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wasn't feeling too well, he lost his temper."
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Pádraig beat a rough hand against his knee, though whether the act was in irritation with
Long or in sympathy with him, Martha had no clue. "It's a bad time for them to be
worrying about that, with George after dying."
Martha's back did not quite touch the back of her chair. Her feet began once more to
pendulum as she replied, "They think it was a bad time for him to lose his temper."
"It's a bad time enough!" Pádraig's voice was heated and just a bit too loud. The
policeman at the desk looked up warily, as did a woman in muslin sitting at a word
processor. Pádraig did not notice, for he was so slumped into his seat that the top of his
sleek black head was all that was visible from the front. He hit his thigh with his hand
once more, for good measure, and he gave a sigh that bounced his torso.
"You'll feel better if you sit up," Martha said, hesitantly. Half-sullen, half-tolerant, he
obliged her. "What can happen, if he is convicted of this beating?"
Martha shrugged. "A fine, I hope. He looks so harmless, no judge could take the
complaint too seriously."
Pádraig made a rough and disbelieving sound.
For another few minutes they sat there, side by side, each busy with solitary thought, and
then Martha glanced over once again. "Pádraig? What were you going to tell them, if
theyhad arrested him for murder? About his not being at the place at all& ?"
Pádraig straightened again and made a grimace. "Not so. I was confused. I would have
told them that I know this man could not kill a man. That Iknow it."
Martha sat in the embarrassed silence she always felt when someone told her what she
knew to be a lie.
The jail cell looked out to a four-lane street, with the multistory parking garage beyond.
Not picturesque. Nor was the cell as comfy as the police station had seemed to promise. It
was neat, the walls were freshly painted, and there was a W.C., but it was not a place to
either rest or delight the spirit. Worst of all, in Long's opinion, it was not wholly his.
He had to share it with a very unappealing stripling with great blackheads all over his
cheeks, who hadn't said a word in response to Long's greeting, nor had he met his
companion's eyes in the hour since forced to share the domicile.
But that was just as well. Unlikely the boy's conversation would be entertaining, and
with the involvements of eye contact removed, Long felt free to examine the fellow. He
sat on the edge of one bunk (better mattress than the motel. Solid) with one leg drawn up
and his head moving almost imperceptibly from side to side in slow rhythm, and he
stared at the boy all he liked.
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A runaway, Long surmised. From an institution, rather than a family perhaps. That
particular brand of calm sullenness was rarely of home brew. Not a street thug or a gang
member: he lacked the necessary rude dash. Long doubted also that he was a drug pusher,
for who would buy anything to be put into the body from such a dirty fellow?
He might have been a petty thief, of course. It was even possible (but not probable, Long
qualified carefully) that he was an honest soul unjustly accused of something. Who had
been unfairly goaded to violence upon someone richly deserving violence. Examining the
boy's eyes and nostrils closely, Long ascertained that he did not have a cold, so that
particular very good excuse did not apply, but there were various sorts of torture in the
world.
Thought slid toward the personal. He reviewed his interview with Stoughie with real
regret.
He ought to have killed the fellow and disposed of the body. Out of a window, or into a
suitcase. Better, a pair of suitcases. Thence into the ocean, like fishbait. Would the local
fishermen accept indeterminate chunks of red meat? Lovely for rock cod. Surely the gulls
would dispose of the offal.
But Martha would disapprove very highly. She had considered a similar act of five years
previous as philosophical error of the worst kind, albeit effective. And who knew but that
Don Stoughie had an aged mother at home, whose sole support he was. Long, being
Chinese, had a great respect for family.
No matter, he had made his decision there by the agent's desk, and had gone halfway in
action. Now the consequences would wash over him. What goes around, comes around.
Who said that? Dogen? Weird Teddy?
Blue hell. Sometimes the game wasn't worth the candle. It was all because he wasn't a
natural, Long knew. With human life, as with music, he hadn't the intuitive grasp, and
needed much study. Human life, however, was far less comprehensible and therefore
more important to him than was music.
With a thrill of fear and elation and horror he felt himself as what he was: an aging
human man wearing clothes and sitting on a hard mattress under electric lights, waiting
for others to decide his future. And with a terrible head cold. What awesome truth was
concealed in that he did not know. But he wanted so much to know, that he began to
tremble.
Since he had been with Martha he had most certainly approached that knowledge. He
had seen the footprints of the ox of enlightenment, at least. Sometimes, in the past four
years, while talking with her or walking alone in Mendocino, he believed he had had
visions of the animal itself. Not that Martha was in any sense oxlike& But he found it a
fragile understanding, and wiped away by confusion and the body's pain. He wanted
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more. Right now, he wanted aspirin.
He took out a Kleenex. He glanced once more at the unappealing youth, to find that one
staring with unhealthy fascination at the center of Long's body.
Long recoiled, but the boy did not notice, for his gaze was impersonal, almost
unfocused, and directed two feet down from Long's head. It was hungry.
Long felt the repulsion many people feel for snakes. He curled his knees to his chest. He
turned away. Now he was facing the door of the cell, half glass and wire-reinforced, like
that in a grammar school. Peripherally he could see that the reptilian scrutiny continued.
Very nervous-making.
He forced his mind to constructive effort. Nothing would happen here until Mr.
Alexander, the lawyer, arrived from Palo Alto. Then he would be let out on bail, unless
Don Stoughie could convince them all he was a continuing danger to him. That was not
likely. Long coughed into his Kleenex with a touch of self-pity.
The very idea of pity reminded him of St Ives's death, for Long, though he had no reason
to like the man, did feel sorry that he had been killed in that way. Ugly.
There was little doubt in his mind that the death had been murder. From the little he had
known of the piper, he had decided that although St. Ives was more than a bit cruel and
dishonest in method, he was not a creature of wild moods. And a generally sour attitude
does not lead to suicide, Long believed. St. Ives had taken drugs that day, and drugs
could certainly affect the moods, but Long had never heard of suicide as a side effect of
MDM, and he kept up with every major news weekly, as well asThe New York Times .
Fear, shame, despair, or ungovernable pain: those could lead to self-destruction. St. Ives
didn't seem governed by any of these. Hewas , however, governed by a need to cut at
people, and he had given all five of them good reasons to want him dead in the eight
weeks of the tour. [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]