Mystery

“Wipe the side of your face, for Chrissake,” Jerry said.

Tom swung open the screen door, and Jerry held it while he opened the front door. They walked inside. Jerry still crowded him from behind.

Buddy Redwing stood up like a jack-in-the-box from the sofa that faced the door. He was wearing a stretched-out pale green polo shirt and wide khaki shorts. “You took enough time.”

“We had to look all over the place for him.” Jerry placed the tips of his fingers on Tom’s shoulders and gently urged him forward.

Nappy and Robbie wandered to opposite sides of the big sitting room. Nappy sauntered to the door of the study, opened it, and peered in. Kip Carson, in only a faded pair of cut-off jeans and flip-flop sandals, walked through from the kitchen, holding a red can of Coca-Cola. He raised the can in a salute.

“What are you doing here?” Tom said.

“That’s pretty good, coming from you,” Buddy said. “As far as I know, you’re a total charity case. You have no business being up here at all. You’re nothing but a serious pain in the ass.”

“Buddy, I wish you and your friends would get out of this lodge.”

Buddy threw out his arms and turned from side to side, appealing to both sides of the room. “Oh my God, he wishes we would get out of this lodge. That’s so … so fucking decisive, I hardly know what to say.”

Nappy chuckled on cue, and Kip Carson took a slug of Coke and sat on the sofa behind Buddy to enjoy the show. Jerry and Robbie wandered around the room. When Buddy turned to them, they tried to look attentive. “I mean, this is really rare.” He turned back to face Tom. “Let’s get this straight. As far as I’m concerned, you’re just this guy who all of a sudden appeared. You’re a jerk. You don’t understand anything—you don’t know how things work.”

“Are you finished?” Tom said. “Or is there more?”

Buddy pointed a thick index finger at Tom’s chest. “You get a ride up here in our private plane with my guests. You sit at my table. You ride in my car.” He took an angry, jittery step sideways, then moved in front of Tom again. “And the second you show up, my girlfriend suddenly decides she doesn’t want to spend so much time with me. All of a sudden, everything’s a little different I get the feeling that you’ve been messing around where you don’t belong, Pasmore.”

“Where don’t I belong?” Tom asked.

“You don’t belong anywhere!” Buddy exploded. “Goddamn it! You know how long I’ve been going out with Sarah? Three years! We have a whole goddamned relationship!”

Tom smiled, and Buddy’s eyes seemed to shrink within their sockets. “Don’t you get it? Sarah belongs to me. Sarah is mine. You don’t have anything to do with her.”

“You can’t own other people,” Tom said. “People make up their minds by themselves.”

Buddy reared back. “Is that what you think? You ought to know better, considering your family.”

“Lay off my family, you spoiled, lazy, indifferent shithead,” Tom said, stung.

Buddy pressed on into what he perceived as Tom’s weakness. “We own old man Upshaw, Pasmore. You think he does anything we don’t know about? Your grandfather belongs to us. There’s no umbrella over you.”

Tom blinked, but did not react in any other way.

“You want me to explain your problem to you?”

“Can you?”

Buddy waved his hand before his face as if scattering a cloud of gnats. “You problem is, you don’t know the rules. Because you don’t know the rules, you don’t know the right way to act. I’m a Redwing. Let’s start with that. Nothing happens up here unless it’s okayed by us. The second thing is, you don’t mess with another guy’s girlfriend. That is an error. If you expect me to be civilized about this, you don’t know me, because I don’t intend to be civilized about it.”

“It’s funny,” Tom said, “but I guess I never did expect you to be civilized, Buddy.”

“You fucking twerp!” Buddy roared. “You see these guys here? They work for me! If I ask them to do something to you, they’ll do it! But I don’t need them to get rid of you—I can do that myself.”

Tom stepped backwards, shaking with fear, anger, and distaste—an intense and unpleasant odor, of yeast and secret dirt, seemed to float out of Buddy’s pores. “The dumbest thing you could have done was to try to send me home in a cast. Did you think that would make you irresistible?”

“Jesus, what bullshit,” Buddy said. “Could somebody tell me what this guy is talking about?” He looked over his shoulder at Jerry.

“He’s crazy,” Jerry said.

“He’s all fucked up,” said Kip Carson, sounding faintly admiring.

“What bullshit,” Buddy repeated in a wondering voice. “This guy can’t say anything that isn’t one hundred percent pure bullshit.” He swayed back and forth, swinging his thick short arms. “Didn’t I just say that I don’t need anybody else to take care of you? Why do you think I brought you here? I’m telling you right now to stay away from Sarah Spence. Whatever you think about her is wrong. Do you understand that? Maybe she played with you a little bit—she could do that. But I understand her a lot better than you do, believe me.”

“I don’t think you understand her at all,” Tom said.

“She’s trying to make me jealous,” Buddy said. “She knows I see a couple girls at Arizona, and she wanted to get back at me. And it worked! I’m jealous, okay? I’m pissed off—but you don’t want me pissed off at you, Pasmore.”

“Why, what are you going to do?” Tom asked.

Buddy shoved a forefinger into Tom’s chest. “I’ll leave you in pieces. Is that clear enough for you? You’re so insignificant, I shouldn’t have to take the trouble, but if you push me, I’ll take you apart.”

“I know what you should do,” Tom said, pushed past self-control. “Tell yourself she isn’t good enough for you. You’re going to be saying that sooner or later, so why not start now? Tell yourself you’re lucky you found out in time.”

Nappy snickered. Buddy balled his fists and grimaced and swung a roundhouse punch at Tom’s head. Tom ducked out of the way. Buddy swung with his other arm and missed again. Tom stepped back and took a quick look at Jerry and the others, who were doing nothing but looking on impassively. Buddy came flat-footed toward Tom and shot out his right hand. Instinctively, Tom stepped inside the blow, and hit him hard in the stomach. It was like ramming his fist into a bowl of oatmeal. Buddy clapped both hands to his stomach and sank to his knees.

“Oh, hell,” Jerry said. He flapped his hand at Nappy, and the two of them got Buddy up on his feet and helped him toward the door. Kip Carson set down the can of Coke and followed them outside. Tom wiped his face with his hands and tried to stop trembling. He went through the open wooden door and pushed aside the screen. Jerry Hasek stood on the top step with his hands on his hips, and Kip was floating uncertainly alongside the car. Buddy struggled to breathe as Robbie and Nappy opened the Lincoln’s passenger door and got him inside. Kip Carson climbed in the back and waited. “You talk too much,” Jerry said from the top step.

“So does he,” Tom said.

Tom spent the rest of the morning alone. He called Sarah, but no one answered in their lodge. He knocked on her door. No one responded, and he went down past the compound. The Lincoln and the Cadillac were both gone. He walked all the way around the lake, hearing nothing but birds and insects and an occasional fish slapping the water. Tom felt like the last person left on earth—the whole Redwing caravan had moved on. When he came back around Roddy Deepdale’s lodge to his own, he changed into his bathing suit and swam until his muscles felt tired and relaxed.

At the club, Marcello sat beneath a lamp on a pale couch, reading a comic book. He stood when Tom entered, yawned, and strolled through a bleached wooden door marked OFFICE. Tom went upstairs to the empty dining room. The elderly waiter he had seen that morning got up from a bar stool and led him to a table near the bandshell.

“Where is everybody?” Tom asked.