"Get away from us! Get away from us! Get away from us!" It was the redhead, in a dismayed little whine. All the waiters were wide awake. Pedestrians had stopped to admire the volume of sound. Some tourist tables were staring, eyes bulging slightly. Out of the corner of my eye I saw the boy make the move, snatch at the bottle. So I gave him full attention, snapped my hand up and let the bottle slap into the palm. I twisted it away and put it carefully back on the table and gave him a wolfsmile and said, "That's lousy manners, sonny."
I stood up and said, "Charley, maybe a couple of years ago these fatso broads would have been worth a free jump, but now they're so far over the hill... Charley! Can you hear me, Charley?"
"Just barely," he roared.
"Even if they were cleaned up and dressed nice, they couldn't even make expenses at a hardware convention in Duluth."
I dropped all the way back to merely a hearty conversational tone and smiled down at them and said, "Thanks anyway, kids. You got any slim clean pretty little friends who need more vacation money, send them on up to the Victoria and tell them to ask for McGee. But don't send any turned-on slobs like you two sorry girls. Fun is fun, but a man likes to keep his self respect. Right? See you around."
I went back to Meyer. He rolled his eyes when I sat down with him. I slid down in the chair, ankles crossed, thumbs hooked in my belt, and smiled amiably at the three.
They tried to brass it out for a little while. But the redhead started snuffling and choking. They gathered up their market bundles and took the route around the nearest corner and out of sight.
Meyer sighed. "In a queasy kind of way, I think I enjoyed it. Did you?"
"The target was the redhead."
"And?"
"She won't be able to leave it alone, Meyer. She'll have to pick at it. She's not so far gone as the other two. She can't endure anybody having that reaction to her. They have to be wrong. So she'll have to tell me how wrong I am. Ruptured pride. And then I can ask about Nesta, Rockland, and company. What if I'd asked them today?"
He nodded. "I keep forgetting how devious you are at times. McGee, it was one of your better performances. You were in good voice. But... it was brutal."
"Because it was too close to the truth. Let's go."
The car was ready when we got back to the Ford garage. The shift still whammed me on the knee bone, but everything else was fine. I found a place to park it not far from the Ford place, and we walked over to the street carnival area and then located the Los Pajaros trailer park. There was a spiked iron fence around it, crumbling stone pillars. There were big old trees with dusty leaves shading unkempt flower beds. Paths had worn the grass away, and nobody had picked up the scraps of litter in a long, long time.
The bossman was a jolly fat little type in a ragged blue work shirt and paint-spotted khakis. He had a big gold-toothed grin, and more English than I had Spanish. We went into his little office-store and he looked the information up in his registration notebook. When he pronounced Rockland, it came out "Roak-lawn."
"Ah, yes. The Senor Roak-lawn, on place numer seexteen, from... ah... twenny-four of Abreel to... ah... twenny three in Zhuly? Yes. Tree month. He was having a camper here, was Chevrolet trock of Florida, color.. how you say?... azul."
"Blue."
"Ah, yes. Blue!" Suddenly his smile dwindled. "Ah! Yes, it was that one. You his fren?"
"No. I am not his friend, senor."
"Then I say. Many, many people here. Nice American turista people. That one, that Roak-o, the only one I must ask to leaving when the month is up. Too much the fights and noise. Too many times he called me bad words. This is not right, that is not right. Nothing is right for him. I have to get policia to make sure he is going."
"Where did he go from here?"
"Who knows? Away from Oaxaca, for surely."
"Who was with him when he left?"
"Who knows. Different people live with him here the two month. One two three four. Different girls sometimes. Boys and girls. I have no names, nothing. It is nothing to me. So, he is going now for... wan month and six day." The grin was broad as he said, "I am not missing him moch, you bet. One other senor was asking the same things, maybe it is two weeks ago, I think. And he is asking about his daughter."
"Was his name McLeen?"
"Ah, yes. Senor McLeen. But I do not know of the girl nothing. To me, senor, a father is never letting his daughter go off far away in these times. All is changing, no? Some of these young American, they are very nice and good. But there are the ones such like Roak-o, doing bad things."
"Are there any young people here who were friendly with Rockland?"
"Some would know him, I think maybe. Some are here many month. Perhaps the young ones, the senor and senora... I cannot say. Here, look, is the name."
Mr. and Mrs. Benjamin Knighton, of Kerrville, Texas.
They were in space number twenty. It was a travel trailer with canvas rigged to make an extra area of living space. But whatever towed the trailer was not there, and the trailer was locked. Happy Fats explained that the young man was an amateur archeologist who was writing a novel about the Zapotecan civilization in pre-Columbian Mexico, and said that the couple went on a lot of field trips in their "Lawn Roover."
"Very young. Very nice. Very hoppy."
So it was then a little past five on that twenty-ninth day of August, and I asked Meyer if it might not be a good time to chat with that expatriate American, Bruce Bundy, who had loaned his car to some unknown named George, who had loaned it to Bix, who had died in it, or near it.
"I used to be young and nice and hoppy." Meyer said wistfully.
"So now you are old, and nice, and hoppy. And you don't listen. Bundy. Bruce Bundy. Now?"
"Why sure."
I studied the map and found Las Artes, a short street about ten blocks north of the zoealo, toward our hotel. I parked at the end of the street and locked up, and we went looking for number eighty-one.
It was a very narrow two-story house squeezed between its bulkier neighbors. Its plaster front was painted in a faded hue of raspberry Grilled iron doors were locked across the arched entrance, but the inner doors were open. We could see down a long shadowy corridor to the sun-bright flowers of the rear courtyard. I tugged a woven leather thong and a bell hanging in the archway clanged. A man, slender in silhouette, appeared and came swiftly along the corridor, and then slowed as he saw us, and stopped, frowning, in the edge of daylight, one long step inside the doorway.
"Are you looking for someone?" he asked.
"For a Mr. Bruce Bundy."
"I am he," he said, and it surprised me because he looked no more than thirty-four, and the police report had said he was forty-four. "What do you wish to see me about?"
"It's about the fatal accident involving your vehicle on the third of this month."
He shook his head and sighed. "Oh dear Lord, will I never come to the end of the bloody red tape. I have answered endless questions, and have filled out endless reports. What is your part in it?"
"This is my associate, Mr. Meyer. My name is McGee. I'm sorry to bother you, but this is a necessary part of the insurance investigation. Could we come in."
"Now really! Are you men trying to be terribly tricky or something? The whole matter has been settled. And I must say that it was terribly unfair. I should have gotten full value for my marvelous little car, but they kept talking about my not putting that fellow, George, on the list of people authorized to drive it. Actually I shall never loan anyone a car, ever again, no matter how nicely they ask."
"Insurance," I said, "on the life of the deceased, Miss Beatrice Bowie of Miami, Florida. There is an accidental death clause in the policy."
"And you came here from Florida!"
"A large sum of money is involved, Mr. Bundy."
"And I'm sure it's all terribly important to you and your company and the beneficiary and all that, and I suppose you are here to practically lunge at any hint that the pretty child killed herself
so that you can save great wads of money, which I suppose is what you are paid to do, but I am expecting guests, and I was just about to make my famous salad dressing. So why don't you plan to come back tomorrow, Mr. McGoo? But I won't be able to tell you a thing, actually. I did meet those girls, but I knew them so slightly I had the names mixed up. I thought it was the little dark one they called Bix, and I was surprised to find it was the tall, quiet blond one."
"It will only take a couple of minutes."
"Sorry. Tomorrow would be far more convenient. Come at about... eleven-thirty in the morning, please."
He turned away and had gone two steps before I tried my hunch. "From talking to Rocko, I thought you'd be more cooperative, Bruce."
He stopped in his tracks and turned very slowly. "To whom?"
"Walter Rockland."
He moved closer to the gate and looked up at me, his head tilted, his lips sucked flat. He wore a coarse cotton hand-woven shirt, off-white, with full sleeves and silver buttons on the tight cuffs. He wore a yellow silk ascot, and snug lime-green slacks, and strap sandals the color of oiled walnut. He had brown-gray bangs, a slender tanned face, eyes of pale amber brown.
"Now where would you have encountered that creature?"
"If we could come in for a few moments."
"What did he say about me?"
"I promise we won't take too much of your time."
He unlocked the gate. I followed Meyer in. Bundy locked the gate and told us to go straight ahead to the garden and he would be along in a few moments. He said he wanted to make the dressing and get the woman started on the main course. He told us to help ourselves to a drink.
There was a high wall around the small courtyard, a fountain in one corner. The courtyard was paved in a green stone, and the flowers and shrubs were in huge earthen pots. The furniture was of dark heavy wood upholstered in bright canvas. There were bright birds in bamboo cages.
I poured some of his Bengal gin onto ice. As Meyer fixed himself a whiskey soda he said, "From whence came that inspiration, Mr. McGoo?"
"I'd rather not try to find out. I might not get any more inspirations if I knew."
I dug through the back of my wallet and found one of my Central General Insurance cards and showed it to Meyer so he would at least know who we were working for.
Bundy came into the courtyard carrying a glass of wine. He sat on a low stone bench and looked at me. It was a look familiar to any veteran poker player, when someone is debating whether or not you have the gall to check and raise.
"I think you'd better tell me, Mr. McGoo-"
"McGee."
"Oh. Terribly sorry. McGee, then. Tell me when and where you saw Charles Rockland."
"Walter Rockland."
"Terribly sorry. Charles didn't sound quite right, did it? Rocko suits him better than either, of course."
"We just saw him in Mexico City the day before yesterday Mr. Bundy."
"Really?"
"Just routine. After all, he did own the Chevy truck and camper that entered Mexico last January tenth, and Miss Bowie was one of the group. Miss Bowie, Miss Minda McLeen, Carl Sessions, and Jerome Nesta. He wrote to a friend in Miami and gave his Mexico City address. So we looked him up, of course."
"Naturally. Part of your investigation. Go on."
It was turning sour. You can take only so many chances. But when it does turn sour, at least you know at what point it started to go bad, and that can be useful. "Go on with what?"
"With what he said to you about me, of course."
"Just that if you seemed uncooperative, to mention his name."
He finished the wine, licked his finger, ran it around and around the edge of the wine glass until he created a thin, high musical note.
He smiled at me. It was a mocking and flirtatious smile. "Bullshit," he said softly.
I smiled back. "At least I gave it a try, Bruce."
"Dear fellow, little games of intrigue, little fabrics of deception, they're too much a part of my scene. I had years of stage design in New York, and years of set design on the Coast. I'll give you one little gold star for your forehead, though. You are a little more subtle than you look. Your type, all huge and hearty and outdoorsy, I expect just a kind of clumsy blundering about. Rocko, for example. Dear God, if at this stage of my life I hadn't learned how to protect myself from anything any piece of rough trade could dream up, I'd be terribly vulnerable and innocent, wouldn't I? Don't you think you'd best leave now?"
"Never argue with the umpire. Come on, Meyer."
He walked us out to the gate. As he unlocked it he said, "I suppose that if you are really what you claim to be, and you really want to know whether it was an accident or suicide, I'd think that that little brunette friend of the Bowie girl's would give you the most clues. Actually, her father is clomping all over town trying to locate her. A perfectly dreadful, dreary man from one of those ghastly midwest states that begin with a vowel. Product of Kiwanis and Dale Carnegie, and once he affixes himself to you, you have to pry him off as if he were a fat little pilot fish."
As I thanked him his two guests arrived, spectacularly, in a little custom Lotus Elan convertible in bubblegum pink with black upholstery. The woman came out from under the wheel, leggy, slender, tall, nimble, in light-blue linen sheath dress to midthigh, sleeveless. She had a wild and riotous ruff of wind-spilled lion-mane hair, high-heeled sandals and purse to match the car. For just an instant she was twenty-something, but then in the light across her face she was thirty-something, with a twenty odd body. The boy was in his early twenties, in white shirt open at the throat, crisp khakis, and a powder blue jacket that was a precise match with the lady's dress. He was brick-red from the sun. His hair was cropped to a copper bristle. He had a sullen face, heavy features, and he moved with the indolent, indifferent grace and ease of one of the big hunting cats, or one of the many imitations of Brando.
"Brucey!" she cried in joyous greeting.
"Becky darling!" he cried.
Giving us a sidelong questing glance, she ran to embrace the host, saying in a British accent, "David had the most fascinating day at the dig. They came upon a whole pocket of tiny beads of bone and jade, and the poor darling had to spend practically the entire day on his knees in the bottom of a monstrous hole, brushing the dust away and picking them up with tweezers. He desperately needs a Iarge whiskey, don't you, darling?"
The sunbaked boy grunted, and Bruce tried to wove them inside. We had gone a half dozen steps when Becky gave that upperclass commanding caw. "You! I say, you two! Wait up a moment! Bruce? Dearheart, why must one set of guests leave when the next arrives? Your house is rather small, I grant that. But not that small."
I saw the way it might go, and came back as he murmured protestations to her. I said, "It really wasn't a social call, ma'am. In fact we wouldn't have even got inside the gate if I hadn't tried a little doubletalk. But it only worked for a little while. Mr. Bundy called my bluff. So I don't believe he'd be very happy about having us come back in as guests."
She measured me with vivid emerald wicked-gleam-of-mischief eyes through the rough spill of the red-blond-gold-russet hair and made up her impulsive mind and cried, "Nonsense! We are just too terribly inbred around here. One says the same old things to the same old faces in the same old places year without end. Bruce, dear, these gentlemen would make it a more lively evening."
"But Becky, they are insurance types, from Florida. And it's all a very dull bit about the dead girl, the Bowie girl, and they know she traveled here with that Rockland boy. Apparently there was some sort of policy on the girl's life."
"But Brucey, what if they are insurance types? Does that mean we have to sit about talking about premiums? Let us widen our horizons a bit, dear."
He hesitated and then, from the little lift and fall of his shoulders, I could see that he had given up. He said to us, "Lady Rebecca Divin-Harrison is one of our most attractive local institutions, and she has, as you may have detected, a whim of iron. Be
cky, may I present Mr. McGee. and Mr. Meyer. Gentlemen, please come back into my home as my invited guests."
"Bravo!" said Becky. "That was really gracious, Bruce. Like a child taking medicine. Mr. McGee, I am Becky and you are..."
"Travis. And Meyer is Meyer."
"And this is David Saunders, who is down here on a grant, grubbing about in the ruins. Bruce, dear, are you going to keep me out here on the street? I'm beginning to feel like Apple Mary."
So we went back in, with Meyer giving me an amused little wink, a little nod of approval. We went out onto the twilight patio, sweet with the evening song of the birds, heavy with the scent of flowers that were just opening for the hours of the night, with fleshy pink petals, and a smell something like jasmine.
John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 11 - Dress Her in Indigo Page 5
