"Uh-huh," said Yamamura. "Wait, though. He didn't tell me."
"But he's in there now and--come on!"
Yamamura caught Harries by the shoulder and spun him around. "No," he
said. "It isn't right. Leave him alone."
"Leave the murderers alone, too!" snapped Harries.
Yamamura rubbed his chin. They could see how he slumped.
"There is that," he agreed. "Let me go in by myself, then, and talk to
him."
* * * * *
Kintyre thought he had carried it off very well. He had spoken
coherently with Moffat. The policeman told him in a sick voice that
blood had soaked through her mattress until the floor was clotted
beneath her bed. Guido swayed on his feet. Kintyre's face had remained
like carved bone.
* * * * *
"Was jewelry lifted this time?" he asked. "Oh, yes, it was a
professional job, all the earmarks," said Moffat. "But did you see two
long gray cardboard boxes with files of papers? They'd be in plain
sight in the living room if they're there at all," said Kintyre. "No,
no such thing, the burglars must have taken them in the hope of finding
stowed cash," said Moffat. "The jewelry was only to make you think
that. Had she simply been murdered, or was she tied down first?" asked
Kintyre. "Yes, tied down, blindfolded, mouth full of towel," said
Moffat. "The burglars came in and grabbed her while she slept, secured
her so there would be no chance she could identify them," said Kintyre.
"That's not unheard of, but then why did they kill her afterward?"
asked Moffat. "Because the letter boxes were still open on the coffee
table," said Kintyre. "What?" said Moffat. "It proved she had been
reading Bruce Lombardi's mail; the burglars' orders were to get rid
of her if that was the case," said Kintyre. "Hey, how do you know all
this?" asked Moffat. But then Kintyre felt his control begin to crack,
so he turned about and went back to his car with Guido.
* * * * *
He lay on his couch, pillowing his head with an arm, a cigarette in
the free hand. Now and then he noticed himself smoking it. The morning
streamed in through the window behind him and splashed light, and
the delicate shadows of leaves, on the wall before his eyes. Once he
remembered how a sunbeam, spearing through a sky roiled and black with
oncoming rain, had flamed from crest to crest along the ocean; he
watched the sun's shining feet stride past him. But there followed an
M which staggered among hideous winds, it spoke of Morna and Margery
and the Moon. He spent a long time wondering why M stood for the Moon
until he remembered Hecate, in whose jaws he lived. M was also for
Machiavelli, a Moldering skull which knew somewhat of Murder. But all
this was not important, it was Morbid and he only played with it on the
surface, as if it were spindrift driven by that wind he knew. In the
ocean of his damnation there were green Miles, which became black as
you went downward, drank all sunlight and ate drowned folk.
This, however, was natural and right, life unto life and he could
wish no better ending for himself than to breathe the sea. It must be
remembered, though, that Morna was only thirteen years old. She reached
for him through a shattering burst of water. He could not hear if she
screamed, the wind made such a haro, but a wave picked her up and threw
her backward and growled. He saw her long hair flutter in its white,
blowing mane. Then dark violence rolled over him.
He stirred, and felt that his cigarette had gone so short it would burn
his fingers. A part of him suggested he let it, but he ground the butt
out in an ashtray on the floor. What he was would not be lessened by a
few blisters, he thought.
It was not that he accepted guilt (he told the morning gulls on the
reef, among sharded timbers). It was that he was damned, without a God
or a Devil to judge him: it was merely in the nature of things that
he did nothing well. Morna should drown and Margery should drown--the
human body held that much blood--because--_no_, said the seed of
survival within him, not because it was his fault.
And was there anything more irrelevant than the question of his guilt
or innocence? The sole fact that mattered was:
Morna, thirteen years old, hauled down under the sea and rolled across
a barnacled reef. He had found her washed up the next morning, before
the boat came out to rescue him. A strand of hair still clung in place,
darkened by water but more bright than the coral. He saw some of the
bones; a tiny crab ran out of her eye socket.
Kintyre hung onto the couch through a whiteness that hummed.
Ages afterward he remembered Margery. She had never spoken of it, but
he had an impression that she feared death. It ended future and past
alike, nothing would be, nothing had ever been. She must have told
herself often enough that maybe science would find a way to make her
immortal, before she died. But death was a long way off, fifty years or
more were a distance which dwindled the shape, only a small black blot
on the edge of her world.
She lay blind and bound, a towel choking her mouth. She could hear her
heart, how it leaped, she feared it would crack itself open. And then
the hand under her jaw, the nearly painless bite of the knife, and the
minutes it took for her blood to run out, while she lay there and felt
it!
"No," said Kintyre. "No, no, no. Please."
He reached hazily for another cigarette. He couldn't find the pack.
Suddenly he was afraid to look for it. He lay back on the couch. The
sunlight on the wall seemed unreal.
He didn't hear Yamamura come in. He needed a while to understand that
the detective was looking at him.
"What is it?" he got out somehow.
"Let's work some of that stiffness out," said Yamamura.
Kintyre didn't move. He wasn't sure he could. At least it didn't seem
worth while. Yamamura swore, hauled him to a sitting position, peeled
off his tee shirt and dumped him on the rug.
The Japanese massage, thumbs, elbows, and bare feet, was hard, cracking
muscles loose from their tension. Kintyre heard joints pop when
Yamamura straightened his arms. Once anguish got an oath from him.
"Sorry," said Yamamura. "I gauged wrong."
"Like hell! You did that on purpose!"
"Trade secrets. Now, over on your side."
In half an hour Kintyre was sitting on the couch, drawing ragged gulps
of smoke down his lungs. "All right," he said. "So you relaxed me
physically."
"Helps, doesn't it?" Yamamura leaned against the wall and mopped his
sweating face.
"Some. But no cure." Kintyre looked bleakly toward the afternoon and
the night.
"Didn't claim it was. Got any tranquilizers on hand?"
"Uh-huh. Only helps a little bit. I might as well ride these things
out."
"Same symptoms?"
"Yes. Futility. Loss. Destruction. Grief? No, that's too healthy
a word. I'm only talking to you with the top of my brain now, you
realize. It feels the same as ever, down below."
"Basically, you feel guilt," said Yamamura.
"Perhaps. I saw my sister drown. I was hanging onto a spar when the
ship broke up. She was swept past me. I reached out, our fingers
touched, then she was gone again. I didn't let go of the spar."
"If you had, both of you would have drowned. I know the Pacific surf.
With a typhoon behind it--You're guilty of nothing except better luck
than she had."
"Sure," said Kintyre. "I've told myself the same thing for twenty
years."
"You've told me this story three times so far," said Yamamura. "I don't
like parlor Freudianism, but it would seem obvious that something
deeper is involved than the mere fact that you survived and she didn't."
Kintyre half rose. He felt the lift of rage within himself. "Be
careful!" he shouted.
Yamamura's face went totally blank. "Ah-ha. Sit back, son. I'm still
the black belt man here. You'd only succeed in tearing up this nice
room."