Masks, p.37
Masks, page 37
"But these masks were destroyed, of course. In the fire," Martin said hastily. Danny saw that he was becoming agitated. "But in Africa, with similar tribes in similar regions, it's not unreasonable to assume that masks which resemble one another might be produced."
"I was so curious that I got the picture the dealer sent and compared it to the picture I gave you," Danny said. "I couldn't find any differences."
Martin's eyebrows furrowed, and a dark look came onto his face. "What are you saying?" he demanded. He opened a desk drawer at his side, pulled out a tissue and mopped his forehead with it. He didn't look so good, Danny thought. His skin was flushed, and his movements were jerky.
"Nothing in particular, Martin. I was just struck by the remarkable coincidence. If you look closely, you can see that the two masks in the picture I gave you are not identical. They're very similar, and yet there are enough differences to tell them apart. And it was the same with the two masks in the dealer's photo. Same similarities, same differences. Strange."
"I don't like what's you're implying," Martin huffed. A splotchy red flush was coming over his face, and sweat dotted his forehead. "You can't just come in here and accuse me of...of anything! I won't put up with it!"
"Why do you think I'm accusing you?" Danny asked. "I was just telling you something that seemed interesting. I thought that maybe if I told you who the dealer was, those masks might be available and you could buy them for me."
"That's not what you're saying! "Martin insisted. "I understand your meaning!" His face was crimson now, and a swelling vein on his right temple looked like a throbbing red worm on the side of his head. He tried to mop his brow again, but his hands were shaking badly and the tissue slipped from his fingers. He reached into the drawer again, to get another tissue, Danny presumed.
But when Martin Raines' hand came out again, it held a black, small-caliber automatic, and his finger was on the trigger. His hand shook badly, but at this short range, Danny figured it might be impossible to miss him with even a sloppy shot. He felt a sudden urge to empty his bladder and struggled to control it.
"I won't stand for it. Do you hear me?" Martin said.
Danny knew he had pushed too hard to fast. His first instinct when he made his startling realization in Edwin Raines office was to take his discovery to the police and let them handle it...if they would pay attention to what he had to say, and if they would follow up. But something drove him to come here instead, to confront Edwin's brother face-to-face. Now he clearly saw the merits of Plan A.
"Sure I hear you. You're yelling so loud they can probably hear you out on the street," Danny said. "But I don't see why you're getting so angry." He tried to force a smile onto this face.
"I can't take any more of this. I can't stand it!" Martin shouted. "You can't just come in here..."
"You're right, Martin. I should come back another time when you're a little more...calm," Danny suggested. He started to rise from the chair, but the second he tried to move, Martin's second hand rose to the gun. Danny froze, waiting for the flash of light and sound to rush at him, but nothing happened. He settled slowly back into the chair, like a man trying to sit on an egg.
"It was his own fault," Martin blurted out. "He was so stupid. So stupid and selfish. It wasn't enough that he broke up our partnership and ruined my business. He wanted to see me go to jail, too."
"Why?" Danny asked. "For the fire?"
"He got his share, you know. He got his share of the insurance money. It wasn't like I cheated him. But he wouldn't let it alone. He started up with all those letters and pictures and things..."
"...and he found out that you had moved some of the most valuable pieces out of the store before you set the fire," Danny prompted him, "and later resold them someplace else."
"He wanted me to give myself up to the police. But I would have been in jail for the rest of my life. With all those filthy criminals, all those drug addicts and fornicators. For arson, and insurance fraud, and even for manslaughter. Who knew we had a bum sleeping in our basement? Who has a guy named Harmonica Joe sleeping in the basement of his store, for Christ's sake? Would I have to spend the rest of my life in jail for something I didn't even know?"
The throbbing vein in Martin's temple looked about ready to blow, and fat tears flowed down cheeks glistening with sweat. His eyes were as big and round as half dollars, a madman's eyes.
"So you had to shoot him," Danny prompted.
"It was a mistake," Martin tried to explain. "No, more like an accident. A real accident. I had the gun, this gun, and I tried to scare Edwin with it. But he wouldn't listen to me. He was standing by his car, ready to leave, and he said he was going to the police. Then the gun went off, and he fell down. The hole was so small, but he didn't move. His eyes were open...." As if to demonstrate how common accidents like that were, the shaking gun fired without warning, and the frosted glass pane in the office door behind Danny exploded. Danny's heart pounded in his chest.
"No wait. That was an accident," Martin explained urgently, staring at the automatic as if it might have its own agenda. "I'm sorry. I wasn't trying to shoot you that time."
"That's good news," Danny said. When he heard his own voice he realized that he was hyperventilating, his words issuing in throaty huffs like a marathon runner talking to the press. "But just to be safe, why don't you point that thing someplace else. I'm not your problem, and shooting me will only make things worse."
Martin stared at Danny as if he had just shared a revelation, an insight of profound proportions. "You're right! Of course! You're not my problem. I'm my problem, and there's only one solution!"
The instant the wavering gun barrel swept away from his direction, Danny reacted instantly. Even as he lifted the front of the heavy desk and shoved it hard toward Martin Raines, he realized that Martin was moving the gun toward his own head. It went off just as Martin disappeared behind the rushing mound of oak and desktop debris.
The gun fired again, and in the next instant Martin began screeching. "I'm shot! My god, I'm shot! My face..."
Danny had not consciously considered the wisdom of falling to the floor, but he found himself rising cautiously from the dusty oak boards beside his chair. There were no more shots, but the office reverberated with Martin Raines' howls of fear and pain. A faint haze and the acrid odor of cordite filled the room.
Martin Raines was pinned to the floor by the toppled desk, half buried in the jumbled mess of his own business paperwork. He thrashed hysterically, and Danny approached him with caution, lest he become the next victim of the man's reckless firearm antics. Then he saw the gun on the floor three feet from Martin and kicked it away.
Danny began excavating until at last he uncovered Martin, at least from the chest up. Martin had both hands over his face, and there was blood everywhere. He was blubbering pathetically.
"Help me, Danny. Help me!" Martin pleaded. "I'm shot!" His hands shot out, grasping for Danny's clothing, leaving long bloody streaks down the front of his shirt.
Blood pulsed from the end of Martin Raines nose, and a chunk of flesh was missing, leaving an odd little concave wound. The long-term consequences of the wound would be interesting.
"You're shot alright," Danny said. "But not as seriously as you deserve. You just nicked the end of your nose, so quit blubbering." He put his handkerchief over the end of Martin's nose, then guided one of his hands up to keep it in place. "Hold that," he instructed.
Danny lifted the heavy desk off of Martin, righted his chair, and helped him into it. He stepped back quickly when Martin leaned his head forward and vomited on the mess of papers at his feet. After that Martin seemed a little calmer, although his eyes were still large with fear and shock.
Danny fished out his cell phone and called the police.
THIRTY-ONE
The Last Chapter
Danny Skelton and his father Whit sat at a picnic table in the shade of a mulberry tree, sipping cold Bud from sweat-beaded brown bottles while they rehashed the highlights from their morning on the lake. Sardis Reservoir had yielded her bounty to them today, and even now in a shed thirty feet away, one of Gus Patou's sons was filleting out the stringers of crappie and catfish they brought back with them.
Starting at daybreak, Danny and his father had spent eight straight hours on the lake, rigging tackle for the half-dozen lines they kept in the water, munching sausage biscuits and snacks, switching from coffee to beer about noon, and of course pulling 'em in. When they returned to the dock behind Whit's house about two, they transferred their catch to the back of Whit's old Chevy pickup and headed out to Gus Patou's store. Everything was part of their fishing ritual, including the ice cold Buds they were now drinking, and the late lunch Patou's wife was now preparing for them in the kitchen in the back of the store.
They had scrubbed their faces, hands and arms with the strong borax soap in the bathroom of Gus's store, but both men still reeked of sweat, beer, fish, stinkbait, and that particular strain of testosterone that comes from doing outdoorsy, manly things. Their skin was sunburned and dry, and their hair was greasy and matted to their heads. It was a thoroughly satisfying condition to be in, and the only thing missing was having some female around telling them how filthy and smelly they were and trying to hustle them off to the showers.
"I wish you could stay on just one more day, son," Whit was telling Danny. "If we did this good again tomorrow morning, we'd have enough fish to invite the whole crowd over for a big fish fry."
"I'd love to, dad, but I just can't," Danny said. "Our special edition goes to the printer tomorrow, and I promised Lottie I'd be right there in case there are any last-minute problems. Now that I've started showing up for work every day, she's actually started counting on me again."
"It just seems like a shame to stop in the middle of a run like this," Whit said. "And I've enjoyed having you around, too."
"Well, we've got our Arkansas trip coming up in a couple of months," Danny pointed out. "After a full week on the Little Red, we'll both be sick of fishing, and probably of being around each other, too."
"Yeah. The Arkansas trip," Whit began hesitantly. "I've been meaning to talk to you about that." He didn't seem to want his eyes to meet Danny's.
"You're weaseling out on me, aren't you?" Danny said flatly.
"There's this jazz festival in New Orleans that same week," the older man said, "and Jewell goes down every year. She already had train tickets and reservations for us at the Prince Conti before she even mentioned it to me, and I just didn't have the heart..."
"That's fine, dad."
"I'm really sorry, son."
"I don't mind. You made the right decision," Danny assured him with a smile. "The Little Red will be there, and so will the rainbows. But don't come whining around wanting some trout when I get back with a cooler full. Just remember, you had your chance."
"That's what love will do to you," Whit said.
"So it's love, huh?"
"I suppose. I'd sure hate to think I was acting this way about a woman if it wasn't." Whit paused a moment, looking at his son, then asked, "And speaking of love, what's the news of Shelby these days? Is she leaving you alone?"
"Her brother's trying to get her in rehab," Danny said. "I don't know if it will do her any good, but at least it will keep her out of my way for a while."
They looked up and saw Gus Patou, their host, heading toward from the back of the store carrying two large plates with food.
Gus and his family were south Louisiana transplants. But while most of the other little country stores and bait shops that serviced the Sardis Reservoir fishing crowd offered the usual selection of barbecue sandwiches, fried chicken, cold cuts and frozen pizza, the fare at Gus's was distinctly different, due primarily to his wife Marla's talents in the kitchen. The plates that he delivered to them today were heaped with generous servings of red beans and rice, grilled Andouille sausage, shrimp etouffe, and brown corn dodgers.
"Man that looks good!" Whit said, accepting the plastic cutlery and paper napkin that Gus offered.
"You enjoy this, and by the time you're through, my boy Maurice will have your fish all ready to go. You had a good morning on the lake, didn't you?"
"The best in a long time," Whit confirmed. "I've been trying to convince Danny that he needs to stay over and fish one more day, but he's got some silly notion that he has to go back to the city and go to work."
"A man gotta work," Gus agreed. "Ain't nothing free in this world except may be the air we breath. Not even water's free no more. I make more on that in my store than anything else I sell." He started to turn away, then paused and reached down in the pocket of the white apron he wore and pulled out two more beers.
"I almost forgot," he said. "The lady sent you over two more beers."
Danny glanced over and saw Liz Hubbard standing in the back door of the store. She smiled hesitantly, waiting for a response. He knew better, but waved her over anyway.
###
Author's Notes:
This previously unpublished novel is one of the products of my foray into mysteries in the mid 1990s through the mid 2000s. For a few months in 2006 I tried to generate interest in Masks among literary agents who specialize in mysteries, but had no luck. Eventually, as always happens, I began focusing my time and energy on my next project, and Masks went into the unpublished electronic archives.
While editing the manuscript over the past couple of weeks, I realized that the book is really pretty good (in my biased opinion), and I can only wonder if I couldn't generate more interest because it didn't fit neatly into any of the subcategories of the mystery genre. There are niches for murders solved by cats, cooks, hardboiled cops, little old ladies, disillusioned detectives both male and female, and on and on. Simply getting a book read in today's market is a daunting task, and hardworking, overwhelmed literary agents often want to understand what specific reader segment will be targeted before dedicating the time it takes to read a full manuscript.
After spending 2-5 years writing and re-writing a novel, I am very impatient with the process of putting together a killer cover letter and synopsis, which might be my own personal fatal flaw.
Until now, I'm not sure anyone except me has ever actually read this book from beginning to end. I know that no agent ever asked to see the full manuscript.
Masks is a compilation of ideas and observations that churned around in my head for nearly two decades before finally coming together in this mystery in the 2004-2006 timeframe.
The primary concept for Masks evolved from a brief airport encounter decades ago with a married couple who, on the surface at least, seemed profoundly mismatched. She was tall, stalwart, and clearly dominant in the relationship. He was diminutive, withdrawn and unimposing. But somehow they had made it work, at least to the point that they were both willing to make the long term commitment of marriage.
I had to add flesh and backstory to create their fictional selves, and to become characters in a mystery, their lives had to involve many layers of complexity and conflict. And of course someone had to die.
Danny Skerett, the reader identity character whose life becomes intertwined with this odd couple, is just the sort of protagonist that I like to write about. He is somewhat self-effacing, interested but sometimes befuddled by the vagaries of life. His sense of humor is sardonic and random. At his core he is a man of kindness and integrity, and he is driven at critical times to seek the truth and do what's right. Women absolutely confound him.
Your comments and feedback are welcome. Please send them to glhunt0@earthlink.net.
Greg Hunt, Masks
