Home Fires

18. NOT THE END

Formal Night over, Chelle dropped into a chair as soon as the door of their stateroom closed. “Sit down. I’ve got to talk to you.”

“Not yet,” Skip said. “I want to get out of this outfit.”

“Are you trying to tell me you talk better in your underwear?”

“I talk better in anything. I’d talk better in a diving suit.”

“You can’t unfasten that fake bow tie, can you?”

“Yes, I can; but I can’t see what I’m doing, so it may take a while.”

She rose, and in another second his tie was gone. “Now the collar stud.”

“Who the hell invented these clothes?”

“You really want to know?” She was grinning. “You won’t like it.”

“Lawyers?”

“Huh uh.” The collar stud gone, Chelle stepped away. “Guys who wore them every day, like Lord This-‘n’-that who always dressed for dinner. Band leaders and headwaiters. Guys like that.”

Taking out one last shirt stud, Skip grunted.

“While you’re doing that, how about unzipping me?”

A tug at the keeper at the back of Chelle’s neck opened the graceful blue gown she had chosen to match her eyes. It fell around her feet, and she stepped out of it, a blue chemise half concealing a blue bra and blue panties. “Think you’re going to get an eyeful? This is as far as I go until the lights are out.”

“Fine.”

She picked up her gown and hung it in the closet they shared, then returned to her chair, plainly waiting for him to speak. Silently, he stuffed his shirt, damp with sweat, into his dirty clothes bag.

She snorted. “You’re waiting for me to make the first move, damn you.”

“Or not. As you wish.” He was stepping out of his trousers.

“Okay, I will. Did you believe Charlie?”

“Hardly a word of it. Do you believe he was Charlie? Is that man in actual fact your biological father?”

“Yeah. You don’t think so?”

“I wasn’t sure. Are you?”

“Hell, yes. Can I prove it? No. But that’s him.”

“Did you tell him about the College Inn? Firing his secretary?”

“Of course not. I never saw him until he came in with Mom tonight. You were there. If I’d told him, you’d have heard it.”

“You saw him when you were being held in Lieutenant Brice’s stateroom.”

“Yeah. You’re right, I did. Only I didn’t know who he was then. He was just a nice old guy who was talking them out of shooting me.” Chelle’s deep sigh was followed by a wistful smile. “I loved him then. I could’ve kissed him, mustache and all. But I didn’t know it was Charlie.”

“They gave you deeptrance. I don’t suppose you know what you told them.”

“While I was under? All I know is they didn’t get what they wanted. They put me under four times, I think it was, and every time I came to, Rick was madder.”

“In that case, you might have told the man with the beard about dinner at the Old College Inn.”

“I suppose, if he’d asked the right questions.”

“I admit is isn’t likely,” Skip said. He leaned back in his chair. “It’s possible, however. He could also have planted the suggestion that you would recognize him as your father the first time you saw him with your mother. I’ll admit that neither of those are very plausible.”

“I’ll say! That’s Charlie. A lot older, but still Charlie. Did you buy that story about his just happening to go into the cabin looking for me?”

“Certainly not.” Skip paused. “He lied about having met Jerry Brice and half a dozen other things.”

Chelle nodded. “He said all he had to do was say he’d been sent by headquarters, and they bought it. It was damn hard not to laugh in his face.”

“Hard but wise.”

“Yeah. He came to save me, just like you did. Only he pulled it off.”

Skip nodded. “You don’t know how he established his bona fides?”

“I’m pretty sure I was under when he came in, but I know somebody who does.”

“Who might,” Skip said. “So do I, and I want to talk to her.”

“Will she tell you the truth?”

He shrugged. “Susan won’t lie to me intentionally. But she may not have understood what was said or what sort of ID was shown. She may have been busy doing something, most probably because Rick Johnson saw to it that she was.”

“Do you really think there would be papers? Something like a service card?”

Skip shrugged again. “Almost certainly not, but there may have been something else. A ring, a coin, a button. Maybe a gesture. A secret handshake sounds absurd, I know; but it might be good for just that reason. Or the repeated use of some particular phrase. Or something else—there’s always the chance it was something else.”

Chelle grinned. “You said ‘something else’ twice. I bet you thought I wouldn’t catch it.”

“I said it three times. Seriously now, it might be good for us to know what the ID was; but I doubt that we can get it from Susan because I doubt that she has it. I hoped you did.”

Chelle shook her head. “Do you really, seriously think Charlie might be spying for the Os?”

“You knew him far better than I did, and your memories of him will be far more recent. Do you?”

“You want to give me time to think about it?”

“No. Off the top of your head. Would he do it?”

Chelle looked thoughtful. “For enough money, yes, he might. But he’d double-cross them as soon as he found out how to make double-crossing pay. You want more?”

“Absolutely.”

“Charlie’s loyal to Charlie. If God pays off on total no-slacking loyalty to a cause, there’s a gold throne in heaven just waiting for Charlie. If he doesn’t kill goats in front of his own picture, it’s because he’s never found goats good enough.”

“He tried to save your life.”

“Wrong. He saved it. It kind of worries me, because he figured he’d get something out of it and I don’t know what. I’ve got a dozen guesses when what I need’s one good one.”

“He sees you as a detached part of himself. All right if I have the first shower?”

“No way. You’ll be all nice and clean and smell good, and I won’t take one at all. So me first. Do you think that’s really it? I’m part of him? In his mind, I mean?”

“Biologically you are. You’ve got a bunch of his genes, and he certainly knows that. Would Virginia be as quick to take him back if she didn’t know he’d saved you?”

Chelle rose. “I think so. It’s money, not me. He’s rich, or she thinks he is, or anyway she thinks he might be. She’s poor now, and she doesn’t like it. I’ll try to leave you a dry towel.”

There would be no one in Zygmunt’s office this late, but there would be an answering machine. Skip selected Zman from his contacts list. “This is Skip Grison. Here’s a phone number.” He read the number the white-bearded man had supplied. “Find out who’s answering that number and what they’re doing. It’s supposed to belong to somebody named Coleman Baum.” He spelled it. “See if he’s real.”

He leaned back, conscious that he was very tired, and conscious, too, that he sometimes made bad decisions when he was tired. Something hard tapped the door softly. He stood, went to the peephole, and opened the door to admit Achille.

“You want see me, mon?”

“Sit down.” Skip motioned toward the other chair. “Chelle’s taking a shower, and that ought to give us all the time we need. We’ll make port tomorrow. Will you go ashore?”

Achille shrugged. “Got to, mon. They don’t let me on the ship no more.”

“You could hide on board so that they would never find you. We both know that. Are you going to?”

“What you want, mon?”

“I want you to bring something in for me. There’ll be money in it for you.”

Achille thrust out his lower lip. “I’m going, mon. What you want?”

Skip unlocked his bag, rummaged through his dirty laundry, and produced the pistol he had wrested from Rick Johnson’s dead hand. “You could sell this in the city for a good price.”

Lips pursed, Achille nodded.

“I think I know about what you could get for it, but I’d like to hear your guess.”

Achille leaned closer to inspect the pistol. At last he shrugged. “I ask five thous’. You give it to me, mon? I split.”

“You’d ask five. What would you settle for?”

The spike that had replaced Achille’s right hand scratched his chin. “For four thous’, I think.”

“What about thirty-five hundred?”

“You sell for this? Sell to me?”

Skip shook his head.

“Then I don’ sell for him too.”

“All right, here’s my offer. This gun’s mine. If you can get it ashore and deliver it to me, at my office, I’ll give you three thousand noras. If you don’t deliver it, you’ll have turned a good friend into an enemy. I’ll see to it that you’re picked up and deported. Say no deal and walk away, if you won’t bring it to me. That way, we’re still friends.”

Achille hesitated. “Cash. Must be cash, mon, or I don’ bring.”

“Three thousand noras in cash. Furthermore, if you’re caught trying to bring it in, I’ll defend you; but only if you say nothing about me to anyone.”

Achille nodded. “I don’ never talk, mon.”

“I may have another gun for you before we dock. If so, I expect the same deal. You’ll get three thousand more when you deliver it to me. Six thousand in all.”

“I need him soon, mon. Where your office?”

Skip gave him a business card, tucking it into his shirt pocket.

When Achille had gone and Chelle remained in the bathroom, Skip telephoned the bridge. “Is Captain Kain there?”

“Who’s calling?”

“Skip Grison.”

“I’ll see, sir.”

A moment later the captain was on the line. “What’s up, Skip?”

“You dropped by our table at dinner. Virginia was there with an elderly man. Virginia Healy.”

“Yes.”

“I need information about the elderly man, and I’m hoping you’ve got some. Who is he?”

“His name? I think it’s Coleman Baum. He’s a first-class passenger.”

“Didn’t he shoot somebody? I think I heard that.”

“When we were fighting the hijackers? I doubt it. He’s too old.”

“Later. I’ve been told he shot one of Mick Tooley’s volunteers, a man named Rick Johnson.”

“I’ll call you back,” the captain said, and hung up.

Skip went out onto the veranda and sat down, staring at the sea.

* * *

He was still there when Chelle joined him.

“Beautiful, isn’t it? Beautiful and immoral.”

“I would have said amoral. What have you got on under that robe?”

“Nothing you can see until we’re in the cabin with the doors locked and the lights out.”

He smiled. “In that case—”

“Not yet. I want to talk. Women want to talk. Have you noticed?”

“No.” Skip shook his head.

“Liar! Everybody has. Did I ever tell you how I got to be a mastergunner?”

“I’m not a liar, I’m a lawyer. Tell me how you got to be a mastergunner.”

“I’ll bet I’ve told you before, but it’s an excuse to talk.”

“You haven’t.” He felt a surge of genuine curiosity. “How did you do it, Chelle?”

“Women make better shots than men. Wait, let me explain. There are men who shoot as well as any woman, a few men who shoot as well as anybody ever can. But men always think they know everything already. They’ll keep doing the same thing the instructor has told them twenty times not to do. Like this one student we had, Corporal Nesse. He could make a good fast shot and good slow shot. He could take his time and squeeze off four-hundred-meter groups about as good as you could get with a machine rest.”

Skip nodded, feeling it was expected of him.

“Only nothing in between. Put a target at the seventy-meter line drifting off to one side, and he’d shoot like it was ten meters. They sent him to sniper. Buck sergeant is all you get there.”

“What about you?” Skip asked.

“I noticed that all the other women wanted to sit down with the instructors and vent. The instructors didn’t have time for that. They had a lot to do. So I didn’t do it. Anytime I wanted to vent, I vented to somebody else. When I had something to say to an instructor, I said it and got the hell out. It meant I got special attention, because I didn’t take up any more time than they needed to give me.”

“I want to give you as much time as you want to take,” Skip said.

“I know. I appreciate it and I don’t want to abuse it, but what I’m trying to say is pretty tough to get out. I cheated on you with Jerry.”

Skip shrugged.

“You know about that. Right back there, in the same bed you and I sleep in.”

“Correct.”

“You also know that he gave me a card for his cabin on the signal deck. You probably think I went up there and we did it again there, only I didn’t. The only time I’ve been in that cabin was when Rick and what’s-her-name…”

“Susan.”

“Right. When they took me there.” Chelle’s hand found Skip’s and held it tightly while she stared out to sea for a minute and more. “I’ve cheated on you with somebody else, too.”

“I know,” he said.

“You do?”

He nodded.

“You know who?”

“Yes,” he said. “If you want to talk about it, we can. If you don’t, we don’t have to.”

“I’m sorry. You—you were in a coma, and it just happened.”

“I understand,” he said.

“Then I wanted to tell him we were finished and there would be no more. Only it happened again.” For a moment she was quiet. “I know how that must sound. Why aren’t you mad?”

It was a good question, and he tried to think of a good answer. “Because I love you so much. I’m angry at Mick, but I owe him a great deal.” Skip paused. “I would have said I’d never be able to repay him, but maybe I have. If I act as if I don’t know and let him go on thinking that I don’t know, maybe it will be paying what I owe.”

“I’m money? A kind of money?”

He shook his head.

“Would you have asked me to do it? Because he wanted me, as a way to pay him back?”

“Of course not.” Skip sighed. “I’m creating this after the fact. You don’t have to tell me that. I could pull the rug out from under him. Destroy his career. I don’t want to do it. I could void our contract and get a couple of clients to break your legs. I don’t want to do that either.”

“But you’ve thought of it.”

He nodded.

“Didn’t it ever strike you that I might kill your clients?”

“Yes. That’s why I’m offering to get your gun ashore for you. So that you can kill anybody who tried to do it, whether I sent them or not.”

“You’re serious.”

He nodded. “I love you so much that I might do just about anything. I’m not saying that’s good or noble or divine. It isn’t. It’s just how I feel.”

When Chelle did not speak, he added, “I can’t trust myself.”

“Or me.”

He shrugged.

“My gun’s going to get smuggled in, only I’ll do it, not you. If you were doing it, you might be caught. You’d be disbarred.”

“I won’t be caught.”

“Right. If I’m caught, I’ll have you outside trying to keep me out of jail—and trying to get me released if I’m convicted.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“Would you rather I dropped it over the side?”

“Yes. Absolutely.”

“Then I’ll think about it. Maybe I’ll do it. If Charlie’s spying for the Os, why’d he shoot Rick?”

“To save your life. You’re his daughter, whether you’ve divorced him or not. Rick wanted to kill you and had a pretty good reason for it.”

“Think of another reason.”

Skip shrugged. “Why should I? I’ve given you my explanation, and there’s nothing wrong with it.”

“There’s a bunch wrong with it. I heard Charlie arguing, and he said that if they killed me somebody might hear the shot, and even if nobody did, they’d have to get rid of my body somehow, throw it over the side or whatever. Even if they got away with that, people would start looking for me.”

“We were looking for you already.”

“I know. The thing is, it would be the same thing if he killed Rick. Somebody would hear, they’d find the body, and if they didn’t somebody would come looking for him.”

“Ipso facto, you’re wrong. By your reasoning Charlie should be locked up right now. He’s not.”

“Wrong!” Chelle’s smile was triumphant. “Rick was a spy. Why lock up Charlie for shooting a spy?”

“Was he? Prove it.”

“They must have found something showing that he was.”

Skip nodded. “Photo ID issued by the Os. That could be it. Or a code book, maybe. Do they speak English?”

“You’re making fun of me.”

“No, indeed. I’m making fun of your suggestion.”

“I could’ve told them he was a spy.” Chelle sounded stubborn.

“And I’m sure they would have believed you. Did you?”

“All right,” Chelle said, “you explain. Why’s Charlie still loose?”

“After Rick blew up, you and I took that big woman—”

“Trinity. She’s a masseuse.”

“Thank you. Gary Oberdorf and young Jerry went with us. Charlie and Virginia stayed behind.”

“You said that he told her something that made her wait. This was back before dinner. It was probably just who he was. That would have stopped her dead.”

“After which,” Skip said, “they probably went down to the first-class bar for a friendly drink.”

“Stop trying to be funny.”

“All right, I will. Rick blew up on the signal deck. Those staterooms belong to the ship’s officers, and the bridge is at the end of the corridor. The explosion sounded loud to us because we were in the same room, but it would have been muffled by walls and distance for the officers on the bridge. Even so, the captain would have sent someone to investigate as soon as someone could be spared. Where you there when he arrived?”

“What are you getting at?”

“That someone would probably have found them there; she would certainly have had a few questions for him, and he would have had a few more for her. The officer would have asked them what happened. You know them both a great deal better than I do. What would they have said?”

Chelle looked thoughtful.

“Basically, they would have had four choices. First, they could have said they didn’t know, that they had heard the explosion and come to investigate.”

Chelle nodded. “That sounds good.”

“It could sound better. Charles Blue is a first-class passenger, so his stateroom must be on A Deck, B Deck, or C Deck. The elevators won’t run if the distance is less than four floors. Would he, an elderly man, be one of the first to arrive?”

“I suppose not.”

“Virginia’s even worse. Her cabin’s on J Deck. If she were there, she wouldn’t have heard the explosion, or would have heard a sound so faint that it could’ve been anything. So she just happened to be on A Deck talking to Charlie when they heard the explosion and ran up the stairs to check it out together. They could tell that story and stick to it, but they’d certainly come under suspicion.”

“And there’s what’s-her-name.”

“Susan. Correct.”

“Second choice. Admit that they had been present but say the shot had been fired by someone else. That someone would almost certainly be Susan.”

“We saw it. You and I both did. So did Trinity.”

“And Jerry, and Gary Oberdorf. It couldn’t possibly have worked, in other words. Too many witnesses.”

Chelle nodded. “What’s the third choice?”

“Say nothing at all. Stand mute. If they had done that, you would have been questioned. Were you?”

Chelle nodded.

“Did you say Charlie did it?”

“Hell, no. I didn’t know who he was. I told them this nice old guy had been trying to save my life, and he’d shot the guy who kidnapped me.”

“At which point the nice old guy would have been locked up until we made port and the whole mess could be turned over to the police.”

“Which didn’t happen.”

“Correct.”

“But if he said he did it, wouldn’t they lock him up anyway?”

“Not if he had a get-out-of-jail card. Kiss me, and I’ll explain.”

It was a lengthy kiss, during which his hand slipped into her robe.

Followed by more kisses.