Tango Key (37 page)

She swung the binoculars away from the pier, out across the beach, scanning the crowd. She spotted Finley and Todd McGuire. She caught sight of Bernie weaving her way through the people on the beach, then lost sight of her again. She wondered if Eve would be watching the race, and if so, from where. Maybe Murphy had already confronted her and she wouldn't put in an appearance at all. But Aline suspected Murphy hadn't said anything to her yet, that he would wait until the race was over. Either way, the end result to Eve would be the same. From now until the morning of July 6, she would be under continuous surveillance.

"You're easy to spot," Kincaid said, coming up behind her, sliding her hair to one side, and kissing her on the back of her neck.

"Hi, yourself, sport."

He tipped his sunglasses back on top of his head as he leaned into the railing and gazed out across the sand. "Mind telling me what's going on?"

Aline smiled and leaned next to him. "Sometimes, Kincaid, I think you're psychic and have just never come clean about it."

He laughed and shook his head. "I don't have to be psychic to know you stopped by the house last night to tell me something and then couldn't do it for some reason." He cosseted the back of his neck and looked over at her, his lapis eyes cool, serene. "If it's about us, about you not wanting to see me or something, Allie, I wish you'd just say it."

She wasn't sure what made the lump well in her throat just then. Perhaps it was the combination of fatigue and everything that had happened since last night. Maybe it was nothing more than the echo of herself in Kincaid's plaintive tone, that it might have been her standing there, saying the same thing to Murphy almost a month ago. "It isn't you." She hesitated, swallowing back the balloon of emotion; she would not stand here in a crowd of hundreds, blubbering like a kid. When she finally started talking, he stroked the back of her hand absently, with his thumb, nodding, not interrupting, just listening.

The relentless heat poured down. The din of the crowd reached her in waves, pushing forward, then receding. Someone jostled her from behind and she glanced back and saw Ferret and Bino, poised there like an eighties version of Mutt and Jeff.

"My favorite folks on Tango," said Ferret, his lips drawing back from his teeth in his weird version of a smile. "Any bets on the race?"

"I knew you wouldn't be out here just celebrating the Fourth," Kincaid said with a smile.

"Now, now, Ryan. I am very much a patriot. But it so happens that I'm more interested in the boat race than in fireworks."

"You're the man who knows the odds. What are they on the black Scarab, Murphy and Dobbs at the helm?"

"Six-to-one for fourth place. Little late to place any official bets, but just among friends, I'll place a twenty spot on the Scarab coming in third."

Aline shook her head. "Fifty says it comes in first."

"Favorite odds are on Cavello for first, Sweet Pea. And I'd almost have to agree, considering the machine he's got. That Cigarette is souped to the hilt, does more than a hundred and thirty when she's open. But double the bet on the Scarab and you've got a deal."

"We'll triple it," said Kincaid.

Oh dear, thought Aline. "Only if Ferret takes Visa."

Kincaid laughed. "I'll pay the difference."

Ferret held out his hand, and he and Kincaid shook. "I love doing business with you, Ryan." Ferret dabbed at his damp forehead with a white monogrammed handkerchief. "Here's another tip, but not on the race. I hear a certain gentleman has offered a substantial reward for information leading to the recovery of a certain amphibian. No questions asked."

Aline straightened. "Where'd you hear that?"

"We got that piece handy, Bino?" Ferret asked his sidekick.

"You bet." One of Bino's pale hands reached into his back pocket for his wallet, rifled through it, came out with a newspaper clipping. It was from the personals in yesterday's
Tango Tribune
: '$15,000 reward for information about amphibian artifact. Call 555-6784, ext. 34.'

"The number belongs to the Flamingo Hotel, and the extension is actually a room which is registered to Alan Cooper," Ferret said.

"He really thinks someone is going to bite at this?" Aline shook her head. "May I keep it, Ferret?"

"I sure don't need it, Sweet Pea."

"Ladies and gentlemen," boomed a voice on the loudspeaker. "The thirty-second annual Tango Key Challenge Cup Race is about to begin. There're a total of twenty boats entered in the finals this year, and prizes will be awarded to the top three boats. The first prize is five thousand, the second for twenty-five hundred, and the third, fifteen hundred. Best of luck to you all."

Aline and Ferret climbed up onto the railing so they could see better, while Kincaid and Bino—the giants—remained behind them. She perused the crowd again with the binoculars, and just as the announcer went into his revved-up rap on the first pair of boats, she spotted Eve. Her lovely face loomed in the lenses, so close it seemed Aline only had to extend her arm and touch her.

Then she lowered the binoculars and Eve was still close—twenty feet away, leaning into the railing, her hands dangling over the side, those rings gleaming and dancing in the light. She turned her head slowly toward Aline, as if sensing her eyes, slid her sunglasses down a little on her nose, and smiled. It was the barest of smiles, but one that communicated tomes, one that taunted, that said,
You still haven't figured it out yet, have you, Aline, about Murphy and me? You still don't know, do you?

But she did know and nodded in return, acknowledging Eve. This silent exchange rippled like an errant current through the din of the roaring boats, the cheers of the crowd, the boom from the loudspeaker. It became the sum of everything that had existed between them, two women who had known each other only slightly, but who'd been linked through a murder and the men they had inadvertently shared.

Then Aline turned her attention back to the race and heard the announcer say, "Number three is a forty-three-foot Wellcraft Scarab Lamborghini racer piloted by Steve Murphy. Number four is a thirty-eight-foot Cigarette piloted by Ted Cavello. Gentlemen, take your p1aces please."

A shot echoed over the loudspeaker, and suddenly the boats tore away from the pier in the distance. Aline raised the binoculars to her eyes. She could see Murphy's black Scarab on the outside, flying across the water, neck to neck with Cavello's white Cigarette. As they neared the two-mile point directly in line with where she and Kincaid stood, the Cigarette inched out ahead, its nose rearing up out of the water like a sea serpent.

"In the lead we now have Ted Cavello, clocked at one ten, that's one ten, nearing the two-and-a-half-mile point," shouted the announcer. "The Scarab's opening up now, yes sir, opening all the way up, approaching . . ."

And then, in the binoculars, Aline saw the Cigarette blowing apart at the seams. The explosion hurtled a fireball sixty or more feet into the air and spewed metal and wood in every direction. A black cloud of smoke billowed up, smoke so dense that it obscured the blue directly over the spot where it had happened. Black plumes trailed behind it like banners. The fireball seemed to reach its pinnacle, then plunged in an arc toward the water, plunged like a meteor.

She didn't move. She was frozen to the railing, eyes glued on the black cloud, seeking Murphy's boat. Cries erupted from the crowd. People scurried this way and that on the beach, uncertain where to go, what to do, some of them doing absolutely nothing but standing there, gawking. Aline couldn't even see the horizon; there was too much smoke.
He's dead, I know he's dead . . .

But then the Scarab emerged from the black cloud, and rocketed across the finish, seeming unaffected by the explosion. She was dimly aware of the announcer asking everyone to remain calm, of Kincaid's hands at her waist, lifting her off the railing, of his hand clasping hers, pulling her along after him, toward the beach.

"They're going to need help," he shouted.

Not Cavello
, she thought. He'd just joined the ranks of Cooper, the Colombian, and Ed Waite. Cavello had been murdered. She was sure of it.

W
hen the alarm shrilled at 11:30 P.M., Aline sat bolt upright, blinking, trying to clear her head, to peel away the gauze that encased her brain. Why was it dark? What day was this? Had she slept through an appointment? Her heart raced. A wall of sweat moved across her skin. She shivered. She ran her hands over her face, and slowly her turbid thoughts ran clearer. Everything came together. The boat race. The explosion. The long hours afterward, searching the water for debris. Frederick, knowing she had the surveillance shift at midnight, had finally sent her home for some sleep, and she'd fallen into bed around 7:30.

She vaguely remembered Kincaid's call sometime later, the uberty of his voice sliding into her, filling her, touching her all over inside. He had said he was trying to trace the dynamite that had blown Cavello's boat to smithereens and would catch up with her after midnight, while she was on surveillance. And then she'd slept.

Aline climbed down from her sleeping loft, started a pot of coffee, and fed Wolfe. She took a quick shower. She put on jeans, a dark shirt, and laced her feet into her running shoes. She slid on her shoulder holster, snapped the .38 into it, and draped a windbreaker over her shoulder. She poured the coffee into a thermos, fixed herself a tuna sandwich and a snack of high-energy stuff—dates, a granola bar, an apple. She was ready to roll.

Outside, she got into Kincaid's Saab. He believed her Honda was held together with masking tape and faith, and had traded cars with her. The Saab, he'd said, was safer. The Saab was new. The Saab was fast. The Saab had doors that locked automatically. The Saab maybe even walked on water; that was still open to debate.

She drove into the hills and thought about death. Her mother had believed it was nothing but a shift in perception, that you shed your body but not your consciousness. Her father had believed that when you died, that was it. Her beliefs, she supposed, fell somewhere in between. If thought was energy, and energy, as Einstein had proven, couldn't be extinguished, then something of you had to survive. The question was what. Longing? Desire? Love? Hatred? Did the part of Monica that survived long for retribution? Did Doug Cooper still wheel and deal? Was Ed Waite's spirit still allergic to penicillin?

Clouds played tag with the moon, and the road slipped from shadow into light. The Saab hugged the road like a spider, negotiating the ascents and dips, the turns and twists, with marvelous ease. Compared to her Honda, this car was
a Rolls. It was comfortable. Everything inside it worked—the air conditioner, the wipers, the radio with its quadraphonic sound, the electric sunroof, the electric windows, the automatic door locks, everything. The car, she thought, was like Kincaid's life. It ran without an apparent hitch.

As she ascended Ivy Hill, she turned off the headlights. She passed the two other houses on the street, then slowed and poked the Saab's nose into the thicket of pines on her left. She bounced between the trees for twelve or fifteen yards and pulled up alongside Bernie's MG. Bernie was sitting back on the hood, against the windshield, binoculars glued to her eyes.

"Anything interesting?" Aline whispered.

Bernie lowered the glasses and shook her head, stifling a yawn. "Not a goddamn thing. She hasn't left since I got here, and no one's visited."

Aline settled on the far side of the hood with her brown bag. She brought out the thermos of coffee and two Styrofoam cups. "If you're hungry, I'll split the sandwich with you."

"I'm on a diet."

"Sure, Bernie."

"I am. I feel fat. My thighs look fat. Jack told me I should join the Tango Health Club and work out with him. Can't you see it? Me lifting weights? Me bench-pressing five pounds?" She accepted the cup of coffee and sighed deeply as she sipped it. "Has Kincaid had any luck tracking down the dynamite?"

"I haven't heard from him since he dropped me off. He said he'd come by here later and keep me company for a while. Did you know he had an affair with Eve?"

"Kincaid?" His name hissed into the warm, still air. Somewhere distant, Aline heard a bird warble then fall silent. "God, she just doesn't seem his type."

Aline gave her a brief synopsis of the story. Bernie looked over at her, the exiguous starlight sliding into the pair of slight creases that ran along either side of her nose. "You're wrong, Al. I know what's rumbling around in that noggin of yours and I understand where it's coming from, what with Murphy and Eve and all, but you're wrong, okay? You're wrong. Kincaid is one of the few men I know who has scruples. And believe me, he wouldn't kill Doug Cooper for Eve or a gold frog or any of it. He wouldn't kill, period, except in self-defense."

"Boy, are you ever singing a different tune than you were when I first mentioned him."

"So I changed my mind about him."

"I only considered him a serious contender for about five minutes the night he told me about him and Eve, you know."

"Well, for your information, Al, he's nuts about you." It was news to her.

"He told you that?"

"Yeah. Mother Confessor. That's me."

"When? When did he say that?"