“You know what all this will do, don’t you?”
“Sure,” Fork said. “It’ll create a slowdown in the hideout business.”
The mayor used three slow headshakes to disagree. “It’ll kill it, not slow it down.”
“It’ll come back.”
“Like hell.”
Sid Fork rose from his chair and walked slowly toward the window. “All right,” he agreed. “Let’s say it’s finished. Done with. But what about our deal with Vines and Adair here?”
“Unless you can change my mind,” she said, “that’s dead. Let ’em go hide out somewhere else.”
When he reached the window, Fork gave the ocean a quick just-checking glance, turned, leaned against the sill, folded his arms across his chest and regarded the mayor with the detached gaze of a man who already knows the answers he’ll get to his questions.
“Tell me something, B. D. Tell me how you’re going to scrape up the money to keep the library open after our fiscal year ends next month? Or start up that summer-in-the-park program you promised for June and here it is damn near July? Or keep the clap clinic open? Or even, for God’s sake, find enough money to clean up the horseshit after the parade on the Fourth?” Pausing to indicate both Vines and Adair with a nod, Fork said, “There’s a million bucks sitting right here in this room on two chairs. So before you walk away from it, think about what I just said.”
Huckins was already looking appropriately thoughtful when she turned and sank slowly into the chair Fork had just vacated. She rested her drink on the chair’s arm and thrust out her long bare tanned legs, crossing them at the ankles. She wore a bright yellow cotton blouse and a tan cotton twill skirt that ended at her knees. On her feet were a pair of Mexican sandals. Jack Adair stared at her legs until she asked, “Never seen a pair before?”
“Not recently,” he said.
Huckins once again looked at Sid Fork, who, arms still folded, leaned against the windowsill. “What I’ve been thinking about most, Sid, is the eighth of November-not the fourth of July.”
Mention of the election date transformed Adair’s sympathy into deep interest. “How’s it look?” he asked.
Still staring at Fork, she said, “What about it, Sid? What’s your guess on how many votes there’ll be in two unsolved murders with maybe more to come between now and November?”
“There’d be just one hell of a lot of votes in catching the killer, B. D.”
“But when’re you going to catch him? After Adair and Vines are dead?”
Before Fork could reply, Kelly Vines said, “We might as well get this straight. Jack and I aren’t going to sit around indefinitely, waiting for negotiations to start, while some guy dressed up like a priest or the United Parcel man is figuring out how to shoot, stab or garotte us. There comes a time when patience runs out and common sense takes over.”
“Which brings us to Sid’s Teddy theory,” the mayor said.
Fork made a noise far down in his throat that got the room’s attention. “It’s more than a theory,” he said.
The mayor gave him a dubious look. “You really think it was Teddy who killed Soldier Sloan?”
“Know it was. Killed him in the elevator all decked out like a plumber. Toolbox and everything.”
“So when you find Teddy and arrest him,” she said, “he’ll stand trial, right?”
Fork’s answering shrug could have meant yes, no or maybe.
“And if he stands trial,” the mayor continued, “a lot of funny stuff could come out about you, me, Teddy and Dixie from the old days-funny-peculiar stuff that most people don’t know or have forgotten. Stuff that wouldn’t do me any good on November eighth.”
“If there is a trial,” Fork said.
“You mean, of course, a trial that soon,” Adair said. “Before November eighth.”
“Ever,” Fork said.
“The chief’s talking about something else, Jack,” Vines said.
“I’m well aware of that.”
“I’m pretty sure I’m going to find Teddy,” Fork said, almost musing aloud. “Or maybe he’ll find me. But either way I’m pretty sure he’ll resist being arrested.”
“Which means you’re pretty sure you’re going to kill him,” Adair said in a mild and almost indifferent tone he might have used to remark upon the weather.
The tone made Fork suspicious. “That bother you just a whole lot, Judge?”
All mildness left Adair’s voice. It now sounded sternly judicial and, in his opinion, terribly pompous. “I’ve never been convinced that premeditated homicide is ever justified, whether committed by the individual or the state.”
“That’s bullshit if I ever heard it,” B. D. Huckins said.
“Is it now?”
“Sure it is. Look. You and Vines dreamed this thing up, this plan of yours, set it in motion and it’s already got two people killed. Maybe three, counting that friend of yours in Lompoc. So it’s time to switch off the sermonette. But if you guys want to walk away, fine. That’s your business. Of course, Sid and I’ll have to finish what you started because now there’s just no way to stop it.”
“None at all,” Fork said.
“I could be off base,” she continued, “but I think the only way you two can come out of this thing about even or a little ahead-and I’m not talking about money-is to finish what you started. Otherwise, you’ve wasted three lives for nothing-although maybe you can justify that but somehow I don’t think so. And that, Mr. Adair, is why I said you were talking bullshit.”
Adair, his cheeks a bright pink, stared down between his knees at the hotel room carpet while the woman and the two men stared at him. Finally, he looked up at Huckins and said, “After careful reconsideration, Mayor, you’re not altogether wrong.”
She looked at Vines. “What’s that mean?”
“It means we’re still in business.”
“Good,” B. D. Huckins said.
Chapter 27
By five o’clock that same Saturday afternoon, Jack Adair and Kelly Vines had checked out of the Holiday Inn and were dutifully following Virginia Trice into the large old bathroom on the second floor of her fourteen-room Victorian house.
The bathroom, at least ten by thirteen feet, separated their two bedrooms and contained a very old six-foot- long tub that stood on cast-iron claws; a fairly new tiled shower; a sink with separate faucets; a chain-flush toilet; and more towels than Adair could ever remember seeing even in the finest hotels.
“Towels,” Virginia Trice said, indicating two large stacks of them.
“Very nice,” Adair said.
They left the bathroom and regrouped in the hall. “What d’you guys like for breakfast?” she asked.
Adair looked at Vines, who said, “Anything.”
“Bacon and eggs?” she said. “Coffee? Juice? Home fries? Biscuits or toast? Cantaloupe maybe?”
“Coffee, toast and juice would be fine for me,” Adair said.
“Me, too,” said Vines.
“You can have anything you want,” she said. “After all, for what you’re paying…” The sentence died of acute embarrassment.
“Speaking of the rent,” Vines said, removed an unsealed Holiday Inn envelope from his hip pocket and handed it to Virginia Trice.
She looked inside the envelope, but didn’t count the twenty one-hundred-dollar bills. “It’s way too much, isn’t it?”
“Not considering the inconvenience we’re putting you to,” Adair said.
“Okay. If you say so. And it sure comes when I can use it.”
“I was very sorry to hear about your husband,” Adair said.
