The Good Old Stuff

by John D. MacDonald

  “That was pretty heavy, wasn’t it?” I asked.

  “For that he-goat? I was charging him for his marital bliss. Spread over six months it doesn’t come to much.”

  “A pretty obvious situation,” I said. “She found out he was loaded so she grabbed him. But money doesn’t make some things easier. And so she left.”

  “If you’re right, and I hope you are, it’s an easy five thousand. But I have a funny hunch about this.”

  “Jarone?”

  He shrugged. “Five after four. We need a woman’s opinion. Bets likes martinis and the pool. Tell Krimbow and phone her up, will you, Robby?”

  “I know your curious charm, Shay, but Bets won’t come within a mile and a half of this place again and you know it.”

  “A month has passed, Señor Moran. A full and lonely month. I suggest that you play up the forgive-and-forget angle.”

  After he left the room, I perched my heels on the desk and dialed. After four rings, Bets answered.

  “This is Robby, honey. Don’t hang up.”

  Bets is a combination oil and air force widow, a dark angular cutie of twenty-nine who lives five miles up the road with maid, gardener, five-year-old daughter, and a portable typewriter on which she sublimates herself by turning out lurid confessions for money that she does not need. For a time it looked as if she and Shay could make it, but on those two the rough edges just don’t rub off.

  “Am I supposed to be mad enough to hang up? It just isn’t that important.”

  “At five we’re using the old-fashioned glasses for martinis. The water in the pool was changed this morning, and we’re both bored and we have nothing lovely to look upon.”

  “Tell that big clown to go look in a mirror for an hour or so. That ought to make him feel pleased.”

  “Bets, you hurt me. We live too close, Shay says, for the war to keep going on. Let’s all be pals again.”

  “He’s a bastard.”

  “We both know that, but he’s cute sometimes. Like a tame bear. Come wallow in our pool, honey. Shay says to wear the bikini, the yellow one.”

  “That one’s for looking, not swimming.” Her voice sounded friendlier.

  “We’ll share the risk with you. Five-ish?”

  She sighed. “I might as well. I’ve confessed myself into a hell of a corner, and I can’t seem to write my way out of it.”

  We had been out of the pool long enough for it to turn back into a sheet of green glass. Bets lay on the rubberized mattress on the apron of the pool, her almost boyish body a startling tan in the sunset light contrasted with the brave yellow of the skimpy suit. Her cheekbones are high and sharp enough to give her a gaunt look. Her eyes are hawk-hooded and her mouth is a wide, harsh slash. If she could get down three notes lower, she could sing baritone. She has never failed to give me a quickened pulse.

  She and Shay had been distinctly cool until he had at last broken the tension by immersing her firmly and deeply. She had come up sputtering behind and had made a fair attempt to sit on his head. Then they were old friends again.

  Our martini pitcher is as tall as a hydrant and seems to contain as much fluid. Shay serves too much liquor and drinks too much himself, but he is never out of control and any guest who gets that way is having his last visit at Sharan Point.

  Shay had padded off to the house. I was stretched out on the concrete at right angles to the mattress, stealing a bit of it as a rest for the back of my head. Bets’s fingers moved moonlight across my forehead, expressing nothing except in their rhythm, and that was more than enough.

  “Belay it, woman,” I said. “Or I’ll have to go leap in the pool.”

  Shay came back. I sat up. He handed her the picture of Allie.

  “Please classify,” he said.

  Bets held it so that the fading light caught it.

  “Hmmm. I’d really have to hear her talk to do a good job. Let me see. Car hop, movie extra, commercial playmate. Hard to tell. But the little gal has been here and there and back again.”

  “Farmer’s wife,” Shay said, laughter in his voice.

  She sat up with a long, easy motion and stared at him. “Don’t tell me! That must be quite a farmer. What well did you drop him into?”

  “I didn’t. He’s a remarkably unattractive little man pushing fifty. His fingernails are dirty and his breath is bad. Nor is his linen spotless.”

  “Oil under his farm?”

  “He has it, but the little girl didn’t know it until after she said yes.”

  “Are you positive of that?”

  “Even if he had told her he had money, he was in a situation where she would be likely to think he was lying. So I want a woman’s opinion. List the reasons that would cause that little item to marry the farmer, omitting money.”

  Bets lay back and stared up at the dusk sky. She still held the picture between lean brown fingers.

  “That’s not so easy, Shay. A girl gets lonely. But not that lonely. Here’s one. Masochism. Somebody lets her down hard. She takes her revenge by marrying into an impossible situation. But the gal doesn’t look like either the sentimental or the masochistic type. If you want melodrama, sometimes people have to hide. And sometimes you have a person with legal problems. They can inherit only if married. The last item, of course, is a girl who is—shall we be delicate and say infanticipating?—who grabs the first security that comes along. That covers it, Shay. Like any of them?”

  “It clarifies my thinking.”

  “Why do you want to know all this?”

  “She left, either alone or aided. The farmer is upset.”

  “Maybe somebody raided the cookie jar and she’ll be home, contrite, tomorrow.”

  “Could be. Tonight my subconscious will work on it. It does better than I do.”

  She shivered. “Would somebody please mention getting dressed,” she said.

  Krimbow had seared the steaks in his own incredible fashion. Bets ate like a female wolf. She phoned and checked on Prim, her little girl, and later I watched her play chess with Shay on the glassed-in terrace.

  She played a slashing, vicious game, bringing all her power to bear at every point, ignoring defense to strike out. Shay parried and covered himself well, then moved onto the offensive when her attacks lost momentum.

  I was watching their hands on the board. I saw her reach out and pick up a bishop. She held it in midair. It was not a proper piece to move at that point. Her knuckles were white. I looked at her and saw that she was looking into Shay’s eyes. Her face was expressionless.

  In a flat voice she said, “You never did finish that last figure, did you?”

  “The pose wasn’t right. That pose wasn’t for you. It wasn’t worth casting.”

  “You said you would try another one.”

  “You said you would never pose again.”

  I gave my stage yawn and muttered good night as I left the room. No one answered me.

  After I was in bed, I knew that they were up in the studio, the harsh lights bright above them, his big, thick-fingered hands molding the clay with surprising delicacy, Bets standing on the raised platform, on the turntable that moved around at the rate of one inch a minute.

  It had all started again between them. Over chess.

  The roar of her station wagon, the sputter of gravel against the fenders, woke me later. Moonlight was white in the room. I heard a sound and went to the window. Shay Pritchard was swimming up and down the length of the pool, low in the water, his arms lifting slowly. I counted six laps and went back to bed and to sleep.

  It was a small ranch-type house, sparkling new. Garver met us at the door, incongruous in those House Beautiful surroundings. His eyes were puffed as though he had slept badly. His face lighted up as he recognized us.

  “Did you find out something already?”

  “No. We want to look around,” Shay said.

  He showed us the house. In the living room Shay went immediately to the magazine rack. Mixed in with the farm periodicals a
nd cattle journals was an ample collection of glossy-paper true-crime magazines.

  “Yours?” Shay asked.

  “No, Allie liked those. She’d curl up like a kitten in that big chair over there, of an evening, and sometimes read that stuff until way past midnight. Her eyes’d shine funny-like over some of ’em. When we stayed up late I’d go out and scramble us a few eggs and put on a pot of coffee.”

  “She didn’t like to cook.”

  “I wouldn’t say she doesn’t like to. She just can’t do it so good. Me, I’m pretty handy around a kitchen from living alone all these years, so I do most of it.”

  “I’d like a look at her clothes.”

  Garver led the way back to the two bedrooms. He pointed to a big record player. “Bought her that for a wedding present. She wanted one bad.”

  Shay looked over the albums. A lot of Cuban rhythms. The rest was rock with a heavy beat.

  “She picked all them out,” Garver said. “She’d—well, she’d dance to ’em when we were alone. She knew I liked it.”

  Shay moved over to the dressing table. He stared at the massive array of bottles, jars, jugs, vials. He picked up a small bottle. “Expensive.”

  “Fifty bucks an ounce,” Garver said proudly. “Smells good.”

  The big closet covered one whole wall. It had sliding mirror-paneled doors. Once they were open I could catch the woman-scent of her. Shay leafed through the racked clothes like a man reading an out-of-date magazine in a dentist’s office.

  “Can you tell which of this stuff she had before you met her, Garver?” he asked.

  “She threw most of that out. The blue dress there, the long shiny one, she had.”

  Shay took it off the hanger. He glanced at the label and said, “I’m taking this along.”

  Garver shrugged. There was a section of built-in drawers. Shay yanked them open, one at a time. Nothing but an array of filmy black panties, yellow ones, pink, powder blue—bras to match. The dressing-table drawers were full of small items. Junk jewelry, a lot of it heavy and barbaric.

  “Did she have any good jewels?”

  “No. I was going to get her something. She wanted an emerald. I hadn’t gotten around to it yet.”

  “Where did she keep her private papers?”

  “She didn’t have any. I helped her pack when she left her place. Just clothes and shoes.”

  “What did she take with her?”

  “I don’t know. When I left the house in the morning she wasn’t up yet. I made her breakfast and took it to her. I can’t see as there’s anything missing, but I don’t rightly remember all the clothes she had. Or even the suitcases she bought. Lieutenant Ryan asked me all that too.”

  “Toothbrush?”

  “That’s still hanging right in the bathroom, and her hairbrush and stuff is still in the cabinet. That’s why I don’t think she took anything except the clothes on her back.”

  “What did she do all day while you were working?”

  “Read and played the radio and her records, or went shopping.”

  “Did you two have friends?”

  “Well, my friends are pretty old, and she was a stranger here, and she said it would be nice if we were selfish for the first year or so and stayed by ourselves. That suited me okay.”

  We thanked him and left. Shay had the blue dress over his arm. It was a hard, electric blue in heavy satin. I slid behind the wheel and we went down the road.

  Shay saw the old woman sitting, rocking, on the farmhouse porch, shelling peas. “Pull up,” he said.

  As we walked up to the porch I saw him carefully adjust his clean-cut boyish manner.

  “Lovely day, ma’am,” he said shyly.

  “Seems to be.” She had the eyes of a chipmunk. “What can I do for you?”

  “I’m Shay Pritchard and this is Robert Moran. We don’t want to bother you, Mrs. Carriff.”

  “Read the name off the mailbox, eh? What’s on your mind?”

  “I know that a good woman like you wouldn’t discuss her neighbors with strangers.”

  “Depends on which neighbors, Mr. Pritchard.”

  He grinned boyishly. “Let’s say Mrs. James Garver.”

  Mrs. Carriff braced her feet and stopped rocking. She looked at Shay and then at me. She started rocking again. “She won’t be back.”

  “Why are you so sure of that?”

  “Girl like her? Jim Garver was softheaded to marry the likes of that. Her reeking of cheap perfume and wearing no proper undergarments and more coats of paint that Murphy’s barn! Young enough to be his granddaughter. She was after his money, but she found out she’d have to wait too long. Jim’s sturdy. Lucky for him, she wasn’t the kind to help him on his way. It’s happened before. No, she just got right sick of living out here where it’s quiet and went on back to the city.”

  “You saw her leaving?”

  “No, I didn’t. I didn’t have to. I know her kind.”

  “Did she ever have any callers—that is, while Jim was at work.”

  “Men callers? They could have parked up Garrison’s lane and come across lots. Easy enough to stay out of sight that way. She probably had ’em, all right. But the only one I ever saw was that silly Garrison boy. Big, gawky thing. His mother told me he went off his feed after Jim brought that woman home. He must be nineteen now. Used to hang around out on the road and just stare at the house, hoping to see her through a window. But don’t let on I talked about him if you go see him. His mother’d be mad as hops I told you anything.”

  Ted Garrison was working on a yellow tractor. He had the fuel pump dismantled and spread out on newspaper. There was a wide smudge of grease from his cheekbone to his jaw across his wind-burned face. He was tall and wide, and when he moved I saw nothing gawky about him.

  “Want something?”

  “How well did you know Allie Garver?” Shay asked. His tone was harsh and blunt.

  The fuel pump diaphragm slipped out of the boy’s fingers and rolled across the newspaper into the dooryard dust. His face paled under the ruddiness.

  “Is—is she dead?”

  “Why would you think she was dead?”

  “You said how well did I know her. Like she was dead.”

  “She’s gone. She could be dead. We don’t know.”

  The color seeped slowly back. The boy’s brown eyes hardened. “How well I know her is none of your damn business.”

  He had shoulders like a horse, and they were tensed under the blue work shirt. I moved out to one side a bit to flank him, just in case.

  Shay sneered. “She’s the kind to use a punk like you for laughs while Jim was working. Where’d you meet her? In the woods?”

  The boy rushed with ponderous rage, swinging a right fist like a stone in the end of a sling. Shay moved to one side, evading the blow, and made what seemed to be a pawing, awkward gesture toward the boy’s middle. Ted Garrison whoofed as the wind went out of him. He staggered and went to his knees, fighting for air. He lunged up and went down again, this time onto hands and knees. He shook his head, almost sadly.

  “Now, be nice,” Shay said.

  Ted pushed himself back onto his haunches. His face was twisted. “She isn’t that kind. She isn’t! She wouldn’t even look at me. She was too good for that old buzzard Jim Garver. I don’t know how he talked her into marrying him. I wanted to ask her to leave him.”

  “Did you ever talk to her?”

  “Once.”

  “What about?”

  “A letter for her got stuck to one of ours and got into our box. I took it down to her. I said, ‘They left this letter in our box by accident. I’m Ted Garrison.’ She said, ‘Thank you, Ted.’ And then she closed the door.”

  “When was that?”

  “Last Monday.”

  “Did you take a look at the letter?”

  “It was from Endor City, and there wasn’t any return address on it. It was typed, and the envelope was the kind you buy in the post office—the long kind with the st
amp already on it. It wasn’t addressed to her very good. It just said, ‘Mrs. Garver, Bliss Corners.’ At the post office they’d penciled in ‘Route Two.’ I held it up to the sun, but—” He stopped suddenly.

  “But you couldn’t read through the envelope, eh?” Shay said. He laughed.

  Ted stood up. “She’s the—the most wonderful person I ever saw. It makes me mad the way the old hens around here talk about her.” He looked hard at Shay. “And if you make another crack about her, I’ll come at you again.”

  I wandered around the house while Shay worked in the studio. The problem of Mrs. Garver seemed to have slipped from his mind.

  I was too restless to shut myself in the library and make progress on my book. I swam a bit, even though it was raining. At five he came downstairs, tenderly carrying an object wrapped in burlap sacking.

  I followed him into the study and watched him place it on the desk. It was about two and a half feet high. I knew that last night’s clay image of Bets had been coated with a trick rubber solution and that, after the solution had hardened, he had cut it through to pull the clay figure out. The rubber, when hardened, served as a mold for the white plaster. The last part of the afternoon had been spent buffing the rough edges from the white plaster. Then, as usual, he would wait a month or so. If, at the end of a month, he still liked it, the plaster would be a pattern for the mold to cast it in metal.

  “Unveiling of Bets,” he said acidly, unwinding the burlap.

  She was taking a half step, and her head was lowered and turned so sharply to one side that the left cheek pressed against the left shoulder. Her arms were rigid at her sides, fingers splayed and pressed hard against her thighs. Viewed from the front the figure expressed shyness and a sense of guilt. I had seen those qualities in Bets, but I hardly considered them dominant.

  I frowned. “It doesn’t—”

  “Doesn’t it?” he asked mildly. He turned it around gently, so that the back was toward me. I saw the reason for the odd angle of the head. She was looking back over her shoulder. There was slyness and lust on her face, invitation in the cant of her hip and the arch of her back.