Looker

by Michael Kilian

  “No. I’ll do it. I’ve had the practice.”

  In the enclosed space, the sound of the gunshot was deafening. Bits of metal struck A.C.’s hand and chest. Lanham must have been hit by them, too, for he swore.

  The door swung open, gun smoke eddying out into the hall.

  The apartment was deserted. Delasante had departed in such haste he’d left Lanham’s pistol on the living room coffee table. Lanham snatched it up and headed for the door.

  “Come on, Captain. We gotta hustle. I think Perotta’s people have arrived on the scene and the feds have noticed. Let’s get the hell out of here while we can.”

  The hallway was open to the air at the end, a railing running to the elevator housing. They paused momentarily to look down at the beach where they saw in the shadowy moonlight three figures fighting in the sand. None looked to be Pierre. He had disappeared.

  “We’ll take the stairs. Quick!”

  On the ground floor, they leapt down some wooden steps to the Bermuda grass, then hurried along the back of the next building, cutting through a cool passageway that led to the parking lot.

  “We have no car,” A.C. said.

  “Astute.”

  “Can we steal one?”

  “Never learned how to steal cars.” Lanham looked around. There was a bicycle rack, with a half dozen or so bicycles standing in it.

  All were locked. Two were held fast to the rack with a single chain.

  “Give me that forty-five now!” Lanham said. “I don’t want to take chances with this one.”

  A.C. handed him the heavy pistol. Lanham placed the barrel flush against the lock’s combination dial and fired. An instant later he was pulling the chain loose through the spokes.

  “Where are we going?” A.C. asked.

  “We’re going where he went. The only place he can go.” He yanked one of the bikes around and clambered aboard. “Hurry up, before they see us, if they haven’t already.”

  Apartment lights were going on all over the complex. Some people were shouting.

  The bicycle left to A.C. was a women’s model, slightly smaller than the other. He had to pedal furiously to catch up with Lanham, who seemed eight feet high rising on the pedals.

  Once out of the parking lot, they followed the curve of the entrance drive out to the road, then veered off onto an asphalt path. The vague moonlight allowed them to see ahead, though not well enough for the speed at which Lanham was traveling. Rushing through one grove of trees, A.C.’s bike slipped off the paving into bushes, sending him tumbling. Ignoring the scratches on his arms and face, he righted the cycle and pressed on.

  They lost their way twice and ended up having to use the road, but they reached Harbour Town amazingly fast, almost as quickly as a car could have managed. Delasante had had a considerable start, however, and he had a car. Leaving the bicycles at the edge of the quay, they slipped into the shadows of a building for a moment, peering through the yellow glow of the decorative streetlamps. There were some people cleaning up in a nearby bar, and a couple necking down by the water’s edge, but they could see no one else.

  Lanham tossed him back his automatic. “Lag behind a little and cover me. I’ll go first.”

  Hurrying along the moored boats, they came at length to Delasante’s slip. It was empty. The murky water it encompassed was still sloshing somewhat at the pilings. A.C. jumped up on some stonework, looking out at the channel. He could see a dark shape moving just beyond it. The craft showed no running lights.

  “Why did you have to rent a sailboat?” Lanham said.

  Once clear of the breakwater, A.C. turned the little engine to full power and steered for the middle of the sound. Standing up in the cockpit, his hand on the boom of the mainsail, he swept his eyes along the horizon in a long, careful circle.

  “I can’t find him,” he said. “Not enough moonlight to make out his silhouette.”

  “Could he have gone north?” Lanham asked.

  “The intracoastal cuts through here to Port Royal Sound, but there’s a causeway across it to the mainland. There’s a drawbridge, but you can’t get anyone to open it at night.”

  “What’s south?”

  “The open sea, Savannah, and the channel behind Daufuskie. And Tawabaw Island.”

  “Where he’s going.”

  “Maybe not tonight. That’s a big boat, too big for that little channel behind Tawabaw, and too big to get very close to the island on this side. He might try, but he could run aground in the dark.”

  “He’s got that dinghy.”

  “That he does.”

  A.C. throttled down a little, steering now more to the south. The lights of Savannah were a bright yellow on the far distant horizon.

  “We don’t have a lot of gas,” A.C. said. “But if I raise the sails we’ll stick out like a neon sign in this moonlight.”

  “All right, Captain, what do you suggest?”

  “The tide seems to be running out. I think we should just cut the engine and drift with it.”

  “And listen.”

  Myriad small sounds came at them once the engine was silent; the splash of a fish breaking the water’s surface, some night birds calling from a distant marsh, a channel buoy tinkling and clanking, a far-off muffled thump, unexplained. To the south, the insect hum of a boat motor could be heard. It was a faint but steady sound, moving away.

  “Is that him?” Lanham asked.

  “I don’t think so. It’s too small a boat.”

  “How far away?”

  “I couldn’t say.”

  “But it isn’t him?”

  “I really don’t think so. It sounds like a speedboat, or an outboard. He’s got two big diesels in that thing, and they’re inboard. You wouldn’t hear that much.”

  “Maybe we can’t hear him because of that speedboat.”

  “Maybe.”

  “Maybe that speedboat is after him.”

  CHAPTER 19

  The tidal current took them south and east, till they drifted below the southern tip of Hilton Head and passed from Calibogue Sound into the ocean. The boat lifted and fell in heavy swells. At their height, A.C.’s view took in the distant, twinkling riding lights of boats far out in the deep water, which he thought to be fishermen working the night. None of them was moving and there were no lights moving toward them. He judged Delasante still to be somewhere in the sound. Fearing that he might be drifting too far out, A.C. finally hoisted sail. Lanham, who’d been dozing, looked up.

  “I’m going back in and find an anchorage,” A.C. said. “The moon’s going down.”

  “Back in where?”

  “To the other side of Calibogue Sound. We’re dead straight off Daufuskie.”

  The wind had fallen, but there was breeze enough to maintain headway, the boat spreading a small wake that glimmered in the fading light from the moon, until its half circle vanished into the murk on the southeastern horizon. In its last gleaming, A.C. had been able to make out the treetops of Daufuskie, and held course for them. The breeze was from the sea, and he set the sails for a run, securing the jib sheets with both port and starboard cleats to keep the foresail from flapping. The boat would, he knew, simply plow into the sandy, muddy bottom off the Daufuskie shore, but the tide would shortly lift them again. With the wind low, it would be an easy anchorage.

  The boat hit bottom with more force than A.C. expected, the keel catching hard, twisting the boat sideways.

  “We all right?” Lanham asked.

  “I think so. We’ll know in a little while, when the tide comes back.”

  A.C. went forward and threw out the anchor, paying out a fair length of line before affixing it back to the cleat. He could hear the water washing against the shore, quite near. He listened a moment longer for other sounds, then lowered his sails and secured them.

  “Get some sleep,” he said. “I’ll stand watch.”

  “All right,” Lanham said. “Good night.”

  “Almost ’good morning,’” A.C. sa
id.

  Sliding down to rest his back against the other side of the cockpit, he folded his arms for warmth. It was quite humid, but the air had turned clammy.

  It wasn’t long before he felt the keel lurch and shift, and then the boat lift. The tide was beginning to return.

  The O’Day turned and pulled on its anchor rope, rising and falling gently. They were secure for the night. Further wakefulness proved impossible. A.C. slipped into sleep.

  They awoke to a dawn’s first light heavily filtered by fog, its faint glow seeping through a mist that lay all around them. A.C. could see the nearby shore clearly enough, tall trees and some huge, gnarled, upended stumps. There’d been bulldozers here, clearing the beach. Houses or a resort would not be long in coming. A few birds had begun chirping, but the sound was faint and muffled.

  “Now what?” said Lanham, relieving himself over the side.

  “There’s a portable toilet below,” A.C. said.

  “Sorry. Like I told you, I never even owned a rowboat.” He stepped down into the cockpit. “Now what?” he said, seating himself.

  “We’ll head down for Tawabaw.”

  “In this fog?”

  “It’ll burn off eventually. We’ve got a good quarter-mile visibility.”

  “You’re going to sail down?”

  “No wind. Don’t worry. I think there’s gas enough.”

  It took three pulls before the engine caught. There were still several inches of gasoline in the tank, enough to get to Tawabaw and back to Savannah.

  Not enough if they needed to go anywhere else as well, especially in a hurry.

  A.C. cranked up the engine speed sufficiently to make headway against the tidal current, then swung the bow completely around, steering south.

  The shore came and went in the fog. He steered out into the sound a little to make sure of deep water. There was a rosiness to the gray in the east, yellowish at the top. The rising sun was beginning to eat through.

  A.C. rolled up his sleeves, slipping the automatic into his belt at the front. When he decided they had gone out enough, he turned to starboard again, steering due south. The shore had slipped from their view; when they approached the Tawabaw headland, it seemed to jump at them through the mist.

  Rounding it, they could see nearly a mile now. Just at that reach was the gray silhouette of a power cruiser lying motionless just off the Tawabaw shore.

  “Ray. If Camilla’s there, leave her to me.”

  “Yeah, right.”

  “I mean it.”

  “I know you mean it.”

  As they came closer, A.C. reduced speed to lessen the engine noise, but it still seemed to be making a crashing racket. He swung out into deeper water again.

  “I’ll come at it from astern,” he said.

  As they shifted course, the gray silhouette seemed to lengthen, and then divide. There was another boat with it—much smaller—tied to the larger craft’s stern.

  Lanham wiped his glasses, then crouched up against the cabin bulkhead, squinting over it.

  “It says Floride, all right,” he said.

  Holding the speed now down to near idle, A.C. putted slowly past the stern of the smaller boat. There was nothing inside but gear. It had shipped some water, and a plastic cup was floating near the rear seat.

  A.C. moved the sailboat to the other side of Delasante’s cruiser, cutting the engine just short enough to allow the two craft to slide gently together.

  Lanham climbed up over the side, turning once he was on the deck of the cruiser to catch the line A.C. threw to him.

  “Fasten it to anything,” A.C. said.

  Lanham held a finger to his lips, but did as instructed. In a moment, A.C. was up beside him.

  The cabin window curtains had been pulled closed, and the interior was dark and gloomy, but there was light enough to see the splayed, shoeless feet and sprawled legs in their light-colored pants, jutting out from the small doorway forward. Lanham yanked back two of the curtains, then knelt beside the body. A.C. knelt on the other side.

  “You’re not a cop,” Lanham said. “How come you never throw up?”

  “I was a police reporter.”

  Lanham leaned closer to the still form, gingerly touching with a finger the bloody mass of what had been the head.

  “Goodbye Pierre,” he said. “Whoever did this sure must have enjoyed it.”

  “You mean Jacques.”

  “I guess. I’ve never seen anyone shot up this much.”

  It looked as though Delasante had changed into a red shirt and jacket, but they were the same clothes he’d been wearing on Hilton Head. There was an eye and the mouth visible in the face, but the rest was puffy crimson mush. Lanham reached and carefully pulled the shirt up over the man’s large belly. It took some effort, for the blood was still moist and sticky.

  “He must have had a gun emptied into him,” Lanham said. “Twice. He’s real dead.”

  A.C. sat back on his heels, then leaned all the way against the bulkhead, closing his eyes a moment. He hadn’t noticed the rank, damp, sweet-sour smell before. Now it overwhelmed him. “God.”

  “You all right?”

  “Yes.”

  “You sure?”

  “Fine.” A.C. rubbed his eyes, then opened them. He rubbed his temples, looked around the cabin, then got shakily to his feet and went over to the chart table. The Tawabaw chart had been pulled separate from the others and spread out. He picked it up, but it told him nothing. He knew where they were.

  “Why now?” A.C. asked. “After all this time?”

  “Whatever Jacques Santee has been looking for, he must think he’s pretty near it. He must think Pierre has led him to it.”

  “On Tawabaw. Camilla said Hilton Head or Tawabaw. So it’s Tawabaw.”

  “This isn’t over,” Lanham said. “There are two boats here.”

  Without another word, they crept back up to the cruiser’s afterdeck, crouching down behind the steering, not wanting to expose themselves now. Lanham lifted his head slightly, looking up the mist-shrouded shoreline.

  “Can you take our boat up the shore a little? Into the fog?”

  “All right.” A.C. squinted up at the sky. “It’s burning off pretty fast, though.”

  “I’m going to cut these two boats free. Meet you on the beach.”

  “I’ll be there.”

  Lanham tapped his shoulder. “You’d make a good cop, Captain.”

  “Not as good as you.”

  A.C. rolled over the side, dropping into the sailboat and hunching down. In a moment, the line to the cabin cruiser came loose. He pulled it in out of the water and then started the engine, quickly throwing it into reverse. The O’Day swung backward, bumping against the smaller powerboat. Shifting into forward, he pulled away, veering toward the shoreline for a moment and then out into deeper water. Once at a safer distance, he shifted his course, skimming alongside the island into the mist, keeping low until the other two boats had disappeared.

  Camilla knelt in the muddy grass, the mummified, patchy remains of a long-dead, gutted raccoon lying on the ground beside her. The thick oilskin pouch had been in the rotted animal. It had been there all the time. Jacques had killed the poor old nana woman and torn the shack apart, and found nothing. He’d ripped open some of the hideous dead creatures she’d hung about the place, but had missed this one. It might have been just a few feet from his hand.

  The nana might have told him that. Had he asked her? Had he given her that much chance at a few more moments of life? Or had she been aged beyond reasonable speech? Perhaps he was afraid of her hoodoo. Everyone else had been—the villagers, the local police. They had taken the old woman away but left everything else as Jacques had left it, the dead animals hanging from the trees, full of death and vermin, and evil magic.

  Camilla had gone to them first. The raccoon was one of the larger creatures and in it she’d found the nana’s cache. Pierre’s buried treasure, its contents as vital to the Delasante clan as
the treasures of the pharaohs were to the ancient Egyptians. The oilskin was dark and greasy, and small, sluglike insects crawled upon it, but inside, once unwrapped, it was pure and new, just as it must have been when Pierre had bought it.

  Camilla’s hands were filthy and her nails were clogged with grit. Her white skirt, stockings, and white shoes were spattered with mud. There were dirty spots on her arms and face where she had slapped at insects. Her neck and underarms were oily with sweat. The perspiration had dripped in runnels into the divide between her breasts. Her hair was damp and matted. She had never been so soiled in her life, but she felt just the opposite. The act she was performing, the dreadful thing she had already done, these were cleansing acts, purging acts. She was engaged in purifying destruction, the purification brought by flame.

  She must start a fire in this watery, spongy place. There was old, dried wood enough in the weathered shack, wood torn asunder by Jacques’s violent hand, as though he had prepared it for her, with this conclusive morning, this ultimate moment, in mind. She gathered it together and arranged it into a pile, a miniature pyre.

  But the wood would not ignite by itself. She needed tinder—little twigs and paper. The few twigs she found were damp, and there was no paper. The old nana had kept none, had no use for it. Camilla sat back on her haunches, knees high, looking around, a little dazed by her futility.

  It came to her almost as a revelation. The answer was at hand. In the objects of destruction was the source of destruction. What she had come to burn would start the healing fire.

  She knelt forward again, and reached into the oilskin pouch, pulling out the old Bible. It had been preserved for generations as carefully and purposefully as Pierre for his dark reasons had kept it safe and hidden for the last several months in this place. The pages were limp, but had been made in a century when book papers were intended as permanence, when all printed words were meant to last.

  The pages would burn. It would be God’s word that would be burning, a sacrilege as provocative of fate as violating the old woman’s hoodoo. But Camilla decided to presume a divinity in their sacrifice. The holy words would perish for the greater good of destroying evil words, erasing with flame and char and curling smoke the passages that had been written in this book not by God but by culpable mortals, words that had been used by Pierre for the basest purpose, words, names, that had brought this horror down upon them all.