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her drawstring beach bag swung against her thigh. Before she mounted the steps, she paused, looked back at the road and down at the dock.
I came to the screen door before she knocked. Her sunglasses were black in the shade; her mouth, which was bright red with lipstick, opened in surprise.
“Oh, there you are!” she said.
“Can I help you?”
“Maybe, if I could come in a minute.”
I looked at my watch and tried to smile. “What's up?” I said. But I didn't open the screen.
She looked awkward, uncomfortable, her shoulders stiffening, an embarrassed grin breaking on the corner of her mouth.
“I'm sorry to ask you this, but I have to use your rest room.”
I opened the door and she walked past me into the living room, her eyes seeming to adjust or focus behind her glasses, as though she were examining the furniture in the room or perhaps in the hallway or in the kitchen.
“It's down the hall,” I said.
A moment later I heard the toilet flush and the water in the lavatory running.
She walked back into the living room.
“That's better,” she said. She examined the room, listening. “It's so quiet. Are you Saturday house-sitting?”
“Oh, I'll be going down to work at the dock in a little while.”
She was absolutely immobile, as though she were caught between two antithetical thoughts, her thickly made-up face as white and as impossible to penetrate as a Kabuki mask.
The phone rang on the table by the couch.
“Excuse me a minute,” I said, and sat down and picked up the receiver from the hook. Through the front screen I saw Batist walking from the dock, up the slope toward the house.
“Dave?” the voice said through the receiver.
“Hey, Clete, what's happening?” I said.
“You remember Helen gave me a Xerox of Sonny's diary? All this time I had it under my car seat. This morning I brought it in and told Terry to stick it in the safe. A little while later I check, guess what, it's gone and so is she. I'm sitting at the desk by the safe, feeling like a stupid fuck, and I look down at the notepad there, you know, the one I took directions to Pogue's place on, and I realize the top sheet's clean. I'm sure I haven't used that pad since Pogue called.
Somebody tore off the page that had my pencil impressions on it …
”You there?“
Chapter 36
E POINTED THE Ruger .22 caliber automatic at my stomach.
”So you're Charlie,“ I said.
She didn't answer. Her body was framed against the light through the window, as though crystal splinters were breaking over her shoulders.
She looked out the window at Batist walking through the shade trees toward the gallery.
”Tell him you're busy, you'll be down at the dock later,“ she said.
”Use those exact words.“
”None of this serves your cause.“
