He dropped a bill on the table and was gone, walking swiftly to the door and out into the night.
Kat looked down at her fists and said, “I wish it had been me. I wish it had been me. I’m tougher, Jimmy.”
“Not that tough.”
She tilted her head to give him a sidelong glance from narrowed eyes. “All that righteousness,” she said. “That’s the worst part of it. The way they must have enjoyed it. Repent! Shining those lights on her. Smacking their lips. A naked, painted, evil woman. Such a contrast she must have been, compared to their own women, their sorry, dumpy, drab little women. They couldn’t have ever earned the love of a woman like Jackie. It was like rape, wasn’t it, only better because they don’t have to feel guilt. They can feel virtuous and stern. The mighty wrath of Jehovah.” She rested her forehead on her clenched fists. Her hair was a sorrel gleam in the slant of the light. “What’s happening to everything, Jimmy?” she said in an almost inaudible voice.
He caressed the shining hair. She leaned her head against the caress, pressing hard. Then suddenly she sat up, dug into her purse for a tissue, dabbed her eyes, blew her nose.
“Down to three little Indians,” he said.
“These are bad times for Indians. Tom felt so damn guilty about Mortie. He kept saying over and over that he should have let Mortie quit when he wanted to. He’s feeling responsible for the whole thing now. He’s sick about getting all of us into it. I don’t know what this will do to him, when he hears about Jackie. I don’t think he’ll give up. But he’ll try to go the rest of the way alone. Of course, he’s damn close to being alone right now. My car is at the hospital. I don’t like to sound like a coward, but will you follow me home? And stay with me while I phone.… No, I can’t phone him from the house, darn it. Anyway, it’s so late. He needs what sleep he can get. I’ll leave for work early tomorrow and stop there on the way and tell him.”
“Are you back in your own house now?”
“Things quieted down. I thought it was all right.”
“I think you better stay at the Sinnats.”
“I guess so. Faithful Natalie is the emergency sitter. I guess we better move back there again tonight.”
“I’ll follow you home.”
“Will … this be in the paper?”
“Wednesday morning. Yes. It’ll get in through the emergency room records. Bressard will have to make a report. It will be picked up as a matter of routine, even though there’s no complaint, no charges filed. Woman hospitalized, beaten by unknown assailants.”
“I’m so tired, Jimmy. So gosh-darn tired.”
“So let’s get you home.”
“I got a card from Claire from the Madeira Islands. She said it’s a dreary boat, and get the filter unit changed in the pool please, and she hopes I’m having more fun than she is.”
It was almost two-thirty when he drove out of the Estates. He hesitated at the gates, then turned right toward Turk’s Pass instead of left toward town. There were no other cars parked at the pass. There was a high far fragment of moon and a moist steady breeze out of the west. He walked around to the Gulf side. The breeze kept the mosquitoes away. He sat on soft dry sand. The small waves spilled up the gradual slant of the beach and slid back, leaving a gleam which quickly soaked away into darkness. There was a phosphorescence in the waves, a green flickering where they broke. He found bits of broken shell in the sand and snapped them toward the water.
Now then, he kept saying to himself. Now. He wanted a beginning. He wanted to pick things up and build a plausible structure. He wanted a starting place and a middle place and an ending place.
“Now then!” he said, and was startled to realize he had said it aloud. But nothing began. Things were in bright fragments, and they were all static. They existed, and could not be moved. He took off his clothes and waded out. Fish sped away from him, leaving faint green lines of phosphorescence. He stood where the incoming march of the slow waves slapped his thighs. He felt the suck of water around his feet, pulling the sand out from under them, settling him slowly, washing him in like a pier. He moved out and swam for a little while, floated on the lift and fall of the swell, looking at the stars, then swam in. He knelt at the surf line and combed the sand with his fingers, combed out a half handful of coquinas, then walked slowly on the packed wet sand letting the wind dry him, eating the coquinas, opening the small shells with his thumbnail as if they were pistachios, licking out the tiny sweet bits of living meat with the tip of his tongue.
When he was dry he put his clothing back on. He stretched out in the dry sand and made a sand pillow for his head. A night bird flew by, croaking with sad, habitual alarm. Now then, he told himself. But nothing began. When he awoke, the beach, the sea and the sky were all the same shade of silver-gray. Far out over the Gulf lightning made a small silent calligraphy between cloud blackness and the gray horizon. A crab stood on tiptoe nearby, a small ballet of wariness. Beyond the storm dunes and sea oats was a crimson line over the mainland. He bent over and brushed the sand out of his hair. A hundred yards away, in shallow water, there was a turmoil of fish, startling him. It was still too early for birds. The tide was running in swiftly. He walked slowly along the shore line of the pass, around toward the bay side where his car was parked. When he was opposite the middle of the pass, an oiled black arc of porpoise appeared, made a gasping huff and sounded again.
He got behind the wheel of his car. Now then, he told himself. But some essential connective pinions of his mind had rusted in place. He felt as if he was trying to glance at still photographs swiftly enough to achieve the illusion of motion. But the pictures were not in order. He had reasons, but he could not link them to acts. He could devise acts, but they were naked of reason and consequence. Memory had suffered a strange inversion, so that all that was to come seemed to have the quality of things remembered.
When he reached the cottage, he showered, knotted a towel around his waist and sat at the typewriter. During the morning the phone rang several times, but he did not answer it. By eleven o’clock he had it exactly the way he wanted it. He set his alarm and slept until two o’clock. When he woke up, he read it again. He had an original and one copy. He folded them separately, after dating and signing each one. He put the carbon in an envelope and addressed it to Kat. He mailed it in town and then went to the bank lot to wait for her to come out.
Twenty-two
WHEN KAT WALKED AROUND THE CORNER of the bank building on Tuesday afternoon, she saw Jimmy Wing’s station wagon parked beside her car. She saw him standing in the shade of the building, smoking a cigarette.
He came striding toward her. His color was not good.
“Where were you?” she asked. “Golly I called here and there.”
“I want to come to your house. I want to talk to you.”
“Of course, Jimmy! I want to stop at the hospital first though.”
“At the hospital?”
“To see Jackie. What’s the matter with you?”
“Nothing. I have to talk to you.”
“Has something else gone wrong? You look sick, Jimmy.”
“I’m fine. I’m perfectly fine. I’m in perfect shape.”
“Do you want to stop at the hospital?”
“No.”
“Perhaps later?”
“Can we go to your house right now?”
“But you seem so … All right, Jimmy. Right now.”
He followed her. After a few blocks she realized he was following too closely. It was not like him. He was too good a driver. She concentrated on avoiding any traffic hazard which might cause her to stop too suddenly. When she had to stop for a light she turned and stared back at him. He sat motionless and expressionless, clasping the wheel high, his lips sucked pale, his mouth small. All the way home she invented things which could have made him act so strangely, but none of them fitted.
They went into the house through the patio door. The heavy noon rain had made the inside temperature more bearable than us
ual. She turned the air conditioner on. His strangeness made her nervous. And she heard herself talking too much, in the light quick way Van had called her society gabble.
“I was phoning you to tell you how Tom took it, which wasn’t very well at all, not that I expected anything else. Would you like a beer or something? Do sit down. You want to talk to me and here I am doing all the talking. When Tom heard about Jackie, he just seemed to sag all over. He turned into a little gray old man with shaking hands and tears in his eyes. He said he’d go there tomorrow night and speak out, but he would make it clear he was speaking for himself alone. He said he would not be responsible any longer for …”
“Is anybody coming here? Would your kids come here?”
“Have you heard anything I’ve been saying? Nobody is coming here. Jigger and Nat took the twins and my kids and Esperanza to an afternoon movie.”
He walked toward her with an expression so strange she instinctively backed away from him. He reached out and took hold of her upper arms and stared at her with an intensity which alarmed her.
“You’re hurting me,” she said in a faint voice.
“I wish I knew all it’s costing. But I can’t think that way any more.”
“I don’t understand, Jimmy.”
He shook her slightly. It seemed a gesture of impatience. “When you can’t figure out any of the possibilities, it’s like walking around on a roof blindfolded. You don’t even know what to be scared of.”
She felt the tears well into her eyes. “I … I don’t know what you mean, and you’re hurting my arms.”
He released her suddenly. He handed her some folded sheets. “Read this,” he said harshly. “You’ll get a signed copy in the mail.”
He walked over and sat in a fireside chair, slumped, leaned his head back, closed his eyes. She unfolded the sheets and moved closer to the window.
“James Warren Wing, Record-Journal reporter, revealed last night a conspiracy between County Commissioner Elmo Bliss and the five majority owners of the Palmland Development Company. According to Wing, Mr. Burton Lesser, Mr. Leroy Shannard, Doctor Felix Aigan, Mr. Buckland Flake and Mr. William Gormin all entered into a verbal agreement with Commissioner Bliss some months ago whereby, after the commissioner’s term of office was expired, they will each sell him, at a nominal figure, a substantial portion of their holdings. In return, Commissioner Bliss promised to aid Palmland in their acquisition of the submerged land in Grassy Bay.
“Wing stated that Commissioner Bliss, in his presence, estimated that his capital gain, after taxes, would be in excess of $300,000, a sum which Bliss has already earmarked as a campaign fund when he enters the next gubernatorial race.
“Wing further stated that he was taken into Commissioner Bliss’s confidence on the sixth of this month when Bliss employed him, at a salary of $100 a week and expenses, to secretly assist Bliss in nullifying the conservationist efforts of Save Our Bays, Incorporated. Wing claims he was selected for this task because of his previous close associations with many of the members of the Executive Committee of Save Our Bays, Inc.
“Based on information turned over to him by Wing, Bliss brought pressure to bear on Mr. Dial Sinnat and Mrs. Doris Rowell which resulted in their resigning from the Executive Committee. Wing has kept Commissioner Bliss informed of all the promotional activities of Save Our Bays. Bliss, working quietly through various pressure groups and organizations in the county, has been responsible for a campaign of vilification and harassment unequaled in Palm County history. Wing stated that Bliss, through Leroy Shannard, his personal attorney, had employed Tampa operatives who, through the use of illegal tape recording, forced the resignation of Mr. Morton Dermond, another Executive Committee member, from his post as Director of the Palm County Art Center, and secured his immediate departure from the area.
“Wing also called attention to the fact that Reverend Darcy Harkness Coombs is related to Commissioner Bliss, and that Coombs may well have been implicated in the brutal and unwarranted flogging of Mrs. Ross Halley last Monday night when she was kidnapped in a public parking area and taken to a wooded area near Everset by several black-hooded men. The threat of a similar flogging was instrumental in Mr. Dial Sinnat’s decision to resign from the Executive Committee and withdraw his financial support from Save Our Bays, Inc.
“Wing stressed the fact that, to the best of his knowledge, only Leroy Shannard, of the men in the Palmland group, has been aware of all the supplementary efforts of Elmo Bliss. He stated that it was Leroy Shannard, working through Mrs. Martin Cable, who has been most instrumental in securing a favorable financial climate for the Palmland Isles venture.
“When queried as to why Bliss should have gone to such lengths to smash all opposition to the bay-fill plan, Wing stated that Bliss wanted to be certain that Save Our Bays, Inc., would be in no position to offer any further opposition after the public hearing. Bliss also wishes public support to be so overwhelming that, in order to divert suspicion, he can be in a position to abstain or register a negative vote without endangering the bay-fill project.
“When asked why he had made this conspiracy a matter of public record at this time, Wing remarked that he had decided at the eleventh hour that the public has a right to know the details of this abuse of his office by Commissioner Elmo Bliss. He said that Bliss would undoubtedly attempt some retaliation for his having made this statement, but he could make no guess as to what form this would take.”
Kat slowly refolded the sheets. She found she was making a special effort to fold them more neatly than Jimmy had, getting the edges in better alignment. She crossed the room to where he sat, feeling tall and severe and gravely speculative.
She knelt beside his chair. He put the folded papers in his shirt pocket. She knelt erect, her hands side by side on his forearm.
“It’s true,” she said. “It couldn’t be anything else. It couldn’t be some kind of crazy scheme … to help us.”
He turned his head toward her, his eyes half closed. “It’s true, of course.”
“We all trusted you, Jimmy.”
“I know.”
“How does that make you feel?”
“I don’t feel much of anything.”
“But why? Why did you get into such a thing? Did you need the money?”
“No.”
“Did they have something on you?”
“What’s so astonishing? I’m a small-town cynic. I know a lot of people and I know the way things get done, and this time I was in on it. It would have come out the same way with or without me.”
“Did they have something on you?”
“When you’re bored, you want a closer look at the machinery.”
“How did they make you do it?”
“They made it sound innocent.”
“But you knew it wasn’t.”
She felt the muscles of his arm tighten, move, relax again. “It looks as if I’d gotten out of it now, doesn’t it?”
She bit her lip for a moment. “But it’s a little late, isn’t it? A little late for Jackie and Morton and Doris. What do you want me to say? Bravo? Do you want absolution, forgiveness, a fat medal of honor? You’ve been mixed up in a terrible thing, Jimmy, and I think I owe it to you to try to understand.”
“I’m not very good at explaining anything these days. There’s no logic in my head. There’s some pictures, and some darkness, and no way of knowing anything that comes next, or understanding what happened.”
“They had some way of making you do it.”
“They used you.”
She stared at him. “Me!”
“That was just a part of it. I could play. Or they’d use rougher people. I thought I could keep it easy on everybody, especially you. I kept them off you. But they decided I wasn’t suited to the real dirty work when they went after Mortie and Jackie.”
“But I can take care of myself! Did I ask to be protected?”
“No.”
“Why should I be that important
to you?”
He put his free hand over both of hers. “You are. You have been. You will be, even though I’ve canceled myself out. And not a very romantic attachment, Kat. Not very civilized, even. Basic. Below the belt. Physical lust. Just a hell of a driving need to have you.”
“But how could you have …”
“How the hell do I know! It isn’t something anybody plans is it? It started seven or eight months ago, and kept building. I can’t look at your mouth or watch you walk without feeling dizzy and sick with desire.”
“I … I’m just a woman. I’m not that … special.”
“I’ve told myself that and it hasn’t done any good.”
“I … don’t think of you that way!”
“I know that.”
“I’ve been … deeply grateful to you, Jimmy. You’ve been such a good friend to me. But now I find out you’ve been lying … I don’t know what to think.”
He sat up and took her suddenly by the elbows and guided her around so that she was in front of him, forcing her to hobble awkwardly on her knees, then pulled her close and wrapped her in his hard long arms and ground his mouth into hers. She fought for a few startled moments and then endured him. He gave a long shuddering sigh and rested his forehead on her shoulder. His hands moved gently on her body.
She felt very young, inept, confused. How do I get into such things? she asked herself. Why should I feel so uncertain, and why should I feel obligated? Why should I stop fighting him because I realized he was crying? Why should I owe him anything for being nice to me? How can he expect this of me? It’s idiotic! And it’s shameful. Does his wanting you give him rights? Make him stop.
“Jimmy,” she said. “Don’t, dear. Please don’t.”
He stood up and pulled her up and stopped her mouth again, and she knew her arms were around him. He was shaking with his need for her. What can you do now? she thought helplessly. You let it go so far.
He dipped and swung her up into his arms. “Please no,” she whispered. “Oh please no.”
She felt waxen in his arms. Beyond his still profile she saw the ceiling turn and move. She felt the cold whir of air against her as she was carried past the air conditioner.
A Flash of Green Page 37
