little more, added ten more minutes to the half hour and picked up the pace as well. When he finally finished, his lungs were sucking for air, and he had to hang on to the side of the pool a while before he could pull himself out.
Upstairs he changed into a pair of casual trousers and an old dress shirt, stepped into a pair of loafers, and went down to the kitchen. It was too late to cook anything, and nothing in the refrigerator looked good to him anyway. Bored with the prospect of eating, even though the laps always made him ravenous, he poured out a bowl of cereal, sliced thin slivers of a nectarine onto it, added milk, and sat down at the kitchen table to eat.
He didn’t know what to do with his thoughts. Not wanting to think about Tisler for a while, he tried to make his mind blank. It was an exercise in futility. His
Weltanschauung
was thoroughly Westernized, and a blank mind was not an easy thing to come by. His meditations tended more toward the baroque.
Finishing his cereal, he stood wearily and took his empty bowl to the sink and rinsed it out, opened the dishwasher, and put the bowl and spoon into the washer. Taking a glass from the cabinet, he ran water from the faucet and stood at the sink as he drank it, looking out at the back yard. He could see the pool, and here and there a few yards from its margins the silhouettes of sago palms and palmettos; and in the near-dark he could make out the lower boughs of the oaks, too, with Spanish moss hanging from them in cheerless festoons that he found somber even in the best of times and which he now regarded with a painful sadness.
Then he heard the doorbell ring.
Instinctively he looked at his watch; it was nearly twelve o’clock. He set the glass on the counter, grabbed the hand towel that hung on the cabinet and dried his hands as he walked down the hallway to the front door. The light was off in the entry, but the front porch light was still on, and he could see the fractured figure of a man through the beveled glass of the door. He didn’t readily recognize this Cubist silhouette. Tossing the hand towel over his shoulder, he threw the dead bolt and opened the door.
Chapter 6
Jack Westrate was standing in front of him, his hands jammed into his pockets, his dark silk suit rumpled, shirt collar and tie undone. He was several inches shorter than Graver with a body frame that brought to mind words like bulwark and redoubt. He was decidedly stout, but it was the kind of heaviness that suggested a hard aggressiveness. There was nothing at all soft about Jack Westrate, in either his manner or his appearance.
“We’d better talk,” he said and clamped his mouth shut, his long upper lip and dimpled lower lip clinched tightly in determination.
Westrate was like a bully cur; he always tried to set the rules of engagement in his favor with an immediate challenge in the first seconds of encounter. But it was too goddamned late to be “challenged,” and Graver was in no mood to feel any sympathy for Westrate’s predicament. So he didn’t move or say anything, just hesitated long enough to make Westrate a little less confident, and then slowly backed away, pulling open the door. “Come on in,” he said.
Westrate was immediately inside the front hall, bringing with him his familiar dense odors of cologne and cigar smoke. He wheeled to the right where he saw lamps turned on in the living room, and walked in.
“Sit down, anywhere,” Graver said, gesturing vaguely around the room.
Westrate passed up the sofa and a wing chair and sat in a deep green leather armchair beside a table with a small Oriental lamp. Graver sat in his usual reading chair near his old mahogany desk, draping the hand towel on the brass handle of a magazine stand.
“I talked to Katz a little while ago,” Westrate said immediately. “After you guys left the scene out there.”
He sat forward in the chair, his forearms resting on his thick knees. His black hair was
Upstairs he changed into a pair of casual trousers and an old dress shirt, stepped into a pair of loafers, and went down to the kitchen. It was too late to cook anything, and nothing in the refrigerator looked good to him anyway. Bored with the prospect of eating, even though the laps always made him ravenous, he poured out a bowl of cereal, sliced thin slivers of a nectarine onto it, added milk, and sat down at the kitchen table to eat.
He didn’t know what to do with his thoughts. Not wanting to think about Tisler for a while, he tried to make his mind blank. It was an exercise in futility. His
Weltanschauung
was thoroughly Westernized, and a blank mind was not an easy thing to come by. His meditations tended more toward the baroque.
Finishing his cereal, he stood wearily and took his empty bowl to the sink and rinsed it out, opened the dishwasher, and put the bowl and spoon into the washer. Taking a glass from the cabinet, he ran water from the faucet and stood at the sink as he drank it, looking out at the back yard. He could see the pool, and here and there a few yards from its margins the silhouettes of sago palms and palmettos; and in the near-dark he could make out the lower boughs of the oaks, too, with Spanish moss hanging from them in cheerless festoons that he found somber even in the best of times and which he now regarded with a painful sadness.
Then he heard the doorbell ring.
Instinctively he looked at his watch; it was nearly twelve o’clock. He set the glass on the counter, grabbed the hand towel that hung on the cabinet and dried his hands as he walked down the hallway to the front door. The light was off in the entry, but the front porch light was still on, and he could see the fractured figure of a man through the beveled glass of the door. He didn’t readily recognize this Cubist silhouette. Tossing the hand towel over his shoulder, he threw the dead bolt and opened the door.
Chapter 6
Jack Westrate was standing in front of him, his hands jammed into his pockets, his dark silk suit rumpled, shirt collar and tie undone. He was several inches shorter than Graver with a body frame that brought to mind words like bulwark and redoubt. He was decidedly stout, but it was the kind of heaviness that suggested a hard aggressiveness. There was nothing at all soft about Jack Westrate, in either his manner or his appearance.
“We’d better talk,” he said and clamped his mouth shut, his long upper lip and dimpled lower lip clinched tightly in determination.
Westrate was like a bully cur; he always tried to set the rules of engagement in his favor with an immediate challenge in the first seconds of encounter. But it was too goddamned late to be “challenged,” and Graver was in no mood to feel any sympathy for Westrate’s predicament. So he didn’t move or say anything, just hesitated long enough to make Westrate a little less confident, and then slowly backed away, pulling open the door. “Come on in,” he said.
Westrate was immediately inside the front hall, bringing with him his familiar dense odors of cologne and cigar smoke. He wheeled to the right where he saw lamps turned on in the living room, and walked in.
“Sit down, anywhere,” Graver said, gesturing vaguely around the room.
Westrate passed up the sofa and a wing chair and sat in a deep green leather armchair beside a table with a small Oriental lamp. Graver sat in his usual reading chair near his old mahogany desk, draping the hand towel on the brass handle of a magazine stand.
“I talked to Katz a little while ago,” Westrate said immediately. “After you guys left the scene out there.”
He sat forward in the chair, his forearms resting on his thick knees. His black hair was
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