Twisting the Rope

by MacAvoy, R. A. ;

  Or not about that, he added to himself.

  They turned onto the mail itself, where silk trees made a pattern of lace on the bricks of the walkway. The star jasmine was in bloom and the air was full of the scent of it. From here the jazz band was very loud.

  “You like kids?” Anderson bellowed over it. “I’ve got three.” And two ex-wives, he added silently.

  “I like some of them,” answered Martha without excess enthusiasm. Her steps grew slower and slower. Officer Scherer had to shy off to the outside to avoid treading on her heels.

  “I wonder,” said Martha, and after a few moments, added, “I think there’s something that might be relevant to this. Only might, Sergeant. It happened the day before yesterday.”

  Anderson came a very little bit closer and made a responsive noise.

  She told him about the trick with the cable and the door. She spoke concisely and tried neither to exaggerate nor to minimize its importance. She did not forget to mention the fact that St. Ives’s pipes had been in the back room.

  When she was done, and had described Long’s small injuries, Anderson said, “Ah. Yes. That’s an old fraternity prank. Helps if the victim is drunk.”

  “I’m glad he wasn’t!”

  “Miserable trick,” muttered Don Scherer behind them. “I’d be p—tee’d off.” Martha spared him a grateful glance.

  “Well, the bit about the double coil of rope under the door isn’t part of it,” admitted the detective. “Not in the best frat houses, anyway. You say it was a length tied out of the middle of the cord?”

  “Closer to this end.” Crimson fuzz fell from the trees around Martha’s face, like a light, bloody rain. “We wondered if that might have been nothing but an oversight on the joker’s part.”

  The detective shrugged and blew flower bits out of his large moustache. “One would hope so. But no one admits to this cuteness?”

  Martha sighed and shook her gray curls. “Not then, they didn’t. I didn’t think of it this morning. Maybe the shock of George’s dying will open them up. Of course, it could have been set up by some complete stranger.”

  Anderson walked silent for a few steps and then asked, “Is this the sort of thing musicians generally get up to, on a tour? I mean one reads stories…”

  “It is,” admitted Martha. “It is.”

  She identified the rope, and then looked at the ugly, dead face. “Yes, that’s him,” she said. She put the sheet back over him herself and turned away. “I knew him years ago. What a miserable end for a hard life.”

  Then Martha remembered the moment two days before, when the door had opened and Elen and Pádraig had burst in on them, fresh from their experiment and bringing sunlight with them. She touched the soaked and brittle knot of grass he had brought to show her. “And for a good rope,” she added.

  She fixed Anderson with blue eyes strangely calm in her sad face. She touched his hand, lightly. “I will find out how this happened,” she said to him, as if in apology to the detective.

  He had to smile. “I’ll hold you to that promise, ma’am.”

  Elen Evans walked over to the air conditioner and turned it on. “Well,” she said, and sat down on the bed again.

  Long, blank-faced and with eyes unfocused followed her movement with his head, causing Elen to laugh. “My dear Mr. Long, you certainly are limber for a gentleman of your age and sedentary habits.” Her voice went distinctly Georgia.

  “His what?” Pádraig straightened in his chair. “I didn’t understand a word of that.”

  Long remained expressionless and staring. “Actually, I do get my exercise, Elen. Last night I got quite a lot.”

  The silence was cut only by the growl of the fan. At last Long went to his customary seat at the round table. And then there was a rattling knock at the door and Elizabeth Macnamara burst in, sweaty and breathing hard.

  Elizabeth was a young woman of unusual height and unusual beauty. She dressed conservatively and with good effect, today in a soft-green cotton wraparound that had a French flavor. Her honey-colored hair waved softly around her face.

  Pádraig found himself on his feet, though surprise and not manners had moved him. Teddy Poznan found himself smiling.

  “Good morning, Elizabeth,” Mayland Long greeted her.

  “Mommy!” cried Marty, jumping hard on the bed.

  Elen Evans said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on Pádraig.

  “Damn! You’re all here waiting for me. I knew it!” Elizabeth grabbed her daughter and swung her off the bed. “Hello, Queen of the Universe! How ya been? Mommy’s missed you!”

  Marty took about ten seconds of swinging before she said, “That’s enough, thank you,” and sat back on the bed, looking complacent. Elizabeth glanced up again.

  “It was a radiator hose, and if you’re pissed at me, imagine how everybody else on Highway 17 feels? What a mess. Ninety minutes and I didn’t dare get out of the car. I should have changed them all months ago; why are computer engineers invariably useless around cars?”

  No one answered her, but then she had not given them a chance. Elizabeth took one more deep breath of the cool indoor air and looked around her in more collected fashion.

  “Where’s my mother?”

  Long stepped forward. “Your mother is at the police station, Elizabeth.”

  She had been standing with her left hip cocked and her face tilted, looking over her shoulder at Long, and in that position she froze. With her elegance and height she resembled a mannequin from some expensive department store. “The police station?”

  “George St. Ives is dead,” said Long. Elizabeth gasped and put her hand down on her daughter’s flaxen head.

  “She felt she ought to go.”

  “He… killed himself,” offered Teddy. “It’s so sad.”

  Elizabeth did not care for Ted Poznan. She did not care for many people. But it was not scorn that made her look through him completely.

  “He was—he was found at the pier? This morning?”

  Ted opened his eyes very wide. “How did you know that?” asked Pádraig.

  Long guessed. “The police towed your car?”

  “The Highway Patrol. It was back and forth on the radio. But”—Elizabeth gave Marty a nervous little hug—“I didn’t suspect who it was. They didn’t know!”

  “Yeah. He didn’t have any identification. I’m the one that told them,” said Teddy. It was a plaintive admission.

  Elizabeth raised stormy eyes to Long. “What are you going to do about it?”

  Elen, still curled on the bed, laughed outright. “What is he supposed—”

  “I do? Martha is there,” he began.

  “That’s what I mean!” Elizabeth set her jaw. “Why should she be the one?”

  “Cause she’s da boss lady.” Elen spoke to Elizabeth with no great warmth.

  “She knows what to do,” said Long.

  “Goddamn it!” said Elizabeth to them all, and she sat down on the far bed with Marty on her lap, glaring.

  The liquor bottles behind the bar at the Riva glowed with a fantastic play of light, bounced from the sun to the sea to the slanted windows of the building and hence inward. It also glanced off the round face of Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin and put corrugations around his blue eyes. Had Detective Anderson been there, he might have recanted his estimation of the man’s age, for Pádraig, this afternoon, had a terrible squint which added years to him.

  Mayland Long sat beside him at the bar, and perhaps because of the affinity of color, his yellowish eyes were fixed on the tumbler half full of Glenlivet Scotch in his hand. Pádraig, too, had a double Scotch, because Long was buying.

  Elen Evans, seated at Pádraig’s other hand, propped her chin on her hand heel and drank coffee. It seemed to have no power over her.

  “Did I show you this?” Pádraig reached his many scarred hand into his shirt and pulled out the limp leather cross.

  “Yes, you did,” replied Long politely.

  “Yes, you did,
” said Elen.

  He let the memento slip back under his shirt. There was an uncomfortable silence.

  Perhaps we should have gone someplace else,” Long whispered. “For us to parade up and down the pier today shows a certain lack of feeling.”

  Pádraig lifted his eyes out of the bar of sunlight. “I don’t know any other places in this city. Not on the water.”

  Elen gave a yawn which dwarfed her face and left her almost unable to sit up. “Excuse me,” she said. “This daytime wake is a bit too much for me.” She picked up her purse and headed toward the back of the restaurant.

  Long rubbed his face with both hands. His suit rustled like dry moth wings. He gave a chuckle.

  “My, but three Macnamaras can fill a room. One would think they were much bigger women.”

  Pádraig nodded sagaciously. “Women. That is the important word in what you said. Myself I have five sisters. And they wonder why I love to go out in small boats!” He took a long sip of the drink before him and made a face. “Smells like a smoking stove! Whisky can kill a man,” he said.

  “You say that frequently.”

  “It is what my mother says. She brought us all up as Pioneers.”

  “Then why are you drinking alcohol?” asked Long in simple curiosity. Pádraig did not answer.

  Long drank his Scotch without grimacing.

  “Many things can kill a man, Fear Uí Súilleabháin. Sickness, for one. A rope, for another.”

  Pádraig whined.

  “I want the truth,” said Long. He blew his nose on a cocktail napkin and slapped his big hand down on the bar. The bartender glanced over casually and then went back to cutting lemons. “I’m old and I’m tired and my nose hurts abominably! I want to have the truth now!”

  “I didn’t kill him,” said Pádraig, daunted. “And I don’t think that knowing who did will help you with your cold.”

  Long grunted. “You don’t understand.”

  Pádraig drank the drink Long had bought for him and agreed that he didn’t understand.

  “You’re too young,” Long said. Again Pádraig agreed.

  Long noticed his glass was empty and he raised his head. Within five seconds the bartender had refilled it, as well as Pádraig’s. “They treat you good,” the young man said.

  Long nodded ponderously. “That is because I am not young.” He paused and exhaled the smell of Scotch.

  “And I have a secret which gives me a certain… edge over others in getting my way.”

  “Ah? What’s that?”

  Long gave a display of teeth. “If I told you, it wouldn’t be a secret anymore.”

  Pádraig thought for a moment, and then admitted the veracity of that statement. “I have my own secret,” he said. “But I’m willing to tell you, my friend, because I trust you. Anyone would trust you! It’s that my father is not really my father.”

  “That’s a common one,” Long said with sympathy.

  “Óchón! But my mother is not my mother, either, and that’s less common, I think.”

  Long folded his hands and considered this.

  Pádraig spoke again. “Does Martha have a secret, do you think?”

  Now the mouth full of teeth closed in a frown. “A great secret, that she would tell if she could. The secret of Zen. But other than that…”

  I meant a power over men, Mayland,” said Pádraig. His snigger bubbled through his nose. “That makes you follow her around the way you do.” He punched Long on the shoulder, and then massaged his stinging hand, for the shoulder was harder than expected.

  Long groaned and put one hand over his face. That hand stretched easily from ear to ear. “You are being frivolous, Pádraig. You should not be frivolous regarding Martha.” He took a sizable drink of Scotch and let his eyes wander out the window, where the waters of Monterey Bay lapped and gulls stood in rank on the concrete sill. “She is truth incarnate!”

  “She is a very nice lady,” agreed Pádraig. He watched Long watching the gulls. “Tell me, a chara. Did you hang George under the pier last night, God have mercy on his soul?”

  Long opened his eyes exaggeratedly wide. “Did I? Why on earth would I want to kill him?”

  Pádraig laughed. “Because he was a pig. He made fun of you, the same as all of us.”

  “He didn’t make fun of Martha,” replied Long complacently. “And I am not sensitive about my musical ability. Or lack of it.”

  Pádraig stuck his nose into his glass. “Let’s not start in on that,” he mumbled to the melting ice cubes. “Ability or… lack of it.” He raised his face again and took a deep breath, seeming surprised at the quality of the air.

  “No good to complain about a man who is cold and dead right now. He can’t do us any harm.”

  Long looked honestly surprised. “He never could.”

  Pádraig O Súilleabháin’s smallish mouth tightened. “You think he couldn’t? Maybe not to you. But forget that, he is dead, and it’s Máirtín—little Marty—I worry about now.”

  Long blinked at this quick change of subject. He leaned over. “Worry about Marty? Why? What do you know about… about that?”

  Pádraig raised his head from his drink to the cold sea outside the window. He rubbed his hands together. “When she was by the water yesterday, and it so dark. Not all the strange old things are gone.”

  “As H. P. Lovecraft was so fond of saying.”

  Pádraig shook his shiny dark head in dismissal. “I mean with the sea. I am a young fellow, but I know the feelings of the ocean, and it didn’t feel nice, around her. In fact, it felt worse than George’s tongue on you. We should do something to help Marty.”

  It was Long’s turn to look surprised. “What can we possibly do? Are you suggesting something of a preternatural order, or…”

  “If you are going to speak English with me, make the words short. I am saying we should say a rosary for her. We should be saying one for George already.” He sneaked a half-humorous glance at Long. “I’ll bet you don’t know how to say the rosary.”

  The dark man arched in his chair. “I’ll bet I do!” he answered with heat. “The sorrowful, joyful, or…?”

  “All three kinds. One for Máirtín, one for George, and one for all the rest of us.” Pádraig peered around into the dim room. “Where is Elen? We really need women for a rosary.”

  Long looked also, his body twisting from the waist as he looked around the corner and into the white-tabled dining area. A small, absentminded hiss escaped him. “Perhaps she went out the back way.”

  Pádraig sighed in disappointment. “Too bad. A rosary would be good for that girl! I like her. I like the way she talks.”

  Long nodded ponderously. “Very decorative, both visually and audiall… auditory… and to hear. I think that is because she has learned many of her mannerisms from gay men.”

  Pádraig Ó Súilleabháin looked closely at Long. He opened his mouth to ask the other to repeat what he had said, but then he closed it again. At last he shook his head, portentously and said, “I think she has not been too happy, Mayland it’s a pity.”

  Pádraig pulled the white plastic beads with the silver cross out of his jeans pocket, and very slowly and carefully he led Long through the five sorrowful, the five joyful, and the five glorious mysteries, all in the Irish language.

  Though time passed and the Riva filled up, their end of the bar remained empty, save for themselves.

  Long saw pale blue out of the corner of his eye and there was Martha, sitting next to him. In front of her was a glass half the size of Pádraig’s and his own.

  “Have you been there long?” he asked her.

  “Three decade’s worth.” She pointed to the Scotch in front of her. I had them put it on your tab.”

  Long rubbed his eyes and sneezed. “The least I can do, after ignoring you so long.”

  “We were full of religious feeling. Like Saint Theresa,” added Pádraig. “We could not even see you.”

  Martha smiled agreeably. “It makes
me wonder what Saint Theresa’s capacity was. And whether Glenlivet was her drink of choice.”

  Hangman’s Reel

  The sun hit them hard as the bar door closed behind them. “Like coming out of church,” Martha said.

  “I wouldn’t know. I’ve rarely been in a church. One of your churches, that is.”

  Long peered through the many-paned door behind them to where Pádraig still sat, reduced to drinking Michelob. “I don’t think it is really a desire to drink, with him, as much as it is an indebility—inability—to stand the heat.”

  “Poor boy.” Martha answered mechanically and gave her consort a sharp glance. “Can you talk—that is, make sense, Mayland?”

  “Rarely,” he replied, rolling his word. “Compared to you, Martha, I am a walking bundle of misconceptions.”

  She snorted. “That’s your only misconception. But I’m asking you how drunk you are.”

  Long straightened his spine and looked up at the sky. “Only moderately. I presume you wish to ask me whether I killed George St. Ives.”

  Her face went entirely foolish and she stood on the crowded sidewalk of the pier, staring at him. “I did not! It never…. did you kill him?” she whispered. She remembered the strained conversation overheard the day before and she bit her lip.

  “I don’t think so,” he answered composedly. “Though with this virus I cannot be quite sure. I can say I have no memory of killing him.”

  “That’s enough for me.” Her voice failed.

  “I don’t suppose you did either?” Long’s normally excellent eyes were having difficulty focusing. He moved his head back and forth in an attempt to find the focal distance. It made him appear quite inhuman. Martha rubbed her eyes and looked away.

  “Don’t do that. It makes my knees weak. No. I didn’t kill George, unless I did it in my sleep.”

  Long’s teeth gleamed in the summer sun. “Good. Then we can be comfortable again!”

  “Comfortable? My God!” Martha started down the sidewalk toward the beach. “I almost liked him, you know. When we played together, I liked him very much. Despite what he was.”