A Deadly Shade of Gold

by John D. MacDonald

  I moved away, to a different level of the house where, over the goopy strings of the grass skirt music I could hear his occasional clarion phrase "... ninety miles off our doorstep... sense of purpose... show them we mean what we say... bleeding hearts..." but I could not follow the strange line of his reasoning. There are a lot of them running loose these days, I thought, fattening themselves on the sick business of whipping up such fear and confusion that they turn decent men against their decent neighbors in this sad game of think-alike.

  It seemed an odd business for Tomberlin to be backing, but I have long since learned that the very rich specialize in irrational causes. Insulated from the brute reality of the money drive, they expand into the unreality of Yoga, astrology, organic foods and marginal politics. Tomberlin was immersed in the mismatched fields of erotica and the clanking of crypto-Fascist right. Next year it might be voodoo and technocracy. It was the search for importance, and the ones who could recognize that could con him very nicely and profitably.

  I found that one of the strategic little bars had a fair brand of domestic brandy, so I got three fingers and one lump of ice and sat on a corner couch and looked across to where a group of young were sprawled up the side of some wide stairs. Some of them were the pool people. They had their private jokes, and their cool-eyed apartness from the rest of the party. They were a swinging little pack, with a flavor of tension and disdain.

  There is one typical characteristic of both nightmare and delirium. Both these conditions of mind involve the grouping of people from random points in the past. A dead childhood companion will appear with last month's girl. A man who once tried very earnestly to kill you dead will show up and tell you symbolic things about your dead brother's wife.

  When there is an inexplicable association of people during a waking and rational moment, it inevitably recaptures that faint and eerie flavor of nightmare.

  Suddenly one of the little blonde cupcakes on the stairway jumped into focus as though I was using a zoom lens. It was the nameless sun bunny from the pool at La Casa Encantada, the one who had come over tipsy, sat on her heels with brown thighs muscularly flexed, wanting to know if I'd been an end with the Rams. She wore a little white linen dress and had her hair piled high and wore considerable eye makeup, but it was the same one. I felt as if I could not take a very deep breath. I looked at the others. There had been five of them on that motor sailer, three young men and two girls. I found one of the men, a big dark hairy one, the one who had seemed to be in charge of the scuba outing. What had she called him? Chip.

  I could accept the presence of Claude Boody. A mild coincidence. But I could not accept the presence of the sun bunny. It was a little too much. And so nothing had been as I had imagined. I had to let the structure fall down and then try again. I had to find a new logic. I was frightened without knowing why I should be. It was fright with a paranoid flavor. All I needed was for Heintz or Arista or Colonel Marquez to show up, humming a Hawaiian melody.

  I knew the awareness was mutual. The bland, sensual little pug-face made automatic smiles and grimaces at the things people said to her. But she would angle her eyes at me now and again. Never a direct look, but only when her head was turned. It was unconsciously furtive. I could not read her big hairy friend. He was further up the stairs and seemed totally involved with a little brunette who squirmed and giggled and squirmed.

  I moved casually away, but not entirely out of range. I was considerably more alert. I had an uncomfortable feeling. Like a herd animal, shuffling along with the group, and gradually beginning to wonder what that faint thudding and screaming means, way up at the head of the line. I was growing points on my ears and walking softly on my toes. I found Connie talking to a big broad balding fellow with tiny eyes and a large damp mouth and considerable affability. She introduced him as George Wolcott, introduced him in a way that told me she did not know him and found him boring.

  "What kind of a boat are you going to help this lovely lady find?" he asked me, chuckling though no joke had been made.

  "Just a comfortable day cruiser of some kind. Displacement hull. A good sea beam. Nothing fast or flashy."

  "I suppose you got all the licenses to run one. Heh, heh, heh."

  "To run a charter boat for hire, with Coast Guard blessings, Mr. Wolcott."

  "Good. Heh, heh, heh. What kind of a boat do the Simrnins have?"

  "It is a great big gaudy vulgar Chris Craft," Connie said. "It's called the Not Again! Excuse us please, Mr. Wolcott."

  He chuckled his permission. His loose smilings did not alter the dead bullet look of his eyes. I was getting hyper-sensitive. When we were far enough away from him, I asked her who he was.

  "Oh, he's part of that Doctor Face deal. Chairman some goddam of arrangements or rifle drill or thing."

  "He asks a lot of questions."

  "I think it's just Dale Carnegie. Show an interest. Keep smiling. Remember names. Darling, how much of this can you take? My God, this music is hurting my teeth. I'd much rather take you home to bed."

  "Give me another half hour here."

  I turned her over to Rhoda Dwight for some more infighting, and wandered on. The sun bunny appeared at my elbow, showing teeth that looked brushed after every meal. But she seemed uneasy.

  "I never was with the Rams," I said.

  "I know. Look I have to tell you something. Not here. Okay? Go down to the deck and over to the end, to the right as you go out onto the deck."

  Without waiting for my answer, she walked away. Suspicion confirmed. There can only be so much coincidence in the world. So I went where requested. I had that end of the deck to myself. I looked at the night view. She hissed at me. I turned and saw her looking out of a dark doorway. I went to her. "This way" she said. It was a wide corridor in the bedroom area, a night-light panel gleaming.

  She opened a corridor door and said in a low voice, "I didn't want to be seen talking to you. We can talk in here."

  She walked in first, into darkness. I hesitated at the doorway, and went in. But I went in at a swift sidelong angle, and something smashed down on the point of my right shoulder, numbing my arm. I went down and rolled to where I thought the girl would be. The room door slammed. I rolled against her legs and brought her thrashing down, got an arm around her throat and one hand levered up behind her and stood up with her just as lights came on.

  Claude Boody stood with an ugly gun aimed toward us, and I turned the sun bunny quickly into the line of fire. But there was the faintest whisper of sound behind me, and before I could move again, a segment of my skull went off like a bomb and I fell slowly, slowly, like a dynamited tower, with the girl underneath. I was vaguely aware of landing on her, and of her strangled yawp as my weight drove the air out of her, and of tumbling loosely away.

  I was not out. I retained ten percent of consciousness, but I could not move. The room was at the far end of a tunnel, and the voices seemed to echo through the tunnel.

  "Oh God," a girl whined. "I'm all busted up inside. Oh God."

  "Shut up, Dru."

  "Both of you shut up," an older male voice said, enormously weary. "You let him get a look at me. It's a brand new problem."

  "I'm hurt bad," the girl moaned.

  Hands fumbled at my pockets, shifting and hauling. Down in my trauma drowse I had the comfy awareness they would find nothing. I was entirely clean, just in case. My cheek was against a softness of rug. They hitched and tugged at my clothing.

  "Nothing," the tired voice said. "This stuff must belong to the Melgar woman."

  "It's a Miami label in the suit. That mean anything?"

  "Chip, I could be dying! Don't you care?"

  "Lie down on the bed, Dru. And shut up, please." Chip, Claude and Dru. Three voices from far away. I heard the click of a lighter. A moment later, I felt a little hot area near the back of my hand.

  "What are you doing?" Chip asked.

  "Let's see how good you got him. Let's see if he's faking."

  Heat turn
ed into a white stabbing light that shoved itself deep into my brain. Pain was like a siren caught on a high note. Pain cleared away the mists, but I would not move. I caught a little drifting stink of my own burned flesh.

  "He's out," Chip said. "Maybe I got him good enough so there's no problem."

  "Or a worse one, you silly bastard," Claude said. "Depending on who he is."

  "Isn't anybody going to do anything?" Dru wailed.

  They were kneeling or squatting, one on each side of me, talking across my back. The girl was further away.

  "You slipped up on this one," Claude said. "I don't mean here and now. I mean down there."

  "I told you, I wondered about him down there. So I had Dru check him out. She's no dummy. She has a feeling for anything out of line. You should know that. She threw the Garcia name at him and didn't get a thing back. He was with a woman down there. Gardino. And that was what it looked like, to be there to be with the woman and she looked worth it. And that was the same woman who had the bad luck. Honest to God, it was a one in a million chance, but she caught it. I'm still sick about that. It seemed like a hell of a big charge to me when I wired it in, but your expert was supposed to know what he was doing when he put it together. We were long gone by then, but still that woman didn't have any part of...."

  "Shut up! The problem is finding out who this bastard is and what he. wants."

  "Honest to God, Claude, when Dru spotted him and pointed him out to me about forty minutes ago, you could have knocked me over with a pin."

  "Shut up and let me think. This is beginning to go sour. I don't like it. He's no fool. Coming here with the Melgar woman was almost perfect cover. And he made some good moves in this room. He nearly got out of hand. And he had good cover down there too, good enough to fool you and Dru, boy. So who is he working for? How did he trace it back to here? I thought we closed the door on that whole operation. I thought everybody who could make any connection was gone-Almah, Miguel, Taggart. But now this son of a bitch comes out of nowhere. I don't like it."

  "And you know who else isn't going to like it."

  "Shut up, Chip, for God's sake!"

  "Why don't you drop it in his lap?"

  "Because he doesn't like things fouled up. Let's come up with some kind of answer before I tell him."

  "One answer," Chip said, "is to make this character talk about it. The name he used down there was McGee. Tonight it's Smith. God knows what it really is."

  The girl made a groan of effort, as though struggling to sit up. "Jesus, he ruined me. Chipper, you get him tied up and let me get at him with that little electric needle thing, and I'll make him talk about things he never heard of."

  "Shut her up," Claude said.

  There was a sudden movement, a solid and meaty slapping sound, and then the girl's muffled and hopeless sobbing. "Goddam you, Chip," she sobbed.

  "Hasn't he been trying to work out something with the Melgar woman?" Chip asked.

  "Just to get some shots of her in action. Send them down to Venezuela for mass distribution."

  "Why?"

  "Use your head, you silly bastard. They know her face down there. Two brothers-in-law in the government. Notorious heiress having fun in the United States. But he hasn't been able to trap her."

  "Did he give up?"

  "Chipper, baby, he never gives up. Some day he'll juice up a couple of her drinks, and she'll go wobbling in there like a lamb, with spit on her chin, and give a hell of a performance."

  "So if she brought this guy here, why not now? Two birds with one stone. Like the time with that state senator and that ambassador's wife."

  After a silence, Claude Boody said, "We certainly got mileage out of that little session. You know, sometimes you show vague signs of intelligence. What he'll want done is keep this character and the Melgar woman stashed until the last drunk leaves. If he approves."

  "I don't see how he has too much choice."

  "I should get to a doctor," Dru said plaintively. "Every breath is like knives."

  "What I'll do," Claude said, "you sit tight here and I'll go lay it on for him, which I think we should have done in the first place."

  "He makes mistakes too."

  "How often? How big?"

  ''Look, he can punish me. He can give me the Melgar broad."

  "You're very very funny."

  I gave a weak, heartbreaking groan and moved very feebly. I needed to manage a sudden change in the odds. And I couldn't do it face down.

  "He's coming out of it," Chip said.

  I writhed over onto my back, then started up suddenly. They stood up and moved back. I got halfway to a sitting position, eyes staring, then fell back with a long gargling sound, held my breath, let my mouth sag open, left my eyes half closed.

  "Jesus H. Christ!" Chip whispered.

  "You hit him too goddam hard with that thing!"

  I wondered how long they would take. I hadn't oxygenated, but I thought I could manage two minutes of it. They moved in again, squatting close. I felt fingers on my wrist.

  "He isn't breathing, but his heart's still going good," Claude said. He released my wrist.

  I snatched Claude by the windsor knot, and I hooked a hand on the back of Chip's neck, and slammed their heads together as hard as I could. I had fear and anger and a desperate haste working for me. It was like using a simultaneous overhand right and a wide left hook. Bone met bone with quite a horrid sound, much like smacking two large stones together underwater. Bone met bone hard enough to give a rebound that sent them both spilling over backward, settling slowly into the floor, both heads split and bleeding.

  I glanced at the girl, slapped at Claude, pulled the weapon out from between belt and soft belly. It was oddly light for such a large and ugly caliber. She had pushed herself halfway up, and she stared at me, eyes and mouth wide open. We were in a sizeable and elegant bedroom. I let her look down the barrel and she said, "Wha-wha-what are you going to do?"

  I moved back to the door, stepping over new acquaintances. There was an inside bolt and a chain. I fastened them. There was a vent, a continuous whisper of washed air. The windows were closed and looked sealed. I had the idea sound would not travel far from that room. My conversational acquaintances hadn't seemed concerned about it. If any did get out of the room, it would have to fight that ubiquitous Hawaiian cotton candy music.

  There was an object in the side pocket of Chip's green blazer. I took it out. I imagine our limey cousins would term it a home made cosh. It was an eight inch section of stubby pipe wrapped with a thick padding of black friction tape. I put Boody's hand gun in my jacket pocket and went over to the bed and sat on the edge of it, facing the sun bunny. Her eyes were puffed and apprehensive, her bland little face tear-stained.

  "What do you want anyhow?" she demanded with false bravado.

  I gave her a light touch across the ribs with the piece of pipe. She gave a thin whistling scream, the noise a shot rabbit will sometimes make. She lay back and said, "Oh, don't. Oh, golly, there's something all broke. I can feel it kind of grind. You fell with your whole weight on me."

  "I have a headache, Dru, and a nasty burn on the back of my hand, and you were very anxious to play around with some sort of an electric needle. I lost a very marvelous woman in that clambake down there, and I am going to ask questions. Whenever I don't like the answer, I'm going to give you another little rap, with this."

  "What if you ask something I don't know?"

  "You get a little rap for luck. Chip wired the explosive into Menterez's boat. Why?"

  "To kill Alconedo. Miguel Alconedo. He'd goofed somehow. I don't know how. You see, we took down his orders for him. He was supposed to kill Almah, then take the boat up to Boca del Rio, ten miles off shore, where he thought we'd be waiting for him. He thought it was all set so we could take him someplace where he could go from there back to Cuba and be safe. But there wasn't any intention of that. The other three kids aboard, they didn't know anything about anything. Chip sneaked off
the night before we left, after midnight when a lot of the lights went out, and fixed the boat."

  "Who did you think I might be? Why did you try to check me?"

  "Chip wondered about you. You sort of didn't look like a tourist. You see, Almah couldn't be trusted any more. She told Taggart too much about things. And she got too anxious about getting that money. She was okay up until the time of the Mineros thing, and then she started cracking up. They thought that if she told Taggart too much, maybe she told somebody else too, maybe the wrong people, and maybe some C.I.A. was down there. Chip thought that's what you might be. Who are you anyhow?" She attempted a small shy friendly smile.

  "Who got Taggart?"

  "Gee, I don't know. I mean I'm not sure. I heard them making a joke about it. About the monkey's paw. It could have been a man named Ramon Talavera. They laughed a lot about Taggart. I know they picked him up before he had made any contact. They knew where he was. So when they made a date with him, to make arrangements about selling those statues to them, nobody showed up at the meeting place and when he went back all the others were gone, and all he had left was the one he'd taken along to prove he really had them. Then they got the last one back too, after somebody killed him."