Duma Key

Surrounding the bigger chunks of white ceramic, and mixed in with them, were glittering heaps and sprays of glass. To the right of this pile were two old-fashioned wooden handcarts, both overturned. To the left, leaning against the wall, was a sledgehammer with a rusty business-end and patches of moss growing up the handle.

"Someone had a container-smashing party," Wireman said. "Who do you think? Em?"

"Maybe," I said. "Probably."

For the first time I started to wonder if she was going to beat us after all. We had some daylight left, but less than I had expected and far less than I was comfortable with. And now... in what were we going to drown her china simulacrum? A fucking Evian water bottle? It wasn't a bad idea, in a way - they were plastic, and according to the environmentalists, the damned things are going to last forever - but a china figure would never fit through the hole in the top.

"So what's the fallback position?" Wireman asked. "The gas tank of that old John Deere? Will that do?"

The thought of trying to drown Perse in the old tractor's gas tank made me cold all over. It was probably nothing but rusty lace. "No. I don't think that will work."

He must have heard something close to panic in my voice, because he gripped my arm. "Take it easy. We'll think of something."

"Sure, but what?"

"We'll take her back up to Heron's Roost, that's all. There'll be something there."

But in my mind's eye I kept seeing how the storms had dealt with the mansion that had once dominated this end of Duma Key, turning it into little more than a fa ade. Then I wondered how many containers we actually would find there, especially with just forty minutes or so before dark came and the Perse sent a landing-party to end our meddling. God, to have forgotten such an elementary item as a water-tight container!

"Fuck!" I said. I kicked a pile of shards and sent them flying. "Fuck!"

"Easy, vato. That won't help."

No, it wouldn't. And she'd like me angry, wouldn't she? The old angry Edgar would be easy to manipulate. I tried to get hold of myself, but the I can do this mantra wasn't working. Still, it was all I had. And what do you do when you can't use anger to fall back on? You admit the truth.

"All right," I said. "But I don't have a clue."

"Relax, Edgar," Jack said, and he was smiling. "That part's gonna be okay."

"Why? What do you mean?"

"Trust me on this," he said.

v

As we stood looking at Charley the Lawn Jockey in light that was now taking on a definite purple cast, a nonsense couplet from an old Dave Van Ronk blues occurred to me: "Mama bought a chicken, thought it was a duck; Sat it on the table with the legs stickin up." Charley wasn't a chicken or a duck, but his legs, ending not in shoes but a dark iron pedestal, were indeed sticking up. His head, however, was gone. It had crashed down through a square of ancient moss- and vine-covered boards.

"What's that, muchacho?" Wireman asked. "Do you know?"

"I'm pretty sure it's a cistern," I said. "I'm hoping not a septic tank."

Wireman shook his head. "He wouldn't have put them in a shitheap no matter how bad his mental state was. Never in a million years."

Jack looked from Wireman to me, his young face full of horror. "Adriana's down there? And the nanny?"

"Yes," I said. "I thought you understood that. But the most important thing is that Perse 's down there. And the reason I think it's a cistern is-"

"Elizabeth would have insisted on making sure the bitch was in a watery grave," Wireman said grimly. "A fresh -watery one."

vi

Charley was heavy, and the boards covering the hole in the high grass were more rotten than the steps of the ladder. Of course they were; unlike the ladder, the wooden cap had been directly exposed to the elements. We worked carefully in spite of the thickening shadows, not knowing how deep it was beneath. At last I was able to push the troublesome jockey far enough to one side so that Wireman and Jack could grab the slightly cocked blue legs. I stepped onto the rotted wooden cap in doing so; someone had to, and I was the lightest. It bent under my weight, gave out a long, warning groan, puffed up sour air.

"Get off it, Edgar!" Wireman yelled, and at the same instant Jack cried, "Grab it, oh whore, it's gonna fall through!"

They seized Charley as I stepped off the sagging cap, Wireman around the bent knees and Jack around the waist. For a moment I thought it was going to drop through anyway, dragging them both along. Then they gave a combined shout of effort and tumbled over backward with the lawn jockey on top of them. Its grinning face and red cap were covered with huge lumbering beetles. Several dropped off onto Jack's straining face, and one fell directly into Wireman's mouth. He screamed, spat it out, and leaped to his feet, still spitting and rubbing his lips. Jack was beside him a moment later, dancing around him in a circle and brushing the bugs off his shirt.