—He lives right here, does he?
—Near all his life. Married one of the Leafer girls. Never has had any kids. But they seem to get along good, that is except for the times she’s found out about Johnny getting out of line on one of his trips. He travels around a lot. Used to live right off Orange, but some time back he built himself a hell of a nice house out there on St. Armands Key. You ever get an invitation to a party out there, you go. He really lays it on. Bartenders and everything. But nobody holds it against him he’s made out so good. He doesn’t ever try to hide it from you he’s one of old Stitch Flagan’s ragged-ass kids. That’s Stitch that come down here from Georgia forty years ago and went broke in celery and finally ended up as a commercial fisherman and went night netting in the Gulf after mackerel thirty years back and drownded out there, him and two of his boys, Johnny’s brothers they were. Johnny would have been along and drownded too, except he was hot after some gal down in Osprey and run out and his old man couldn’t find him and took off without him. Johnny must have been twenty-two or so about that time. Husky kid and real woman crazy. Funny thing, it was after Stitch and the two boys drownded that Johnny began to take sort of an interest in money. He begun to go after it the way he’d been going after every piece of pussy from Arcadia to Punta Gorda.
Johnny Flagan blew the sandy stubble out of the razor, coiled the cord, put razor and cord in the plastic box and put the box in the toilet article case he used on trips. He checked the case to see that everything he needed was there, and carried the case into the bedroom and put it beside his suitcase. The air conditioner made a dissonant buzzing sound. Babe slept heavily under a single blanket. Johnny dressed quietly and quickly in a nylon shirt, figured red bow tie, cotton cord suit. When the suitcase was snapped shut he went over and sat on Babe’s bed, put his hand on the big warm mound of the blanketed hip and shook her gently.
“Hey, honey!” he said softly. “Hey!”
Babe came walrusing up out of sleep, circling her eyes around and then focusing them on him, frowning and saying, “Wass?”
“No flights today. I’m starting earlier and taking the Cad.”
“Huh? You be careful. Don’t you drive when you’re drinking.”
“I’ll be careful. I’ll phone you when I know when I can get free. Okay?”
“Be careful.”
He kissed her and carried his suitcase to the bedroom door.
“Johnny?”
“Yes, honey.”
“You going to give that Charlie a bad time?”
“He’s got a bad time coming to him.”
“You going to fire him?”
“I don’t know yet.”
“If you could just scare hell out of him it would be easier on me, knowing her and all.”
“I’ll see,” he said. He shut the bedroom door behind him. The rest of the house was warmer—muggy and gray and cheerless. It was a big house with long stretches of terrazzo, glass jalousies, graceless furniture. Though they had lived in it several years, it had a flavor of transiency, an uncaring coldness.
Ruth had cleared the newspapers off the dining room table, but she had known enough not to touch the business papers he had laid out and worked on the night before. His orange juice, in a tall glass, seemed the only bright spot of color in the long dim room. The morning paper lay beside his place. It was damp from the rain. He sat down and unfolded the paper and called out, “Ruth!”
She pushed the swinging door open and came out of the kitchen immediately, carrying his plate in one hand, coffee pot in the other, as though she had been waiting there just beyond the door for his call. She was a slim woman, quite tall. She was in her late twenties and she was just a shade or two darker than some of Babe’s more heavily tanned friends. There was a look of austerity in her face, the sharp nose and thin lips not at all Negroid. In all the years she had worked for them, she had never looked directly at him. She walked with the contradiction of her nature clearly expressed—there for all to see. Cold face and rigid bearing, no sway or dip to her shoulders. Yet whenever she turned to walk away he would look automatically at the back of her, at the sway back and the strong outthrust hips and the swinging suggestive cadence.
There had always been tension between them. Tension and a certain wary understanding.
“Good morning,” she said, her voice crisp and cool.
“ ‘Moanin’, Ruthie,” he said, reacting to her perfect diction by becoming so mush-mouthed as to be almost incomprehensible. He knew that it annoyed her, and he knew that she would not show it. He knew that the brain behind that cool thin face was of excellent quality. She expressed resentment through efficiency. The more she despised the two of them the harder she labored to make the house run smoothly, make the food perfection. It was a form of defiance, and she knew that they used and appreciated the products of her defiance. She was well-paid, well-treated, but he knew she felt trapped.
She put the plate in front of him. Three eggs fried, turned over, lightly, thick strips of country bacon, grits with butter and pepper. She stood beside him and filled the coffee cup.
“Coming down hard rain, Ruthie.”
“Yes, sir. It really is.”
“Got them plenty of leaky roofs down there in Newtown.”
She had backed away with the coffee pot. “A lot of them leak.”
He grinned at her but could not find or meet her eyes. “Ought to tear down half them shacks down there.”
“Yes sir,” she said and moved quickly to the kitchen, and the door swung shut behind her. It was a petty victory, too easily won this time. As he opened the paper he held in his mind the after image of her hips as she went through the door.
He sensed that part of the tension between them was due to the knowledge that she attracted him physically. Not because she was pretty. The most she could be called was handsome. It was the contradiction which intrigued him, the hint of fire under ice. He had idly daydreamed about her many times while going to sleep—thought of the brown still cold face unmoving on a white pillow, the eyes veiled and unknowable, while, like a separate organism, her hips led their own quick, hard, rhythmic, lubricious life. It could be thought about, but never, never, never could there be the slightest move or gesture which could be interpreted by her as the first step in a campaign to achieve that startling goal. Because that would give her the ultimate unforgettable victory—would give her a stature that could never be weakened.
Just two years ago, if Babe had not been so pleased and delighted with Ruth, Johnny would have fired her. Now he thought that even should Babe become discontented with Ruth, he would manage to keep the woman around. The game had become too interesting. They had both become too adept in their ways of muted conflict. It was like having a pet around that you couldn’t quite trust.
Johnny Flagan scanned the headlines and turned to the real estate transfers. He saw that Ross Wedge had unloaded three lots in the Lagoon Park development for eighteen thousand. He knew that Ross had picked up six lots at just about the same time he had picked up ten. They’d both had to pay about two thousand apiece for them, and that was dirt cheap on account of Barkmann had needed the cash money to develop the rest of the area. He wondered why Ross Wedge had unloaded half his holding right now. Better off to wait a while. Lagoon Park was coming along fine. But then Ross was in with Whitey building those new stores on the boulevard and maybe he needed a little cash money. Better keep it in mind though, and see if Ross got rid of the other three soon. If he did so, it would be worth nosing around and finding out if anything was coming up that might hurt Lagoon Park and make this a good time to get out.
Ruth came out of the kitchen and filled his coffee cup.
“Thanks,” he said. “You take good care of Miz Babe now, Ruthie. I’ll be gone for a couple days. Up in Georgia. Say, I couldn’t find my Orion suit. That light gray one.”
“It ought to be back today, Mist’ Flagan.”
He detected the faint slur in her speech, the slur that w
as the tip-off to a feeling of guilt. When Ruth forgot something, or did something wrong, the slur became evident. He knew that if he did a little digging he could find out that the suit hadn’t gone out when it should have. But it did not seem worth the effort.
After he finished his coffee, he picked up the suitcase and went out through the kitchen to the garage. Babe would have the red Hillman to get around in. She despised driving it, but she certainly couldn’t expect him to drive up to Georgia in it. He put his suitcase in the Cad, then paused, turned and went back into the house and phoned Charlie Himbermark again and told Charlie he was just leaving and to be ready.
He drove off St. Armands Key, over the Ringling Bridges to the mainland. The gas tank was nearly full. The big dark blue Cadillac was running smoothly. The rain was a damn nuisance, but he decided he ought to be able to make pretty good time in spite of it. Run right up to Waycross and then it was only another thirty miles to the small Georgia city where Himbermark had come so close to fouling up the entire operation.
He turned south on Orange and, a few minutes later, he pulled up in front of the small frame house on one of the back streets beyond the postoffice where Charlie Himbermark lived. He blew the horn. Charlie came out onto the porch and turned to say good-by to Agnes. Agnes waved at the car and Johnny waved back. Charlie wore a transparent raincoat. He kissed Agnes and came hurrying down the walk through the rain and got in beside Johnny.
“Hell of a morning,” Charlie said cheerfully. He struggled awkwardly and got himself out of the raincoat and tossed it into the back seat, then lifted his suitcase over and put it on the floor in back. He plumped himself down and wiggled around and adjusted himself and gave a small sigh of relaxation—all of which irritated Johnny Flagan.
Johnny wished he’d never seen or heard of Charlie Himbermark, never seen his pale sixty-year-old face, heard his high nervous voice. Charlie was a man always anxious to please everybody. When he stood talking to anyone, his whole attitude was that of intense eagerness to be found pleasing. He would lean forward, his eyes eager, his mouth working as you talked. He would laugh before you came to the point of the joke. He would pat you quickly and lightly on the shoulder whenever he could, his wide blue eyes watering.
Charlie Himbermark had come down to Sarasota about eight years ago. His wife had died in the north and he’d had some sort of breakdown. He came down with a small pension and a desire to find something to do. He had been in a big bank in the north, some sort of job in the trust department After a year or so of looking, Charlie found a job in one of the brokerage offices in town. Two years later he married Agnes Steppey, one of Babe’s oldest friends. Agnes had been widowed for over a year, and they met when Agnes went into the brokerage office to ask about some stock her husband had left her.
A year ago Charlie had lost his job. It hadn’t been his fault, exactly. The firm had decided to consolidate the Sarasota staff with the St Petersburg office, and Agnes hadn’t felt that she could leave the city where she had been born and grown up, had married, been widowed and married again. So Charlie refused the transfer. There was enough for the two of them to get along in meager comfort, but, as Agnes told Babe, Charlie was restless and depressed because he couldn’t find anything to do—anything that suited him. Babe kept mentioning it to Johnny until at last he thought over his current enterprises and picked out something he thought Charlie could do. It was just a temporary job and it was up in Georgia, but Johnny figured he could pay a hundred a week and expenses, and Charlie was very pleased about it. Pleased and eager to please and like a damn kid about it.
So Johnny had sent him up to Georgia, and it hadn’t been a particularly delicate situation up there—just a situation where it was wise to have a man on the spot, a man he could trust to do some listening and some soothing and report back frequently until the deal went through, but Charlie had managed to foul it up. Now maybe the whole thing would fall through. Johnny didn’t know if he could save it or not. If he couldn’t save it, his charitable gesture was going to cost him a substantial piece of money—and the distressing thing was that a man would really have to scramble around to foul up a deal as well set as that one had been. It would be in better shape if there had been no one at all up there.
They turned north on 301 toward Bradenton. Johnny had his parking lights on and he was driving fast. He tried not to listen as Charlie, in his light eager voice, told some interminable and pointless story about how the yard man who came once a week cut down something Agnes hadn’t wanted cut down—what Agnes had said and what he had said and what the yard man had said.
“For Christ’ sake, Charlie!” he said explosively.
“What’s the matter? What’s the matter, Johnny?”
“I got another call from Ricardo last night, after I talked to you. Stevenson had gotten hold of Ricardo and told him that you told Stevenson that you didn’t think there had to be any organizational meeting before approval of the charter.”
“Well, it would be just a formality, wouldn’t it? I mean we know who the officers are going to be and all.”
Johnny gave him a quick glance. “Charlie, what is it that makes you so God damn dumb?”
Charlie tried to smile. His mouth was trembling. “I … I guess I just work at it.”
“I guess you God damn well do. What right did you have to even talk to Stevenson? I told you to stay away from him. He thinks control should be up there. He thinks that Christy and me are a couple of Florida slickers trying to move in on them. Then you go yap yap yap about no organizational meeting. Christ, I don’t care what he thinks after the charter goes through, but now you’ve made him nervous enough so he’s starting to try to bitch it up. And now Ricardo is getting nervous. Whichever way Ricardo jumps, the others will jump. Where the hell did you talk to Stevenson?”
“Well, he came into the office, Johnny. You know. Just passing the time of day. We got to talking.”
“Stevenson isn’t the kind of guy who goes around passing the time of day. He came in to pump you.”
“I didn’t think so, Johnny.”
“Face it. You just didn’t think. And I can tell you just what the hell you did and why.”
“What do you mean?”
Johnny heard the anxiety in the thin voice and he felt the anger swelling thick inside of him, clotting him, thickening his chest. Gene had told him to try to keep from getting angry.
“I’ll tell you what you are, Charlie. You’re a damn clerk. You never were anything else but a clerk in your life. You had to have somebody standing right over you telling you just exactly what the hell to do. I should have seen that before I sent you up there alone. You get an office of your own you think you’re some kind of a big shot. You weren’t a big shot and you aren’t a big shot, Charlie. I sent you up there to keep in touch and let me know developments. But you have to prove you can sit at a desk. So you open your mouth and start talking policy. You don’t know anything about policy. But you have to hear the sickening sound of your own voice. You have to tell those people up there how important you are. You led Ricardo to believe you’d be in on the operation after we get the charter. I wouldn’t keep you up there after the charter comes through if all you had to do was sweep the floor. I gave you this job because Agnes kept after Babe about it, and I didn’t feel sure about you and I should have had more sense. Jesus Christ! You up there acting like a big expert, and all the time you were as far out of your league as … Hell, you were a kitten up there, and those are big hungry dogs. You aren’t worth a poop, Charlie. Not one little poop in a whirlwind. And when you aren’t paddling around gumming things up, you’re a God damn bore.”
He felt the anger begin to fade. The hard peak of anger crumbled and fell slowly and softly away. Charlie Himbermark sat small in the seat beside him. He looked bludgeoned and shrunken. Johnny was half amused at his own anger, and he felt a small twinge of compassion for the poor old fool.
“Aren’t … aren’t you driving pretty fast, Johnny?”
The miles ran fleetly under the fast wet wheels of the car. They went through Bradenton, and turned toward the Sunshine Skyway and Route 19. Tampa Bay was obscured by rain. Johnny could not see the bridge far ahead. One incredibly steadfast fisherman stood on one of the smaller causeway bridges, huddled against the rail, back to the gusty wind, line stretching down to the gunmetal water, frothed with white.
“You just didn’t handle it so well, Charlie,” Johnny said at last, his voice soft.
Charlie responded immediately to the hint of forgiveness, and he sat erect and turned toward Johnny. “I guess I just wasn’t too clear about what you wanted me to do up there, Johnny. Gosh, I understand it now. I never would have talked like that if I’d understood all the ins and outs. Now that I’ve got it all clear in my mind, I can handle it all right for you. You can leave me up there when you head back and you won’t have to have a worry in the world. That’s it, Johnny. Not a worry in the world. I was talking to Will Wilson last night—he’s my neighbor—and I was telling him …” The voice faltered and stopped.
“Go on, Charlie. What were you telling him?”
“That it … was an interesting job.”
“And dropping a lot of little hints about it.”
“He wouldn’t tell a soul, Johnny. Will knows how to keep his mouth shut.”
“If that’s true, I should have hired him instead of you. Jesus, Charlie, let’s not talk about it. We won’t talk about it again until we get up there. I wish to God we could have flown up there.”
The big car sped on. St. Petersburg was lost and gray under the thick fat rain. Johnny Flagan sat low in the seat, hands holding the wheel lightly. His mind was not on the road or the weather, or even the problems ahead. He was playing a mental game that was old with him, a game that had begun years ago and had become more satisfying to play each year.
Murder in the Wind Page 5
