Duma Key

I thought Perse was now afraid of me and my newfound talent. Alone, still not recovered from my near-death experience (still suicidal, in fact), I might have been an asset instead of a problem. Because in spite of all his big talk, that Edgar Freemantle really hadn't had another life; that Edgar had just switched the backdrop of his invalid's existence from pines to palms. But once I had friends again... saw what was all around me and reached out to it...

Then I'd become dangerous. I don't know exactly what she had in mind - other than regaining her place in the world, that is - but she must have thought that when it came to mischief-making, the potential for a talented one-armed artist was great. I could have sent poison paintings all over the globe, by God! But now I had turned in her hand, just as Libbit had. Now I was something first to be stopped, then discarded.

"You're a little late for that, bitch," I whispered.

So why did I still smell gas?

The paintings - especially the most dangerous ones, the Girl and Ship series - were safely under lock and key, and off-island, just as Elizabeth had wished. According to Pam, nobody in our circle of family and friends had taken sketches except for Bozie, Tom, and Xander Kamen. It was too late for Tom and Kamen, and I'd have given a great deal to change that, but Bozie had promised to burn his, so that was all right. Even Jack was covered, because he'd owned up to his little act of thievery. It had been smart of Wireman to ask him, I thought. I was only surprised he hadn't asked if I'd given Jack some artwork myse -

My breath turned to glass in my throat. Now I knew what I'd forgotten. Now, in this deep crease of the night with the wind roaring outside. I'd been so fixated on the goddam show that I'd never thought much about who I might have given work to before the show.

Can I have it?

My memory, still apt to be so balky, sometimes surprised me with bursts of Technicolor brilliance. It provided one now. I saw Ilse standing barefoot in Little Pink, dressed in shorts and a shell top. She was standing by my easel. I had to ask her to move so I could see the picture she was so taken with. The picture I didn't even remember doing.

Can I have it?

When she stood aside, I saw a little girl in a tennis dress. Her back was turned, but she was the focus of the picture. The red hair marked her as Reba, my little love, that girlfriend from my other life. Yet she was also Ilse - Rowboat Ilse - and Elizabeth's big sister Adriana as well, for that was Adie's tennis dress, the one with the fine blue loops along the hem. (I couldn't know this, but I did; it was news that had come whispering up from Elizabeth's pictures - pictures done when she was still known as Libbit.)

Can I have it? This is the one I want.

Or the one something wanted her to want.

I tried Ilse, Pam had said. I wasn't sure I'd reach her, but she just got in.

All around the doll-girl's feet were tennis balls. Others floated shoreward on the mild waves.

She sounded tired, but she's okay.

Was she? Was she really? I had given her that damned picture. She was my Miss Cookie, and I could refuse her nothing. I had even named it for her, because she said artists had to name their pictures. The End of the Game, I'd told her, and now that clanged in my head like a bell.

iv

There was no phone extension in the guest bedroom, so I crept out into the hall with my silver harpoon clutched in one hand. In spite of my need to get through to Ilse as soon as possible, I took a moment to peer in through the open doorway across the hall. Wireman was lying on his back like a beached whale, snoring peacefully. His own silver harpoon was beside him, along with a glass of water.

I went past the family portrait, down the stairs, and into the kitchen. Here the rush of the wind and the roar of the surf was louder than ever. I picked up the phone and heard... nothing.

Of course. Did you think Perse would neglect the phones?

Then I looked at the handset and saw buttons for two lines. In the kitchen, at least, just picking up the phone wasn't enough. I said a little prayer under my breath, pushed the button marked LINE 1, and was rewarded with a dial tone. I moved my thumb to the button, then realized I couldn't remember Ilse's telephone number. My address book was back at Big Pink, and her telephone number had gone entirely out of my head.

v

The phone began to make a sirening sound. It was small - I had laid the handset down on the counter - but it seemed loud in the shadowy kitchen, and it made me think of bad things. Police cars responding to acts of violence. Ambulances rushing to the scenes of accidents.

I pushed the cut-off button, then leaned my head against the chilly brushed-steel front of El Palacio 's big refrigerator. In front of me was a magnet reading FAT IS THE NEW THIN. Right, and dead was the new alive. Next to the magnet was a magnetized pad-holder and a stub of pencil on a string.