The Adjal of Jimmy Temple

Chapter Twenty Five

Chapter Twenty Five

I awoke. So as not to disturb Wanda I rolled over and looked at my watch. Ten to six, almost dawn. The surf broke loud against the shore, but I could also hear rain and a rising wind. The storm was back. Usually all that stirs me from a deep sleep is a sharp noise. I must have heard something downstairs. Enough light spilled in so that I could see to pull on slacks and a shirt. I could also see Wanda's purse on the dresser and for some reason, call it instinct - opportunity, more honestly - after making sure she was asleep, I started to fish around in the purse for the .22, but the top dresser drawer was cracked open. She had kept her promise. Resting snugly atop a pile of handkerchiefs was the .22. I looked in the mirror and saw a face dripping with guilt. Shame was the word. She was right. I was a prick.

I closed the window, tiptoed out and went downstairs to the kitchen. Through the bay window the ocean crashed on the beach as the storm picked up force. A gust of wind rattled the windows. There was just enough light to make out a figure standing by the big fridge. It was Wayne, nursing a beer and his nose.

"Howdy," I said. "Time to saddle?"

He spun around. The look on his face wasn't that of a man seeing a long-lost friend. He wore a big white bandage and, as I had surmised, the area around his eyes had a mask-like bruise.

I said, "You look like the Lone Ranger after a nose job. Where's Tonto?"

"Fuck off." He turned away, then, "What'd you do with my gun?"

"I sold it to a collector."

He looked defeated. "Do you honest to God not have the real disc?"

"Scout's honor."

"I don't believe you."

"Your problem," I said and then, like a bright light in the dark sky, I realized that I had ignored what should have been obvious long before this. "You know what's on that disc, don't you? And you want in on it."

"Want in on what?"

Unless Wayne had suddenly become the proverbial world's oldest boy soprano, it wasn't him who asked the question. It was Wanda, once again like the ingénue walking on stage just in time to hear the vital information. Her uncanny ability for sudden, unexpected appearances. That psychic shit again, no doubt. She stood uncertainly in the doorway, hair tousled from sleep.

"I had a brainstorm," I said to her, at the same time jerking a thumb at Wayne. "I'll bet my standard dollar to a dime that your father and him were drinking buddies."

Wayne said nothing but the look on his face said he wasn't feeling too nostalgic about it.

I went on, "And I'll bet another dollar to another dime that toward the end, Jack's brain was so wet it didn't take much more than a couple of beers to send him over the edge. Oh, sure, he'd chug down a gallon, but after the first shot or two he was already so blind he couldn't tell night from day. And one more dollar-to-dime: on one of those sprees Jack got so pissed - and don't forget all this is with that heavy guilt, that sick conscience - he spilled just enough about the disc for good old Wayne here to figure it out, figure what was on it."

Wanda was peering at Wayne, with a strange expression. As though seeing someone she knew but couldn't immediately place. Now I turned to fully face Wayne. It was all coming together in my head. I felt like I was Perry Mason giving the closed-mouth witness the coup de grace. "You were the foreman on that construction site. You knew something or other was wrong with that elevator platform Jack Kincaid rode up in, and you 'forgot' to tell him. So he did something - punched the wrong buttons, whatever - and down he went."