Sylvie's Cowboy Page 8

  Maude wriggled out of Sylvie’s arms and into Walt’s lap. Where she gave him kisses of greeting until he physically subdued her.

  The two teams took their positions on the field, and the referee tossed in the ball to start the first chukker. Horses lunged. Riders battled for the ball. A player cornered it, and they were off and running toward the goal.

  The crowd around them reacted to the start of the first chukker, but Sylvie was preoccupied with Walt. “You’re late. I was afraid something had happened to you on the highway.”

  Walt did not respond.

  Both teams clustered at the north goal. It appeared a score was certain, but Dan Stern stole the ball and raced toward the south goal, hotly pursued. Just across the center line he whacked the ball and sent it like a missile into the goal.

  The crowd applauded, and Leslye jostled Sylvie. “Danny scored!”

  Sylvie joined Leslye in applauding. She noticed that Walt was scowling, not clapping. “I hope you don’t hate Dan for what happened,” she said. “You’re both special to me. I don’t like to see bad blood between my friends.”

  Walt didn’t look at her. “Things happen,” he said with a shrug. “It’s part of the game.” Then he turned to look see her reaction when he told her, “In fact, I met with Stern yesterday on business. He tried to sell me a project his firm is building. You’d like the name: ‘Pace Tower.’” He cuddled Maude as he talked, plainly oblivious to the match in progress a few yards away.

  “Yes, I know the project. My father started it.”

  “So I’m told. I’ll admit I tinkered with the idea of buying Harry’s share back for you—just to see how you would express your gratitude.”

  Sylvie fidgeted, uncomfortable under his gaze, pretending a greater interest than she felt in the polo match. The crowd cheered a point scored—but Sylvie’s reaction was just a half-second too late.

  Walt continued, allowing her no relief from his eyes. “But your Danny tells me you’ve got your own plans for re-acquiring Harry’s assets. He talks like wedding bells are in your future.” He spoke to Maude then, and his voice dripped with irony. “ ‘Thrift! Thrift, Horatio! The funeral bak’d meats did coldly furnish forth the marriage tables.’”

  Sylvie turned to look at him. “That’s the first time I’ve ever heard you quote Shakespeare. You’re pretty amazing when you want to be.”

  “Flattery will get you everywhere,” he said, “except closer to my money—or Harry’s. That’s what you really want, ain’t it?”

  Sylvie reached out and lifted Maude from his lap. Maude whined and struggled, kicking Walt in his sore ribs. He let out an involuntary grunt of pain and his hand jerked to his side.

  Sylvie kept her eyes on anything but him. “I’ve never pretended I wouldn’t enjoy being ... comfortable ... again someday,” she said. “There’s nothing wrong with having money.”

  “No, but there’s something wrong with lovin’ it. We’re supposed for care about people and use money, not the other way around.”

  On the field, at the center line, Dan Stern and an opposing player fought viciously for possession of the ball. Dan managed to flip it sideways to a teammate. Then he spun around and met that same teammate’s pass, which set him up a long, powerful shot into the goal.

  In the grandstand, the crowd cheered. Leslye lurched up, clapping, and bounced down again—aware of Walt and Sylvie only briefly. “Dan’s wonderful today, isn’t he?” cried Leslye.

  Looking at Sylvie, Walt said, “I’m sure he’s always wonderful.” He stood up, favoring his throbbing ribs. “I bought the horse. But I won’t buy Pace Tower for you. And I hope and pray I won’t buy the farm for you.”

  “Do what you want,” Sylvie said, not looking at him. “It’s your money.”

  “‘Ay, there’s the rub,’ quoth Shakespeare’s melancholy Dane. Yes, ma’am, it is my money.”

  The crowd stood and cheered. Walt edged out of the throng and left the stands. Sylvie looked straight ahead and clutched Maude close.

  Dan and his teammates exchanged congratulatory high-fives as they returned from scoring a goal and lined up for the toss-in. Dan was in his glory, ecstatic.

  In the stands, Leslye sat swaying, eyes glued to the field. “Dan will be throwing one heck of a victory party tonight!” she told Sylvie.

  “You go for both of us, Les. I think I’ll turn in early.” Sylvie hugged her dog and stared at nothing.

  CHAPTER THIRTEEN - HOT WATER

  By the time the match had ended and Sylvie completed the drive from Palm Beach to Clewiston, evening was settling into the canebrakes and cow pastures. Sylvie’s battered VW bug rattled up to Clarice’s house; Sylvie yearned for a friendly girl-talking visit. When she saw Walt’s pickup truck parked in Clarice’s driveway, however, Sylvie shifted gears angrily and drove away. She ignored the tears until they began dripping from her chin, then she swiped a tissue vehemently across her face—nearly giving herself a black eye.

  Clarice was ironing a man’s shirt when she looked out a window in time to see the dilapidated Volkswagen pull away. Across the room, Walt lounged on the sofa, watching a television newscast. Clarice folded the half-ironed shirt and stacked it on top of a nearby basket of dry laundry.

  On television, the newscaster droned, “This section of highway twenty-seven has claimed five lives so far this year, and authorities say that the stretch of road known locally as ‘Dead Man’s Curve’ is the worst in the state with its heavy commercial—”

  Clarice walked between Walt and the television and deposited the laundry basket by the front door. She turned to look at the screen and saw film of rescue workers and tangled vehicles, traffic backed up in a long line, and all the grisly aftermath of a horrible auto accident.

  The newscaster continued, “—traffic, but budget cutbacks and manpower shortages hamper more stringent enforcement of speed limits and maintenance programs for the hundreds of eighteen-wheelers that roll this road month after month.

  “In Orlando today, officials at Walt Disney World announced—”

  Clarice walked in front of Walt to the television set and turned it off, stopping the newscaster in mid-sentence. She planted her posterior on the television set and confronted a drowsy, disinterested Walt. “That’ll be you someday spread all over highway twenty-seven in pieces they’ll have to pick up with a spoon. All because you were constantly jetting around between here and wherever Harry’s little princess was holding court.”

  “Well, ain’t you got burrs under your saddle, though. I been drivin’ these roads for years without any trouble.”

  Clarice came to kneel beside the sofa and touch his hair with habitual tenderness. “Yeah, but you used to do it with your eyes open.”

  “I never seen you so moody before. You better get your hormones checked or somethin’.”

  “I want you out of my house,” she said, slowly removing her fingers from his hair.

  Walt suddenly wasn’t slouching any more. “What?”

  Clarice stood and moved away from him and the sofa. “Out. Right now. I can’t stand it.” She pointed to the laundry basket she had placed by the door. “And take your washin’ somewhere else from now on.”

  Walt leaned his head against the back of the sofa so he could look up at her. “What? And, what is it that you suddenly ‘can’t stand’?”

  “You. You and your, your pining.”

  Walt moved too fast, reacted to pain in his side, then eased himself up off the sofa. He moved toward Clarice, but she stepped back—she would not let him close the gap between them. He saw this and stopped. “Who’s pining?” he said.

  “You. Like a moonstruck fool. Pining up a blue streak.”

  “Are your earbobs screwed in too tight or somethin’? I ain’t doin’ no ‘pining,’ Clarice.”

  “You are, Walter McGurk. Ain’t I done it enough myself to know it when I see it?”

  “You?” He looked quickly around the room as if he would find clarity somewhere. “When? What fo
r?”

  Clarice stomped her foot and clinched her fists at her side. “Hell’s bells, cowboy! Everybody in town knows I been carrying a torch for years. What’d you think—I was trainin’ for the Olympics?”

  He had no answer for that. He looked for his hat, found it, and moved toward the door. Careful of his aching ribs, he lifted the laundry basket. “I swear, Clarice, I don’t know what you want from me.”

  She resisted a strong urge to help him with the basket. She knew she must stay away at this point or all would be lost. “That’s all right. I think what I want from you already belongs to somebody else. But there’s other fish in the sea. And I can’t bait my hook with your truck parked in my yard. Out.”

  He studied her face. Did she really mean it was over? “Can I come back?”

  She shrugged. “Maybe someday—when all the Paces are dead. Really dead.”

  Walt went out the door and closed it softly behind him.

  Clarice listened to the truck door slamming, the engine starting, and forced herself not to go to the door, not to watch through the window. Old habits died hard.

  …

  Walt’s day was made complete when an evening thundershower drenched him on the way home. He ran from his truck to the tack room of the barn, where he kept his rain slicker. Donning the slicker, he ran through puddles and roaring downpour to the house.

  A light from the hallway showed the two dogs lying near Walt’s favorite living room chair. Lightning flickered across the living room windows. Thunder boomed outside.

  Walt entered, shook off his wet slicker and Stetson, and hung them on a wall hook. He approached his chair with an armload of mail he had collected on his way in from the barn. He reached to turn on the reading lamp. Click, but no light. Click and click again, but the lamp was dead.

  Thunder and rain continued outside.

  Walt searched for the problem and found it at the end of a cord hanging ragged-ended from its wall plug. Severed. He wagged the ruined cord at Maude and Butch, lying on the floor nearby. Maude hid her face, ashamed. Walt slapped the broken cord down on the end table and stalked out of the room.

  In the bathroom, thunder and rain were less audible, but lightning flashed across a tiny, high window. Sylvie luxuriated in a steamy, noisy shower. With her eyes closed and head back, she was oblivious to the storm outside.

  The bathroom door opened. A shadowy figure entered the steam-filled room and moved toward Sylvie’s silhouette on the shower curtain. The figure passed the steam-fogged bathroom mirror, a hunting knife upraised in one hand. With the knife lifted high, the shadowy figure clank-clanked the blade against the metal curtain rod.

  Sylvie’s eyes flew open, her hands crossed her breasts, and she screamed.

  “Calm down!” Walt shouted over the shrieking. “I knocked, but you didn’t hear me.” He stood outside the shower curtain, a huge, menacing shape. Sylvie shrank back against the wet tile wall.

  “What do you want?” she said when she could catch her breath.

  “I gotta cut the circuit breaker.”

  “What?”

  “I gotta cut the circuit breaker.”

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “Because you just hate to be inconvenienced by any little ol’ thing and I’m tryin’ to be considerate—gimme some slack here. So, can I cut it?”

  “Where is it?”

  “In the breaker box in the kitchen, naturally.”

  Naturally, she mimed and stuck her tongue out at his shadow. “I don’t care. Yes, cut the stupid thingamabob if you want to.” Under her breath she muttered, “Shear it off at the roots, if it makes you happy.”

  Walt was out the bathroom door and gone. Thunder rolled outside. Lightning streaked the window.

  Sylvie lathered her hair, enjoying the pelting massage of the hot shower until suddenly the water ran icy cold. She jumped back with a yelp and a loud string of curse words.

  In the living room, by the light of a candle, Walt was sitting on the floor peeling chewed lamp cord with his hunting knife. Sylvie stalked in, dripping, wrapped in the terry-cloth robe, with her hair twisted up in a towel. Thunder, lightning, and rain outside mimicked the storm she wanted to unleash in the living room.

  “What happened!” she demanded of Walt.

  He continued working calmly. “Maude ate the lamp cord.”

  “No, Thomas Edison, what happened to the hot water!”

  Walt stopped working to stare at her. “I told you. I had to cut the power to this end of the house. The water heater is at this end of the house.”

  “You told me you were going to trim the whatzit, the breaking thing. Cut the—

  “Cut the circuit breaker. And I did.”

  “And you also turned off the hot water!” she shrieked.

  He spoke as if she were a five-year-old: “That was a side effect. Yes.”

  “I want to see this breaker thingy,” she demanded.

  Walt looked at her a moment, decided all city dwellers were probably crazed, and opted to humor her quickly so he could go on about his business. He gestured toward the doorway. “Fine. It’s right out there in the kitchen. Take a look.”

  Sylvie stomped off in search of the electrical grail. Walt turned back to splicing the lamp cord. Maude leaped up to follow Sylvie and knocked Walt’s can of diet root beer off the end table, into his lap, and onto the floor where it puddled.

  Walt reacted to the sudden flood as might be expected. “Oh my ever-lovin’—You stupid mutt! Criminy! What a gol-danged mess!”

  The ragged end of the lamp cord, which was still plugged into the wall, was now floating in the root beer puddle. Without warning, the puddle became electrified, zapping Walt’s posterior. “Ow!” He jumped clear of the puddle and squatted, rubbing his zapped behind and eyeing the offending cord.

  Sylvie, emerging triumphantly from the kitchen, asked, “Was that it?”

  Thunder boomed outside. Walt, fuming, rose and hulked toward her brandishing his knife. He raised it as if he would stab her. Instead, he took her hand and forcefully wrapped the knife hilt in it.

  “I’ll be danged if I’ll take the death penalty for somethin’ that was done by that furry raisin you call a dog!”

  Terrified, Sylvie remembered Leslye’s assertion that Walt had once committed murder. “What if you did it yourself? Would you take the death penalty for something you did yourself?”

  Walt’s strong hands pinned Sylvie’s arms to her sides. He leaned his face close to hers. Thunder rolled. “If I was a murderer; if I was strapped into the electric chair this very minute,” his hands slid up to her shoulders, “what would you do?” His hands slid from her shoulders to close around her neck.

  “I ... I ... “ she stammered.

  His hands slid up from her neck to frame her face. He kissed her, hard, working his fingers in her hair. Thunder rumbled. Then he lifted his lips only an inch from hers. “Could you throw the switch even if you knew I was a murderer, Sylvie?”

  She blinked at him. “That’s not a fair question. I ... “

  He kissed her again. Thunder growled and echoed and echoed.

  When he backed away, her eyes stayed closed. Lightning flashed outside the windows. Then whack! Something hit her in the stomach. Her eyes flew open in shock. She looked down to see herself holding a big, heavy Handyman’s Guide to Home Repairs.

  Walt grabbed her hand roughly and folded it around the book. “You’re college educated. You can read.” He pointed to the severed lamp cord. “Your dog ate it. You fix it.”

  He stomped to the door, grabbed his slicker and hat, and gave her one last piece of advice. “I suggest you turn off the power and mop up the puddles first, if you don’t want your hair permanently frizzed.”

  He exited the house, leaving thunder, rain, and lightning in his wake—and in Sylvie’s face.

  …

  It was midnight and Les Larrimore was the worse for booze and pills. She took up her car keys and stumbled from her office. Outsi
de her windows it was raining.

  In the office building’s parking garage, Leslye got in her car, fumbled with the keys—proving she was too drunk to drive, especially in the rain—but got the car started. Thunder growled in the distance. Lightning flickered a long way off.

  Not far away, an engine roared to life and headlights bloomed white, exactly as they had the night Les picked up Sylvie at the Italian restaurant. Maybe it was the red pickup again, and maybe it wasn’t. Whatever it was, it followed Les’s car out of the garage.

  …

  At the Pace Tower construction site, everything glistened and dripped with water from a thunderstorm that had passed. On top of the unfinished high rise, in the yellow light of jury-rigged security lamps, Harry Pace sat on a bare girder and looked out over the city lights. He saw cruise ships on Government Cut, skyscrapers on Biscayne Boulevard bathed in pastel lights, a silver MetroRail train clacking across the neon rainbow bridge over the crooked mirror of the Miami River.

  Harry set his open can of diet root beer on the girder beside him and leaned slightly to peer over the edge. It was a long, long, long way down. And from the clanking of the construction elevator, someone was making their long, long, long way up.

  The elevator clunked to a stop. Its wire mesh door creaked open. Hesitant footsteps thumped onto the girders.

  “Over here, Les,” said Harry. “Watch your step.”

  Unsteady and disheveled, Leslye looked like she hadn’t eaten or slept much, but she had swallowed plenty. She crept across the girders toward Harry, hanging on to anything within reach. There wasn’t much.

  Harry didn’t get up. “Pity Mr. Stern couldn’t join us. I think this is a real ‘high level’ meeting, don’t you?”

  “You don’t seriously think he believes I had a telephone call from a dead man. More than once. Or that I agreed to meet a corpse in the middle of the night in a place like this? He thinks I was hallucinating. I’m not sure I’m not.”

  “I’m no hallucination, Les. I called you.” Harry stood and walked along the girder, surveying the construction project. “You and I both know you got real problems with this place, Les.”