The Devil's Game Page 9

Probably I do no good, am not noticed. Possibly the creature has no hostile intentions at all. The fact is, York slams his outboard around, roars up the scale of revs, and is there inside a couple of million microseconds. A man reaches overside, grabs Gayle and drags her aboard.

  As I stumble back onto the islet, I’m crying. I’m out of practice at that, and it doesn’t come easy.

  “Something wrong?” Byron demands.

  “She, she, she’s all right.” I’m damn near strangled by my own breath. “She’s all right, I tell you. They reached her in time. They did.”

  “Who?” Julia seizes my arm. Blood trickles down hers from the gash across her right shoulder.

  “Mrs. Thayer, who else?” Orestes says. Again he spits.

  “Well, if she had to be rescued, you eliminated her, no? And others, perhaps?”

  I can’t squint coolly into his eyes and drawl a remark that only he and Julia and I will understand. I’m too busy wrestling myself. Even this minute I know that inside an hour I’ll start to have afterthoughts, regrets, had-I-buts. God damn it, though, right now I’ve got to wash Morgana clean!

  “N-no.” I push the words out somehow. “Nobody … eliminated. I… I… declare th’ game ended … ever’body in free … as of time I… myself … landed. And’ll be no more games today. You got the rest of the goddamn day— and tomorrow—you got it off. Be my witnesses … when the rest get here … you be my witnesses, I am not a murderer!”

  I sit down, knees drawn high, arms across them, face buried, and gasp. Ellis joins us; he didn’t let the fish terrify him into quitting, then, but from the way he shudders, that cost. By now I can raise my head. Byron explains, lowvoiced. Ellis gives me a look of contempt.

  INTERVAL THREE

  Larry absented himself as soon as they got back, and nobody saw him till evening. He clumped into the living room at the cocktail hour, clothes muddy; sweat had made canals in the grime on his skin, plastered down his hair, and surrounded him with a sour odor. For a moment the others, who were presentable and cool, gaped. Julia was the first to move. She set down her martini, ran to him and caught his hands.

  “Where’ve you been?” she cried “We were going crazy!”

  Ellis snorted. Matt said, “The hell I was.” Orestes smiled enigmatically into his tequila sour. But Byron joined the woman.

  “Why should you?” Larry croaked. He met none of their eyes.

  “We supposed you’d made for the hills,” Byron said .

  “Uh-huh. I took a hike. I … I…”

  “Weren’t you warned about the bats there?” Julia asked. “Rabies. Nobody goes into the hills at dawn or dusk.”

  “Oh. Yeah. Yeah, I guess I was told. Forgot.” Larry looked around the serene walls and furnishings. “Where’s Gayle?”

  “Asleep,” Julia said. “She developed a terrible migraine this afternoon. Understandable.”

  Larry swallowed. “Better go clean up,” he mumbled.

  “A minute,” Byron said. “You feel guilty, don’t you? Why? Me, I’d call you quixotic.”

  As if heavily weighted, Larry’s arm rose till he pointed at Julia’s shoulder. She was in a low-cut blouse, and the bandage showed conspicuously. “You wouldn’t say that would you, Mrs. Petrie?” The words came harshly. “Be honest.”

  “I would, I would.” She threw arms about his neck and kissed him. Immediately afterward she whispered in his ear, “I think you know something you aren’t telling. About me and Orestes. We’ll talk later.” Stepping back, speaking aloud: “Larry, dear, you’ve given us hope we won’t tum in to a pack of cannibal dogs.”

  “You must certainly plan to stay in competition,” Byron added. “I warn you, I don’t intend to be that chivalrous.” Julia glanced downward and laughed. “But do go wash before dinner. I’ve got to change my own outfit.”

  Larry returned a shaken echo of her mirth. “Okay! Only first, damn it, I need about a quart of cold beer.”

  When he and she were gone—he had talked, or babbled, of the wildlife he saw that afternoon, parrots, toucans, woodpeckers, Faberge hummingbirds, lizards, snakes, an iguana, butterflies, ants, spiders—Matt turned on Byron. “What kinda shithead are you, anyway?” he barked. “You and her— didn’tcha see he was ready to quit? You could’a leaned on him and gotten him right out of the contest!”

  Byron studied him over the rim of his glass before replying, “You know, Flagler, I’m tempted to throw this in your face, except that’d be a waste of good liquor.”

  Matt reddened, gobbled, fell silent and drank deep. “You’ve got your inheritance and your father the senator, Shaddock,” Ellis said. “You can afford to make a game of it. But what about the rest of us, eh?”

  “A game, by definition, needs rules,” Byron answered in a tone too mild for the words. “However, I grant you, for us the Queensberry rules are insufficient. Once he gets over his colic of conscience, friend Rance will bitterly regret that he didn’t see this before he threw away his chance. I predict he’ll play it tough from here on in.” He smiled. “So … maybe I kept him active because he’ll be a useful tool for me to eliminate some of you others.”

  Ellis glanced at Orestes. “What do you think, Sr. Cruz?” The Santa Anan fleered. “Why should I tell you my thoughts? You might gain an advantage. Certainly Haverner would gain part of his end, to vivisect our psyches.”

  Nobody said more until dinner.

  “An interesting start,” the old man declared from the head of the table. “Yes, indeed, most interesting.” The servants flitted about, setting forth bowls of iced gazpacho followed by a chicken escabeche. The six paid the food less attention than it deserved. Their seating arrangement had tacitly fallen into a pattern: opposite Haverner, Ellis; on the host’s left, in order, Julia, Byron, Orestes; on his right, Gayle, Larry, Matt. Gayle’s place being vacant now, Larry had moved into it to make an emptiness between him and the man from Chicago.

  “Tomorrow, appropriately, is the Sabbath,” Haverner reminded them. “Yes, they still call Sunday the Sabbath here, and are strict about its observance. Those who wish to rise at about six o’clock in the morning may join my staff for the ride to chapel in the North Port. Unless your appetite for folkways is unappeasable, insist on seats in the two automobiles. The trucks are less than luxurious, especially on a primitive road that winds over the spine of the Island: only six miles as the crow claims to fly, but fifteen on that road, and easily an hour’s uneasy drive. The view from the top is spectacular and, on the farther side, the cultivated fields and orchards are picturesque. I fear you will find little to divert you in town, if town it may be called. But you can return with those who only stay for the morning service.”

  “Thank you,” Byron said. “You’re … most gracious.”

  “My pleasure. Pity Mrs. Thayer is incapacitated. I assume she has no scheme that requires special equipment. Let me repeat, if you want something like that, it can probably be fetched by my airplane pilot, but you had better allow time if it’s an unusual item.”

  “Whad’yuh mean, unusual?” Matt asked. “S’pose it’s, uh, illegal?”

  “I have connections,” Haverner replied blandly, “and, as remarked earlier, on this property I am the law.”

  Byron chuckled. “La loi, c’est moi.” Haverner alone seemed the faintest bit amused, and silence stretched.

  At length the old man said, “We could perhaps have a livelier conversation, don’t you think? One senses a certain awkwardness. Would somebody care to discuss a particular interest of his or hers?”

  Matt poured his wineglass full again. “Yeah,” he said, “let Orestes, there, preach at us.”

  Julia winced. “No. Please. This much conflict already—”

  “Conflict is what we’re here for,” Ellis said. “However, I admit I don’t care to be ranted at by a Communist.”

  “Don’t worry, I will not,” Orestes told him. “In your turn, kindly spare me.”

  Larry glared at Haverner. “We really ought to repay our ho
st by being the sort of entertaining company he wants,” he said with thick sarcasm.

  “To act as his Scheherazades, eh?” Byron responded. “Well, why not?”

  Ellis appeared to be seized by a thought.

  “In fact,” Byron went on, “we could make a rule, if Mr. Haverner is agreeable, that someone has to tell a story or anecdote each evening in turn, preferably out of his own experience.”

  “Mr. Haverner has complete dossiers on us,” Orestes said.

  The man at the head of the table smiled, a dusty expression. “They are not totally complete. Besides, if the period of your life concerned is known to me, I shall be interested to observe the degree of your truthfulness.”

  “How about it, then?” Byron urged. “Who wants to start? Larry?”

  The blond mane shook. “No. Not tonight, anyhow.” Byron’s glance traversed the table and came to rest on Ellis. “You, Mr. Nordberg?” he suggested. “You’ve been the most reticent of us all. I don’t even know where you’re from.”

  “Minneapolis,” The answer was sour.

  “Anything further to tell?”

  “No. Your notion is ridiculous.” Ellis sank again into his brown study.

  Matt hauled him back with a start by saying, after high-pitched laugh, “Oh, I can tell yuh something. I know about him, a few facts, anyway, seeing as how I lived in Chicago and, uh, business took me to Minneapolis once in a while. He heads Northmount Electronics. Transistorized stuff for computers and missiles and such, mainly, only they’re branching out, same as you did, Mr. Haverner, except they’re mighty small potatoes.”

  Ellis flushed, half opened his mouth, snapped it shut. Matt smirked at him and continued, “They say you got your start when you married a girl whose old man backed you. I saw her picture on a society page and sure can’t see any other reason for marrying her.”

  Ellis seemed to reflect, then confronted them with the appearance and tone of indignation. “That’s not true! I’ve nothing to tell that you bright modems won’t find too obsolete to do anything but snicker at. Nothing more than hard work, business sense, service to the community, faith in God.” He drew breath. “Born on a South Dakota farm, one of six children. It was an endless struggle to keep that land during the Depression, yes, during World War Two also, when price controls on what we produced didn’t match those on feed and fertilizer. I earned us a few extra dollars by working for local merchants after school and farm chores. When I graduated from high school, there was no money for college, so I was drafted into the Army. I did manage to convince them I had brains, and if you think that’s easy, think again. They taught me electronics, and by the time I got to Korea to help man the radars, the fighting was over. I was approached about stealing parts to sell on the black market, and notified my superiors, and cooperated with them in getting the evidence that broke the crime ring. For that, I was made an officer. When I left the service, naturally I used the knowledge I’d gained in civilian life. But my country needs what I produce. I’m the father of two fine boys and take an active part in civic affairs.

  “There! Are you satisfied? Have I utterly condemned myself in your eyes, Cruz, and become a total square to the rest of you? Funny, wasn’t it?”

  After a stillness wherein nobody looked straight at anybody else, Byron said softly, “Thanks. Maybe my idea isn’t so good after all. I didn’t mean to see people goaded. … If you wish, I could spin a reminiscence or two, incidents that I at least thought were comical.”

  “Oh, do,” Julia breathed. Larry nodded vigorously. Matt lifted his lip but made no comment. Ellis returned gradually to his introspection. Orestes listened with the same alertness as Haverner.

  “For example,” Byron said, smiling a bit at the Santa Anan, “a friend and I were walking about in Leningrad a few years back. We grew hungry, and even though we had no Russian worth mentioning, hoped we could make a passer-by understand that we wanted a restaurant and draw us directions on a notepad. The fellow we button-holed didn’t know any foreign language we did. So my friend looked up ‘restaurant’ in his pocket dictionary and automatically read out to our poor native, ‘Pectopah? Pectopah?’”

  He spoke on, rapidly and wittily. It was plain to see that the day had exhilarated him. At length he drew some laughs, and the meal ended in a reasonably relaxed atmosphere.

  “Bridge, anyone?” Byron inquired.

  “No, I think I’ll take a small drink and a big book upstairs, read myself early to sleep,” Larry replied. “I’d enjoy that North Port trip.”

  “Same here,” Julia said.

  Ellis approached Haverner as the latter was being assisted to his feet. “Sir,” he asked, as inconspicuously as possible, “may I have a word with you alone?”

  The study was misnamed; “office” would have been better. It had kept the original graceful proportions and spaciousness, burnished hardwood floors, tall windows and cream-colored walls. But filing cabinets lined it, reference shelves, functional modem chairs, a bloc of the latest equipment for sending orders and retrieving information around the globe. An air conditioner hummed and, in this especial room, seemed somehow to have drained out every last wisp of odor.

  Amidst this, like a damning or saving touch of lunacy, stood Sunderland Haverner’s century-old rolltop desk.

  He sat, legs blanketed, in the chaise longue to which his men brought him before they withdrew. Ellis poised on the edge of a smaller seat, fingers squeezed together on his lap till the nails went white. Haverner bridged his own knobby digits, considered them gravely and said with care;

  “Yes, I see no reason not to grant your requests. I will ring for Anselmo and tell him. You and he can work out the details.”

  The wind puffed from Ellis. “Th-th-thank you, sir. Thank you. You’re very generous. I … I wasn’t sure, you realize …’ under the rules—”

  “The rules are flexible, Mr. Nordberg. If no one else has the mother wit to apply to me, why, that’s their misfortune. I must confess to being a little astonished that you ever expected I might refuse. Yes, just a little astonished.”

  “Why?” Ellis forced stiffness into his back.

  Haverner arched his tufted gray brows. “Why? Come, come, my good man. I might go so far as to say, ‘Tut-tut.’ That was a most eloquent lecture you gave at table. But don’t you imagine I know better? Matthew Flagler does—you might be well advised to buy his silence—and his acquaintance with the facts is casual. My detectives spent weeks intensively investigating you seven, once the tentative choices had been made. You too have had occasion to have lives pried into, correct? Well, imagine what thoroughness I can hire if I wish. And I did wish. This experiment is a keystone of my psychological study.”

  Ellis squirmed. “Sir, you may have been told vicious rumors, but the truth—”

  Haverner checked him by raising a hand. “No, no. Spare your pains. I am tired and must soon go for my rest. Besides, I have heard every form of hypocrisy known to man, and am weary unto death of them. One important purpose of this contest is to strip away that habit, to watch what happens when people are compelled to stop lying to themselves.” Braced on his chair, Ellis waited.

  Haverner chuckled. “But please don’t suppose I condemn you, Mr. Nordberg,” he continued amiably. “In fact, we are much alike, you and I. It’s true that your marriage was for pecuniary reasons. Well, likewise mine.”

  “And why not?” Ellis said in an encouraged voice.

  “That was always the reason for marriage, before this trash came along about ‘love’ ”—his tone pronounced the quotation marks—“having anything to do with it. Love is adolescent mopery. Marriage is, used to be, ought to be real, honest, a contract entered into for the good of the country or the family.”

  “Or for oneself, Mr. Nordberg. Oneself. I do not mean to play favorites; that would contradict my objective. But I will earnestly recommend to you, and try to find ways to give your competitors the same hard-bought wisdom—use hypocrisy outside, and only outside, your skin.
It is an indispensable lubricant. However, imagine a machine controlled by a computer. The machine must have oil. Let any get into the computer, though, and the results are disastrous.”

  Somewhere a macaw, startled out of sleep, screeched. “I … appreciate your advice, Mr. Haverner,” Ellis said in a low voice.

  The old man grinned. “But can you take it? Have you sufficient guts—no, integrity—to recognize what you are and live by that?

  “I know you, I tell you, I know you. I can reconstruct with certainty your boyhood’s calculating, bustling sycophancy before those local merchants and the almighty banker. In the Korean episode, when you got wind of the thieving, you deemed it would pay you best to lure the ring into coopting you, and report what was going on. What the military investigators never learned was that you covered up for the leader of the ring, who thus escaped suspicion. He paid you well for that, didn’t he?

  “You were rewarded with officer training and assignment to Japan. There you did a competent job and earned successive promotions; but your best energies went to establishing personal connections that would be useful after you left the Army.

  “You take an active interest in politics, oh, yes. In that way, you have been a powerful force toward getting various bills passed that, in effect, give you fat subsidies—after which you speak before civic groups on the virtues of free enterprise. At the same time, you were shrewd enough to recognize that the catchwords of the ’60’s were not those of the ’50’s. You destroyed an academician who was asking some inconvenient questions by rousing the militant students against him. He was in fact helping young black people learn what they needed to know in order to enter the bourgeois professions, and helping them get such positions after they graduated. You quietly pointed out that this was depriving the black revolution of potential leaders, and the nonrenewal of his contract became a nonnegotiable demand. Very clever, Nordberg, my congratulations. The following decade was more, ah, pragmatic, but you adapted equally well. Among other intelligent policies, the legislators for whom you do favors that are not mentioned in public never belong to your own state. Excellent thinking!”