The Good Old Stuff

by John D. MacDonald

  I had to stay overnight in Trincomalee. It cost me a hundred rupees to hire a car to drive me to Kandy in the morning. It was a bone-shattering road, narrow, winding upward through the jungle. The asphalt was dotted with holes a foot wide and six inches deep. I sat on the leather back seat of the ancient touring car and bit my tongue by accident twice on the way down. The driver kept his bare brown foot on the gas and ignored the condition of the road. After every particularly bad bump, he would look around at me with a shy grin splitting his face. He wore a pale green European shirt and a flowered sarong. The road smoothed out just outside of Kandy. The driver let me off in front of the Queen’s Hotel. I had a curry lunch and took a taxi to the station to catch the Colombo train.

  Before arriving on the island, everything had seemed simple. All I wanted was to contact O’Dell and Constance Severance and find out what had actually happened. During the long days on the ship I had imagined how the interviews would go. In my imagination they all seemed to take place in discreet hotel rooms, with the other persons putting me on the track of an answer to why Dan had died.

  On the island, it was different. I sat in my compartment and looked out at the towering mountains as the little train screeched around the downhill curves. I hadn’t thought of the island and how it fitted into the picture. There was something warm and green and lush about the island that made intrigue and indirection a natural response. The clean-limbed natives were so different from the ones I had grown used to in India. It was an island of spice, gems, and color. My serious practical interviews with O’Dell and Severence faded out of my mind. I lost my certainty. All the old doubts came back. I wondered what I was doing back in the East.

  I got into Colombo before the American consul’s office closed. I went up in the creaking elevator and sat beside a desk while a blond young man looked over my passport. I stared out the window, across the big harbor. Rows of ships rode at anchor, and dozens of little craft moved lazily to and from the long docks. The air in the office was warm and sticky. Fans turned slowly overhead. The young vice-consul had a rash of prickly heat on the undersides of his tanned arms. Heavy traffic thundered in the street outside the open window.

  At last he pushed the passport back into my hand. “How long do you plan to stay, Mr. Garry?”

  “Indefinite. Maybe a week. Maybe a month.”

  “You have … ah … sufficient funds, I imagine.”

  “Plenty.”

  “There’s a lot of theft here. Do you want us to hold some of it for you in the safe? Even traveler’s checks aren’t safe.”

  I counted out three thousand in cash on the corner of his desk. He entered it in a book and gave me a receipt. I asked him about hotels, and he recommended one called the Galle Face. I phoned from his office and got a room.

  The Galle Face is located at one end of a mile expanse of white sand beach not far from the center of the city. A high wall borders the beach, and a promenade walk runs the length of the wall. Beyond the walk is a wide green expanse with the asphalt highway curving wide around it. The Colombo Club, refuge of the sedentary planter, sits majestically on the far side of the road, gazing out to sea.

  My room was on the fourth floor on the seaward corner near the green. I could sit on the edge of the bed and stare up a mile of beach, watch the couples strolling along the promenade, follow the horses as they were galloped across the green.

  My room boy introduced himself as Fernando. He promised to serve me faithfully and always run to me when I rang for him. I gave him a five-rupee note to clinch the bargain, and it would almost have been possible to tie his grin around the back of his neck like a bib.

  After I stuck my things around in various drawers, I took a shower and changed to cooler clothes. I went down to the big lobby and wrestled with the telephone directory. It was alphabetical only in spots. It took me nearly ten minutes to find an O’Dell. The name was Clarence J. O’Dell, 31 Galle Road. I had a leisurely dinner in the vast dining room. The food was fair, and not plentiful.

  When I was through eating, a small string group climbed solemnly onto a stand at the end of the dining room and started bravely on some sour Chopin. I walked out and stood for a moment on the front steps of the hotel. It was dusk, and the surf seemed to boom more loudly than it had during the day. The rickshaw bells tinkled with a better noise than the music inside. I waved the white-bearded doorman away when he asked me if I wanted a cab. I walked up to the corner and found that, as I had expected, the Galle Road ran right by the hotel.

  I walked almost a block before I found two numbers: 18 and 20. I was headed in the right direction. It was a neighborhood of big bungalows set far back behind high hedges and green lawns. I crossed the road and found 31. The number was set into the gatepost of the driveway. I walked up the drive, feeling tense and expectant. I hadn’t imagined the O’Dell that I wanted to see in such luxurious surroundings. I threw away my cigarette, a red glow arching into the grass, exploding in a tiny fountain of sparks.

  Ahead, golden oblongs shone out onto the grass from the wide windows. As I approached the porch, a man stepped from behind a pillar and stood waiting for me. I peered at him and saw that it was a Singhalese in a white uniform.

  “What does the master wish to see?” he asked politely.

  “O’Dell Clarence O’Dell. I’m Howard Garry, and he doesn’t know me.”

  “Who in the bloody hell’re you mumbling at, Pereira?” a voice boomed so close to me that I jumped. A big man stood on the porch, silhouetted by one of the windows. He was enormous, a flabby giant of a man.

  “I’m Howard Garry. I’d like to talk to you, Mr. O’Dell. If you’re busy I can come back.”

  “Not busy,” he roared. “Never busy. Come on in. Come in and sit. Have a drink. Pereira! Get this man what he wants. Scotch, rye, beer, anything.”

  I told the boy to get me some brandy and water. I stared at O’Dell. He was at least six five and I guessed his weight at about three hundred and a quarter. He was naked, except for a big blue turkish towel around his fat waist. His flesh sagged on him, but I could see that there were muscles left under the flab. His face and hands were burned red by the sun. The rest of him was dead white. His wide deep chest was hairless.

  There was something odd about his face. I stared at him rudely until I had figured it out. He merely didn’t have the coarseness of feature that you would expect with a man of that size. His nose was surprisingly delicate, and his lips were molded like a woman’s. I guessed that the loud voice and gruff manner were his way of proving to himself that he was a man.

  “What’s your business, boy. Come on! Let’s get it over with.”

  “Are you alone here, Mr. O’Dell?”

  “Completely, except for four or five servants. Never can keep track of them. Wife and daughters’re in South Africa. Wretched place to be. Rather be here, eh?”

  “I want to talk to you about something that happened well over a year ago. You went on a pleasure ride on an American boat. A small one. A Captain Christoff went overboard and was drowned. I’d like your story of what happened.”

  “Good Lord, boy, I’ve told that a dozen times to your officers. Told ’em all about it. Blasted nuisance, you coming here like this. Clumsy beggar caused me enough trouble. What do you care? Whom do you represent?”

  “Nobody. Just myself. I was his friend.”

  “Suppose I told you that I’d give my story again to somebody with an official interest, but not to any bloody Nosey Parker?”

  “I’d say you were being rude and unpleasant. I’d ask you what you’d have to lose by telling me about it. You don’t look busy.”

  He threw his head back and laughed, great resounding yelps that rattled the walls. He wiped his eyes and rubbed the spilled liquor off his thigh. “Direct chap, aren’t you? Don’t you know that retired planters never look busy? We retired so we wouldn’t have to look busy. What do you want me to do, tell the whole thing in detail?”

  I relaxed as the boy handed
me a thick brandy and water. I sipped it. It was light on the water. “Just run through it once and hit the high spots. If I have any questions, I’ll stop you.”

  He drained his drink, and Pereira scurried over and took the glass on a silver tray. “I had a bridge date with Constance Severence at the January Club. She happened to know Christoff. He was there. I—”

  “Wait a minute. Who is Constance Severence?”

  “A girl who lives here. Does some kind of clerk work in the Royal Navy. Good family. She lives at the Princess Hotel.”

  “What’s the January Club?”

  “Bridge and tennis. A half mile away. Nice place. As I was saying, we met Christoff, and we all had a few drinks. Then he wanted to take us on the ride. I wasn’t too keen about going, but Conny liked the idea. I went along. Had a few drinks on the boat and then went up forward. The spray felt good. Hot night. Sat on some roundish yellow things up there.

  “Christoff was pretty intoxicated. He started toward the stern just as the man at the wheel made a big turn to go back. Constance thought she heard something, ran over to where he had gone around the edge of the main superstructure. No sign of him. She ran back to me, and I shouted to the man at the wheel. Boat was too noisy. He couldn’t make out what I shouted. Then I had to go up and yell in the beggar’s ear. He turned again and ordered the boat searched. No sign of the captain. Circled forever and couldn’t find him. Went back in and spent two weeks answering bloody silly questions.”

  “Where was Miss Severence when you went back to the bridge?”

  “She followed along. Stayed down on the deck as I climbed up the few steps to where I could yell in the chap’s ear. Quinn, I think his name was.”

  I had run out of questions. I sat silently, nursing the lost feeling of a man who has run down a dark alley and crashed into a blank wall.

  He held up his drink and squinted through it. He was a great white monolith of a man. He spoke in a surprisingly gentle voice. “The bloody war is long gone, Yank, and you’re raking around in the ashes. Why not forget the whole thing. I’m guessing that you’re trying to clear him—trying to find some mysterious reason for someone to shove him into the water. It won’t wash. He got drunk and he drowned. As simple as that. Why not forget it? You’ll only wear yourself out. Remember, I was there. If anything odd had happened, I’d have seen it and raised a stink. I like to make a fuss. The people here expect it of me. I’ve been creating disturbances for over thirty years in this city.”

  I sat for an hour, sipping brandies while he rambled on about his spotted career in Colombo. I gathered that he had, at one time or another, been thrown out of every club in the city. He talked and I sat and sulked. It seemed to be the end of the trail. Finally he began to yawn and mumble his words. His huge head fell forward, his chin on his hairless chest. I stood up and tiptoed out. I didn’t see the servant. I walked back down the Galle Road to my hotel, weary and dispirited.

  I didn’t sleep well. In the morning I felt tired and dull. I phoned the Royal Naval Headquarters after breakfast and eventually located a Miss Constance Severence. I told her that I was an acquaintance of O’Dell’s and made an appointment for cocktails at five thirty at her hotel, the Princess.

  She was late. I was on my second stinger when she walked into the small lounge. She was a tall woman, and from a distance she looked fragile and delicate. I jumped up and she noticed me and smiled. She walked over and I pulled the small table out for her. She looked cool and fresh, but not fragile. Her hair was silvery blond, very fine, her eyes pale gray and her skin faintly sallow. I guessed her age at about thirty-two. She was built well but wore clothes more designed to conceal the fact than to reveal it. There was a strange look of hidden coarseness, hidden sensuality, about her. It was caused by a few small things about her that didn’t match the rest of her appearance. Her cheekbones were too high and too wide, her fingers too plump and spatulate, her thin mouth too moist. I noticed, as I held the table out, that though her feet were rather short they were far too broad. I didn’t like her.

  She asked for a sling, and I ordered it from the boy. When he left to get it, she turned to me and said, “Don’t you feel it? There seems to be something clandestine about this meeting—something that reeks of intrigue. Maybe it’s the way you look.”

  That jolted me. “How do I look?”

  “Now you’re looking offended and stuffy. I meant that you’re rather a dark and mysterious type. That scar might have come from a knife. Your eyes are wary.”

  “Maybe it is intrigue, Miss Severence, but I—”

  “Call me Conny like that hulking O’Dell, the mad Irishman, does. Surely if he can you have the right. What shall I call you?”

  “Howard or Garry. Take your choice.”

  “Garry it is. Now, Garry, my lad, what do you want?”

  I turned so that I faced her. We were sitting side by side on a cushioned bench that ran along the wall. I looked hard into her eyes and said, “Who drowned Captain Christoff?”

  It was a change from the technique I had used before. I had given O’Dell too much time to adjust, to prepare himself. If there was any guilty knowledge in her, I wanted to blast it out.

  She looked back into my eyes. I had the impression that there was a lack of focus. They looked very slightly crossed. I remembered a trick from grade school days. If you wish to stare another person down, don’t look into their eyes. Look, instead, at the bridge of their nose. I realized that she was doing just that. Her eyes didn’t waver. There was no expression in them. I glanced down at her fingertips on the edge of the table. She had clear polish on her nails. She was holding the table just tightly enough to make whitish semicircles near the ends of her nails. As I glanced down she relaxed the pressure and the blood flowed back, turning them pink again. She laughed, a low musical note as phony as a singing commercial.

  “Why are you laughing, Conny? What amuses you?”

  “You do, Garry. You’ve sold yourself a plot for the flicks. True friend seeks inside story of chum’s disgrace. You’re trying to turn a clumsy bounder’s sticky death into straight Edgar Wallace.”

  “You just made a mistake, my dear.” She looked at me blankly. “How did you know that he was a friend of mine? How did you know that I wasn’t investigating it in an official capacity?” Again I glanced down at her hand. The whiteness was back. She put her hand in her lap.

  Again she laughed. “Don’t be so dull, Garry! I know official investigators. They have hundreds of beastly little forms and a wretched stub of a pencil which they keep licking. They start by asking you your name even when they already know it.”

  “Not good enough. O’Dell must have phoned you. Why?”

  The boy brought her drink. She picked it up without a tremor and sipped it. “Really, you know, I should tell you to buzz off. You’re being rude. I’m not a complicated type. I went on a boat trip with a drunken American officer, and he fell off the boat. I was very sorry about it, but it happened a long time ago. If you can consent to change the subject and stop acting so grim, I’ll forgive you and you can buy me another drink. Otherwise, it was most pleasant meeting you, Garry.”

  I shrugged. I couldn’t make her talk. But for the first time I felt the inner sense of excitement. The trail was warmer. She did know something. But she was clever. I had to make the next move. I grinned as warmly as I could. “I’m sorry, Conny. Maybe I’ve got a fixation on this thing. Dan was my friend—maybe he was too good a friend. Maybe you shouldn’t get so close to another person. Forgive the melodrama, will you?”

  “Drink on that,” she demanded. We clinked the glasses together, and she looked into my eyes as we drank. For all her slim coolness and composure, I could see something primal behind her eyes, a latent viciousness that was coiled like a sleeping cat.

  We had another half hour before she had to leave to get ready for a dinner date. She made the time pleasant with small talk about the Colombo social group. I asked her about the January Club.

 
; She curled her lip a bit. “Not the cream, Garry. There’re much finer clubs in the city. A very mixed group at the January. Whites and Burghers and Eurasians and a few Singhalese. High stakes bridge and sloppy tennis. They spice the food too much. Why do you ask?”

  “O’Dell said that you and he and Christoff were there before you went down to the harbor. I wondered about the place.”

  “Oh, yes. I’d met the captain at a party. He happened to be at the January. O’Dell and I had been playing a set partners game against another city bridge team there. As I remember, we won, and the ride was to celebrate the victory.”

  I walked with her into the lobby, and she gave me her hand just before she got into the elevator. It was very warm and moist. I walked out onto the street, realizing that I liked her and disliked her. She was desirable in a faintly unclean way. I found a public bench in a shaded spot. I sat and thought. As far as the investigation was concerned, I was through. There was nothing else I could do, and yet I was more certain of something odd about Dan’s death than ever before. I knew that there’d be no point in talking to O’Dell again. I had sensed his cleverness. Constance wouldn’t tell me anything further. I realized that unless I could stir up trouble for either or both of them, I had best leave the island. I wanted proof. I wanted to clear Dan officially, somehow, and I didn’t know how it could be done. I felt dumb, stubborn, and bitter.

  I was standing in my cool shower, still preoccupied with devising a plan of action, when I remembered her opening conversation about intrigue. Intrigue might be the answer. I toweled myself and walked out to the desk in my room. There was some hotel stationery in the drawer. I took a razor and cut out two small pieces a couple of inches square. I was careful to avoid the watermark. I sat down at the desk with a pencil stub. On the first one I wrote in block letters, YOU GAVE HIM TOO MUCH INFORMATION. On the second one, in smaller, back-hand printing, I wrote, HE KNOWS TOO MUCH. WHAT DID YOU TELL HIM?