Night vision

CHAPTER 19

"But I can't go to England."

Charlie Riggs continued packing his battered leather suitcase.

"I've got a partners' meeting next week. If I miss another one…"

Charlie neatly folded a heavy mackinaw and placed it in the case. Next came a woolen scarf and a pair of gloves.

"I've got a libel trial with H. T. Patterson. If I can prove that Chong Gong Wong pisses in his soup…"

With his hand Charlie dusted off an old fedora that Harry Truman would have loved. He placed it lovingly on top of the clothes and gently closed the case.

"To say nothing of the Diamond murder investigation. I'm stuck with a suspicious state attorney and a horny professor, and I don't think either one is Jack the Ripper. Plus the reporters are driving me crazy. Rick Gomez was hiding in a mango tree this morning when I went outside to water the crabgrass."

"Precisely why you should accompany me to London. While I'm lecturing, you can follow up on the Ripper connection. Tour the East End if you wish. Call New Scotland Yard. Anything."

"I don't know, Charlie. I think the Mr. Lusk stuff is a curveball."

Charlie was stuffing his favorite pipe with cherry-blend tobacco. He would have to go eight hours without a puff and was going to miss it. "I'm sure Nick Fox would approve your travel expenses as part of the investigation."

"No doubt. He probably wants me out of town."

"It could be useful, getting away, thinking about the case. Tempus omnia revelat. Time reveals all things."

"It doesn't feel right, leaving just now."

Charlie shrugged. "It's up to you. And maybe just as well. You didn't seem to get along that well with Pamela Maxson."

"What's she-"

"As the hostess for the lecture tour, she'll be around quite a bit. I can understand your reluctance to go if the two of you don't-"

"What time's our flight?"

The Miami airport in July. An air-conditioned icebox stocked with frozen tourists. Shorts and thongs and legs broiled lobster red. Europeans on charters to art-deco South Beach. South Americans booking off-season rooms and escaping winter back home. Miamians heading for Asheville, Bar Harbor, and Aspen.

Intentional tourists. Tourists from the islands hauling boxed Sonys and Panasonics, tourists from the Midwest loaded with tax-free liquor from the islands. Tired children screaming, caged dogs yowling, monotone messages in three languages on the PA.

And the businessmen. Another day, another city. Gray suits, blue shirts, rep ties, a thousand weary faces. Briefcases stuffed with forms, Dictaphones, and calculators. Guys from sales or marketing peddling software or mainframes or this season's widget, sitting at the gate, figuring last week's commissions, fudging the expense accounts, making lists, taking inventory.

The modern drummer, poised for his daily dose of cardboard food and stale air. No more Willy Lomans in the Studebaker getting just past Yonkers. These days a guy from Richmond or Memphis can make the Atlanta hub for the morning flight to Pensacola or Biloxi, hop the bus to the rental lot, slip into the still-wet Taurus, and have lunch with the purchasing agent he's been sweet-talking all year. If he makes the sale, great, and it's bourbon on the rocks at the Holiday Inn before dinner alone and a pay movie in the room. No sale, there's always tomorrow and a hot new prospect in Mobile.

Charlie spent the interminable flight reading the Select Coroners' Roles, A.D. 1265–1413 while I went over what I knew. As usual, it was less than I didn't know. I knew Marsha Diamond was curious about Nick Fox's war record, but I didn't know why. She wanted a story, of course, but what story and why wouldn't Nick open up? Maybe I should talk to Priscilla Fox again. Maybe there's something she left out, something she knew from years ago. What happened in Dak Sut and on the dike outside the village and which happened first? Marsha thought the shooting on the dike happened before the troops entered the village. If it did, when was Evan Ferguson killed? And what about the translator? How did she die? What did Marsha know, anyway? And if Nick thought she had something on him, would he have killed to silence her?

So many questions.

What about Gerald Prince? He denied chatting with Marsha even though the computer recorded his password and handle attached to the crude dialogue. Then there were the frenzied lyrics from "Great Balls of Fire." It isn't too much love that drives a man insane, I thought. But what is it? Maybe Dr. Pamela Maxson knows.

Thinking about the professor inspired me to grab two little bottles of Jack Daniel's when the flight attendant rolled by. I listened to the drone of the engines, my eyes growing heavy, my mind drifting over the clouds.

Tom Carruthers. Now there's a character. Homophobic, chauvinistic tough guy in rawhide and boots. Who knew what evil lurked in his heart.

Henry Travers. A sad, middle-aged faker, scrounging for two-dollar winners and lusting for the friction of body parts. A lifetime of resentment against women by a guy who never did anything but lease them.

And how about Max Blinderman? He could have been an electronic imposter, plugging into Marsha's line by signing on as the Passion Prince. But a guy with a record of misdemeanors doesn't usually leap to a Murder One. Unless he's done it before and has never been caught.

Back to Nick Fox. Maybe he liked beating me in court and wanted me to play the fool twice. If Nick Fox killed Marsha Diamond, unthinkable as that was, who killed Mary Rosedahl? Someone did, after apparently consensual sex, but why? And what did it have to do with Marsha?

Keep thinking, Lassiter.

No thank you, miss, not another of the little brown bottles, rich cool liquid twirling down the throat. On the other hand, it's my duty to lighten the load you have to push down the aisle.

Who knew both women? Biggus Dickus and Passion Prince. The first one had alibis, Alex Rodriguez said. The second one had his own frustrations, but a killer? I would ask Pamela Maxson about that, too.

Ah, Dr. Maxson. Sexy and sagacious. Tall, brainy, beautiful Dr. Maxson who stiff-armed me like Larry Csonka jolting a linebacker. I pushed the rewind button in my mind and played it back. I saw her in my old convertible, hair flying, as we crossed the drawbridge on the night we met, lights of the city shimmering in the bay. But the scene was out of kilter. She had been unsmiling and unresponsive, unimpressed by an ex-jock mouthpiece with a crooked grin and an ancient chariot. I hadn't made a dent in her armor.

Okay, admit it, Lassiter, it's not the first time. There've been others, wise to your aw-shucks counterfeit charm, to the sports-pub patter, the barbed sarcasm that passes for humor. Maybe the English lady sees through the veneer to the guy inside, the guy who despises renting himself out by the hour to the client with the largest checkbook. Which is almost always the client with the blackest hat.

No, Your Honor, Asbestos-R-Us shouldn't have to remove its exemplary product from the Sunnyvale Elementary School. No problem if microscopic spores pierce the lungs of little Jack and Jill. Toughen 'em up.

So after a while the guy inside didn't care anymore, and maybe it started to show on the guy outside. But now, with two women dead, something to care about. I didn't ask for it, but someone pinned a badge on me. Maybe someone who wanted me to boot it, someone who saw me lose and liked what he saw. Damn it, Lassiter! So full of doubts under all that swagger. Just buckle on the chin strap and dive into the pile. Make something happen. Hit somebody!

I chased away the gremlins, closed my eyes, and thought of Pam Maxson for a while, maybe a long while, as the 747's giant engines droned on, and the warmth of Tennessee sour mash spread through me. When I opened my eyes, the plane's tires were screeching against the tarmac and I was still thinking of the psychiatrist lady, and I was happy and sad at the same time and didn't even know why.