Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43 (13 page)

 
          
At
night, tall ivory-colored curtains are closed over the dining room windows at
the Fort George Hotel, eliminating the featureless, dark, infinite, eternal,
perhaps unsettling view of the nighttime sea. The lights are dimmer, the
tablecloths are thick and soft, and the chunky waitresses in dark green move
silently on the carpeted floor. The room is no more than half full, conversations
are muted. Tourists smile at one table, businessmen look serious at another,
the occasional solitary traveler reads a magazine while spooning his soup.

 
          
Whitman
Lemuel looked up from his magazine and his soup when Valerie Greene entered the
dining room, and his first lightning-quick thought process, almost too fast for
memory, involved a series of rapid vignettes: “We’re both alone. Why don’t we
eat together?
^”

           
“I don’t want to be mysterious,
heh, heh, but I really can’t talk about what I’m doing down here in
Belize
.”

           
“But why is a beautiful woman like
you
alone in such an out-of-the-way
place?
^”

           
“Oh, my dear, I
am
sorry, it must have been dreadful for
you.”

           
“Don’t cry, here’s my
handkerchief.”

           
“I do have some vodka in my room.”
There then followed an amben toned scene, which crumbled and liquefied when, as
Valerie followed the hostess past Lemuel to a table in another comer,
recognition came.

 
          
My
God!
Her
! “Despoliation!”
“Unscrupulous museum directors!” He didn’t remember her name, but he was
unlikely to forget her face. Or her voice. Slopping soup onto the snowy
tablecloth, Lemuel raised his magazine up in front of his face, showing all the
world that he was a reader of
Harpers
.

 
          
Unaware
that the stir she had caused was anything other than the normal erotic ripple
that followed her everywhere and which no longer very much impinged on her
conscious attention, Valerie took her seat, glanced toward the draped windows
with a slight passing regret for the lack of a sea view—the limitless ocean at
night, heaving away, held no terrors for Valerie—accepted the large menu, and
answered the hostess’s question with, “Just water, thanks.”

 
          
Behind
his magazine, Lemuel gulped his vodka sour.

 
          
Witcher
and Feldspan, arriving then, obediently waited by the lectern for the hostess
to finish with Valerie. They glanced around at the lack of imagination
displayed in the conversion of this large rectangular room from a warehouse
manque
to a restaurant, and then
Feldspan gasped and whispered, “Alan!”

 
          
“What
now?”

 
          
“It’s
him! Behind the magazine!”

 
          
“Oh,
my Lord,” Witcher said. “You’re right. Don’t look at him!” “I’m not looking at
him. Don’t
you
look at him.”

 
          
Witcher
was always the first to recover. “Well, why wouldn’t he eat here?” he said.
“He’s
staying
here, the same as us.”

 
          
“But
who’s he hiding from?” Feldspan asked. “Surely his type doesn’t actually
read Harpers
.”

 
          
“Well,
maybe he does,” Witcher said, becoming a little testy at Feldspan’s
nervousness. “He has to read something, doesn’t he? And I really doubt there’s
a
Drug Dealers Digest
published
anywhere.” “Hush!” Feldspan said, because the hostess was approaching, a smile
on her face, her arms full of menus.

 
          
The
hostess led them to a table along the right side wall. She was a good hostess,
who didn’t believe in crowding the customers together in one area of the room
for the convenience of the help, but who believed in spreading the customers
out as much as possible for their own convenience and privacy and enjoyment of
their meals. Therefore, once she had placed Witcher and Feldspan, the situation
was this:

 
          
Among
a scattering of other patrons, Witcher and Feldspan were a short way into the
room, against the right wall. Lemuel was midway down the room, one table in from
the left wall. Valerie was most of the way down the right side, one table in
from the side, one back from the non-view. In this triangle, Valerie and Lemuel
were seated so as to face one another directly, while Witcher and Feldspan,
opposite one another with the wall beside them, were situated out of Valerie’s
line of sight but so that Feldspan offered Lemuel a three-quarter profile and
Witcher gave him a view of his right ear and the back of his head.

 
          
Lemuel
simply couldn’t stand it. Every time he peeked over the top of his magazine,
there
she
was, across an uncrowded
room,
facing
him. And he daren’t let
her see him, dare not.

 
          
She
would know, she would have to. He had identified himself to her at that party
back in New York as a museum curator. They had spoken about Belize; the subject
of antiquity theft had come up, had most certainly and emphatically come up.
She would see him, and she would immediately know what he was doing in
Belize
.

 
          
Then
what? Given her vehemence in
New York
, Lemuel knew exactly what would happen
next; she would inform the police. Most likely, she would leap to her feet
right here in this public restaurant, point a finger rigid with virtue, and
denounce him to diners and help alike.

 
          
What
could he do? His main course hadn’t even arrived yet; to get up and flee the
restaurant now would merely call attention to himself. But to sit directly in
that woman’s line of sight was simply not possible; he couldn’t hold
Harpers
up in front of his face
indefinitely.

 
          
He
peeked over the magazine’s top, to see that
she
was holding the large menu up in front of herself much as he was holding
Harpers
. If he were to do anything,
improve the situation in any way, it would have to be
now.

 
          
What
if he were to face in the opposite direction? But to stand, walk around the
table, move everything with him to the opposite side, all of that would
also
attract too much attention.
Besides, there wasn’t even a chair over there. The only other chair at this
table was to his left.

 
          
Well,
a partial move would certainly help. Quickly but smoothly, while Valerie
continued to study the menu, Lemuel slid from his chair and, without rising,
made it into the chair to his left. He drew the soup, the silverware, the bread
plate and the glasses over with him, and laid the magazine on the table to the
right of his setting. In reading the magazine now, his head would quite
naturally be averted from Valerie, showing her much less than a profile. With
the dim lighting, and at this distance, she was most unlikely to recognize him.
Feeling much better, he looked up, and found himself staring directly into the
eyes of one of Kirby Galway’s drug dealers.

 
          
The
waitress asked Valerie if she were ready to order, and she said yes.

 
          
“He’s
staring at me,” Feldspan said. There were little white spots under his eyes,
and he spoke in a harsh whisper, not moving his lips. “My God, Alan, he moved
around at the table so he could
stare
at me.”

 
          
Lemuel,
seeing the drug dealer glare at him while muttering to his partner without
moving his lips, looked down in fright and gazed unseeing at
Harpers
.

 
          
Valerie
ordered the shrimp cocktail and the chicken parmigiana.

 
          
Witcher,
as though suddenly interested in the non-view, turned to gaze at the curtains
at the far end of the room. His eyes swiveled to look at Lemuel, who was
reading his magazine and not staring at anybody at all. Witcher’s mouth curled
in the expression of contempt he was about to show Feldspan.

 
          
Lemuel
looked up, and they were
both
glaring
at him,
grimacing
at him.

 
          
Valerie
thought she might have a glass of white wine as well. But no more; she’d had
too much to drink, really, at lunch.

 
          
The
waitress, in asking Lemuel if he were done with the soup, interposed herself
between him and the table containing Witcher and Feldspan. “Yes!” said Lemuel.
“Could you hurry the duckling, please, I have to leave soon.”

 
          
“The
chef is working on it, sir. You can’t really hurry a duckling.”

 
          
Witcher
and Feldspan looked at one another. Witcher said, “It doesn’t mean a thing,
Gerry.”

           
“Al-an, he
moved
! He was sitting the other way, and he moved around that way
so he could
stare
at me! He
knows!”

 
          
“For
Heaven’s sake, Gerry,
what
does he
know?”

 
          
“He
saw us looking at him,” Feldspan said, “when he was out by the pool with
Galway
.”

 
          
“It’s
a public place,” Witcher pointed out. “And he was still there when we went for
a swim; he didn’t act like anything was wrong then.” “He left right after we
got there.”

 
          
“A
few minutes later.”

 
          
“Al-an,”
Feldspan said, leaning forward, “why did he
move?”

 
          
The
waitress having departed, Lemuel could see the one drug dealer leaning forward
to speak tensely and grimly to the other one. Were they talking about
him?
They’d come down to the pool this
afternoon, decadent creatures, reeking of crime and unholy knowledge. Drug
dealers tended to be addicts themselves, didn’t they? Those two weren’t like
oldtime mobsters at all, they were like the criminals in recent French films;
civilized in a sneering way, secure in their power, spouting philosophy,
utterly cold and emotionless. Lemuel had waited just a minute or two after
their arrival, not to call attention to himself, and then had hurried back to
his room.

 
          
The
waitress asked Feldspan and Witcher if they were ready to order. “I don’t think
I can eat,” Feldspan said.

 
          
“You
should take Lomotil,” the waitress told him.

 
          
Witcher
said, meaningfully, “Gerry, don’t call attention to yourself.” To the waitress,
he said, “We would both like a very dry Tanqueray Gibson on the rocks, please.”

 
          
“I
don’t think that’ll help,” the waitress said.

 
          
Lemuel,
at a loss for what to do, turned his head, gazed this way and that, and found
himself staring directly into the eyes of Valerie Greene. A small involuntary
moan escaped him.

 
          
I
know that man, Valerie thought. Isn’t that odd; the short time I’ve been here,
and I’ve already seen two men I think I’ve met before. First the driver of that
pickup truck outside the hotel, and now this man. It’s probably just that
people look like other people; or maybe this man was on the same plane coming down,
though I don’t seem to remember him from then.

 
          
I’m
going to die, Lemuel told himself, and the thought was not entirely unpleasant.
He stared at a page in
Harpers
in
which the art department had decided to snazz things up a bit by tilting the
illustration at an angle; down to the left and up to the right, to indicate
happiness. (The reverse tilt indicates mental imbalance.) Unconsciously, Lemuel
tilted his head to match the illustration, and stuck a breadstick into his
cheek.