Дональд Уэстлейк - Forever and a Death

“That means you,” Morgan had said, and Manville had stepped into this room, and the door had shut behind him, with the unmistakable scrape of the key being turned in the lock.

This was normally a guestroom, apparently, with only the vertical bars outside the one window to suggest a prison; but probably all the ground floor windows were barred in a building as remote as this. The room contained a double bed, more native-looking throw rugs on the floor, a dresser and an easy chair beside a round table bearing a reading lamp. The compact bathroom next to it had an extremely small window, not barred, a telephone-booth-type shower, and more than enough towels.

Manville had expected to be left here by himself, locked in, to brood and worry and be the subject of psychological warfare. But now, to be suddenly presented with a change of clothes and a dinner invitation, threw him off; which might have been the idea.

Still, he should take what comfort he could. The shower was fine, with a clear lucite door and plenty of hot water and a big white bar of soap. Standing in there, letting the spray roll over him, easing the stiffness in his joints, he wondered again, for the thousandth time, what had happened to Kim. Those three had seen her — accidentally? somehow on purpose, following them? — and she’d escaped, and then they’d come back to the cafe to pick him up, and he’d walked right into it. So what would Kim have done next?

She might have gone to the police. Presumably there was a report somewhere that she was dead, so when she turned up alive, even without identification, it might force the authorities to take notice; though not necessarily to believe her fantastic accusations against a rich and respectable businessman.

Or she might have called the Planetwatch people, that guy Jerry Diedrich she’d mentioned a number of times.

He turned off the water, and stepped out of the shower.

The clothing he’d been given provided everything but shoes, and it all fit very well. Underwear, socks, dark gray slacks, pale blue buttoned shirt but no necktie, light gray sports jacket. The left pocket of the sports jacket contained two three-year-old tickets to La Bohème at the Sydney Opera House, suggesting this jacket had been left behind, forgotten by some houseguest, and never retrieved.

At the appointed time, Manville left his no-longer prison and followed the woman’s directions. Down the hall he went to the right, then a left, and there was the dining room.

Low ceilings seemed to be the norm here, but otherwise the place was lavish. The dining room was actually one end of a very long room that was a parlor at the farther end, all deep sofas and chairs on animal skin rugs, with a broad gray-stone fireplace taking up much of the far wall. There was no fire lit at the moment, but the room was comfortably warm. A pair of refectory tables, dark wood, bearing muted lamps, stacks of magazines, framed photos, marked the dividing line between parlor and dining room.

Four people were seated, very low, in the sofas down there; Richard Curtis, and three others Manville didn’t recognize, two women and a man. One of the women saw Manville enter and said something to Curtis, who immediately looked over, waved a hand over his head, and called, “There you are! Be right there.”

Manville waited. Closer to him was a long dark wood dining table, big enough to seat twelve. Five elaborate place settings took up the left half of the table. Apparently Morgan and his friends would eat somewhere else; in the kitchen, maybe, or out back with the dogs.

The four people approached, Curtis smiling like a host. Saying, “Well, George, you look rested. Good. A hell of a long drive, isn’t it?”

“Not too bad, in that car,” Manville said. He was surprised at the calmness of his response, but could see nothing else to do. It’s a natural instinct, apparently, to be polite to somebody who’s being polite to you, return friendliness with friendliness, good manners with good manners.

Curtis went so far as to make introductions: “George Manville, may I introduce Albert and Helen Farrelly, they run Kennison for me, and Cindy Peters, an old friend visiting for the weekend. George,” he told the others, “is a brilliant engineer, absolutely brilliant. We’ve been working together for a year and a half now, haven’t we, George?”

“About that,” Manville agreed. Not so long ago, he wanted to say, while everybody exchanged friendly greetings, you were sending people to kill me, then to kidnap me, imprison me. Has one of us lost his mind? But dinner party politeness was just too strong a force; he couldn’t say a word.

Curtis even rubbed it in, saying, “It’s too bad your friend Kim couldn’t be with you, George, we’d make an even number. Well, we’ll do what we can. I’ll be father at the head of the table here, George, you take that place there on the right, Helen, you between George and me, Cindy, you on my left, and Albert, if you’d sit across from George?”

Everybody did, and Manville saw Curtis extend his foot toward what must be a call button in the floor, because almost immediately two servers in the tan pantsuits came out with plates of crisp green salad.

Manville said to Helen, on his left, “Kennison?”

Surprised, she said, “The station. This place, you’d call it a ranch. And the house. This is Kennison. You didn’t know that?”

“I came here unexpectedly,” Manville said.

Wine was being poured. Around the server’s arm, Curtis said to Manville, “Kennison’s a great place, George, I wish I could be here more often myself. I’ll show you around, I think you’ll be surprised and pleased.”

“I’m already surprised,” Manville told him, and Curtis laughed.

When the five glasses had been filled with an Australian white wine, a chardonnay, Curtis proposed a toast. “To the good life, in a good place, to getting it and keeping it.”

They all drank to Curtis’s toast, Manville last and only a sip. It was a good clean wine, nicely cold. He would have to be alert not to drink too much of it.

As they started their salads, Manville looked more carefully at these three new people. He might be needing allies soon; would any of them fit the bill?

Albert and Helen Farrelly were a middle-aged, comfortable-looking couple, both overweight, both with the leathery cheeks of people who spend a lot of time outdoors, as they would do if they were the overseers of a large ranch. They were Australian, by their accents, and they seemed on very easy terms with their employer.

Would the Farrellys help? They came across as decent people, not criminals, but Captain Zhang was a decent man, too, and look at what he had been prepared to do. How vital was this job, this life, to the Farrellys? Helen Farrelly spoke of Kennison as though it were heaven on earth, and her husband smiled and nodded in agreement; how willing would they be to risk it, or lose it, for a stranger?

Cindy Peters was about thirty, a poised girl, pleasant, well-spoken, also Australian. An old friend of Curtis, visiting for the weekend.

There’s no comfort here, Manville told himself, as the salad plates were removed, replaced by plates of a butterflied boneless chicken breast with lightly sauteed vegetables. And more wine. I have to count on nobody but myself.

Manville turned to Curtis. “How long have you had this place? Kennison.”

“Seven years. It was my second wife’s idea. She’s Australian, she wanted a footprint in her homeland, so we bought this. She’d have liked to keep it after the divorce, but by then I was in love with it. And not with her, you know?”

“I didn’t know you were ever married,” Manville said. He wanted to encourage this new friendliness in Curtis, this companionship, until he could find a way to escape.