Aaron Elkins: Uneasy Relations

“Listen, Gideon, remember when we were talking about licenses for explosives? Well, I did a little poking around and came up with something pretty interesting.”

As Fausto had told him earlier, there were only two construction companies in Gibraltar that had explosives licenses. He had spoken with the owners of both and one of them, the owner of G. Barrows amp; Sons Demolition and Excavation, had admitted reluctantly that they were missing – they were pretty sure they were missing – they thought they might be missing – twenty-two sticks of gelignite from their stores. In any case, their records couldn’t account for them. They hadn’t reported the disappearance as the law required, because at first they were sure they’d just misplaced them. Then, as time passed and they didn’t find them, they’d been worried about having waited so long to report the loss – there would be fines involved – so that they had just let it go and hoped it would never come back to bite them. And after all, it had been two years, hadn’t it, and nobody had blown anything up yet, at least not in Gibraltar.

“Two years?” Gideon said. “So this would have been in…?”

“The fall of 2005, from an excavation job they were doing out at Catalan Bay, on the other side of the Rock.”

“And Sheila was killed in September of 2005,” Gideon said, nodding. “So it fits. Now the question is-”

“Here,” said Julie, thrusting a Scotch and soda into his hand. “Since you weren’t going to get me one, I did it myself. And I got one for you. Hi, Fausto.”

“Sorry about that, Julie,” Gideon said, taking the drink. “Fausto and I were just-”

“Gideon! Hey, my man, glad to see you here!”

And there was Lester Rizzo in the flesh, all six feet four of him, energetically pumping Gideon’s right hand and looking his normal ebullient, slightly insane, and painfully overstuffed self. It wasn’t simply that he was overweight (which he was), but that he seemed positively overinflated, as if, if you stuck him with a pin, there’d be this whoosh, and off he’d go, careening crazily through the air, banging into walls and furniture.

“Lester, a wonderful reception,” Gideon said, wrenching his crushed hand back. “You know Julie, and this is Detective Chief Inspector Sotomayor.”

“Detective Chief Inspector. Whoa! I love those great old names. Like Inspector Morse. He was a detective chief inspector too, am I right?”

“I wouldn’t know,” Fausto said, wincing as he got the hand-mangling treatment.

“Yeah, I’m pretty sure he was. Hey, I think you all know our guest of honor here…” He glanced around. “Where’d he go? Hey, guest of honor!”

“I haven’t gone anywhere, I’m right here.” From behind Lester, where he’d been completely hidden by his bulk, an abashed but beaming Rowley Boyd emerged, basking in the glow of his newfound celebrity. “Er… thank you all for coming.”

“It’s our pleasure, Rowley,” Julie said. “Congratulations.”

The others joined in with congratulations of their own, which the new author accepted with blushing self-deprecation, teeth clamped happily on his unlit pipe.

“Lester, are you doing some promotion for the book?” Gideon asked. “As you so kindly did for mine? Although I really don’t see how you can beat, ‘It’s going to stand the scientific world on its ear.’ ”

Lester threw back his head and trumpeted with laughter. “Hey, complain to me after we see the numbers.” He looked fondly down at Rowley. “I’ll come up with something, don’t worry. I know, maybe we’ll submit it for the Nobel Prize in Archaeology, how’s that sound? You never know what could happen. I got some influential friends in Stockholm. Or is it Oslo? What the hell, I got friends there too.”

“But there is no Nobel Prize for archaeology,” Rowley said.

Lester looked at him as if he’d just discovered that the latest addition to his prestigious stable of Frontiers of Science authors was a simpleton. “Well, the peace prize, the literature prize. Whatever.”

“Lester…” Rowley hesitated, embarrassed. “I appreciate the gesture – and your confidence in me – but… well, I really don’t think it’s the kind of book… I mean, it’s just a popular treatment, it’s not as if it contributes anything new. I’d feel, well, a bit awkward about…”

“I think Lester was joking,” Gideon said gently. “He does that.”

Now Rowley was really embarrassed. “Oh… well, of course, ha-ha.” He chewed furiously on the pipe, shifting it from one corner of his mouth to the other with his teeth alone. “Yes, that’s funny, really. I didn’t get it at first…”

“Well, great talking to you guys,” Lester said, his burly arm coming down around Rowley’s slight and shrinking shoulders. But now there are plenty of other people eager to meet our famous author.”

“Oh, I don’t know about ‘eager’…” Rowley was murmuring as he was hauled away.

“Did he really think Lester was going to try to get a Nobel Prize for him?” Julie asked. “You told me he was literal-minded, but that’s amazing.”

Gideon smiled. “That’s Rowley for you. He’s – hey…” His observation, whatever it was, petered out. He stood without speaking, staring intently into the middle distance.

“What?” Fausto asked, puzzled. And then again: “What?”

“Don’t bother,” Julie told him. “When he gets like that, he’s inaccessible; you just have to wait him out. He’s hatching something. ”

So he was. He had just that second, out of the blue, experienced that minute, barely perceptible click he was coming to know; the sense that a few small parts of a difficult, intricate puzzle had separated themselves from the jumble of pieces and snapped neatly into place, with the rest now poised to follow.

Or maybe not. Getting a couple of pieces fitted together didn’t necessarily mean you were on the way to solving the puzzle. More data was needed.

“Have you seen Buck?” he asked, surfacing.

Julie pointed. Buck was coming from one of the bars, carefully balancing the brimful glasses of wine he held in each hand. Gideon put down his own glass and intercepted him.

“Buck, can I ask you a quick question?”

Buck came to a careful halt, sipping a little from each glass to keep it from slopping over. “Sure, what?”

“Well, remember when you went on that tour of St. Michael’s Cave before my talk? With Rowley and the others? Did you happen to mention what we talked about in the van on the way up there?”

Buck frowned mightily. “What we talked about on the way up?”

“You know, the problems that go along with erect posture – what my talk was going to be about.”

“Oh… well, yeah, I guess maybe I did mention it.” He looked like a kid whose secret history of cookie stealing had finally caught up with him, even going so far as to scuff his feet. “I’m sorry, Gideon, I know I promised not to, but it was just so damn interesting . It blew my mind. And I thought… I mean, I figured it was just some of us, just, you know, Rowley and Audrey and Corbin, so-”

Another click; another piece in place.

“-Anyway, I’m sorry if I spoiled anything for you.”

“No, don’t worry about it. You didn’t spoil anything. Far from it.”

Far from it, indeed. If what he was thinking was right, Buck had saved his life.

The cloud lifted from Buck’s meaty, friendly face. “That’s good to hear. You had me scared there for a minute.”

“What was that about?” Julie asked as Buck headed off. “What are you hatching?”

“Maybe nothing at all,” Gideon said slowly, “but on the other hand, I just might be on to something. I need one more piece.” He scanned the terrace and found what he was looking for. “Let’s go, Fausto. If this amounts to anything, I think you’ll want to be in on it.”