Duma Key(49)

My best girl was propped against the pillows on the side of the bed that would have belonged to a real woman, if I'd still had one. I sat down, picked her up and looked into those big blue peepers, so full of cartoon surprise: Ouuuu, you nasty man! My Reba, who looked like Lucy Ricardo.

"It was like Scrooge getting visited by the Ghost of Christmas Yet-To-Come," I told her. "'These are things that may be.'"

Reba offered no opinion on this idea.

"But what do I do? That wasn't like the paintings. That wasn't like the paintings at all!"

But it was, and I knew it. Both paintings and visions originated in the human brain, and something in my brain had changed. I thought the change had come about as a result of just the right combination of injuries. Or the wrong one. Contracoup. Broca's area. And Duma Key. The Key was... what?

"Amplifying it," I told Reba. "Isn't it?"

She offered no opinion.

"There's something here, and it's acting on me. Is it possible it even called me?"

The notion made me break out in gooseflesh. Beneath me, the shells ground together as the waves lifted them and dropped them. It was all too easy to imagine skulls instead of shells, thousands of them, all gnashing their teeth at once when the waves came in.

Was it Jack who had said there was another house somewhere out there in the toolies, falling apart? I thought so. When Ilse and I tried to drive that way, the road had gone bad in a hurry. So had Ilse's stomach. My own gut had been okay, but the stink of the encroaching flora had been nasty and the itch in my missing arm had been worse. Wireman had looked alarmed when I told him about our attempted exploration. Duma Key Road's no excursion for a guy in your condition, he'd said. The question was, exactly what was my condition?

Reba went on offering no opinion.

"I don't want this to be happening," I said softly.

Reba only stared up at me. I was a nasty man, that was her opinion.

"What good are you?" I asked, and threw her aside. She landed face-down on her pillow with her bottom up and her pink cotton legs spread, looking quite the little slut. Ouuuu you nasty man, indeed.

I dropped my head, looked at the carpet between my knees, and rubbed the nape of my neck. The muscles there were tight and knotted. They felt like iron. I hadn't had one of my bad headaches in awhile, but if those muscles didn't loosen soon, I'd be having a whopper tonight. I needed to eat something, that would be a start. Something comforting. One of those calorie-stuffed frozen dinners sounded about right - the kind where you slice the wrapping over the frozen meat and gravy, blast it for seven minutes in the microwave, then chow down like a motherf*cker.

But I sat still awhile longer. I had many questions, and most were probably beyond my ability to answer. I recognized that and accepted it. I had learned to accept a lot since the day I'd had my confrontation with the crane. But I thought I had to try for at least one answer before I could bring myself to eat, hungry as I was. The phone on the bedtable had come with the house. It was charmingly old-fashioned, the Princess model with a rotary dial. It sat on a directory that was mostly Yellow Pages. I turned to the skinny white section, thinking I wouldn't find Elizabeth Eastlake listed, but I did. I dialed the number. It rang twice and then Wireman answered.

"Hello, Eastlake residence."

There was hardly a trace in that perfectly modulated voice of the man who had laughed hard enough to break his chair, and all at once this seemed like the world's worst idea, but I saw no other option.

"Wireman? This is Edgar Freemantle. I need help."

Chapter 6 The Lady of the House

i

The following afternoon found me once more sitting at the little table at the end of the El Palacio de Asesinos boardwalk. The striped umbrella, although ripped, was still serviceable. A breeze chilly enough to warrant sweatshirts was blowing in off the water. Little scars of light danced across the table-top as I talked. And I talked, all right - for almost an hour, refreshing myself with sips of green tea from a glass Wireman kept filled. At last I stopped and for a little while there was no sound but the mild whisper of the incoming waves, breaking and running up the strand.

Wireman must have heard enough wrong in my voice the night before to concern him, because he'd offered to come in the Palacio golf cart immediately. He said he could stay in touch with Miss Eastlake via walkie-talkie. I told him it could wait a little. It was important, I said, but not urgent. Not in the 911 sense, at least. And it was true. If Tom were to commit suicide on his cruise, there was little I could do to prevent it. But I didn't think he'd do it as long as his mother and brother were with him.

I had no intention of telling Wireman about my furtive hunt through my daughter's purse; that was something of which I'd grown more rather than less ashamed. But once I started, beginning with LINK-BELT, I couldn't stop. I told him almost everything, finishing with Tom Riley standing at the head of the stairs leading up to Little Pink, pale and dead and minus an eye. I think part of what kept me going was the simple realization that Wireman couldn't commit me to the nearest lunatic asylum - he had no legal authority. Part of it was that, attracted as I was by his kindness and cynical good cheer, he was still a stranger. Sometimes - often, I think - telling stories that are embarrassing or even downright crazy is easier when you're telling them to a stranger. Mostly, though, I pushed on out of pure relief: I felt like a man expressing snake-venom from a bite.