touch her, to turn and touch my lips to her pale cheek, seemed to neutralize all that was hurtful in me. Negated a universe of uncertainty, a lifetime of confusion and solitude. I could feel her warm breath; hear the fragile beating of her chest against mine. She was real. My skin was against hers. I was no longer alone.
Into my ear, she whispered, 'I have tracked you through the ages, just as you've searched for me. In small ways, through other good people, we've touched briefly, briefly. But I know that it's never been enough, my dear, because it's never been enough for me. It is why people like us are alone even in a crowded room, even in an intimate bedding place. We are waiting. Forever waiting.
'But take comfort in this, dearest: I will find you. We are always of one heart, one mind, and I will find you. Love is religion, not emotion. It requires a leap of faith. Remember that. Have faith in me. There are so many destinations, so many way points, but we will arrive on the same small island once more. On that island, we will make ourselves free. Never lose hope.'
Feeling a delicious sense of well-being and contentment, I turned to her, braced on one elbow, looked into her dazzling blue eyes; eyes that would be forever familiar on the distant rim of memory, and I leaned to kiss her…
Which is when I felt a violent tug on my ankle. Then a second tug on my ankle, monofilament fishing line cutting skin.
As sometimes happens in dreams, that strong, physical sensation imposed itself and became part of the dream-a rope being roughly constricted-but now the rope was around my girl's neck, hurting her, pulling her upward and away from me, as my big hand reached to stop her…
It was Dorothy's face, though older. Looking at me were Dorothy's water-clear eyes.
I sat up so violently that I rolled off the couch.
Waited there, crouched on my knees, listening.
Had the fishing line really been broken? I found my ankle and gave it an experimental pull.
Yes, a person was out there.
Then I heard a metallic sound at the door. A key? No. Some kind of lever, a crowbar perhaps. Someone was trying to break in.
I studied myself for a moment. Confirmed that I was still dressed. Apparently, I'd passed out in my clothes. I reached and found the sap I'd made, right where I'd left it the night before. Then I stood, my head pounding. I felt like vomiting. I spit onto the carpet, then went out the open glass doors, moving very fast and quiet.
This time, it couldn't be Nora. It was someone coming for me, coming for the totem.
I peeked around one corner, then the next: I saw a big man standing there, something in his hands. Very wide shoulders, a belly. No facial features at all. I realized he was wearing a ski mask.
No doubting his intent.
I watched him lever the bar into the doorjamb and lunge. The door popped open. He went in quickly.
I swung around the corner and stepped in behind him, close enough to smell his sweat and the metallic tobacco stink of him. He must of heard me or sensed my presence because he started to turn. As he did, I sapped him once low on the head, just behind the ear.
I didn't hit him hard. It's not like the movies. Hit a man behind the ear with much force and you will kill him. Or he will spend the rest of his life in a hospital attached to complicated machines.
The intruder went down hard enough to make the walls shake. He started to roll toward me, and I sapped him again on the left shoulder, this time much harder. He gave a whistle of pain, then lay still at my feet in darkness.
He almost certainly wasn't unconscious. It is a predictable reaction: twice clubbed, a man feigns unconsciousness so that he won't be clubbed a third time.
I closed the door, hit the light switch and picked up the crowbar he'd used to jimmy the door. A big man with dark, hairy hands, wearing tan coveralls and a green ski mask.
I nudged him with my foot. He didn't move. I stepped on his fingers, increasing the pressure until he finally yanked his hand away.
He was conscious, all right.
'Take off the ski mask, but stay on your belly.'
He did.
It was Frank Rossi.
Twenty-one
'You pull this shit on me, pal, you don't know who you're dealing with.' Rossi had a voice like his son, only a stronger New Jersey accent. Same mindless vocabulary, too.
I'd used the duct tape to tape his arms behind him. Now I was taping his legs, but only temporarily.
'You don't let me go right now, asshole, I know people. Important people. I'll have you killed.'
I said, 'Gee, that's the first time anyone's ever said that to me. In English, anyway.'
'That some kind'a joke? A funny boy, real funny. You'll see. You'll see what happens to you after you let me go.'
The color of his face changed slightly when I said, 'Frank, I'm not going to let you go. I'm going to kill you. Any advice on how to get a tub like you to sink?'
I dropped the weight of my knee onto his neck. When his head arched upward, I taped his mouth. As I did, I thought of the way he had manipulated Delia Copeland, stealing the medallion, then getting her drunk and forcing her into bed.
I made several more wraps with the tape, intentionally sealing off one side of his nose.
He began to wiggle, fearing that I was going to suffocate him. I had no intention of doing that. But I wanted him to experience the fear. I wanted him to know what it was like to be overpowered and controlled.
'Save your breath, Frank. You'll need it.'
I went through his pockets. I found a length of woven cord-apparently, he'd planned to tie me up-along with Win-stons, car keys bearing a Mercedes's logo, billfold and a palm-sized Colt Mark IV. 380. A nice little weapon. I popped the clip. Fully loaded, too. One round already in the chamber.
'Frank, how'd you know? It's exactly what I wanted.'
I took the car keys and went out the glass doors, swung over the railing and dropped down to the ground. If someone was out on the street, waiting in Rossi's car for him to return, I didn't want them to see me coming.
No, he was alone. I found his car on Marina, pulled off the side of the road. What a dope. That was like advertising, telling the cops he was sneaking around.
I drove the car to Shell World's deserted parking lot, left the keys in the ignition, opened the hood as if it were broken down, wiped off my prints and jogged back to the Mandalay.
I cut the tape binding Rossi's legs, got him to his feet and said, 'We've got about an hour before first light. What you say we go for a boat ride, just you and me?'
His eyes grew wide and he began to shake his head furiously.
I added, 'You're right. I almost forgot. I need to take along an extra anchor. A belly like yours, you're going to be really buoyant.'
There was less than a quarter moon drifting through clouds above a black, windy sea. Lots of wind and getting worse.
The moon made me think of the wooden totem, the designs on it. The gold medallion, too, though I'd never seen it.
Once I'd gotten Rossi into the boat, I taped his legs again. Now he was lying on his back, head at my feet, squeezed in between the console and the gunwale. I had the bow trimmed down, running as smoothly as a small boat can run in a rolling sea. Even so, big waves caused his head to bang on the deck.
'Kind of rough out here tonight, Frank. Look on the bright side. You don't have to make the trip back.'
I ran out the mouth of Rock Harbor, almost due south. Ronrico Key was a dark elevation against a black sky. Out on Hawk's Channel, I could see the green four-second light off Mosquito Bank and the red flasher off Hen and Chickens Reef. Beautiful place to dive, all those big corals. Hit either reef and you'd kill your boat. Even a skiff that
