Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [24]
Over the course of our affair, I gradually talked myself out of being in love with Vivian. I was like a man trying to rescue himself from a cult he had started. I told myself I was being realistic, noble, that I was doing her a favor, but I couldn’t deny the hurt I saw in her eyes when she realized I was pulling away. I went from being too available to being too invisible, and when she pressed me on it, I gave her that old bullshit answer that I was too busy. I knew exactly what I was doing, and when Matson came along, he became part of the exit strategy. Judging from my reaction in the bar that night, however, it had worked a lot better than I thought it would.
And now Matson was dead, but nothing was finished. In fact, things seemed less finished now than when he was alive. If I closed my eyes, I could see the white yacht with its perilous cargo sitting quietly in the water as the sky darkened, the sun now far to the west and set on setting. Then something that had been trying to surface finally did, and all of a sudden none of it made sense. Matson had money, but the boat I’d seen would have cost at least $3 million, and that much he didn’t have. Sometimes people become more mysterious in death than they were in life, and that seemed to be the case with Matson.
Then I started thinking about the money the Colonel had offered me; five zeros after a one, and don’t forget the comma. I kept thinking about the yacht out there, inert off the coast with a dead man on board like a thing waiting to be done. I began to feel a strange tension come over me, as though I were being held back, and I knew then that I would do it. I knew in my gut that I had a rendezvous with that boat that I would keep for better or for worse. It was only then that the tension eased and I could relax.
It was seven o’clock when I picked up the phone and called the Colonel’s house. I was half hoping that it was too late. The maid answered, and a moment later the Colonel picked up the phone. It annoyed me that he didn’t sound at all surprised to hear my voice.
“Did you call to say you’ve changed your mind?” he asked.
“No, I called to ask what your sign was.”
“A dollar sign,” he said, laughing heartily at his own joke. We were good friends now, fellow conspirators. “I knew you were a mercenary at heart, Jack. You were starting to worry me.”
“Send your daughter over with half the money, and send her soon.”
He didn’t laugh at that one. “You think I keep that kind of cash around the house?”
“I don’t care where you keep it,” I said. “I get the other half when I get back.” I listened to the sound of my own voice as I said this, and I didn’t particularly like what I heard.
The Colonel must not have liked my tone either. I listened to him breathe for a few seconds. “What time?” he asked. “What time should I send her?”
I thought for a moment. “Make it midnight.”
“She’ll be there.”
“Groovy.”
“I’d like to ask you a question.”
“Ask.”
“Are you doing it for Vivian or for the money?”
“What do you think?”
“Mercenaries often lack heart, Jack. But love and money aren’t mutually exclusive.”
“So long, Colonel,” I said. “You’ll be seeing me soon.” Then I thought of something. “Oh, and one last thing while I’ve got you on the phone.”
“Yes?”
“How did Vivian get out to the boat, and how did she get back? Don’t tell me she swam.”
There was only a brief hesitation. “She went out on her Jet Ski, and that’s the way she got back.” There was another pause. Nothing in his tone indicated that he might be lying, but it’s harder to judge a thing like that over the phone. With the Colonel, though, it would have been difficult even if I’d been staring him in the eye.
“Anything else, Jack?”
“If there is, it’ll have to wait.”
I hung up and sat for a while