Stone Quarry

Chapter 13

Silence. Warmth. A pale, gray light. Softness against my skin when I moved; but pain then, too.

Later, the gray light again, and less pain, pain that had shrunk, settled behind my left ear and in my left shoulder. There was softness everywhere, around me and under me, and warmth, and quiet.

In the gray light things came slowly into focus, soft- edged and gentle. A table; a cedar chest; a woodstove set into a fireplace between two uncurtained windows. Through the windows, rolling clouds and the blowing tops of trees.

I was lying on my right side. Heavy wool blankets wrapped me closely. A pillow was under my head, with a smooth, cool cover. I tried to stretch my stiff legs and found I couldn't: there was something in the way.

In a minute, I thought, I'd look and see what.

My mouth was cottony. My bare skin was sticky and tight with dried sweat. I could smell coffee, and the dry sting of woodsmoke in the still air.

I pushed back the blankets some, tried my legs again. They still wouldn't stretch, so I pushed back the blankets some more and tried something else: sitting up.

It was easy, if you didn't count the stiffness and the dizziness. The stiffness stayed with me, but the dizziness passed.

I looked around from my new perspective. I saw my boots, on spread newspapers by the woodstove. I was sitting on an ivory-colored couch not as long as I was tall. I knew this couch; I knew this place. Eve Colgate's house, her living room.

On the easy chair was a pile of clothes, my jeans, my shirt, my underwear, all folded and stacked as if they'd just come back from the laundry. On the cedar chest, in a big wooden bowl, some other things: my wallet, keys, cigarettes, junk from my pockets. My gun, the holster coiled beside it.

The story behind this, I told myself, has got to be good. I couldn't wait to hear it.

I stood, creaking like a rusty hinge. I made my way to the pile of clothes on the chair, pulled on my shorts. Minimally decent, I kept going, to the small bathroom under the stairs.

I took a piss it felt like I'd been waiting a week to take. Then I turned on the water in the sink. The rush of it, loud in the silence, made me vaguely uneasy. I filled the bathroom tumbler, drained it three times. The water was sharp and sweet.

The face in the mirror looked worse than it had last time I'd seen it: pale, stubble-covered, and old.

I soaked a hand towel in hot water, used it to wash everywhere I could reach. I took a look at my shoulder. A messy-looking bruise was coming up inboard of the shoulder blade, more or less in line with the aching place behind my ear.

Something, or someone, had hit me pretty hard.

I wandered back out to the living room, pulled on my jeans. They were as stiff as I was. I maneuvered my undershirt on with as little use of my left shoulder as I could manage, which was not little enough.

Then I had done enough hard work for a while. I reached into the wooden bowl for the unopened pack of Kents that lay there, then went to the woodstove for a kitchen match.

I dropped back down onto the couch, rested my elbows on my knees. I drew smoke in, streamed it out, probed the blank space in my memory for a way in. The cigarette was almost gone when I heard the front door open.

I grabbed my gun from the bowl, held it out of sight. I didn't stand; I was steadier seated. The door closed; there were sounds in the vestibule. The inner door opened and Leo trotted through.

When he saw me he scrabbled over to the couch, wagging everything from his neck back. He put his front paws on my knee and stuck his face up near mine, licked my chin. I scratched his ears with my left hand, which was holding the cigarette. I figured that was better than my right one, where the gun was.

"Leo!" Eve said, coming through the inner door. "Get down!"

He did, sitting in front of me, lifting a paw excitedly, scratching at my knee.

I put the gun down as Eve walked around the cedar chest, came to stand in front of me.

"How do you feel?" she asked.

"Tired." A half dozen other words came to mind, but that one got there first.

She nodded. "You had a bad night. You ran a fever. I don't think you really slept until almost dawn."

"What happened?" I asked her.

She frowned. "I was waiting for you to wake up so you could tell me that."

I made no answer.

Eve moved around the couch to the kitchen. "Do you think you could handle a cup of coffee?"

"God, yes."

She brought me one, and one for herself. The coffee was rich and fragrant and hot. I gulped at it.

She moved what was left of the laundry pile onto the cedar chest, settled herself in the chair.

"I found you," she said. "About an hour after you left here last night, just down the hill." She gestured toward the slope outside the windows, where the scrub trees began about ten yards from the house.

"Found me," I repeated stupidly. I wasn't sure I was following her.

"Well, Leo did. Something strange happened. Something . . . frightening."

"Tell me."

She sipped at her coffee. "I got a phone call, maybe forty-five minutes after you left. A man's voice, I think, but whispering, so I really don't know. 'Your friend Smith,' it said. 'He's down the hill from your place. It's a bad night to be out.'"

I sipped my coffee, tried to understand this. She went on, "He hung up. I didn't know what he meant, down the hill, but I took Leo and went out. Leo found you, lying just where the trees start, only half-conscious." She stopped, studied me. "You don't remember? You were soaking wet; you were freezing."

I shook my head. "No. How did I get here?"

"Back to the house? You walked." She smiled her small smile. "You didn't want to. You kept telling me to leave you alone. I began to get desperate. It's a way of conserving heat, that refusal to move, but it really would have killed you. Alcohol's not the best thing for someone whose body temperature's dropped as low as yours had, but it feels good, and you needed motivation. I came back for the brandy." Her smile faded. "You don't remember any of this?"

I shook my head. Leo, who had climbed onto the pile of blankets beside me, rearranged himself with a happy sigh.

"Actually," Eve said, "I think Leo saved your life."

I raised my eyebrows, looked at the dog.

"Besides finding you, I mean. When I ran back here for the brandy, I covered you with my slicker and told him to get under it and stay with you until I came back. I think his being there kept you just warm enough to stay conscious. Then I gave you brandy and told you you'd die if you didn't get up and come with me." She smiled again. "And you told me to go to hell.

"But you got up. It took a couple of tries. I was afraid that you couldn't. It was obvious you were hurt. I was trying to think what to do if you really couldn't walk, but you did get up, and you leaned on me and we came here."

She made that last part sound easy.

When shed come through the door her cheeks had been glowing from the wind, but as wed talked the color had faded, and I saw now that her eyes were dark-ringed and her skin was patchy and dull.

"You haven't slept," I said.

She shrugged, finished her coffee. Over her shoulder, framed in the squares of the window, leafless branches danced in a gusting wind.

"Thanks," I said. It was dust when it should have been diamonds, but when I said it she lifted her eyes to mine and smiled.

She stood, got the coffeepot from the stove, refilled our mugs. Small, everyday blessings. I drank.

"Why were you there?" she asked. "Why did you come back? Who called me?"

I passed my hand over my eyes. Something was in the back of my brain, but it was darkness and noise. "I don't know."

I drank more coffee. "I remember leaving after dinner, driving away. No, wait—" The coffee was nudging something forward, like an indulgent aunt with a shy child whose turn it was to recite. "Light. I wanted to reach the light." That seemed right, but I didn't know what it meant.

"Where?"

I pulled out another cigarette, dropped the pack back in the bowl. I lit another match. With the flare came a sudden burst of memory. "Your studio. In your studio. There were lights down there as I came around the curve, so I parked the car and went down to look."

"Lights in my studio? Last night? What—who was there?"

I reached, but there was nothing. "I don't know. I came close, but I don't think I got there." A dark figure, a shadow in the shadows. "Someone was waiting. He hit me from behind. I didn't pee him."

"Someone was waiting for you? Someone wanted to kill you?" Her voice might have cracked, but if it did she got it back under control fast.

"No. They couldn't have known I'd come, couldn't have even known I'd see the light. And I would've been easy to kill, once I was down. I was even carrying a gun, if he didn't want to use his own."

"But you could have died. But they didn't want you to, or they wouldn't have called here. I don't understand. Why do that to you, and then call me?"

I thought about that. "Something was going on that someone didn't want me to know about, or screw up. But there's been one death already; maybe they thought another would call down more heat than they were ready to take. I suppose they could have ditched my body where it wouldn't be found"—Eve cradled her coffee as though her hands were suddenly cold—"but I'm too high-profile right now to just disappear. Brinkman would love nothing better than for me to just turn around and go back to the city, but he knows I won't, so if I disappeared he and MacGregor would know something was up. No, as long as they make sure I don't know what the hell's going on, I must be less trouble alive than dead. So they got me out of the way, got their business done, and called you."

"Got their business done. In my studio." Eve's mouth was drawn into a thin line.

I picked up the gun again and did what I hadn't done before: broke it open, emptied it, tested the action. It worked. It always worked, rain, snow, sleet, or gloom of night. The mail used to be like that, too.

I reloaded the gun, put it down, went and got my socks and boots. The boots were tight and not quite dry, the laces squeaking a little through the eyeletted holes.

"What are you going to do?" Eve asked me.

"I'm going to have a look around, see if I can figure out what it is I'm not supposed to know."

"Are you sure you're all right?"

"I'm fine." I buttoned my shirt. I slipped my holster on, moved the strap around on my left shoulder searching for a comfortable, or at least bearable, way to wear it. There wasn't one. I took it off.

Leo had jumped off the couch as soon as I stood; now he was sitting by the door, brushing the floor with his tail. Suddenly his back bristled. He spun to face the door, started to bark.

"Someone's coming," Eve said.

She opened the inner door, stepped through the vestibule, Leo barking furiously beside her. I followed her out onto the porch, in time to see the sheriff's car roll to a stop in the driveway in front of the house.

Brinkman unfolded his long, booted legs from the car's passenger-side door. The heavy deputy got out the other side. Eve told Leo to stay on the porch with us and he did, growling deep in his throat.

Brinkman's face was unreadable as he stood at the bottom of the porch steps looking up. "Well," he finally said. "You sure do turn up in the strangest places, city boy."

"Is there a problem, Sheriff?" Eve asked.

"Well, ma'am, maybe not," Brinkman drawled. "I just came by to ask what you know about a car parked a half mile west of here, along Ten. An Acura." He looked at me. "Six, seven years old. Gray." Back to her: "Before I get it towed."

"Oh, Christ, Brinkman," I said wearily. "You know it's mine." Even on the protected porch the wind was cold. I suppressed a shiver.

He nodded unhurriedly. "What's it doing there?"

"I had trouble."

"When?"

"Last night."

"In the storm?"

"Before that."

"So you came here and bothered the lady?"

"Thank you for your concern, Sheriff," Eve said. "But Mr. Smith is a friend of mine."

"Well, that's fine. I worry about you, is all, Miss Colgate. All alone out here like you are."

Eve smiled. "I've managed over the years, thank you."

"Yes, ma'am, you have. Though you might want to be a little careful how you choose your friends."

"I am," Eve said. "Very careful."

Brinkman smiled pleasantly, nodded. "Your power and phone back on yet?"

"Yes," she answered. "Since about nine."

"Good. Then Smith can get a tow truck for that car. Save the county money." His grin turned nasty. "Why don't you call Obermeyer's? I hear they got a kid there real good with Jap cars."

"I hear he hasn't been in much lately," I said.

"That so? You suppose he's on vacation?"

I shrugged. "Florida's popular this time of year."

"Yeah, but it's no fun alone. You know a girl name of Alice Brown?"

"I met her yesterday."

"You were looking for Jimmy Antonelli, she says."

"That's true."

"You find him?"

"She said she didn't know where he was."

"She told me that, too. You believe her?"

"Most women don't he to me until they know me better."

"I got the pretty boys from the state to put a tail on her."

"Good luck."

"She's too high class for that punk, anyhow."

"I liked her, too."

"But what I hear," he said, lifting his hat, scratching his high, domed forehead, "what I hear, he had a new sweetie anyway. Mark Sanderson's little girl. Sweet, blond, and fifteen. And guess what?"

"Tell me."

"Her daddy hasn't seen her for days." He settled his hat. "God, I hope you're right about Florida, Smith. Lot of state lines between here and there." He shook his head, chuckling to himself. "Hey, he's not at your place, is he, Smith?" "No."

"Well, you're right. We looked."

"You searched my place?"

He made an innocent face. "We had a warrant. Nice place, too. Nice piano. Course, alls I can play is 'Chopsticks,' none of that culture stuff you city folks go in for. But it sounded pretty good. Didn't it, Art?" Behind his sunglasses the deputy nodded.

The thought of Brinkman's long, mean fingers banging on my piano brought hot blood to my face. "Brinkman—" I started, stopped as Eve's hand closed on my arm.

Brinkman smiled, walked back around the cruiser, pulled the door open. "Get that car taken care of, Smith," he said. "That's a bad stretch, and I don't want no more trouble on that damn road."

"No more than what?"

He leaned on the top of the car. "You folks had better things to do last night than listen to the radio, huh?

"Well, seems someone else had a problem, too. Someone in a blue Chevy truck. Ran off the road down there in the valley, flipped into the gorge. We're pulling it out now. Made a helluva mess." He grinned a grin that showed me all his teeth.

My heart jolted. "Who?" I asked. He didn't answer. "Goddammit, Brinkman, who was in the truck?"

"What the hell you getting so excited about? Who're you expecting was in the truck?"

I started to move down the steps toward him, but Eve held my arm.

"Sheriff, who was it?" she asked.

"Well, ma'am," Brinkman drawled, "well, that's the strange thing." He adjusted his hat again. "Doesn't seem to have been anyone in it."

"What the hell is this, Brinkman?"

"You tell me, city boy. Why would someone send a new Chevy four-by-four into the ravine, just to stand there and watch it fall?"

"How do you know no one was in it?"

"Shape that truck was in, if anyone'd been in it we'd be scraping 'em off the insides now."

"Maybe the driver was thrown."

"Well, now, we thought of that, too. Checked the area, but damned if we didn't come up empty." He started to get into the car, paused as if struck by a sudden thought. "Now, no one being in that truck doesn't mean it wasn't interesting."

"In what way?" I asked. My hands were clenching and unclenching themselves.

"Two ways. One, seems to be a little blood smeared on the seat. Not a lot, just a little. And the other, there's this nine-millimeter automatic we pulled from the cab." He grinned a final grin, said, "See you around, Smith. Miss Colgate, you take care of yourself."

He and the deputy climbed back in the car. They U- turned in the driveway, drifted slowly under the bare chestnuts back to the road.

"Why does he dislike you so?" Eve asked as we headed down the hill behind the house, Leo charging back and forth beside us.

"Last fall," I said, "when he picked up Jimmy, what he really wanted to do was get his hands on Frank Grice."

"The man you told me about?"

"Yes. He wants Grice badly. But he can't make anything stick to him. Grice is always a step ahead. It drives Brinkman crazy."

"Well, he is the sheriff, and this man Grice is a criminal."

"It's beyond that. This is Brinkman's county. Grice isn't just a crook, he's an outsider. Like I am."

Pushed by a strong wind, the heavy clouds were rushing west, but the sky they left behind remained dull and gray. I turned up my collar. Eve, beside me, wore only her sweatshirt over a sweater, and didn't seem to mind the cold. Or maybe it really wasn't that cold at all.

I went on. "Grice had people running drugs from Florida to Albany for an Albany boss, then ditching the courier cars here. That was Jimmy's job, getting rid of the cars. Everybody knew it, but no one could prove it, and Jimmy wouldn't talk. He was offered a deal but he wouldn't take it. He was prepared to go to prison." I shook my head.

"Honor among thieves?" Eve suggested.

"He's a brave, stupid kid. He thinks he's tough, but he'd've been eaten alive. But we were lucky. Brinkman wanted Grice so badly he beat the shit out of Jimmy—" I caught myself. "I'm sorry," I said.

"About what? Your language? Don't patronize me. Besides"—she smiled—"you should have heard yourself last night."

"I can imagine. Anyhow, I got Jimmy a slick city lawyer and we parlayed Brinkman's mistakes into a dismissed case. Brinkman lost Jimmy and he lost Grice and he looked like a fool."

"And he blames you?"

"He's right."

We were walking the way we had walked two days before, through fields now oozing muddy water under every step. Twigs, leaves, and branches forced down by the storm lay on the earth among sprawling puddles. This way to the clearing was longer than the way straight down the slope— the way I'd fought my way up last night—but it was also easier and faster.

"You got quite angry when the sheriff talked about your piano," Eve said, her eyes on me. It occurred to me that she might want to keep talking to keep her mind off where we were going.

"That he played it," I said.

She nodded, but said, "Or that he knows now that you play it?" I didn't answer. "We talked a good deal about music last night, but you never told me you were a pianist."

My response to that was silence; hers, to my silence, was an ironic smile. "I suppose, coming from me, that's an odd complaint."

I smiled at that. "I don't play for other people, ever. Very few people understand about that. Mostly I don't care whether they do or not."

"I understand," she said.

"I know," I answered.

We went on in silence for a time, the only sound the soft grasping noises made by the mud as our feet passed over it.

"Brinkman asked about the power," I said. "Did the power go off last night?"

"Yes," she answered. "Not long before I found you. I saw the lights go off in the house just when Leo ran back to me, barking."

I'd seen the lights go off in the house, too. I wondered what it would cost me to get the 7-Eleven to deliver a doughnut a day to Leo for the rest of his life.

In the clearing the studio looked sturdy and deserted. I kept my hand on the gun in my pocket just the same.

"Stay here with Leo," I told Eve. "Let me look around." They stood on the edge of the clearing while I prowled the road that came up from the valley, but the rain had left nothing I could read.

I did the same in the clearing, looking for whatever I could find, but I couldn't find anything. Eve joined me as I neared the studio door. Things looked in order, but when she put her hand on the padlock, it twisted open. It had been cut through.

A tingle went up my spine. I motioned Eve behind me, took out my gun. I lifted the lock off the door, slid the door aside, moving with it. Nothing happened: no shots, no booming voices. I stepped through the doorway in a quick crouch, swung first left, then right.

No one was there, but they had been.

I stood, pocketed the gun, stretched my arm across the doorway to bar Eve from stepping over the sill.

"My God," I heard her say tonelessly behind me.

The floor of the studio was a storm of color. Paint swept across the wide boards, red and green and purple and blue, mud where they clotted together. Ropes of pigment squirted from stomped tubes across smears and swirls. White gesso puddled around broken quart jars, colors bleeding into it. Thick lumps of black were smeared over stains of crimson and magenta; a yellow pool near the window mocked the gray day. Cans and brushes and palette knives lay in the glistening mess like the branches the wind had brought down last night.

Just inside the door a broom lay in an eddy of paint. It had been used to push and pull and smear the colors on the floor; its paint-covered bristles were broken, sticking out in all directions.

There were no footprints in the paint. The broom had obliterated them.

"My God," Eve said again. Her fingers dug into my arm and she started to move past me.

I grabbed her wrist. "Wait," I said. "Look first."

Her face was flushed. Her eyes flared as she said, "At what? Why?"

"At everything." I searched the floor, starting from where we stood, my eyes sweeping slowly back and forth. "The painting." I pointed across the studio to the half-finished canvas I'd seen Tuesday morning. "Is it all right?"

She stared across the room. "Yes," she said, and I felt her relax slightly. I let go of her wrist.

"What else?" I asked. "What else is wrong?"

"How can I tell?" she exploded, her voice rough-edged. "How can I see through this? What do you want me to tell you? Get out of my way!"

"Eve," I said, and took her hand.

She stood trembling for a moment in the doorway, her eyes moist; then she wiped them with the back of her hand. Her fingers closed on mine and she was still.

"I'm not sure," she said huskily, after a few moments. "Except for the floor, and the paints and brushes from over there, everything looks all right. The big painting is all right. I can't tell about the ones in the rack from here, but they don't look as though they've been touched. Is that what you want to know?"

"Yes," I said. "It looks that way to me, too." The smells of oil paint and mud mingled in the open doorway. The windows weren't broken; they'd come and gone through the single door. In the city, in the middle of this much deliberate ruin, I'd have expected taunting words, filthy phrases scrawled on the walls, but that hadn't happened either. There was only the sea of paint, submerging the floor. "Let me check around out here once more; then we'll go in."

"Bill," she said suddenly. "Last night you had paint on your neck and chin. Not a lot. I thought it was mud, but it wouldn't come off with water. Is that from when they hit you?"

"It could be."

I circled the building, examining the ground for anything that wasn't mud or leaves or broken branches, but they were all I found.

We went into the studio, Eve and I. Eve told Leo to stay outside and he did, whining. He lay down with his paws on the threshold, followed our movements with his head.

Inside, Eve stopped, stood, as though unsure of what to do. I searched in corners and under furniture for something that would help.

There was nothing.

It took us an hour to clean up.

"There's no reason for you to have to stay," Eve said. "But I can't leave it like this."

I stayed. Eve picked through the paint with an archaeologist's concentration, evaluating each brush and palette knife according to criteria I didn't understand. Some she dropped into the garbage bag I was filling; others she left covered with turpentine in a shallow tray.

We scraped the floor and scrubbed it with turpentine- soaked rags until a streaky purplish film was all that was left of the mess. Then we opened the windows to let the turpentine fumes out, and we left too.

"I'll paint it," Eve said, as we walked back up the hill to the house. It was close to midday, but the skimmed- milk sun was having trouble fighting its way through the clouds. "In a couple of days, when it's really dry, I'll get deck paint and paint it." She'd been like a taut wire since we'd entered the studio and we hadn't spoken. But as she talked about the next step her mouth relaxed and the deep creases on her forehead smoothed out, the way it happens, unconsciously, when you step from a dark, unfamiliar space into one that's lit. "A new lock; maybe even a security system. And I suppose I'll have to go into the city, to get more paints and things. That's all right. I would have had to go soon in any case."

"Why?"

"I've completed a painting; in fact it's been done for weeks. I made the mistake of telling my dealer it's done. He's too much of a gentleman, and an old friend, to bother me about it, but I know he's anxious to see it."

"Sternhagen?"

"Ulrich, yes."

"He's a friend of yours?"

"Probably my oldest. He was my dealer thirty-five years ago; we were friends in art school, before I had anything to sell. He's the only person in New York who knows where to find me—where to find Eva Nouvel, I mean." She paused to look at me. "How did you know who my dealer was?"

"You're famous."

"Do you know who Robert Rauschenberg's dealer is?"

"No."

She waited. I said, "The investigator I called in New York thought your gallery would be an obvious place to check, to see if anyone had tried to sell your paintings there. She told me."

"Had they?"

"No."

"It would be a pretty stupid thing to do."

"Not necessarily. It's not that easy to unload stolen art. They might take a chance that your gallery would be interested in splitting the profits on six new paintings without having to cut you in."

"Ulrich would never do that."

"Are you sure?"

"Of course I'm sure! He's a marvelous man and a good friend. If he hadn't been willing to cooperate with me in this—eccentricity—for thirty years, I could not have managed to live the way I have. The way I've wanted."

At the side of the house I dumped the garbage bag in a buried can. We walked around front. On the porch, as she unlocked the door, Eve turned to me. "Ulrich has been good to me in more ways than you can know. I don't think I like the idea of someone bothering him, possibly worrying him on my account."

If she didn't like that idea she'd hate some of the others I was having.

"Eve," I said as I followed her into the living room, "Lydia did some checking in New York, some things I hadn't asked her to do, but I'm glad she did. One of those things was a background check on Sternhagen and his gallery."

She spun to face me, her eyes flashing. "She did what? How dare you!"

"She told me he takes an unusually large share of the profits from your work."

Color choked her cheeks. "My arrangements with Ulrich are not your business! I hired you to protect my privacy, not to pry into my life!"

"Lydia's instincts are good," I said. "Maybe it has nothing to do with anything else, but it's unorthodox and she thought I should know. And if you can tell me, I'd like to know why."

"Who the hell do you think you are?" She was taut and trembling, the color gone from her face. The night she'd spent keeping me alive and the morning she'd had and the last six days were suddenly crashing over her like a tidal wave. She was fighting it with anger and the anger was aimed at me, and maybe I deserved it. Nothing good had happened since I'd started working for her.

I watched her struggling for control. I might have gone to her, held her, given her the illusion of safety that someone else's arms can give; but control is different from safety, though they sometimes feel the same. I turned, went quietly out the door, past Leo, who wagged his tail uncertainly as he looked from Eve to me.

I sat on the porch steps, lit a cigarette. I weighed my options, Eve's options, Tony's and Jimmy's options. On the broad sweeping lawn bare tendrils of forsythia were moving lightly in the wind. When the right time came they would flower, flaring like solid sunlight around houses all over these hills. Forsythia lived easily among us, nestling against buildings and fences. It didn't need much care, but it didn't do well alone.

The cigarette was almost gone when I heard the door open behind me. Eve crossed the porch, came and stood near me, arms wrapping her chest as though now she were cold.

"I'm sorry," she began.

"No." I cut her off. "You haven't got anything to apologize for. I'd expect you to be upset and I don't blame you for being upset with me. I haven't done you a hell of a lot of good."

She sat on the step above mine, stared into the distance. "I'm frightened." They didn't sound like words she was used to. "What's happening, Bill? Is it—am I a target for somebody?"

Admitting she was scared gave me an opening I wouldn't get again, for one of those ideas I knew she'd hate. "Eve, there's something I want you to do. Hear me out before you decide."

Her crystal eyes were uneasy. "What is it?"

"I don't want you to be alone for a while. I want to bring someone up to stay with you."

She looked at me blankly for a moment; then, unexpectedly, she laughed. "You have to be crazy," she said. "I'm the person with two names, for God's sake. I'm an eccentric recluse. I'm a hermit. I'm the person who'll do anything to protect her privacy, even hire a private detective!" She laughed again.

"No," I said. "Eva Nouvel is all those things. Eve Colgate is a farmer. She's the least sentimental person I've ever met. She makes decisions and doesn't look back. And she's scared."

The laugh had subsided into a smile; now the smile faded. She looked away. "I don't want this," she said.

"I know you don't."

We watched the forsythia sway with the wind. She said, "You don't think it's vandalism. You don't think it's coincidence."

"No, and you don't either."

"No." She tried a small smile. "But I was hoping you did."

"If there hadn't been a murder," I said, "if Mark Sanderson's daughter hadn't been fencing your things from a truck that rolled over the ravine last night, if everybody I met weren't so anxious to get his hands on Jimmy Antonelli, then I'd say sure. I'd say someone stole the paintings, then got curious about where they came from. They came back to have a look. Maybe they were drunk or stoned and found they could make a hell of a mess and were just getting into it when I came around." I lit another cigarette, cupping it against the wind. "And maybe that's what happened. Maybe the only thing that's tying all these things together in my head is my inability to mind my own business." I turned, faced her. "I don't think so, but of course I wouldn't. Make your own decision; but I can tell you it will affect what I do from now on."

"How do you mean?"

"If you don't let me get you some protection, I'll spend a lot more time and energy keeping an eye on you, and concentrating on the people I think might be a threat to you. That might not be the same thing as solving your case, or figuring out what the hell is going on around here."

"What if I don't want an eye kept on me?"

"Fire me."

That one dropped to the ground between us.

"Maybe the police will figure out what's going on," she said.

"Maybe they will. But they'll only figure out what they need to know to solve the crime they know about."

"You would feel more free to act," she said slowly, "if I had a baby-sitter?"

"Bodyguard."

"I can't even bring myself to say that. It's so ridiculous."

I didn't answer that. She thought silent thoughts and I smoked and the forsythia danced.

"Who?" she asked me finally.

"Lydia."

"That same detective? The one who snooped into Ulrich's accounts? Living in my house?"

"She's good," I said. "She's done this kind of thing before. She can stay by your side and keep out of your way at the same time. You'll like her."

"I don't think so."

"Eve, remember, when she checked out Sternhagen, she didn't know who my client was. She still doesn't."

"You didn't tell her?"

"No. I told her the client had lost six uncatalogued Eva Nouvels. That's all she had to go on. She was trying everything she could think of, and your gallery was a smart idea."

She stood, hands in her back pockets, and paced. Stopping, she said, "How long?"

"I don't know. I hope not long. I can't tell, Eve."

She paced some more, but not much. "All right," she finally said. "All right. Because I am scared. And because you didn't tell her who your client was."

"Good. Let's call her now."

She hesitated. "I've lived alone for thirty years. Now you want me to have someone with me twenty-four hours a day. I won't be good at it."

"Lydia will."

We went back inside. Eve lit the fire in the stove, put on water for coffee. I dialed Lydia's number. I said a prayer, keeping in mind the danger of answered prayers, and when the phone was picked up I got what I'd prayed for: it wasn't the machine and it wasn't her mother.

"Oh," Lydia said coolly, once she knew it was me. "Hello. I wasn't expecting you to call until later. I got Velez, but he's only just started. Should I call him and call you back? In case he has something already?"

"No, that's not why I called."

"Why did you?"

"There's trouble up here, and I need help. Can you come?"

The ice in her voice thawed a little, probably in spite of herself. "What do you mean, trouble?" she asked cautiously. "Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, but things are getting rough. I need someone to stay with the client."

"A baby-sitter?"

"Bodyguard."

Her voice almost smiled. "The client's right there with you, huh?"

"Yes."

She hesitated. "When would I start? Right away?"

"Yes."

She was silent. An image focused itself in my mind, Lydia in her back-room Chinatown office, cloudy light drifting in the pebbled glass window. Maybe she was looking at one of the pictures on her wall as she thought; maybe the one I'd given her for Christmas, a shadowy, somber photograph of a city street at night, the buildings dark, the people gone.

"I know you're pissed off," I said. "We can talk about it when you get here. I need you, Lydia."

More silence; then, briskly, "I'll have to organize my mother, and I'll have to rent a car. I could leave by two. For how long?"

"I don't know."

"How do I get there?"

I gave her directions.

"How long will it take me?"

"About four hours, the way you drive."

"How about the way you drive?"

"Two and a half."

"I'll see you at four-thirty."

"Lydia—"

"This isn't just a ploy to get me up there where it's rustic and isolated and romantic?"

The unexpectedness of that question stopped me, made me laugh. "If I thought that would work I'd have tried it long ago."

"You've tried everything else."

"Nice of you to notice."

"See you later."

"Lydia?"

"Umm?"

"It's been rough. It could get rougher."

"Promises, promises," she said in her sweetest tone, and hung up.

Eve brought the mugs to the counter by the phone, filled them.

"Do you want something to eat?"

"No, thanks. I'm not hungry."

"You haven't eaten since dinner last night."

"I'll get something later." I drank my coffee slowly, savoring it.

"She wasn't frightened?" Eve asked. "When you told her it was dangerous?"

"No," I said. "She liked it."

We leaned on opposite sides of the kitchen counter, finishing the coffee. She looked at me over her mug, said nothing, hid her thoughts.

I took my rig from where I'd dropped it on the cedar chest, slung it over my shoulder. I was loading up my pockets with what she'd taken out of them when the phone rang.

"Hello?" she said into the receiver; then, "Yes, in fact, he is. Are you all right?"

I stopped what I was doing, listened.

"All right," she said, half smiling. "I should have known better than to ask. Hold on." She held the receiver out to me. "It's Tony. He's looking for you."

I grabbed it. "Tony? Something wrong?"

"How the hell do I know?" Tony's voice growled out of the phone. "I'm just the messenger boy. You okay?"

"Yeah. Shouldn't I be?"

"You sound lousy."

"Thanks. What's up?"

"Your buddy Sanderson called here lookin' for you. He got kinda steamed when I said you wasn't here drinkin' at ten in the mornin'."

"He has no sense of humor. Did he say what he wanted?"

"No. Place was empty anyhow, so I closed up an' went over to your place, but you wasn't there, either. So I figured I'd check around. Nothin' else to do. Hope I didn't interrupt nothin'."

"You didn't. Thanks, Tony. Anything else new?"

"Not a goddamn thing."

"How're you holding up?"

"Great," he grunted. "Just goddamn great."

"Tony," I said, "You don't know where Frank Grice lives in Cobleskill, do you?"

"How the hell would I know that?"

"Didn't think so. Listen, I'll see you tonight, okay?"

"Yeah, whatever. What do I tell Sanderson if he calls again?"

"Tell him I'll call him when I have something to say."

"You gonna tell me what that means?" "No."

"Ah, to hell with it, an' you too. An' Sanderson."

"And the horse he rode in on. See you later."

"Yeah," he said, and hung up.

"What was that about?" Eve asked.

"I'm not sure." I stuffed my cigarettes into my shirt pocket, my wallet into my jacket.

"Where are you going?" she asked.

"I have some things to do. You'll be okay for a while; I don't expect anyone will come back so soon."

"I won't be here long, in any case. Harvey's coming to pick me up in half an hour."

I must have looked blank.

"We're going to Albany to look at farm equipment."

"Oh, milking machines. I remember. You'll be with him all afternoon?"

"Yes."

"That's even better." I zipped my jacket. "Meet us at Antonelli's tonight." "Us?"

"Lydia and me."

"Oh," she said. "Yes, all right." She looked into her coffee; then her crystal eyes met mine with an unexpected swiftness. "Bill?" she said in an unsteady voice. "Who could be doing this to me? Why?"

"I don't know." They were very empty words, but they were what I had. "Maybe," I said, "maybe they're not doing it to you. Maybe you're just in the way. But I don't want you to get hurt."

"The way you did last night, when you were in the way."

"I'm paid for it."

"It's not what I'm paying you for."

"Well, now I'm going to go do what you're paying me for."

I went down the driveway, walking slowly, not stiff anymore but bone-tired. The arched limbs of the chestnuts took me as far as the road, and after that it was spruce and maple and oak, white birch and thin, leggy stands of wild roses, waiting. They lined both sides of 10 as far as the bend, a half mile west, where I'd left my car.

Chapter 14

There was nothing wrong with the car, but I'd never said there was. I pulled onto the road and drove, not fast, not slowly, maybe a little beyond what the road was used to but not beyond what it could easily handle.

I'd lied to Eve. I was starving. But there were some calls I wanted to make and I didn't want to make them from her place, or from Antonelli's. Some things were starting to come together for me, but others weren't, yet, and if there were going to be any surprises I didn't want anyone to be surprised but me.

I had the cell phone with me, but the static, the fading in and out, the disruptions caused by these hills were more than I could face right now. The 7-Eleven down 30 had a pay phone, and it also had food, if you weren't picky. I got turkey and tomato, and a pint of Newman's Own Lemonade to go with it, though I had doubts about that stuff. I'd never seen Paul Newman drinking it.

I sat in my car and ate, Uchida's Mozart in the disc player again. I hadn't touched the piano in two days now and I could feel the rust in my fingers.

The sandwich was finished before Mozart was, but I waited. Then I took the roll of quarters from the well, ripped it open, flipped the first one. It was tails. I flipped it again. Heads. That was better. I pocketed the quarters and headed for the phone.

.The first number I tried was the one Otis had dialed from the green house, and the second was the number of the green house itself, and they both just rang. Either Grice wasn't home or he was too busy to answer the phone. Well, that's what I got for flipping coins. I dialed the state troopers, asked for MacGregor.

"What the hell do you want?" he greeted me.

"Warmth and fellow feeling. I must have the wrong number."

"By a mile."

"Where do I find Frank Grice?"

"You don't find Frank Grice. If I want Frank Grice, I find Frank Grice. Do I want him?"

"I have no idea. Did you test those guns?"

"Yeah." "And?"

"Smith, I told you, stay the hell out of my case."

I eased a cigarette from my shirt pocket. "No, you didn't. You told me not to withhold evidence and not to get in your way."

His voice was impatient. "How do they do this in the big city? They write you a Dear John letter? This is a police investigation and you're included out."

"Actually, it's not. What I want Grice for is something different." So far, I added silently.

"Yeah? What?"

"Tell me about the guns."

"The guns were a washout. Your turn."

My turn. "Mark Sanderson asked me to find his daughter. I think Frank Grice knows where she is." Close enough, I thought, and all true.

Silence. I had an image of MacGregor rubbing tired eyes. Then, "I hear she's with Jimmy Antonelli."

"You listen to the wrong little birds."

"That so? What tree do you recommend?"

"The Creekside Tavern."

"Some swell dive."

"Grice owns it. Ginny's been hanging out there lately."

"How do you know this?"

"Jimmy's friends could tell you."

"They haven't yet. Of course that crowd wouldn't tell me it was raining if I was standing there getting soaked."

"So where do I find him?"

"Forget it, Smith. Do yourself a favor. Go home, light a fire, have a drink. Let me play policeman." "Mac—"

"Or do yourself an even bigger favor. Go back to the city."

"Brinkman hinted he'd rather I didn't do that."

"I'll tell him he changed his mind."

"Mac, what the hell's going on?" I moved the phone to my right ear, rolled my left shoulder to ease the ache.

"Nothing's going on, except I've got a rent-a-cop on the phone too dumb to know good advice when he hears it."

"I want to find Ginny Sanderson."

"I'll deal with it."

"How? When? The kid's been missing for three days."

"Depends how you define missing."

"She hasn't been home. Her father doesn't know where she is and he's worried. He's a shit, but he's her father and he's worried. How's that?"

"You know that kid, Smith? You know her father?"

"A little," I offered, ambiguously.

"Well, the kid takes after her mother and her father still hasn't caught on."

"Caught on to what?"

"Christ, where've you been? Lena Sanderson ran around, almost from the day they were married. Everyone knew it but Sanderson. He was the only one surprised when she left him."

"And Ginny s like her mother?"

"We've hauled her in three times since she was thirteen."

"For what?"

"Knowing the wrong people. And this is a kid doesn't live in the county, Smith. She's away at school making trouble there most of the time."

"Not now."

"No, not now."

"What happens when you arrest her?"

"We don't. We learned. We call Sanderson and he comes and gets her and reams us out for holding his angel in a nasty place like this. Never mind she's been batting her blue eyes and practically climbing into the uniforms' laps."

"So how come you didn't tell me about her when I described the girl I was looking for?"

"Ginny? That's who that girl was—Ginny Sanderson?"

"Sounds like her."

"Smith—"

"Mac," I interrupted, "did Brinkman tell you he found a nine-millimeter pistol in a Chevy truck that rolled into the gorge last night?"

"Yeah. Yeah, he told me. How the hell do you know?"

"He told me, too. Have you tested it yet?"

"No, I haven't tested it yet. And when I test it, you'll be the last to know."

"Whose was the truck?"

A hesitation; then, in a tired voice, "Jimmy Antonelli's."

I drew a last drag on my cigarette, dropped it, ground it out. "I guess I knew that."

"I guess you did. What else do you know?"

"Not a goddamn thing. Where do I find Frank Grice?"

"Christ, Smith! What the hell's the matter with you? I see you anywhere near Frank Grice, I'll pull you in and stuff you in a hole. Is that clear enough, or you want me to say it some other way?"

"No," I said. "No, I get it."

"Smith," MacGregor said, "this Ginny Sanderson thing isn't the case you came up here to work, is it? You said you came up Sunday night. That kid's only been gone since Monday."

"It's part of it."

"Smith, you'd better—"

I stopped him before he painted us both into a corner. "I told you, Mac, it's not a police matter. I'll call you later, see about that gun. 'Bye."

I hung up, leaned against the scratched glass wall of the phone booth. I spun another quarter in the air, thought about what MacGregor had said.

I'd given him Ginny Sanderson at the Creekside Tavern for free. Underage drinking could close the Creekside down, and the threat of closing down might buy MacGregor something that might help break the Gould case. That, in turn, should have bought me something, but it hadn't.

Cops had a lot of ways of telling you things they wanted you to know.

MacGregor wanted me to know something was going on. Maybe he was getting pressure from above on the Gould murder; maybe it was something else. But what he wanted me to know was that I couldn't count on his help. If I got myself into trouble, even with him, I'd have to get myself out.

I stuck the quarter in the phone and called Mark Sanderson.

"Where the hell have you been?" he demanded, after I'd gotten past the receptionists and the secretary with the beautiful voice.

"Mr. Sanderson, has your daughter ever mentioned a man named Frank Grice?"

He stopped cold, as though he'd lost his place in the script. "No," he finally said. "She doesn't know him. How would she know him?"

"But you do?"

"I've heard of him. Some of the people I do business with have had trouble with him."

"Bullshit," I said. "Grice first came here because you brought him here. What happened, Sanderson, he get out of hand?"

His voice exploded out of the phone. "Goddammit, who the hell do you think you are? The sheriff tells me he found Jimmy Antonelli's truck this morning, in the ravine. If anything happened to Ginny—"

"There was no one in the truck when it went off the road, Mr. Sanderson."

"So where the hell are they?"

"Wherever Jimmy is, your daughter's not with him."

The phone hissed his words the way a pot lid hisses steam. "Damn it, Smith, you're trying to protect that kid, and it's obvious and stupid. I'm getting impatient."

"I can't help that."

"Yes, you can. You can tell me where he is, and where my daughter is, or I promise you you'll be one sorry bastard."

I hung up without telling him I'd been a sorry bastard most of my life.

I had lots of quarters. I called Alice Brown to tell her the troopers would be watching over her.

"Me? You're—oh," she said. "Oh, I understand."

"I thought you would. Have you been okay?"

"Yes. But the sheriff was here, and right after him one of those men you told me about. The one with the cast on his wrist."

"Otis. They wanted to know where Jimmy was?"

"Yes. I told them both the same thing—about Jimmy cheating on me and how I threw him out. And I said if anyone found him they shouldn't bother to tell me because I couldn't care less."

"Good. When was this?"

"This morning, about eleven. I called you at Antonelli's but no one answered."

"Did they believe you?"

"I don't know."

"Will you be okay there?"

"I'm all right. What should I do?"

"Keep on doing what you're doing. As far as you're concerned it's a normal day, because you don't know where Jimmy is anyway. I'll check back with you."

I was about to hang up when she asked a sudden question: "Will it be all right?" Her voice through the phone was shaky and brave.

For a moment I couldn't answer. Then I said, "I want it to be. Alice, I'll do what I can."

"I know," said Alice. "Thank you."

I depressed the silver cradle, kept the receiver to my ear. I dropped in another quarter, tried the green house again, and the number Otis had dialed from it, but they both rang into emptiness.

I crossed the parking lot back into the 7-Eleven, bought another pack of Kents, a lemon, and a box of teabags. As a last-minute thought I grabbed a bottle of aspirin. Back in the car I washed three pills down with the last of the lemonade, turned the car and the music on, and headed down the road.

Chapter 15

A loud buzzing cut like a chainsaw through my dream. Bare winter trees, dark sky, cold. A stream, two ways to cross it: one a bridge, ugly and new; the other shadowy, undefined. People in the shadows, people I thought I knew but couldn't see. Movement in the darkness. And then the buzzing, and I was awake, disoriented in the twilit room.

I groped for the clock, hit the button. The buzzing stopped. I lifted the clock and focused on it: four o'clock. Christ, what a stupid time to get up. No, but it was afternoon, not morning; and Lydia was coming. Right, at four-thirty. Get out of bed, Smith, take a shower, make yourself bearable.

Groggy and stiff, I stumbled to the bathroom. I'd been asleep for an hour, since I'd gotten back from the Creekside Tavern. I stood under the hot water, tried to make the steam clear my brain.

The Creekside. Shabby mustard-colored shingles, brown vinyl trim, windows full of lit beer signs, most for brands the Creekside didn't sell anymore. Inside, wood-grain Formica dimness and a stale smell. No sign of the drug dealing that went on from the bar or the bookmaking business in the back room, but it was early in the day.

Two guys my age were curled over beers at the bar; two younger guys and a girl with a fountain of hair springing from the top of her head were playing pool. They all looked up, measured me, an intruder in their territory, and just how tough was I, if it came to where that mattered? I sat on a barstool near the door, not near the other guys, the etiquette of the stranger.

"Haven't seen you here before," the bartender said, put my Bud on the bar. He was blond and big, shirtsleeves pushed up past his elbows.

"No," I said. "I'm from North Blenheim. I don't get over this way much."

That placed me for them, told them where I'd been before I walked into their lives.

"What brings you over here now?" he asked.

I drank some beer. "Frank Grice."

He made a show of looking around the near-deserted room. "He's not here."

"Been in lately?"

"I don't remember."

"Buy yourself a drink. It might help your memory." I dropped a twenty on the bar.

"Why, thanks, friend." He scooped up the bill, rang it into the register. He poured a shot of Dewar's, downed it, smiled, and shook his head. "I don't think that helped."

"Think harder," I suggested.

One of the pool players straightened up from the felt, strolled around the pool table, cue loose in his right hand. I drank more beer, put the glass down on the bar as he came to stand beside me.

"Something I can do for you?" I asked, not looking at him.

"You look familiar. You look like a cop." A nasal voice, belligerent and edgy.

"I never liked my face much, either," I said.

"What do you want Frank for?"

"He's got something I want." "What?"

I looked him over. Smallish; fish-belly pale; eyes a little out of focus. Close up, he was younger than I'd thought, too young to be drinking in the Creekside in the early afternoon.

"Tell you what, Junior," I said. "You tell me where Frank is, and I'll tell him my secret, and afterwards, if you're good, he'll tell you."

"Sonuvabitch," he growled. He hefted the pool cue, moved closer.

I slipped off the barstool toward him, took a quick step in, too close for him to swing the cue. I socked him in the stomach, fast but not all that hard; but his eyes had told me he'd drunk enough that I didn't need to hit him hard. He made a small noise, doubled over, was quietly sick.

"Hey!" came from his friend on the other side of the pool table. He headed for me.

"Mike!" said the bartender sharply. "Hold it!"

The second pool player halted, his hands rolled into fists. He glanced from the bartender to me, back again.

"You're not going to break up my place," the bartender said. "You," he turned to me, "get the hell out."

Standing, I realized that the beer was hitting me harder than it usually did. The room wasn't as still or solid as I liked rooms to be. Getting out didn't seem like a bad idea.

I dropped my card on the bar. "Tell Frank I know about Ginny Sanderson, and the truck," I said to them all. "Tell him he'll have to deal with me. I'll be at Antonelli's tonight. Tell him that."

And I left the Creekside, my clothes still carrying that stale, sour smell as I drove, slowly and carefully, back to my cabin, to sleep.

The hot water faded to warm, lukewarm, cold. After a few minutes of cold I gave it up. I dried, dressed, built a fire in the stove, put the kettle on. Four twenty-five. I sat at the piano, worked at slow, even scales until I heard a car crunch down the driveway. Four-forty. I closed the piano, opened the front door in time to see a Ford Escort roll to a stop next to my Acura.

I crossed to the car as Lydia got out. I hesitated, then kissed her cheek, caught the scent of freesia in her hair.

"Don't squeeze," she said. "Where's your bathroom?"

I pointed to the cabin door. "Just inside, on the left. I'll bring your things."

She scuttled up the porch steps, disappeared inside.

I reached into the car, brought out a zippered, snapped, strapped, and buckled carry-on of soft black leather. I followed her inside, dropped the bag on the couch. The bathroom door opened and she came out, combing her hair back from her face with her fingers.

"Didn't you stop?" I grinned.

"I wouldn't have made it by four-thirty if I'd stopped."

"I always stop," I told her. "Twice."

She made a rude noise.

"That's just what your mother always says to me."

"I'm not surprised. What happened to your face?"

I’ll tell you all about it. Do you want some tea? It's only Lipton's, in a bag," I apologized. "It was all I could get.

"When in Rome," she sighed. I took that as a yes.

Lydia shook off her leather jacket, unclipped her holster from her belt. The lamplight was gold on her smooth skin; it caught highlights in her hair, which was black and asymmetrical, like her clothes. While I made her tea, and coffee for myself, she wandered around the room, investigating my drawings, photographs, books. She stopped at the small silver-framed photo. She picked it up in both hands, looked at it silently, then looked over at me; but I was busy with cups, spoons, and teabags, and I let her look pass.

"It's just the way I thought it would be up here," she finally said, coming over to the counter, collecting her tea.

"I didn't know you ever thought about it."

"Don't play dumb." She settled onto the couch, drew her legs up. The cushions molded themselves to her as if they'd been expecting her, as if they were already used to her being here.

"I'm not," I said. "Playing, anyway. I'll tell you the whole story."

"That's only part of it."

"Part of what?"

"What I'm mad about."

"I thought the problem was I wouldn't tell you who the client was, why the paintings were here."

"The other part is there's a client at all."

"I don't get you."

A log shifted on the fire. I could see sparks through the stove grate; then everything was still again.

"I thought you came up here," Lydia said, "to get away from work."

"I always have, before this."

"But this time, someone from here called you in New York to hire you."

"That's right."

"When you left you didn't tell me that."

I sipped my coffee. "I wasn't sure I was going to take it."

"So? When you did take it, you called me to work on it. To work for you." "With."

"No, for. If it was with, you'd have told me from the beginning. Even if you weren't sure."

"I've turned down cases before," I said. "Without telling you."

"And taken them. And I didn't care. But I thought things were supposed to be different now."

"Am I supposed to consult you on every decision I make?"

"God, I knew you'd say that! No, and you're not supposed to play dumb again, either." She pulled her legs in closer, wrapped both hands around her mug. "This is a big deal, you working up here. You can't pretend it isn't."

"I'm not pretending anything."

She nodded, but I had the feeling it wasn't because she agreed with me. "I think you did it for the same reason you didn't tell me about it or tell me who the client is."

"What reason is that?"

Her eyes confronted mine. Her look was hard under the soft lamplight, but there was more than anger in it.

"Caring about you," she said, "is a big problem for me."

I reached onto the side table for a cigarette. "I'm not sure what that means, and I don't know how to answer it."

"Before," she said, "when we just worked together, just sometimes, that was easy. Now, if we're supposed to be partners and .. . and maybe whatever, then I can't do it unless you really mean it too."

"You think this has to do with that?"

"I know it does. You're used to working alone. You took a case up here and didn't tell me about it because you're not so sure being partners is a good idea. Maybe it's not, but if it isn't, then I can tell you right now that all that other stuff you've been saying you wanted all these years is a worse one."

I put my coffee mug down on the side table without looking at it. I didn't have to look; years of sitting in this chair, reading, smoking, listening to music, had given me the measure of that table, of this room and everything in it.

"I don't know," I told Lydia. "If that's what I did I didn't mean to do it."

"You didn't mean to, or you meant to but you just didn't know you did?"

Briefly, I met her eyes, then looked beyond them to the shadows gathering on the porch I'd built, the dusk starting its business of disputing the daylight's confident disposition of the facts of time, depth, distance.

"I don't know," I said again.

"Well," she said, "you'd better figure it out. Because I'm not going down this road if this is what's there. I can still help it. So think about it."

We sat in silence for a while, no sound but the crackle of logs in the stove, the hiss of a match as I lit another cigarette when the first was gone. I was beginning to think bourbon would have been a better idea than coffee when Lydia spoke again.

"Okay." She surprised me with a grin. "Anyway, you have this case and I'm here. So tell me about it."

I told her. I went through everything that had happened since Monday, everything I thought had happened before. I told her what I was sure of and what I wasn't, what I was worried might be coming next. We talked the way we always talked, going back, forward, back again. I gave her everything, even things I didn't understand.

She sipped her tea, listened, asked a few careful questions. When I had said all I had to say she was quiet; then she asked, "These people are very important to you, aren't they?"

"Tony and Jimmy ..." I began. Then I didn't know anything else to say besides "Yes."

"And Eve Colgate, too."

"Eve, too."

"And this place." Her eyes moved over the room, stared into the woods, dark now beyond the windowpanes, then came back to me. "Bill, can he really do that? Have your land condemned?"

I looked into the murky depths of my coffee, answered, "I'm sure he can."

"Is it worth it?"

I looked up, met her eyes. "Jimmy didn't kill Wally Gould."

"If you did what Sanderson wants," she said, "Jimmy would get arrested, but your land would be safe, and if he's innocent—"

"It wouldn't matter. Between Brinkman and Grice, Jimmy'd be sent up for life, if he lived long enough."

"So it's worth it?"

"It's got to be."

In the silence I could hear the wind moving in the trees around the cabin, the whispering, the rustling and creaking as familiar to me as my own breathing, my own bones.

Lydia stood, crossed the room. She sat on the arm of my chair, kissed my bruised cheek very gently. Freesia and citrus mingled in the cool air.

"Okay," she said. "Just making sure." Her face grew serious. "I just hope you're not—missing something," she said. "Because of how you want things to come out."

"That's one of the reasons I asked you to come. I wanted someone I could trust, someone who's detached."

"Well," she said doubtfully, "detached hasn't ever been my best thing."

"You'll be fine. And besides being detached," I said, "you have that beautiful, anonymous, rented car. I have plans for that."

"My car," she said, standing. She clipped her gun to her belt. "I drive."

"Always. Besides," I added casually, "it's probably not a stick shift. I bet it wouldn't be any fun anyway."

"Forget it. I drive."

So she drove, up my driveway and on to 30, north under the bare winter trees spread against the dark sky.

Our first stop was the 7-Eleven, where we picked up cigarettes, beer, and a chicken parmesan hero. The clerk stared at Lydia as though she were a black-petalled orchid that had sprung up in the daisy patch. Back in the car, Lydia grinned, said, "Not many Asians up here, huh?"

"Especially in black leather."

"You think I'm too downtown?"

"I think you're adorable."

"Seriously, Bill. Will it be a problem? That I can't blend?"

I shook my head. "Outsiders don't blend here, no matter what they look like. I've been coming here for eighteen years; once I lived here through the fall and winter into the spring. I'm still a weekender. Brinkman calls me city boy.'"

"When did you do that?"

"What?"

"Live here."

I lit a cigarette, found the ashtray in the unfamiliar dash. "Seven years ago."

Lydia said, "Mmm." I didn't say anything.

She rolled down her window. The wind blew her silky hair across her forehead. She combed it back with her fingers.

When the first cigarette was gone I pulled out another.

"If it makes you that crazy," Lydia said, "you can drive."

"Do all Chinese read minds?" I pushed the cigarette back in the pack.

"Only me and my mother."

"I love your driving. Hear that, Mrs. Chin? I love your daughter's driving. Turn here."

We had reached the steep hardscrabble road. We bounced up it, emerged from the trees onto the flat, rock- strewn plain.

"We're here," I said.

Tonight there was a moon. The ridge was clearly visible, towering on the other side of the great pit, in whose glassy surface stars glittered.

"God," Lydia said, staring. "Where are we, Mars?"

"It's an abandoned quarry pit. The one I told you about, where Jimmy dropped the cars."

A truck went by on the ridge road, its headlights passing behind trees a hundred yards above where we sat.

"That's weird," she said.

"There's a road up there, but you can't get here from it, except on foot. Stay in the car a minute."

I got out, moved away from the car. The shack was dark and silent. "Jimmy!" I shouted, "It's Bill. I have a friend with me. I need to talk to you."

A short silence. Then from behind me, some distance away, Jimmy's voice, hoarse and loud: "Who's with you?"

I turned. There was a great mound of jagged rock, with smaller mounds piled at its feet like the ritual remnants of some brutal civilization. Nothing moved. I called, "No one you know. Another PI." I motioned Lydia out of the car. She stepped out cautiously, her jacket unzipped but her hands empty.

Scraping sounds came from the mound. The moon covered everything with a silver light that had no dimension. The scraping stopped, and Jimmy, rifle in one hand, jumped from a rock that jutted sharply from the mound's face.

"Man, where've you been?" he demanded. His face was haggard, sleepless. His jumpy eyes flashed from Lydia to me. "Where's your car?"

"My car's too obvious. I wanted to come up here in something Brinkman wasn't looking for."

He eyed Lydia again.

"This is Lydia Chin," I told him. "We work together sometimes, in the city. She's okay."

"Thanks," said Lydia dryly.

We followed Jimmy into the shack. He lit the wobbly kerosene lamp. His clothes stank of sweat and smoke; there was a pile of cigarette butts on the table.

Jimmy shifted uneasily.

"You scared the shit out of me."

"For Christ's sake, Jimmy, what's wrong?" I put the 7- Eleven bag on the table.

"Someone was here."

A chill went through me. "Who?"

"I don't know, man! Last night, in the rain. Someone came up the truck road. A car. I saw his lights."

"Did he see you?"

"I don't know. He could've. I had the lamp lit, you know, just .. ." He shrugged. "I killed it when I saw his lights, but he could've seen it."

"And you didn't see him?"

"No, man. It was raining, it was dark."

"Did he drive close to the shack?"

"Uh-uh. Just to the top of the truck road. He was here maybe five minutes, then he split."

"Did he get out of the car?"

"I don't know! I couldn't see him!"

"Okay, Jimmy, okay. Here, we brought you some dinner. And some beer. You look like you could use it." I reached into the bag, put a six-pack on the table. Jimmy yanked a can off the plastic; I did the same. He looked unsurely at Lydia. "You want one?"

"No, thanks," she said. She had stationed herself by the window, listening to us, keeping an eye on the empty landscape.

Jimmy sat on the rickety chair. I perched on the edge of the table. He unwrapped the sandwich, bit into the end as I asked him, "What did you do?"

"When?" he asked, muffled by chicken and cheese.

"Last night."

He swallowed. "What did I do? I didn't do anything!" He took a long pull on his beer. "I thought about it, man. I thought, soon as he's gone, I'm history! I figured with the rain and all, I could make the Thruway and be in Canada by morning."

"Why didn't you?"

He stared at me. "Because you said not to! Because you said stay put!"

"Good."

"But then you didn't come last night, and you didn't come today . . ." He looked at me out of eyes that seemed as tired as mine. "Jesus, Mr. S. What's gonna happen?"

"What's going to happen is that you're going to tell me the truth."

"Oh, man—"

"Don't start that shit, Jimmy!" I slammed my beer down on the table. "Here's what happened last night: someone cracked me on the head, left me lying in the woods in the rain. That I'm not dead is pretty much an accident. And someone tore up a shed belonging to a friend of mine. I want to know why. And someone drove your truck off the road into the ravine."

He paled. "What the hell are you talking about?"

"It's what I said the other night: this is no goddamn game, not anymore."

"Game," he muttered. He shook his head. "Are—are you okay?"

"No. My head is killing me, my shoulder's sore, I'm stiff, I'm tired, and I'm generally pissed off. So now tell me, Jimmy, it's Ginny who had the truck, isn't it?"

He shook a Salem from the pack in his parka. "Yeah." He lit it, looked at me in silence, as though he didn't want the answer to the question he was about to ask.

"There was no one in it," I told him.

He let out a breath, nodded. "Jesus," he said.

"Since when has she had it?" I asked.

"Last week. Thursday, I think."

"You think?"

"Some time Wednesday night, Thursday morning."

"Right after she told you she didn't want to see you anymore? What the hell did you give her your truck for, if she was kissing you off?"

He dragged on the cigarette, blew smoke into the cold room. "I didn't. She has her own keys. I gave her a set. Well, loaned them to her. The ones on the silver ring." He looked up at me. "She loves that truck, man. She loves to drive it. She's so little, it's so big. She gets a real charge out of that truck. When it was missing, I knew that's who took it."

"So she took it, and she's had it a week, and you didn't do anything about it?"

"What the hell was I supposed to do, report it stolen? She's fifteen, man. And her father, he thinks she's a fucking saint. He'd kill her if she was in trouble with the law."

"That's why she hangs around with guys like you?"

He shrugged. "Just because he thinks she's a saint, that don't make her one. Maybe if he got to know her a little better she wouldn't run around looking for trouble to get into." He hesitated. "Mr. S.? What about my truck?"

"From what Brinkman says, it was totaled."

"Shit." He shook his head slowly, gave a short laugh. "Ain't that a kick in the ass?"

"Jimmy," I said, "there was blood in the cab. And a nine- millimeter automatic."

"A gun? In my truck?"

"And I'd bet the rent it's the one that killed Wally Gould."

"Oh, Jesus."

"Yeah. Whose is it?"

"Please, man. Please. You gotta believe me. I don't know whose it is. It's not mine."

"Do you have one? A handgun, any kind?"

He shook his head. "Just the rifle. It's all I ever owned. Ever." He glanced at the Winchester standing against the wall. "Tony gave it to me. A long time ago."

"I know, Jimmy."

"I'd've told you," he said. "About Ginny. I almost did. But when you said about my keys being at the bar . . ."

"Jimmy," I said, "I know you're trying to protect her, but you're not doing her a favor. I saw her last night."

"Ginny?"

I nodded.

"So what're you asking me about the goddamn truck for? You knew she had it."

"No. She was in her car. I didn't find her, she came and found me, at the bar. She wouldn't tell me about the truck. Unless," I said, "I told her where to find you."

"Find me?" He had the look of a man trying to make sense of the half-remembered incidents in a dream. "Ginny wanted to find me? What the hell for?"

I drank some beer; it just made the cold room colder. "Any ideas?"

He shrugged wearily. "Frank. You said Frank was looking for me. She's always trying to impress fucking Frank, he's always telling her go away and leave him alone. Maybe she thought if she found me, that would work."

I looked around the room, the wavering lamp flame,

Lydia in black leather at the dusty window. "Jimmy," I said, "remember I told you Eve Colgate was robbed?"

He nodded.

I said, "Someone made a real mess in a shed on her farm last night. I was on my way to see what was going on when I was hit."

"I don't get it. Who hit you?"

I gave him the short version. When I was through he didn't move, didn't speak. Finally he said, through tight lips, "Jesus, man. You could've been killed."

"Yeah. By whom, Jimmy?"

He rubbed his grimy face. "Honest to God, Mr. S., I don't know," he said. "But if I find out, I'll kill him. I swear I will."

I laughed, shook my head.

Jimmy looked at me in surprise. He smiled weakly. Lydia, looking over, smiled too.

"Jimmy, listen, what about the burglary?"

He gave me a blank look. "What about it?"

"Could Ginny have done that?"

He shrugged. "I guess she could have. She's always trying to prove she's tough. Bad, you know. Like she smokes Camels, without filters. She could've done it to show, like, that she could."

"To show whom?"

"The guys. You know, everyone."

"Frank?"

"Yeah, she does a lot of shit like that. But it never works. Frank don't want nothing to do with her."

"Why not? She's too young?"

"Frank don't give a shit about that. He's just, like, he just don't want her around." He stood, paced the gritty room. "Jesus, Mr. S., I feel like I don't know a fucking thing. Except I know I'm sick of this place. I'm sick of these clothes, and that goddamn stove, and hearing the goddamn wind all day. Tell me what to do." There was nothing guarded in his eyes now, nothing hidden. All there was was weariness and fear. "Whatever you say, I'll do it. You think I should turn myself in?"

I thought about it. "No. Someone's trying to set you up for Gould's murder. My choice is Frank. That's pretty straightforward, but there's something else going on and I don't want Brinkman to get his hands on you until I know what the hell it is."

He lifted his shoulders in a helpless gesture.

"Where does Frank live in Cobleskill?" I asked.

"Those condos over the bridge. You know, the ones with the pool. The first building, on the third floor. His name's not on the bell."

"What name is?"

An embarrassed look. "Capone."

"Capone?" "Uh-huh."

"Too bad," I said. "A sense of humor almost makes a guy human. I'd hate to think that about Frank."

Jimmy added his cigarette butt to the pile on the table. "But he's got this other place he uses sometimes, in Franklinton."

"A grungy green house at the top of Endhill Road?"

Jimmy's eyes widened. "Uh-huh. How do you know that?"

"I know all sorts of things," I said. "And if I knew why Wally Gould was killed at the bar, I could die a happy man."

"Christ, Mr. S., I've been thinking about that for two days. That basement—-Jesus! Why would anyone go there? There's nothing to steal. Tony hasn't got anything."

I said, "Maybe they went there because that's where they had a key to."

"A key—you mean, mine? That they would've got from Ginny? Yeah, but still . . ."

I finished my beer, set the can down. "Yeah," I said. "But still." I zipped my jacket, pulled my gloves on. "Okay, Jimmy. Give me another day. But if I come up with nothing, then I think you should turn yourself in. Not to Brinkman, to the troopers. I have a friend there. And Jimmy? What I said the other night, about if they find you?"

"Yeah, I know. Don't shoot nobody." He tried to grin.

"Right," I said.

He stood in the doorway watching us leave. An unsteady shaft of light from the kerosene lamp pointed over the dust and rubble.

"Mr. S.?" he called after us. I turned. "How's Allie?"

"She's fine," I said. "She's worried about you."

"Tell her ... I don't know. Tell her I was asking."

In the car, picking our way down the rocky road, I said to Lydia, "I know he's hard to take."

"I liked him," she said.

"You're kidding."

"No. He reminds me of you."

"Oh, thanks."

"You said this wasn't a game anymore. Did he ever really think it was?"

"He said he did. But no. He didn't."

She steered onto the blacktop. "Where to, boss?"

I let the "boss" go. "Back to my place for my car, then to Antonelli's. You're going to meet our client, and if I'm lucky, Frank Grice will come to me."

"Ancient Chinese wisdom," Lydia said. "That kind of luck you don't need."

Chapter 16

Eve Colgate was at the bar talking quietly with Tony when Lydia and I walked into Antonelli's. The whole place was quiet, almost back to normal. Sic transit gloria. Tony poured me a drink, put together a club soda with lemon for Lydia. Eve and Lydia, appraising each other, headed for a back table. As I picked my bourbon off the bar to follow them Tony said, "Smith, I gotta talk to you."

I glanced at Lydia and Eve, found myself thinking how balanced they were, one quick and dark and small, the other tall, pale, still. "In a few minutes?"

"Okay." Tony went back to wiping glasses, his face unreadable.

Eve's clear eyes regarded me steadily as I sat. "How were the milking machines?" I asked her.

"They might do," she said. "Harvey thinks it will work."

"I'm glad." I sipped some bourbon, reminded myself about the beer at the Creekside, put the bourbon down. "Eve, I've told Lydia everything that's happened, and everything else she needs to know. She understands what's important to you, and she'll try as hard as I'm trying to keep your private life private."

Eve turned her eyes to Lydia, said nothing.

"I also understand," Lydia said, "that you don't want me here. I don't blame you. I'll try to make it as easy as