The World's Finest Mystery Part 24

"The deputy who's on tonight with Andy, Mike Lane, he got down there a few minutes after the state. So did Fred Reilly- he's off duty, but he had his radio on. s.h.i.+t, I wish I'd had the d.a.m.n radio on. When they called for a search party." He turned to watch out the window at the dark trees, the starless sky. "There'll be an autopsy, see if anyone messed with the kid. But if Hurst was at Ralph's..."

"I don't think you'll find it," I said. "I don't think that's what happened."

"What do you think?"

I told him.

"No," he said. He stared at me. "Oh, no. That's got to be crazy."

I said nothing.

"No," he said again.

"I don't know," I said. "Maybe I'm wrong."

Neither of us said anything more until we reached Gray's Cove, except that Ben used my cell phone to call the 911 dispatcher. She patched him through to Mike Lane, the deputy on night duty in his office. Ben told him to call all units, have them call my cell number, didn't say why. Andy, by then almost in town with Hurst, responded quickly. So did Fred Reilly, and a guy named Tod, on his way home from the movies with his girlfriend. That was it.

The trees thinned but the fog didn't as we approached the sh.o.r.e. Ben directed me to the dirt road where Larry Crandall's small frame house stood, but it was dark and empty, so we went down to the water.

From the top of the cliff we saw the waves break and fall. We saw dark ma.s.ses of rock, and patchy gray fog on the sea. No lights on the water, and no stars.

"There," Ben said.

I looked where he pointed. A figure stood on the boulders below, watching the waves.

Ben and I climbed down the cliff together; then Ben hung back and I worked my way along the rocks. The sea was wilder than before, the waves larger. Cold spray soaked my clothes. The figure didn't move as I approached. Maybe, over the sound of the sea, he didn't hear me coming, or maybe he didn't care.

I came up to stand next to him. "Larry," I said.

Nothing, just the waves and the spray.

"What happened, Larry?" I asked.

Without turning he said, "You don't care what happened."

"You're wrong."

He didn't answer.

"Frankie Rogers," I said. "The sheriff arrested the man who was with Frankie."

"Frankie's dead."

"But the man's in jail. He won't hurt anyone else."

Again no answer.

"I told you I'd help, and I did," I said. "Now you have to help me."

The words came: "No one can help," but they came from a different voice, the voice I'd been waiting for, hoping not to hear.

That voice was behind me, in a shadow in the rocks. I turned that way. A dark shape, muscular, stepped toward me.

"Tell me what happened, Richie," I said.

"I don't know." Richie's voice was ragged. His eyes searched mine the way Crandall's searched the sea.

"The little boy," I said. "Was he in the water, Richie? When you got here?"

Richie was silent.

Crandall said, "No."

As quietly as the waves would let me, I said to Richie, "You wanted to save that kid."

Crandall said, "He was out here. On the rocks out here."

Richie said nothing, his eyes not leaving mine.

"You heard he was lost," I said, still speaking to Richie. "That they needed a search party." Behind Richie I saw Ben approaching slowly, stepping carefully among the boulders. "You came right down."

"I wanted to find him," Richie said. He looked away from me, at the water.

"Larry Crandall's boy, and Frankie Rogers," I said. "You couldn't save them. You couldn't be the hero they needed. This was another chance. This kid needed a hero, too."

Richie spoke. His eyes, like Crandall's, were on the sea. "I wanted to help. I wanted to save him. I came down here."

"Looking for him."

Richie nodded.

"And he was here."

He pointed to the end of the jetty. "Way out there, on the rocks. Just sitting."

"So you went out there, where he was."

Richie's arm dropped to his side. He didn't answer.

"Did he fall in the water, Richie?" I asked.

Richie said, "Fall?"

Behind him, Ben moved closer. Looking to the sea, Richie watched a wave rise, then break.

Larry Crandall said, "No."

Slowly, very slowly, Richie shook his head. He also said, "No."

Richie looked back at me, sudden bright hope in his eyes. "I jumped in," he said. "Right after I- right after he went in. I pulled him to sh.o.r.e."

"To be his hero."

"Yes."

"But you couldn't save him."

Eyes turned away again, the bright hope gone, a whisper: "No."

"And he didn't fall."

Richie stared at the sea, the waves pounding, rising and falling, always changing, always the same. "No."

Ben stood with us now. Softly he said, "Richie."

Richie turned his head, looked at Ben. "I'm sorry," he said. His voice was rough; tears mixed with the salt spray that dampened his face. "I thought I could make it be different, this time. But I couldn't save him, Ben."

"Come on." Ben put a hand on Richie's arm; his voice was hoa.r.s.e, too.

Richie gave Ben a long look, as though he didn't understand. Or maybe he was looking through him, didn't see him, didn't know he was there.

Richie broke away from Ben. He dashed along the rocks. We ran after him, Ben and I, but on the wet rocks footing was bad. At the end of the jetty, where the boulders reached into the sea, Richie stood for a moment watching the waves. I shouted, "No!" but I couldn't stop him. He leaped high off the rocks. For a moment he was suspended in air; but unable to keep the height, he fell and was taken back by the sea.

Donald E. Westlake.

Art & Craft.

DONALD E. WESTLAKE has long been known as one the crime field's true and enduring stars. And this holds sway whether he's writing comic capers, the brooding Richard Stark hardboiled novels, or the serious mainstream novels, such as his recent (and perhaps most affecting work), The Hook. He is a Mystery Writers of America Grand Master, an Academy Award nominee for his script for The Grifters, and a sometimes droll reviewer for the New York Times. "Art & Craft," first published in the August issue of Playboy, is an apt t.i.tle for a master storyteller like Westlake.

Art & Craft.

Donald E. Westlake.

The voice on the telephone at John Dortmunder's ear didn't so much ring a distant bell as sound a distant siren. "John," it rasped, "how ya doin'?"

Better before this phone call, Dortmunder thought. Somebody I was in prison with, he figured, but who? He'd been in prison with so many people, back before he had learned how to fade into the shadows at crucial moments, like when the SWAT team arrives. And of all those cellmates, blockmates, tankmates, there hadn't been one of them who wasn't there for some very good reason. DNA would never stumble over innocence in that crowd; the best DNA could do for those guys was find their fathers, if that's what they wanted.

This wasn't a group that went in for reunions, so why this phone call, in the middle of the day, in the middle of the week, in the middle of October? "I'm doin' OK," Dortmunder answered, meaning, I got enough cash for me but not enough for you.

"That makes two of us," the voice said. "In case you don't recognize me, this is Three Finger."

"Oh," Dortmunder said.

Three Finger Gillie possessed the usual 10 fingers but got his name because of a certain fighting technique. Fights in prison tend to be up close and personal, and also brief; Three Finger had a move with three fingers of his right hand guaranteed to make the other guy rethink his point of view in a hurry. Dortmunder had always stayed more than an arm's reach from Three Finger and saw no reason to change that policy. "I guess you're out, huh?" he said.

Sounding surprised, Three Finger said, "You didn't read about me in the paper?"

"Oh, too bad," Dortmunder said, because in their world the worst thing that could happen was to find your name in the paper. Indictment was bad enough, but to be indicted for something newsworthy was the worst.

But Three Finger said, "Naw, John, this is good. This is what we call ink."

"Ink."

"You still got last Sunday's Times?" he asked.

Astonished, Dortmunder said, "The New York Times?"

"Sure, what else? 'Arts and Leisure,' page 14, check it out, and then we'll make a meet. How about tomorrow, four o'clock?"

"A meet. You got something on?"

"Believe it. You know Portobello?"

"What is that, a town?"

"Well, it's a mushroom, but it's also a terrific little cafe on Mercer Street. You ought to know it, John."

"OK," Dortmunder said.

"Four o'clock tomorrow."

Keeping one's distance from Three Finger Gillie was always a good idea, but on the other hand he had Dortmunder's phone number, so he probably had his address as well, and he was known to be a guy who held a grudge. Squeezed it, in fact. "See you there," Dortmunder promised, and went away to see if he knew anybody who might own a last Sunday's New York Times.

The dry cleaner on Third Avenue had a copy.

Life is very different for Martin Gillie these days. "A big improvement," he says in his gravelly voice, and laughs as he picks up his mocha cappuccino.

And indeed life is much improved for this longtime state prison inmate with a history of violence. For years, Gillie was considered beyond any hope of rehabilitation, but then the nearly impossible came to pa.s.s. "Other guys find religion in the joint," he explains, "but I found art."

It was a period of solitary confinement brought about by his a.s.sault on a fellow inmate that led Gillie to try his hand at drawing, first with stubs of pencils on magazine pages, then with crayons on typewriter paper, and, finally, when his work drew the appreciative attention of prison authorities, with oil on canvas.

These last artworks, allegorical treatments of imaginary cityscapes, led to Gillie's appearance in several group shows. They also led to his parole (his having been turned down three previous times), and now his first solo show, in Soho's Waspail Gallery.

Dortmunder read through to the end, disbelieving but forced to believe. The New York Times; the newspaper with a record, right? So it had to be true.

"Thanks," he told the dry cleaner, and walked away, shaking his head.