Dead on the Island (12 page)

"No," she said. "Times were better then. And
they were even better before that. When my family came here,
Galveston was the largest city in Texas, the most civilized. The
first electric lights in the state? The first telephones? We had
them here. Why, Houston was nothing more than a mudhole--not that
it's improved much. But time has passed the Island by. And people
like me, people who can remember the old days, we hide in our
houses so that we won't have to go outside and see what the Island
has become." She paused and drained her wine glass.

"But the preservation that's begun--"

"Most of it by people who weren't even BOI,"
she said. "Or who at least have not lived here for quite some time,
who made their money elsewhere."

She extended her glass. I refilled it. "But
Dino?" I said.

"Dino is like me, in a way, I think. He
knows better than anyone how much his uncles meant to this town,
how much money they brought in with their women and their
nightclubs and their casinos. For him, those are the Island's glory
days; just as for me those days are farther in the past. He can no
more bring them back than I can, and he is just as afraid to try.
How can anyone live up to a legend? He would only doom himself to
fail. And so he lives his life in his house, as I do."

"He wasn't always like that," I said.

"No," she said. "Once he was young."

"He still is," I said, thinking of
myself.

"In a way, perhaps. Much younger than I, at
any rate. And both of you may live to see the return of some of
this place's former glory. I'm afraid that I never shall, however.
But never mind. You were asking for other information, and I've
rambled on like the old woman I am. Where were we?"

I wasn't sure that she had been rambling at
all. In fact, I was almost certain that she believed that in some
way her words were a pertinent part of our discussion. And maybe
they were.

"We were talking about a girl named Sharon
Matthews," I said. "And about why Dino is so worried about
her."

"Yes, of course. How could I forget? Well. I
suppose you know that an old woman like me, who lives alone and
keeps to herself, does have some visitors who might tell her a
thing or two."

She smiled. She knew that I was counting on
her hunger for gossip. Let the town decay as fast as it might, she
would try to learn every detail of its decadence.

I smiled too. "Yes," I said. "I know."

"Of course. Now think about it. How old is
this girl?"

I told her again.

"Which means that she was born when? In
relation to Dino's career?"

"Just about the time he graduated from
college. But--" Then I saw where she was going. I set my still
nearly full wine glass down on the tray. I was afraid my hand would
shake and spill some of the wine. "It's not possible," I said.

"Of course it is. Anything's possible."

"But Evelyn Matthews told me she was on the
circuit when she got pregnant." Something else came to me then. I
was getting soft in the head. "But that's not what Dino said. He
said she'd stayed here on the Island after the houses closed down.
Damn. They didn't even have their stories straight."

"I don't know for sure," Sally said. "It was
only a vague rumor, at best, even when it was fresh. I haven't
heard a word about it in years and years."

"So you
can
keep a secret."

"That's why so many people like to talk to
me," she said, and smiled.

When I stepped back out into the twentieth
century, the day had turned dark and sour. Heavy, dark clouds had
pushed in from somewhere, and a thin, drizzly rain was falling.

I had to talk to Dino, which meant that I
wouldn't be calling Vicky Bryan. I also wouldn't be talking to my
other source, who wouldn't be out in this kind of weather. That
part was all right, but I really wanted to talk to Vicky, and not
necessarily about the case. Maybe tomorrow.

I wasn't angry with Dino, not exactly. I've
been lied to enough times in the past to more or less expect it. It
always complicates things, though. It alters the feeling about the
case, and it opens up new directions when things should be settling
into an understandable pattern. The truth is always easier, if not
more agreeable.

Ray met me at the door. "He's been trying to
call you."

"Yeah. Well, I have a few things to say to
him, too." I walked into the living room, hardly limping at all. I
would never let Dino see me using the cane.

The video equipment was silent, perhaps
because there was another person with Dino in the room. Evelyn
Matthews. I was a little surprised to see her, and the surprise
must have showed on my face.

"I gotta tell you a couple of things," Dino
said. "You better sit down."

"I think I know what you want to say," I
told him. "Why didn't you tell me sooner?"

I looked at Evelyn, who was smoking, sitting
near the coffee table so that she could tap her ashes into a cheap
metal ashtray that Ray must have rounded up from somewhere.

Dino watched me watching Evelyn. "So you
know. I should've known you'd find out. I knew you were good when I
hired you."

I sat down. "You should have told me."

"I know," he said. "I was dumb. I just
thought you didn't need to know."

"That's why there was all the urgency," I
said. "I knew you weren't the most humanitarian guy on the
Island."

"It's more urgent now than it was then," he
said.

"Why?"

"You tell him," Dino said.

Evelyn stubbed out her cigarette. "At first
we thought it was just one of those things that Sharon left because
of what she found out about me. But it wasn't that. If it were,
Sharon would have gotten in touch by now. She hasn't. Someone else
has."

Damn
, I thought.

"Let me tell it," Dino said. "There was a
phone call today. Came here, to the house--"

"Wait a minute," I said. "We're going to
have to begin at the beginning. Sharon's your daughter, right?"

"That's right," Dino said. "I--"

"And how many people know that?" I said.

Evelyn lit another cigarette. She was right.
She did smoke too much. "Hardly anyone," she said, exhaling a cloud
of smoke.

"How did you find out, anyway?" Dino
said.

"Never mind that. Obviously it's not a
complete secret. There was talk at one time, at least, according to
my source. How much contact have you had with Evelyn and Sharon
over the years?"

"None," Dino said. "Well, hardly any. It
wasn't like Evelyn and I were in love or something."

"So where did Sharon come from?"

"Evelyn and I ran into each other one
evening after I got out of college. I was remembering the old days.
You know. Evelyn wasn't in the game anymore, but we'd both had a
couple of drinks--"

"--and that's all there was to that," Evelyn
said. "I got careless, but I've never regretted it. And I've never
accepted a penny from Dino. Not a penny." She jabbed the air with
her cigarette to emphasize her point.

"Evelyn's never even been to this house
before," Dino said. "I called her now and then, and I kept up with
the kid. But that's all. And now someone wants me to pay for it.
Goddamn it, how did anyone find out?"

"This is a small island, and a small town,"
I said. "People talk. I imagine you were a hot topic, nineteen or
twenty years ago when you came back here. Anyway, it doesn't
matter. The question is, does the girl mean anything to you? Would
you pay to get her back?"

Dino didn't look at Evelyn. "Of course I'd
pay. I've got money."

"That's why someone called you, then. They
wait a few days to get you on edge, and then they call. What was
the message?"

"Ray!" Dino said.

Ray appeared from some other room.

"You answered the phone," Dino said. "Tell
him."

"Whoever it was wouldn't talk to me," Ray
said. "It was a funny, deep voice, like someone was trying to
disguise the way he talked. He said 'Let me talk to Dino.' I said,
'Who is this?' The guy said, 'Let me talk to Dino, or you'll both
be sorry.' So I let him."

Dino took over. "He told me that he had a
girl named Sharon Matthews. That nothing had happened to her yet,
but that something would if I wasn't real careful. He said that if
I called the cops, he'd kill her. Then he said he'd call
again."

The warning had not been necessary. Coming
from the background he had, Dino would never call the cops. But I
felt I had to try to persuade him.

"You know that the police, especially the
FBI, are equipped for dealing with this kind of thing. You know
they can handle it without creating any publicity. I think you
ought to consider calling them."

Dino just looked at me.

"I've never worked on a kidnapping before,"
I said. "I could make some wrong moves. I could get her hurt."

"You don't have to worry about any wrong
moves," Dino said. "I'm going to pay the money. They don't want you
in it, either."

I felt a definite twinge in my knee. "They
mentioned me?"

"They said something about keeping the
snooper out of it, too." Dino was apologetic. "I won't ask you for
any of the advance money back."

"Look, Dino, can't you see what's going on
here? I think--"

"I'm sorry about this, Tru," he said. "But
this is the way it's gotta be. I know I've been a pretty lousy guy,
especially about Sharon, but I can't take a chance on killing her.
I got to do what they say." Dino looked at Evelyn. "We've talked it
over, and we think it's the best way."

Evelyn nodded her agreement.

I was frustrated, but I could see they'd
made up their minds. I tried once more anyway. "Dino, there's more
going on here than you think. There's been a murder, and it's tied
in some way. You've got to let me do something."

"Just a second ago you said you never worked
on a kidnapping. Now you're an expert? Thanks, Tru, but no thanks.
I'll do this their way. It's the way it's got to be."

I stood up. "OK, if that's what you want to
do. I hope it all works out." I started out of the room.

"You're limping," Dino said. "The knee all
right?"

"Sure," I said. "It's just the rain. Change
in the weather." I didn't wait to see if he believed me. I went on
out.

Ray was waiting by the door. "You out of
it?"

"I'm out," I said.

"See you around."

"Sure," I said.

~ * ~

I sat in the Subaru for a few minutes and
tried to think about what I was going to do next. The rain had
stopped, and the sky had cleared a bit, but the late afternoon had
turned to night. I could see stars between the ragged edges of the
clouds, and a thin sliver of moon.

I told myself that in Dino's place I'd do
the same thing he was doing, but it seemed obvious to me that the
kidnapping was being orchestrated by someone I'd recently met,
namely Chuck Ferguson. Where had he gotten the money he'd used to
pay off Hargis? Did he need more? Why had he lied about knowing
Sharon and Terry? How had the voice on the phone known about me?
Dino didn't want to talk about things like that. After nearly
twenty years of neglect, he'd finally decided to play Daddy and
save his daughter the only way he knew how, with his money.

Knowing all that, I thought I should
probably go to Gerald Barnes and lay it out for him. Somehow
Ferguson had to be tied into the murder of Terry Shelton, who,
after all, was out walking around free as the air while his
girlfriend was being held somewhere by kidnappers. Had Shelton been
in on it, too? Barnes could figure it all out, and I could go back
to painting houses. That was what I was good for, after all.

But if I went to Barnes and he fouled up
Dino's pay-off, then I'd really be in trouble with Dino, and maybe
even be risking Sharon's life. So telling Barnes was out. I'd let
Dino handle it his way. What the hell. I still had most of the
thousand dollars, and I hadn't done much more to earn it than to
take a pretty good beating. And the knee wasn't bothering me that
much now. So I could go home with a clear conscience, which is what
I finally did.

Still, it pissed me off.

~ * ~

I fed Nameless, who sped right back out
again in pursuit of whatever it was that he pursued all night, and
got up the stairs without the aid of the cane. Then I looked up
Vicky Bryan's number in the phone book and called her. One thing
about being off the case--my time was now my own.

She answered on the third ring, but when I
told her who it was she didn't sound impressed. In fact, a weak
"Oh" was all that she said.

"Hey," I said. "I know I'm no Tom Cruise,
but I'm taller than he is. And I can wiggle my ears."

She warmed up just a little. "I bet you
can't."

"Sure I can. Let me take you to dinner, and
I'll prove it."

She was still hesitant. "I didn't go in to
work today. I was a little shook up over . . . you know."

"I know. I was too." I wasn't going to tell
her anything about my involvement in Terry Shelton's life and
death. After all, I was out of it. If the police had told her I was
a guy trying to collect a bill, let her believe it. If they hadn't,
I'd tell her something else. "There's no better way to get over a
shock than to eat a good meal. I bet you haven't eaten all
day."

She said I was right. Sort of. "Hardly
anything, though. Just an apple and a piece of bread. And a glass
of milk."

"Then you need something substantial. Don't
dress up. I'll be there in fifteen minutes."

"Well, all right. But give me an hour."

In exactly fifty-nine minutes I was knocking
on her door. She lived in a small apartment over a garage on 0-1/2
Street. More stairs, but I hardly noticed them. I realized that I
hadn't been out with a woman since I started looking for Jan. A
year is a long time.