The Dark and Deadly Pool

by Joan Lowery Nixon

  “Let’s go swimming, Liz,” Art said.

  “Let’s not,” a strong, deep voice called from the darkness.

  Art whirled, dragging me against him, and hooked his right arm across my throat and chin.

  Shapes rose and flung themselves toward us.

  “Stay away!” Art yelled as he kept moving back along the edge of the pool.

  With a rush all the lights in the club zapped away the dark, and I blinked, trying to adjust to the sudden brightness.

  Lamar stood there and Detective Jarvis, who held a gun in his hand. Tina was behind them, eyes as wide as though she were at a horror movie.

  “Stay away!” Art repeated.

  “It’s too late for you to make such a dramatic move, Mr. Martin,” Detective Jarvis said.

  “You’re not going to get the list!” Art yelled at them. He tossed the crumpled paper into the pool. I could imagine the ink running and fading as the paper soaked in the chlorinated water.

  Art’s voice rose. I squirmed, and his arm was rough under my nose. I could smell the damp sourness of his fear. Or maybe it was my own fear. “If you get near me I’ll break her neck,” he said.

  “No,” I mumbled, and wanted to spit out the hair on his arm that brushed my tongue. Feeling more like a trapped animal than a human being, I instinctively opened my mouth as wide as I could and bit down on his arm with all of my strength.

  I don’t know what happened next. I was knocked aside so violently that I went flying into the pool. So did Art Mart, they told me later, except my right foot clipped him under the chin, and he slammed into the tile edge, knocking himself cold.

  I panicked and swam with all my strength to the other side of the pool. It was something like being in the water with a killer shark. All I wanted was out.

  I struggled up the steps, and there was Tina, who hugged me even though I dripped cold water all over her. “Liz, you were wonderful! You were brave! How did you do that with your foot?”

  “Do what?”

  She hugged me again. “There you go,” she said, “Already your subconscious is repressing the terrifying memory and forcing it from your conscious mind.”

  “I kicked him, didn’t I?”

  “That’s right.”

  Over Tina’s shoulder I could see the door open. Two very familiar people came into the club. “My mother’s here,” I said. “And my father.”

  “Oh, dear,” Tina said. “I wish I had my degree and training. I don’t know how to handle this one.”

  “Mary Elizabeth!” my mother shouted from behind Tina. “What is going on here?”

  I ran to hold them tightly. “I’ll tell you all about it,” I said.

  And, after we were finally home and I was wrapped snugly in my father’s big terry-cloth robe and my mother’s fuzzy sheepskin slippers, I did.

  Having a day off didn’t mean a thing. I had to go downtown to give all sorts of information to Detective Jarvis and someone from the district attorney’s office and all sorts of other people. They were awfully glad I had copied the list. From what I overheard, those names were going to help them make a big drug bust sometime very soon. I suspected that the woman who said she was Mr. Kamara’s sister might very well be included.

  Art Mart wasn’t so cocky now. He was spilling names of accomplices in the hotel thefts so fast it was as if someone had tapped into a leak in his brain.

  I was glad it was all over, and glad that Fran was there with me.

  They left us alone for a few minutes, and I leaned back in my chair. “How I Spent My Summer Vacation,” I said.

  Fran smiled. “Then you’re supposed to write what you learned from it, like ‘crime doesn’t pay.’ ”

  I thought about my week plus at the health club. “That’s not all I learned, Fran. I’ve been discovering something kind of crazy. Most people want to be somebody else. Mrs. Bandini wants to look like the women who lead exercise classes on TV. Lamar wants to be Clint Eastwood. Tina wants to be an instantly rich psychologist. And you want to be ta—” I stopped too late. It didn’t come out right, and I didn’t get a chance to try to make it better.

  Fran said, “Everyone except you, Liz.”

  “Everyone except me what?”

  “You mentioned all the people who wish they were someone else, but you’re different. You wish other people would change to be the way you want them to be. You’ve got some fantasy in your head, and it’s all you can see, so that you can’t accept other people for who and what they are.”

  Fran got up and walked out of the room. I didn’t call him back. I felt as though he had punched me. His words were more painful than Art Mart’s big ugly arm. Fran didn’t understand. I was trying to follow my father’s advice. I didn’t really want other people to change to suit me.

  Yes, I did.

  A sick pain poked around my stomach. Fran had really hurt me. I didn’t want to think about it any longer. I felt horrible.

  I knew what would comfort me. I closed my eyes, sat up straight in my chair, and tried to imagine myself on the podium at Jones Hall with the Houston Symphony Orchestra before me, instruments tuned and ready, each musician waiting for my command. The musicians were like pieces in a puzzle, neatly in place, ready for me to take charge and tell them what to do.

  Is that why I wanted to be conductor of a symphony orchestra? So I could make things happen the way I wanted them to happen? To make people be the way I wanted them to be? Fran was a terrific person, and I liked him, but I hadn’t been able to accept him the way he was.

  Fran was right.

  I groaned, and the musicians, the instruments, and Jones Hall dissolved with a poof.

  Detective Jarvis came back into the room and said, “Mary Elizabeth, we’re going to take you and Francis back to the health club. The attorney from the DA’s office wants to view the scene and have you point out a couple of things.”

  Fran and I didn’t talk much in the car. Every time I thought about what he had said, I wanted to cry.

  And when we arrived at the health club there was no time to talk, even if we had wanted to. Mrs. Bandini practically flew out of her chair and rushed to meet us. Mrs. Larabee was on her heels.

  “We heard! We heard!” Mrs. Bandini shouted.

  “Although we’ll be glad to hear it again straight from you,” Mrs. Larabee said.

  “We’ll need her for a few minutes,” Detective Jarvis told them.

  “It’s all right,” Mrs. Bandini said, graciously giving him permission. “As long as I have one minute in which to introduce her to my grandson, Eric Canelli.”

  “One minute,” Detective Jarvis said, and he walked over to the office with the attorney. Fran just dropped into the nearest chair and stared at his shoes.

  Mrs. Bandini motioned, and out of the pool climbed one of the most gorgeous guys I’ve ever seen. On a scale of one to ten, he was a thirty-five. His hair was black and thick, and his eyes were as blue as the pool when it’s lit at night. His smile was straight out of a dentist’s magazine. I looked up, up, up. He had to be six feet four. Mrs. Bandini hadn’t been lying. She hadn’t even been exaggerating.

  “Hi,” he said to me. “I’m glad to meet you. They told us it was your day off, so we didn’t think you’d come in.”

  “It’s perfect that it’s your day off,” Mrs. Bandini said. “I’ll make dinner reservations for all of us at Vargo’s. Would you like that?”

  “Oh, I’m sorry,” I said, and tried to look at least a little bit sorry just to be polite. “I’ve got a date for tonight.” I stepped next to Fran’s chair, put a hand on his shoulder, and gripped it tightly.

  “But—” Mrs. Bandini’s mouth opened and stayed open.

  “Okay,” Eric said, “I’ll see you around.” He walked back to the pool and dived into the water. Another good thing about Eric Canelli. He wasn’t slow to get a message.

  Detective Jarvis motioned to us. Fran hopped up and took my hand. We hurried to join Jarvis in the health-club office, where he
was explaining something to the attorney. I didn’t care what they were talking about. I just cared that Fran was holding my hand as snugly as I was holding his.

  Fran moved closer as we came to a halt, and murmured, “You turned that guy down for me?”

  “He may be tall and handsome,” I said, “but he’s not you, Fran. And you’re the one I want to be with.”

  The telephone rang. Everyone else seemed to be busy, so I automatically reached over and answered it.

  “Liz!” Tina exploded into the phone. “There is the most fantastic hunk out there in the pool! He’s unbelievable!”

  “Do you want to meet him?” I asked. “Come down, and I’ll introduce you.”

  I hung up as Detective Jarvis was saying, “If you don’t mind, we’ll leave the two of you alone here for a few minutes. We’re going to get Mr. Boudry. We want him to be in on this.”

  “Not at all,” Fran said, and after they left the office he whispered to me, “Ways of being alone with you is something I’m planning to work on.”

  I liked that. I was thinking exactly the same thing.

  JOAN LOWERY NIXON has been called the grande dame of young adult mysteries. She is the author of more than 130 books for young readers and is the only four-time winner of the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Novel. She received the award for The Kidnapping of Christina Lattimore, The Séance, The Name of the Game Is Murder, and The Other Side of Dark, which also won the California Young Reader Medal.