Pity Him Afterwards

A long distance away across the smooth water, toward the town end of the lake, were a number of small sailboats, cats, with varicolored sails. One with a bright orange sail crossed in front of one with a bright purple sail, making a moment of garish beauty. Other cats way across the water there had red sails and blue sails and yellow sails, while two sloops, stately by comparison, wore sails discreetly white. The bright hues of the cats on the dark blue water, framed by the dark green of the shore to left and right, made him think of a pool table, with the balls scattered in a random pattern. This was a similar beauty.

He expressed the comparison, and Mary Ann didn’t get it at all. “A pool table?”

“Sure,” he said. The oars were at rest for a moment, the little boat bobbing gently on the water. Mel shaded his eyes with his hand and gazed down toward the cats. “Just like a pool table,” he said.

“For heaven’s sake,” she said. “A pool table. You have a real knack for the poetic image.”

“You’ve just never looked at pool tables,” he told her, irritated because his estimation of her had dropped, and he was afraid this outing with her was doomed to failure.

“Now, be honest, Mel,” she said. “Have you ever, even once in your life, looked at a pool table and said to yourself, ‘That reminds me of a lake’?”

“Well, of course not, I never saw anything like—”

“It isn’t even the right color. Pool tables are green, and this lake is blue.”

“Just forget it,” he said. “Never mind, just forget it.”

“And besides, pool tables are covered with smoke, and they don’t—” She stopped abruptly, and clapped her hand to her mouth, and her eyes widened. She stared at him that way for a few seconds, while he wondered what disaster had just struck, and then slowly she lowered her hand from her mouth, shook her head, and said, “I’m sorry, Mel. I really am.”

“Well... sure. That’s okay.”

“I always do that, always. My brother calls me Lucy, Miss Busybody of the Year. You know, from Peanuts?”

He found himself grinning, as the irritation faded away. “So it doesn’t look like a pool table,” he said. “Maybe that’s exclusively a masculine image or something.”

“No, I knew what you meant, with the different-colored sails and all, it’s just I always do that. I get so bossy sometimes, and picky.”

“It’s the director in you.”

She smiled wanly. “Maybe it is.”

“Tell me something,” he said, because it was time to change the subject away from pool tables.

“All right, what?”

“When are you going to New York?”

“Oh. I don’t know, Mel. Sometime.”

“Why not go this fall? Right after the season ends.”

“If there is a season.”

“Forget that for a minute. This fall. Right?”

“I don’t know, Mel.”

“Announce it,” he told her. “Maybe not yet, while this other thing is hanging over everybody’s head, but after it’s all straightened away and we get down to being a summer theater for a change. Tell everybody, the whole company. Tell them, ‘I’m going to New York this fall. If you can get me some introductions, or find me work some place, I’d sure appreciate it.’ Do that, will you?”

She frowned, and chewed on her lower lip, and gazed down at the water rippling past the side of the boat. “I don’t know, Mel,” she said.

“If you announce it now, you’ll have to go.”

“I know.”

“And these people will help you, if they can. I wish I could help you. I mean it, I do. But look at me, I mean, I’m just starting out, too. I could use some contacts myself.”

She looked up at him and smiled again. “It takes courage to do what you’re doing,” she said. “To go away from home, and start from the very beginning. I’m not sure I could do it.”

“You think it over.”

“I will.”

He unshipped the oars and started rowing again, then looked over his shoulder. “Where is that damn island, anyway?”

“Straight ahead. I’ll steer you.”

“Okay.” He looked back the way he had come, past Mary Ann. “You can’t even see the theater any more,” he said. “Or the house.”

She twisted around in the seat to look in that direction. “I’m glad,” she said.

“Same here.” He pulled on the oars, then angled them out of the water and held them high and dripping. “I’ll make you a deal,” he said.

“What?”

“Out of sight, out of mind. For the rest of the day there isn’t any theater any more, and there isn’t any house, and there isn’t any maniac.”

“Wonderful,” she said.

They smiled at each other, and Mel rowed them toward the island.

After breakfast, Sondgard went to work to deploy his forces, just in case the killer did fall for the bluff and try to get away before three o’clock. He was pretty sure now that the bluff wasn’t going to work; the qualification he’d made about its not being one hundred per cent sure it was a good print had been enough to remove the sting. But he hadn’t had any choice. He’d had to leave himself an out, because by God he didn’t have a fingerprint. But in covering himself he had drained the effectiveness of the scheme, so it had been a waste of time to start it in the first place.