All The Bells on Earth (42 page)

Walt shook his head. “Put them in a bag,” he said. “We’ll take them to go.”

In his mind he revised his wish to the bluebird, calling it off, half expecting Maggie Biggs to pitch over dead right then and there. Don’t kill her, he commanded the bird, talking loud in his mind. Send her home happy.

But was it enough? Could he be sure that the bird was listening? “We’d better run,” he said to the kids, getting up and taking the bag from Mrs. Biggs. “Look,” he said to her. “For the next fifteen minutes, don’t go anywhere.”

“What is this?” she asked. “What’s going on here?” She looked at Henry now, sizing him up. “Is this your doing?” she asked.

“I swear,” he said, shaking his head. “It’s a mystery.”

“Because if it is …”

“Just stay here,” Walt said to her. “Just for a few minutes. And don’t eat
any
thing. Don’t take any medications. For God’s sake, don’t do anything dangerous, like climb a ladder or something. Stay away from the windows. Just stay
put
for a few minutes.” He pushed the door open and ushered the kids out, then jumped into the Suburban, fired it up, and headed for home.

“A
ND THAT’S ALL
I want you to do,” he said out loud to the bluebird. “Get her out of here alive.” It sat on the garage bench, freed from its grave under the stepping-stone. Nora and Eddie were indoors, making themselves sick with the doughnuts. He wondered if he should call the All-Niter and give Mrs. Biggs the all-clear, but that would just compound the craziness of this whole thing. She had thought something was “going on” as it was.

Was it?

The whole setup at the All-Niter was strange: Henry sneaking around behind the counter, acting furtive, pretending to have been eating doughnuts, Maggie Biggs hiding out in the back room. If Walt hadn’t shouted, she’d have stayed hidden; he was pretty sure of that. Maybe Henry was just down there giving her what’s what, straightening her out for good and all. But that’s not the way he had acted.

B
ENTLEY LOOKED OUT THROUGH
the walnut trees toward the street. From where he stood he could see up and down Chapman Avenue, get a view of cars heading both east and west. It was two
A.M.,
and there was no traffic, and except for crickets the night was still. Away across the lot he could see the shadow of a backhoe left by the men who’d been digging up LeRoy’s orchard. The shell of the burned-out house shone in the moonlight, and for the first time in over a week the sky was clear and full of stars, but the ground and shrubbery and trees were soaked, and it would take them days to dry out, which was a good thing, under the circumstances.

Father Mahoney sprinkled gasoline over the low, altarlike shelf in the chicken coop and then doused the painted scrawls on the plank walls before saturating the dirt beneath, pouring the gasoline over the chicken wire and the diabolical trash behind it. He flicked the last of the gasoline out in the rough shape of a cross, mumbling in Latin. Bentley listened to him, watched him making these liturgical gestures with a gasoline can. He had thought that the church had given up Latin, but it was possible that the priest had shifted out of English simply because English couldn’t quite carry the necessary weight, so to speak.

Finally Mahoney set the now-empty can on the shelf and gestured at it. “Leave it,” Bentley said in a low voice. There was no use trying to hide it. Fire inspectors would know this was an arson.

They had left Bentley’s car at the Holy Spirit church and walked the six blocks to Water Street carrying the gas can in a plastic sack. If they were stopped on the way back, well, so be it: the police wouldn’t arrest a priest and a minister. They’d say they’d been off visiting Mrs. Hepplewhite, who was at home right now, waiting for the all-clear phone call when they got back to the church. If they made it to the church without incident, then Obermeyer would swear they’d spent the evening at his place if they needed an alibi later, which they wouldn’t; who would suspect the two of them? The whole thing was Bentley’s plan: as soon as the shed went up they would phone in an alarm from the pay phone on the Cambridge Street corner and then hightail it through the neighborhood on foot.

There was the reek of gasoline on the night air now, and Bentley looked around uneasily again, checking traffic, on the alert for cruising patrol cars. Mahoney stepped back and bowed his head for a moment, and Bentley did too.

The priest nodded at him finally, and Bentley lit the wick of a Stay-Lit birthday candle and checked the street one last time. Chapman was clear of cars, from the Plaza to Tustin Avenue half a mile east. Mahoney backed away, into the shadows of the grove. Bentley let the candle burn for a couple of seconds before he tossed it into the open shed, and then he turned and ran, but even so the heat from the explosion was so intense that he panicked and threw himself forward into an arbor overgrown with unpruned grapevines, and had to scramble to free himself. Mahoney was already high-stepping it through the trees, toward the oleander-choked wire fence at the rear of the lot.

Bentley ran after him, holding onto his hat and pushing in through the oleander, yanking the stiff branches out of his way. “Go!” he shouted hoarsely, and then shoved the priest through the hole they’d cut in the fence ten minutes ago, out into the parking lot at the rear of a set of two-story office buildings. Bentley bent through behind him, careful not to snag his coat, and the two hurried across the moonlit asphalt as the glow of the fire rose up behind them.

O
H, YES, IT’S SAFE
as a baby,” Mrs. Biggs said over the phone. “I’ve got it hid where nobody’ll think to look.”

“There’s really no need for that,” Argyle told her. “I’ll take delivery today—as soon as possible, if that’s acceptable to you. I believe I authorized Mr. Peetenpaul to offer you two thousand dollars, but I’m happy to say that I’m
so
thrilled you’ve been prompt and professional, that I’d like to double that figure. I don’t suppose you’d argue with that?” He looked out the window. They’d started digging up LeRoy’s remains again, but the rain had them stymied. Most of the grove was a mud hole now. Somehow Argyle didn’t think they’d find anything much anyway. It was only at the end that LeRoy had gotten stupid.

“Four thousand dollars,” she said. “Well, that’s mighty generous of you, I’m sure. And like you say, I won’t argue. I don’t believe in it. An argument’s just words, isn’t it? It won’t pay rent.”

“There’s a good philosophy,” Argyle said.

“But I might just as well tell you now that there’s another party has an interest in this thing. Considerably more interested than four thousand dollars, I might say.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Only that there’s a party who’ll offer me more. And like I say, I won’t argue. I let the money talk.”

Argyle sat up in his chair and evened his voice. This was a new turn. Peetenpaul had grossly misjudged this woman, which wasn’t at all like him. “You’ve misunderstood me entirely, Mrs. Biggs,” he said. “I’m not offering to
buy
this item from you and never was. I offered to pay you to retrieve it. The bird itself is very rare—the only existing example of its species. The Museum of Natural History in Los Angeles commissioned me to obtain it from sources in China, and I was successful in doing so. The bird, very unfortunately, was sent to the wrong address and this entire confusion resulted. For the sake of science, Mrs. Biggs, and on the part of the taxpayer, I entreat you to allow me to send it on to its rightful owners.”

“That’s not how it worked out, you see.”

“What’s not? What do you mean?”

“Mr. Stebbins threw the bird away.”

“I don’t follow you.”

“He threw the thing into the Dumpster. Anybody could have took it out, couldn’t they?”

“Am I mistaken, or did you say you were in possession of the item in question?” Argyle asked evenly.

“Oh, I’m in possession of it. That I am.”

“Then nobody else took it out of the trash?”

“No, I’ve got it.”

“And it wasn’t carted away to the dump?”

“No, it was not. I’m telling you I’ve got it.”

“Good! For a moment there I was lost. So, to put this in perspective, you’ve got the item and you’re not satisfied with the remuneration despite my doubling it?”

“Well, I don’t know anything about remuneration, as you call it. I was thinking more along the lines of
purchase price
. What I mean is that I don’t know who
owns
this thing, do I? All I know is it was me that found it in the trash. You talk about this museum and China and all, but that smells like rubbish to me. It looks to me like
I
own it, so don’t quote the by-God taxpayer to me.”

“I must advise you to rethink your position, Mrs. Biggs.”

“That’s what I’ve done in regard to this other party, like I said …”

“
What
other party?”

“This other gentleman. I misremember the man’s name, but he’s
very
keen on the item.”

“I don’t for a moment believe in the existence of this other gentleman, Mrs. Biggs.”

“That’s as may be. You might just as well say you don’t believe in the moon, for all the good it’ll do you. What if I told you this other gentleman was the neighbor’s cat and that. I’d feed this damned bird to it on a shingle as soon as give it to a cheapskate like you? What would you say then? That you don’t believe in the cat? Because that’s just what I’ll do, and I’ll do it in a cold second, too.”

“I’m getting a little tired of this entire charade, Mrs. Biggs. How much do you want?”

“Two hundred and fifty thousand dollars,” she said. “Cash on the barrelhead.”

He heard a bang then, as if she’d pounded her fist onto a desktop. A quarter of a million dollars! The amount struck him dumb. He sat looking at the telephone receiver, as if what he held in his hand had ceased to have any meaning. After a moment he managed to laugh, but it sounded unconvincing even to him.

“You might as well laugh,” she said. “I’m onto you and your little game. I want small bills, spending cash—nothing bigger than a fifty and not all fifties, either. Put ’em in a suitcase. Some kind of quality leather, not vinyl or cloth. Have that big Dutchman of yours bring it around. I’ll give him the bird right enough.
Comprende?
”

“I’m with you so far,” Argyle said.

“Then stay with me, because I’ve got one more thing to say. I’ve found out a thing or two about you, Mr. Swindle-meister, about some of the things you’ve
done
, if you take my meaning, and I think it’s a crying shame. I know who your friends are, too. Your whole crowd makes me sick. I’ve wrote it all down, all the dirt that’s fit to print, and it’s a sorry thing to look at, I can tell you. What I did is I sent a copy off to my dear friend Velma, and if I don’t show up at Velma’s with her share of the payment PDQ, then it all goes public. Every blessed thing.”

“I think I understand.”

“I knew you would. You’re a man of business. And what I hope you understand is that tomorrow, if I don’t have the money in hand, I mean to dry this bird out in the oven, salt its tail, and throw it to the lions.”

She hung up the phone then, and Argyle sat there with his head in his hands. He’d managed to get the bird out of the frying pan and into the fire. And it wasn’t the money that frosted him, either. He could pay her the damned money easily enough; he would have paid Flanagan as much if the man hadn’t gone soft on him. What pissed him off was the idea of being hosed like this.

But what could he do, short of having the old woman tortured? Not a damn thing. She’d do what she said.

He laughed out loud. He’d been flayed! Well, to hell with it. Once he possessed the bird he’d be free, clean of the last twenty years, rid of the nightmares, rid of the black desire that drove him out into the neighborhood after dark….

Last night he had come to himself outside the church, standing on the sidewalk in the midnight wind and holding a burned-down candle. Apparently he’d bitten the burning end off it, because his tongue was blistered and there was wax in his teeth. He had fled home in a blind rush, where he had found his back door open wide, water running in the kitchen sink, all the stove burners flaming. His memory of what he’d done inside the church was a heap of fragments, like an image in a broken mirror: climbing in the dim well of the bell tower, stomping on a man in a dark room, smoke curling up from torn-apart hymnals….

He stood up from his desk now, picked up his umbrella, and left the office, locking the door and heading down the stairs and out onto the porch. Peetenpaul himself was just then pulling up along the curb, driving the new truck and dressed for business.

“Y
OU PROMISED,”
N
ORA SAID.

Walt glanced at her in the rearview mirror. She was frowning hard, looking straight ahead, her hands folded across her chest, her bangs a razor-straight line above her eyebrows.

“But I didn’t know we would make that much, did I?” Walt asked. “You’ve got the bubble string already. Today after school we can go to the dime store and you can pick out … let’s see … three things. We’ll do that every day for … two weeks. Three prizes a day.”