Irresistible Impulse bkamc-9

by Robert Tanenbaum

  “No, it’s too late,” said Marlene. “Tomorrow. And wipe that expression off your face! You’re lucky I don’t tie you up in the cellar.”

  That evening they dined in the paneled dining room. Tranh leaped into the kitchen and whipped up a moule marinière with a bushel of local mussels. Lucy put on her Perfect Little Girl act, charming the pants off Edie and the Marneys. Tranh sat by the cellist, regaling her, in French, with anecdotes about old Paris. He had, it seemed, worked in a bistro frequented by Darius Milhaud and Paul Claudel. For a pick-up dinner under siege, it was a great success.

  Afterward, Tranh and Marlene slept in shifts, but no incident disturbed the night. In the morning, during the sacred hours of cello practice, Tranh stayed by the house with the dog, while Marlene took Lucy down to the beach with her carry-all full of blanket, gun, sandwiches, and a thermos of lemonade.

  The day was cloudy, however, with the wind picking up from the east, speckling the bay with little whitecaps. They swam until they were chilled and then walked along the beach, selecting choice pebbles and various interesting pieces of jetsam, until they came to a point that looked over the two-mile channel to Sag Harbor.

  They had gone only a little way back when Lucy said, “There’s someone near our stuff.” Marlene squinted, but could make out only a shadow, like a stick figure, near their blanket. It must be Tranh, she thought, and wondered whether anything had gone wrong at the house. She quickened her pace. As they came closer, she saw, and the sight produced a gut wrench of fear and revulsion, that it was Robinson. He was reclining next to her blanket, dressed in white duck slacks, navy lisle shirt, and huaraches.

  “Ah, the lovely Mrs. Karp,” he called out gaily, “and who is this? A little Karp? How charming!”

  “Get lost, Robinson!” Marlene snarled.

  “ ‘Robinson’? Dear me, yesterday when you assaulted me, it was ‘doctor’ and very polite with it. It must be the immigrant crudity surfacing.” He turned his gaze on Lucy, and Marlene felt her flesh prickle. “Manners are very important, little girl. For example, it’s considered rude in the best circles to hit men in their wee-wees with your gun.”

  Marlene stooped and yanked up their blanket. “Fine, we’ll leave. Take the thermos, Lucy.”

  “Oh, but aren’t you going to introduce me to Lucy?” said Robinson. He rose and took a step closer to the girl.

  “Yes. Lucy, this is Dr. Vincent Robinson, a vicious, evil man. You are not to ever talk to him, and if you see him coming, run away.”

  She took Lucy’s hand and started to walk back toward the house. Robinson followed close behind Marlene, crowding her, his mouth inches from her ear. “What a thing to say!” he murmured. “Really, I love children. Their bones are so flexible. I like it when they sit on my lap. Do you think Lucy would like to sit on my lap? No? Maybe later.”

  They reached the cut in the dunes where a path led back to the big house. Marlene could smell his cologne and feel his breath warm against her neck.

  “You have absolutely no idea what you’re in for, do you, my little wop? A bodyguard? What a joke you are! You’re like a dog that’s run into the street just about to get squashed by a truck, you and kikey Ike, and your little mutt bitch-”

  Marlene placed two fingers in her mouth and let out a piercing two-tone whistle. In seconds the dune grass was rattling with the passage of a large animal, and Sweety emerged onto the path. Marlene turned and pointed at Robinson. “Sweety, iddu é ’n nemicu,” she said. Sweety made a sound like oil drums rolling down a gangplank and showed Robinson all his pretty white teeth. Robinson’s tan lightened a shade. “If that dog touches me, I’ll sue you for every cent you’ve got,” he said. “I’ll break you-”

  “No, actually, you won’t,” said Marlene, “because if he goes for you, you won’t be able to pee, much less sue. In fact, I think it’s you who’ve gotten in over your head, Vince, not me. Now go away! We don’t allow degenerates on this side of the island.”

  As she spoke, Sweety, his black hair bristling, was inching closer, snarling softly and slavering. A gob of dog drool fell on the naked arch of Robinson’s foot. He forced his face into a not-very-convincing superior smile, nodded, gestured touché with his hand, spun on his heel, and left.

  “You should’ve sicced Sweety on him, Mom,” said Lucy as they walked together up to the house.

  “No, actually, I’m pretty pleased with the way I handled that. The thing about violence is you want to avoid it whenever you possibly can. It takes something out of you when you use it. At first it’s hard, and then it gets easier, and then you don’t notice it at all. Or like it.”

  “Like that man,” said Lucy.

  “Yeah, like him. The other thing is, you don’t want to use it in dribs and drabs. Either you don’t use it at all, or you use it with overwhelming force.”

  “What you did on the street, in the fair.”

  “Uh-huh,” said Marlene. Suddenly she felt weak, exhausted. Though the day was cool, her throat felt rough and parched, as if she had just fought a battle on the desert. She plopped herself down in one of the Adirondack chairs, and took a long drink of lemonade from the thermos. She offered it to Lucy.

  “No, it’s too sour. Can I go in and get a Coke from Mrs. Marney?”

  Yes, she could. Lucy trotted away. Staring after her, Marlene wondered why she had just given her daughter a lesson in applied violence, why Lucy could shoot a pistol and box at an age when her peers were tinkling out little Mozart sonatas or learning how to float on their toes to Swan Lake. Was this crazy or the acme of sanity, given the state of the world? Marlene couldn’t decide.

  She sat there for the better part of an hour. Mr. Marney came out of the house, grumbling to himself and pulling on a yellow slicker. He waved to Marlene as he went past. Shortly thereafter, she heard the sound of the big speedboat starting up, echoing loudly in the boathouse, and then the sound of a group of chattering people on the path to the dock, and then the sound of the speedboat pulling away. Ginnie and her pals must be off. Marlene wondered if her interaction with Robinson had prompted the exodus. She didn’t really care, and in any case the little shits could be back at any time. They seemed like insects in their flitting from one pleasure dome to another. Still, she felt some resolution of this affair was at hand. Either Robinson would go on to other tortures, or he would try again and she would catch him.

  Tranh came out of the house. Marlene watched his peculiar light, shambling, round-shouldered walk, which always looked to her as if he were carrying a burden. He made almost no sound as he crossed the gravel path.

  “Excuse me, Marie-Helene, but the repair shop has called. Your car is completed. They wish to hear when you will collect it.”

  Marlene looked up at the sky, which was lowering. “It’s going to pour later. Let’s do it right now,” she said. “We’ll drive over to Southhampton in the Wolfe-mobile and you can drive the VW back here, and then you can take Lucy back tomorrow in Wolfe’s car. Oh! Can you drive a …?” Marlene gestured shifting a manual shift. Tranh responded with a remarkable Gallic facial expression combining injured pride with a negative assessment of the intellectual capacity of the interlocutor. Marlene laughed, Tranh brought out one of his rare grins, and they both went inside.

  Marlene and Lucy were in Wolfe’s Caprice, driving back to Sag Harbor, the VW, ransomed for an outrageous fee, trailing behind, the windshield wipers clearing the steady drizzle from the windows. Marlene and Lucy were singing along with the Eagles tape. Marlene felt good. There seemed to be some new energy vibrating in her body, and the familiar lyrics were somehow more profound and full of a deeper meaning. The last song, “You Can’t Hide These Lyin’ Eyes” finished amid general merriment. Lucy popped out the tape.

  “Are there any more tapes?”

  “Hits of the Seventies?” Marlene offered.

  “Yuck!” Lucy popped the glove, came up empty, looked on the floor behind the front seat.

  “Here’s one,” she said, retrieving it
.

  “That’s not music,” said Marlene. “And put your belt back on!”

  Lucy did so and looked at the plain black tape. The label had nothing on it but a numbered date. “What is it, then?”

  “Oh, it’s like a lesson. Wolfe listens to it while he drives. It sort of helps him to be … I guess, better at his job.”

  “I want to hear it,” said Lucy, and thrust it into the slot.

  Click. Hiss. “You’re wrong, it is too music,” said Lucy.

  Marlene jammed on the brakes so hard that her rear wheels fishtailed and Tranh had to swerve to avoid her as he pulled up on the shoulder behind. She turned off the engine and dashed back to the trunk. With shaking hands she inserted the key and jerked up the lid, revealing two long boxes of tape cassettes. She inspected a few, but knew beforehand what they were: commercial tapes and bootleg tapes from concerts, everything Edie Wooten had ever recorded.

  Tranh came running up. “What is the matter? Has the car broken down?”

  “No, and there’s no time to explain. We have to get back to the island immediately.” She slammed the trunk down and ran to take the wheel. The Caprice roared onto the road, tires shimmying on the slick pavement.

  “What’s wrong, Mom?” asked Lucy as the car passed a truck at seventy in the face of incoming traffic, and the outraged horns blared.

  “What’s wrong is I’m an idiot,” said Marlene tightly, half to herself. “Of course it was Wolfe. It was sticking in my face from the time I read his application. He was a security guard at Tanglewood, and the Music Lover letters started just after that. I let him into her apartment-of course he had the keys, he could come and go as he pleased. The night in Juilliard, same thing. Christ! I saw Robinson, and it never occurred to me that-shit! And when he came in the other night, he didn’t have to climb any walls-Sweety would’ve licked his hand. Conway Twitty, my ass!” She actually banged the heel of her hand against her forehead. She was puzzled about what she was feeling. A disaster like this … but somehow she found it hard to take seriously, as if a barrier had appeared between her and the world of feeling.

  “Wolfe is really a bad guy?” asked Lucy, confused.

  “Yeah, and he’s probably sitting in there right now because we left her alone with my famous guard dog. I was so damn focused on Robinson and that stupid sister …” She giggled, and Lucy shot her an odd look.

  It was pouring when they reached the marina, and a sharp northeasterly wind was whipping up a strong chop in the channel. Wooten Island was invisible in the gray. The manager of the marina had wisely shut down for the day, put his rental motors away, and battened down his day sailors and Boston Whalers. In such situations visitors to Wooten Island were supposed to call from a pay phone at the foot of the marina dock so that Mr. Marney could come in with the island speedboat. Marlene did so and got a “temporary out of service” recording.

  She explained the situation to Tranh, after which he said, in French, “You are not to blame, Marie-Helene. He was a plausible villain. I had no suspicions myself, and I am suspicious of nearly everyone. In any case, I presume you do not wish to involve the police.”

  Marlene felt a surge of gratitude. Somehow Tranh understanding this made it all right. Police. It would be a zoo. Heiress held hostage by hired guard. End of business. Karp, his anger and disapproval. But now, she thought, it would all work out, simply and neatly. She felt full of power, as if rays of energy coursed from her head. She could even see the rays, a pale purple tingling to rose at the edges. She felt a warmth in her limbs and stomach, as if anticipating some good thing. The nasty day suddenly seemed brighter. “Right,” she said. “Our mess, our cleanup.” She laughed. Tranh looked at her strangely and said, “I will prepare one of these boats,” indicating the seventeen-foot Fiberglass day sailors.

  “Oh, a sailboat,” she cried. “We’ll sail to the isle. Can you sail?”

  Again the quizzical expression, blended now with worry. “I am not sure. I have only sailed from Nha Trang to Luzon in the Philippines. But the boat was smaller.” He jumped “down into the white craft, hauled the sails out of the cuddy, and began to bend the mainsail to the mast. “Lucy! Come help me!” He lifted the child down from the dock. He handed her the jib and showed her where it snapped to the fore-stay and jib sheets. Marlene was dancing along the dock, kicking at puddles. She studied the iridescence of some spilled oil. It was amazing that she had never noticed that you could make pictures in the spilled oil. No, not make pictures, the oil was showing her messages, vital messages, messages of cosmic significance, if only she could work them out.

  She stared into the glistening pool. Images of battles and palaces appeared; weird hierarchical figures swam to the surface and mouthed oracles. Yes, all of this she had thought to be reality was merely a cover, and made sense only if you knew the secret. The interplanetary secret. She dropped to her knees, studying it, full of wonder. It was all perfectly clear.

  A man grasped her arm, a man who was Tranh yet not Tranh, who had a golden face and coruscations of red fire darting from his head. She let him lead her to the ship. How clever of them to disguise the star vessel as an ordinary sailboat! She went aboard and allowed herself to be placed on a seat in the cockpit. There was a small figure there too, shining like mother of pearl, speaking to her in a language she could not understand. She smiled back at the figure and closed her eyes so she could help to navigate across the stars.

  “Lucy, listen to me,” Tranh said in Cantonese as he cast off the lines and kicked the bow away from the dock. “Your mother is not well. Has she taken a drug or fallen and hit her head?”

  “No, I don’t think so,” said Lucy in a quavering voice. “She just had some lemonade and a ham and cheese sandwich that Mrs. Marney made.”

  “And did you eat this food too?”

  “Uh-huh, but the lemonade was too sour.”

  “Did you meet anyone on the beach?”

  “Just that doctor, the bad one. He was waiting for us by our blanket. Sweety chased him away.”

  “Wah! This must be the answer. Some drug. Lucy, she will not be able to help me with Wolfe, and I will not be able to do all necessary things by myself. So you must be a brave girl and help me.” He had her get herself and her mother into life jackets, dropped the centerboard, and showed her how to work the jib sheets. Then he sheeted in, and the boat began to move rapidly across the bay in the stiffening breeze.

  When they were past the stone breakwater, the boat took the full force of the surge and the twenty-five-knot easterly wind that was blasting up the Sound. Lucy gave a little cry as the boat heeled over on its beam ends. Tranh steadied it, eased the main-sheet, and set out on a broad reach toward Wooten Island. Marlene rolled off her seat and onto the deck of the cockpit. Her eyes were still closed, and she had a blissful smile on her face. They were all soaked to the skin from the rain and spray, and Lucy had started to cry, the tears invisible against her wet face. The island was still lost in the rain, but Tranh had a superb sense of direction. Many times he had taken boats through the mangrove marshes of the Mekong Delta at night, in the teeth of enemy patrols. When he judged it proper, he tacked, Lucy letting fly the jib sheet at his command. The boat whipped about. Marlene rolled languidly across the deck to the lee bulkhead. A gray mass appeared ahead of them, and in a few minutes Tranh spotted the flagpole at the foot of the Wooten Island dock. Tranh brought the boat alongside, tied its bow and stern lines to cleats, rummaged through Marlene’s straw bag for her pistol and spare magazine, and lifted Lucy out of the boat. Marlene he covered with a spare sail and left her where she lay, smiling to herself between Proxima Centauri and Arcturus.

  TWENTY-TWO

  Tranh led Lucy through the sparse pines, keeping well away from the paths. It had been some years since he had done this, and then it was in a thicker and warmer forest, but he found that he recalled the art of moving through woods against an unseen enemy. He worked his way around to the west of the big house, toward the boathouse. There
was no sound but the rain on its tin roof, no motion not made by the gusts. He left Lucy at the wood line with a comforting word, and taking his Russian pistol in hand, he darted across the narrow lawn and slipped into the building.

  All the boats were in their places, but as he walked along the wooden decking built around the basin, he could smell the stink of gas and saw that the surface of the water was thick with greenish oil. Some one had poured the gas out of all the gas cans and opened the drain cocks on the big cruiser, spilling its diesel fuel. But the speedboat was loosely tied at the far end of the boathouse dock, its prow pointing out to the Sound. Tranh jumped down into the boat and made a quick inspection. There were two suitcases in the cockpit. Tranh opened them. One was neatly packed with men’s things. The other was full of women’s clothes, roughly stuffed in. The craft was fueled and ready to go. Its engine was still warm. Someone was planning an escape by sea. He popped the engine coming and examined the Chrysler six.

  The boathouse had a small repair shop, a workbench with tools and supplies. From a pegboard he took a coil of thin steel wire and roll of duct tape, and stuck them in his jacket pocket, along with the distributor rotor he had taken from the speedboat’s engine. He found an old greasy blanket and a tarpaulin on a shelf, and he took them too.

  He came out of the boathouse and found Lucy where he had left her. She was pale and shivering. He slit the blanket and the tarp with his knife and made a rough poncho out of it and slipped it over the child’s head. He led her back into the pine wood.

  He smiled at her and smoothed the damp hair off her forehead. “Little sister,” he said in Cantonese, “now we must be soldiers for a little while. In my country, during the war, girls the same age as you were soldiers and they did very well, and you will do very well too. Wolfe is planning to escape with one of the boats, and he plans to take Wooten-siujè with him. So, he must come down this path with her, and we will prepare an ambush for him. Do you know this word, ambush? No? We lie here in wait, and when they come out we will capture them.”