Donald Westlake - Smoke

"I just found out I'm gonna be invisible the rest of my life," Freddie said. "Found out from the doctors who did it to me. So I could stick around here with you and tell the invisible man story and be a freak in a cage the rest of my life, doctors poking at me. Or I can take off and really disappear, you'll never hear from me again, and Peg and me'll have a quiet life somewhere."

"I sympathize with you," Geoff admitted, and added, "Freddie, I do. But I can't claim I beat up and knocked out and captured four tough guys all by myself."

Freddie, or the air around him, sighed. He said, "You don't lie, is that right?"

"That's right, that's the problem, I'm just no good at it."

"Chief, did you ever lie to your mom, when you were a kid?"

Geoff felt his face turning red. He stammered, "Well . . . I suppose . . . you know . . . kids . . ."

"With the construction company, ever lie to a customer?"

"Well, you know, there's things people don't entirely understand, in a business like, you got your scheduling and your parts delivery, and, uh . . ."

"Ever lie to a woman?"

Two days ago, most recently. Geoff shook his head. "You want me to lie," he said.

"You bet I do."

Geoff thought about it. "I just can't see it," he said, "that I can look one of the state boys in the eye and tell him I did all this by myself."

"Just keep telling the same story, you'll be all right."

"And what about the story these fellas tell?"

"You mean, how they came up here to kidnap an invisible man? You think they're gonna say that?"

"They gotta say something," Geoff pointed out.

"They'll claim misunderstanding, innocent victims, and they won't get away with it. Chief, I bet you not one of them says a word about any invisible man. And if they do, they'll be talking to nothing but psychiatrists the next twenty years."

"All right," Geoff said, having thought it over. "I tell you what maybe I could do. I'll explain things — I'll explain some of the things — to the fellas in the basement. And then I can say I managed to unlock the door and free them, and that's three, plus one, plus me, the five of us overpowered these fellas."

"Will they keep their mouths shut for you?"

"We pretty much take care of one another," Geoff said.

"Fine." The voice trailing away toward the door, Freddie said, "I'll get out of the way now."

Geoff went out to the hall, where the fat man was stirring, half sitting up. "Barney's coming around," he commented.

Whap! "No, he isn't. So long, Chief. And thanks."

The front door opened and closed. Geoff went back into his office to get handcuffs for Barney before talking to the guys in the basement, but then he heard a sudden shout from outside. So he went back to the hall, and the front door opened, and Freddie's pained voice said, "Could I borrow a broom, Chief? I forgot about those damn tacks."

"Better let me do the sweeping," Geoff said. "I wouldn't want the neighbors to think I'm doing The Sorcerer's Apprentice over here."

Geoff was just bringing the broom back into the house, where the tough guys were now conscious and rolling around on the floor, helpless because their hands were cuffed behind their backs, and here came Cliff and the construction crew, boiling in from the kitchen. "Where are they? Geoff, what's happening? What's the story here?"

Geoff said, "You got out! That's great!"

The crew looked a little sheepish. One of them said, "We kinda had to go through the wall beside the door. Kinda demolition, you know."

Another one said, "We did it as neat as we could."

The third one said, "We can patch it up, Geoff, no problem."

"Well," Geoff said, "this makes it a lot easier. Come on in the parlor and sit down, guys, let me tell you a little story before I call the state boys."

56

When Mordon awoke, he watched the oval spot of sunlight rise slowly to the teak cabin wall, then sink slowly to touch the mounds of his feet beneath the creamy blanket, then rise again; and so did Mordon, shaking, pale, staggering as he went into the bathroom.

It wasn't the gentle slow roll of the yacht that had so unmanned him, nor drink (though last night he had taken onboard much drink), but fear. His fear of the floating ax, when yesterday he had run pell-mell from Chief Wheedabyx's house and all the way out of the town of Dudley, had soon been replaced by the even stronger fears of exposure, ruin, and prison. His fears had been so powerful that his flight took place in a terrified daze, so that he barely remembered the pickup truck that had given him the lift, the diner in which he'd made the phone call to the car service in New York, the hours spent quivering over undrunk coffee in a rear booth of that diner, the hours spent quivering in the back of the town car that returned him to New York, the hours spent quivering in his office while he waited for Merrill Fullerton to respond to his call.

But then Merrill did, at last, and agreed that Mordon should come to see him, not in the NAABOR offices in the World Trade Center, since Merrill had not yet consolidated his power there, but in Merrill's apartment atop Trump Tower. When Mordon, in abject despair, related the events of the day to Merrill, fully expecting to be thrown into the street, his heart to be eaten by dogs, Merrill had instead leaped magnificently to his defense, saying, "Beuler will betray you, we know that much. Leave it to me."

And an hour later Mordon and Merrill and a dozen other people were sailing past Miss Liberty, out of New York Harbor, into the choppy Atlantic on the good ship Nicotiana, where all aboard were prepared to swear they had been disporting themselves for the last twenty-four hours, with distinguished attorney Mordon Leethe prominent in their midst.

Would it work? Could it work? Could even Merrill Fullerton rescue Mordon from this far down in the deep pit of ignominy? His sleep last night had been tortured, and so were his bathroom experiences this morning.

When at last he staggered back out to the bright cabin, with its roving spotlight of sun, as though the gods of rectitude were looking for him to wreak their own vengeance, there was a discreet tapping to be heard from the cabin door. "Come in," he choked, but no one could have heard that croaking, so he went over to open the door and found standing there a white-suited member of the ship's crew, who actually touched a fingertip to a temple in what looked rather like a salute as he said, "Mr. Fullerton's compliments. He awaits you on the fantail, sir. Whenever you're ready."

"Fan — ?"

"Aft, sir. Stern. Back of the ship. That way, and up." He pointed.

"Thank you."

Mordon would never truly be ready, not fully ready, but in ten minutes he was sufficiently together to go in search of the fantail and his benefactor, who stood beside a groaning board of breakfast, a huge buffet table. No one else was around. "Good morning," Merrill said, and gestured at the many foods. "Breakfast?"

"Perhaps . . . later."

The fantail was outdoors, but shielded by a canvas roof, striped blue and white. The sea was huge, and everywhere, and nowhere flat. The day was sharply lit, with acute edges.

"Probably," Merrill said, with a smile, "you'd like to know what's going on ashore."

"Yes."

"Sit down, Mordon, sit down."

They sat near each other and the white rail, on large and comfortable leather and chrome chairs. Mordon didn't so much want to sleep as merely to lose consciousness, but he forced himself to remain alert, alert enough to listen.

Merrill said, "I've been on the phone to New York a lot this morning. You were right about Detective Beuler, he did implicate you, and me, and poor old Jack the Fourth, and the doctors, and everyone else he could think of. However, we were lucky enough to get our people to Beuler's home on Long Island before the police got there, and what a lot of evidence he'd built up against you, Mordon!" Merrill beamed at the thought of it.