Day Three
July 23, 1952
Wednesday Morning
Wilde stood up and pulled London to her feet, then put his arms around her. “Tell me,” he said. “Tell me what it is that’s not pretty.” London squeezed him and looked up into his eyes for a heartbeat before pulling away.
“I wish I hadn’t done it,” she said. “Believe me when I say that.”
“Done what?”
She slumped onto the bed next to the suitcase.
“Me and Crockett were partners in the Mexican deal,” she said. “It was actually my idea, not his. I was the one who approached him, not the opposite. The deal was simple. He bankrolled all my trips down there over the years. He greased the skids so that I could be away from the law firm for months at a time without getting fired. He was also in the wings to help me if I got caught or ended up in jail or something like that. In return, if it turned out that I actually did come across something of value, we’d split it fifty-fifty. On my last trip down there, I came across the map. You already know about that part.”
The cigarette was down to Wilde’s fingertips.
“Hold on.”
He stepped into the bathroom and threw the butt in the toilet after lighting a new one from it.
He blew fresh smoke.
“You said he hired the guy who tried to kill you last night.”
“That’s right.”
“Why?”
London exhaled.
“Okay, when I got back from Mexico, I didn’t tell him about the map-not at first,” she said. “I pretended like nothing out of the ordinary happened.”
Wilde wrinkled his face.
“So you double-crossed him.”
“No,” London said. “Well, yes, but only at first. He could tell I was lying and kept pressuring me to find out what I was hiding. Then someone broke into my house.”
“Him?”
London shrugged.
“Maybe but I don’t think so,” she said. “I think it was some third party.”
“Who?”
“I don’t have a clue,” she said. “Anyway, I was scared at that point. I came to you for protection.”
Wilde nodded.
“Right, I know.”
Her eyes held his briefly then flicked away. “I wasn’t completely honest with you though,” she said. “I gave you a map to hold. It wasn’t the original one. It was a decoy.”
“What are you saying, that it was a copy?”
“It wasn’t even a copy,” she said. “It was just something I made up.”
“So it doesn’t show the location of a treasure?”
London shook her head.
“No, it’s just a worthless piece of paper,” she said.
Wilde tilted his head.
“So where’s the original?”
“I have it,” London said. “It’s somewhere safe.”
“Where?”
“That’s something I can’t tell you,” she said. “Here’s the thing-at the same time I was going to you for protection, Crockett was putting more and more pressure on me. I decided to do the same thing with him that I did with you, namely give him a false map.”
“Did he think it was real?”
She nodded.
“Yes, the same as you.”
“So you double-crossed him at that point.”
Her breath shortened.
“I’m not proud of it,” she said. “But I was the one taking all the chances. I was the one with my ass in the dirt. I was the one who figured out where to look.” A beat then, “I was going to pay him back in the end, everything he invested-tenfold. The only thing I didn’t want to do was to cut him in for a full fifty percent. He hadn’t earned it.”
Wilde frowned.
“But that was the deal.”
London hardened her face.
“Well, the deal changed.”
Wilde inhaled deep and long, then blew a ring.
“Let me fill in the next part,” he said. “Crockett figured out what you did and hired someone to kill you.”
London shook her head.
“No.”
“No?”
“No.”
“What then?”
“He actually thought he had the original map,” she said. “At the same time, he denied that he was the one who broke into my house. I think he was telling the truth when he said that. If he was, then there was definitely a third party in the mix.”
“Okay.”
“We came up with a plan,” she said. “This is the part where it starts to not get pretty, at least where you’re concerned. The plan was that I would have you come over to my house last night to protect me.”
Wilde’s chest tightened.
“Go on.”
“I was supposed to slip something into your drink.” She pulled a pill out of her purse and held it up. “This. It wouldn’t make you pass out completely but it would slow you down to the point where you wouldn’t be able to hold your own in a fight.”
She put the pill back in her purse.
“I don’t remember feeling groggy,” Wilde said.
“That’s because I never slipped it to you,” London said. “Like I was saying, the plan was that I would slip it to you. Then, at exactly one o’clock in the morning, Crocket would break in. He’d attack you. He wouldn’t kill you or hurt you too bad, but you’d know you were attacked. Then he’d abduct me. I’d disappear and you’d make a police report the following morning. I’d never show back up again. Then, whoever the third party was, they’d think I was actually gone forever. They’d get off my tail.”
Wilde frowned.
His vision blurred.
Then he focused and said, “So I was your witness?”
“Right.”
“That was wrong.”
She nodded.
“To a point,” she said. “Remember, though, I was fighting for my life. I hired you to protect me. The plan-if it had actually gone as planned-would have gotten the result. You would have played your part, although I admit it wasn’t the way you envisioned. You also got paid pretty well.”
Wilde shook his head.
“That’s bullshit,” he said. “Don’t try to justify what you did.”
London shrugged.
“If you’re looking for an apology I’ll give you one,” she said. “But someday when it’s your neck on the line, you’ll understand.”
“I already understand.”
“Do you? Deep down?”
“Yes,” he said.
But he wasn’t sure.
Not really.
Not down in his bones.
“Anyway,” London said, “I didn’t go through with the plan.”
True.
Very true.
“Why not?”
“Simple. I had a feeling that Crocket was going to double-cross me,” she said. “He had the map, or at least he thought he had the map. He didn’t need me anymore. I had a sneaky feeling that what he was actually going to do was kill me instead of pretending to abduct me.” Her lower lip trembled. “So instead of slipping you something, I kept you as you were. Then when he came in, I woke you. Good thing too, because I was right. He actually tried to kill me. Not directly-the guy who showed up was hired by him.”
“You still don’t know that.”
“Wake up, Wilde,” she said. “It’s for sure. If it was a third party looking for the map, they wouldn’t kill me. I wouldn’t be any use to them dead. The only person who had a motive to see me dead is someone who thought they already had the map. That’s Crocket Bluetone.”
It made sense.
“That’s why he showed up this morning,” she said. “Everything went wrong last night. He knew I was skipping town and headed over to grab me. The only thing that stopped him was you being here.”
Wilde chewed on it.
It fit.
It all fit.
His fingers were hot.
He looked down to see the cigarette almost burned to the end.
He threw it in the toilet.
Then he lit a book of matches on fire, watched the flames for a few heartbeats and lit another cigarette. He waved the flames out and threw them in the toilet.
He looked at London.
“You set me up to kill Bluetone last night. You knew he’d show up. You knew I’d kill him. You turned me into a murderer. You did it so you could have the whole treasure for yourself.”
London buried her head in her hands.
Then she looked up and held his eyes with hers.
“I told you it wasn’t pretty,” she said.
“Well you were right.”
“I felt bad afterwards,” she said. “When I said I was going to cut you in on half, that was the truth. That part of it was real. It still is real, Wilde. Let’s do it. Let’s go get the treasure and then live the rest of our lives on an island. Come on, just you and me. Screw the rest of the world.”