They would come aboard. They would search the Flush Flush. And sooner or later, they would both be in the short corridor between the staterooms at the same time. At which time I would pop out, the Browning automatic in my right hand, the woven leather sap in my left, all ready and eager to thump their skulls with ten ounces of padded lead at the end of a spring.

I moved toward the lounge, staying back out of sight, listening. I had the shirts memorized. White shirt on Meyer. In case of bad trouble, fire at yellow shirt or black shirt. Soon, a little sooner than I expected, I heard the unmistakable sound of more than one man walking through thigh-deep water. I couldn"t tell if it was two or three, only that it was more than one.

So I nipped back to my safe and secret place. I"d left the mirror-door standing open. It was still open. The mirror lay on the corridor floor, and the biggest piece was smaller than a dinner plate. One of those twelve shots had come angling down the corridor or had spun off something or...

What now, big white rabbit?

Terror is absolutely nonproductive. It is not worth a thing. So if it is new to you, you don"t know how to handle it, and it can freeze you. But if you have felt it before, many times in many places, you know that if you can start moving, it will go away. You can"t spend time thinking, or you will freeze up again. You have to move without thought. It can be like shifting into some rare and special gear, some kind of overdrive seldom needed and seldom available. I dipped down and picked the pistol and sap off the floor of the useless refuge. They were going to come into the lounge from the aft deck. It was the logical approach for them. And it was the only below-decks s.p.a.ce that was large enough to improve my chances. I got there as fast as I could and as silently as I could. There was only one place in the room where I could not be seen from the doorway or from the ports. I crawled to it, to the shelter of the long curved yellow couch, and flattened out. I could look under it and see the sill of the open door. I could hunch forward a foot and a half and be able to see the whole doorway.

All right now, McGee. Forget the childhood dreams of glory. Have no scruples about firing from ambush and firing to kill. No Queensbury rules, fellow.

I heard the diving platform creak. Water dripped. There was a grunt of effort, slap of wet palm against railing, thud of rubber soles on the decking. Then the sequence was repeated.

"G.o.dd.a.m.n the bugs!"

"Shut up!"

"There"s n.o.body on-"

"Shut up!"

There was ten seconds of silence. And suddenly something came bounding into the lounge. I had the impression of some animal, some vast, vital, rubbery strength that covered fifteen feet and landed lightly, poised, every sense alert. Next, a pair of big wet tennis shoes stopped by the sill, just inside the room.

The voice by the door said, "There"s n.o.body on this-"

I was going to have to get rid of that voice by the door to give all my attention to the animal presence over beyond the couch. I wormed forward and saw all of him, Davis, soaked to the waist, revolver in the left hand, the hand nearest me, the hand now sagging down to his side. I told the gun to go where I pointed it, as it always had, forgetting the first one was double action, missing the hand, putting the second one into the hand. He screamed and pounced for the dropped weapon, trying to grab it up with the other hand, and I hit that hand, and he went diving, tumbling out the doorway onto the deck as I spun, hitched back, looked up, and waited for the round target of the head to appear over the back of the couch. The three shots had been very close together, a huge wham-bamming sound far different than the whippy lick of the rifle, and leaving a sharp stink of propellant in the hot air.

The rifle cracked like a huge whip and laid its lash across the edge of my thigh. I suddenly had the wit to flatten out again and look under the couch. He wore white boat shoes. I had to turn the automatic onto its side to aim. I couldn"t point it naturally. I had to aim it. The shoes moved closer. I had to aim again. The side of the shoe burst into wet red, and he made not a sound. I took my chance on bounding up rather than trying for the other white shoe and bringing him down. But as I swung the pistol, he fired without aiming, a snap shot, doubtless hoping to hit me, but it worked like one of those impossible trick shots out of a bad Western. It slammed the gun out of my hand and spun it into the far corner, leaving my hand and arm numb to the elbow.

Sprenger worked the bolt quickly and aimed at the middle of my forehead and then slowly lowered it.

"You"re a d.a.m.ned idiot, McGee. And a d.a.m.ned nuisance."

"You haven"t got a lot of options."

He tested the foot, taking a short step on it. He did not wince, limp, change expression. But pain drained the blood out of his face and made his tan look saffron. He had shed his sungla.s.ses.

"Meaning I need you?" He waved me back and took another step and propped a hip on the corner of the back of the couch.

"Is Meyer all right?"

It took several moments for the implications of my question, to get through to him. "You are some kind of people, you two. He"s a bright man. He knows a lot about the tax future of munic.i.p.als. We had a nice talk. I"m losing my touch. I can"t read people anymore. That d.a.m.ned McDermit woman is insane. Was insane. Once she got leverage, it was like all she wanted was to get us both killed. I read you wrong. I read Meyer wrong."

"Is he all right?"

"So far. He probably isn"t comfortable, but he"s all right. Thanks for letting me know he"s trading material."

"If you could get back there to the boat."

He looked at his bleeding foot. "Blow it off at the knee and I could get back there." I believed him. He shook his big head. There was a glint of rue in the little blueberry eyes. "I had nearly five hundred round ones stashed, in case I ever had to run and had a chance to run. Postage Postage stamps! Dear Jesus Lord!" stamps! Dear Jesus Lord!"

"A sterling investment, Mr. Fedderman says."

"What could I do? She would have screamed to the McDermit brothers I was laying her."

"There wasn"t any dear friend primed to make a report."

He thought that over. "I couldn"t take a chance. You can see that. That woman would rather rather lie than tell it straight." He leaned back and looked out the doorway. He lifted the rifle slightly and said, "Something you should know. At this range, anyplace I hit you-" lie than tell it straight." He leaned back and looked out the doorway. He lifted the rifle slightly and said, "Something you should know. At this range, anyplace I hit you-"

"I"m dead from hydrostatic shock. It hits fluid, transmits the shock wave up veins and arteries, and explodes the heart valves. You came close. You put a skin burn on my thigh."

"You know a lot of things. Walk way around me slowly and take a look at Davis, from the doorway."

I followed directions. Davis was out. He was on his face, legs spraddled, one smashed hand under his belly, the other over his head. I could see little arterial spurtings from the torn wrist, a small pulsing fountain that was as big around as a soda straw and jetted about three inches.

Blood ran into the scuppers and drained into the sea. His head was turned so I could see his face. His closed lids looked blue. His moustache was glued to white papery flesh. He had dwindled inside his clothes, but his big straw planter hat was still firmly in place. The small jet dwindled quickly. Two inches, one inch, nothing.

I turned around slowly and took a slow step back into the lounge. "He just bled to death."

He looked puzzled. "I thought you hit him in the hand."

"Both hands. He couldn"t stop the bleeding, using the one that wasn"t so bad."

"You were trying to hit him in the hands?"

"Yes."

"You"re good with that thing. But you are an idiot. If you"re that good, you could have popped up and hit me in the head and then him."

"Call it a natural revulsion, Frank."

"You"ve got first aid stuff aboard?"

"Always."

"You"re going to get it and fix this foot."

"We"re supposed to be in negotiation, aren"t we?"

He looked at me and through me, at the narrow vista of his possibilities, his meager chances. He said in a tired voice, "I build that munic.i.p.al bond business from almost nothing. It was supposed to be a front. But I like like it. I"m it. I"m good good at it. It"s what I really want to at it. It"s what I really want to do do."

"Frank?"

"I know. I know."

"So the pattern was kill me and the woman and Davis and Meyer, burn this boat with all four bodies aboard, after retrieving the rarities Mary Alice ran off with, and go back and run a very good bluff and hope for the best, hope they don"t find out Mary Alice killed Jane Lawson, and then tie you to Mary Alice in the Fedderman swindle. If you can get the goodies back, your best move would be cancel out with Fedderman and retrieve that junk out of the box."

He frowned at me. "How would you know about burning? Just how in h.e.l.l would you know that?"

"You must have asked Meyer some questions about this houseboat that gave him the idea you were trying to figure out if it would burn well and if it was in a place where there was no chance of anybody putting the fire out."

He thought, nodded, and said, "Then he radioed you."

"So you"re still on course, aren"t you? Two down and two to go. Get me to fix the foot. Get me to tell you where she hid the stuff. And you should probably have me retrieve that body out there so it won"t be floating around with holes in it, making people ask questions. Then we go over and bring the rental around, and you add two more bodies to the pyre and get out of here."

"You"re very helpful. Why are you so helpful?"

I had to make it very good. He had to believe me. I had to be casual, but not too casual, earnest but not too earnest. "Haven"t you had the feeling, Frank, I"ve been a half-step ahead of you."

"Maybe. Until right now."

"Once I heard from Meyer that I could count on you making a try, why would I just sit here and wait for it? Would I be such an idiot that I"d figure I would be able to take you with no fuss? I have respect for you, Frank. As a fellow professional. I did what you"d do in my shoes. I took out insurance. I talked to Meyer late yesterday afternoon. I wouldn"t exactly say we"re going to hear bugles and look up and see the US Cavalry come riding across the water, firing their Sharps rifles. But I wouldn"t say that anything you do is going to go unnoticed."

"Then I"ve got no chance at all. End of the line?"

"Insurance can always be canceled. Maybe I wouldn"t make a claim."

He swung his leg out, looked at his shoe. "Stopped bleeding, at least. If it can be canceled, McGee, I can make you tell me how to go about canceling it. I found one man once I couldn"t make talk. He had such a low thresh-hold, he"d faint at the first touch. That"s the only time I"ve ever missed. And I"ve had more than a hundred people find out they had more to say than they wanted to."

"I"m terrified. I"m not trying to be smart. I really am. You could make me tell you. I"m sure. But it would take as long as I could hold out, and I don"t think you could do it without leaving a lot of visible damage, and when you got all done, Frank, you"d find out that the only way it can be canceled is by me, in person, not on the phone, not in writing. By a personal friendly visit to my insurance agent."

"And you want to use c.r.a.p like that to make a deal?"

"Why not? Disprove it. I can get Fedderman to market the stuff. I want exactly half. I"m a practical man. I"ll put myself in your pocket to save my skin and my partner"s. I"ll write you a confession of where, when, and how I killed Davis and how I killed Mrs. Ray McDermit. I know an island near here high enough so we can bury the bodies, and I"ll put that in the confession along with the chart coordinates. Then you own me."

"But you"ll keep the insurance in force? We"ll own each other, you mean. Can we get this foot fixed?"

"Is the negotiation all settled?"

"Half? h.e.l.l, I guess so. Let me see those d.a.m.ned postage stamps."

"Later. Last night I ran over to the village in the runabout and mailed them to myself. Three envelopes."

"Why didn"t you start with that?"

"You wouldn"t have bought it. But now you do, because if it wasn"t true, I would would have started with it." have started with it."

He almost smiled. "Half. Harry Harris said he heard that was the way you go. It"s a big piece. That dumb jacka.s.s, know what he was doing? Going home at night and telling his woman all about what he did all day. Like he was a bill collector or something. If you hadn"t tipped me about the leak, I wouldn"t be buying you now. Now will you please please do something about my foot?" do something about my foot?"

That word was the one which unlatched half the springs which were holding my stomach up against the base of my throat. Please. A beautifully predictive word. Stomach moved halfway back to normal position.

"There"s a first aid locker back..."

And Mary Alice thumped the door frame with her left hand as she staggered and caught her balance. She was running wet with sweat, head to toe, her face pallid, mouth open, eyes dazed with the near-fainting state the heat had brought on. She had her little automatic in her big right hand, but it was at her side, pointing at the floor.

Frank Sprenger swung the rifle toward her, and she tried to lift the little automatic to aim it at him. The rifle shot whacked, and her blue eyes bulged and broke, and she dropped straight down, very strangely, as if she were a bundle of clothing slipping off a hanger. But the little gun was coming my way, floating in the air with the momentum from swinging it up to fire it. But instead she had released it. It was moving so slowly in the air that I had time to change my instinctive reflex to pick it out of the air with my right hand and try instead with my left. My hand was still numb, and some feeling was coming back, with enough pain along with it to tell me it was broken in some way.

I could see it turning, floating, and as I reached and took it out of the air, taking it properly by the grip, beyond it I could see Frank Sprenger, out of focus, standing transfixed with the rifle still aimed down the companionway, at the empty air where her head had been.

I pointed at him and the little automatic snapped a little louder than a cap gun, and he spun and yanked the trigger of the rifle while some spectator in the back of my mind peered at him and told me that the fool had forgotten to work the bolt action. Keep firing, the spectator said. Hurry!

He came at me. Bounding. Stone-brown face under the orange cap. Huge brawny arms reaching for me. A caricature of a muscled chest, carved of hickory, moulding the black T-shirt. Bowed legs, ma.s.sively thewed, bounding under the white shorts, springing him toward me, while his little nightmare blueberry eyes looked remote, impersonal, totally a.s.sured. No favoring of the smashed foot. I backed away, pointing my stupid left hand at him, the little automatic saying its futile bang, bang, bang, making no impression on him at all. He smashed me like a truck, bounced me against the bulkhead and off it to fall under him, and see that sledge fist rise high and come smashing down toward me. I rolled my head to the right, rolled it into blinding brilliance and over and over and off the edge of the world and down, the brilliance turning to a tiny white dot way above me and then winking out.

Chapter Twenty-one.

I was in a big old bed that sagged in the middle. It had a tall dark headboard. There was a window over to my right. Double hung, with an area of flawed gla.s.s in the bottom pane that warped the green calligraphy of the banyan that reached so close to the window it muted the light in the upstairs bedroom. was in a big old bed that sagged in the middle. It had a tall dark headboard. There was a window over to my right. Double hung, with an area of flawed gla.s.s in the bottom pane that warped the green calligraphy of the banyan that reached so close to the window it muted the light in the upstairs bedroom.

The bedroom door was opposite the foot of the old bed. It was always open. The closet was off to my left. There was a chest of drawers beside it. There was a huge conch sh.e.l.l on top of the chest of drawers. There was a framed lithograph of Venice on the wall over near the window. With a gondola in the foreground. The bathroom was out the door into the hall and to the left, just before the stairs going down.

I had been there a long time. I had heard heavy rain on the roof and roaring down through banyan leaves. At every dusk the tree screamed with its full pa.s.senger list of small birds. Sometimes I could hear surf, far away. I could hear traffic, closer than the surf, high-speed trucks droning by in the night. Something with a noisy old engine came in and out during the day, dying somewhere below my window. I could hear outboard motors sometimes, much closer than the surf. Once a great blue heron landed in the banyan, so close I could see his savage yellow eye.

I could hear young voices in the house, laughing. They played music, banged doors, roared away on motorcycles. I saw and heard these things and accepted them. They were there. I had no questions.

I could not open my mouth. My tongue tip traced the bits of wire and the new hole where it felt as if two teeth were gone in the upper row on the right, near the front but not right in front. And one tooth below them. That was where the gla.s.s straw went. It had a bend in it, to make it easier to suck while lying down.

For a time, vaguely remembered, there had been a broad starched woman in white, who had strong and gentle hands and clicked her tongue a lot. Bedpans, back rubs, changing dressings. And before that a different place, corridors, stretcher, shots.

Now there was only the small woman with the ruff of blond hair turning gray. Gentle brown eyes. When the wheelchair was first gone, I was afraid to lean on her as hard as I had to, when we made the endless journey down the hall to the bathroom. But she was strong, much stronger than she looked. I remembered that I used to see her in the night, in the rocking chair over there, always awake when I woke up.

It was my face in the mirror, but not my face. When the leg began to hold better under me and when the dressing was gone from my face, I would lean on the sink and try to decide just what was wrong. There were two long, healed incisions, st.i.tch dots still apparent, dark red against the yellow pallor of the lost tan. It was something else that was wrong, not the red wounds. Something subtly out of balance, the way the bedroom was not quite true, with no corner exactly ninety degrees and the doorframe and window frame not parallel to either ceiling or floor.

I accepted, but I began to superimpose a question atop the acceptance. I had another world somewhere else, but the shape of it was murky. I did not want to try to bring it into focus. But it seemed to be coming nearer of its own accord.

It was easier to stay in this world. I knew what the little wire cutters on the bed stand were for. I had asked the woman, and she had said that if I vomited, I could choke to death unless she was there to cut the wires that held my jaw together. It had been broken in three places. And the cheekbone had been crushed.

It was easier to stay in this world where I knew that in the middle of the morning and in the middle of the afternoon, I had to sit in the rocking chair and slowly lift and lower my right leg. From ten times at first, with no weights, to a hundred times with the gadget she had made, a sailcloth wrapping with strings to tie it on and with pouches for the lead fish weights. The leg grew stronger, but it did not feel right. It felt numbed and p.r.i.c.kly, as a limb does when it has gone to sleep and has started to come awake. Sometimes there were needles of pain from my toes into my hip. Sometimes the area around the ankle and the top of the foot would feel very hot or very cold or even as if it had a soaking wet stocking on it when it was dry and bare.

The doctor came. He snipped the wire. He made me work my jaw while he watched. He told me the woman would get me gum to chew. It would condition the jaw muscles. He shone a bright little light into my eyes. He made me strip and walk away from him and toward him while he watched my right leg. He told me to put the pajamas and robe back on. He said the leg was doing fine. He asked me my name. I told him it was Travis. He asked if there was more, and I said I wasn"t sure. I didn"t know my address. He made me count backwards, add figures in my head, spell long words.

One day she came to my room a little before dusk, as the tree was beginning to fill with birds. I had been sitting in the rocking chair by the window, watching the birds come home, watching the sky change. She pulled a footstool close to the rocking chair and put a hand on my arm and looked up at me in a way that was half mischief and half sadness. "Who am I?" It was her familiar question, and I knew the familiar response.

"You are Cathy," I said.

In the last of daylight I took her hand and looked at it, at the weathered back of it, the little blue veins, the country knuckles. It seemed a very dear hand indeed. She knelt on the footstool and was closer and taller. I kissed her and felt the ridged area where the inside of my mouth had been st.i.tched. Her brown eyes glinted in the last of the light. It was all strange and sweet and unemphatic, as though it were an inescapable extension of this unquestioned world, as natural and inevitable as all the rest of it.

I looked at her and said in a shaking voice, "You are are Cathy! My G.o.d, I have been... What has... Oh, Cathy! Cathy!" Cathy! My G.o.d, I have been... What has... Oh, Cathy! Cathy!"

The whole back of my mind had been nailed shut. There was a creaking, straining, and the barrier tumbled, and it all came spilling out. The watery weakness ran out of my eyes and down my face, and I couldn"t make words. But she knew what had happened. She hugged me, laughing, crying, snuffling.

Candle Key. Cathy Kerr. That sagging, weathered old bayfront house of hard pine and black cypress.