasonable certainty that the disturbance was proceeding almost due west at about ten miles per hour, and conditions seemed ideal for intensification from disturbance to tropical storm. Meanwhile, though within range of satellite cameras, it was beyond the reasonable limits of the search planes, those WD-3D Orion aircraft with their tons of electronic hardware aboard.

At six o’clock they received another good picture of it. The overall shape was more circular. It was at 7 degrees north, 27 west. Speed and direction confirmed. Intensification expected. Feeder bands extended out from the storm in long squall lines.

The Bermuda high was positioned well south, which lessened the chance of the storm’s curving northward in the Atlantic, if it became a mature hurricane. The Bermuda high would interpose, and it would probably move toward the Caribbean.

If the storm matured it would become that most dreaded of all hurricanes, one of the great Cape Verde hurricanes of August.

WHEN LYNN SIMMINS
, the Colonel’s daughter, answered the door at Apartment 1-G on Friday morning she was surprised to see Julian Higbee standing there.

“Well! We’d given up on you, Julian. Especially since you have reverted to your old self around here.”

“Do you want me to look at the problem or don’t you?”

“At least your manners are as bad as they used to be,” she said. “Come on in.” She led the way, suddenly all too conscious of how brief and tight her old maroon leotard was, and how damp she was from the exertion of the strenuous part of her yoga routine.

She led him to the bathroom and stood aside. Julian took two steps into the bathroom and saw it and stopped, in awe. The crack extended the length of the tub, angled up the wall and disappeared into a ceiling corner. At its widest point, along the tub, it was almost a full inch wide.

“
That
is some kind of
crack
!” he said.

“The colonel has often made mention of it.”

He looked at her. “You tell your father he shouldn’t expect to get anywhere yelling at me.” He took a pencil flashlight out of his pocket and leaned over the tub and looked into the crack. It got narrower as it deepened.

“I guess something shifted.”

“The colonel seems to think your crummy building is collapsing.”

“My building? Anyway, what should be done, this here tile row can come off and a good tile man can run a couple of new rows and cover this up. The other part can be filled and sanded down and repainted.”

“When can you get to it?”

“Me? I don’t do that kind of work. Your father has to go get somebody to do it. And they make a contract and somebody fixes it and he pays them.”

“You’re kidding!”

“I’m not kidding. He’s been here over a year, right? He and Mrs. Simmins moved in in July last year. There’s a year on structure. The year was up last month.”

“He’ll be absolutely livid.”

“That man is always livid. He’s always bitching about something or other. Tell him and duck.”

She smiled. “The colonel has a short fuse.”

“The apartments on this floor are kind of small for three people.”

“We manage. They didn’t plan on my living here, exactly.”

“You going to keep on living here?”

“What business is it of yours?”

“Well, hell, call it a friendly interest, that’s all. I mean the building is full of old folks except for some of the renters. You’re close
to the same age as me and Lorrie. Playing tennis and swimming and all … it’s nice to have you around.”

She suddenly understood. As a physical type he did not appeal to her. And she did not care for his greasy, insinuating smile.

“So you saw them take off, Julian?”

“Huh? Who? What do you mean?”

“The colonel and his lady, with overnight luggage. You had no intention of ever coming up here to look at a crack in the bathroom wall because you had no intention of ever doing anything about it anyway.”

“I was just—”

“You were just wondering if I was good for a quick jump. You’ve been looking at it long enough and hard enough. I’m climbing out of the pool and there you are, goggling and panting. Jesus, Higbee! I finish a long rally and go back to serve and there you are. Now you’re trying to stare holes through my leotard. When you get this hard up, why don’t you go jack off?”

He balled a big fist and moved closer. “You bitch!”

She realized coldly, without terror, that it would be in character for him to pop her on the side of the jaw, knock her semiconscious, tumble her onto the bed in the nearby bedroom and shuck her out of her single garment. She could see by his expression, by the way he swallowed and licked his lips and slowly shifted his weight, that he was capable of it, and was thinking about it, and soon would be beyond control.

There was always the woman’s weapon, too seldom used. Time now to use it. She feinted right, then ducked and streaked left, under his big arm, as he reached for her. She went at top speed down the short hallway and into the living room, hearing him pounding along behind her. She snatched the apartment door open and let out the first of her deafening, throat-ripping, ear-shattering
screams. She ran out into the heat of the open walkway over the parking area and screamed again. She turned with her back against the concrete railing and screamed for the third time. “No!” he was yelling. “No! Don’t! Please!”

She filled her lungs and smiled at him and let out the best one of all, a scream to stop birds in flight, shatter wineglasses, startle cars into the ditch. The spry gray Greggs, Francine and Rolph, came darting out of 1-A at the far end of the building and came trotting toward the terrible sound. Mrs. Boford Taller popped out of the next-door apartment, swollen with indignation and disapproval.

Gus Garver came out of 1-C and edged past Mrs. Taller. Julian was in stasis, his big hands yearning to grab Lynn Simmins by the pretty throat, and his legs itching to run away from that dreadful sound she was making.

Gus sighed and kicked Julian in the side of the knee. Julian gave a great start and went toward the stairs, in a hobbling run.

“You okay?” he said.

She was annoyed to find out she had damaged her throat. Her speaking voice was very husky. “Never laid a glove on me, Gus.”

“Watch out for that one.”

“I don’t think he’ll be back. Anyway, don’t worry about me. I haven’t been exactly underexposed to freaks.”

“Then you should have known enough to keep running.”

“I should have. Right. And thanks.”

“You going to prefer charges?”

“I don’t want to upset my folks. I’ve upset them enough the last few years.”

“Your decision,” Gus said, and went back home.

Lynn went back in and locked the door. In a few minutes the phone rang. “Lorrie Higbee speaking, Miss Simmins. Julian says that you misunderstood what he was trying to do.”

“Possibly.”

“He said he was trying to be pleasant and you took it the wrong way.”

“Well, Mrs. Higbee, we had a difference of opinion. He wanted to screw me and I didn’t want him to. So he thought he’d take his shot anyway. He grabbed and missed and I ran and screamed.”

“Oh.”

“Sorry. I plan to forget the whole thing.”

“I’m … glad you told me.”

“It isn’t any of my business. I know that. I don’t want to offend you, Lorrie, but if he was my husband, I’d make him go get help somehow. He’s got a bad problem.”

“I … I know.”

“Hey, I didn’t mean to make you cry.”

“It’s okay,” she said, and hung up.

Lynn took the damp leotard off and took a quick shower and put on a robe. As she rinsed out the leotard she kept remembering the shocked horror on Julian’s face as he tried to get her to stop screaming. He could not think of anything except how to turn off that horrible noise. If you are going to scream, girl, stay out of reach while you do so.

After she hung up the leotard and had stretched out on her bed, she giggled from time to time as she thought of Julian’s terror. In a little while she was surprised to discover that the muffled snickering had turned into sobs of about the same intensity. Sobbing made her remember that sad funny little old man who had thrown the tennis ball way over her head out of reach and then had started crying when she had been cross with him. Barker? His wife was sick.