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

by A Tan

  She had to wait until we had passed a group of people strolling at a slower pace than ours. She indicated a stubby cement pier at the far border of the Holiday Inn property. It projected only to the surf line and seemed to have no purpose other than as some sort of groyne to retain the sand. We went up the slope of beach, stepped up onto it, and walked out to sit near the end, our backs to the sunset.

  She laced her fingers in mine, tugged at my hand, and rested it palm upward against the smooth, round brown of mid-thigh. She frowned toward the town.

  "I've thought about it and thought about it, Gavin. I guess it got to be pretty obvious to Paul that an affair with me wasn't going to be enough leverage on Harry. Harry and his wife weren't getting along so great anyway. There wasn't anything real important to expose, you might say. So why did he tip off Mary Broll so she'd catch me and Harry together? Why did he make sure she would catch us? Why did he tell me to yell at Mrs. Broll and make a big scene out of it? Motive, right?"

  The point was well taken. Mary would certainly confide her problem to someone. The scene at the apartment had attracted so much attention that even Jeannie Dolan heard about it later. Of late, Harry had been blustering around, threatening people, trying to locate his dead wife.

  If the police were tipped, dug for Mary, and found her, even the most inept state's attorney could put together a case R Lee Bailey couldn't successfully defend.

  "So, Lisa, you think Paul had decided to kill her when he made the phone call to her. Does that make sense? He didn't know then she'd decided to go away. He didn't know then what she'd arrange about the loan. She could have left without any warning at all. He'd have to be some kind of warlock, reading the future."

  "I know. I think about it until my head starts to hurt, and then I give up."

  "Did you think he'd ever kill anybody?"

  "You don't go around wondering whether people you know can kill other people, do you? I knew he was mean. I knew how nasty he could get. I knew there was something kinky about him, the way he got something special out of sleeping with me and then making me sleep with those older guys. It was something to do with him never getting married, I think. We look alike, like brother and sister. His eyes are the same as mine, the same dark dark brown and long black lashes and-see?-the left one set straight, and the right one slanty. His mouth is like mine, a lot of natural red to the lips, and the mouth small, and the lower lip heavy and curling out from the upper lip. We both look younger than we are, but that's always been true of the whole family. Aside from that there isn't the least thing feminine about him. Even my eyes and mouth don't look girlish on Paul, somehow. Except when he's asleep. That's strange, isn't it? I'd watch him sleeping, and then his eyes and lips would look the most like mine and make me feel strange. He is big! He's almost as tall as you are and as big,through the chest. But he moves a lot quicker. I guess I mean his normal way of moving is quicker. Nobody is quicker than you were with Carl. Jesus! You looked kind of dumb and sleepy, as if you couldn't believe he was really going to beat on you. Then you were something else."

  "I want to know more about Paul. How old is he?"

  "He'll be coming up onto thirty-seven, I think in July. Yes. Other companies have tried to hire him away from Mr. Waterbury. So I guess he's a good accountant. He stays in great shape all year. He does competition slalom in the winter and tennis in the summer. His legs are tremendously powerful, like fantastic springs."

  "An exercise nut?"

  "With weights and springs and pulleys and things. And a sun lamp that travels by itself from one end of you to the other and turns itself off. He's really happy about those legs. One funny thing, he's as dark as I am, and he has to shave twice a day when he goes out in the evening, but on his body, except for those places where everybody has hair, he hasn't any. His legs have a really great shape, and there isn't any hair on them or his chest or his arms. The muscles are long and smooth, not bunchy. When he tenses them, his legs are like marble."

  "You called him kinky."

  She frowned and thought for a little while. I saw the point of her tongue slowly moisten the curve of underlip. "No. That isn't the right word. The whole sex scene isn't a big thing with him. I mean it's there, all right. It was something we would do. You know, when he couldn't unwind and get to sleep, he'd phone me to come over to his place down in the city. We were five blocks apart He makes me feel... I don't know... like one of his damn exercise machines, something with a motor and weights and springs, so that afterward he could put it in his exercise log. Ten minutes on the rowing machine. Eight minutes on the Lisa machine."

  "I can't really get the picture of you two."

  "What's so difficult, honey?"

  "You move to Quebec and change jobs because he tells you to. You come over whenever he phones you. He tells you to seduce Mr. X and then Mr. Y and tells you how to extort money from them, and he takes most of it. He tells you to seduce Harry, quit your job, and follow Harry to Florida, and he tells you to come here and pretend to be Mary. You are awfully goddamn docile, Lisa."

  "I know. I know. Yes. It's funny about him. He's just so absolutely positive you're going to do what he tells you to do, it's a lot easier to do it than try to say you won't."

  "Did you ever try to say you wouldn't do something he asked you to do?"

  "God, yes! In the very beginning, before he even got the job for me. I was at his place, and he asked me to get him something from across the room. I was sitting at the table, and I said something like 'You're not a cripple, are you?' He got up and went behind me and hit me on top of the head with his fist. I blacked out and fell off the chair and cut my chin. It did something funny to my neck pinched a nerve or something, and I was in bed for three days with it, practically in agony. He was a darling. He waited on me hand and foot. He was so sweet and considerate. I guess... it's easier to do what he says, because you have the feeling that neither of you knows what he'll do if you say no. At work he's another person."

  "How do you feel about the way you're crossing him?"

  "It keeps making me feel as if I'm going to throw up." She looked up at me with a piquant tilt of her dark head. "It's funny," she said. "I never saw you before today. Then you scared me so. You really did. Now you're so nice and understanding. I can really talk to you. About everything."

  Her fingers were laced in mine, and she pressed down on my hand, holding the back of my hand against the round, tan thigh, slowly swinging her dangling leg as she did so. I felt the smooth working of the thigh muscles against the back of my hand. It was a sensuous and persuasive feeling. She was a pretty piece, making her constant offer of herself in any way that she could.

  "Why trust me?" I asked her.

  She shrugged. "I don't know. I guess I'm trying to. I guess I can't go it alone, no matter what it is. I appreciate you didn't mark me up any. I mean I hate to get belted in the face where it shows. It cuts a person's mouth inside, and there's a big puffy bruise and maybe a mouse comes under a person's eye. It's a bad thing to do to a girl. She goes around ashamed."

  "Paul belted you?"

  "Sometimes."

  "But you trust him?"

  "He's a blood relative. Maybe I shouldn't trust him at all. He's strange. He really is. It doesn't show. You have to know him."

  "I keep thinking of how boxed in you are."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Suppose after you go back, Harry is picked up for killing his wife. They have her body. It's certainly no big problem finding the girlfriend and proving you were there. With that starting point, Lisa, how long before the state attorney's investigators learn about the impersonation? Would you want to explain on the stand why you took her money, her tickets, her reservations, her clothes, and her car?"

  There was a sudden sallowness. "Come on now. Don't, honey! Jesus! I don't like jokes like that. We're in this together, aren't we?"

  "Are we?"

  "What do you want of me? What more do you want that I'm not ready and eager and willing
to give, dear?"

  "Do you think Cousin Paul is going to give you a short count on the money again?"

  "If he gets the chance."

  I pulled my hand away from her. "Now what would keep him from having the chance? Me?"

  "Darling, please don't try to confuse me."

  "How am I confusing you?"

  "Well... you said you own me now, and you said there had to be money in it. So I guess you'll go after the money. I guess you'd have to have my help."

  "Doing what?"

  "That would be up to you, dear."

  "To figure out how you can help me get rich?"

  "That's the name of your game, I thought."

  "Maybe Paul's game is over."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Harry Broll is not a complete idiot. Why couldn't he have gone quietly to the police and managed to sell them the truth? So they lay back and wait for you to return and for Paul to make his move, and scoop you both up."

  "Damn! I forgot to tell you about the letter I wrote Paul. He was right there when I wrote it. He found Mary Broll's personal stationery for me to use. He told me what to write. I had to do it over because he said it was too neat the first time. I dated it January fifth. It said that Paul had been right and I never should have gotten involved with Harry. It said Harry had done something terrible while drunk and had gotten me to his house afterward to help him but I couldn't. I said I was frightened and I was going away and to wait until I got in touch with him. He held it in front of Harry and made him read it. Then he had me seal it in an envelope and put a stamp on it and address it to Paul's place in West Palm Beach. Paul put it in his pocket to mail as soon as he could."

  The sun was gone. The world was darkening. The sky was a dying furnace, and the sea was slate. We walked back the way we had come but more slowly.

  "Gavin?"

  "Shut up, Lisa. Please."

  The beach was almost empty. The outdoor torches had been lighted at the Spice Island Inn. Birds were settling noisily to bed, arguing about the best places. Canned music was coming over allweather speakers, a steel band playing carnival calypso.

  When we reached her gate, she said, "Now can I say something? Like, please come in?"

  "I want to sit out in the breeze, thanks. Over there."

  "Join you?"

  "Sure."

  "Bring you a drink, maybe?"

  "Thanks. Same as before."

  I sat deep in a chaise, legs up, trying to work it out in every possible combination and permutation. With Mary Broll dead, Woodrow Willow was supposed to slam the lid on that trust account. Harry was probably the beneficiary under her will, possibly a coexecutor along with the bank. But had she died in early January, even in a traffic accident, the chances of processing the estate quickly enough for Harry to get his, three hundred thousand before April thirtieth were very damned remote. She had to die later on.

  So what if Meyer and I had not had all those vague feelings of uneasiness? What if we had accepted my phone call as being proof enough that she was alive and well and living in Grenada? Then it would have worked like a railroad watch. The timely loan. The news of pending reconciliation. Enough supporting information for Willow to consider the cable legitimate authorization. Then the ironic tragedy. Estranged wife on the point of returning home to her contrite husband, missing in mysterious drowning incident. Search is on for body. However...

  "Here you go," she said. I thanked her for the drink She had brought one for herself. She sat on the side of the chaise, facing me. I moved my legs over to make room. The stars were beginning to come out I could see that she had brushed her hair, freshened her mouth. The bright, block print dashaki had deep side slits, and she adjusted herself and it, either by accident or design, so that the side slit showed the outside of a bare thigh and hip as high as the waist, a smoothness of flesh in the dying day that was not interrupted by the narrow encirclement of bikini I had seen there before.

  "You certainly do an awful lot of thinking," she said.

  "And here I am, dear, alive and well."

  "But you have been terribly terribly hurt a few times, Gav."

  "The times when I wasn't thinking clearly."

  "Do I keep you from thinking clearly? I'd sure like a chance to try. Would you mind if I ask you politely to please make love to me?"

  "What are we celebrating?"

  "You're such a bastard! Gavin darling, I feel very very insecure about a lot of things. I've been alone a long time. Now I want somebody to hold me tight and make love to me and tell me I'm delicious. For morale, I guess. Why do you even make me ask? It doesn't have to be any big thing, you know. It doesn't have to take up a hell of a lot of your time. Hitch over just a little bit, darling, and let me..."

  The way she started to manage it to lie down beside me and hike her dashaki up and tug my swim trunks down and simultaneously hook one brown leg over me-certainly wasn't going to take up a great deal of anybody's time, the way she was going at it.

  I pushed her erect and pulled the trunks back up. "Very flattering. Very generous. But no thanks."

  She laughed harshly and picked her drink up off the sand near her feet. "Well, comparing you to Carl, I can say this. You've got a different kind of attitude. If I hadn't uncovered proof, I'd be wondering about you."

  "I'm busy pretending I'm Paul, wondering how he has it all worked out."

  "Different strokes for different folks."

  "I hang back and make sure Harry Broll follows orders. I check with him about the Sunday afternoon phone call from you. On Tuesday morning, the twenty-seventh, I will get in touch with Mr. Willow, in my capacity as an employee of SeaGate, to verify that Mr. Broll will indeed have the funds to pick up his escrowed block of SeaGate shares. I am assured. The money comes through. And I am very very busy right through, the thirtieth and through the weekend, because that is the end of the fiscal year for SeaGate. Right?"

  "I guess so, dear."

  "Then I have to do something about Cousin Lisa. She's expecting a message from me. I'll have to deliver it in person."

  "To tell me what to do next?"

  "Old Harry is twitchy about his dead wife. And Lisa is twitchy about Harry's dead wife. Harry and Lisa could testify against me if they ever join forces. Lisa is wearing the dead woman's rings. I just have to arrange a nice quick safe way to meet her in the islands and blow her face off and blow her dental work to paste. Then there's no mystery about a body. I can settle down and separate good old Harry from every cent of his gain and every cent he has left over when that's gone. When Harry is empty, it will be time to lay him to rest, too. By accident. Just in case."

  I reached an idle hand and patted her on the shoulder. She remained quiveringly still, then was suddenly up and away, to come to rest five feet from the chaise, staring at me.

  "Nol No, Gavin. He's my first cousin. No."

  "He couldn't do that?"

  "Absolutely not. Not ever. Not any way."

  "Then why are you so upset?"

  "Anybody would be upset, hearing something so horrible."

  "You know you are supposed to fake Mary Broll's death. There's less chance of a hitch if somebody plays the part of the body. You've been Mary Broll since January. Why switch now?"

  "Don't be such a bastard!"

  "It's the way I have to read him from everything you've told me. A quirky guy but very logical. A good improviser. If one logical plan doesn't develop the way he wants it to, he thinks up an alternative just as good or better. And... Lisa dear, just what the hell good are you to him? The end of usefulness. He knows there's a chance you'll make new friends who'll hear about how you died and get very upset about it and might run into you in an air terminal somewhere a year from now. All you are is a big risk, and an unnecessary risk."

  "Shut up!"

  "Think about it."

  "I am thinking about it."

  "It wouldn't be my style, but I have to admire it in a way. It ties up the loose ends. No way out for Harry. Or
you."

  She found her drink had been kicked over. "Ready for another?"

  "Not yet, thanks."

  "Want to come in?"

  "I'll stay here awhile."

  "Be back soon, dear."

  Fourteen

  TOUGH LISA DISSAT was not gone for more than ten minutes, it was full night when she came back a velvet beach under a brilliance of stars. There were lights behind us from the Spice Island Inn cottages. The lights made a slanting yellow glow against the sand.

  She sat beside me again. She had changed to tailored white shorts, a dark blouse with a Chinese collar and long sleeves. She smelled of perfume... and Off. The white fabric was snug on the round hip that pressed warm against the side of my knee.