Touch of Danger

by James Jones

  “Oh, he’s around,” Steve said, too quickly. “He’s around, all right. Somewhere.” Rather thoughtlessly, he pushed the passive girl away from him. He took a step or two down toward me, lowered his voice. “Listen, did you tell any of them what you and I talked about in the square the other day?”

  “I didn’t tell anybody anything,” I said. “I’m not in this.”

  “Well, thanks.”

  “Don’t thank me. Nobody asked me. If they ever do ask me, I’ll tell them. Especially under oath in front of a grand jury seeking an indictment, I’d tell them.”

  “You would?”

  “Under oath? Sure.”

  “You give a damn about oaths?”

  “Give a damn? I care about my oath.”

  “That’s all crap. Establishment crap. ‘Before God and my fellow man.’ You believe all that? They want you to believe that. That’s their way of hooking you. I believe in taking their fucking oath, and telling them whatever you want. Establishment crap.”

  I simply looked at him. Finally I dropped my eyes and shook my head, in disbelief. “Lying under oath is also against the law,” I added. As if that meant anything. I might lie under oath myself someday, if it was absolutely necessary. But I never had yet. And I didn’t hold to it as a righteous philosophy.

  “Okay, pal,” Steve said, in a bitter voice. “Thanks a lot, man. At least we know where we stand.”

  He turned and collected his girl absently with his open arm, and moved away. I started down. “You know I didn’t mean it, don’t you?” he called after me, turning back around. I went on. He turned back to the other hippies.

  Behind me I heard someone coming down after me. It was Pete Gruner, the high-shouldered, bearded man from the night club. He had been up there with the hippies, apparently. Pete Gruner, the dropout cop. Or was he?

  “Hey, Davies. Wait up, man. I want to talk to you.”

  “Talk to me later,” I said rudely over my shoulder. “I’ve had a bellyful. Of talk. Up to here.” I went on down without looking back.

  Chapter 23

  BACK AT THE JEEP I waited for the Inspector. I sat in the sun-warm driver’s seat, fiddling with the faded wheel. For long moments I stared off through the trees, thinking. Mulling it over. I seemed to be getting drawn in in spite of myself.

  The morning sun coming in through the trees turned the leaves a yellow-green. It made a hot incandescent halo for itself, passing through the tree branches.

  A light little breeze zephyred in under the trees to me from the open water below the hotel.

  Already, there was too much material to correlate. Too many people had done or said too many things. I could no longer even remember them all. I’d have had to sit down with a couple of pads and spend a night making notes. Just like I did on a regular case.

  Steve and his buddy. Kirk’s vague hints. Chantal’s continuing reticence. Pekouris. Pete Gruner. This new man Kronitis. Nobody had hired me to work on any murder case. I was supposed to be on a damn vacation.

  The Inspector wasn’t long. I slid over into the rider’s seat, feeling its heat through my thin pants, to let him get behind the wheel. He drove us back to town.

  Pekouris talked about the results of his search. He seemed willing enough to talk about it. They had found nothing of any importance. They had found the murder site, or at least the place where the head had been cut off. It was interesting that it was right out in the open, only 100 yards from the Construction, in plain view. They had not found the head, or any weapons, or any other articles of evidence.

  “The men are continuing,” he said like some dictator. “But they are not likely to find the head, now. He is not likely to bury the head nearby, if he meant to bury it.”

  “No,” I said.

  “It could be anywhere within two miles. To my thought he had to come down that grassy draw with the body.”

  “What interests me is why cut the head off at all,” I said.

  “To his left was the Construction. On his right were those steep rocks you saw. Impossible. The only other route was to go clear around by the hilltop. A walk of nearly one mile, past half a dozen houses on that little road. Yet we found no traces of blood in the grass down the draw.”

  He was nit-picking. “Was the grass pressed down, as if someone had walked over it?” I said.

  “That grass is too short for that kind of an effect,” Pekouris said. “I too find it interesting why the head was cut off at all,” he said suddenly. “I also find it very interesting that it took place so close to the ’ippie community.”

  My comment had finally dawned on him. But by the time it did it became his idea, and he took the credit. That was fine by me.

  He let me off where the main road crossed at the back of the Port. “You are going to call Mr. Kronitis? The P.T.T. is right over there.”

  I nodded. I knew where the P.T.T. was. But after he drove off, I walked the long block past the sere, thirsty “park” and past the telephone office, to the cafe terrace over the tiny produce harbor. He could have my idea. But I wasn’t ready to call Kronitis yet, until I wanted to. It was not yet 10:00 A.M. I got a Paris Herald and sat at my same table and ordered a Camparisoda.

  I noticed a lot of the hippies around looking at me. Nobody had seen me get off the jeep. Apparently the news of the search had passed along like a message on the jungle telegraph, and me with it.

  I also noticed that Sweet Marie was sitting at a table by herself, with her own Paris Herald.

  I went over.

  “Getting the latest scoop from the capitals of Europe? How’s the war going?”

  “War’s going badly. As usual. The Paris talks are stalled again. Some Prince from someplace is marrying some Princess,” Marie said brightly. Then she smiled that smile that always made me ache.

  “Mind if I sit down?”

  “Oh, please. Excuse me not asking you. Nobody ever does, around here.”

  I slid into a tin chair. She folded up her paper. “You’re not going out spearfishing today?” I said.

  “I haven’t thought about it. I’m feeling pretty chipper today. Maybe it’s a no-therapy day.”

  “When I saw you sitting here,” I said, “it occurred to me we might go out today together. I bought some stuff.”

  “Oh, gee! That would be great.”

  “I don’t have a wet suit,” I said. “So I couldn’t stay in that water all day. But we could take my boat somewhere.”

  “All right! Fine!” She always seemed to talk in exclamation points, like a teen-ager. It made me think of my own two teenagers. But they were seventeen and thirteen. “I’ll have to get my stuff,” she said. “What time? Where?”

  “Well, I have a phone call to make. And probably something to do. But I should be finished by 12:30. Let’s say we’ll meet at Dmitri’s at 12:30, and I’ll bring along some sandwiches for a picnic lunch.”

  “Gee! Great!”

  I sat and looked at her a moment, watching her smile.

  “You didn’t hear about the murder?”

  Her face got long. “Yes. I did. Isn’t it gruesome? Who would want to do that to poor Girgis?”

  “That’s what nobody seems to know,” I said.

  “It’s so sad,” Marie said. “The kids have been talking about it.” She didn’t seem very upset. And she didn’t seem worried.

  “Won’t you be out of a job, now?”

  “I suppose I can do the same job for Jim. Jim’ll take over the hash business I suppose.”

  “Was there bad blood between Kirk and Girgis?” I asked.

  She answered me slowly, her face clouding. “I suppose there was. Jim felt he wasn’t getting enough of the take. But he wouldn’t kill Girgis, would he? Wouldn’t he be the first one they’d suspect?”

  “I suppose,” I said. “I never thought of it like that.” I was careful not to grin. “Well. It doesn’t matter,” I said. “It’s not my case. I’ll see you at 12:30.”

  “Okay! But let’s not talk abo
ut this murder business. Please?”

  I shook my head no. It was funny how your instinct just told you naturally that some people were innocent. It would never have occurred to me to connect her with it.

  “To tell the truth, the reason I didn’t go out today was because I thought it might look unseemly.” She looked up at me questioningly.

  I just grinned. At my table I paid for my drink, then walked back up to the P.T.T. telephone office. I placed my call to Kronitis. The government clerk was a typical mangy-looking, officious little squirt with one wall eye. Exotropia, divergent strabismus. It took him a little while to get it through. When he did, he ordered me to Booth #2 like a South American general. Being handicapped did not make him any kinder. Instead of Kronitis, I got an uppity male secretary who spoke with an English accent. He told me the great man could see me at 3:30. A car would be waiting for me at the Glauros ferry dock. I disliked him instantly and blazingly.

  “I can’t come at 3:30,” I said bluntly. “I’ve got something else to do. I can come now.”

  “I’m afraid, Mr. Davies, it’s 3:30 or nothing,” he drawled.

  “Then it’s nothing,” I said. “Goodbye.”

  “Wait, wait. Please hold the line a moment.” When he came back, he said now would be all right. But he sounded like he didn’t like it. He sounded as if I had deeply shocked him. When would I be at the ferry?

  “In about twenty minutes,” I said, and hung up with no goodbye.

  The little clerk was waiting for me to make sure I paid.

  When I got back to Georgina’s, the first thing I noticed was that the Agoraphobe was back, at its regular mooring. Then when I got to Dmitri’s, Jim Kirk was sitting at a table over the water. And with him was Jane Duval.

  Farther ahead at the boat dock Sonny was on the Daisy Mae. When he saw me, he jumped on shore and waved for me to come.

  “Okay,” I called. But I stopped in front of Kirk. “Hello. I see you’re back.”

  “My, my. Heavens to Betsy,” he rumbled. “If it ain’t old Lobo Davies.”

  Jane Duval across from him, who had not even acknowledged my presence, jerked herself away suddenly in her tin chair so that the back of her right shoulder was to me. Then, as if deliberately to bug me, though I didn’t know why she thought it should, she reached out her hand across the tin table and put it over Kirk’s big paw. It less than half covered it.

  “You get them all straightened out back at the police post?” I said to her.

  Jane tossed her head, and her long hair with it. But she didn’t speak.

  “I guess you’ve heard the bad news,” I said to Kirk.

  “I’ve not heard anything but. Since I got back this morning. It’s all too sad, and too weird. I’m just sorry I wasn’t here. If I had been, he would probably have been with me. And I could have helped him.” It was a pretty long speech, for Kirk.

  “You would have protected him,” I echoed.

  “Well, if I was with him, probably nobody would have jumped him.”

  “You got any ideas about who did it?” I asked.

  “No,” Kirk rumbled. “But I’m sure,” he said, and looked blandly at Jane, like a cream-eating cat, “I’m sure it wouldn’t have been any of those nice young hippie people up there on the hill. It’s too bad it had to happen there.”

  “Inspector Pekouris seems to think it’s too bad, too,” I said.

  “Ah,” Kirk said, “I heard the Inspector was over here. Well, I wish him luck.”

  This kind of a conversation could go on forever. Besides, Sonny had come up to us from the boat, and was standing just beside me. I had to admit it made me edgy, bugged me a little, to see his wife sitting there with her hand on Kirk’s paw in front of him.

  Sonny, however, didn’t seem to notice it. Or, if he did, didn’t seem to care.

  “Come on,” I said gruffly. “I have to run over to Glauros. I’ll be about half an hour, or an hour. Then we’ll come back, and I’ll want the boat for this afternoon.”

  On the boat Sonny started his motor and I cast off so he could back us out. At the table Kirk and Jane Duval had stood up. Both of them stood waving.

  “Goodbye! Goodbye!” Kirk bellowed across the water. “We’ll see you later! Well see you later!”

  Both of them got on a tiny motorcycle, that was apparently Kirk’s, and that he apparently kept at Dimitri’s taverna for transportation ashore, and went rocketing and sputtering off along the seawall road toward the Port. The little cycle seemed to disappear beneath Kirk’s bulk alone, even without Jane hanging onto his waist behind him.

  By this time Sonny had got us out of the nest of anchor lines, and we were heading out of the harbor straight across toward the mainland.

  “Can you tell me about what time we’ll be coming back?” Sonny asked as we passed the little lighthouse.

  “I told you,” I said. “In about an hour. I think. But I can’t be sure.” The irritability in my voice startled even me.

  “I wanted to know because I want to go back up to the Construction this afternoon,” he said. “Jane wants to go, to be with some of her friends. I should go with her.”

  I got hold of my irritation. “Well, I told you I wanted the boat for this afternoon, Sonny. Anyway, it looks like Jane won’t be back in time to go up to the Construction with you.” I guess it was cruel, but I couldn’t help it. He looked so damned understanding.

  Sonny’s face stiffened a little, under that ridiculous Elliot Gould mustache. He said only, “Would you consider taking it out yourself again?”

  After asking Marie to go out, the idea had already occurred to me. But I hadn’t felt I ought to ask for it a second time. “Yes,” I said. “All right. I’ll take her myself. I want to take Sweet Marie out diving.”

  Sonny just nodded. After a moment he said, “I guess you think I did wrong, letting Jane go off with Jim Kirk like that.”

  “Wrong? What’s wrong? Anyway, it’s not any of my affair,” I said. “It’s your woman.”

  “You don’t understand Jane,” he said. He looked off across the water for a long moment, then looked back. “You don’t any of you guys understand Jane. Jane’s a free spirit. All of you guys think she’s just some neurotic girl with a—with an itchy box. I wouldn’t ever want to do anything to destroy that free spirit of hers. It’s the most beautiful part of her.”

  “Being a free spirit always seems to entail ignoring responsibilities,” I said shortly. “Was it you who changed the baby’s diapers all the time?”

  “Jane doesn’t ignore responsibilities, she just feels she has certain rights as a free individual. She wants her rights. And she has a right to them.”

  “Well, good for her,” I said.

  “As a free individual myself, I can’t refuse to let her be one.” He looked off across the water again, “It’s you guys who can’t appreciate her, or understand her.”

  Sonny cleared his throat. “About this morning.”

  “Never mind about this morning,” I said. “It bores me and I don’t want to talk about it.”

  “But there’s no reason for me and you to be at swords’ points over that.”

  I thought this over. I rather abruptly felt sorry for him. He had misread everything. “I didn’t think I was at swords’ points with you over this morning,” I said carefully. “If I gave you the impression that this morning hurt my feelings, I didn’t mean to. I apologize.”

  “But you still don’t understand about Jane.”

  Abruptly, I was furious. I got up. I was a good bit shorter than he was, but probably stronger. It didn’t even matter. I poked a forefinger into his chest.

  “Listen, don’t tell me what I understand. I probably understand more about ‘hippies’ and the young than you do. Or ever will. Christ, don’t you know I live in New York? What do you think I do with my time? You think I’m not down in the East Village? Listen, I’m down in the East Village more than half my time. Doing what? Hunting missing kids. Hunting missing kids is my majo
r source of income, nowadays. Without missing kids I wouldn’t be able to keep my two daughters in their ritzy schools. Parents come to me from as far as California. Find my kid. I find them. They pay me. I talk the kids into going home. And you know what it is? Every time? Hurt pride, hurt vanity. I’m grateful for hippies. Every time I sit down to eat a meal. Don’t tell me I don’t understand hippies. I’m a specialist. And you know what I think? I think they’re all goddamned babies. They’re running away from growing up. They’re terrified of growing up.

  “Whatever they happen to feel, they want to gratify it now. Nobody ever taught them any self-discipline. That’s your Jane.”

  I stopped. I was more surprised by my outburst, apparently, than Sonny was. I turned away, and sat back down.

  “But,” Sonny began.

  And I jumped up again. Again, the forefinger. But this time I made my voice much harder, slower. “Murder has been done here. You try to understand that. Somebody has killed a man. That supersedes everything. You talk about human rights. The first human right is to not be murdered.”

  I made my voice get even slower. “Murder changes everything. It’s got its own alchemy. I’ve worked on a few murder cases. After a murder, nothing is the same. No peace, no real fun for anybody. From now on, everybody is suspect. You are. Jane is. And your friends Steve and Diane. That guy Pete. Sweet Marie. Kirk. Every man in the village, and every hippie up on that hill. That’s what murder does.”

  “There’s no reason that it should,” Sonny said.

  “No? But it does. Is that some more of your humanism? But that’s what murder does. Maybe you’ll need to have your life saved someday. That’s what the murderer has done to all of you. You’re suspect.”

  “What about Georgina?”

  “Her, too.”

  “What about Chantal von Anders?” There was a subtle change in his voice.

  “Her, too,” I said. “Everybody.”

  “What about outsiders, who might have come in?” Sonny said.

  “Them, too,” I said, trying to unheat myself, and looking at the Glauros shore. “Everybody is, as far as I’m concerned. And that’s no way to have to live. Believe me. A murder is an affront to everybody. I’m glad I’m out of it.”