quietly.
Astonished, Sharp took a couple of steps toward him, loomed over him,
and said, “I asked you who the. hell you are.
The Stone’s hands and wrists were much too large for the rest of him,
long, thick fingers, big knuckles, every tendon and vein and sinew stood
out sharply, as if they were hands carved in marble by a sculptor with
an exaggerated appreciation for detail. Peake sensed that they were not
quite the hands that The Stone had been born with, that they had grown
larger and stronger in response to day after day of long, hard, manual
labor.
The Stone looked as if he thrived on the kind of heavy work that was
done in a foundry or quarry or, considering his sun-darkened skin, a
farm. But not one of those big, easy, modern farms with a thousand
machines and an abundant supply of cheap field hands. No, if he had a
farm, he had started it with little money, with bad rocky land, and he
had endured lousy weather and sundry catastrophes to bring fruit from
the reluctant earth, building a successful enterprise by the expenditure
of much sweat, blood, time, hopes, and dreams, because the strength of
all those successfully waged struggles was in his face and hands.
“I’m her father, Felsen Kiel,” The Stone told Sharp.
In a small voice devoid of fear and filled with wonder, Sarah Kiel said,
“Daddy..
The Stone started past Sharp, toward his daughter, who had sat up in bed
and held out a hand toward him.
Sharp stepped in his way, leaned close to him, loomed over him, and
said, “You can see her when we’ve finished the interrogation.”
The Stone looked up at Sharp with a placid expression that was the
essence of equanimity and imperturbability, and Peake was not only
gladdened but thrilled to see that Sharp was not going to intimidate
this man. Interrogate?
What right have you to interrogate?”
Sharp withdrew his wallet from his jacket, opened it to his D.S.A
credentials. “I’m a federal agent, and I am in the middle of an urgent
investigation concerning a matter of national security. Your daughter
has information that I’ve got to obtain as soon as possible, and she is
being less than cooperative.”
“If you’ll step into the hall,” The Stone said quietly, “I’ll speak with
her. I’m sure she isn’t obstructin’ you on purpose. She’s a troubled
girl, yes, and she’s allowed herself to be misguided, but she’s never
been bad at heart or spiteful. I’ll speak to her, find out what you
need to know, then convey the information to you.”
“No,” Sharp said. “You 11 go into the hall and wait.”
“Please move out of my way,” The Stone said.
“Listen, mister,” Sharp said, moving right up against The Stone, glaring
down at him, “if you want trouble from me, you’ll get it, more than you
can deal with. You obstruct a federal agent, and you’re just about
giving him a license to come down on you as hard as he wants.”
Having read the name on the D.S.A credentials, The Stone said, “Mr.
Sharp, last night I was awakened by a call from a Mrs. Leben, who said
my daughter needed me. That’s a message I’ve been waitin’ a long time
to hear. It’s the growin’ season, a busy time-” The guy was a farmer,
by God, which gave Peake new confidence in his powers of observation.
In spit-polished city shoes, polyester pants, and starched white shirt,
The Stone had the uncomfortable look specific to a simple country man
who has been forced by circumstances to exchange his work clothes for
unfamiliar duds.
“-a very busy season. But I got dressed the moment I hung up the phone,
drove the pickup a hundred miles to Kansas City in the heart of the
night, got the dawn flight out to Los Angeles, then the connector flight
here to Palm Springs, a taxi “Your travel journal doesn’t interest me
one damn bit,” Sharp said, still blocking The Stone.
“Mr. Sharp, I am plain bone-weary, which is the fact I’m tryin’ to
impress upon you, and lam most eager to see my girl, and from the looks