Kelly opened his mouth wide, breathing slowly and regularly, not allowing his muscles to tense up now. The morning wind had picked up some, letting the boat rock perhaps five degrees left and right of the vertical, and he allowed his body to ride with the rolls, commanding himself to accept the soothing motion of the sea.
‘I don’t know what the big deal is, I mean, she’s just a dead whore. We should be able to cut a deal, like. You know how dumb you are? There was seventy grand back in the house, you dumb son of a bitch. Seventy grand!’ Billy stopped, seeing it wasn’t working. Still, an angry man made mistakes, and he’d rattled the guy before. He was sure of that, and so he continued.
‘You know, the real shame, I guess, is she needed drugs. You know, if she just knew another place to score, we never woulda seen y’all. Then you fucked up, too, remember.’
Yes, I remember.
‘I mean, you really were dumb. Didn’t you know about phones? Jesus, man. After our car got stuck, we called Burt and got his car, and just went cruisin’, like, and there you were, easy as hell to spot in that jeep. You must’ve really been under her spell, man.’
Phones? It was something that simple that had killed Pam? Kelly thought. His muscles went taut. You fucking idiot, Kelly. Then his shoulders went slack, just for a second, with the realization of how thoroughly he had failed her, and part of him recognized the emptiness of his efforts at revenge. But empty or not, it was something he would have. He sat up straighter in the control chair.
‘I mean, shit, car easy to spot like that, how fuckin’ dumb can a guy be?’ Billy asked, having just seen real feedback from his taunts. Now perhaps he could start real negotiations. ‘I’m kinda surprised you’re alive – hey, I mean, it wasn’t anything personal. Maybe you didn’t know the work she did for us. We couldn’t let her loose with what she knew, right? I can make it up to you. Let’s make a deal, okay?’
Kelly checked the autopilot and the surface. Springer was moving on a safe and steady course, and nothing in sight was on a converging path. He rose from his chair and moved to another, a few feet from Billy.
‘She told you that we were in town to score some drugs? She told you that?’ Kelly asked, his eyes level with Billy’s.
‘Yeah, that’s right.’ Billy was relaxing. He was puzzled when Kelly started weeping in front of him. Perhaps here was a chance to get out of his predicament. ‘Geez, I’m sorry, man,’ Billy said in the wrong sort of voice. ‘I mean, it’s just bad luck for you.’
Bad luck for me? He closed his eyes, just a few inches from Billy’s face. Dear God, she was protecting me. Even after I failed her. She didn’t even know if 1 was alive or not, but she lied to protect me. It was more than he could bear, and Kelly simply lost control of himself for several minutes. But even that had a purpose. His eyes dried up after a time, and as he wiped his face, he also removed any human feelings he might have had for his guest.
Kelly stood and walked back to the control chair. He didn’t want to look the little bastard in the face any longer. He might really lose control, and he couldn’t risk that.
‘Tom, I think you may be right after all’ Ryan said.
According to his driver’s license – already checked out: no arrest record, but a lengthy list of traffic violations – Richard Oliver Farmer was twenty-four and would grow no older. He had expired from a single knife thrust into the chest, through the pericardium, fully transiting the heart. The size of the knife wound – ordinarily such traumatic insults closed up until they became difficult for the layman to see – indicated that the assailant had twisted the blade as much as the space between the ribs allowed. It was a large wound, indicating a blade roughly two inches in width. More important, there was additional confirmation.
‘Not real smart,’ the ME announced. Ryan and Douglas both nodding, looking. Mr Farmer had been wearing a white cotton, button-down-collar shirt. There was a suit jacket, too, hanging on a doorknob. Whoever had killed him had wiped the knife on the shirt. Three wipes, it appeared, and one of them had left a permanent impression of the knife, marked in the blood of the victim, who had a revolver in his belt but hadn’t had a chance to use it. Another victim of skill and surprise, but, in this case, less circumspection. The junior of the pair pointed to one of the stains with his pencil.
‘You know what it is?’ Douglas asked. It was rhetorical; he answered his own question immediately. ‘It’s a Ka-Bar, standard-issue Marine combat knife. I own one myself.’
‘Niice edge on it, too,’ the ME told them. ‘Very clean cut, almost surgical in the way it went through the skin. He must have sliced the heart just about in half. A very accurate thrust, gentlemen, the knife came in perfectly horizontal so it didn’t jam on the ribs. Most people think the heart’s on the left. Our friend knew better. Only one penetration. He knew exactly what he was doing.’
‘One more, Em. Armed criminal. Our friend got in close and did him so fast -‘
‘Yeah, Tom, I believe you now.’ Ryan nodded and went upstairs to join the other detective team. In the front bedroom was a pile of men’s clothes, a cloth satchel with a ton of cash in it, a gun, and a knife. A mattress with semen stains, some still moist. Also a lady’s purse. So much evidence for the younger men to catalog. Blood types from the semen stains. Complete ID on all three – they assumed three – people who had been here. Even a car outside to run down. Finally something like a normal murder case. Latent prints would be all over the place. The photographers had already shot a dozen rolls of film. But for Ryan and Douglas the matter was already settled in its curious way.
‘You know that guy Farber over at Hopkins?’
‘Yeah, Em, he worked the Gooding case with Frank Allen. I set the date up. He’s real smart,’ Douglas allowed. ‘A little peculiar, but smart. I have to be in court this afternoon, remember?’
‘Okay, I think I can handle it. I owe you a beer, Tom. You figured this one faster than I did.’
‘Well, thanks, maybe I can be a lieutenant, too, some-day.’
Ryan laughed, fishing out a cigarette as he walked down the stairs.
‘You going to resist?’ Kelly asked with a smile. He’d just come back into the salon after tying up to the quay.
‘Why should I help you with anything?’ ?ill? asked with what he thought to be defiance.
‘Okay.’ Kelly drew the Ka-Bar and held it next to a particularly sensitive place. ‘We can start right now if you want.’
The whole body shriveled, but one part more than the others. ‘Okay, okay!’
‘Good. I want you to learn a little from this. I don’t want you ever to hurt another girl again.’ Kelly loosed the shackles from the deck fitting, but his arms were still together, bolted in tight, as he stood Billy up.
‘Fuck you, man! You’re gonna kill me! And I ain’t gonna tell you shit.’
Kelly twisted him around to stare in his eyes. ‘I’m not going to kill you, Billy. You’ll leave this island alive. I promise.’
The confusion on his face was sufficiently amusing that Kelly actually smiled for a second. Then he shook his head. He told himself that he was treading a very narrow and hazardous path between two equally dangerous slopes, and to both extremes lay madness, of two different types but equally destructive. He had to detach himself from the reality of the moment, yet hold on to it. Kelly helped him down from the boat and walked him towards the machinery bunker.
‘Thirsty?’
‘I need to take a piss, too.’
Kelly guided him onto some grass. ‘Go right ahead.’ Kelly waited. Billy didn’t like being naked, not in front of another man, not in a subordinate position. Foolishly, he wasn’t trying to talk to Kelly now, at least not in the right way. Coward that he was, he’d tried to build up his manhood earlier, trying to talk not so much to Kelly as himself as he’d recounted his part in ending Pam’s life, creating for himself an illusion of power, when silence might – well, would probably not have saved him. It might have created doubts, though, especially if he’d been clever enough to spin a good yarn, but cowardice and stupidity were not strangers to each other, were they? Kelly let him stand untended while he dialed the combination lock. Turning on the interior lights, he pushed Billy inside.