Читать книгу Anne Bonny's Wake - Dick Elam - Страница 14

CHAPTER 8

Clink.

When Bill leaned forward, he hit the metal—where his ankle used to be—against his wheelchair. I tried not to react. I knew Havins wanted no sympathy. Besides, when Bill leaned his face closer to yours, you knew a zinger was coming.

“Gawl dog, Hersh. You’ve found another good-looker. Watched her sway across the lawn to the motel room. Got to hand it to you, Hersh. Twice now you’ve gone to Swan Quarter and come back with a stunning woman.” Havins widened his lecherous leer, lifted himself, pressed his muscular arms against the wheelchair armrests, and waved me toward the visitor’s chair. Bill’s routine demonstrated he didn’t want you to think he was a feeble cripple.

I dropped into the visitor’s chair, my back to the picture window that framed Oriental Harbor. Bill’s seating arrangement provided him a close-up of his guest and a panorama of the harbor.

Bill chuckled. I chuckled back. I had, indeed, met a grand woman at Swan Quarter. My Annie.

Annie and I had met flying to North Carolina, but we didn’t know that we both worked for the Agency. “Survival section” had sent us.

We sat across the aisle on the Raleigh-Durham flight. Then we sat together on the bus to “Little Washington,” a name natives use to differentiate Washington, North Carolina, from the District of Columbia. We talked around our jobs. Said I was a clinical researcher. She traveled for a copy machine company. We sidestepped job details and instead talked about the Faulkner book she brought. Told her I thought William Faulkner wrote his sentences too long. She suggested I take up speed-reading. That ended the conversation.

She read. I shut my eyes and pretended to doze.

We didn’t speak until we reached Little Washington. Then we found ourselves, along with a Hispanic-looking man, standing on the same corner waiting for transportation.

When Survival’s car met Annie, me, and a Texan named Lupe, Annie and I snickered. We told our story to Tex-Mex Lupe and the driver. That broke the ice. Then everybody told a funny “undercover” story. We drove through Swan Quarter and down a dirt road to a three-story farmhouse located on the east bank of the peninsula.

That’s where we took our survival instruction from the master in the trade: Bill Havins.

The Master—before someone crushed Bill’s ankles.

“Don’t take offense, Hersh. But this one’s as pretty as your last lady. I think Annie would be proud of you.”

“Slow down, Bill. Nothing going on here.”

“It’s okay, Hersh. You don’t have to marry ’em before we pass out a motel key. You don’t even have to sign ‘Mr. and Mrs.’ It’s agin the law for me to even ask if you’re living in sin.”

“I’m sleeping on the Anne Bonny. She’s using the motel room. I’m showering in your dressing room cesspool, not with her. Dammit, Bill, quit reading those dirty paperbacks before you sell ’em to your customers.”

“Okay, Pilgrim. But you can be sure that Min will question you. She’s still old-fashioned, but frankly, son, I’m a little disappointed in you. Like I told you when I stood up with you, this ole Bill was indeed the best man when you married Annie.”

Bill hadn’t dropped the wedding ring and let it roll across the church as he’d threatened. But he’d squeezed the bridesmaid, drunk most of the hooch, told the preacher an obscene story, and jacked our car up, the rear wheels spinning, while he laughed. Lifted our car down, chased after us in his pickup truck, and even crowded a couple of local football players off the road when they joined the car chase. That’s the rearview mirror sight that my Annie and I saw as we fled from that wedding reception.

Losing two feet on his CIA assignment had changed Bill. He couldn’t air his professional past. Central Intelligence Agency employment agreement wouldn’t allow him to write a book about his narrow escapes.

When Bill recovered from losing his feet, he left the Agency. With his disability and severance pay, and a mortgage, Bill bought Oriental Dockside Marina, but not the restaurant. The Oriental Restaurant stayed with Andy, a redhead, like me, who cooked catch-of-the-day in eastern North Carolina.

When Bill lost his feet, Oriental people heard that Bill’s automobile had collided with two diesel trucks on Interstate 85. I never heard the true story, but knew I-85 wasn’t located in Central America.

One night, near the bottom of the wine bottle, Annie had let their Central America assignment slip. My best guess was Nicaragua, where I knew the Agency worried about the Sandinistas.

Bill recovered in a Virginia hospital. Min confided that they’d outfitted Bill with prostheses that would let him attach shoes and walk. But after he learned to walk with his artificial feet, Bill didn’t bother.

Min explained, “Bill will attach swim fins to those metal connections and swim. He could probably make the water polo team, even today. But Bill never enjoyed dancing, and now he’s got an excuse to beg off.”

Annie had told me, before anyone knew, about Bill losing his feet, but swore me to secrecy. She’d promised to tell me what really happened, but my Annie died without telling me.

I asked a few Agency people I knew, but they didn’t have another story. Our Latino computer expert said he’d seen Havins at Latin-American Intelligence after the “accident.” He’d speculated that Bill had been recalled for a Spanish-speaking assignment, but he didn’t know.

“You’re an old lecher,” I said. “That’s what you are, Bill Havins. I don’t know how Min keeps up with you.”

“Min carries around a stick, and she clogs the spokes of my wheelchair when she can’t keep up.

“Okay, now. Come on, Hersh. Tell me where you found this good-looker. Last week you passed through doing the all-alone, widower’s solo sail to Swan Quarter. When you left, Min informed me that she needed to find you a wife.”

“Minerva the Matchmaker,” I said.

“Yeah, Hersh. Married women can’t stand to see an unmarried man on the loose. But she will be happy now that you’re back with this lovely. Gawl dog, I like the way she fills out that Bon Ami T-shirt.”

I looked to see if any customers shopped Bill’s stock of sailboat hardware, orange life preservers, black and red wet suits, fishing poles, paint cans, boat shoes, hats, and other items marked up twice the wholesale price. No customers, so I told the Maggie Moore story, including data from our afternoon conversation.

Bill interrupted me only once. When I told him about the cockfight, he pulled two nautical charts from under the ship-to-shore radio table. He looked at the first chart, then spread the second chart across his lap. He traced his way down the Intracoastal Waterway from Hobucken.

“Cock-and-bull fight. Go ahead, Hersh. I’ll fill in later.”

Bill listened attentively. No one in the “spook” trade doubted Bill’s steel-trap memory. To survive losing two feet, Bill must have needed rescue. What other agent was mutilated? You never knew what body parts remained when the coffin stayed closed—or you only received ashes. Bill said he’d kept all of him that counted: “You could ask Min.”

Bill called up his most lecherous grin.

“Hell of a story. Can’t wait to see Min’s face when she hears about this babe swimming topless.”

“Bill, do you think Min should hear? You can get pretty lascivious talking about bare breasts.”

Bill laughed. “‘Lascivious’—that’s a fancy Pilgrim preacher word. But you’re right, Hersh. If your Maggie Moore shows up barefoot in her wet cut-offs and Bon Ami T-shirt, imagine what Min will say: ‘You shouldn’t have dressed up for dinner, honey; we’re informal here,’ or, if Min’s feeling charitable, she may just ask, ‘That all you got to wear?’ When Min wants to, she knows how to put a hurt on another woman.”

I envisioned that likelihood. I intended to buy stretch cord from Bill, but also some “etc. for MM” that I’d noted in the logbook.

“Hell, pardner, we can head Min off at the pass. Your mermaid probably would prefer to pick her own wardrobe, but we don’t have time to take her shopping before dinner. Just follow ole Bill.”

Havins rolled around his chart table, spun the chair to miss a pile of anchors and galvanized chain, and wheeled to show me hats, foul-weather gear, and some sports clothing. I saw a book titled Sailing Words for Lubbers.

“Tell you one thing, Havins. This lady doesn’t need that book. Don’t have to tell her that we call ropes ‘lines.’ Or that I’m not putting down women when I tell them to ‘man the winch.’ She whips the lines around a winch with a flip of her wrist.”

Bill wheeled to the clothing rack. “She wears a size 8 dress, and, I guess, a 7 in a Top-Sider shoe.”

“Bill, how would you know that?”

“Powers of observation. I sized this girl up pretty close.”

From one shelf, Bill took a box of shoes. Then he rolled to a hanging rack and selected a navy-blue wraparound skirt.

“This will fit because it wraps around, but I’m telling you the lady wears a size 8. Also, I’m picking a dark skirt ’cause we don’t sell slips.”

Bill took a yellow T-shirt off one shelf.

“We sell red, and we sell yellow,” Bill said. “She gets yellow, because we got no red in stock. You get a discount. We marked them down to $15.44. Only two left.”

Bill wheeled to where he sold the “Bikini-in-a-Bag.”

“Your Maggie will stop a few Waterway eyes wearing this green bikini. Looks good on women with black hair.”

The two-piece bathing suit package was barely a handful. I read the attached specifications: “Lycra stretch . . . one size fits all . . . perfect for unexpected swim guest. Matching bag that seconds as a purse. Ties eight different ways and blots dry in a towel.” Diagrams showed how to tie different versions of the bikini.

I reminded Bill about the putty in Maggie’s hair. Bill found some scarves and chose both green and white. Maggie could wear the scarf around her waist or her neck, as well as put up her hair, Bill explained.

“Let’s get these delivered, and then you come back and I’ll tell you what I think about your Maggie the Mermaid.”

I knocked on room six, the last door on the one-floor motel. The rooms faced the harbor, and room six also offered a view of the Neuse River and the concrete bridge that spanned Smith Creek.

Maggie pulled back a corner of the blinds, saw me, and cracked the door. I saw she was wrapped in towels, one for her body and another for her hair.

“While you showered, Bill Havins helped me buy some things for you to wear to dinner. Bill doesn’t sell underwear, but he found you a green substitute. Good luck on the fitting.”

Maggie took the clothes. She examined the skirt and T-shirt, remarked “Nice,” and placed the clothing on the bed. Next, she slipped on the shoes. “Fit perfectly,” she said. Last, she pulled the bikini-in-a-bag out of the sack. She laughed.

“I’ve seen how these work before. I can tie it.”

“Bill and I will meet you on the second level of the Oriental Restaurant,” I said. “Come over whenever you’re ready. We’ll have a drink, watch the sun go down, and then go down to the dining room and eat some seafood. See you there, whenever . . .”

“I’ll be about forty-five minutes. Thanks, Hersh. And thank Bill, too.”

Maggie smiled. Her towel slipped, and Maggie had to grab the towel to keep from exposing more of her breasts.

If a forty-six-year-old widower can still blush, I did. Excused myself, and returned to the Chandlery.

Bill went for the jugular. He’d established a reputation for no-nonsense analysis before Annie and I joined the Agency.

“The cockfight story doesn’t ring true. They don’t fight cocks in this part of the state. Could believe that what I call the ‘Noose and Obscurer’ wanted to expose a modern Ku Klux Klan or a Swastika crazies meeting. There’s still some of that kind around here. If the newspaper caught a city dumping sewage in the Neuse River, or the university making a dollar using state equipment, or one of the governor’s men driving around drunk, then you couldn’t keep up with all their stories. But a cockfight? They wouldn’t send one of their reporters across Raleigh to cover a chicken fight.”

“You don’t think there’s anything in this area that would attract their attention?” I wanted to believe Maggie Moore.

Bill answered, “Yes. Smuggling. Josephus Daniels’s boys worry about the seacoast, the fishing industry, and dope smuggling. The editors like to front-page a dope bust at a high school. The paper complains that marijuana smokers only get a slap on the hand.”

He leaned forward in his wheelchair.

“Now, if you had told me the newspaper wanted to expose dope smuggling, I wouldn’t be surprised, but I doubt that the editors would risk a reporter for what your Maggie described. Of course, a young reporter could have taken the chance on his own.”

I sensed that Havins thought I was emotionally involved. Bill may have been correct. He had taught decision making in action situations. My forte had been posing hypotheses that I backed up with a preponderance of data and attached a statistical probability. Bill had taught intuition, used when you lacked information. He’d also taught us that intuition worked best when you suppressed personal emotions.

“What about the big, burly guy driving the motorboat? Seen anyone like him around here?”

“No, Hersh, I haven’t. But tell me, you still an early riser?”

“Yes. Still come up with the dawn.”

“Tell you what, Hersh. You borrow my pickup truck. Early tomorrow morning, drive over to Pierce Creek and talk to the old Navy chief with the smart dog. If there’s a big ‘Bear’ roaming the Neuse River, there’s a good chance the old man may have seen him. You know the old chief petty officer, don’t you?”

“Sure.”

“Then, Hersh, get to Pierce Creek before the old man leaves to fish.”

“Will do. Give me the pickup keys tonight. And did you tell Min about the girl?”

“A little bit. Min can’t wait to see what you caught in your net. Tell you what. Bet Min will get her credentials.”

“That may be a tough job, even for Min.”

“Wanna bet, Hersh? Bet you my Min gets an occupation, an age, old boyfriends, what Maggie likes to eat, and names and addresses of next of kin. And we won’t tell her what you told me.”

“I’ll bet you Min doesn’t get any of that information from this woman, except maybe food preference.”

“Bet you five bucks.”

“Make it ten.”

Bill beamed. “You’re on. Now start pushing. I need a beer.”