John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 13 - A Tan and Sandy Silence

by A Tan

  "Yes."

  "Were you having an affair with him?"

  "Yes."

  'Where's the real Mary Broll?"

  "... I don't know."

  "Lisa?"

  "I didn't know what he was going to do! I didn't!"

  "Lisa!"

  "I couldn't have changed anything."

  "Just say she's dead, Lisa. Go ahead."

  "I didn't know he-"

  "Lisa! Say it!"

  "She's dead. Okay. She's dead."

  "Harry killed her?"

  She looked startled. "Oh, no!"

  "Who killed her?"

  "Please, Gavin. If he ever knew I told anybody--"

  "You're in a real box, dear. You can worry about what's going to happen in the future, or you can worry about what's going to happen in the next ten minutes."

  "I don't even know if he really meant to."

  "What's his name?"

  "... Paul. Paul Dissat He is... my first cousin. We worked for the same man. In Quebec. Mr. Dennis Waterbury. Paul got me the job there. I'm a secretary. I was a secretary. Paul is an accountant. He is... very trusted. I think he might be crazy. Really crazy. Maybe he really planned to kill Harry's wife. I don't know. I don't even know if he knows."

  "How much money is involved?"

  "An awful lot. Really, an awful lot of money."

  "Stop crying."

  "I want to talk about it, and I don't want to talk about it. I've been scared for so long! I want you to make me tell you all of it, but I'm afraid to tell you."

  Twelve

  IT was a very long afternoon for both of us. But longer for Lisa Dissat, because from time to time she tried to get cute. But the more she tried it, the more conditioned she became, and the more quickly she would correct herself.

  At last I was able to bring the complex, wandering, fragments of the story into reasonably sharp focus.

  Paul Dissat had hungered for a long time to share in some of the large profits Dennis Waterbury made on his varied operations and investments in resort lands, oil and gas drilling programs, new urban office structures, tanker leasing, and so on. Paul Dissat was well paid. There were staff bonuses when things went well. Paul Dissat was shrewd enough to realize that without investment capital he had no chance of participating in the profits and that if he used his skills to tinker with the records of the various corporations and their shifting, changing bank balances, sooner or later an audit would catch him.

  He was single, she said, and did not look like anybody's idea of an accountant. Bachelor apartment, sports car. She said he was a superb skier, proficient at downhill racing and slalom. She said that three years ago, when she was twenty-three, she had run up bills she was unable to pay. She was afraid of losing her job. She had phoned Paul. She had not seen him in several years. He had taken her to dinner and back to his apartment and made love to her. He had paid her overdue accounts and arranged for her to be employed by Waterbury. After they had been intimate many times, he had told her of his plan to share in some of the fat profits from Waterbury's operations. He would arrange the necessary leverage through her. He said he would let her know when the right opportunity came along.

  He arranged for her to seduce the particularly unattractive minor partner in one of the Waterbury developments and to pretend infatuation. Paul prompted her during the affair, telling her what her lines should be. Eventually, in order to safely end the affair without Lisa going to his wife, the man deposited a substantial amount of cash in her savings account. Paul told her that the cash was the proceeds from the stock in a Waterbury enterprise that the man had sold to get the money to buy her off. Paul had taken all of the cash except a thousand dollars.

  They had done it once again prior to her affair with Harry Broll and made a little more than the first time. Paul explained to her that a man who has suddenly made a substantial profit tends to be generous with a mistress who is becoming too demanding and possessive.

  I wanted to know why she kept so little of the take and let her first cousin have all the rest She said it was because she was in love with him. At first.

  "The third one was Harry," she said. "I went to the hotel and took dictation. Just like the first two men. Ten minutes after I looked at him in a certain way and told him how real brilliant he was, I was helping him take off my bra, because his hands were shaking so bad. Then after Harry went back to the States, Paul made me quit my job and follow him. I didn't want to. He said this could be the big one, worth a big risk. So... I did what he said. Harry got jumpy when I phoned him last November from Miami. He was glad, but he was nervous, too. I told him I had followed him because I was so in love with him I couldn't live without him, and I was putting my future in his hands."

  Harry had set her up in the apartment in the Casa de Playa. At about that time Paul Dissat had been transferred to the administrative offices of SeaGate, Inc. in West Palm Beach, just as he had planned and expected. SeaGate was a large, complex situation with very complicated financing and special tax problems. Paul had been involved in it from the beginning.

  "I called Paul once, but he got very angry. He told me to keep on following orders. The orders were to make myself just as agreeable as I possibly could, to make Harry as happy as possible, to really work on the sex part of it and do anything and everything to give him so much pleasure he'd never be able to get along without me. That wasn't easy, because Harry worked hard and he didn't keep in shape and didn't have much energy left for bed. But after I learned what turned him on the most, it got better for both of us. I had to pretend to be passionately in love with him. You know, it wasn't such a bad life. Go shopping, go out on the beach, get your hair done, watch your weight, do your nails, take naps. Not a bad life. Then a few days before Christmas, Paul wanted to know when Harry would be with me, definitely. I said I could make sure he'd come in the middle of the day on the twenty-third and spend an hour and a half with me. He told me not to be surprised if Mrs. Broll showed up. I couldn't understand what Paul was trying to do. He told me to shut up and do what I was told. She came barging in as Harry was leaving. Better looking than I'd thought from what Harry had told me about her. She called me some things, and I called her some things, and she went away crying."

  Harry Broll had then become very upset. He had told Lisa Dissat that he needed her, that he wanted to get a divorce from Mary and marry her, but he couldn't do that yet. He had to make up with Mary, humble himself, promise never to see Lisa again. He said he had to do that because without her financial backing he was going to miss out on his great opportunity at SeaGate. He said he had to move her out of the apartment and be very careful about seeing her. He said it might last until May, but then he could leave Mary and marry her.

  On the night of January fourth, shortly before midnight, Harry came to Lisa's motel, where he had moved her after taking her out of the apartment. He was drunk. He said that he and Mary had a terrible fight, and she was leaving him. As soon as Harry had passed out, Lisa phoned Paul to report, as required, any new development. Paul drove over to the motel, left his rented car there, borrowed Harry's car and house keys, and told Lisa to undress the unconscious Harry and keep him quiet for as long as she could manage.

  "He wouldn't tell me what he was going to do. He acted all... keyed up, excited, on top of the world. He came back at daylight. He seemed very tired and very relaxed. He helped me get Harry up. Harry was confused. He knew Paul, of course, because of SeaGate and knew he was my cousin. But that was the first he realized that Paul knew about Harry and me. Paul pretended to be very upset about the affair, I guess to keep Harry off-balance. The three of us went back in Harry's car to Harry's house on Blue Heron Lane. Paul kept telling Harry he was in trouble. Paul made me wait in the living room. He took Harry into the bedroom. Harry made a terrible sound. A kind of bellowing groan. I heard heavy footsteps running, and then I heard Harry throwing up. When Paul brought him back into the living room, all cleaned up, Harry was like a sleepwalker. Paul kept say
ing it was an accident, and Harry kept saying anything like that just couldn't be an accident, and Paul kept telling him that everything could be worked out for the best if Harry would just pull himself together. Paul had me make coffee, a lot of it."

  Mary had, of course, been interrogated by Paul Dissat and murdered by Paul Dissat when he finally had everything he needed-the air reservations and tickets from the travel agency, the hotel reservation, the complete details of her arrangement with her trust officer, the fact that only one friend knew where she was going and why: Holly Dressner at 27 Blue Heron Lane, a few doors away. And he had the ninety-two hundred dollars in cash she had drawn from the income account of TA 5331. Mary was half packed for the trip. She had bought resort clothes. At Paul's order Lisa finished the packing, hunting through Mary's belongings for what she thought she would need.

  "It was weird with her on the bed all covered up. I tried some of the stuff on in her dressing room. She was a little hippier than I am. I mean some of the things were a size ten when I'd be better off in an eight. Harry was like a very sick person. He couldn't seem to get himself out of it. Tears kept rolling down his face. Once he just sort of hung on me. He grabbed me and put so much weight on me he nearly rode me right down on to the floor. He was asking me something, mumbling about how could Paul do that, how could he. They had a terrible argument later on. I couldn't hear most of it. It was about what to do with her body. Harry said he couldn't stand having her buried on the place. There was something about the seawall and a transit mix truck. Paul told Harry she was going to be buried right on the property, then Harry would not go back on any promises, ever."

  She was given her orders, and Paul made her repeat them until there was no chance of her forgetting them. Drive to Miami International. Find accommodations for the night of the fifth and sixth. Stay in the room. Use Mary's ticket on the seventh. Use Mary's driver's license as proof of birthplace when needed. Use her immunization certificate if needed. Use her hairstyle. Wear big dark sun glasses. Travel in her new clothes. Go to Grenada. Register as Mary Broll. Live quietly. Keep to yourself. Send some postcards to Holly Dressner. Pick the kind which do not require a message. Sign with a little drawing of a smiling face.

  "I did try to keep to myself. But, God, I've been here a long long time, Gav. I really have."

  "What do you do next? What are Paul's orders?"

  "On Monday, next Monday, I'm supposed to send a cable. Paul dictated it to me."

  I made her get it. It was to Woodrow Willow at Southern National in Miami.

  PROCEED WITH LOAN

  AS ARRANGED EARLY JANUARY

  HAVE ADVISED HARRY

  BY PHONE.

  HOME SOON.

  MARY BROLL.

  Harry's part in it would be to phone Woodrow Willow that same day, Monday, April twenty-sixth, and tell him that Mary had reached him by overseas phone call from Grenada to tell him she had cabled Willow to go ahead, tell him not to worry, tell him she would be home soon. He would inform Willow that Mary had given him the name of the travel agency she had used and had told him that her neighbor, Mrs. Dressner, had known all along where she was.

  Very nice. If Willow felt like double-checking after he got the cable, he could call the travel agency and call Mrs. Dressner.

  "Can't they check back on an overseas call?" I asked.

  "Sure. That's why I call him at his office next Sunday afternoon. I've got the number. He'll have a secretary there. It will be person-to-person. Mrs. Broll calling Mr. Broll. That's for afterward, in case they do a lot of checking."

  "Checking what?"

  "I'm reserved to leave here on Monday, the third of May. Paul just didn't have time to work everything out before I left. But the way he wants it to happen, Mary Broll will have some kind of accident. He's going to get a message to me telling me what to do. I just... leave everything of hers and arrive back home as myself somehow. Maybe a towel and a beach bag left on the beach; and nothing missing but a swim suit and a cap."

  "Where does the money come from?"

  "The way I understand it, Gav, Harry invested seven hundred thousand in SeaGate. The letter of agreement said that on or before April thirtieth, he has to pay in another three hundred thousand to make one million dollars. There is a block of stock escrowed for him and a note escrowed, saying SeaGate owes him seven hundred thousand plus interest. It is an... indivisible block. He takes it all and wipes out the money SeaGate owes him and pays three hundred more. If he doesn't, he just gets his seven hundred back with interest, and the hundred thousand shares go to increase the number of shares the corporation is selling to the public and to reduce the number the stockholders will offer. There is no way in the world Harry can get that money except from the bank on a loan on Mary's trust. He can't get an extension, and he can't cut down the number of shares he'll take. And he is borrowed to the hilt everywhere else."

  "So he had to keep Mary alive for about four months after she died?"

  She shivered. "Or lose a big profit, a million and a half."

  "How much to your cousin?"

  "He said a million. He didn't say that in front of Harry. I think he could get it all out of Harry." She frowned. "The thing about Paul, he stopped giving a damn what he does. It doesn't matter to him any more. It scares me. Once when I was little, a deaf boy took me to the movies, and he laughed when nobody else was laughing. Paul is like that now, sort of.

  "And I suppose Harry has been making a big fuss, storming around, shaking up Mary's friends, demanding they tell him where they're hiding her."

  "Maybe. I don't know. I guess it would make him look better later on, if people could testify to that. I don't know how he is. I keep wondering how he'll sound on the phone."

  Her voice dragged. Her face looked puffy with fatigue. Her eyes were irritated because of the many times the tears had come. There wasn't much left of the day. She said, "Can we go for a walk on the beach? Would that be okay, Gavin?"

  She got up and got a gaudy print dashaki and pulled it over her head, pushed her hair back into semiorder, put her big glasses on. "Gee, I feel emptied out, as if it's out of my hands somehow. I should be scared, but I'm too beaten down to be scared. You're in charge, Gav. You've taken over. I don't know where we're going, but you're running the ship."

  It was so nicely done I had my mouth all set for the bait and the hook. Poor little victim of a sordid conspiracy, clinging to the first man who'd give her the benefit of the doubt.

  Sweet little immature face and a busy, nimble little butt and all the conscience and mercy of a leopard shark. Let me be your little pal, mister. Nobody else has ever understood me but you. She had slipped up on one little detail, but it was a bad slip.

  She let me see how she must have looked trying on Mary's new resort clothes while Mary lay dead. Probably Lisa turned this way and that, looking in the mirror, smoothing her rear with the backs of her hands, wishing the damned dead woman had bought the cute clothes one size smaller. She tried on clothes while the men argued in the next room. "Look at it this way, Broll. You had a look at her an hour and a half ago. They'll want to know why you waited so long before reporting it. What do you tell them?" While Lisa hummed and bit her lip and frowned at herself and wondered if the colors were right for her.

  Thirteen

  WE WALKED Up the beach in the orange and gold light of tropic sunset. The tide was moving out and the packed sand was damp and firm under our tread, a coarse, yellow-brown sand. The sun was behind us setting into the sea just out beyond Long Point. Far ahead, beyond the rocks that marked the end of Grand Anse beach and beyond St. George's harbor, was the toy-town look of the town at evening, spilled up the green slopes, small formal shapes with windows looking toward the sea.

  We walked past the Grand Anse Hotel, the Grenada Beach Hotel, the Holiday Inn. Cars had come down to the public areas to park under the sea grapes and the almond trees. People swam in the relative cool of twilight, and people walked the long broad promenade of packed sand. Sloops
and ketches and multihull sailboats were anchored off the two-mile crescent of beach. A fast boat was pulling a limber black girl on water skis between the anchored sailboats. Behind us was the blinding dazzle of the sun's path on the quiet sea, and our shadows ahead of us were long in a slanting pattern against the damp sand.

  "You were going to talk, I thought?"

  "I am. I am." She moved closer, linked her arm through mine, hugged it against her body, and looked up at me. "I have to, I guess. Do you know how things can happen to your life that... don't fit it somehow? Then everything else isn't real. When you forget, then everything around you is real again, but what happened doesn't seem as if it could have ever happened. Do you know what I'm talking about?"

  "Not yet, girl. Not yet."

  "I guess in my own way I was as numb as Harry was. It seems like ten years ago, practically."

  "Didn't you think it was pretty damned stupid for Paul to kill Mary Broll? Didn't you tell him it was stupid?"