Duma Key(65)

I was thinking these thoughts (and maybe drifting toward a doze) when I became aware of ghostly movement above the moon in the water. It was Wireman's reflection. For a moment I had the crazy idea that he was jerking off back there, because his thighs appeared to be opening and closing and his hips seemed to be moving up and down. I shot a peek at Jack, but the Casey Key Road is a symphony of curves and Jack was absorbed in his driving. Besides, most of Wireman was right behind Jack's seat, not even visible in the rearview mirror.

I looked over my left shoulder. Wireman wasn't masturbating. Wireman wasn't sleeping and having a vivid dream. Wireman was having a seizure. It was quiet, probably petit mal, but it was a seizure, all right; I'd employed an epileptic draftsman during the first ten years of The Freemantle Company's existence, and I knew a seizure when I saw one. Wireman's torso lifted and dropped four or five inches as his bu**ocks clenched and released. His hands jittered on his stomach. His lips were smacking as though he tasted something particularly good. And his eyes looked as they had outside the parking garage. By starlight that one-up, one-down look was weird beyond my ability to describe. Spittle ran from the left corner of his mouth; a tear from his welling left eye trickled into his shaggy sideburn.

It went on for perhaps twenty seconds, then ceased. He blinked, and his eyes went back where they belonged. He was completely quiet for a minute. Maybe two. He saw me looking at him and said, "I'd kill for another drink or a peanut butter cup, and I suppose a drink is out of the question, huh?"

"I guess it is if you want to make sure you hear her ring in the night," I said, hoping I sounded casual.

"Bridge to Duma Key dead ahead," Jack told us. "Almost home, guys."

Wireman sat up and stretched. "It's been a hell of a day, but I won't be sorry to see my bed tonight, boys. I guess I'm getting old, huh?"

x

Although my leg was stiff, I got out of the van and stood next to him while he opened the door of the little iron box beside the gate to reveal a state-of-the-art security keypad.

"Thanks for coming with me, Wireman."

"Sure," he said. "But if you thank me again, muchacho, I'm going to have to punch you in the mouth. Sorry, but that's just the way it's gotta be."

"Good to know," I said. "Thanks for sharing."

He laughed and clapped me on the shoulder. "I like you, Edgar. You got style, you got class, you got the lips to kiss my ass."

"Beautiful. I may cry. Listen, Wireman..."

I could have told him about what had just happened to him. I came close. In the end, I decided not to. I didn't know if it was the right decision or the wrong one, but I did know he might have a long night with Elizabeth Eastlake ahead of him. Also, that headache was still sitting in the back of my skull. I settled for asking him again if he wouldn't consider letting me turn my promised doctor's appointment into a double date.

"I will consider it," he said. "And I'll let you know."

"Well don't wait too long, because-"

He raised a hand, stilling me, and for once his face was unsmiling. "Enough, Edgar. Enough for one night, okay?"

"Okay," I said. I watched him go in, then went back to the van.

Jack had the volume up. It was "Renegade." He went to turn it down and I said, "No, that's okay. Crank it."

"Really?" He turned around and headed back up the road. "Great band. You ever heard em before?"

"Jack," I said, "that's Styx. Dennis DeYoung? Tommy Shaw? Where have you been all your life? In a cave?"

Jack smiled guiltily. "I'm into country and even more into old standards," he said. "To tell you the truth, I'm a Rat Pack kind of guy."

The idea of Jack Cantori hanging with Dino and Frank made me wonder and not for the first time that day if any of this was really happening. I also wondered how I could remember that Dennis DeYoung and Tommy Shaw had been in Styx that Shaw had in fact written the song currently blasting out of the van's speakers and sometimes not be able to remember my own ex-wife's name.

xi

Both lights on the answering machine next to the living room phone were blinking: the one indicating that I had messages and the one indicating that the tape for recording messages was full. But the number in the MESSAGES WAITING window was only 1. I considered this with foreboding while the weight with my headache inside it slid a little closer to the front of my skull. The only two people I could think of who might call and leave a message so long it would use up the whole tape were Pam and Ilse, and in neither case would hitting PLAY MESSAGES be apt to bring me good news. It doesn't take five minutes of recording-time to say Everything's fine, call when you get a chance.

Leave it until tomorrow, I thought, and a craven voice I hadn't even known was in my mental repertoire (maybe it was new) was willing to go further. It suggested I simply delete the message without listening to it at all.

"That's right, sure," I said. "And when whichever one it is calls back, I can just tell her the dog ate my answering machine."

I pushed PLAY. And as so often happens when we are sure we know what to expect, I drew a wild card. It wasn't Pam and it wasn't Ilse. The wheezy, slightly emphysematic voice coming from the answering machine belonged to Elizabeth Eastlake.