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

by A Tan

  "What will she decide?"

  Mickey Laneer stood up, looking weary and cynical. "She'll decide that every other choice she has is worse. I'll send your breakfast."

  Teddie brought my breakfast. She was the big, creamy, Minnesota Swede who had learned her sailing on Lake Superior. She was the one who giggled. Her hair was sea-weathered to a harsh spill of pure white hemp. From the bulge of bland forehead down to the clench of prehensile toes, she was tanned to the shade of macaroons. She giggled as she presented the tray with the menu she had devised. Two giant rum sours. A stack of toast. A platter of flying fish, perfectly sauteed and browned, crisp and sweet. A big enameled coffee pot and two of the stone mugs. She latched the door, giggling, and we had breakfast. She took the tray over to the table and came back, giggling. In the moist hollow of her throat, from earlobe to collarbone and across the socket in front, around to the other earlobe, she smelled exactly like fresh cinnamon and Pears' Soap.

  The rendezvous was made about fifteen minutes past two, an estimated seven miles due west of Frigate Island. I convinced Mickey that there was no need to use the tender to transfer me. It was a freshening breeze, the sea running sparkling high. I said that though I didn't want to test my skull by diving, I could certainly swim a little. Rupe put the Dulcinea dead in the water, rocking in the trough, and hung the boarding ladder over. Mickey at the helm took the Belle across the Dulcinea's stern, laying her over so that as I sat on the lee rail and swung my legs around to the outboard side, my feet were but inches from the water.

  I dropped and swam the fifty or sixty feet to the Dulcinea, bringing from the Belle no more than I had brought aboard-the swim trunks, leaving behind somewhere in the sea the scraps of nylon cord they had cut out of my flesh.

  There was no hand extended to help me when I clambered aboard the Duicinea. Rupe and Artie stood staring at the Belle, jaws slack, leathery paws dangling. Mickey saw no need to change the uniform regulations for an old friend like Rupe. Mickey showed off by taking the Belle fifty yards past us, coming about smartly, working hell out of her girls, and then coming back aslant, waving as she angled across our bows on a northeast course not over forty feet away. The girls shouted, grinned, laughed, and waved.

  "Fool woman," Rupe said. "All sailor, that fool woman. Artie. Artie? ARTIE!"

  "Huh? Me?"

  "Bring in that boarding ladder and stow it right this time."

  "Boarding ladder?"

  "ARTIE!"

  "Oh. Sure. Yessir, Rupe. Right away."

  Rupe put the diesels back in gear, opened them up to full cruise, checked the chart and gave Artie the compass course, and left him at the wheel. We went below.

  "Now what the hell is this all about, Trav?"

  "It'll take some time."

  "Time is what we've got the most of."

  Twenty

  RUPE LOANED me the money to get home, and Artie loaned me the clothes, a set of fresh khakis that fit better than I would have guessed from looking at him. I had to buy straw sandals at Kingstown on St. Vincent. Customs and immigration clearance was at San Juan, and I had an interesting time there. People are supposed to have papers and luggage, a wallet and a toothbrush.

  They wanted to take my citizenship away from me. I told them it was a little misfortune at sea. I told them we could make some collect phone calls. When I said a magic name they could call collect, they came to attention. They almost smiled. That was on Sunday, the second day of May. I pulled the home number, unlisted, out of the damaged recesses of memory and got his wife, then got him. He talked to the boss immigration fellow, and when they were through, the boss immigration type felt a compulsion to pump my hand and call me sir and ask me if there was any little thing he could do, anything at all.

  Before my flight left, I tried Meyer again; and this time he was aboard his boat, and when he heard and recognized my voice, he said in a shaky voice, "Thank God. Thank God." I told him what I needed and what to do and not to be so sentimental, anyway

  It was a bright, clear day to fly across the Bahamas and the incredible tones and shades of the Bahama flats. I wanted to think but not very much. I wasn't very sure about being able to think things through. I wanted to depend on Meyer. The weather across my internal landscape wasn't very good. Patches of gray, like drifting clouds, obscured things I wanted to see. And sometimes in a waking state I would have the same feeling, the same jolt as when you awaken from sleep. For a little while I would not know where I was or where the plane would land.

  I got off that flight and walked through the lower level and out to vehicle pickup, and there was Meyer, bless him, standing beside a dark blue rental Ford as ordered. A very anonymous car. I told him he had better do the driving, as I was not entirely sure of the circuitry in my head. He drove. I talked. We selected a ma-and-pa motel on the way into Lauderdale on Route 1, and he got me a room in the back with an air conditioner that sounded like an air hammer breaking up paving. I finished the story in the room.

  I unpacked the stuff Meyer had brought from the Flush, using that spare key I gave him, which he keeps hidden aboard the Keynes. He had packed some Plymouth, which seemed a kindly gesture. He went and got ice from the machine, and we drank from sleasy disposable glasses that looked as though they were about five room guests overdue for disposal.

  I sat on the bed, sipping the clean, cool taste of juniper. Meyer paced and paced. He would stop in front of me to ask questions. "I'm not clear on one point. You did write the whole thing to Lennie Sibelius, telling him to get moving, open the inner envelope if you hadn't checked in by the end of May?"

  "I did. But I told Lisa the tenth of May. I wrote to Lennie later. And I did not tell her who I wrote to, of course."

  "She believed you?"

  "She very definitely bought it. And she told Cousin Paul everything he wanted to know. Assumption: he believed her the way she believed me. But by the time he found out about the letter, he'd gone too far with both of us to start making deals. His next step was to make me talk to him. And he could have. I'm stubborn, Meyer. Need I mention it? The pain threshold is high, as measured on the dolorimeter. But I could have gotten so anxious to talk I would have fallen all over myself. He scares me. What was your reading on him?"

  "Humble beginnings. Very bright, very reliable. Full scholarship to McGill. Went back to his village to work for the man who helped him. Worked for that man about three years, and then one of Waterbury's companies acquired the benefactor's business in a merger situation. Waterbury was impressed by Paul Dissat and took him into the Quebec headquarters. Dissat is thirty-six, single, conservative, devout Catholic. He doesn't drink or smoke. He's apparently managed his own savings very shrewdly. Handsome. Very fit. Superb skier and superior tennis player."

  He paced and I sipped, and the air conditioner kept up its whangbangroaring, leaking condensation down the blue concrete-block wall.

  He stopped in front of me, using his lectern mannerisms. "He functions very well in a highly pragmatic profession. He is perfectly aware of cause and effect. He can weigh the degree of risk he is willing to take. He will assume that the man who gets your letter will be competent. Can his whole plan stand determined investigation? No. Even without a link as weak as Harry Broll enough could be learned to bring it before a grand jury. What would this sort of scandal do to the SeaGate stock offering? It would come out that a fraud had been committed to get funds from a bank to pay for a preoffering block of stock. Waterbury could not afford to proceed. Both Jensen, Baker, and Fairmont, Noyes would recommend the applications be withdrawn. This would all happen, if your letter exists, with or without Paul Dissat on stage. See where I'm going?"

  "I think so."

  "With no public issue to raise money through the sale of stock, SeaGate comes to a shuddering halt. Harry's indivisible block becomes worthless. I can think of a Dissat-like solution."

  "Grab the three hundred thousand from Harry?"

  "Yes. But don't burn the bridges. Not all the way. Kill Harr
y because he is the last useful witness left alive. Then take a leave of absence on an emergency basis, somewhere out of touch. Lay back and listen. If there is no letter at all, if it was a bluff, then come back after the deadline and pick up the project again."

  I toasted him. "To you, Meyer. If he has left already, I get the letter back from Sibelius, and we wait for him to reappear. If he's still here and working closer to the deadline of the tenth and if he hasn't gotten around to Harry, we pluck Harry away from him and take Harry to a private place and have a long chat about Mary and Lisa."

  "If he has left, or is preparing to leave, and wants a door ajar so that he can get back just in case, then he'll have given Waterbury some sort of cover story I imagine."

  "Can we arrange a secret meeting with Waterbury?"

  "Travis?"

  "Why are you looking at me like that?"

  "If we can't find Harry Broil anywhere and if Paul Dissat is still around and if Harry never did buy that block in SeaGate, even if Mary's body is dug up and identified, there's no way you can get Paul indicted. You probably can't even get him fired."

  "He's got pretty legs."

  "I don't want you to do some damned idiot thing."

  "Long black eyelashes, Meyer. Red lips."

  "Travis!"

  "Maybe I want to dance with him. Maybe I want to whisper in his ear. But I don't want to have him come to me. You see, he's a careful man. He knows I'll come back if I didn't drown. That's why I told you to be careful about being seen going aboard the Flush. Am I overreacting?"

  "No. You are not overreacting."

  "Don't let him get to you, Meyer, when he starts looking for that letter."

  "I've never seen you like this."

  "He scrambled my brains. We should get away. I know a great cruise we could take."

  "A cruise! A cruise?"

  "It's different. I'll tell you about it later."

  "Do that. There's been no report of Mary Broll's death from Grenada. It's taking a long time."

  "A guest is charged for the cottage whether she uses it or not and charged for the food whether she uses it or not. And in the absence of a body it is the kind of island where, if a lady gets invited aboard a yacht for cocktails or up into the hills to an estate for cocktails, a lady could decide to spend a week being entertained. It is, shall we say, an impulsive place. A carefree isle."

  "I phoned Mr. Willow last Wednesday. He got the cable from Mrs. Broll on Monday, and he talked with Harry Broll on Monday. On Tuesday morning he activated the loan papers and deposited the funds in Broll's personal account. I thought you'd like to know. That's when I started trying to get you on the phone. Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday. It was... pleasant to hear your voice."

  "Paul sent the cable in her name. No problem. I should have realized how easily he could do that." I looked at Meyer's watch after first staring at my empty wrist for the thousandth time. "Five o'clock on Sunday afternoon. About the only thing we can do is try to find Harry."

  "How?"

  "There is a name in the back of this scrambled skull. All the file cards are spilled on the floor. Let me crawl around back there for a minute."

  I retrieved the red-brown hair, pale green eyes, the vital and expressive face, the lean, quick-moving body. I let her walk around and smile, and then I knew her. "Jeannie Dolan of 8553 Ocean Boulevard." I hitched along the bed and got her number from information and called her.

  "Who?" she asked in a sleepy voice.

  "McGee. The guy with the blue Rolls pickup."

  "Hey! It's you! I'd about decided I hadn't made any kind of dent on you at all. And that doesn't help a girl's pride. Where are you? Ask me out and then sweat out about three minutes of girlish reluctance and then come and get me, huh?"

  "I am going to do exactly that later on, but right now I can't do any stirring around."

  "Oh! Are you sick?"

  "Not too sick to take you out, Jeannie. But I am trying to give the impression of being out of town. For good reasons."

  "Okay. I'm not even talking to you. I will go around saying, 'Whatever happened to good old whosis?' "

  "You are one nice lady."

  "Rrrrright!"

  "For reasons I may tell you some day, right now I want to know how goes the course of true love and romance and convenience. Betsy and Harry."

  "It isn't exactly a script Ali McGraw is going to want to star in. Right now Betsy is teed pretty good. He was real jumpy and mean last week, and Wednesday morning early, like five, he got a phone call. It woke her up, but she fell asleep, and then he's shaking her awake. It's just getting to be daylight, and he's dressed, and he's packed a suitcase. He tells her he's going away on business. By the time the front door slams, she has asked him where he's going and when he'll be back about three times-no answer. I told her I think she has been handed the personally engraved, natural bristle brush and maybe she should move back down here onto four with me. She's been calling his office and getting brushed off there, too. She drove out there a couple of times, but there was no sign of his car. Maybe he is away on business. But it showed no consideration, the way he left."

  "Sold any condominiums?"

  "Not to that friend of yours. She never showed up. If she really exists."

  "You are very suspicious of people."

  "If you'd ever met my husband, you'd know why. He could walk into a phone booth and leave by a side door."

  "I'm a sneaky type too, Jeannie."

  "That's nice. It's what I'm used to."

  "I'll be calling you soon."

  "You do that, hon. Bye."

  Meyer and I talked, establishing the new parameters. But. it was like the game of guessing which. fist contains the chess pawn. Harry had enough animal caution to know that if things went wrong for Paul Dissat, it was runaway time for Harry. So if it was Paul who phoned him, maybe Harry had started to run. Conversely Paul would know Harry was shrewd enough to know when to run, and so if Paul gave Harry cause to run, he would make certain Harry wouldn't be able to.

  "The money will be the clue," Meyer said. "The first thing in the morning, as soon as the bank is open. I don't think it was paid over to SeaGate. And I don't think it's still in the bank."

  "How do you manage that?"

  Meyer smiled an unexpectedly unkindly smile. "By almost giving Woodrow Willow a coronary. He deserves a jolt. One should not be able to con a trust officer out of any assets held in trust."

  "I'm coming along."

  "Do you think you-"

  "In the disguise you're going to go out and buy me at Happy Sam's Giant Superstore Open Always Practically."

  "And on the way back here I buy pizza and beer to go?"

  The lobby of the Southern National Bank and Trust Company takes up half of the ground floor of their new building on Biscayne. It is like three football fields: People at the far end are midgets, scurrying around in the cathedral lighting. The carpeting is soft and thick, dividing the lobby into function areas through the use of colors. Coral, lime, turquoise. The bank colors are pale blue and gold. The girls wear little blue and gold bank jackets with the initials SNB on the pocket, curled into a fanciful logo, the same logo that's stitched into the carpet, mosaiced into the walls, embossed on the stationery, and watermarked into the checks. The male employees and officers up to ambassadorial rank wear pale blue and gold blazers. Everybody has been trained to smile at all times. The whole place looks like a huge, walk-in dental advertisement. There is probably also a bank song.

  Meyer dropped me a block away, and while he found a parking space, I strolled back to the bank and went in. I wore a Hawaiian shirt, a straw ranch hat with a red band, a drugstore camera around my neck, sunglasses with big pale orange lenses. A guard moved in from the side and asked if he could help me. I said I was meeting the little woman here because she had to cash a traveler's check, probably to buy some more of those damn silly hotpants, and where would she go to cash traveler's checks. He aimed me across a hundred yards of carp
eting, under a forty-foot ceiling. Nobody else looked at me. Tourists are invisible, except to the man trying to sell them something. Otherwise, they are as alike as all the trees in the park. Only a botanist knows there is any difference between trees. Or an applegrower.

  I kept moving, because if I stood still, one of the guards would come over and ask me if he could help me. I did not know how long it would take. Meyer said he would come in from the north side corridor after going up to the trust department and coming back down with Mr. Willow. Also, I kept moving because I wanted to make certain that by no ten-thousand-to-one-chance was Cousin Paul doing a little banking business this hot, windy Monday morning. Sometimes his face would be completely gone from memory, and that would frighten me. Then it would pop back like a slide coming into automatic focus.