Westlake, Donald E - Novel 43 (44 page)

 
          
“Right.”
He nodded at her, his brow clearing. “You’re right, Valerie,” he said. “It’s
time I told you what’s been going on.”

 
          
“Good,”
she said, and went on eating while he talked.

 
          
Kirby
told her the truth, almost every last little bit of it. “My big mistake,” he
started, “was when I bought some land from Innocent,” and then he went on to
tell her about the land, his finances, his meeting with Tommy Watson and the
other Indians, his invention of the temple and the Indians faking the artifacts
under Tommy’s direction, and Kirby himself going off to find his suckers in
America to buy the fakes. “They think they’re breaking the law, so they don’t
tell anybody about it.”

 
          
“So
what I saw,” Valerie said, with a wondering expression, “was your fake temple.”

 
          
“A
little bit of it, from a distance.”

 
          
“It
was very good.”

 
          
“That
was mostly Tommy’s doing. Anyway, when I first met you,” and he went on to
describe Valerie’s inadvertent foiling of his first attempt to snare Whitman
Lemuel, mentioning it with hardly any visible resentment at all, and then went
on to tell her about the Indians dismantling the fake temple just as soon as
she’d seen it, because everybody knew she was on her way back to Belmopan to
report her discovery.

 
          
At
that point, Valerie took over briefly, and told Kirby about her experiences
with
Vernon
and the skinny black man and her wanderings
in the wilderness, all of which had apparently been very difficult and
frightening, though she was brave about it in the recital.

 
          
Kirby
then took over again, saying, “Well, anyway, you were lost, and Innocent kept
going back and forth between believing you were alive and believing you were
dead, and if you were dead then he was sure I was pulling some con to persuade
him you were alive for some reason, and back and forth like that. Also, he was
going crazy about that hill and is there or isn’t there a temple.”

 
          
“We
were
all
going crazy, Kirby.”

 
          
“Well,”
Kirby said, “I offered him a deal. Buy the damn land back from me at the same
price I paid for it, and I’d tell him the absolute truth about you
and
the temple, whether you were alive
or not, and what the temple scam was.”

 
          
Valerie
looked quite interested: “Did he say yes?”

 
          
“He
did.”

 
          
“Well,
that was very sweet,” she said, looking doe^eyed. “That Innocent would worry
about me that much.”

 
          
“Sure,”
Kirby said. “But that’s why I didn’t take you back there just now. Innocent and
I no sooner shook hands on the deal when you showed up alive, so he already has
that part. That’s half my deal gone already. Now, with what you already knew
about my land and the people in South Abilene, and with what Innocent already
knew, he could have put together for himself what I was doing with my temple
scam, not needing to pay me to tell him about it, and that’s the other half. So
why does he need me any more?”

 
          
“Oh,”
Valerie said.

 
          
“If
I know Innocent—and I do—at that point he would have found some way to weasel
out of buying back the land.”

 
          
“So
you don’t want me to talk to him,” Valerie said, “until fie has the land and
you
have your money.”

 
          
“That’s
right.”

 
          
Her
expression was extremely enigmatic: “Do you mean I’ve been kidnapped again?”

 
          
Feeling
a bit uncomfortable, Kirby said, “I was hoping, after I explained the whole
thing, you’d sort of see it my way and agree to wait a little while. Not long.
I mean, nobody’s pinning your arms down or anything.”

 
          
“Mmm,”
she said, and folded her arms across her breasts to sort of pat her own biceps.

 
          
“It
would just be for a day or two,” Kirby assured her.

 
          
“Mmm,”
she said again, and then she yawned, covering her mouth with her hand. “I’m too
tired to think now, Kirby,” she said. Raising her arms over her head, she
arched her back and
strrrretched.
She
was, Kirby noticed, very interesting when she stretched. “Lunch was delicious,”
she told Estelle lazily, “but it made me so
sleepy
.”

 
          
“That’s
good,” Estelle said. “You just sit, I clean up.”

 
          
Looking
over at Kirby, her eyes round and guileless, Valerie said, “Your little
apartment looked
so
cool and
comfortable. Maybe I could just go there and take a nap.”

 
          
“Sure,”
Kirby said, getting up from the table. “I’ll walk you over.”

           
She smiled, looking up at him from
under her lashes as she rose.

           
Sex. How about that? If he and
Valerie Greene got a little something on together, maybe she’d be more on his
side in re Innocent. He had no idea where that idea came from, it was just
suddenly there, just sort of popped up into his mind.

 
          
He
ignored Estelle’s giggle as he escorted Valerie around the comer of the house.

 
          
Saturday
morning and Innocent sat in his office in Belmopan, his old self again, playing
the telephone like a virtuoso, taking care of business he’d let go all to hell,
covering his ass in every conceivable direction, and primarily seeing to it
that none of the mud from the Vernon affair would stick to his own voluminous
skirts.

 
          
Vernon
. Who would have guessed? “I trusted that
boy,” Innocent muttered aloud, yet even as he said it he knew that wasn’t the
really accurate way to describe the situation. Innocent hadn’t exactly
trusted
Vernon, it wasn’t in Innocent’s
character or training to throw something like
trust
around with a lavish hand, but what he had done was something
that had the exact same effect as misplaced trust: he had underestimated
Vernon. Patronized him, condescended to him, assumed that
Vernon
had no importance.

 
          
“And
all along he was selling me out.”

 
          
Selling
out his nation, too, of course, but that was secondary. He had betrayed
Innocent
, which meant Innocent had been
unwary enough to get into a position where betrayal was possible. Now, among
all the other things he was taking care of today, Innocent was going through
Vernon’s desk and correspondence files, seeing what other unpleasant surprises
might be in store, while down in Belize City Hospital Vernon was busily
spilling what guts he had left, telling everything he knew about everything,
naming every name.

 
          
“He
could hurt me, that boy, if I’m not quick.”

 
          
“Talking
to yourself, Innocent?”

 
          
Innocent
looked up, frowning, not liking to believe he was the sort of person who talked
to himself, certainly not wanting to be caught at it, and there was Kirby,
grinning in the doorway, dressed for flying business in his open-neck shirt and
khaki slacks and sturdy boots. “Well, Kirby,” Innocent growled, seeing nothing
in
that
doorway that pleased him,
“and what the hell happened to you yesterday?”

 
          
“Saved
a village,” Kirby told him, grinning. “Went home to rest.”

 
          
“And
what about Valerie?”

 
          
“Here
she is.” Kirby stepped into the office then, and Valerie followed, looking
happy and healthy and just a bit sheepish.

 
          
That
son of a gun took her to bed, Innocent thought. There was pain in the thought,
but also release. One of the things he’d been trying not to think about ever
since Kirby and Valerie and the plane had all flown away yesterday from South
Abilene was what he would feel—and what Valerie would feel—the next time they
saw one another. The gradual suspicion had been forming inside him that the
great life-changing love he had felt for Valerie was perhaps easier to maintain
when she was dead or disappeared, a great mythic figure, than when she was an
actual flesh-and-blood girl. The epiphany that Kirby had claimed Innocent was
having the night before last in South Abilene had been a great shaking and
cleansing of his system, long overdue he now believed, but it probably wouldn’t
have been possible if Valerie had not been both (
1
) good, and (2) unobtainable.

 
          
So
what should their relationship be, now that she was no longer among the missing
and he’d already had his apotheosis? To go on being obsessed by her when she
was
present
would be kind of silly,
but what was the alternative?

 
          
On
the other hand, even if she were no longer a goddess on earth but merely a
woman, she was still quite an intriguing woman, and that pleasant afternoon
spent in Vernon’s house—Vernon! by God, he knows so
much!
—was something Innocent would not at all mind repeating. Just
how long would it take to get used to and bored with this great big tall girl
with her happy enjoyments? It would be fun to find out.

 
          
But
it was not to be. One look at Valerie, and a second look at Kirby, confirmed
it, and a moment of sadness and nostalgia and regret passed over Innocent, like
the final tremor when you’re getting over the flu. But then it was washed away
by a sudden flood of relief: He would not have to follow through on his
protestations of love after all. He would not have to behave toward Valerie
present as he had sworn he wanted to when she was Valerie absent. He could have
his epiphany, and get away with it!

 
          
“Well,
come on in, you two,” he said, rising from behind his desk, beaming at them,
coming all over avuncular. “Looks to me like you’ve buried the hatchet.”

 
          
“We
straightened out one or two things,” Kirby agreed.

 
          
“We
talked it all out,” Valerie said, smiling softly, “and we understand one
another now.”

 
          
“But
what we’re here for, Innocent,” Kirby said, “I want to make good on our deal.
You already know about Valerie, but I promised to tell you about the temple.”

 
          
“Oh,
you don’t have to, Kirby,” Innocent said, just as smiling and open and friendly
as anything. “What I saw in
South Abilene
,
and talking with Tommy Watson, I’ve got it pretty well figured out by now. ”

 
          
“Hmm,”
said Kirby. He didn’t seem pleased.

 
          
“And
then the tape, that helped,” Innocent said. “But you haven’t heard the tape,
have you?”

 
          
“What
tape?”

 
          
So
Innocent got the tape out of the locked desk drawer and put it in the cassette
player, and once again those sounds and words filled his office: “This way,
gentlemen. Watch out for snakes.”
Throk
.
“The noise keeps them in their holes.”

 
          
Valerie
just looked bewildered, but Kirby stared at the cassette player as though it
were
his
ancestors’ form of Zotzilaha
Chimalman. The words and the sound effects went on, and Kirby just stood there
and stared and listened until his own voice said, “Do you know how many people
there are in
New Jersey
?” and that other voice said, “No one
I
know.”

 
          
“Witcher
and Feldspan!”

 
          
Innocent
hit the STOP button. “They recorded every conversation with you, Kirby.”

 
          
“Holy
Christ!
Those
two?”

 
          
“Never
underestimate people,” Innocent said:
Vernon
.

 
          
“But—
They’re legitimate antique dealers!”

 
          
“That’s
right. Doing undercover reporter work for a friend of theirs named Hiram
Farley, editor of a big American magazine called
Trend.
Ever hear of
Trend
,
Kirby?”

 
          
“Those
dirty bastards.”

 
          
“I
managed to have them lose these tapes at the airport,” Innocent said, “or
otherwise you and your temple would be all over
Trend
magazine by now. You didn’t know I was helping you like that,
did you?”

 
          
“Didn’t
want me blown out of the water,” Kirby said, “until you figured out what I was
up to and how you could horn in on it.” “You always think the worst of me,
Kirby,” Innocent said, and risked a smile at Valerie, telling her, “I hope
you
won’t be like that, Valerie.”

 
          
“I
always
say nice things about you,
Mister St. Michael,” Valerie said.

 
          
Innocent
almost laughed out loud. Oh, good, Kirby, you have no
idea
what you’re hooked onto here. He said, “The point is, Kirby,
if you think of dealing with those fellas again, just remember these tapes.”

 
          
“Oh,
I will,” Kirby said grimly, “but the deal I most want to talk about, Innocent,
is ours. We did shake hands on—”

 
          
“Kirby,
Kirby, do you think I’d try to reneg?”

 
          
Kirby
frowned at him: “You won’t?”

 
          
“Certainly
not. It’s true I know Valerie’s alive without you having to tell me; there she
is, as beautiful as ever.”

 
          
“Thank
you, sir.”

 
          
“And
it’s true I know all about your fake temple without you telling me. But, Kirby,
I’d like to think I’m an honorable man. Why, I’ve been doing nothing at all
this morning except put together this paperwork on our transaction.” And he
handed over the manila folder.

 
          
Kirby,
looking dubious, settled into one of the side chairs, opened the folder, and
started to read. Innocent said to Valerie, “I am glad you’re safe, Valerie.”

 
          
“So
am I,” she said, smiling.

 
          
“I
keep remembering that lunch we had together, and how much you liked the conch.
You did like the conch, didn’t you?”

 
          
She
giggled, a sound Innocent would long cherish. “I liked it a lot,” she said.

 
          
“Wait
a minute,” Kirby said. “This isn’t even
half
what I paid you.” “Read on,” Innocent urged him. “You’ll see it makes sense.”
“Not if I’m—
What?
I’m taking back a
mortgage
?”

 
          
“That’s
right,” Innocent said, with his blandest smile.

 
          
Kirby
looked outraged. “People don’t give mortgages on land.” Innocent shrugged. “All
the trouble there’s been lately, I’d have a hard time right now getting my
hands on that much cash. But I didn’t want to let our deal fall through just
because I didn’t have enough cash money, and I knew you’d want to get all this
settled and have
some
money to take
with you when you leave, so—”

 
          
“Leave?
Where am I going?”

 
          
Innocent
gave Kirby a friendly but troubled look. “Don’t you know what your situation
right now is, Kirby?”

 
          
“I’m
being shafted by you, as per usual.”

 
          
“No
no no. Kirby, you’re a hero.”

 
          
Valerie
smiled and said, “Isn’t that nice?”

 
          
“Well,
yes and no,” Innocent told her. “Unfortunately, Kirby’s the sort of hero who
would be very smart to be modest and avoid the limelight.”

 
          
Kirby
said, “Tell me about it.”

 
          
“Your
radio calls to Holdfast and the police,” Innocent said, “meant help got there
within thirty minutes of you breaking up the massacre. Two villagers dead, five
terrorists dead, three captured and talking. Those little statues you threw out
of the plane are being studied right now by a whole lot of experts. An American
photojournalist on the scene managed to get some
very
dramatic shots of your plane coming through the clearing, in
which your registration number is clearly visible.”

           
“Oh,” Kirby said.

 
          
“Right
now,” Innocent went on, “Kirby Galway is the brave pilot who saved the
defenseless village. However, I happen to know several people who are out and
around
Belize
looking for the hero, because there’s just one or two questions.”