John D MacDonald

by A Man of Affairs

  I braced myself and said, "Any comment on that ugly little scene last night?’

  She looked at me without change of expression,

  "Should I have?"

  "Any general opinion then?"

  "I decided in the night that Mr. Dean is perfectly capable of representing my ownership interest and my brother’s in Harrison."

  "I see. When is he going to find out, about this?"

  "Just as soon as I see him. Then I am going to request transportation back to Grand Bahama."

  "That’s right. There’d be no point in staying on."

  "Aren’t you going to make some sort of violent protest?"

  "Would it do any good?"

  "No."

  "Then why should I waste my time? I’d think you’d have a little more editorial comment to make, Louise."

  There was a flash of anger. "Don’t look so damn superior and tolerant. This is a cheap place full of cheap people. This place has a reek of sex and liquor and decay."

  "And I’m as cheap as the rest of them?"

  "You seem to fit in admirably. I know when Warren is lying and I know when he’s bluffing, and I know when he’s telling the truth."

  "Let’s back up a minute, Louise. Just to get a little perspective. What the hell does my personal life have to do with whether or not I can run the Harrison Corporation? And who are you to sit in judgment and condemn me?"

  "Who said I was?"

  "Oh, come off it." I paused while Booty brought her breakfast. When Booty was out of earshot I said, "I suppose I ought to be flattered."

  "How do you mean?"

  "That you should care so much about my habits."

  "I care this much. I didn’t think you were cheap or callous or so . . . uncontrolled. I respected you. While I respected you, I trusted you. Now I can no longer respect or trust you, and doesn’t it follow that I can no longer think you’re the man to run Harrison?"

  "It might follow, in some kind of illogical female way, I suppose."

  "But, Sam," she said with a pleading note in her voice. "You don’t even _know_ any of these women!"

  "Have you been over the list? Now who could it have been? Amparo, Elda, Bridget, Lolly, Tessy, Bonny. All quite suitable, I’m sure."

  "Don’t be such a vile pig, Sam. How could I know? For all I know it was Booty, on a sort of room service basis."

  "That was a foul thing to say, Louise. I suspect that Booty is a lady. More of a lady than most of the female guests. If you want to be assured that Booty is unattainable, check with your husband. She brushed him off."

  "That’s a damn lie!"

  "Once again Louise, our gentle heroine, springs to the spirited defense of her utterly useless husband It can get pretty tiresome, dear. Very monotonous. Maybe if you had some spunk you would have let me know you’re in love with me."

  She gasped and tried to sneer but her eyes filled with tears. She looked at me and her mouth trembled and she said, "I nearly was, Sam. I . . . very nearly was."

  And she ran for the house. A woman is not at her best running away from you in a tight bathing suit. I tried to feel something tender and special toward her. I couldn’t. I was too annoyed at being condemned without a trial. And disappointed at her crack about Booty. And a little distressed at a smallness of mind which let too much emotion overlap into a business deal. All I could think of was that she’d had a damn small breakfast. Three bites of toast, three sips of coffee. And she left her rubber cap, sun glasses,. lotion and towel behind. I was sick of scenes and I was sick of slickness and maneuverings. And I was getting tired of the damn sunshine and the unspeakably glorious weather.

  Bridget came out of the house and stopped and looked back in the direction where Louise had disappeared, She wore a light blue workshirt and she had her hands in the pockets of blue jean shorts. She came out to the table and looked at Louise’s breakfast. She sat down at my right and said, "What’s with her?"

  "Off in what they call a huff."

  "By the way, good morning. You don’t seem marked up, ole Sam. I’ll betcha Warren isn’t pretty. I was standing there wringing my hands until my knuckles cracked, and every time you hit him I could feel it in the pit of my stomach."

  "Today I feel very elderly."

  "This is the first time we’ve been alone . . ." she paused and colored slightly ". . . since I made such a fool of myself. I expect I ought to feel all quivery and girlish and abject."

  "Go right ahead."

  "But I don’t." She tilted her head to the side and seemed to study me. "I feel pretty darn comfortable with you. Almost as if you could understand, which I doubt."

  "Why do you doubt it?"

  "I am not precisely a female who stops the town clock when she goes to market. And I flang myself at you. And, being male, you will think I did it because of your overpowering charm."

  "I think you did it because you felt lost and lonesome and helpless. I was a pair of arms to comfort you and a chest to cry on. And what it turned into wasn’t anybody’s fault."

  "But I got up and went to the door and closed it. I could just as easily have walked right on out and I darn near did."

  "Glad you didn’t."

  "I keep fighting that line of thought, brother. But so am I glad I didn’t. So there. Let’s drop the subject forever. And if that’s a gleam in your eye, kindly remove it. There are no return engagements in this conference. But before we drop the subject, let me tell you one teensy little thing that has been accomplished. Last night, for a while, I hung over Guy’s shoulder while he played poker. I was all full of giddy warmth and unrequited devotion, And suddenly things weren’t _quite_ the same."

  "How?"

  "I looked down and saw how carefully he’d arranged his poor hair so that it would cover the most of the bald spot and I wanted to pat his poor old bald head because it was kinda touching, and then I saw the place where he didn’t quite get all her lipstick off. It was in that orange shade she uses, and suddenly I didn’t want to pat his bald head any more. Nor did I want to bash it in with a club. But I hung around long enough to watch him stay on a pair of threes, and draw twice to an inside straight. I learned my poker from my daddy. Daddy could have cleaned poor Guy in one long session. So maybe a cure is beginning to take place, and maybe you have some part in it. And thanks. Now we drop the subject and we get onto Louise for a moment. Why did she flee by me, snuffling and blubbering?"

  I told her. In detail. When I finished she put her hand on my wrist. "Oh, honestly, you poor guy! What a filthy break that was. There I go again, barging in on people and messing up their lives, Sam, I’m terribly sorry."

  "The damage is done. Poetic justice or something. This place is loaded with voyeurs."

  "What do you mean?"

  I told her about Jack Buck, Lolly and Tessy Crown. She turned grayish under her tan and closed her eyes and said, "Gah!"

  "That’s a good word."

  "Taking the top off Tessy’s skull would be like lifting a damp rock. I don’t condemn Lolly too much. She’s spoiled rotten. She’s a vicious bawdy little push-over. And you can’t blame Jack Buck for taking what’s available. But to have her own stepmother . . . I wish to hell you weren’t so good at describing things, Sam’l. That little scene is going to take a lot of forgetting. Look, honey, I’m going to have a little chat with Louise."

  "If you mean what I think you mean, no."

  "There’s no possible way you can stop me. Call it penance. I’ll bare my simple soul and my base instincts, I’ll tell her how it happened My God, if it hadn’t happened after I started to chaw on your neck, you’d be considerably less than human, I suspect Can you see yourself pushing me sternly away and giving me a lecture on self-restraint?

  "Hardly."

  "Sam’l, darling, you were a sitting duck and I blasted your little white feathers all over the landscape. I can make Louise see that, I know. We’ll have some girl talk."

  "I’d rather you wouldn’t."

  "There’s nothing yo
u can do about it. What happened to Booty? I’m about to starve!"

  "All right then. If I can’t stop you, I’ll do some high-level scheming along with everybody else. Try to get to her before she gets to Mike."

  She looked puzzled for a moment and then said, "Oh, I get it. She’s so hurt she wants to smash your little red wagon."

  "And her own too, possibly,"

  "Seems a little bratty, doesn’t it?"

  "Maybe."

  "So duty first. I can eat any time."

  When she was halfway across the lawn toward the house she turned and took one hand out of her pocket and waved at me.

  At a little after nine-thirty the _Try Again_ set off with Mike and Amparo, Tommy and Puss aboard. I had not seen Louise or Bridget again. I saw them when I was out on the dock. They were way along the sand beach in the sunshine, walking together, a tiny figure in yellow and a tiny figure in blue. It made me feel very odd. I selected tackle from the dock house and headed the other way, back toward the rocks.

  Skylark was not there, but the minnows were. I took some gang hooks off a plug and rigged a way to snatch them. I pulled one minnow out in about every six tries, and too often he was mortally wounded. I got a couple of meager barracuda, and then a rather small yellowtail. I was about to throw him back and then decided to try him as bait. He was too big to cast, but he was most agreeable about swimming straight out. I let him go as far as he wanted to. After a little while there was a long hard steady pull. I set the hook. It wasn’t a barracuda. It didn’t jump. The line did not go out with any great speed, but it went out with a fearful regularity. I could have achieved the same effect by sinking the hook into the transom of a cabin cruiser moving at trolling speed, When I saw there was no stopping it or turning it, I tightened the drag until the line snapped. Fortunately it snapped out next to the leader.

  A needle fish took the next minnow and when it leaped and skittered and threw minnow and hook, a good barracuda took the minnow in the air, a few inches above the water. Though not as big as Louise’s, it was a long fight, I beached him and released him, and as he was much fresher than Louise’s, he went on out very briskly.

  It seemed enough for a time and I found a rock flat enough to sit on. The fishing had been good, but it was not like the day before. I had the ghost of Louise with me, a laughing Louise, talking to the great fish while Skylark and I watched her. And I had other ghosts. White paper ghosts in the drawer of a writing desk in Mike’s room.

  I tried to push it all out of my mind and be a part of the empty rocky beach, and the sun and the sky and the water. From where I sat I could see no sign that man had ever existed on this planet. I knew that after I was dead a thousand years, these rocks would look the same. An imperceptible half millimeter of surface would be worn away. Ten billion conchs would have died in the sun on the rocks. The incredibly remote descendants of the barracuda we had caught would be swimming out there, stalking their game.

  There was a tide pool near my feet. I looked down into it and saw the black sea urchins, saw two unhurried questing minnows a half inch long. I had tossed a dead minnow into that pool not a half hour ago. It was almost invisible, almost entirely covered with small brown snails who seemed to be trying to shoulder each other out of position.

  I thought of myself and I felt small and I wondered if I wasn’t being pretty damn pretentious in sweating and fussing over moralities and ethics. How many shares of common stock can dance on the point of a needle?

  I wasn’t going to kill anybody. I wasn’t going to wear a black mask and steal. I was for hire in the market place, and Mike Dean had made the best offer. I was a part of the vast cycle of life and death, and this was my one turn around the track, so I’d better run as gaudy a race as possible.

  I got up and tried again, using a plug this time. I foul-hooked a horrible looking thing of about eight pounds. He put up a frenzied but lethargic and wallowing battle. He was black and he was mostly head and he had black spines all over him. He had two huge blue eyes. He had plates of bone in his mouth rather than teeth. When I got a stick to pry his mouth open, he bit it off. I worked the plug loose with my knife blade. When I rolled him into the water with my foot, he showed his gratitude by putting one of his spikes through my canvas shoe and into my toe.

  I got back to the house a little after noon. I met Warren on the veranda as I was heading for my room. He tried to go right on by but I stopped him. I was shocked at the damage I had done. Shocked and, I must admit, pleased. The left side of his face, from hairline to jaw, was puffed out and empurpled. His left eye was swollen entirely shut.

  He stood with my hand on his arm and he looked flatly at the center of my chest and said, "What do you want?"

  I kept my voice down. "No more games with Booty. You understand?"

  "You’re all through at Harrison, Glidden. You’re finished there."

  "Are you too tight to understand what I mean about Booty?"

  "I understand you all right."

  "Well?"

  "Okay, okay. No more games. What do you want me to say?"

  I let go of his arm. I watched him walk away.

  I had lunch with Guy Brainerd, Elda Garry and Cam Duncan. Elda was being very elfin. Guy was loaded with heavy-handed courtliness. I went to my room after lunch. I stretched out on the bed again I had a plaintive wish for Bridget to stop by again, and I pushed it out of my mind and was soon asleep.

  Someone shook my shoulder gently. I opened my eyes. Louise was beside the bed, sitting on her heels, her face a foot from mine. In the dim light that came into the room her expression was very tender and loving.

  "Are you awake, Sam?"

  "I am now." I propped myself up on my elbow and reached for my cigarettes. She accepted one. She sat rather timidly on the edge of the bed, a safe distance away.

  "I’m sorry about the way I acted."

  "Bridget talked to you. I didn’t want her to."

  "She’s terribly coarse, darling, but there’s something nice about her, I think. Some essential honesty. She made me understand . . . how and why it happened. So I had to come and apologize."

  "You didn’t have to."

  "Please, Sam. Don’t be gruff. I want to forgive you if you’ll let me."

  "Let me get this straight. You want to forgive me."

  "Of course. You know, you were very naughty?

  "I was a very, very naughty man," I said, remembering the tweak that Cam had bestowed on Elda.

  "Of course you were. But we shouldn’t start with a misunderstanding."

  "Start?

  "I’m through defending him, Sam. I’m through being stupid and loyal to someone who isn’t worth it. I’m going to get a divorce."

  "Does he know that?"

  "Not yet. But he soon will, believe me."

  "And then we’ll get married."

  "Yes, darling. It’s perfect. It should have happened long ago. We’ve lost so much precious time. When you kissed me out there on the dock I knew."

  "So now what do you tell Mike Dean?"

  "Sam, you’re acting so . . . odd. I know I hurt you. And I know you do feel a little guilty. Darling, how can I prove to you it has all come true?

  "I don’t know."

  She looked at me and looked away. She said, very delicately, "Warren is out by the pool, out like a light." She was wearing black shorts and a green sleeveless blouse. She toyed with the buckle on the shorts. She seemed to heave some sort of inward sigh and said with modesty and a kind of regret and a certain tinge of martyrdom, "If you really want me to, darling. If it would mean a great deal to you to. . . love me now."

  "I wouldn’t want you to sacrifice yourself, Louise."

  "I think it would be so much better if we waited, actually." She made a little face. "I wouldn’t be able to forget that . . . this is where it happened with her. It would spoil it for me."

  "But a big coarse brutal guilty male wouldn’t be bothered by all those little nuances."

  "You keep sounding
so odd."

  "I’m an odd guy."

  "But I’m going to get used to you. You can at least kiss me."

  She felt good under my hands and I guess her response was all that could be desired. Her lips were moist. and parted and she breathed hard And then she wriggled free as though I were about to be naughty, and put her mouth close to my ear and whispered that she loved me. And then she went out, smiling back at me.

  Boy wins girl. Boy wins rich girl. High school dream comes true at last.

  But I wished to God she wouldn’t remind me so strongly of a brunette Elda Garry. And I wished I didn’t have the horrible suspicion that that smoldering look was misleading.