The Quick Red Fox

by John D. MacDonald

  “At this moment, my darling Dana, some very shrewd cop may be checking out some small slip M’Gruder made. The death of Patricia has to require he be checked out. So they grab him for murder first. Do you think he would maintain a chivalrous silence? He would want to lay all the facts on the line, with little distortions here and there, to try to show justification or at least a plausible excuse for murder. Once they round up Cass and Carl and Martha Whippler and start questioning them one at a time, how long do you think Lysa Dean would stay in the clear. Make up a headline, honey. Star Implicated in Orgy Murder. She’d be even worse off. I have to find out how good these guesses are. If she’s going to be in the soup, the best I can do is warn her. Maybe she can take some steps. Long-term contracts. Public relations advice. Something.”

  Dana frowned. “I see what you mean. But he could have just said Phoenix.”

  “I think he’s there. It’s close. I want to check it out.”

  “All right, dear.”

  I patted her on the foot. “I like obedient women.”

  She yawned. “I just feel terribly passive, I guess.”

  “Entirely, completely passive?”

  She pursed her lips. She tilted her head. She laid a finger alongside her nose. “Well … I wouldn’t go so far as to say that.”

  Thirteen

  I had the random idea of poking around the Four Treys to see if I could find small hint of a visit from Vance M’Gruder the night of Patty’s death, but my few small memories of the hard-nosed vigilance of the Las Vegas cops outweighed the impulse. They deal, day and night, with every kind of spook and hustler in the world, and they would be focused very intently on this murder, and I did not relish the prospect of being bounced up and down while trying to explain my passing interest.

  Besides, if M’Gruder was as bright as I imagined, he would not have put in an appearance in the stage lighting of any of the downtown casinos. He would have her Desert Gate address. Once he got to town it would be no great feat to find out when her shift ended. As I shaved I tried to guess his most plausible mode of transportation. It was just about three hundred miles to Phoenix. I decided that if I were doing it, I’d settle for a good fast car. With enough muscle under the hood, and the right kind of springing for the mountain curves, you could safely call it a five-hour run. Leave Phoenix at six and arrive at eleven. Spend an hour hunting her down and killing her. Back by five-thirty in the morning. Sneak into the bridal bed. A private car was safer than a bus, a scheduled flight or a private plane. Cash for gas. No records, no fellow passengers. Properly done, casually done, he could have people convinced he had never left at all. If he had the cold nerve necessary to make that earlier run to Santa Rosita …

  We walked to the dining room for breakfast, my lady wearing that green which was all she happened to have. My drowsy lady walked close at my side, without haste, her smile as inward and bemused as that of the Mona Lisa. She hugged my arm and beamed up at me and gave me a sleepy wink. And then she yawned.

  Between us we ate a mountain of wheat cakes, a bale of bacon.

  I found a Phoenix paper in the lobby rack, checked through it and found a society editor by-line. I coached Dana and put her into a phone booth with a fake name and a reasonably plausible cover story. I stood outside the booth and saw her eyes go fierce and bright. She gave me a savage little nod. When she came out, she said, “What a sweet woman! The M’Gruders are staying with a couple named Glenn and Joanne Barnweather. She spake their names with social awe. Old friends of his, apparently. They flew in from Mexico City about five days ago, she thinks. She had an item on it. They’re staying at the Barnweather ranch out beyond Scottsdale. You were sure, weren’t you?”

  “Not completely. But I’m beginning to be. So let’s go take a look at them.”

  We went back to the room and packed. A tremendous chore. She made a housewifely ceremony of it, trotting around the room in a charade of seeing that no meager possession was overlooked, earnest frown between her eyes, white teeth biting into the fullness of underlip.

  I caught her as she went by, planted a kiss upon the frown lines and told her that she was a fine girl. She said she was glad I thought she was a fine girl, but it might be a pretty good idea to just leggo of the fine girl or maybe we wouldn’t be out of there by noon, which she had happened to notice was checkout time.

  We were on our way with the top down heading toward Boulder City by noon, after one quick stop at a department store for a stretch denim skirt and halter top and bright yellow scarf for her, white sport shirt for the driver.

  The car was heavy and agile. The day had a honeymoon flavor. The sun and the dry wind baked us. We laughed. We made bad jokes. She slanted dark eyes at me, lively with her mischief. This was the way I had wanted her to be. Totally alive and free, not tucked back into her own darkness.

  But, totally alive, she was an impressive handful. This was not some pretty little girl, coyly flirtatious, delicately stimulated. This was the mature female of the species, vivid, handsome and strong, demanding that all the life and need within her be matched. Her instinct would immediately detect any hedging, any dishonesty, any less than complete response to her—and then she would be gone for good. Wholeness was all she could comprehend or accept. For now there were no shadows in her eyes, no hesitations as a bad edge of memory stung her. Even in this pursuit of murder, it was a fine fine world.

  When we stopped for lunch in an outdoor patio in heavy shade, I looked at her and said, “Why?”

  She knew what I meant. She scowled into her iced coffee. “I guess way back after you came back to the room after seeing Carl Abelle. I don’t know. You could have stomped around, the hard-guy grin and all that. But you felt bad about hurting and humiliating him. And he isn’t much, certainly. So I figured out you don’t go around proving you are a man because you are already sure you are. It isn’t all faked up. And in the same way you didn’t have to try to use me to prove what a hell of a fellow you are. Even though we were both … being attracted in a physical way. I know this sounds as if I’m some kind of an egomaniac, but I just thought well … heck, if being a man is a good and valid thing, then there should be like an award of merit or something, an offering. In Abnertalk, namely me. As if I’m so great.”

  “Don’t do that to yourself, Dana. You are implausibly … astoundingly, unforgettably great. And I don’t mean just in a …”

  “I know. It isn’t me, and it isn’t you. Let’s not talk about it. It’s the total of us, the crazy total. I’m not going to talk about it, or think of what comes after. Okay? Okay, darling?”

  “No talk. No analysis.”

  “We are kind of beautiful,” she said. “It’s enough to know that, I guess. Alone I’m just … sort of efficient and severe and a little heavy-handed. Defensive. Alone you’re just sort of a rough, wry opportunist, a little bit cold and shrewd and watchful. Cruel, maybe. You and your sybarite boat and your damned beach girls. But we add up to beautiful in some crazy way. For now.”

  “For now, Dana?”

  “I’m no kid, Travis. I know hurt is inevitable always.”

  “Shut up.”

  “I talk too much?”

  “Only sometimes.”

  So off we went, to Kingman, to Wikieup, to Congress—up into cold places, down into heats—to Wickenburg, to Witt-man, and down into the richness of the old Salt River Valley where Phoenix presides over the boom that threatens never to quit. It has become a big fast rough grasping town, where both the irrigation heiresses and the B girls wear the same brand of ranch pants.

  The sun was low behind us as we came in, breasting the outgoing traffic of the close of Friday business. I cruised and settled for a glassy sprawl called The Hallmark, a big U of stone, teak and thermo-windows enclosing a great green of lawn and gardens, a blue of water in a marbled pool in the shape of a painter’s palette. In a nearby specialty shop, still open, we let Lysa Dean refurbish our dwindled wardrobes to the extent of swim trunks for me and a swim suit
for the lady. We fixed ourselves tall ones of gin and bitter lemon. Dana swam with utmost earnestness, chin held very high, using a stroke I told her was early sheep dog. In the bathroom, in fading light of day, her body bore the halter marks of the long sunny ride, her broad flat breasts pale, responsive to soapy ablutions cooperatively offered. In a predictable haste, I toted the untoweled seal-shape of her, dripping, to bed, a firm, lithe, gleaming, chuckling burden which seemed to have no weight at all. Ceremonial celebration of our twenty-fourth hour.

  Eased and complete, in mild and affectionate embrace, we took up the duty of talking about M’Gruder, weighing the merits of the possible methods of contact.

  I could not tell her precisely what I hoped to accomplish. If M’Gruder was the man, I wanted to stir him up. I didn’t want him to believe he had any chance at all. A man running is a dead man. A trial would finish Lysa Dean as well. And when you take someone’s money for expenses, there is a morality involved. He would have some confidence he had gotten away with it. I had to blast that out of him and set him running. And arrange a chase.

  The Barnweather number was listed. We went over it carefully. I coached her. She added a few ideas. There was a phone extension in the bath. I went in there and listened.

  A servant said the M’Gruders were in the guest house. He gave Dana another number to call.

  A man answered. A cultivated baritone, loosened slightly by drink, admitting that he, indeed, was Mister M’Gruder himself.

  “You don’t know me, Mr. M’Gruder.”

  “From your charming voice, that is my loss, my dear. What is your name?”

  “I’ve just picked a new name for myself. I wondered if you’d like it. Patty Ives. Do you like that name?”

  It was a slow five-count before he spoke. His voice was under careful control. “You sound as if you thought you were telling me something. But I am afraid I don’t follow.”

  “I guess I do have you at a disadvantage. I know so much more about you than you know about me.”

  “I don’t wish to be rude, but I don’t like guessing games, whoever you are. So if you don’t mind …”

  “I thought we might make a date for a quiet talk, if you would like to sneak away from your little bride, Vance. We have mutual friends. Carl Abelle. Lysa Dean. Cass Edgars. Nancy Abbott. Martha Whippler. Of course Sonny Catton is dead. Poor Sonny.”

  Again I could have counted to five. “I think you might be a very foolish girl.”

  “Foolish, but not very greedy. And very, very careful, Vance.”

  “Let me put it this way. You might have something you think is valuable. But suppose it is only an annoyance?”

  “Oh, wouldn’t it have to be a lot more than that!”

  “You are talking in circles, my dear. I am quite certain I can be forgiven for old indiscretions. Life with my ex often became very unwholesome. Mrs. M’Gruder is aware of that. I’ve reformed. The police were here yesterday afternoon, cooperating with the Las Vegas police, I imagine. To make certain I hadn’t killed Patty. I’m not sorry she’s dead. I’m not that much of a hypocrite. She was a horrid woman. I had to get free of her in any way I could. All this is none of your business, of course. But I didn’t want you to think you’ve alarmed me. You just make me feel … irritable. Please don’t phone me again.” Click.

  I reached and put the phone on the hook and then sat back on the wide yellow rim of the little triangular tub. In a few moments Dana appeared in the bathroom doorway. She had put on my sport shirt. She leaned against the door frame and said,

  “Well?”

  “I don’t know. I just don’t know. Either we’re dead wrong, or he’s got the nerve of a headwaiter. So much points his way. Damn it, it has to be him. We’re going out there.”

  “Just like that?”

  “We’re going to be invited out, I hope.”

  There is one theory that there are but a hundred thousand people in the United States, and the rest of the 189,900,000 is a faceless mob. The theory further states that any person in the hundred thousand can be linked to any other by no more than a three-step process. Example: Ron knew Carol’s brother at Princeton; Carol’s husband worked with Vern at the Ford Foundation; Vern’s cousin met Lucy at the film festival. Thus when Ron and Lucy meet as strangers, and sense that they are each members of the hundred thousand, they can play a warm and heartening and satisfying game of who-do-you-know, and, with little cries of delight, trace the relationship.

  By dint of past endeavors I had acquired provisional membership in the group, and it seemed likely to me that Glenn and Joanne Barnweather would be solid members. So I had to tap other members most likely to know them. I tried Tulio in Oklahoma City and drew a dead blank. I remembered Mary West in Tucson. She knew them, but not well. But she did know Paul and Betty Diver in Flagstaff who knew them intimately, and she was certain she could get Betty to play along. If there was any hitch, she would phone back. If not, I would hear from Joanne Barnweather directly. She briefed me on what I’d have to know about the Divers.

  We had a twenty-minute wait before the phone rang. “Trav McGee?” a woman asked. “This is Joanne Barnweather. I just got a call from our very dear mutual friend, Paul Diver, saying you’re in town. Could you come out to the place? Are you free?”

  “If I can bring along a gal.”

  “Of course you can, dear. Glenn and I will be delighted. We’ve got some people in to meet our houseguests and we’re just churning around here, very informal, drinking up a small storm and waiting for time to throw a steak on. Do come as you are. We’ll be delighted to see you.” She gave me directions.

  Dana had been nestled close to me, listening. When I hung up she gave me a look of mock admiration. “You are a scoundrel, McGee.”

  “Darling, go put on your green.”

  “She said to come as we are.”

  “Then at least button my shirt.”

  Fourteen

  On the way out, under a chilly spangle of stars, I had briefed Dana on how we’d handle it. She was to stay away from M’Gruder, target on his young Swede bride if possible. I would do what I could with M’Gruder.

  The Barnweather place was a simple little quarter-million-dollar ranch house a few hundred yards into a lot of rocky acreage, with fifteen cars glinting in the starlight, music and festive sounds coming from the floodlighted pool area.

  I sensed that Dana took a deep breath and braced herself as we walked toward the party jabber. There were infrared heaters focused on the broad terrace area at the house end of the pool. A gleaming, beaming little fellow in a red coat tended bar. These were a pack of the young marrieds, the success-prone ones. The tense and girlish mothers of three and five and seven young, their beefier husbands, expansive with bourbon and land deals. About thirty-five people in all, forming and reforming their little conversational groups. Dress was varied, all the way from shorts and slacks to some of those fanciful ranch coats on the men, the pale whipcord jobs with the pearl buttons and pocket flaps. The audible talk had that Southwest flavor so quickly acquired by the people who move there from Indiana and Pennsylvania.

  When we hesitated, a slender pretty woman came smiling toward us, holding one hand out to each of us. “Trav? I’m Joanne.”

  “And this is Diana Hollis.” We had decided it was possible Lysa Dean had spoken of her girl Friday to M’Gruder, and the name was just unusual enough to stick in his mind.

  “So glad you could come, dears. Come meet the group.”

  She steered us over for a drink first, and then swung us through the throng, rattling off the names and identifications. Glenn was one of the burly ones in whipcord. Joanne made a little more special thing of the introduction to their house guests. Vance M’Gruder was a little balder, a little browner, a little taller than he had seemed in the pictures. He was a type. The totally muscled sportsman—muscles upon muscles so that even his face looked like a leather bag of walnuts. Polo muscles, tennis muscles, sail-handling muscles, fencing muscles—the ty
pe who does handstands every morning of his life, works out with professionals whenever possible, and has a savage and singleminded desire to whip you at anything you’re willing to play with him, from squash racquets to tetherball. He had the personality to go with the body—a flavor of remote, knowing, arrogant amusement.

  His young bride was one of the most striking females I have ever seen in my life. You had a tendency to speak to her in a hushed voice, an awed voice. The Swedes grow some of the finest specimens of our times. This Ulka Atlund M’Gruder was big enough for M’Gruder to keep her in flat heels at all times. She wore a woolly tangerine-colored shift. Her arms were bare. The others were bundled in jackets, sweaters, tunics, shawls, stoles. She looked as if she had enough animal heat to keep her entirely comfortable at thirty below. Her body, under the touch of the fabric, was ripe, leggy and entirely perfect. Without makeup, her features were almost those of some heroic, dedicated young boy, a page from the time of King Arthur. Or an idealized Joan of Arc. Her tilted gray-green-blue Icelandic eyes were the cold of northern seas. Her hair was a rich, ripe, heavy spill of pale pale gold, curved across the high and placid brow. She had little to say, and a sleepy and disinterested way of saying it. Her eyes kept seeking out her husband. Over all that stalwart Viking loveliness there was such a haze of sensuality it was perceptible, like a strange matte finish. It was stamped into the slow and heavy curve of her smile, marked by the delicate violet shadows under her eyes, expressed by the cant of her high round hips in the way she stood. Though by far the youngest person there, she at the same time seemed far older. She had been bolted to the bowsprit of an ancient ship for a thousand years. And every woman there hated her and feared her. The look of her confirmed my guesses about Vance M’Gruder. Wearing this one like a banner or a medal was the ultimate cachet of competitive masculinity. She had a strange primitive flavor of sexual docility. She was indentured to M’Gruder, totally focused upon him, yet were she taken from him by someone with more strength and force and purpose, she would shift loyalty without question or hesitation. A man like M’Gruder would go to any length to acquire her. And he had. I was certain of that. I thought of M’Gruder’s past habits and inclinations, and I wondered if, when his physical resources began to flag he would stimulate himself by corrupting her. A woman to him would be something owned, to use as he wished.