John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 09 - Pale Gray for Guilt

by Pale Gray for Guilt(lit)

  "To what?"

  "To stewardessesl You're slow today, lover. You're not relating now and again."

  "It's just that I was looking at you. Then I don't hear so well." And looking by chance beyond her, I saw Tush Bannon sitting at a deuce against the wall, the shoulder bulk hunched toward a still-faced girl who sat across from him. She had long, straight auburn-brown hair, a pout, impassive little face. She seemed to be listening to him with a thoughtful intentness, and she bit at the heavy bulge of her underlip and closed her eyes and slowly shook her head in a prolonged No.

  That is not the point where one goes ambling over to the old buddy and whacks him on the shoulder and asks how Janine is. It was a private conversation, so private and intense they seemed to be inside an overturned bowl of thinnest glass, almost visible.

  "Know them?" Puss asked.

  "Just him."

  "I'd say he's going to get called out on strikes. He's lost his cool. The hard sell makes a gal nervous these days."

  "Hey!" said Barni Baker, and put her overnight case down and climbed up onto the stool on my right. She wore a little pale green sleeveless blouse with a high collar, a darker green short skirt, and she had little gold ladybugs in her pierced ears, and she wanted a bourbon sour.

  Puss leaned forward and spoke across me, saying, "God, it must be the most marvelous, exciting, romantic thing in the world, jetting around to marvelously romantic places! It's really living, I bet. Those fascinating pilot types, and mysterious international travelers and all. I guess you realize how jealous of you all we earthbound females are, Barni."

  There was just the slightest narrowing of Barni's eyes, gone in an instant. She leaned in from her side and said breathlessly, "Oh, yes! It's all my dreams come true, Miss Killian. To fly to all the lovely places in the world." She sighed and shook her pretty little head. "But it seems so... so artificial somehow to have to use an airplane, don't you think? But with my little broom, I can just barely get above the treelops. Have you had better luck?"

  "I think having to carry that damned cat makes the difference," said Puss without hesitation. "And wear that stupid hat and the long skirts."

  "And it's hard to enjoy the moonlight when you have to keep up that dreary cackling, don't you think?" Barni asked.

  Tush came up behind me and said, "Talk to you a minute, Trav?" He turned and walked away before I could introduce him. The gals did not notice. I excused myself and followed Tush. Barni Baker moved over onto my stool. As I went out into the corridor, before the glass door swung shut, I heard the contralto bark of one of Puss's better laughs, in counterpoint with a silvery yet somehow earthy yelp from Barni. Knife-fighting among the females can spoil party time, and it was nice to know that this pair would get along.

  I went with Tush past the elevators to the empty men's room.

  "I would have said hello, but you had a friend." "Friend! With friends like that, who needs, and so forth. She left. Look, I haven't got much time. I've left Jan alone with the kids for three days and I want to get back. She said a year ago there was a pattern in this whole thing and we should get out, but I wouldn't believe her. Okay. I believe her now. It's a business deal. A land development deal. And we got in the way."

  He was as big as ever, but his face looked oddly shrunken. His big hands were shaky. His eyes had a starey look, somewhat like the eyes of people who wear glasses when they have their glasses off.

  He tried to laugh. "I thought somebody wanted my marina. So I used money I couldn't spare to get a local lawyer to see what he could find out. Young guy. Steve Besseker. I thought maybe he was the only lawyer in Sunnydale who wouldn't scare. I told him everything that had happened to me, and he agreed it couldn't be coincidence. So he nosed around. Nobody wants the marina, Trav. They want to put together a parcel of four hundred and eighty acres. And my little ten acres is right in the middle of all that riverfront land they want."

  "They?"

  "All that area is zoned as an industrial park ever since Tech-Tex came in, across the river. Big high lines come in with all the power anybody would need. They're going to dredge the river and the channel so barges can come in from the Waterway. Some big corporation wants to come in, apparently, and they'd pay a nice price for the land."

  "So who's putting it together?"

  "A local real estate man named Preston LaFrance owns the fifty acres right behind me. Besseker found out LaFrance has an option on the two hundred acres just east of me, at a price of two hundred dollars an acre. It's owned by an old boy named D. J. Carbee, an early settler. On the other side of me, to the west, there's two hundred and twenty acres owned by something called Southway Lands, Incorporated. Besseker found out that Southway is one of Gary Santo's operations. Do you know him?"

  "I know of him. Like everybody else in south Florida." A few years ago Santo had been the dramatic young swinger, with the touch of gold. Now he is the not-so-young swinger, moving in mysterious ways behind many scenes, behind barriers of privacy and money. The name in Miami has the flavor of penthouses, pipelines, South American playmates, mergers and acquisitions, private jets, and well-publicized donations to local drives in the art and culture areas.

  "I don't know the exact relationship between Santo and Preston LaFrance, Trav. Maybe LaFrance is just acting as Santo's agent. Maybe it's a joint venture. Besseker heard a rumor that the plant location experts nosed around the area a year and a half ago and recommended that the big company that wants it could go as high as eight hundred thousand! Seventeen hundred dollars an acre. About the time I learned all this, an old friend came out and told me he couldn't help it, and didn't want to do it, but he had to pick up the houseboats. I still owed on them. He told me that one of the Shawana County Commissioners, Mr. P. K. Hazzard-they call him Monk Hazzard-had hinted that if my friend repossessed his houseboats, he'd get a favorable ruling on a zoning application. So when I told that to Besseker, he said that Monk Hazzard was Preston LaFrance's brother-in-law, and there wasn't any way to prove a thing. He acted funny. He said he had a lot of things coming up and he couldn't promise to give me any more time. They'd gotten to him too, I guess. He has to make a living there."

  "All just folks," I said.

  He stared at the paper towel rack. He shook his head. "You know my style, Trav. I don't like all this round-and-about stuff. Direct confrontation. I'd seen Hazzard at a couple of those public hearings where they'd messed me up, like about taking that bridge out, but I hadn't talked to him. So I tried to make an appointment and he kept stalling, and finally I took Jan with me and we sat there outside his office until finally he saw us. Smallish man, with a long neck and a little bit of a round head, and big goggly eyes behind his thick glasses. Face sort of like a monkey, and a squeaky voice. I said we were citizens and taxpayers and landowners, and he was a public official, and it was his ethical and moral duty to see that the machinery of government wasn't used to shove me into bankruptcy so his brother-in-law could make a few bucks. You know about humiliation, Trav?"

  "I keep getting a little every once in a while."

  "He strutted around and he squeaked and lectured. Folks come down from the north and think it's easy to, make a living in Florida. Toughest place in the world. He wouldn't look at me. He looked out the window part of the time, and at Jan's legs the rest of the time. He said it wasn't the job of local government to save a man from his own mistakes and bad judgment. He said that the greatest good for the greatest number meant the best possible land use, and maybe a marina wasn't the best use when you think of the tax base and employment and so on. He said he'd overlook the slur on his honesty because a man in trouble says things he doesn't mean. He said people just don't know how much talent it takes to run a small business, and I'd probably be happier in some other line of work. He said that he didn't know whether Press LaFrance was interested in my ten acres or not, but maybe if I could talk to him he might make me an offer, but I shouldn't expect too much because the business was in bad shape. He said that people in
trouble get to thinking the whole world is against them, and just because certain necessary county improvements were hurting my business, it didn't mean it was done on purpose. He said thousands of little businesses go broke every year in Florida, and I shouldn't think I was an exception. So we left and Jan was crying before we got to the car. Humiliation and frustration."

  "You're bucking the power structure, Tush. You can't hardly win."

  "I thought I could. When I saw LaFrance, I went along. He gave me the same line, as if they'd rehearsed it. I told him to make an offer. He said he wasn't interested. He said maybe if it came on the market later on, he might make an offer on a foreclosure price, but he didn't think it was worth the mortgage balance. A little over sixty thousand, that is. And we put fifty-one thousand in it. So I had to open my big mouth. I leaned across his desk and told him he was never going to get his hands on my property. I'd leave Jan there to run it and go back to sales work, and put every dime I could spare against that mortgage. So they squeezed a little harder."

  "HOW?"

  "First they extended that road contract another hundred days. Then they sent out inspectors from the County Bureau of Services, and they condemned my wiring, and the septic tank drain fields, and my well, and lifted my license to do business. With the license gone, the bank said I come up with the whole amount of the mortgage in thirty days or they foreclose. It's way past due. We did well for a while there, Trav. I didn't overextend. If they'd left me alone, I had enough business to pay for the boat storage rack and the motel enlargement. We were going to have one of the best little operations in that whole area. I tried to see Commissioner Hazzard again. I waited and a couple of sheriff's deputies showed up and said I could either leave or get picked up for loitering. So Jan and I talked it over and decided the best thing to do would be lay it all out for Mr. Gary Santo. We decided he was probably big enough so that he didn't even know what was going on up there, and would tell them to put a stop to it if he did know. We decided that probably LaFrance just got too eager to do a big job for Santo and do it as cheap as possible. I put it all down on paper. I guess that between us we must have rewritten that letter about nine times, and Janine typed it on the old machine in the motel office, and we sent it down here Special Delivery, marked personal."

  "Any answer?"

  "Verbal. From that girl I was sitting with. Her name is Mary Smith. I came down and tried to get to Santo. She was as far as I got. She said she'd meet me out here, because she had to catch a flight. Cold as a meat locker, boy. Yes, Mr. Santo had read my letter personally. Yes, he had an informal agreement with Mr. LaFrance. But Mr. LaFrance is not employed by Mr. Santo. Yes, Mr. LaFrance is under considerable pressure by Mr. Santo to produce the results promised insofar as land acquisition is con cerned. Mr. Santo feels no personal responsibility for your plight. He is not running a charitable organization. I wanted to know if I could see him in prison. No. Sorry. But no."

  "Now what?"

  "We lose it. That's all. The grace period is about gone. Januae is taking it hard. It's a lot of money and work and time down the drain, and nothing to show for it. I... I wish I'd come to you sooner, Tray, before it got to be too late. Maybe you could have figured out some kind of a salvage operation. Your kind of salvage. Squeeze them like they've squoze me." He gave me a strange, puzzled, thoughtful look. "You know, I keep thinking about how I might kill somebody. Hazzard, Santo, LaFrance. Somebody. Anybody. I never thought that way in my life before. I'm not like that."

  He grimaced, whirled, kicked the big metal trash basket full of used paper towels. "Aaaah... Tush!" he yelled, and went blundering out.

  I collected Puss and Barni. It was after six thirty when we got back to the Busted Flush. Mick had gotten his phone call, made his deal, and set up a Monday morning flight to Spain via New York. And so, though my mood was somewhat soured, there was song and sport, sunburn and music, beach time and nap time, old and new jokes, girls in the galley, new tapes on the music machine, lipstick and sand and the sometime kiss, and the long heavy look through curl of lashes.

  Meyer trooped in and out from time to time with little groups of Meyer's Irregulars and Partisans. We had a slight overflow from the permanent floating houseparty aboard the Alabama Tiger's big cruiser.

  Though it looked as it always looks-so informal you don't know who is tied up with whom-there is a protocol. There is a very real in-group unwritten list of things you do and things you don't do, things you say and things you don't say. And if you are the kind of person who can't case the scene and know by instinct what the rules have to be, then the blinds are closed, shades drawn, and the freeze is on. But sometimes, as in the case, of one midday visitor on Sunday, someone is so obtuse the action has to be a little more direct.

  This one was named Buster or Buddy or Sonny, one of those names, a big loud thirtyish jollyboy type, office-soft overconfident, far from home on a business trip and out beagling for a broad, confident that he was twice the man any of these beach-bum types could be, ready for a nice little roll and scuffle that he could describe to the other JC's back in God's Country, and hide from li'1 0l' Pegg,y staying back home there with the kids.

  So he came up onto the sun deck and sprawled out next to Barni and told her she was cute as any bug in the wide world, and if she would just let him spread a little more of this here suntan juice on that cute little ol' back and this here cute little ol' tummy, why she'd be making him the happiest paper salesman in the southeast territory.

  She sat up and frowned into his dumb, happy, smirking face, and as Mick started to get up to heave Buster-Buddy-Sonny over the rail she waved him back.

  "Music down and out," she said. Puss went to the speakers and turned the volume off.

  In the silence Barni said, with a brutal clarity, "Puss? Marilee? Come here, dears. Come take a look at this one."

  They came and sat close to her on her sun pad, all of them staring at Buster-Buddy-Sonny. "The type I was telling you about," Barni said. "One of the charmers that make life hell for a stewardess."

  "Now, don't you badmouth me, you purty thing," he said, grinning.

  Puss said, scowling, "I see. Of course. All that fatty look around the middle. And that big voice and those dim, nasty little eyes."

  "You funning me, you gals?" he asked, his smile fading a little.

  Marilee tilted her head. "Mmmm. The kind you don't dare turn your back on when you're on duty. A real snatch-ass Charlie."

  "They have this crazy dream, I guess," Barni said, "about how you're going to fall for all that meaty charm and go back to their hotel or motel and climb right into the sack. Can you imagine?"

  Puss shuddered delicately. "My God, darlings, suppose we were call girls or something and we had to sleep with one of those."

  "Eek!" said Marilee.

  Buster-Buddy-Sonny stood up and the three lovelies looked blandly up at him.

  "Coffee, tea or milk?" asked Barni.

  "You lousy little bitch!" said he.

  Puss laughed. "See? Just like you said, dear. Typical reaction. Look at how red his face is! Let me guess. He'll be bald in five years."

  "Four," said Marilee firmly.

  "He needs glasses already and won't wear them," said Barni.

  "He's going to grow an enormous belly," Puss said. "And fall over dead of a massive coronary occlusion when he's forty-five."

  "And when he falls over, it will bust his cigar and spill his bourbon."

  "And some sorry wretched woman is married to him.

  Barni shook her head. "No girl who ever spent any time as a stewardess would ever marry one of those. Look at that mouth on it! Imagine having to actually kiss something like that and pretend you were enjoying itl"

  "And look at the dirty fingernails, will you!"

  ***

  When Buster-Buddy-Sonny reappeared in view, he was eighty feet up the dock, walking briskly and not swinging his arms at all.

  "You girls need your mouths washed out with gin," Mick said. "That
was naughty."

  "A little friendly castration never hurt anybody," said Marilee.

  "Besides," said Puss, "we didn't touch on his really filthy habit. Given half a chance, do you know what that dreary bastard might do?"

  Marilee, with a dirty chuckle, leaned close to Puss and whispered to her. Puss shook her head and said, "Congratulations, sweetie. You must be leading a full life. But I meant something much worse than that."

  "Like what?" Barni asked, puzzled.

  "If you were ever stupid enough to let him get just a little bit past first base, that utter spook would stare right into your eyes and he would kind of gulp and look like a kicked dog and his voice would quiver and he'd say, 'Darlin', I love you.'"

  "He would! He would indeed!" cried Marilee. "The lowest of the low. He's the perfect type for it. A real rat-fink coward."

  Meyer came out of a long and somber contemplation, hunched like a hirsute Buddha, reached a slow ape arm and picked up his queen's bishop and plonked it down in what at first glance seemed like an idiotic place, right next to my center pawn. A round little lady who was one of his retinue that week beamed, clapped her hands and rattled off a long comment in German.