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

by A Tan

  "So you fight it all your life or go back to it. Either way, it is a deep involvement."

  She found her glasses on the floor, picked them up and said wearily, "You know so goddamn much, don't you? You know something? You've got a big mouth. A great big mouth. Let's get back on the beach where I belong."

  Seventeen

  THAT RANDOM afternoon had turned Lisa Dissat off in a way she either couldn't explain or didn't care to explain. It amounted to the same thing. We became like neighbors in a new suburb, nodded and smiling when we met walking to or from the main hotel building or up and down the two-mile beach or back and forth from sun cot to cottage.

  I saw some of the cruise ship men, crew and passengers, take their try at her now and then when she walked the long wide beach alone. I saw male guests at our hotel and the other beach hotels make their approach, each one no doubt selecting the overworked line he thought might be most productive. They would fall in step with her, last about a half dozen steps before turning away. I followed her a couple of times and kept count. Prettier young women in bikinis just as revealing walked the beach unaccosted. It was difficult to identify those characteristics which made her such a frequent target. It was something about the tilt and position of her head, in relation to the shape in which she held her mouth while walking. It was challenge, somehow. A contempt and an arrogance. Try me, you bastard. Try your luck and see how good you are. Do you think you're man enough to cope, you bastard? There was both invitation and rejection in the roll of her hip. To describe everything that happened to tilt, curve, and musculature in one complete stride from start to finish and into the next stride would have taken a seventeen syllable word. Provocative, daring, and ineradicably cheap. That was what Rupe had seen so quickly, wondering why I risked even a bruised knuckle to take ass like that away from Carl Brego. It was what I had seen when she sat with Brego for a drink and lunch.

  It was a compulsive cheapness. I could not believe that it was deliberate in the sense of being something she had thought out. It had to be something she could not 'help doing, yet did not do out of some physical warp or out of any flaw in intelligence or awareness.

  She had been uncommonly determined to give herself to me. It had been too early an effort. She wanted to be used, not loved. She wanted to be quickly tumbled and plundered. It was what she expected and what she wanted, and it was that need which exuded the musky, murky challenge.

  I have a need to try to put people together out of the pieces they show me. The McGee Construct-A-Lady Kit. For those on a budget we suggest our cheaper, simpler Build-A-Broad Kit.

  Once you Build-A-Broad, it pleases you more than it did before you took it apart and examined the components.

  She had ripened young. They had drilled virtue into her so mercilessly that when she was seduced she believed herself corrupt and evil. Purity could not be regained. So she ran away and had spent a dozen years corrupting because she believed herself corrupt, debauching because she had been debauched, defiling because she was the virgin defiled.

  When you cannot like yourself or any part of yourself in mind or body, then you cannot love anyone else at all. If you spend the rest of your life on bleeding knees, maybe Jesus will have the compassion to love you a little bit. She had been destroyed twelve years ago. It was taking her a little while to stop breathing.

  I kept in close touch with her. She heard nothing. I killed time restlessly. So Saturday I got a clear connection and talked to Meyer. I told him to check out Paul Dissat in the SeaGate offices in West Palm. I had to spell the name in my own special kind of alphabet before he was sure of it. Detroit Indiana sugar sugar Alabama teacup.

  "Dissat? Paul Dissat?"

  "Yes. And be damned careful of him. Please. He bites."

  "Is Mary there? Is she all right?"

  "She's fine."

  After all, what else could I say? Time to talk later.

  Later on Saturday I drove until I finally found the way to Yacht Services. I parked the Moke and went out on the long dock and found the Dulcinea. She was a custom motor sailer, broad of beam with sturdy, graceless lines. Rupe Darby and Artie kept her sparkling, and she looked competent

  Artie had gone over to the Carenage in the dinghy to do some shopping. Rupe asked me aboard and showed me the belowdecks spaces, the brute diesels, all the electronics. He was fretting about the delivery of some highly necessary engine item. It was supposed to come in by air. They couldn't leave without it, and he didn't want to be late meeting his owners at Dominica. He hoped to be out by Wednesday.

  I asked about Carl Brego, and he told me that Brego's rich lady had arrived with friends, and they had left early that morning for two weeks sailing the Grenadines.

  A sunbrown and brawny woman in blue denim shorts and a dirty white T-shirt came along the dock and waved and smiled. She had a collie ruff of coppery gold hair, a handsome weathered face. Rupe invited her to come aboard and have some coffee with us. She did, and we sat in the shade of the tarp rigged forward. She was Captain Mickey Laneer, owner and operator of the Hell's Belle, a big businesslike charter schooner I could see from where we sat Mickey had a man's handshake and a state of Maine accent.

  "Trav, Mickey here has the best damned charter business in the islands, bar none."

  "Sure do," she said, and they both chuckled and chuckled.

  "Could be out on charter all the time," Rupe said.

  "But that would take all the fun out of it, too much of the same thing," Mickey said.

  "She charges high, and she picks and chooses and doesn't have to advertise. Word of mouth," Rupe said, and they kept chuckling.

  "Five hundred bucks a day US, and I don't take the Belle out for less than five days, and I won't carry less than three or more than five passengers. Price stays the same."

  "That's pretty high," I said.

  "I keep telling her she ought to raise the rate again."

  "Would you two mind telling me why you keep laughing?"

  Mickey shoved her hair back, grinning. "Rupe and I just enjoy life, Mr. McGee."

  "She does a good trade with business meetings. Three or four or five busy, successful executives, usually fellows in their thirties or early forties, they come down to relax, get some fishing in, get a tan, do a little dickering and planning. You know."

  "Why is everybody laughing but me?" I asked.

  "She takes male passengers only Trav."

  I finally caught up. "I get it. Your crew is all female, Captain?"

  "And," said Rupe, "all nimble and quick and beautiful and strong as little bulls. They range from golden blond-a gal who has a masters in languages from the University of Dublin-to the color of coffee with hardly a dab of cream. Eight of them."

  "Seven, Rupe. Darn it. I had to dump Barbie. She was hustling a guest for extra the last time out. I've warned them and warned them. After I provision the Belle-the best booze and best food in the Windwards-I cut it down the middle, half for me and the boat, half for the gals. So on a five-day run, they make better than three hundred, Biwi. Everyone from golden Louise all the way to Hester, whose father is a bank official in Jamaica."

  "You need eight crew to work that thing, Mick?"

  "I know. I know. We're going out Monday for ten days. Four fellows from a television network. Nice guys. It'll be their third cruise. Old friends. That means my gals will be topless before we clear Grand Mal Bay."

  "And bottomless before you get opposite Dragon Bay and Happy Hill."

  "Could be, dear. Louise flew up to Barbados today. She says she has a cute chum who loves sailing. It's a way for a certain kind of girl to combine her favorite hobbies and make a nice living. I don't take hard-case types. I like polite, happy girls from nice backgrounds. Then we have a happy ship."

  She got up and said, "A pleasure to meet any of Rupe's old friends, Travis. Hope you'll sail with us sometime. Rupe has."

  "Mickey invited four of us captains to a free five-day cruise last year."

  "I had a cancellatio
n," Mickey said, "and we were all wondering what to give the other captains for a Christmas present. Well, nice to meet you."

  After she was on the dock, she turned and waved and said, "Tell him our motto, Rupe."

  He chuckled. She walked lithely away. He said, "Mickey likes you. In her line of work she gets to tell the men from the boys in a hurry."

  "What's the motto?"

  "Oh. It's on her letterhead. 'Make a lot of lovely new chums every voyage.' "

  "Enjoy the cruise?"

  "Oh, hell yes. By God, it is different. There's rules, and Mickey, enforces them. None of her gals get slopped. Any and all balling is done in the privacy of your own bunk in your own stateroom, curtains drawn. No pairing off with any special gal, even for a whole day. If a gal is wearing pants, long or short, it means hands off. Otherwise, grab whatever is passing by whenever you feel like it. The gals don't make the approach. The things you remember are like standing aft with a big rum punch in a fresh wind with Mickey at the wheel really sailing that thing, putting on all the sail it'll take, and those eight great bareass gals scampering around, hauling on those lines, trimming sail. And like being anchored in a cove in the moonlight, the evening meal done, and those gals singing harmony so sweet it would break your heart right in two. Great food and great drinks and good fishing. Everybody laughs a lot aboard the Belle. Between all they got to do, those gals put in a day full of work for a day's pay. I can't understand that damned stupid Barbie. Why'd she want to try some private hustling? Her old man must own half the state of South Carolina. Barbie's been a sailboat bum all her life. And she gets this chance to make a good living doing the two things in this world she does best and enjoys most, sailing and screwing, and she blows the whole deal. It's hard to understand. Anyway, we were out five days, and it was like being gone a month, I swear. It's... it's something different If you ever see the Belle coming in here or leaving, you wouldn't figure it out. Those gals look like some kind of Olympic people training for a race. Nimble and slender and tough and... fresh faced. Scrubbed. You know?"

  On Sunday Lisa agreed without much argument to arrange her call so that I could hear both ends of the conversation. She placed it from the cottage. We had to wait a long time before the desk called back and said they had her party on the line. I sat close beside her, and she turned the phone slightly so we could both hear, my right ear and her left.

  It was Harry's nervous, lying voice. "Mary, honey? Is that you, Mary darling?"

  "Yes, dear. Can you hear me?"

  "Talk loud. You sound a million miles away, honey. Where are you? I've about gone out of my head with worry."

  I hoped he sounded more convincing to his secretary than he did to me. Lisa followed her prepared script, telling Harry to let Holly Dressner know she was all right and that she had phoned. She said she was afraid he'd find the travel agency she'd used. The Seven Seas. Down in Hallandale. Mrs. DeAngela had been very nice and helpful.

  "Are you going to come home? To stay?"

  "I think so, Harry. I think that's best, really."

  "So do I. When, honey? When will you be home?"

  "I've got reservations out of here May third. But don't try to meet me. I don't know when I'll get in. And I'll have my car. By the way, you don't have to worry about the money. Not any more. I'm going to cable Mr. Willow tomorrow to activate the loan and put the money in your account, dear."

  "I've been getting pretty nervous."

  "I can imagine. I guess I wanted you to sweat a little."

  And on and on and finally it was over, and she hung up. She gave me a strange look and then wiped beads of sweat from her upper lip and throat.

  "It spooked me."

  "I know."

  "If I'd been Mary, I certainly wouldn't arrange a loan for that son of a bitch. I don't see much point in that phone call, really. There's enough without that."

  "His secretary will make a good witness. Mary Broll is alive and well and in Grenada. She'll be home May third. She can say she was there when Mrs. Broll called her husband. Probably Harry will have his secretary get Mrs. Dressner on the phone and make sure his secretary hears him give her Mary's message."

  "I don't have to send her any more cards. If I was supposed to, Paul would have told me. He thinks everything out.

  "It's a good way to be, if you like to kill people."

  "It's weird. You know? I've thought and thought about what you said, Gav. The smart thing for him to do would be kill me. Get word for me to meet him on the way back. Some other island. Arrange something. But I just can't believe he would. We're from the same town. We're family. I keep having this dream about him. He's standing watching me sleep, and,I sneak my eyes open and find out he isn't really looking at me. He's looking the other way, and he has a mask just like his face that he wears on the back of his head. He's pretending to watch me, but he's looking at something else I can't see. When the dream wakes me up, I'm cold all over."

  "We won't have long to wait, Lisa. After you send the cable to Willow tomorrow, you're no use to him."

  "Stay close to me, huh?"

  I reassured her. I wouldn't let the bad man get her.

  She'd be safe.

  Sure.

  Eighteen

  I WAS UP VERY early on Monday morning when the sun was still behind the green mountains. I swam. The tide was low and getting lower, still running out I went back to take my shower before dressing for breakfast.

  By then, of course, he had talked with Lisa long enough to discover I was one of his priorities. He had immobilized her and come after me. Usually I am pretty good at surprises. Some sense I cannot describe gives me a few microseconds of lead time, and when I get that kind of warning, the reaction time seems to be at its best. Perhaps it is hearing or the sense of smell at subliminal levels.

  I don't know where he hid. There were good places in the garden. He could have crouched behind the bar in the service area or behind some of the bigger pieces of furniture in the living room. He worked it out well. He saw me go swimming, and he nipped over the wall unobserved. I'd locked the gate but not the sliding door. He could assume I would come inside to take my shower, and I would have no reason to close the bathroom door. Standard procedure is to reach in and turn the handles until you get the roaring water to the right temperature, and then you step in. It is a moment of helplessness, and there is a useful curtain of sound.

  I remember that when I got the water temperature the way I wanted it, I straightened to strip the swim trunks off. The whole back of my head blew up, and I went spinning and fluttering down through torrents of white, blinding light.

  I know what he probably used. I made things easy for him. I had picked up the piece of driftwood in the surf a few days before. It was iron hard, less than a yard long, a stick an inch and a half in diameter with a sea-polished clump of root structure at the end of it the size of a large clenched fist.

  Because he did not give a particular damn whether he killed me or not, he waited for the water roar, then came prowling into the bathroom with the club cocked, poising like a laborer to sledge a stake into hard ground.

  The brain is a tender, gray jelly wrapped in membrane, threaded and fed with miles of blood tubes down to the diameter of thread. The gray jelly is a few billion cells which build up and discharge very small amounts of electric impulses. The whole wet, complex ball is encased in this bone, covered with a rubbery layer of scalp and a hair thatch which performs some small shock-absorbing service. Like the rest of the body, the brain is designed to include its own spare parts system. Brain cells are always dying at a rate dependent on how you live but are never replaced. There are supposed to be enough to last you. If a stroke should kill all the cells in the right hemisphere involved with communication-hearing and speaking, reading and writing-there is a fair chance of dormant cells in the left hemisphere being awakened and trained and plugged into the other parts of the system. Researchers can run a very thin electrode into an animal brain and hit a pleasure center an
d offer a chimp two levers-push one, and he gets a little electrical charge that makes him feel intense pleasure; push the other, and he gets a banana. The chimp will happily starve to death, pushing the pleasure lever. They can make a rabbit dangerously savage, a cat afraid of mice. They can put electrodes against your skull and trace pictures of your brain waves. If you have nice big steep alpha waves, you learn quickly and well. People who smoke a lot have stunted alpha waves. People who live in an area with a high index of air pollution-New York, Los Angeles, Birmingham-have rotten little alpha waves that are so tiny they are hard to find. No one knows yet why this is so. It may be a big fat waste of everybody's money, time, and energy sending kids to school in Los Angeles, Chicago, and lately, Phoenix.

  Anyway, if you take a club to all this miraculous gray tapioca with a good full swing and bash the back of the skull a little to the right of center where a right-hander is likely to hit it, it is not going to function at all for a while, and then it is going to function in some partial manner for a varying period of time, which could be for as long as it lives. If you have any blood leaking in there and building pressure between the bone and the jelly, then it is not going to live very long at all.