Under Cover of Daylight (29 page)

Finally Stillman’s nurse looks over the X ray and says, “Yeah, we know this guy. Spends a good deal of time with us.” Sugarman lighting up, not tired anymore, coasting back to the Keys with a photocopy of this guy’s folder.

Lesley Allen Milburn, address at Coral Reef Club. Just your all-American neighborhood hit man. Forget about calling in somebody from Chicago. This way you didn’t even have to pay travel.

Back in Key Largo it didn’t take him long, asking around at the Coral Reef pro shop, the gas station, the restaurants, to find out his pal was a guy by the name of Irving David McMann. A good match on the description the eye doctor had given, and there you were. Both of them living off their daddies’ cash flows.

Sugarman had tried for a warrant. Just go into this guy’s town house, give Sugarman ten minutes, he’d find something that connected Milburn and McMann with Kate’s last fishing trip. But the judge had taken a look at the influential address and told Sugarman to find some other way to gather his information. Sugarman pleaded, even gave the judge a short history of Dr. Bill and Captain Kate. But that sealed it. This judge was a landowner, a pretty significant one, and Kate Truman’s name made that white-haired protector of rights glow red.

So the wheels of justice bounced along. Sugarman sat in a canvas director’s chair, watching the door of that quarter-of-a-million-dollar one-bedroom apartment. A Bible in his lap. He was becoming a damn Bible scholar so he could counter Jeannie’s hundred quotations. He knew his own point of view was in there somewhere. Stuff about honoring your husband, holding no one else before him, not even the goddamn minister, not even if he did look like Robert Redford.

Irv McMann painted another green
S
on his cheek. This one interlocked with another
S
and a
C
. He checked his face in the little camping mirror. No, it wasn’t there yet. He was trying for a camouflage effect. Yellows, greens, his tan would take care of the brown background. But Irv was getting something else, something goofy. He was glad Milburn wasn’t here to pooh-pooh him.

He could hear it. You look like you been dunking for turds.

Irv was out here for good now. He’d planted his little surprise package for Thorn. All that taken care of. And now he had his water, some beef jerky, nuts, a few radishes to wake him up. He had his sleeping bag and his weapons and his binoculars and his paperback book,
The Story of O
to keep his dick hard. He’d read somewhere about some tribe, Zulus or some shit, who ran into battle with hard-ons. He liked that a lot. Scare the bejesus out of your enemies. They’re all shriveled up, creeping around, and here you come rushing out of the trees, a spear in your hand and one between your legs.

Irv loved being out there with the mosquitoes and possums with the slimy bugs crawling around his supplies. He felt himself climbing down a rung or two on the evolutionary ladder, actually starting to like the stink growing in his armpits. He was leaning back against a banyan tree, its roots hanging down around him, hiding his little grotto.

Irv put down the mirror. The camouflage was good enough. He picked up the novel again and read some more about O, how much she was starting to like all these guys slipping it to her. Confirmed what Irv had always thought about women. He touched himself through the black pajama bottoms, keeping his stiffness alive. It was like tending a fire through the night to hold off the bears.

O
N
F
RIDAY MORNING
Thorn went back over to Dr. Bill’s house to meet Jerome. He hadn’t been there all week, and he thought he might be ready to clean up the place.

Jerome was waiting for him in the bash-mobile when Thorn drove up in Kate’s VW, top down. Jerome gave him a quick wiggle of the mouse ears and got out.

“I heard about this,” Jerome said, waving up at the house. A woodpecker fluttered out of the broken bathroom window. “You been hanging around the wrong types.”

“Interior decorators ran amok,” he said. “Had to fire them.”

“I heard.” Jerome dug his toe into the thick grass. “Listen, man. I was out of line about what I said about Captain Kate. It was none of my goddamn business.”

Thorn patted him on the back and handed him Dr. Bill’s keys.

“Jerome, you going to drive up to Miami with that goddamn rug on backwards?”

“That ain’t the problem,” said Jerome. “My head’s just not on straight.”

Thorn led him to where the Cadillac was parked under the stilt house. Jerome got in behind the wheel and asked him if there was anything special he should know about driving the thing.

“No,” Thorn said. “I haven’t driven it lately. But just last month I had the ears tuned up, the whiskers rotated.”

Jerome said he’d forgotten a magazine he’d brought to read in traffic. He climbed out.

“You be careful now, Jerome,” Thorn said, moving to the stairs. “You can squash a normal car in that yacht and not even know it.”

“You bet,” Jerome said. “Let me at ’em.” Jerome hurried back to the bash-mobile for his magazine, while Thorn went on upstairs.

He was halfway up to the porch when Jerome started the Cadillac. A rush of scalding air blew Thorn thirty feet backward into some hibiscus shrubs. And the concussion of the blast put him deep asleep.

When he woke, the volunteer ambulance was blinking in front of him, Sugarman leaning over him. Thorn turned his head and saw the Frigidaire lying a few feet away. It wasn’t chugging anymore.

“You’re all right, man,” Sugarman said. “It was car bombers this time.”

Thorn heard himself say, “Jerome?”

Down a long, narrow pipeline Sugarman shook his head.

Thorn was wheeled across the rough ground and slid into the back of the ambulance. He caught a glimpse of Dr. Bill’s house before they shut the doors. Just a couple of the telephone pole stilts remained. He could remember the house was a mess, but he hadn’t remembered its being that bad. It made him sleepy thinking about it. A nap might be just the thing.

Sarah held his hand. Sugarman sat for hours across from his bed. Thorn lay there, in Mariner’s Hospital, hovering just outside his body. He knew he was all right. The young black nurse had told him nothing was broken, that his paralysis was probably just a form of shock. Some deep bruise in his motor system.

But Thorn knew why he couldn’t move. He was afraid if he got up, moved around, somebody else would die.

He had a string of visitors, Janice Deels, tears coming the whole time, shooting looks at Sarah. And Jerome senior came to tell Thorn it struck him as being for the best, Jerome junior going quick like that. Sammy from the liquor store came and told Thorn all the guys were cheering for him. Sugarman stayed next to Sammy the whole time like he was ready to drag him away if he made any wrong turns. Some of Thorn’s fishermen friends stumbled in and stood smiling at him, sunburned and gawky.

Late Monday night, while Sarah was sleeping in the chair beside the bed, Thorn sat up. It was worse lying there, while the stream of friends stood at the foot of his bed trying to joke with him, than getting up, getting back to it.

He dragged one leg out from under the sheets, then the other, swiveled and put his feet back on the cold linoleum. He stood.

“Raptures of the deep?” Sarah said, stretching, rubbing sleep from her face.

“What month is it?”

“Still mosquito season,” said Sarah. “Still a few shopping days left.”

His feet were tender, and his lower back, shoulders, neck, and butt ached. But he could move. He gathered in a breath and hobbled across the cold hard floor to where Sarah stood waiting.

By Wednesday he could bend over and touch his knees. He could turn his head a few degrees, raise his arms above his head. All the necessary skills.

On Wednesday morning, the thirtieth, Thorn started dialing around nine and got no answer at Grayson’s office. His home phone was unlisted, so Thorn kept redialing the office number off and on all morning till finally at eleven-thirty Grayson himself picked up the receiver.

“It’s the bugman,” Thorn said. “Remember me?”

Grayson was silent. Thorn listened to the hundred miles of empty line echo between them.

Thorn said, “I heard something. A guy talked to me, and I thought you should know.”

“A guy talked to you,” Grayson said.

“I was talking to some people I know at a bar, talking about Allamanda, arguing, you know, about wood rats, saving the land, all that bullshit. Conversation was getting a little heated, and I may have said your name out loud.”

“You said my name.”

“You know, making a point about Allamanda. I might’ve taken your name in vain. Not in a bad-mouthing way, but saying, like you were one hardass son of a bitch. I meant it respectfully, with admiration, but right after that this guy walks over to me, taps me on the shoulder. Wants to buy me a drink in a booth. He thinks we have an enemy in common. You.”

“Can we get through this part, to what this is about?”

Thorn loved it. In the hospital he’d had this conversation in his mind, putting in the one missing piece, getting Grayson down from his penthouse. But all the times he’d run through it, it hadn’t gone this well.

“This swarthy fellow, he acts like he knows you, says he’s helping you out with a little problem involving some land deal. I get all perked up.”

“I don’t believe this,” Grayson said. “I don’t believe I’m having this kind of conversation.”

Thorn said, “This is a very verbal fellow. This is all late at night; the guy’s obviously under the sway of some mind-altering chemicals.”

“Without the close-ups,” Grayson said. “Just tell it.”

“Well, this guy is planning to knife his boss in the muscle. Once he gets home with a certain sack of money, he’s going to call his boss, tell him he wants double what he’s got in the bag to keep him from making a few phone calls. Is this an old story or what?”

“I don’t fucking believe this,” Grayson said. “What kind of scam is this?”

Thorn gave Grayson a few seconds to stew. He leaned against the kitchen wall, looked out at Sarah on the porch. Hands in her lap as if she were just snapping a few beans. He could see what she was doing, though, cleaning that damn Colt. Cleaning it, out there on the porch.

Thorn said, trying to make his voice reproachful, “Look, the only reason I didn’t tell this guy to piss off was I thought this might be of some help to you.”

“I’m listening. Have I hung up? Even though I’m not believing a word of this.”

“Well, the fact is, I laugh at this guy. I go, ‘You? A wahoo like you blackmail a guy like that? Come on.’

“And he makes these eyes at me. Like he’s got some spicy thing he knows, one phone call to the newspaper, another call somewhere else, and the asshole keeps grinning at me like he’s used to being underestimated, cat-with-the-canary look.

“OK, so I’m there, digesting this, and now all of a sudden the guy’s coming on to me, saying, well, the reason he’s invested so much time in talking to me is that he can use some help with this. He hears how I feel about this guy, Grayson, running him down out in public, so he proceeds to offer me a job, says he’s used to working with a partner. And his regular partner is out sick. Guy offered me ten thousand dollars to be his driver, keep his car running and drive him home. Maybe one or two other things he didn’t specify.” Thorn paused, a little dizzy at how easily he’d slipped into this act. “Kind of destroys your faith in the working class, am I right?”

Grayson didn’t respond for a few moments. When he spoke again, his voice was hoarse, full of bile.

“And what do
you
want from me?”

“Not a thing,” Thorn said. “I’m content being your feelers. Wave around, see what I can pick up. It’s like I figure, when Port Allamanda gets built, you’ll probably need a full-time bugman. Don’t you think?”

“Yeah, I guess I will,” Grayson said. He paused. “You wouldn’t be interested in some other work before that, would you? Exterminate some other pest?”

“Oh, no, no, man,” Thorn said. “It’s got to have at least four legs.”

“Not even for a million dollars?”

Thorn said no. Then swallowed hard.

“Yeah, well, OK,” said Grayson. “I appreciate the call, bugman.” Thorn could hear half of some other conversation, a woman’s faint voice carrying on a business call. Talking about medical insurance premiums. “Hey,” said Grayson. “You wouldn’t have an address for this guy, would you?”

“A man who works for you, you don’t know where he lives?”

“I usually make it a point not to,” said Grayson.

“I happen to know, yeah,” said Thorn. “I bought our friend a few drinkies, and we go back to his place, so I know just where it is, yeah.” Thorn thought,
drinkies
? Where in hell was this coming from?

“So?”

Thorn told him the address at Coral Reef.

“Jesus, there?”

“Guys you deal with are very upper-crust. Got Saudis for neighbors.”

“I guess I’m in your debt, bugman,” Grayson said.

“Be careful,” said Thorn. “Lot of bozos out there. Lot of yammering people under the sway of this or that chemical.”

“Right. I’m very aware of this.”

When Thorn hung up the phone, he shook his head, kept shaking it. He went out to the porch, and Sarah asked him what in the hell he was grinning about; but he just kept shaking his head.

That evening while Thorn warmed up the
Heart Pounder,
Sarah was inside the house, packing the money. A squall had passed through after sunset and had scrubbed the sky clean. He found himself yawning as he gazed up into the bright field of stars. The false drowsiness of fear. As he had done so often as a boy when he felt this way, Thorn let his mind travel out into the sky.

Out there in the dark prairies of the atmosphere, that chilled unreflective vacuum, Thorn considered what vast forces were at work. Nuclear eruptions, the clash of meteors against stark moons. But all of it still somehow hanging together, glued by laws and forces no one could quite describe.

Maybe what was wringing sweat from Thorn’s body, what was pumping his heart at such a pace, was some shadowy stray vine worked loose from the vortex of some black hole, a quark or quirk, leaked through the lid of the earth’s sky, that had twisted down into Thorn’s body. And with every pulse and twitch of that puppeteer’s finger, Thorn’s world quaked.