John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 16 - The Dreadful Lemon Sky

by The Dreadful Lemon Sky(lit)

  "Yes. You've got a fine looking marina here."

  "Thank you. I'm Mrs. Birdsong. We've been open exactly two years today."

  "Congratulations."

  "Thank you." Her smile was small and formal. This was an arm's-length girl. With a long arm. Twenty-eight? Hard to guess her age because her face had that Indian shape which doesn't show much erosion from eighteen to forty.

  We made the arrangements. I paid cash for three days in advance, saying we might stay longer: I asked about a rental car, and she walked me over to a side window and pointed to a Texaco sign visible above the roof of the nextdoor motel and said I could get a car there.

  Just as we turned away from the window there was a roar, a yelp of rubber, and a heavy thud as someone drove a dusty blue sedan into the side of the building.

  A big man struggled out from behind the wheel and walked unsteadily to the doorway and paused there, staring at her and then at me.

  "Where have you been? Where-have-you-been?" she asked. Her eyes looked sick.

  He was six and a half feet tall, and almost as broad as the doorway. He had a thick tangle of gray-blond hair, a mottled and puffy red face. He wore soiled khakies, with what looked like dried vomit on the front of the shirt. There was a bruise on his forehead and his knuckles were swollen. He wafted a stink of the unwashed into the small office.

  He gave her a stupid glaring look and mumbled, "Peddle your ass anybody comes along, eh, Cindy? Bangin' dock boys, bangin' customers. I know what you are, you cheap hooker."

  "Cal! You don't know what you're saying."

  He turned ponderously toward me. "Show you not to fool around with somebody's wife, you bas'ard; you rotten suhva bish."

  She came trotting toward him from the side, reaching for him, saying, "No, Cal. No, honey. Please."

  He swung a backhand blow at her face, a full swing of his left arm. She saw it coming and tried to duck under it, but it caught her high on the head, over the ear. It felled her. She hit and rolled loose, with a thudding of joints and bones and skull against vinyl tile floor, ending up a-sprawl, face down.

  Cal didn't look at her. He came shuffling toward me, big fists waving gently, shoulder hiked up to shield the jaw. If he'd left enough room for me to slide past him and bolt out the doorway I would have. Dog drunk as he was, he was immense and seemed to know how to move. I did not want to be in the middle of any family quarrel. Or any wife-killing. She was totally out, unmoving.

  One thing I was not going to do, and that was stand up and play fisticuffs. Not with this one. I was getting a good flow of adrenaline. I felt edgy and fast and tricky. I put my hands out, palms toward him, as though pleading with him not to hit me. He looked very happy, in a bleary way, and launched a big right fist at the middle of my face. I snapped my open palms onto that thick right wrist and turned it violently clockwise, yanking downward at the same time. The leverage spun him around, and his wrist and fist went up between his shoulder blades. I got him started and, with increasing momentum, ran him into the cement block wall. He smacked it, dropped to his knees, and then spilled sideways and sat up, blood running down into his eye and down his cheek from a new split in his forehead. He smiled in a thoughtful way and struggled up and came hunching toward me again. This time I moved inside a pawing left hand and hit him as fast and as hard as I could, left-right, left-right, to throat and belly. I knew it damaged him, but as I tried to slide past him; once more thinking of the doorway, he hit me squarely in the forehead. It creaked my neck, turned the bright day to a cloudy vagueness, and put me into slow motion. As I was going down, my head cleared. I hooked my left foot around the back of his right ankle and kicked his kneecap with my right foot. He grunted and tried to stomp me as I rolled away.

  As I came to my feet I saw he was having trouble making his right leg hold him up. And the blood obscured his vision. And he was gagging and wheezing. But he was coming on, and I wanted no part of him. I had lost the edge of my reflexes. I was halfway aware of the whirling blue lights of the cop car outside, and of men moving smartly through the doorway.

  "Cal!" some man yelled. "Cal, damn you!" Then they walloped the back of his head with a hickory stick. They rang the hard wood off the skull bone. He tottered and turned and pawed at them, and they moved aside and hit him again. He puddled down, slowly, still smiling, with the unbloodied eye turning upward until only the white showed.

  One of the officers rolled the limp hulk face down, brought the hands around behind, and pressed the cuffs onto the wrists. He said, "Hoowee, Ralph. He do have a stink onto him. We want him riding in with us?"

  "Not after the last time we don't."

  Jason, who had helped us dock, was kneeling on the floor. He had lifted Mrs. Birdsong into a sitting position. Her head was a little loose on her neck, and her eyes were vacant. He was gentle with her, murmuring comfort to her.

  "She okay, Jason?" an officer asked.

  "I... I guess I'm all right," she said.

  "How about you?" he asked me.

  I worked my arms, massaged the back of my neck. My head was clearing the rest of the way, taking me out of slow motion. I felt of my forehead. It was beginning to puff. "He hit me one good lick."

  "Why?"

  "I haven't the faintest idea. I was checking in."

  "He brought his boat in a little while ago," Jason said. He helped Cindy Birdsong to her feet. She pulled free of him and walked over to a canvas chair and sat down, looking gray-green under her heavy tan.

  "Want to prefer charges?" the officer asked.

  I looked at Cindy. She lifted her head and gave a little negative shake.

  "I guess not."

  The cop named Ralph sighed. He was young and heavy, with a Csonka mustache. "Arthur and me figured he might head back here. We've been trying to catch up with him for two hours, Cindy. We got all the charges we need. He run two cars off the road. He busted up Dewey's Pizza Shack and broke Dewey's arm for him."

  "Oh, God."

  "Earlier he was out to the Gateway Bar on Route Seven eighty-seven, and he pure beat the living hell out of three truck drivers. They're in the hospital. I'm sorry, Cindy. It's since he got on the sauce so bad. And being on probation from the last time... look, he's going to have to spend some time in the county jail. I'm sorry, but that's the way it is."

  She closed her eyes. She shuddered. Suddenly Cal Birdsong began to snore. There was a little puddle of blood under his face. The ambulance arrived. The cuffs were removed. The attendants handled him with less difficulty than I expected. Cindy got a sweater and her purse and rode along with the snoring gigantic drunk, after asking Jason to take care of things.

  Jason leaned on the counter and said, "He was okay. You know? A nice guy up to about a year ago. I've worked here since they opened. He drank, but like anybody else. Then he started drinking more and more. Now it makes him crazy. She's really a very great person. It's really breaking her heart, you know?"

  "Booze sneaks up on people."

  "It's made him crazy. The things he yells at her."

  "I heard some of them."

  The part of his face not covered by the Jesus beard turned redder. "She's not like that at all. I don't know what it is with him."

  "Where do they live?"

  "Oh, right over there, in this end unit in the motel. They built the motel the same time as the marina, and leased it out, and in the lease they get to use the unit at this end, a little bigger than the others. Cal inherited some money and they bought this piece of waterfront and put up the marina and the motel. But they could lose it if it keeps up this way."

  He went and got a mop and a pail and swabbed up the blood. While he was at it he mopped the rest of the floor. A good man.

  I stepped around the wet parts and went back to the Flush. Meyer was annoyed. Where had I been? What had happened to my forehead? What were we going to do about lunch?

  I told him how I'd happened to meet the Birdsongs. Lovely couple.

  When we went to get a car a
nd get lunch, I saw a different fellow in the office. This one was beardless and smaller and rounder, but just as muscular.

  "Jason here?"

  "He went to lunch. Can I help you?"

  "I'm McGee. We're in Slip Sixty."

  "Oh, sure. We talked on the phone. I'm Oliver Tarbeck. I understand you and Cal went around and around."

  "Sort of. If I can get a rental car, where should I park it?"

  "In that row over there where it says Marina Only. If it's full, come here to the office and we'll work something out."

  "Place to eat?"

  "A block to the left, on this side. Gil's Kitchen. It's okay for lunch."

  We had lunch first. The place wasn't okay for lunch. Gil had a dirty kitchen. A fried egg sandwich was probably safe. We went from there to Texaco, which had some sort of budget rental deal, and I tested to see if I could get my knees under the wheel of the yellow Gremlin before giving him the Diner's Card. Nobody will take a cash deposit on a car any more. It forces everybody into cards. As the world gets bigger, it gets a lot duller.

  I asked him if he could tell me how to find Junction Park. He gave me a city map and marked the route.

  The Gremlin did not have air, but it had some big vents. Meyer read the map and called the turns. It was easy to see the shape and history of Bayside, Florida. There had been a little town on the bay shore, a few hundred people, a sleepy downtown with live oaks and Spanish moss. Then International Amalgamated Development had moved in, bought a couple of thousand acres, and put in shopping centers, town houses, condominiums, and rental apartments, just south of town. Next had arrived Consolidated Construction Enterprises and done the same thing north of town. Smaller operators had done the same things on a smaller scale west of town. When downtown decayed, the town fathers widened the streets and cut down the shade trees in an attempt to look just like a shopping center. It didn't work. It never does. This was instant Florida, tacky and stifling and full of ugly and spurious energies. They had every chain food-service outfit known to man, interspersed with used-car lots and furniture stores.

  Junction Park was inland and not far from a turnpike interchange. It had been laid, out with some thought to system and symmetry. Big steel buildings were placed in herringbone pattern, with big truck docks and parking areas. The tall sign at the entrance said that Superior Building Supplies was the fourth building on the right.

  I parked and told Meyer to see what he could pick up at the neighbor establishments, a heating and air conditioning outfit, a ladder plant, and a boatbuilder.

  I went into the front office of Superior Building Supplies. A slender and pretty girl in a dress made of ticking was taking file folders out of a metal file and putting them into a cardboard storage file. She straightened and looked at me and said in a nasal little voice, "It isn't until Monday."

  "What isn't?"

  "The special sale of everything. They're taking inventory over the weekend. And right now."

  "Going out of business?"

  She went over to her desk and picked up a can of Coke and drank several swallows. She gave me a long look of appraisal.

  "We sure the hell are," she said finally. She shook her gingery hair back and wiped her pretty mouth with the back of her hand, then belched like any boy in the fifth grade.

  A man came through the open door that led back to the warehouse portion. He had a clipboard in his hand. He was sweaty and he had a smudge of grease on his forehead. Lots of redbrown hair, carefully sprayed into position. Early thirties. Outdoor look. Western shirt with a lot of snaps and zippers. Whipcord pants. Boots. A nervous harried look and manner.

  "We're not open for business, friend. Sorry. Joanna, find me the invoices on that redwood fencing, precut, huh?"

  "Cheez, I keep telling you and telling you, it was Carrie knew where all that-"

  "Carrie isn't here to help us, goddammit. So shake your ass and start looking."

  "Listen, Harry, I don't even know if I'm going to get paid for this time I'm putting in, right?"

  "Joanna, honey, of course you'll get your pay. Come on, dear. Please find the invoices for me?"

  She gave him a long dark stare, underlip protruding. "Buster, you've been talking just a little too much poremouth. Just a little too much. And you've been getting evil with me too often, hear? I think you better go doodle in your hat. I'm going to go get my hair done. I might come back and I might retire. Who knows?"

  She slung her big leather purse over her shoulder. He tried to block her way to the door. He was begging, pleading, insisting. She paid no attention to him. There was no expression on her face. When he took hold of her arm she wrenched away and left, and the glass door swung shut.

  Harry went over to a big desk and sat in the large red leather chair. He closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. He sighed and looked at me and frowned. "Friend, we are still not open for business. We are even less open than we were. Let me give you some sound advice. Never hump the help. They get uppity. They take advantage."

  "I came by to ask about Carrie Milligan."

  "She used to work here. She's dead. What's your interest?"

  "I heard she was killed. I'm a friend of hers from Fort Lauderdale."

  "Didn't she used to live there?"

  A bare-chested young man in jeans came out of the warehouse area and held up two big bolts. "Mr. Hascomb, you want I should count every damn one of these things? There's thousandsl"

  "Hundreds. Count how many in five pounds and then, weigh all we got. That'll be close enough."

  The boy left, and Harry Hascomb shook his head and said, "It's hard to believe she's dead. She worked day before yesterday. That's her desk over there. It happened so sudden. She really held this place together. She was a good worker, Carrie was. What did you say you want?"

  "She came to see me two weeks ago. In Fort Lauderdale."

  He was so still I wondered if he was holding his breath. He licked his lips and swallowed and said, "Two weeks ago?"

  "Does that mean anything?"

  "Why should it mean anything?"

  I did not know where to go from there. The loan of money seemed all at once frail and implausible. I needed to find a better direction. "She came to see me because she was in trouble."

  "Trouble? What kind of trouble?"

  "She wanted to leave something with me for safekeeping. It happened it wasn't the best time for me to try to take care of anything for anybody. There are times you can, and times you shouldn't. I hated to say I couldn't. I was very fond of Carrie Milligan."

  "Everybody was. What did she want you to keep?"

  "Some money."

  "How much?"

  "She didn't say. She said it was a lot. When I heard about her being killed in that accident, I began to wonder if she'd found anybody to hold the money. Would you know anything about anything like that?"

  Once again Harry went into his motionless trance, looking over my shoulder and into the faraway distance. It took him a long time. I wondered what he was sorting, weighing, appraising.

  At last he shook his head slowly. "My God, I wouldn't have believed it. She must have been in on it."

  "In on what?"

  He undid a snap and a zipper and fingered a cigarette out of his Western pocket, popped it against a thumbnail, lit it and blew out a long plume of smoke. "Oh, shit, it's an old story. It happens all the time. You never expect it to happen to you."

  "What happened?"

  "What's your name again?"

  "McGee. Travis McGee."

  "Don't ever go partners with anybody McGee. That's my second piece of advice for you today. Jack and I had a good thing going here. My good old partner, Jack Omaha. It wasn't exactly a fantastic gold mine, but we lived very well for quite a few years. And then the ass fell right off the construction business. We had to cut way back. Way way back. Trying to hold out until conditions improve. I think we might have made it. Things are looking a little bit better. I've always been the sales guy and Jack
was the office guy. Anyway, he took off two weeks ago last Tuesday. On May fourteenth. Know what he was doing before he took off? Selling off warehouse stock at less than cost. Letting the bills pile up. Turning every damned thing into money. The auditors are trying to come up with the total figure. I'm a bankrupt. Good old Jack. Come to think of it, I guess he had to have Carrie's help to clean the place out. She only worked two days that week. Monday and Friday. Went out sick Monday afternoon. Came back in Friday. That was the day I finally decided Jack hadn't just gone fishing, that maybe he was gone for good. When did you see Carrie?"

  "Thursday."

  "It figures. I never figured her for anything like that. Even though she and Jack did have something going. No great big thing. It was going on for maybe three years, like ever since she started working for us. Just a little something on the side now and then. An over-nighter. What we used to do, we'd send the girls, Carrie and Joanna, on another flight up to Atlanta, and then Jack and me would go up to catch the Falcons and stay in the HJ's next to the stadium. Just some laughs."