The Drowner (19 page)

“She knows where Barbara is staying. I mentioned it the other day.”

“I’ll stay close to her.”

“She looks like a good girl. She looks soft at you, Paul.”

“I like her.”

“If she’s anything like Lu, you got you a hundred and ten per cent woman.”

“All I’ve got is a client, Sam.”

Barbara came out in her street clothes, carrying the overnight case. She made a face and said, “I feel as if I’d been on call.” She shook her head. “That girl has such a nice expression.”

“But it’s like a strong magnet. Every compass needle in the area points right at her. It has to be more than coincidence.”

“Knew an old boy in Miami one time looked like a bishop,” Sam said. “Cleanest white hair you ever saw. A right saintly expression. Didn’t drink, smoke or cuss. Always dressed nice. Real quiet. Made a nice living swindling retired folks, selling them imaginary cemetery plots in a ten-acre swamp he owned.”

After some aimless, uneasy talk, Paul took Barbara back to the motel. He had moved to room six, adjacent to but not adjoining hers. He went to her room with her. They sat in silence for a little while, and she said, “With an absolutely spotless conscience, that girl still made me feel sleazy.”

“You looked sleazy.”

“Maybe that’s my undiscovered talent, up till now.”

“I’m wondering just when and how you’ll hear from her.”

“I don’t think I will. If she is what you think she is, then she’d be too smart to fall for this. You let her know you suspected her. She won’t risk anything for a long time.”

“Unless she’s very sure of herself. Why shouldn’t she be? Everything has worked so far. They get a feeling of invincibility.”

“They?”

“The unbalanced ones. They hear voices. They follow orders. She’ll hear instructions about you. By now, or pretty soon, Sam will go into the office and say you’ve gone back to the motel. She’ll think about it. She’ll think of something. And then you’ll hear from her. And it will be something plausible.”

“You seem so very sure, Paul.”

“She didn’t waste any time over Gus Gable.”

“So we just wait?”

“With the patience of a cop or a thief.”

“How long?”

“Until midnight, tomorrow if we have to.”

“And then what?”

“Then I think of some way to nudge her, to force her to make a move.”

Twelve

AT TEN-THIRTY Angie Powell walked slowly into Sam’s office, closed the door behind her, approached the desk, sat in the chair beside the desk and stared at Sam with a deadness and a despair.

“Something wrong?” he asked.

“About ever’thing is going wrong, Mister Sam.”

“How do you mean?”

She closed her eyes for a few moments, gave a heavy sigh and brushed the dark gold hair back from her temple with the back of her hand. “I just can’t work for you any more.”

“Why not?”

“You got another woman now, younger than the other one, before the other one is complete cold in her grave. And this time there’s just no excuse at all.”

“What business is it of yours?”

She looked at him sadly. “It’s like it gives me more than I can do, Mister Sam. It keeps piling up. A person thinks they’ve got everything straightened out, and then there’s more. You’ve been good to me. But I’ve got to just get away from you before I have to punish you too.”

It took several seconds for the full significance of what she had said to make its mark upon him. He felt a coldness along his spine. He looked at her and saw no awareness of guilt. Just a weary resignation.

“Angie, girl, did you… punish Lucille?”

“Lucille and Gus. Both of them.”

“But
why?”
he whispered.

She looked mildly startled. “They were black with sin, weren’t they? She led you into evil ways. And Gus was a liar and a whoremonger. I used to think of you as just being weak, Mister Sam. Not wicked. Stealing from the government and being ready to run with the stolen money so as you wouldn’t have to give up that woman. And I was told I could save you by taking temptation out of your path, taking away the woman and the money.”

“You were told.”

“They were marked out to me,” she said with a strange pride.

“Angie, Angie. My God, you don’t understand what you’ve done.”

“This morning I looked on you and saw the face of evil again, and because you’ve been good to me, I’ve got to get away from you before you’re marked out in turn for punishment.”

“But you’re going to have to be… put where you can’t hurt people.”

She sighed again. “If that’s what they want to do to me.”

“Do you want to come with me now and talk to Harv Walmo about Lucille and Gus?”

“I don’t mind. I can’t seem to care much about anything this morning, Mister Sam. But I guess you should get that money back.”

“Where is it?”

“In that pond out to your shack. I put it in a canister and sunk it out there, and I can show you where. That Stanial man, he guessed I’ve been punishing people. I could tell by looking at him. If he could meet us out there, I could get that money for you and I could tell the both of you the whole thing, how it happened. I don’t much take to talking to Harv Walmo. Mister Sam, if I told you and Mr. Stanial, then could you tell it all to Harv?”

“Yes. Angie, do you know what you’ve done? Did you know I was going to marry Lucille?”

“Would that make sin smell any the sweeter? Why don’t you call that Mr. Stanial right now and have him meet us out there. I could hide it from everybody else, but I couldn’t hide it from him.”

“Could I have Harv meet us out there, too?”

“Enough later so I can have time to tell you all about it.”

He noticed his hand was wet when he picked up the phone. They rang Stanial’s room. He answered on the sixth ring.

“This is Sam.”

“I heard it ringing from next door, Sam.”

“It… it’s all over.”

“You sound strange.”

“I feel strange. She wants to tell us all about it. Out at my shack. She dropped the money in my pond out there. It’s about a forty-minute trip. You go out state road nine-twenty and it’s the third dirt road to the right past Garner Corners. It’s a private road, all marked. We’ll meet you out there.”

“In an hour, tell him,” Angie said.

“In an hour. Can you make it all right?”

“I’ll leave Barbara here.”

“The Sheriff is going to meet us out there too, Paul.”

“Did she… just come in and tell you?”

“Just like that. See you out there.”

Sam hung up. He looked at Angie. She sat placidly, her hands in her lap. “They didn’t do anything to you, Angie, either one of them.”

“It wasn’t a personal matter,” she explained. She yawned. “Since starting to tell about it, it seems I can’t stop yawning. Mister Sam, before you call Harv, you want to see where I put the rest of the money, the part I couldn’t pack into that canister?”

“Where is it?”

She gestured back over her shoulder. “I hid it in your place. I guess you’d never find it, I didn’t show you.”

He stood up, thinking that he could not truly believe it until he held some of the money in his hands. Then maybe he could comprehend the bland horror of it.

She stood up too and said, “Please don’t act different going by Mrs. Nimmits. She’ll know all about it soon enough. I guess we could go on down in your elevator. You could call Harv on the apartment phone.”

He nodded. The thing to do was get it over with. She stopped at her desk and picked up her straw purse. He held the door for her, and as they went into the apartment he noticed, with a curious feeling of horror, that she had resumed her normal glowing smile for the benefit of Mrs. Nimmits.

The door swung shut. “Well, where is it? You can stop smiling now.”

“In the bathroom. Please don’t speak ugly to me, Mister Sam.”

They went to the bathroom. He flicked on the white dazzle of fluorescence. “There’s no place to hide money in here,” he said.

“Yes, there is. I packed it right in back of that panel up there.” She pointed to the wall above the wide tiled counter. He stood beside her.

“Panel?” he said.

She took a quick step back and, holding the straw envelope purse by one end, she slammed it against the side of his head. In the weighted end of the straw purse was one of the flat lead weights she had removed from one of the canvas pockets of her quick-release belt she used for skin-diving. She had gone down to her car at nine o’clock, opened the trunk, removed the weight and placed it in her purse. Sam Kimber took two tottering steps and went down onto his hands and knees. She struck him again, with less haste and more precision, and he folded down against the floor. She put the purse on the counter, stepped around him and turned on both faucets in the oversized, sunken tub. As the water roared into the tub she squatted beside Sam and worked her hand into the right pocket and took his keys out. She put the keys in her purse. She straightened up. Her mouth felt stiff with disapproval. Mister Sam had been very proud of this bathroom. She had heard him snickering and smirking about the seven-foot tub and the shower stall big enough for three or four people. She knew it must have been the scene of orgies beyond her comprehension. Mister Sam, with his cheek resting on a colorful mat, looked as if he were sleeping. He looked younger. There was almost a look of innocence about him. She felt a sad regret, knowing it was too late for him, too late for any weakening of her resolution. Now the list was long and there was much to do.

Soon the tub was more than half full. She turned the water off and stood in the steamy silence and felt the first slow inner pulsing of delight, those red mare flexures which blurred the severity of the Joan-feeling. She straddled him, grasped him by the armpits and slid him, head first, over the low squared-off rim of the big tub. She knelt on the mat and thrust him the rest of the way, turning him the long way of the tub, face down. She put her right hand firmly yet almost caressingly on the corded nape of his neck and pushed his head deep. She felt the bubbles tickle past her fingers. She thought this would be less than the others, but quite suddenly he began such a thrashing series of violent spasms, it took all her strength to hold him. And her hot blindness came then, taking her far away. She came back slowly, aware of the deepening of her breath, of the fading heat of her body, and realized Mister Sam had been motionless for quite a long time. She released him and stood up. Her legs were very weak and she felt slightly dizzy. She dried her hand and forearm on a thick towel. She looked down at him. He was slightly wavery because the water was still moving a little bit. As she watched it grew still.

She picked up her purse and turned the lights off as she left the bathroom. She sat quietly in the living room, with her eyes closed until she felt strong again, and then she stood up and began smiling and pushed the big door open and walked out into the ante-office. Holding the door she turned and said, “I’ll sure tell her, Mister Sam.” She went to Mrs. Nimmits’ desk and said, “Mister Sam isn’t feeling so good and he’s going to see if he can get some sleep, and he doesn’t want anybody disturbing him for anything. He’s sent me out to the shack to get some papers he left out there, so you hold the fort, huh?”

“Sure, Angie.”

“In case you should wonder, I’m taking his car.”

“Okay, Angie.”

She went down in the public elevator and walked around to the parking lot in the rear. She took Sam’s keys from her purse and moved his big beige Imperial over close to her car. She opened her trunk and took her canvas bag of gear and moved it into the Chrysler. It contained swim suit, swim fins, two masks, harness, diving belt and spare regulator.

On the way out of town she stopped at Scotty’s Marine to pick up her twin tanks.

“Got you a day off and the boss’ car too, huh?” Scotty said.

“Maybe not the whole day off. How about that regulator?”

“I cleaned it and adjusted it and it checks out fine. No charge, Angie. And I put filling the two tanks on your bill. Let me help you with those. I swear, Angie, you carry those the way most women would carry a pocketbook. Who you diving with?”

“Alone again, Scotty.”

“Now you know better than that! It’s dangerous.”

“But I’m very careful, Scotty, honest.”

“Look. It’s a slow day. I’ll close up and come along. Take me one minute to get ready.”

“No thanks,” she said, and pulled out, the tires skidding on the gravel, waving back at him after she had straightened out on the highway.

She drove the big car as fast as she dared. At the shack she got out and swung the gate open and left it open. She drove through a half mile of white pine and when she reached the house, she swung around it and drove on and parked beside Sam’s ten-acre pond. The water was so high in the pond there was less than a foot of clearance under the narrow weathered dock. She laid her gear out in an orderly manner, stripped down and pulled her faded blue swim suit on. The black mosquitoes whined around her. She stowed her clothing in the gear bag along with the excess equipment and flipped it into the car. She hooked the tanks to the harness and shouldered it on and buckled it. She buckled the weighted belt around her waist, over the harness straps, snapped the fin straps snugly against her ankles, picked up her mask and went flapping out to the end of the narrow dock and lowered herself heavily. The tanks thumped against the dock. She spat into her mask, dipped it into the water and swirled it clean. She put the mask on, adjusted the regulator, bit down on the mouthpiece and turned and fell backwards into the pond. She twisted underwater and straightened out and explored. The water was not as murky as she had expected it would be. In the middle where it seemed to average twelve feet of depth, she could still see reasonably well in the saffron world. At the end of the dock it was six feet deep.

When exploration was done, she went under the dock. It was shadowy under there, and she found a level where she could stand with the fins against the soft muck of the bottom and the water barely covering her shoulders. She pushed the mask up onto her forehead and took the mouthpiece out. She held onto a cross brace to support herself.