The Man Who Tried to Get Away

  “It was my father’s idea. ‘Princess’ was his pet name for my mother. They had a houseful of sons, and when I finally came along he was so delighted he lost his common sense. I guess he always wanted a daughter. And he doted on my mother. He thought she hung the moon.

  “My mother tried to warn him. Queenie isn’t the kind of name you give a child if you want her to have a comfortable social life. But I guess he couldn’t imagine the whole world wouldn’t feel the same way he did about me.”

  I concentrated on her like a puppy. When she stopped, I murmured, “They loved you. They loved you down to the ground.”

  She chuckled again. “It wasn’t fair, really. They gave me a terrible handicap with my peers. At least when I was a teenager. I don’t mean the name. They deprived me of the definitive adolescent experience—thinking my parents didn’t love me. Believing they didn’t understand me.

  “I could hardly talk to my friends for years. We didn’t have anything in common. Their parents were all mean and hateful and petty—just like the parents of teenagers are supposed to be. Sometimes,” she concluded happily, “I felt so left out I could hardly stand it.”

  “Poor you,” I agreed. “You’ve suffered awfully.”

  “Does it show?”

  “I’m afraid so.” If she kept this up, I might start feeling better—and then I’d be in real trouble.

  She pursed her lips. Which made me think about kissing her. With just a hint of seriousness, she said, “Maybe that’s why men tell me the stories of their lives. They’re all so unhappy, and they know I’m a kindred spirit.”

  “No.” The temptation to be serious was more than I could bear. “It’s because you’re real and happy, and you’ve got room in your heart for the things you hear.”

  Also because she was profoundly beautiful. Not pretty or glamorous—something more. But I didn’t let myself say that.

  She went on gazing into my eyes, the lines of her expression as clear as words. They said, I’ve got room for you, too. If you want to talk.

  Which was exactly not what I wanted.

  “So tell me,” I said, changing subjects with all the delicacy of a bulldozer, “what names did you write down for Buffy?”

  Just for a second, Queenie looked startled. She probably thought she knew what this conversation was about, and I took her by surprise. In a musing tone she said, “Brew, there’s more to you than meets the eye.”

  I shrugged. “That’s the bandages. If I took them off, you could see everything.”

  With an odd air of chagrin, she caught her lower lip between her teeth, held it. But she never looked away, never flinched. “In other words,” she murmured slowly, “the truth about you is in the wound. Not in the man who was wounded.

  “I don’t think Buffy wants us to talk about our guesses.” She didn’t miss a beat. If I needed the subject changed, it was changed. “She’d love it if we were wrong. But she doesn’t want to take the chance we might be right. She wants us to work it all out for ourselves. Alone.”

  Too true. On the other hand, I didn’t give a flying fuck at the moon what Sue-Rose “Buffy” Altar wanted. Except she was my client, so I had to make at least a token effort to keep my job. “I’ll make it easier,” I responded. “Just tell me who the actors are.”

  “Why does it matter?” she countered. Doing a little probing of her own. After all, she loved mysteries.

  “Come off it, Queenie,” I retorted. “You know why it matters.”

  By which I intended her to think I meant, You know I’m a private investigator. What I really meant, however, was, It matters because of Ginny. I need the truth about Joseph Hardhouse.

  “All right.” Her smile took on a suggestion of glee. “I think the actors are Houston and Maryanne.”

  I couldn’t keep my face from twitching. “Why them?”

  She didn’t hesitate. “I don’t think he deserves his reputation as the resident hotshot. He isn’t that bright. And he’s too slimy to live. Do you know, he actually tried to put his hand up my dress at dinner last night? He’s got to be faking it. Or else he doesn’t like his ‘little filly’ as much as he claims.

  “As for her—if she isn’t an actress, she’ll set women’s liberation back fifty years. No self-respecting woman would treat that man that way unless she was acting.”

  Well, I had to agree. No self-respecting woman would. The key word, however, was “self-respecting.” Maryanne was acting, all right. But it wasn’t because Buffy paid her.

  “Thanks,” I said, lying through my teeth, “that helps.”

  “In other words,” she observed acutely, “you don’t believe me. You think Houston Mile really is as slimy as he seems.”

  Considering the noises I’d heard from Mile’s bedroom this morning, I replied, “No. I think he’s even slimier.”

  Queenie studied this idea. “And Maryanne puts up with it. She feeds it.” She shivered. “That’s disgusting.”

  Almost at once, however, she recovered her good humor. “OK. I can live with that.” She didn’t mind being contradicted. She was playing a game she enjoyed. “I’ve been wrong before.

  “Now it’s your turn. Who do you think the actors are?”

  I shrugged again. “Joseph and Lara Hardhouse?”

  Her eyes widened. She closed her mouth. Then she actually looked away from me, looked away—She was like me, too good at jumping to conclusions. And this time she’d jumped to a conclusion full of pain.

  “Brew,” she said softly, as if she wanted to warn me or comfort me somehow, “I can only tell you one thing about Joseph. He isn’t acting. That isn’t an act.”

  Oh, good. Just what I wanted to hear.

  “So what you’re saying is”—when her gaze came back to me, I looked away, I couldn’t face her honesty anymore—“I might as well kiss Ginny good-bye.”

  Since I wasn’t looking, I didn’t see Queenie get to her feet. The next thing I knew, she stood at the door. But she paused with her hand on the doorknob.

  Carefully she said, “Talk to Sam.”

  I glared at her. “Why?”

  Her smile was another gift, better than the last one. “Because he’s worth talking to.”

  A beat or two later, she added, “Don’t forget, you still owe me the story of your life.”

  She didn’t wait around for my reaction. Shutting the door gently behind her, she walked off.

  I needed a drink, I told myself. I needed to get drunk. But I didn’t believe it. Somehow alcohol had lost its allure. What I really needed was to punch someone’s lights out. Break a few bones. Rearrange the world I lived in.

  After a while, I began to think that even Mile’s stories would be an improvement over my own company, so I followed Queenie out of the room.

  The hallway was turning into a great place to meet people, make new friends, have interesting conversations. Before I’d taken two steps, Simon Abel appeared.

  “Brew,” he asked immediately, “have you got a minute? I’d like to talk to you.”

  Unless I was going deaf in my old age, he sounded anxious about something.

  Well, talking to people was my job, whether I understood what they had in mind or not. On top of that—As soon as I heard his tone, I realized that I wanted something from him.

  “Sure,” I said, “I’ve got minutes coming out my ears,” and led the way back into my room. He knew Cat Reverie better than anyone else here. That made him a potential source of information about Joseph Hardhouse.

  I offered him a chair, but he shook his head—he was too tense to sit. I, on the other hand, needed more rest. Even though I was in the mood for violence, all this exertion wore me out. I lowered my pain onto the bed again.

  He shoved his hands into his pockets, took them out again. Looked around the room. His soft features worked to assume a shape that didn’t fit them. On a hunch, I decided not to give him too much help. He conveyed the impression he was just a kid, despite his chronological age—and kids usually aren??
?t good liars. Unless you help them.

  “Brew,” he announced after a certain amount of obvious dithering, “I owe you an apology.”

  “Huh,” I replied intelligently.

  “I was wrong last night. Before dinner. I shouldn’t have jumped on you like that.”

  “Huh,” I said again.

  “Cat isn’t your problem,” he explained. “It isn’t your fault she likes to flirt.”

  Fixing him with my best blank stare, I asked, “You call that flirting?”

  “Oh, yes.” Once he got started, he was in a hurry to have his say. “I know she talks like she wants to screw every man she’s ever met who isn’t dead between the legs. And when you look like she does, you don’t have any trouble getting a response. But she doesn’t mean it.”

  I had trouble keeping my stare blank. Who did he think he was kidding?

  “It’s like a knee-jerk reaction with her,” he continued. “She does it to everybody. She doesn’t believe how beautiful she is. She doesn’t believe men would be attracted to her no matter what she did. She doesn’t really believe she can be loved. She has to go looking for it. She has to prove to herself over and over again that she can get a reaction.

  “It isn’t really sex she wants. She wants to believe in herself. But you can’t prove love. Nobody can make you believe they love you. Sex you can prove. Flirting is a close as she can get to proving she can be loved.”

  He astonished me. Not because I thought he was right—or wrong—about Cat Reverie, but because I hadn’t expected him to reveal so much of himself so quickly.

  “So why are you doing it?” I asked bluntly.

  Apparently he had the innocent man’s ability to miss the point of what he’d just said. “Doing what?”

  “Still trying to prove you love her. You just told me you know it can’t work.”

  He had an answer ready. “Because I do love her.

  “Brew, I think of her as a woman who’s lame. Emotionally lame. And it breaks my heart to see her so—so unsteady on her feet. Unable to believe in herself. So I keep trying. When she flirts with someone like you, and I act jealous, it does her good. It sustains her. It doesn’t cure her self-doubt, it can’t, but at least it contradicts her preconceptions. It contradicts the idea that she can’t be loved.”

  This speech had a practiced sound. He knew it too well. But I still suspected that he was telling me the truth about himself.

  “Bullshit,” I remarked politely.

  Which was obviously not the reaction he’d expected. He stared back at me. A flush of anger or embarrassment crept into his face.

  “Do you think—?” he began.

  “Listen.” I had no business acting so superior, but sometimes it’s a useful technique. “It can’t work. I’ll tell you why.

  “You want her to believe she’s lovable. You’re trying to prove it the only way you can—by showing it. But your way of showing it just demonstrates that she has the power to hurt you. She flirts. You get jealous. Fear and pain. So what are you really showing her? That she’s a woman who hurts people. She even hurts people who love her.

  “How much self-esteem do you expect her to learn from lessons like that?”

  He didn’t take his own life lying down, I had to give him that. I could see confusion, rage, hurt, shame, all written in red across his features. Unfortunately for him, he had to choose one before he could answer. That took him a moment, and the delay made him look foolish. The real secret of life, as all us wise men understand, is to keep moving like you know what you’re doing, instead of standing still while you sort it out.

  Finally he was ready. Trying to pretend that he hadn’t already missed his chance, he protested, “What the hell gives you the right to criticize me? Who the hell are you?

  “Aren’t you the one who wanders around with a constant wince, soaked in self-pity, putting yourself down, showing everybody how much you hurt?” His voice rose. He knew how to shout—something else he’d practiced. “Aren’t you trying to demonstrate to all of us how rotten Ginny is, just because she has the hots for Joseph and doesn’t care about you anymore? Aren’t you trying to persuade her she’s rotten?

  “You think I want to teach Cat she’s unlovable? What about you, Axbrewder? What about you?”

  I smiled at him. I’m belligerent when I’m cornered, and I don’t take the truth gracefully. On the other hand, I didn’t have the actual strength to bounce up off the bed and remove his head for him. So I said, “Nice speech, Abel. There’s the door. If you don’t make your exit now, you’ll ruin the effect.”

  For his own obscure reasons, he didn’t continue raging. He also didn’t leave—at least not immediately. Instead he stood where he was and gaped at me, blushing like I’d caught him with his pants down.

  Poor guy. He probably didn’t deserve to look so silly. I made an effort to contain my anger. “I didn’t mean to be critical.” Wincing again, but what the hell. “You’re right, I was out of line. What you and Cat do with each other is none of my business.”

  All his reactions seemed odd. Now I’d reassured him somehow. Practically smiling, he muttered, “Damn straight,” like he hadn’t really learned to swear yet. Then he walked out of the room while I groped to understand him.

  As soon as the door closed, however, my anger came back in a rush. Aren’t you trying to persuade her she’s rotten? He’d turned the tables on me. Instead of telling me about himself, he’d exposed me. Persuade her she’s rotten. Was it that bad? Was that the real point of all my wounds and helplessnesses, my drinking and guilt? To convince her that she didn’t deserve anything better? So that she wouldn’t walk away from me?

  Christ, Axbrewder. You’re a prince.

  No question about it. I definitely needed to do something violent

  I also needed an answer about Joseph Hardhouse. Unless that and violence came to the same thing. Almost desperately, I left my room to look for Lara.

  That may not have been one of my more sensible decisions, but it was the best I could come up with on short notice.

  Unfortunately looking for her meant that I had to deal with the people in the den.

  Fortunately Houston Mile no longer held the stage. He must’ve done enough raccoon-tuning to content him for a while. Now he sat with Mac Westward and Maryanne Green under a moose head with a rather moldy set of antlers. In fact, he seemed to have Westward trapped. He spoke quietly, but his voice carried. Everyone in the room heard him describe some of the more pleasurable aspects of greenmail. Maryanne sat beside him, palpating his knee from time to time—hanging on every word.

  Westward, however, didn’t look trapped. Behind his usual cold, lumpy expression, he looked like a novelist considering new motives for murder.

  On the other side of the big tree, Ginny and Constance Bebb shared a private discussion. I knew Ginny well enough to see that Connie had her full attention, and she didn’t want to be interrupted. Which was fine with me. I didn’t know what to say to her anyway.

  Buffy and Rock sat with Simon Abel and Cat as far as they could get from everyone else. Just because I’m the kind of guy who thinks things like that, I thought they all looked furtive.

  The Draytons and the Hardhouses weren’t present.

  I wandered over to the front door and went out onto the porch. Pretending that I wanted to check on the weather.

  Outside, conditions had deteriorated. The wind had died down, apparently because the air had grown so gray and thick that it was hard to shift. As a result, the cold seemed less bitter than before. A few flakes rode the breeze like advance men, testing opportunities for the snow behind them. The idea that Deerskin Lodge’s position in the bottom of this hollow would provide shelter was an illusion. The hillsides and the surrounding mountains made the wind swirl. More snow would probably fall here than anywhere else.

  I scanned what I could see from the porch. If I were more diligent, I would’ve taken my coat and gone for a walk, just to get a better picture of my situati
on. How many doors did the lodge actually have? Where were they? What were the best ways to get from one place to another?

  I didn’t do it. At the moment I didn’t give a shit about being diligent. What I really wanted was to learn something horrible and dangerous about Joseph Hardhouse. Then I wouldn’t have to feel so wrong toward Ginny. I could justify my reactions.

  I succeeded. In a manner of speaking.

  Avoiding observation from the den, I moved down the porch, away from the windows. And when I reached the corner, I spotted Hardhouse and his wife.

  To all appearances, they were taking a stroll together among the trees. I only saw them in glimpses between the dark trunks. But they were unmistakably holding hands.

  While I watched, they stopped. Hardhouse put his back against a tree. They wrapped their arms around each other and kissed like they meant business.

  9

  When Ama called us to lunch, Buffy and all her guests responded with excitement. Lunch marked the passage of time, the heightening of suspense. The moment approached when someone would be killed.

  The only one not excited was me. My convalescence didn’t seem to be going especially well. I felt vaguely feverish, slightly giddy, and the pain in my guts had taken on a new, rather watery dimension. On top of that, I was so sleepy you could’ve sold me over the counter as a soporific.

  In spite of my condition, however, I noticed that Cat Reverie and Hardhouse had lost interest in each other. Instead Ginny had turned up the rheostat of her focus on him. Meanwhile Lara was being even more attentive to Mac Westward. And Sam and Queenie Drayton seemed almost insufferably fond of each other.

  But I didn’t care. After lunch I went back to my room and climbed into bed.

  I wanted to sleep for the rest of the week. Unfortunately I started dreaming about snow. And Muy Estobal. And Lawrence Smithsonian. Snow was pain, and I crawled through it forever until I found myself with my arms locked around Estobal’s neck and no way to let go. He was too strong for me, he broke me apart piece by piece, and I couldn’t defend myself because I was full of tequila, tequila, of all things, but I hadn’t drunk it, no, that was el Senor’s doing, he’d forced it into me, and Smithsonian watched me cling to Estobal and die, grinning like a self-righteous moray eel.