“Oh, Joe. Yes, honey. Oh, yes, yes, yes.”
She found the right Conrad book. She walked slowly back through the house toward the garden. She frowned as she thought of Joe. Steadily and inevitably she was growing away from him. She wondered if Doctor Paul knew that. She and Joe had less and less to talk about. Now his conversation seemed curiously empty. Like shallow water where you can see every stone on the bottom. Doctor Paul’s conversation was like a deep pool. You could not see bottom. You could look down into the pool and see the deep shifting of green shadows, of things partially understood. Doctor Paul’s mind was like some of the passages in the books. It could mean one thing and a lot of other things too, and each time you read it you would see something you missed before.
Lately, when Joe talked to her, she could nod and say the right things without even hearing him. “… bought me a beer when he found out I was a Giant fan … watched those kids water skiing near the municipal pier … must have been a heart attack or something, because they took her away in an ambulance … he says to me … so I said listen bud you’re talking to a guy who really knows California … so he says … and brother I told him off … she was driving a bright red Thunderbird … so then I told him the oldie about the plumber and the night nurse …”
She knew that her horizons had been the same. But the world had grown larger for her. On this morning, reading to Doctor Paul from this book she had never heard of, the world would grow larger still, and Joe would be left a little farther behind. The only close remaining element of their marriage was the physical. And she knew that her recent heightened interest in the physical was probably a reaction to the loss of the other elements of their marriage. Joe was pleased with her responsiveness. She could not tell him that she now feared for even that aspect, because she had lately begun to feel a vague distaste for the way he looked. His sideburns had begun to look absurd. His over-long fingernails looked cheap and affected. She was distressed by the spots of acne near his lips. That had never bothered her before. She was offended by the oil marks his hair left on their pillows. She resented picking up his dirty shorts and socks, washing his comb, replacing the top on the toothpaste, picking black hairs out of the sink.
She was afraid that soon everything would be gone, and she did not know what she would do without him.
She walked into the garden. Doctor Paul filled his pipe. She opened the book to “Typhoon.” Her voice was clear, distinct, childlike, in the soft April garden. “ ‘Captain MacWhirr of the steamer Nan-Shan, had a physiognomy that, in the order of material appearances, was the exact counterpart of his mind: it presented no marked characteristics of firmness or stupidity; it had no pronounced characteristics whatever; it was simply ordinary, irresponsive and unruffled.’ ”
Toby Piersall, at eleven, was brown and thin and agile, with a head that looked too large for him. But there was in his face a promise that he would look very much like his father, Ben. And, barring any serious psychological hurt, he might become a man very like Ben—large, mild, steady, purposeful—with oblique and surprising humor, with an outsize capacity for both love and loyalty.
He was in his second term of junior high. His last class of the day was American History. He sat at the fourth desk from the front in the row by the windows. Mr. Weed was talking about Wilson and the League of Nations. Toby wore an attentive look, but he was not hearing a word. He could see Mr. Weed’s mouth moving, but he had achieved that state of hypnosis where the room seemed entirely silent. Mr. Weed was like a television commercial with the sound turned off.
Toby Piersall was thinking of the sheet he had torn out of a magazine. It was in his notebook, on the slanted top of the desk in front of him. He had come across it during some forbidden reading. Magazines that concerned themselves with true crime cases were not on the official Toby Piersall reading list. The penalty for possession of such magazines was drastic. He would be grounded. No bike for a week. But he had a friend named Carl Gruen who was not similarly restricted. Carl had a playroom which adjoined the family garage. Carl was a true crime addict. The magazines were stacked high there. When Carl was short of money he had a nasty habit of charging a reading fee, but usually he was generous.
Toby Piersall turned back the sheets of his notebook until he could see the clipping. It showed a man in full face and in profile. There was a number on a placard that was hung around his neck.
He read once again what it said underneath. “Harry Mollinetti, alias Harry Mullin, alias Harold Moon. Escaped in January from state prison where he was serving consecutive sentences for bank robbery, second degree murder and kidnapping. This man is the most recent addition to the F.B.I.’s ‘ten most wanted’ list. Warning: He is probably armed and may be considered very dangerous. If you see this man, report to the nearest police station immediately.”
Toby studied the face again. The man who had roared at him on the Mather dock looked older and thinner. But it did look a little like the same man. He read the physical description again. “Height, five feet ten and a half. Weight 172. Hair: Dark. Complexion: Swarthy. Distinguishing marks or characteristics: Two bullet scars on back of left shoulder. Triangular scar on top of left wrist.”
Toby put the clipping out of sight. He was troubled. It was hard to relate this sort of man with the quiet bay-front neighborhood he knew so well. Toby did not want to make a fool of himself. He did not want to cry wolf. But he could not put the possibility out of his mind.
The last class of the day ended. He walked slowly back to his home room. At dismissal, he went out to the racks and piled his books in his bike basket. He and Dub Rowls rode home through the afternoon sunshine. Dub lived a few houses away.
“You sore about something?” Dub asked.
“Just thinking about something.”
“What are you thinking about?”
“Nothing much.”
“I’m going to take the boat out. Want to come?”
“I guess not.”
“You sick or something?”
“I told you I’m thinking about something.”
“Then have yourself a good time thinking.” Dub speeded up and rode on ahead. Toby kept the same pace. He wondered if he should have let Dub in on it. Not yet. It was still his problem. There was obviously one thing to do. Watch the man next door. Try to get a good look at him. Sneak over there at night and try to look through the windows. Try to see the back of the man’s left shoulder. Try to get a look at his wrist. That would be proof. With proof, there wouldn’t be anybody who could laugh at him. And there would be no punishment for reading those magazines.
Mooney was happy that Dil Parks had picked this day to stay off his back. Dil was obviously too worried and upset to bully the help. Mooney wondered how bad the trouble was. Maybe Dil was about to lose his franchise. It wouldn’t be surprising. The regional inspector who had been around a month ago had looked as though he smelled something bad. The shop was dirty. The records were messed up. The parts inventory was in bad shape.
Mooney spent an hour in the sun in the lot, irritable and impatient while a Negro stood and stared in silent communion with an elderly two-hundred-dollar Buick. From time to time he would kick a tire gingerly. When he left he said he would be back. Mooney, in a low voice, practiced the sound of Dr. Tomlin’s voice. At five minutes of three he crossed from the agency to a hardware store diagonally down the street. He shut himself in the phone booth in the back and called the cabana.
Lennie’s low cautious voice said, “Yes?”
“Lenora, I would like to know why you brought that man to my home. What is your relationship with him?”
“Good God!” she said softly.
“I do not like to hear a young woman use that kind of language, Lenora.”
“Stop it, Mooney.”
“Is it any good?”
“It’s almost too good. It gave me a funny feeling. It made me feel shivery.”
“Will you stay there?”
“How long?”
<
br /> “I could leave for good in about an hour. Or leave now and come back.”
“Leave now,” she said.
He did not go back inside. He took his own car from behind the agency and drove to the cabana. The blue demonstrator was hidden in the concealed drive. He went up the steps and went in. She turned from the window when she heard him. She was a dark silhouette against the bright afternoon glare of the Gulf. He went to her to take her in his arms, but she disengaged herself firmly.
“I want to talk to you, Mooney.”
“Want a drink?”
“Yes, thanks. You did that a lot better than I thought you would. Go ahead, make the drinks while I talk. I’ve been thinking that we could start it right now.”
“So quick?”
“What’s the point in waiting? It will be done sooner. You would have fooled me completely with that imitation. You could fool other people right now. You could make the first call right now. I want you to.”
He took her drink to her. She sat on the studio bed with it in her hand. “Okay,” he said without enthusiasm.
“There’s a realtor in town who does a lot of talking. He’d spread the word quickly. Uncle Paul used to deal with him a lot, after Dil’s father died. His name is Bud Hedges, and Uncle Paul calls him Benjamin. Now let’s go over this very carefully, Mooney. I want it to be perfect.”
“Let’s go,” he said. And he sat and listened to her, sat close beside her. When he tried to touch her she moved away and became angry for a moment.
“Benjamin? This is Doctor Tomlin speaking.”
“Hello there, Doctor! I thought I recognized your voice. I hope you’re putting something on the market.”
“Not today, Benjamin. I would like you to look around, quietly you understand, and see if you can pick something up for me.”
“Certainly, Doctor! It’s a pleasure. It will be nice to work together again.”
“Here is what I am looking for, Benjamin. About two or three thousand feet of key, Gulf to bay. Sand beach. Would you have any ideas about that?”
Mooney held the phone, the woman’s head close to his. She was biting her lip. Hedges said, “I think that could be done. We’ll have to go quite a way south. Down around Marco, maybe around the Hurricane Pass area south of Naples.”
“You don’t seem to understand, Benjamin. I want that land on Flamingo Key.”
Mooney heard the man gasp. “On Flamingo Key! Doctor, that’s heavily built up.”
“Just a few fishing shacks, Benjamin.”
The man laughed nervously. “Fishing shacks? You mean deluxe motels and beach apartment buildings, don’t you?”
“Very astute, Benjamin. That’s what we’ll have out there some day when the causeway is built. I have reliable information that it is going to be built and soon. Now is the time to buy that land.”
“But, Doctor, the causeway has …”
“If you can’t handle this, Benjamin, I can find someone else who will be glad to handle it. Joe Logan for example.”
“Joe has been dead for …”
“Find that land for me, Benjamin, and make certain the title is clear and find out how much it will cost me, then phone me back. Be very quiet about this.”
“Yes, Doctor. I’ll surely do that, Doctor,” Hedges said in that reassuring tone used with invalids and small children.
Mooney hung the phone up carefully. Lennie squeezed his arm. Her eyes were dancing. “It was plain lovely,” she said. “That will give him a story he can tell all over town. Poor old Doctor Tomlin has forgotten the causeway was built years ago. Bud is the type who will go all over town asking what he should do. By tomorrow everybody will know about it and be talking about it. That Joe Logan touch was absolutely perfect. I’m glad I remembered about Joe.”
“He seemed to swallow it.”
“Now here’s the next call, Mooney. There’s a man named …”
“Slow down, Lennie.”
“What do you mean?”
“I made a call. You wanted me to make a call. I made it. Isn’t that easy to understand? Tomorrow I’ll make another one.”
She looked into his eyes. Her smile was crooked. “Driving a hard bargain?”
“Could be.”
She ran her fingertips down his cheek. “Pull the drapes across, darling. And lock the door.”
Gulf glare came through the draperies and filled the room with muted gold. Afterward it made tawny highlights on her flesh as he lay and watched her dress. When she was dressed she sat on the edge of the bed, took the cigarette from his lips, inhaled, put the cigarette back between his lips and sighed deeply.
“Tomorrow?” he asked.
“You have a job, don’t you?”
“I keep telling myself.”
“I have to be careful too, you know.”
“I know that. But you want the calls made, too.”
“Yes, I want the calls made.”
“Three o’clock?”
“I guess so, Mooney. I guess so. And from here I’ll have to go to a tea.”
“Suppose there weren’t any calls to be made, Lennie?”
“Then I wouldn’t be here.”
“Are you that cold a proposition?”
“Don’t let ’ums pride be hurt, baby doll.”
“Well, hell!”
“Just teasing. After yesterday, yes, Mooney. I think I would have risked it. You’re good to me. But with the phone calls, that’s two birds with one rock, isn’t it?”
“I guess so.”
“And so there’s two reasons for taking the risk. This is a small place, Mooney. And I’m watched closer than most. You can understand that.”
“Sure.”
She ruffled his hair quickly and left. He did not see her to the door. He heard the motor start and the car drive away. He made himself a drink. When it was half gone, he took a quick shower and dressed again. He was back at the agency by twenty-five after four.
Dil Parks saw Mooney come in. Dil felt a vague irritation with Mooney. The man seemed to be spending damn little time on the job lately. But he was not sufficiently incensed to go out onto the floor and peel his hide. He had more important things to worry about. Two weeks before, Dillon Parks had played desperate high-stakes poker with five other local men. They had played in a private room at a downtown hotel. It was a group which met regularly. Dil was not a steady member of the group. Each time he played he seemed to get burned.
But this time need had been greater than caution. He had played for the money with which to pay unpaid bills. He knew he was playing with scared money. But he could think of no other way to get what he needed. His borrowing power was exhausted. There was a maximum loan on his house, and on the agency.
One poker hand in the middle of the evening ruined him. He had played on, knowing he had no chance to recoup. He had played on, numbly, trying to understand why this ultimate catastrophe had happened to him.
It had been a five-card draw hand. Dil had been dealt three sevens, an ace and a four. He had opened. It was a pot-limit game, no limit on raises. Three men had stayed. Dil discarded the four and drew one card. He did not look at the draw. There were two other one-card draws and one two-card draw. He had intended to bet before looking, but as his opener had been raised twice and the pot was getting heavy, he spread his cards and saw the fourth seven.
His heart beat faster. This could be the big one. He hoped everybody had improved. He wanted eager play. He wanted a heavy pot. He bet heavily, but not too heavily. He was raised and he raised back. One man folded. Three of them were left in the pot. He raised heavily again. And was raised back. The three of them had begun to perspire. Marty Allen, after long thought and with great reluctance, folded his hand and said, “Too steep for me, boys. I can’t even afford to protect my investment.”
Dil Parks and Jim Stauch were left. Stauch was about sixty, a fat small red-faced man with poached eyes and a great deal of money. He owned bits and pieces of nearly a dozen small profitable b
usinesses. He was originally from Georgia. He was known to be shrewd in a business deal. He was a merciless poker player. He was not a quiet poker player. He chattered all the time.
“Well now, ole Dil has got himself something he’s mighty proud of, but by God, I like the look of this stuff right here, so I think I’ll shove out all the rest of these chips and maybe put a check right on top of the pile. So give me just a second to write this out, Dil, and here it is, right on top of the pile, a little one and three zeros to make it look important, and with the chips and all that adds up to a little bump of let me see around about twelve hundred, yes, exactly twelve hundred.”
Dil wrote out a check for two thousand, raising Stauch eight hundred. His hand was shaking so badly, the signature didn’t look right. He felt as if he was dreaming it all. Stauch had taken a one-card draw, also. Dil knew that his personal balance was down below three hundred dollars. He kept his thumb over the total on the stub when he wrote out the check. Up until writing the check he had believed that his hand was the best hand. But now the worms of doubt touched the edge of his mind. Stauch seemed to be betting more heavily than a full house would warrant, had he drawn to two pair. And much more heavily than a flush. It was incredible that he could have filled a straight flush. It began to look more and more like fours. But how big? A seven was almost in the middle.
Stauch said, “Whee, this Parks is just as proud as can be. He’s really got himself something. Well, I think this has gone on long enough. I think I’ll just call that eight hundred and maybe give it one more little bump. About another fifteen hundred, and that makes another piece of paper for the pile. Man could run right through his checkbook in this kind of game.”
Dil had felt jubilant when Stauch had indicated his desire to call, but when he added the raise to it, his heart sank. It had to be fours. Maybe good fours.
“I’ll call,” he said huskily. He wrote out a check for fifteen hundred and put it on the table.
Stauch said, “Well that sort of leaves it up to me to show the power and break your heart, Dil. I got me two pair here. Here’s one of them.” He turned over the pair of tens. “And here’s the other pair.” He turned over the second pair of tens. “Got ’em dealt to me cold and took a chance on passing them, seeing as how I was right under the gun, and figured I’d better draw a card I couldn’t use than stand pat on the four tens. What’s that over there, Dil? Four sevens? Now if that isn’t a stick with a dirty end, I never did see one. What was it you folded there, Marty?”
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