The Devil's Game

by Poul Anderson

  Larry grabbed the speaker by the shoulders and shook him. “Tell the chief here, damn you! Tell him what I said. There’s a man laid out with the brains blown loose from him, and Haverner wants to cover it up! Tell!”

  He let go. The boy stepped back, gaped at the officer, broke into accented but rapid-fire Spanish. The body behind the desk contracted in its shabby uniform, then abruptly swelled. The answer was fierce.

  “He … he say you mus’ be wrong, sir,” the Islandman told Larry. “He say you make a mistake. Mr. Sunderland, he wery big. He vould not kill anybody.” A puzzled grin. “Vhy vould he need to? He wery veil off, him.”

  “I didn’t say Haverner did it,” Larry grated. “I said he allowed it … for that horrible project of his … and the killer’s gonna get off scot-free unless … Don’t you care? You’re supposed to be a Christian, aren’t you? Don’t you - care that a man got shot from behind?”

  “Please, sir.” There sent more dialogue which Larry couldn’t follow. The comandante tinkled a bell. Two additional mestizos entered, armed.

  “You see, sir”—the Islandman waved his hands, anxious to be tactful—“dis is a wery serious t’ing you say. No insult, no, sir, but maybe you saw wrong. People not used to de sun here, dey get feewers in de head. Maybe you lay you down, bide a bit, you soon feel better.”

  “But,” Larry said. “But. But.”

  “Hush, please.”

  The chief had evidently made up his mind. He took an incongruously modem telephone off the base, but dialed only a single digit. Conversation traveled. He put in a request which was granted, for they caught a hint of Sunderland Haverner’s parched voice before the chief squeezed the receiver to his ear.

  At the end: “Si, Señor. Si, Señor. Immediamente. Mucha’ gratia’. Para servir Usted, Señor…. Adio’. Adio’. Mucha’ gratia’.”

  When the phone was back together, the comandante became very businesslike indeed. He issued a curt order, and suddenly Larry had a man gripping either arm, while a third aimed a gun at his midriff and a fourth scuttled close bearing a set of handcuffs.

  “You isn’t to be afraid, sir,” the Islandman said. “Nobody vill harm you, no, sir. Ve understands about sunstroke here. Dey vill take you back to Mr. Sunderland, your host, and he vill see you gets a good rest. He is not angry, not eewen about his car. He is a foine gentleman, you see.”

  “Immediately” turned out to mean “shortly after siesta.” Thus Larry spent some hours in a cell, unable in his manacles to scratch most of the resulting fleabites. The truck that brought Orestes Cruz to his final resting place carried a driver for the Mercedes. But the comandante insisted on returning his prisoner personally in the garrison’s Ford, though that weary machine could barely climb the hills. Haverner received him with a good cigar and a sealed envelope, and sent him home. Thereupon Haverner interviewed Larry in the office. It didn’t take long, but the younger man emerged shaking, blood gone from his cheeks, and fairly ran upstairs.

  Having bathed, he retreated to his room, where his supper was brought him.

  He did not miss much dinner-table conversation.

  Sundown gave the benediction of a breeze. Captain York said, “Dis heat go’n’ avay now, ve vill be more comfortable tomorrow,” as if the fact held some mystic significance.

  Larry gulped at his food and slipped out while the rest were in the dining room. He walked far. Matt retired early, beckoning Gayle to follow him. Byron and Ellis played gin rummy awhile longer. Julia said she wanted to take a stroll.

  She was in the botanical garden when Larry returned from his own journey. He noticed that the gate, ordinarily shut at sundown against stray animals, stood open. Entering in a nearly random fashion, he found her.

  Again the night was magical. City folk forget how radiant stars and natural sky-glow can be. Even here at sea level, it seemed as if there were more stars than there was clear blackness between them, constellations were hard to make out in that multitude, which finally melted together in the great river of the galaxy. Fireflies flitted and blinked by the hundreds among flowerbush fragrances. The air was cool and singing; the surf replied to it clearly but drowsily.

  The garden within the bamboo walls seemed likewise enchanted, though some would have thought of witches or trolls. Paths wound narrow and intricate among stands of saw-toothed palmetto, needle-bristling prickly pear, high gaunt saguaro, yucca like spiky dinosaurs, and things more strange than this to a Northern eye, crouched or rearing, gray among shadows. It was as if Haverner had wanted to bring together all the weirdness he could find.

  Julia rose from a bench whereon she sat. She wore a short, sleeveless yellow dress, whose color was lost but whose lightness stood forth. “Larry,” she called low.

  He stopped. She came to him. “Where were you?” she asked. “I was beginning to get afraid.”

  “Around.” His tone was rough and his bulk stood rigid. “You always want to be alone in your grief, don’t you?” She took both his hands, unresponsive though they were. Luminance pooled in the eyes she raised to him. “Have you ever thought your friends might like to help you?”

  “What friends? Connivers at murder?”

  “What a man of conscience you are. I’ve not forgotten what you did for me, the day it was your turn. I never will forget.”

  His mouth twisted. “Oh, God, Julia, when you too went along with this thing—”

  “I understand. How absolutely cut off you must have felt! But Larry, dear, won’t you try to understand also? If human life means that much to you, won’t you help save a good little girl? She’s only six, Larry.”

  “Yeah.” He eased the tiniest bit. “I kept trying to tell myself that.”

  “You must meet Kilby. She’ll introduce you to her kitten. He’s named Very Squashable and sleeps on her pillow. She makes up long stories about the adventures of Very Squashable. He travels around with her teddy bear, Winston P. Sanders, and … I think they’re hilarious.” Julia sighed. “Oh, I’m bragging, of course, and no doubt she is somewhat spoiled. But we can’t help it, her father and I. She’s so heartbreakingly patient about pain and confinement and those terrifying times in the hospital. We can’t help it.”

  “I s’pose not.” He hesitated. “Kid of my own, by an ex-wife. I don’t see much of him.”

  She tightened her grip on him. “You’re a lonely man, Larry.”

  He gave back the pressure. “Sometimes. Not always.”

  She let go, slowly, took his arm and guided him toward the bench. “Don’t think I want to let Orestes lie unavenged,” she said. “No, never. Should I win … I could see devoting some of the cash to tracking down the killer and bringing him to justice. But don’t you see, at present we’re helpless. We can surrender and go home, or we can dance to Haverner’s tune—till we have his money. Then it may be a different story.”

  “M-m-m … you know, that angle hadn’t occurred to me.” They sat down and watched the restless goblin lanterns. Their arms remained linked. “Do you mind telling me what he said to you?” she asked.

  “He didn’t say a lot.” Larry’s tone wavered afresh. “Didn’t act mad. Warned me that if I queered the game, I’d earn the, uh, hatred of the rest of you. Reminded me I’m still in the running myself. I said no, I resign, but he told me to think that over before making it final. And then he dismissed me. The hardest thing to take is, he doesn’t care what we do. Anyway we behave, it’s an item for his notebook. Like rats in a maze.” Louder: “Rats in a maze!”

  “Worse,” Julia replied. “Experimental animals put into a situation scientifically calculated to drive them insane.”

  Her free hand reached across both their laps to clasp his. “But we’re more than rats,” she went on. “We don’t have to submit. We can choose to keep our decency—you and I, at least—can’t we?”

  He regarded her for a space, their faces quite near, before he murmured, “Are you proposing a partnership?”

  “Yes,” she said frankly. “Whatever happen
s, we two needn’t stab at each other’s backs. And you know, we could maybe do a bit of detective work together, try to learn who the killer is and who put him up to it … if nobody suspects we’re a team.”

  “Ellis has the next turn.” His words crawled.

  “No telling what he’ll do. But if we come through that … or one of us fails but not the other … An outside helper … It’s even within the rules.”

  “What do you plan on calling, Julia?”

  “I … haven’t quite decided. We can talk that over. But later. The question right now, Larry, is, are we going to swear partnership? If so, we’ll split whatever prize either or both of us may make, right down the middle.” She drew breath before adding most softly: “Though that’s less important than our being two people—two human creatures, maybe the only ones on this hell-haunted island, who can trust each other.”

  “I’ve got to say this,” he forced out. “What does Byron think about your trustworthiness? Or Gayle about mine?”

  “Byron turned on me, not I on him. I’ll tell you what happened if you want. Gayle … well, you needn’t bare your past to me. She’s certainly been quick to take up with that loathsome Matthew Flagler. Am I right, Larry, you and she never made any formal agreement?”

  “Uh, ye-es … yes, I suppose you could say that.”

  “Well, I, on the contrary, I offer you my word of honor and ask for yours.”

  “How do you know mine’s any good?”

  “Or you mine?” She leaned closer yet. “People discover such things, Larry.”

  He took her to him. She was wholly alive.

  “… Larry,” she said as the kiss ended, “my dear, it’s been hard for me. And Malcolm, yes, him too, worry and sorrow and … but he isn’t here. I am. And … oh, doubtless I’ve not been what I ought to be with him. We’re together, and I can’t forget Kilby, and … often that’s too much for him, too. Lately he’s stayed away a lot of nights. He says it’s business, but I think he’s found another woman, and I can’t honestly blame him. But Larry, Larry, it’s lonesome!”

  She kissed him again. “C’mon, boy,” she whispered while she blew in his ear.

  “The rooms—” He hesitated. “Bugged.”

  “To hell with that.” She sprang to her feet and tugged at his hand. “Tonight we take a vacation from reality!”

  Part Two

  In the master’s bedroom stood a grandfather clock. He had acquired it years ago as part of his program of restoring to the house as much of its heritage as might be.

  Incapable of sleep, he opened his eyes and saw the clock against the wall, beyond the foot of his equally old four-poster, by the starlight that seeped in through uncovered windows. Glass-glimmery, its face was vague, half human. The pendulum swung like a long, emphatic arm. The ticking seemed louder than usual, sufficient to carry a whispery voice.

  “Well,” remarked Samael, “we got our melodrama in full measure today, didn’t we?”

  Haverner moved his head around the pillows in search of more comfort than they were giving his weariness. “I was mostly too busy to enjoy,” he complained. “You need only be a spectator.”

  “The object of the game is not entertainment, it is the study of personality disintegration,” Samael replied; he sounded almost academic. “A detached observer is necessary.”

  “If you are that. You never tell me anything that happens away from the spy gadgets.”

  “No. Think back, and you will see that I have always made you learn and do things yourself. You are a partner, not a puppet. In Machiavelli’s phrase, I would not deprive you of that share of glory which belongs to you.”

  “I remember. Machiavelli said it about God vis-a-vis man. Are you claiming to be God?”

  “Not exactly.” The tone suggested that the face grinned. “Satan, then? In which case you’d lie about your intentions, and whatever else suited you.”

  “We’ve been over this ground tediously often, Sunderland Haverner. Let me repeat that if you do not believe in God, which you claim not to, it is inconsistent to believe in devils. Not strictly illogical, but inconsistent. Please spare me your usual next question, whether I am an extraterrestrial being here to study or to torment humankind.”

  The old man lifted his head a little. His hands reached out into darkness, but remained empty. “What do you want?” he pleaded. “Never mind what you are. I realize you won’t tell me; I simply can’t help asking again sometimes. But what do you want? You guided me to where I am, all these years we’ve been together, but never told me more than that it interested you. What else? Why does it interest you?”

  Dik … dik … dik, said the clock.

  Haverner shivered. “Is what’s going on here—the game— was that your purpose from the start? Have I just been your means to this end?”

  “Means and ends are not separable, you know,” Samael answered, as if being patient. “You have enjoyed yourself along the way, have you not? You are enjoying yourself keenly as the game happens, true? Why look further?” Haverner sank back. His hands dropped onto the coverlet and lay still, exhausted. “Part of the time, yes, it is a tremendous experience,” he agreed.

  “Schadenfreude with respect to the soul, eh?”

  “What? Oh. Maybe.” Haverner lay listening to his flimsy heart. “Yes,” he murmured after a while, “if I can no longer create, I can destroy, and that makes me sure I’m still alive.” He drew a sharp breath. “Only can they be destroyed?”

  “Explain,” invited Samael, though presumably aware of what the response would be.

  “Thayer, yes, she seems bound for the abyss,” Haverner said. Even now, his vocabulary bespoke that long-ago excellent education. “Shaddock … problematical. But Flagler and Nordberg—are what they have always been, and their partnership is winning the game because of it. Rance and Petrie—well, she has become an adulteress, but they don’t take that too seriously in her circle, and she sees herself as doing it for the sake of her child, and mainly, those two are finding strength in each other. And Cruz, why, he was merely killed, unchanged, undefeated to the very last.”

  “He got off free,” Samael admitted. “But as for the rest, let us wait and see what becomes of them. I think it will prove more satisfying than you, at this moment, expect.”

  Part Three

  Byron and Ellis happened to share a breakfast hour. They exchanged wary good mornings and sat down on opposite sides of the table while making a mutual, slightly hopeful inspection for sunburn. But—apparently like everyone else— they had not been exposed so long that, given prompt and continued applications of cold vinegar, they showed anything worse than a redness which might or might not peel later on.

  Leaf shadows flickered on the patio outside. Small cottony clouds ran before a wind that made rushing noises in the trees. Coffee and bacon perfumed the mild air. Neither man appeared to notice.

  “I keep thinking you’re our glorious leader tomorrow,” Byron remarked with a somewhat strained laugh.

  “I wish I were today,” Ellis said impatiently. “Yesterday felt a week long. I’m sick of this place, this unwholesome atmosphere. And I do have work at home.”

  Byron considered him. “Aren’t you worried? You may be the killer’s next target.”

  “My turn won’t be outdoors, and I’ve spoken to Haverner about security.”

  Byron consumed a mouthful before he waved his fork and said, “Simply getting through your day needn’t make you safe, my friend. Suppose you don’t eliminate everyone else. Then you’re a potential sharer in the grand prize. Unless you’re disposed of. ”

  The look through the spectacles was careful. “You mean the killer was a torpedo for a contestant, don’t you? In that case, his boss is Rance, or Mrs. Petrie, or me, … or you.” Byron nodded and took a sip of coffee. “It implies, besides, the actual murderer is Matt Flagler. I scarcely think Gayle can shoot, though she does act as if she’s somehow tied to him. Of course, the contestant may have bribed an outsider, maybe on
e of the staff here, maybe a North Porter or a garrison trooper. But that seems unlikely.”

  “I favor Haverner’s suggestion. It was a political job. Those Red terrorists live by the sword, and they perish by it.”

  “Still,” Byron said, “no harm in keeping rather close tabs on Matt, is there?” His gaze hardened. “Or whoever has anything special to do with him.”

  “If you like,” said Ellis. With unaccustomed wryness: “Thanks for the warning.”

  “No thanks necessary. Nor have I made any accusations. But I’d as soon arrange matters so nobody can put anybody up to bushwhacking me.”

  Again Larry and Julia took a box lunch, a bottle of wine, and this time a blanket north to the Bight and their place above the Iron Cliffs.

  On the way, he worried. “If we’re together like this, won’t people guess we’re, uh, allies?”

  “No great harm if they do,” she replied. “Except, as I said before, it might interfere with our possibly learning who’s behind the murder. I’ve a few ideas about that.”

  “What are they?”

  “Later.” She hugged him. “We’ve so little time, darling, and this day is so gorgeous.”

  “Allee same you,” he answered willingly, and when they reached their goal they started by making love.

  Afterward they resumed their clothes, for in spite of the air being warm, a brisk wind whooped from the sea toward the Crag. In a slight haziness, that height floated half real above the rolling emerald west. Pines stood around them, a verdancy which somehow matched the sky, rough-textured ruddy trunks. Sunlight struck between branches, and the amber-hued mat of old needles drank it and gave it back in a warmth that felt like touching a living animal. Darkling, the precipices dropped straight down to the wrath among the reefs.

  Beyond, water was a million shifting diamond-dusted blues, and southward the curve of the shore was as lovely as the curve of Julia’s flank.

  “You know something?” Larry said. “You’re a hell of a good lay.”