Mystery

Tom moved to the bed, and began reading Timothy Underbill’s book. After thirty pages, he unlaced the sleek black shoes and dropped them on the floor; after seventy, he sat up and removed his jacket and vest and yanked down his necktie. Von Heilitz fell asleep on the sofa.

Tom had expected The Divided Man to be set on Mill Walk, but Underhill had located the murders in a gritty Midwestern industrial city of chain-link fences, inhuman winters, foundries, and a thousand bars. Its only real resemblance to Mill Walk was that the city’s wealthiest citizens lived on the far east side, in great houses built on a bluff above the shore of an enormous lake.

At the start of the fifth chapter, the novel’s main character, a homicide detective named Esterhaz, woke up in an unfamiliar apartment. The television set was on, and the air smelled like whiskey. So hung over that he felt on the verge of disappearance, Esterhaz wandered through the empty apartment, trying to figure out who lived in it and how he had come to wake up there. Men’s and women’s clothes hung in the closet, dirty dishes and milk bottles filled with green webs of mold covered the kitchen counters. He had a dim memory of fighting, of beating someone senseless, hitting already unconscious flesh again and again, of blood spattering on a wall … but there was no blood in the apartment, no blood on his clothes, and his hands ached with only a faint, tender ache, as if a demon had kissed them. A nearly empty whiskey bottle stood beside a bedroom door, and Esterhaz drank what was left in long swallows and went into the room. On the floor beside a mattress covered by a rumpled blanket, he found a note that said, One anguish—in a crowd—A minor thing—it sounds—Come back tonight.— G. Who was G.? He stuffed the note into his jacket pocket. Esterhaz found his coat balled up in a corner of the room, and buttoned himself into it. He shuddered with nausea, and the thought came to him full- blown, as if he had just read and memorized it, that invisibility was more than a fantasy: invisibility was so real that most of the world had already slipped into a great invisible realm that accompanied and mocked the visible.

Esterhaz walked down a dark, clanging staircase and went outside into a bitter cold and a tearing wind. He saw that he was next door to a bar called The House of Correction and recognized where he was. Four blocks away stood the St. Alwyn Hotel, where two people he knew had been murdered. Esterhaz walked through a snowdrift to get to his car, took a pint bottle from the glove compartment, and let a little more reality into his system. It was some unearthly hour like six-thirty in the morning. A little anguish in a crowd, he thought, that bitch knew what she was talking about. He put the pint bottle between his knees, started his car, and drove to a deserted parking lot on the lakefront. Absolutely still curls and feathers of smoke clung to the grey surface of the lake, frozen into place.

“Pretty good, wouldn’t you say?”

Tom looked up through the memory of smoke feathers tethered to the surface of Eagle Lake, and saw von Heilitz bending over the table, making sandwiches with chunks of cheddar cheese and slices of salami.

“The book,” von Heilitz said.

Andres drove them past the tall white walls of the Redwing compound and through the old cane fields where rows of willows, the only trees that would grow in the tired soil, nearly hid all that was left on Mill Walk of the original island. Far ahead, a smooth cement riser took shape on the right side of the coastal highway, and swung to the right as it followed the curve of a blacktopped side road. This was the access road to the Founders Club, and the riser became the cement wall that ran down the southern end of the club property to the beach south of Bobby Jones Trail and Glendenning Upshaw’s bungalow. An identical cement wall bordered the northern end of the club. The guardhouse was located just past the point where the two walls were closest. Past the guardhouse, the access road divided into Ben Hogan Way and Babe Ruth Way, each of which led past the clubhouse to the members’ bungalows.

“Pull into the cane field and hide the car,” von Heilitz said.

Andres said, “You bet, Lamont,” and swerved across the road into the field. The old taxi jounced over the rough ground, snapping off dry bamboolike bristles, and pitched and rolled past the first row of willows. Andres patted the steering wheel.

“We should be back in two hours, maybe less,” von Heilitz said.

“Take your time,” Andres said. “Don’t get hurt.”

Tom and von Heilitz got out of the car and walked through the dry stubs of cane. They crossed the road. Ahead, the white cement wall curved toward them, then curved away to cut across an empty swath of sandy ground covered with broom grass, palms, and low bushes all the way down to the low flat plane of the water. Von Heilitz moved quickly through the long grass toward the fence, which was no more than an inch taller than the top of his head. “Tell me when you think we’re about level with Glen’s bungalow,” he said.

“It’s way down, on the first road off the beach.”

“The last bungalow on its road?” He looked back over his shoulder at Tom without slackening his pace.

Tom nodded.

“That’s good luck.”

“Why?”

“We can just walk around the far end of the wall—down on the beach, where it comes to an end. This wall is more decorative than functional.” He smiled back at Tom, who was hurrying to catch up.

“That’s lucky for you, then,” Tom said. “I think you’d have a hard time getting over this fence, anyhow.”

Von Heilitz stopped moving. “Do you? Do you really?”

“Well, it’s as tall as you are.”

“Dear boy,” von Heilitz said. He put his hands on the top of the wall, hopped, and effortlessly pulled himself up until his waist met the smooth top of the wall; then he swung one leg up. In a second, he had disappeared over the top. Tom heard him say, “Nobody’s looking. Your turn.”

Tom reached up and grunted his upper body over the top of the wall. He felt his face turn red. The pad of the bandage slipped on the cement. Von Heilitz looked at him from beside a tall palm. Tom lowered his chest to the top of the wall and tried to swing his legs up. The tips of the glossy shoes struck the side of the wall. He leaned forward to get his hips over the top, lost his balance, and fell to the sandy ground like a downed bird.

“Not bad,” von Heilitz said. “Any pain?”

Tom rubbed his shoulder. “You’re not supposed to wear suits when you do things like that.”

“Shoulder all right?”

“Fine.” He grinned at the old man. “At least I got over the thing.”

Von Heilitz looked down through the palm trees and sand dunes on this side of the wall to three rows of bungalows about a hundreds yards away. The last bungalow in the row closest to the beach protruded far beyond the others. They could see straight across the terrace into a high-windowed room with leather furniture and an ornate desk. “I suppose that’s the one?”

“That’s it,” Tom said.

“Let’s wait for the mailman’s appearance behind the bunch of palms in front of the last set of bungalows.” Von Heilitz pulled back his sleeve and looked at his watch. “It’s about a quarter to four. He’ll be along soon.”

They worked their way through the sand, moving from one clump of palms to another, until they reached a group of four palms leaning and arching up out of a sturdy patch of long grass. Hairy coconuts lay around them like cannonballs. Tom sat on the grass beside the old man. He could see the table where he and his mother had eaten lunch; through the high windows, he saw the dim books behind glass-fronted cases, and the lamps burning in the study. It was something like the view seen by the person who had shot at him.

A few minutes later, a red Mill Walk mail van pulled into the parking lot, and a mailman opened the door and stepped out into the sunlight. Blue water sparkled behind him. He dragged a heavy brown bag from the side of the van, and moved out of sight, going toward the bungalows.

“He’ll go to Glen’s first,” von Heilitz said. “It’s closest.” His voice sounded different, and Tom turned to look at his profile. A pink line covered the top of his cheek, and his eyes had both narrowed and brightened. “Now—now we see.”

Maybe he won’t do anything at all, Tom thought. Maybe he’ll shake his head and scratch his fingers in his hair. Maybe he’ll shrug and toss the notes in the wastebasket.

Maybe we made it all up.