David Alexander - Masters of Noir - Volume 4

First she’d been the bereaved wife, then the cold general over map briefing and weather data. At supper she chatted about her life in Washington. She ate delicately — like a she-wolf with a Vassar education. I’d never met anyone like her; I had to smile.

“Why are you laughing at me?”

I fumbled my fork. “I’m not laughing.”

She stopped eating, touched her lips with a paper napkin. “How old are you, Jim?”

I remembered the war years, the prison. “I’ll be a hundred next April.”

“I’d say twenty-three.”

“Say whatever you like.”

She looked around. “No girl to share all this?”

I shook my head. “The kind that would share this I wouldn’t want. And the other kind—” I stopped. I suddenly knew the only kind of woman I’d ever wanted. We just looked at each other... “I can’t afford what I want,” I said.

“What would you do to be able to afford her?”

“Anything.”

“Sure?”

“Anything at all.”

“You might be held to that,” she said. “And soon.”

About five A.M. I heard something stir in the house and jumped out of bed. Sleep-drugged, I staggered across the room. I reached the guest room door before I remembered Celia was there.

I stopped in the doorway, fully awake, realizing I was in my undershorts; it was too hot to sleep in anything more.

She was fully dressed, white shirt, jodhpurs, gleaming boots. She had a handful of maps and weather data. “Sorry I wakened you, Jim. I couldn’t sleep any more. I’m too anxious to get started.”

I mumbled something and backed off. She let her eyes prowl over me and then walked out into the front room leaving me gaping after her. Where was the bereaved wife? Where were those unshed tears?

From that moment there was a sick emptiness in my stomach. But the second the flight started, she was all business.

She sat with the flight pattern mapped on her lap. After I filled all gas tanks at the Lewiston Airport, she watched compass and mileage indicator until we reached the lines marking our first pattern. Coldly serious, she read that country minutely with field glasses.

She never took five, never relaxed. This land was huge bolts of scorched brown, ribboned by black strings of water. Heron took flight, I pointed out a wildcat. Nothing down there but silence and heat waves.

We made our circle, reached the end of the flight pattern. She sat back, dropped the binoculars. Red circles encased her eyes. “We know they’re not in there.”

“We’ll take the second pattern tomorrow.”

She seemed to have lost interest. She was watching me again from the corner of her eyes. I set the ’copter down in the yard.

“Think I could learn to handle a windmill, Jim?”

“It’s not easy. But I could teach you.”

She looked thoughtful.

After supper she wanted a drink to celebrate the end of our first flight. All I had was a few cans of warm beer. We drank that. She laughed and talked, teasing me about being a farmer stuck away from the world. Suddenly for no reason we stopped laughing and we stopped talking.

Crickets and frogs screeched outside the windows. It was so quiet I heard mosquitoes frantic against the screens.

I tried not to stare at her, but I couldn’t keep my gaze off her. I asked if she were sleepy. She said no. We sat for a long time and listened to the crickets. That night I didn’t sleep much...

Next morning I was out of bed and dressed hours ahead of Celia. I fixed breakfast but not even the odors of coffee and eggs wakened her. I let her sleep. I didn’t trust myself in that room. I remembered why she was here — a husband lost in the swamp. I had to keep remembering that.

At a quarter of seven she came out, voice angry. “Why didn’t you wake me up?”

I stared at her, knowing how I’d fought to keep out of that room. “Why didn’t you bring an alarm clock?”

We stood tense across the table. Then she smiled and looked very pleased about something...

We’d been flying about three hours and suddenly Celia grabbed my arm. An electric charge went through me at her touch. Maybe you don’t know what it is to want like that. I was sick, wanting just two things: never to find her husband and to have money so I could afford Celia Carmic.

She pointed to something glittering. I engaged the pedals, idled off the engine and we settled in a cleared space six inches above water.

She scrambled out of the plane, ran through muck and saw-grass. I plodded after her. When I reached her, she was swearing, words she shouldn’t even have known.

Somebody had cut open a five gallon oil can, tossed it beside the creek. She followed me back to the ’copter.

We retraced and she was silent, did not even mention learning to handle the ’copter. We set down in the yard about four and she walked silently into the house.

After supper she discovered the old wind-up phonograph in the front room. She played an ancient record. “ Sweet — Stay As Sweet As You Are .” She wound it, played it again.

“Reminds me of you,” she said. “Sweet and innocent.”

I remembered her disappointment this afternoon when she thought we’d found a sign of her husband. This was a different woman.

“Come on, Jim, dance with me.”

“I don’t dance.”

“I’ll teach you.” She came over, took my hands. Hers were like ice. I stood up. She came into my arms, moved closer. Her hands slid up my back...

I wanted to sleep through next morning. It was good burying my face in the warm fragrance of her hair. But when I thought about the flight, I thought about her husband. I didn’t like that.

I pulled her closer. She went taut. “No, Jim. We’re going to search.” She pulled away, eyes hard. “We’re going to search all day. Everyday.”

In the plane, I felt her nearness, I could smell her. All day she kept binoculars fixed on that changeless land.

“We’re not staying out long enough,” she said.

My voice was hard. “We’ll look as long as you like. That doesn’t keep me from hoping we — don’t find him.”

Her fingers closed on my arm. “Don’t say that, Jim. Pray we do find him.”

How could she do that, turn her emotions off and on? I could not forget last night; for her it had never happened. She loved her husband. She came to me. It didn’t make my kind of sense. I clammed up.

We reached the end of the pattern. She dropped the glasses, rings deep about her eyes. But when she dropped the binoculars, she dropped the search. Now her brown eyes sought something else. “How long, Jim, before we get home?”

Her voice was breathless. I went empty. Her hand gripped me. “It’s too far. Hurry.”

I tried to hurry but they never built enough speed in a flying windmill for us. I set the ’copter down in the yard, killed the engine. We ran across the yard. That was when I saw the car tire tracks.

I stopped. The tracks came in from the road. “Somebody’s been here.” I sounded like Papa Bear.

Celia frowned, but pulled me toward the house. “Probably some salesman.”

Footprints in the sand led around the house, paused at every window. “Persistent.” I said.

For no reason I could explain, I felt that old sense of wrong mixed with unexplained fear. “I’ll take the ’copter. Maybe I can catch him before he gets back to the Trail.”

“Don’t be a fool.” She pressed against me. “I’ve waited all day. You’re not chasing down some salesman. You’re not going to leave me tonight.”

I didn’t, either...

Next morning I woke up thinking about those tire tracks and footprints. Too many things were unexplained, wrong. I fixed breakfast but didn’t eat anything. Celia ate like a plowman.