“Tell you what, Edith,” he said pleasantly, as though humoring a child. “We’ll sit here and play a little game. You look at me and try to remember me, and I’ll tell you when you’re getting warm.”
She tried to swallow, but there was a hard lump in her throat. She watched him reach down the front of his shorts and pull out a flat package wrapped in oilcloth. He untied the string and peeled away the oilcloth, revealing a layer of transparent plastic. He began removing that, slowly, but without waste motion, as though he had planned each move far in advance. The plastic came off, and beneath it was a layer of canvas. She stifled an impulse to giggle. It’s a trick package, she told herself; he’ll get it all unwrapped and there’ll be nothing inside but an old potato. She had a weird feeling that he had given her a time limit; she must remember who he was before he finished unwrapping the package or else … what?
She felt perspiration trickle down her spine and between her breasts. She would never remember, she knew that. But what can you do? she asked herself. The prima donna act doesn’t work; you tried that and he just grinned at you. The Barrington name didn’t stop him from tearing up your boat. So okay, maybe he gets what he wants, it won’t kill you. As the old Chinese saying goes, you might enjoy it if you relaxed.
Calmly, now that she had mentally prepared herself, she lit a cigarette and blew the smoke out slowly.
“I know the answers.”
His hands stopped, poised above the package. “Yes?”
“You waited three weeks in the radar shack. You hid from Doxie so you could catch me alone and helpless on this rock.”
“And violate your fair white body?” He shook his head. “No, Edith. I’ve been there and back. I can’t make the scene again.”
His hands resumed unwrapping the package, but his eyes held hers. She saw that he was telling the truth; he didn’t desire her, he didn’t even look at her as a female. Suddenly she felt ashamed of her own nakedness; her body seemed pulpy, obscene … defenseless.
“Goddamn you!” she cried, feeling the tears burn behind her eyelids. “You come on like an old lover, but I can’t remember!”
“You aren’t trying,” he said softly. “Think of me without the beard. Think of me as a married man with a wife and a kid and a family. You destroyed it, Edith. You wiped me clean and fixed it so I could never begin again. Remember?”
The wrappings were gone, and in his lap lay a leather case four inches square. He pressed the catch and opened the case. She glimpsed the oily gleam of blue steel—
She moved without plan, leaping up and sprinting for her boat. She thought she was clear, but he caught her ankle and twisted. She fell with a jolting thump. The landscape tilted and the sky darkened. When her vision cleared, he was on his knees beside her holding the tiny gun in his hand.
“You see it, Edith?” His voice was a hard rasp which pinned her to the ground. “I brought it all the way from Billings, just so I could send a lump of lead right into the center of your heart.”
She gasped. “You can’t—”
“Get away with it?” He shrugged. “I think I can, but it doesn’t matter. I swam out here, and nobody knows I came. Doxie thinks I’ve skipped out. There’s a white shark who visits these waters every evening, and he’ll take care of you. They’ll find your boat tied up, figure you went for a swim and got caught. Simple?”
In despair she thought: This is no impulse; he brought the gun such a great distance, and planned so perfectly …
“I am …” she began, then swallowed a lump which felt like a live coal sliding down her throat. “I am not the woman you think I am.”
“Don’t, Edith,” he said sadly. “Don’t tell me that.”
“But it’s true! I couldn’t have done … what you said. At least tell me where … when it was.”
His lips pulled back from his teeth. “You can’t have forgotten, Edith. We lived together for nearly six months. You wanted to marry me, but there was this problem of your husband. Then one night your husband was murdered. You told the jury it was me—”
“But … I’ve never been married before!”
“Hell. And I suppose you never had a baby.”
His hand snaked out and seized her leg, flipping her onto her side. She. felt his fingers tracing the faint lines on her hips and buttocks. “And what are these marks?” Suddenly she was on her back again, and his face was so close she could see the separate granules of salt in his beard. “You were in labor twelve hours, Edith. But you were only fifteen and you didn’t know how to stop the marks. Later you had me rub oil on them. Remember?”
“They told me …” she licked her lips. “They told me I’d once had a baby. But I don’t rem—”
His hand was a blur, seizing her hair. “If you say that once more …”
“Fool! It’s true!” She jerked free and sat up, yelling through a veil of hair. “Ask anyone here what’s the matter with Edith Barrington. They’ll tell you what happened two years ago. Ask Doctor Ainslee, he’ll tell you. Ask my husband, he’ll tell you.”
“You tell me, Edith.”
“I flipped, that’s what happened. I went kooky, I wigged out. They hauled me away and shot me full of electricity. Every time I started screaming, they gave me another jolt. Finally I shut up because I forgot what the hell I was screaming about.” She paused to let the vague horror of the treatment rooms fade, then went on. “And by that time I’d forgotten everything else. Now I’m blank. People come up to me on the street and say hello Edith, and I say hello right back even though I don’t know them from Haile Selassie. A man pats me on the ass and asks, ‘When are we taking another cruise together baby?’ but he’s a stranger, everyone’s a stranger. And you’re the strangest one of all, but I never did anything to you….”
He lowered his eyes to the gun, looking at it as though it were a pet mouse which had died in his hand. He spoke, and for the first time his voice was uncertain.
“If you really had amnesia, you’d go back over your past and try to regain your memory.”
“I did. My husband took me home to Texas—”
His head came up. “You mean Nebraska.”
“No, Texas. I visited the ranch where I was born, and talked to my mother and father—”
“Your father! He killed himself when you were fourteen.”
“Now really, this is too much. Wouldn’t a father know his own daughter?”
He brushed that aside with a wave of his hand. “You left the farm the same day your father shot himself. You went to a town in Wyoming. You got knocked up by a traveling salesman who said he was a student. You followed him to Indianapolis, found out he had a wife and three kids and was damn near broke, so you settled for room and board and expenses until you had your kid. When it came you put it out for adoption and forgot it. You started to work for the store, and within two years you married the owner, old Nils Nisstensson.”
She was laughing, great whooping shrieks of relieved, hysterical laughter. “But what a ridiculous name! You couldn’t have made it up.”
“I didn’t.”
“But it’s some other girl, isn’t that obvious to you by
now? I may not remember, but I’ve got the proof, a birth certificate—”
“Fake ones cost twenty-five bucks.”
“—and a transcript of credits from Texas Christian. Can that be bought? And even if it could, can you honestly say that I act like some little illiterate off a Nebraska farm?”
He was frowning at her, chewing his lip. The gun still lay in his hand, but she no longer feared it. She had a feeling the danger was past, and that she could move freely now without interference. Tentatively, she picked up her shorts and slid her feet into them. As she pulled them up, she saw that he was not even looking at her. He was rewrapping the gun, sadly, regretfully.
“It had to be some other girl,” she said with a tentative kindness in her voice.
He looked up quickly, but his eyes revealed nothing. “Yes,” he said.
<
br /> She put on her halter, then lit a cigarette. The smoke tasted sweet; the air smelled wonderful, the world looked beautifully clean and bright. She had been near death, but now the crisis was over and she felt an intense curiosity about the man.
“Did she really do that to you, all that you said?”
He nodded slowly, fastening the package around his waist. He rose to his feet and said: “I’ll put your boat back in running order.”
She watched him move to the boat in his awkward, hobbling gait; He seems terribly disappointed, she thought, and then: He doesn’t have to be disappointed.
“What are you going to do now?”
He paused, then shrugged and bent over the boat.
“Are you going to live on my island?”
“No.”
“Well … I could run you over to the mainland.”
“I’ll swim.”
She felt anger pinch her nostrils. She wanted to say: Look here, can’t you see I’m trying to wipe out this horrible scene? I’m willing to be friends. But the moment she thought it, she knew it was impossible. The pace of their relationship had been set; there could be no slow journey into friendship, only a breathtaking leap into fiery combative passion. She became aware of the moisture in her armpits and felt the dampness in the small of her back. She pulled at the band of her shorts, let the cool air find its way down. Why did the man make her so edgy? She found her lips dry and licked them. She watched him straighten from the boat and walked to the edge of the water. Wait, she thought. We aren’t finished … are we?
He made a shallow dive into a wave and came up swimming. He disappeared around the rock without looking back.
She fell onto the sand and tried to cry, but her emotions were exhausted. After a time she climbed to the top of the rock. She saw his snorkel bobbing in the water a hundred yards away. He was a strong swimmer. She remembered his heavy arms, his wide, deep chest, and all his burning, bitter passion. God, how would it feel to have all that inside her?
A flash of white drew her eye to the tower. Doxie stood there with his binoculars; not even in the middle of the ocean could she escape those bulging eyes. Look away, Doxie-lamb, and may you die of frustration. She took off her halter and shorts and walked to the edge of the rock. She poised with her arms above her head, then plunged into the swelling sea. It felt cool against her fevered flesh.
Drew pulled himself through the water and looked down through the mask. He hoped he’d see something to fight, something on which he could release his frustrated readiness to kill.
But the purple depths were empty; the gun pressed against his belly like an overdue fetus waiting to be born.
At first he had thought she was lying, for it was logical that she’d want to change her identity after the murder. But if she’d feigned amnesia, why take it back only two years? Why not ten? No, she really believed she had lived the genteel life on a Texas ranch, with a genteel father and mother. And she had the documents to prove it. Of course, her current husband could have arranged that; he had the money and the opportunity, but what was his motive? To protect her?
It was too much to think about now. He was sure of only three things: that she was the Edith who had destroyed him, that her amnesia was real and not feigned, and that he had no heart for revenge against a mindless woman.
But he was sure as hell not finished with her.
He dragged himself onto the pebbled beach of Barrington’s Isle two hundred yards from where he’d left his crutch. He lay for a moment catching his breath, then began crawling across the stones, thankful that it was growing dusk and nobody could see him.
The crutch wasn’t where he’d left it. Puzzled, he pulled himself up and leaned against a boulder, searching.
“Is this what you’re looking for?”
Drew wheeled and saw the man in white riding pants standing just outside the tall grass. He was holding the crutch in his right hand, and his left hand was twitching against his leg. Drew felt his muscles tense: So this is Doxie, the man Leta feared and Edith despised. He didn’t look so tough.
Suddenly Doxie threw the crutch. It clattered on the rocks in front of Drew.
“There. Use it to hobble off this island.”
Drew bent over, picked it up and settled it on his arm. “Thanks. It’ll come in handy when I get ready to leave.”
“Now.”
“I’m not ready.”
Doxie smiled as though he found the remark extremely gratifying.
“My name is Eudoxie,” he said. “If that means nothing to you, then I am willing to leave it that way. I could tell you that I am Barrington’s manager and have a right to throw you off the island. But I don’t want that to influence you. I can tell you also that within three hours I could have a squad of policemen here with warrants charging you with trespassing. But I don’t intend to call the police. I could intimidate you with the gun, but—” he jerked the clip from his belt and dropped the gun at his feet—“I discard it. Now you will leave because I tell you to leave. Let that be reason enough.”
Drew was puzzled by Doxie. He spoke with the arrogance of a man with a secret weapon. The gun was gone; perhaps he had a knife. If so, he wasn’t worried. A knife wasn’t as good a hand-to-hand weapon as many amateurs believed. A surprise weapon, yes, for an intermediate distance, yes, and against another knife-fighter, yes. But as a weapon of intimidation, against a man versed in the art of claw-and-gouge, it wasn’t worth a damn.
“I will count to ten,” said Doxie, “One …”
Drew thought of his little Browning, then decided against it. By the time he removed it from its waterproof cocoon, Doxie could retrieve his own .45, and Drew would be outgunned.
“Two …”
Doxie was taking his time, smiling as he counted. The man really wanted to fight, and Drew had a sudden, intuitive flash: He’s doing it for Edith, playing it big, riding no-hands, showing his biceps. God, wherever she goes there’s discord, fighting, blood….
He felt the weight of fatigue on his shoulders, thinking of the problems the fight would bring. Even if he won, he’d have a new and powerful enemy. If he lost … Hell, why think about it? The fight would come; very well, he would enjoy the inevitable. Let the blows strike and the blood flow and release this pent-up frustration, give yourself up to a destructive frenzy.
He set his muscles and found a firm footing for his good leg. He wouldn’t try to box, for he was like a hippopotamus on his feet. He’d wait for Doxie to get close, then he’d lunge and carry him to the ground. There they’d be equals.
“Four …”
“Don’t stall, Dox. Get it started.”
The man came forward, dancing lightly on the high-heeled, sharp-toed riding boots. Drew watched his hands, waiting for him to get near enough for his lunge. He couldn’t figure it, the man didn’t have his fists doubled. Maybe he knew karate, or judo, or—
Doxie stopped and made a half-turn. Drew didn’t see the leg until it had traveled halfway to him. Then, expecting a blow to the groin, he raised one knee and twisted sideways. But the foot kept rising, up and up; pain exploded in his jaw and he staggered. His bad leg buckled and he sank to one knee. He saw the foot coming again as the man pirouetted; Drew ducked his head, felt the skin rip off his cheekbone and the blood course down his cheek. His stunned brain grasped the fact that those shiny, sissy-looking boots were backed with solid steel toes, and his opponent was a master of that century-old French art of Savate.
Drew lunged, but it was a desperate lunge which brought him surging up from the ground with his fist clenched and all his weight behind it. The single blow had to do the job because he’d fall flat on his face afterward.
He connected; not solidly, for the man was quick as a cobra, but enough to knock Doxie rolling down onto the shelving beach. Drew lunged after him, hoping to pin him down, but the man wriggled free and jumped up. And now it was Drew who was down rolling, twisting, turning, trying to escape the sharp toe which hammered his body, trying t
o reach the water, where he could fight on equal terms—
He jolted against a boulder and stopped. Doxie, his face blood-red and eyes shining, approached slowly.
“You’d better leave while you can walk.”
“Go piss up a tree.”
Drew was watching the right foot, the one which had been doing all the damage. He meant to get that shiny boot in his hand and twist the leg until the bone cracked. He saw the foot move slightly, then—
Crack! The landscape shook and a new stream of blood erupted from his head.
“You watched the wrong foot, Seright. Here!”
Zzzzzzp! This time against Drew’s temple. His vision blurred and a high thin whistle shrieked inside his head. God, he thought, the man has the skill of an expert torturer; he knows just how hard to kick without knocking me out. But his admiration was lost in his attempt to grab the eternally shifting pointed boot, now grown so large that it filled his vision. But the leather was oiled and slick, and Doxie pulled free and stepped back a pace.
“If I really wanted to damage you, Seright, I could clip off an ear or rip your nose loose from your skull as easily as you tear open a pack of cigarettes. Not even your little black whore would want you then. If I wanted to kill you I could drive my toe under your rib cage and crush your heart. But I’ll give you another chance to leave peaceably.”
This is ridiculous, thought Drew. I should say yes and go away, then come back to fight another day. That’s what a sensible man would do, but hell, I can’t let this man put me down….
Carefully he gauged the distance to that right foot. About five feet. With one lunge he might make it—
A voice boomed down from somewhere above, a deep bellow in patois. It made Doxie look up and gave Drew the opening he needed. He lunged, seized the foot, and twisted with all his strength. He hugged it in a grip like death, pushing with his shoulder like a line man in a scrimmage, until he thought a blood vessel would burst in his skull, feeling the other’s foot thumping against the top of his skull in a steady
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