Right To Die

25

I SKIPPED RUNNING THE MORNING AFTER THE SHOTS WERE FIRED, instead calling Inés Roja, who said she was feeling much better. Andrus, Hebert, and Manolo had left the house and the city safe and sound. It took Roja just a few minutes to dig up the only home address I didn't already have, although I decided to save that one for last.

The condominium complex abutted the sea, a cluster of structures four stories high with weathered shingles. I found a parking spot on the street, not even diehard sailors thinking about braving the waters on Marblehead in February.

I went through the foyers in live buildings before I found "Cuervo, R." on a mailbox behind an unlocked entry door. I climbed two flights to the third floor, Cuervo seeming to have a duplex condo that included the fourth.

I could hear a stereo set low on a jazz tape. I knocked, got nothing, knocked again, and heard the slap of shower thongs on a hard surface. The door opened, and Cuervo, barechested in tennis shorts, looked out at me.

"What are you doing here?"

"I'd like to talk with you, Mr. Cuervo."

"Ray, please. I thought we had a talk already?"

"Something else came up."

"I'm, uh, entertaining." He sent his eyebrows toward the interior staircase behind him. "Can't it wait?"

"I'm afraid not. Somebody took a shot at your stepmother yesterday."

"Somebody… you mean with a gun?"

"That's right."

"Dios mia! Come in, come in."

Cuervo's living room had a view of the harbor through a glass wall, French doors leading to a wooden deck. He waved at the sectional furniture around an elaborate home entertainment center that dominated one of the other walls. "Sit down. I'll be right back."

Cuervo took the stairs two at a time. I heard just vague voices, then a door opening and closing. Cuervo came back down, pulling a rugby shirt over his head, the collar of the shirt uneven.

I said, "I'm sorry to be interrupting anything."

"That's okay. Her night was just about up anyway."

A shoe hit the floor upstairs, and Cuervo got serious. "So what's this about Maisy'?"

I went through it for him.

Cuervo raked his hair with his left hand. "Unbelievable. I can't believe none of you got hurt."

"The shooter wasn't trying to hit us."

"How do you know?"

"I know. The question is, do you have any idea who it could have been?”

"Me? How would I know anything about it?"

"You told me you and your father used to go hunting."

"Sure, we… Oh, come on, man. You're thinking I had something to do with this?"

"That's right."

"Hey, lots of kids go hunting with their fathers. Doesn't mean I'd – look, I don't have any reason to shoot Maisy."

"Any reason to scare her?"

"I don't know what you're talking about."

"You said last time that you didn't care about the split on your father's estate."

"That's right. She got the house in Candas, I got the liquid stuff."

"Any nonfinancial reason for getting back at her?"

"Like what?"

"Like sexual?"

Cuervo hurled himself from the sectional piece. I rolled to the left, felt him land, then rolled back, clamping my arms around his. I pushed his face into the cushion for about ten seconds, then let up enough to hear him say "Okay, okay. Let me go."

I stood up and over Cuervo as he turned back to me. He kneaded his left bicep with his right hand, then switched off to the other arm. I said, "Just what exactly happened between you and Maisy Andrus?"

Cuervo cocked an ear toward upstairs before speaking in a low voice. "I was maybe fourteen, fifteen. After my mother died, I was pretty used to having the run of the house in Candés, you know? I mean, it was just my father, Manolo, and me when I was home from school. Well, one day I was coming back after going to the beach, and I was dripping wet on the tile floor near the staircase. So I stripped down as I was climbing the steps, hurrying so the water wouldn't get all over the rugs upstairs.

"I kind of burst into the bathroom, naked, and there's… there's Maisy. Naked, too, just stepping out of a bath. I was stunned, I guess. Then Maisy looked down at me" – Cuervo dropped his eyes to the crotch of his tennis shorts – "and she said, 'Ramon, you're your father's son,' and smiled. Looking back on it, I guess she meant it to cut the embarrassment, but at the time I took it… I took it for my father's marrying a whore, okay? A whore who'd make a play for her new husband's son."

"You ever talk it out with her?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Cuervo blushed for the first time. "We don't do things that way."

" 'We'?"

"In Spain. We don't do that kind of thing. It's just… different over there. You wouldn't understand."

"This scene with Andrus in the bathroom. Is that why you were so long coming home to see your father?"

"Probably. It was all a long time ago, all right? Not a real happy time to remember either."

"Where were you yesterday?"

"Yesterday?"

"Right."

"At the plant."

"In New Hampshire."

"Yeah. Where you saw me before."

"When did you leave?"

"I don't know. I headed back here around four, four-thirty. What difference – oh. Look, I told you, I don't know anything about the shooting. I don't even own a gun anymore, okay?"

"You said Maisy Andrus got the house. What about the hunting rifles you and your father used?"

"I don't know what happened to them. I was thinking about college, man. I didn't care about guns."

"I'll let you get back to your day."

Cuervo glanced upstairs, then at the clock on his VCR. "Hope she isn't expecting breakfast."

I followed Louis Doleman and his teddy-bear hair through the second door of the spacelock.

He said, "Marpessa? Company's here."

I let Doleman take his seat before I took one opposite him. The same cardigan sweater and slacks as in December. The same worn copy of The Right to Die open, facedown, on the TV tray. I gave him the benefit of the doubt on the cupcakes. The macaw perched on the arm of his chair, giving me a revolving-eye once-over as I leaned forward, elbows on my knees.

"Mr. Doleman, I wonder if you can help me here."

"I'll sure try, Mister…?"

I'd said my name for him thirty seconds before. "Cuddy, John Cuddy."

"Sure, sure. Cuddy. What can I do for you?"

"I'm thinking of doing some hunting this week."

"Hunting? Hunting? My boy, you can't go hunting this time of year."

"Not here. Overseas."

"It's winter in Europe too."

"Not Europe. Below the equator. It's just turning fall there."

"Ah. Ah, yes, I remember that. What… what is it you want again?"

"I'm trying to decide what firearms to bring with me. I wonder if I could see some of yours."

"Mine? Mine, they're awful old, son."

"That's all right."

"Besides, I don't know, I don't think it's legal somehow for me to loan them to you."

Doleman seemed like that the last time too. Fading in and out, foolishly inviting a bigger, younger stranger into his house, then fixing on some detail. Loose to lucid. If it was an act, he was one of the all-time greats.

"No, Mr. Doleman. I don't want to borrow them. Just look at them toward deciding which kind I should buy."

"Oh. Oh, sure, sure. Come on." Doleman stood, waggling a finger at the bird. "Marpessa, you be a good girl now."

The macaw pecked his finger and made an atonal squawk, but stayed put.

I followed Doleman into his kitchen. The appliances all looked 1950s and crudded over.

He paused to move a case of generic soda cans away from a cellar door. "I keep them down in the basement, of course."

The stairs were steep, each step shallow enough for the ball of the foot to land just a little too far forward. Doleman almost pranced down them, an agile gnome at home in his cave.

"Over here."

He stopped in front of a padlocked steel cabinet mounted on the wall. The cellar was neglected, a strong, musty smell matching the dingy whitewash on the cement.

Doleman fished in his pocket for keys. Getting them out, he held each up three inches from his face before settling on one. "Here she is, here she is."

He inserted the key in the padlock, having to force the lock itself off the hasp. He pulled open the door, grating from rust. "Help yourself."

Three rifles and a shotgun, standing muzzles up. I worked the first one out. An M-1 with enough dust on it to have been there since Truman fired MacArthur. I looked into the bottom of the cabinet. The dust around the other butts seemed undisturbed.

"Been a while since you've had these out."

"Long while. Haven't taken a deer since… I don't know when. Still have to apply for some kind of goddamn permit though. Every birthday, seems like."

Probably every fifth. I tried the action of the M-l. The outside bolt you wedge back with the edge of your hand wouldn't move.

Doleman said, "That's a military weapon, son. The others are your sporting arms."

I put the M-1 back and tried the next, a lever-action Winchester. I sniffed the breech area. No smell of burnt powder or gun oil to have cleaned it. Same with the third, a Ruger. I left the shotgun where it was.

"These are your only firearms, Mr. Doleman?"

"What, four ain't enough?"

Smiling, I still let him precede me up the stairs.

Back in the living room, I said, "Thought I saw you over on Beacon Hill yesterday."

"Beacon Hill? Me? Not a chance. Don't go into the city these days."

Not counting his trip to the library for the debate, I guess. "Why is that?"

"Too dangerous. Besides, Marpessa there would miss me something fierce. Wouldn't you, Marpessa?"

The bird said, "Right you are, right you are."

Doleman beamed. "See that? See? Better than kin, better than a son or daugh – "

His face got doughy, the lips working at cross-purposes to each other. "What… what was it you wanted again?"

I could have asked him about his daughter's treatment, about his contacting the Mass General over it. About a lot of things. Instead, I said, "I'm all set, Mr. Doleman. Thanks for your time."

He nodded, but more as a good-bye as he retook his seat, Hopping the opened book over into his lap and beginning to read. The macaw primped her feathers as I moved backward toward the spacelock.

The door to Walter Strock's house bowed open, Kimberly Weymond standing next to it. She was wearing a pink terry-cloth robe with a peekaboo front and a hood that rode down from the weight of her blond hair, recently washed. A floor lamp backlit the hood, making her look like a cobra. If you believed in omens, that is. Weymond didn't have to be reminded of who I was. "Come in, Mr. Cuddy."

"Is Strock here?"

"No, but come in anyway."

I moved past her into the living room. A thick hardbound case-book and a nearly as thick paperback vied with peach five by eight cards atop a low, square cocktail table. In front of the table was a beautiful marble fireplace, a couple of logs crackling.

Weymond said, "I've always loved a fire after a long, slow bath."

I took a chair facing away from the fire and nodded toward the worktable. "I thought everybody used computers now."

Weymond glided to the table, nestling behind it Indian-style. "Some things are better the old-fashioned way, don't you think."

Great. "When do you expect Strock back?"

"Not for a while."

"Were you with him yesterday?"

"No. Walter and I see each other only a few nights a week."

Weymond planted her elbows and made a pedestal of her palms, resting her chin in them and speaking through partially clenched teeth. "Walter's not exactly an everyday player anymore. He needs pumping up."

"You know where I might find his gun collection?"

"I might. What's in it for me?"

"The delight of betraying his confidence?"

Weymond laughed, the "I'm with it too, buddy" noise you hear in bars.

She said, "How about a trade, then?"

"What for what'?"

"The carefully hidden location of Walter's gun collection in exchange for what you have on him."

"What I have on him?"

"In his office that day, when he asked me to leave. You've got something that gives you leverage over him, and I want to know what that something is."

I gestured around the room. "This isn't enough leverage for you?"

Weymond shook her head hard enough to free a swath of hair.

She looked like a bad impersonation of a World War II pinup girl. "There's no such thing as enough leverage. I get the run of Walter's house because I pump him up, in a lot of ways."

"Isn't that kind of sexist?"

"Only if you take it out of context. This place is closer to school than my apartment, and I like nice surroundings. Walter's ego needs somebody young and attractive on his arm. That's some leverage. Young, attractive and smart, that's more leverage. See how it works?"

"Where're the guns?"

"We have a deal?"

"We have a deal."

Weymond bounded to her feet, the breasts jouncing in reaction to the rest of her body. "Come with me to the treasure trove."

I followed Kimberly up a flight of steps. She'd nicked herself behind the right knee shaving her legs. Under the circumstances, I wasn't about to mention it.

We went into what from dimensions must have been the master bedroom. Mahogany wainscoting applied halfway up the walls on all sides except for another fireplace. Velvet drapes, a Dhurrie rug, two easy chairs.

Weymond jumped into the bed as though it were a pool, an image of the athletic preteen she must have been not so long ago.

It was a pool, by the way. Sort of.

On her back, Kimberly laced fingers behind her head in a modified sit-up. "Walter must have read somewhere that water beds were 'where it's at'." She gave me a sly smile. "Do I have that right?"

"What right?"

"The expression. 'Where it's at'?"

"As I recall. How about the guns?"

"Let's play a game."

"I don't like games, Kimberly."

"No. It makes sense. You'll see."

"Make it a short game."

"Okay. Now, move back toward the door like you're a burglar or something."

I sighed but retraced my steps to the threshold. "All right?"

Weymond hunched toward the headboard on her elbows. "One more step back."

I complied.

"Now come at me."

My eyes went around the room for a camera or even a lens, but there were enough furnishings to hide it.

"Come on, like you were going to attack me."

I started forward. On my second step Weymond hit a panel in the wainscoting behind her. A handgun shot out on an accordion device, like the boxing glove from a Three Stooges movie. She grabbed the weapon, an automatic, on what must have been a magnetic pad and leveled it at me.

Standing stock-still, I said, "Bad game, Kimberly."

Weymond kept the automatic at serious for a count of five, then let her arm weigh down with it to the comforter. "I don't think so. He calls it Walter's Walther. One of his brighter lights, to tell you the truth."

I walked toward her. She let me take the gun. A Walther PPK all right. I tested the action. Loaded, one shell jacked into the chamber. Safety off, ready for firing. Christ.

I made it safe. "Any more secret panels'?"

Weymond swam out of bed, tapping a taller, recessed section of wainscoting on the other side of the bed. An AR-15, the civilian version of the Colt M-16 assault rifle, nosed out.

I moved to the Colt, bringing it to "present arms," and sniffing. Fired not too long ago, freshly cleaned and oiled. Locked and loaded, a slick weapon for home defense. But I'd heard M-16s often enough on city streets in Saigon. They make more of a popping noise than the flat crack of the day before.

I said, "Any others?"

"A shotgun in the hall closet downstairs. Not so melodramatic, though."

"No more rifles?"

"In the closet in the study. Walter's got a strongbox or something anchored below the floorboards. But they're a pain to get to, and anyway I don't have a key to that."

"Just to the front door."

The sly smile again. "And the back. Walter's at some conference. He won't be home for hours." Weymond casually showed a lot of leg. "Maybe you could use a little pumping up?"

"Thanks, but I'm afraid I'd keep reaching for my wallet, looking for a fifty to stuff somewhere."

The smile evaporated. "That's a sexist remark."

"Only if taken out of context."

I turned to go.

Weymond yelled after me. "Hey, what about our deal?"

"Should have gotten it in writing, counselor."

I went downstairs and out before she could pump up Walter's Walther.