The Daisy Ducks Read online

  29

  MARY SHOOK her long black curls around and swept them back over her shoulders. She set her drink on the rock sill of the terrace and looked out over the golf course at the distant mountains. Knockout. Total, absolute knockout. And pissed at yours truly.

  As they say in the Dewar's ads, "The good things in life stay that way."

  We were sitting on the Sunset Terrace of Asheville's most stately hotel, the Grove Park Inn. It was warm, even for the Carolinas. Below us in the twilight, golfers bounced over fields of green in little carts; tennis players laughed and swore on the clay courts, casting long shadows in the golden light. In the distance were the purplish mountains, with red and gold behind them as the sun went down. A cool breeze fanned us. It wafted up from the valley, smelling of flowering shrubs. Not bad, except my left arm, right below the shoulder, still hurt.

  Mary sipped her gin and tonic the way she always sips a mixed drink, a drop at a time. She looked at the players below, folded her hands in her lap, and looked me in the eye. She wasn't smiling.

  "Tell me about it," she said.

  "Well, we got up to the hideout in early afternoon. Then —"

  "You know what I mean. Afterward. After the whole thing was over and you started to drive back here in the camper. And didn't make it."

  "Oh that. Well, when we went to spring Fred Kaunitz, Tommy slipped into the booze store. So on the road home, we sat around the little table in back while Daisy drove. We hoisted a few. I guess we were overtired and hadn't eaten much. That didn't help."

  "When did you realize they'd passed the Asheville exits?"

  "When it was too late. Daisy was in on it, you know."

  She drummed her lingers on the table. Gee, I wished Joe were with us. He had gallantly begged off, saying we needed to be together. He was eating his room service dinner four stories above us. I admired his noble gesture, but his presence at that moment would have lent a mollifying influence. I thought I could put my finger on the problem and decided to try a frontal attack.

  "Mary, are you worried about Daisy? Do you think I slept with her?"

  "Did you?"

  "Nah. Not even remotely close. Anyway, we got to Fayetteville even before I knew it, seems like."

  "And the others knew?"

  "Yeah. See, they all planned it, hon. Behind my back."

  "Well, it was a dirty trick. And when I see Roantis next I'm going to —"

  "Yeah, well I think he's avoiding you. But as to what happened specifically, it's really nothing much. I think it was a bunch of guys showing their thanks. And that was, uh, how they did it."

  In my mind's eye, I could picture the place. The memory was somewhat hazy, due to the late hour and all the celebrating. It was out on Bragg Avenue. I should have known by the elaborate drawings on the walls that the place wasn't a bar. Then we were sitting around a table in there. Daisy was on my lap, doing something pleasant to my face and ear with her tongue. Then the little Chinese man was hovering near my left side, smiling and bowing. He had something in his hand . . . an instrument with a cord. Soldering iron? No . . . I remembered I smelled rubbing alcohol. Then the pain started. Gee it stung. I slept all the way home, as did most of the others, I guess.

  I told Mary everything that had happened. I did leave out the part about Daisy, however. I mean, I'm sensible some of the time. She listened, deadpan, to my tale, then glanced at my

  shoulder. She hadn't seen it, of course, because of the bandage.

  "What does it say?" she asked.

  "It says, uh, ‘Daisy Ducks,' and then a picture of her."

  Mary lowered her head into her hands and groaned.

  "A picture? Good Christ! What's she doing, a parachute jump?"

  "No. She's walking with a rifle at port arms, snarling."

  "Good Christ."

  "Tommy got one, too. It's kinda cute, once you get used to it."

  "Well, we're not going to get used to it, Charlie. You're having a skin graft as soon as we get back."

  "Hmmmmph! Maybe. Maybe not."

  So we went on and on about that for a while, then turned to the matter of the money.

  "So how much is there, and what's going to happen to it?"

  "We put the bills in stacks of thousands, each with a rubber band around it. There were seventy-one stacks left after the Fayetteville binge. Of this, I get about seventeen. Twelve of that goes to pay for the convalescence of Roantis and Summers. The remaining five you and I are going to use for a nice long vacation—your choice."

  She gripped my forearm and smiled.

  "The rest of the money will be split up among the other four, with Roantis getting the biggest cut. And we all decided to give Sairy Royce four grand. It's to help Bill. He's had a rough time. None of the guys visited him when he was down. Kaunitz talked us into it, and he's right. Bill's going to need rehab therapy when he gets out, and it costs."

  "That's nice, but the original plan called for you and Liatis to split it."

  "Well, you know we don't need the money, and —"

  "Charlie, we could use —"

  "Not what I said. Sure, we could use an extra thirty grand. Buy some more toys for ourselves. But we don't need it. Roantis, he's had a rough time since he found out about Vilarde. Real rough. But I think it's helping him to grow. It'll humanize him. I think it's already started. You know, there's not a thing wrong with that guy except that he's been in the wrong line of work for forty years."

  "And you don't think he meant to sell Vilarde out?"

  "No. Not consciously, anyway. But, as I said, his profession finally got to him. You can't do that no-holds-barred stuff for years and years and not start thinking like an animal."

  "Well, I hope you've had —your fill of adventuring, Charlie. I mean for good."

  "Don't worry. That part of my life is over, for keeps," I said.

  Maybe if I kept saying it, it would be true.

  So we finished our drinks and got up to go to dinner. It was getting chilly now. The sun was past down, and there was a lovely afterglow in the west. I put my hand around Mary's waist and led her off the terrace.

  "I love you, Mary," I said, "and nobody but."

  "Same here, Charlie."

  And I was going to be a good boy from now on. You bet.

  Except that behind me, in my mind's ear, from out of the golden sunset and the swelling folds of the firmament, came the bugles.