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

by Pale Gray for Guilt(lit)

  "And you are comparatively large but fair."

  "I think of myself that way. Where did the check go? Into the pocket so fast? Good." He looked at his watch. "I am taking a lady to lunch. Make a nice neat deck there, Captain." And away he went, humming.

  And not over four minutes later a half-familiar voice said, "McGee?" I looked up from the tricky bit of fitting the vinyl at the hatch corner and saw the three of them lined up on the dock staring at me without much affability or enthusiasm. Gary Santo on the left. Mary Smith in a bright orange mini-tent and a little-girl hat standing in the middle. A stranger on the right, medium tall, of that hunched, thin pallor that looks like sickness, even to the little watermelon pot, with a face like a bleached mole, glasses with massive black frames, a briefcase in hand.

  "Howdy do there, Gary boy," I said. "Miss Mary."

  "And this is Mr. D.C. Spartan, one of my attorneys. May we come aboard?"

  "Why, surely. Please do."

  I took them into the lounge. There was no handshaking going on. I excused myself and went and washed the grime off my hands, pulled the sweaty T-shirt off, swabbed chest, neck and shoulders with a damp towel, put on a fresh white sports shirt and rejoined them, saying, "Coffee, folks? Booze?"

  "No thanks," said Santo.

  Spartan said, in a voice like a talking computer with a slight honk in the speaker system, "It might be advisable for you to have your attorney present, if you could reach him quickly."

  "Now what would I need lawyers for? Somebody suing me?"

  "Don't get so damned cute!" Santo said. His face looked slightly mottled and puffy, as if the facials' weren't working well lately.

  "Please, Mr. Santo," Spartan said. "Mr. McGee, we are facing what might shape up into a very exhaustive investigation of Mr. Santo's role in the speculation in Fletcher Industries. And it may well become necessary to have you testify as to your part in bringing this... uh... investment opportunity to Mr. Santo's attention."

  "There seems to be an unfounded opinion that Mr. Santo knew of the precarious condition of Fletcher Industries and conspired to run the stock up, and then short it, and that this scheme was interrupted by the suspension of trading in Fletcher common. To show Mr. Santo's good faith, we will have to subpoena your trading records and show that you had taken a position in Fletcher and then went to Mr. Santo to elicit his interest, and that Mr. Santo then made a cursory investigation of the company's condition before beginning a very active trading in the common stock."

  I shook my head. "Mr. Spartan, you lost me there somewhere. I never bought a share of Fletcher. I don't own any stock at all. Never have."

  "Come off it, friend," Santo said in an ugly way. "You better be able to show me you took a real good bath in Fletcher. You better be able to show me you got stung."

  "I've never owned a share of stock in my life!"

  Spartan looked sad. He dug into the briefcase. He took out the stapled Xerox copies of the fake margin account with Shutts, Gaylor, Stith and Company. "Come now, Mr.. McGee! Surely you know that your account records can be subpoenaed from the brokerage house."

  I looked at them and handed them back. "I'd say that's going to be a very confused bunch of brokers, folks. If I had to guess, I'd say these were Xerox copies of some kind of forgery, or there's somebody else with my name. I just don't know what the hell you're talking about."

  "But Miss Smith can testify to what you told her and to you giving her the originals to Xerox. Do you actually want to deny that you went to Mr. Santo's offices and talked about this whole matter to Miss Smith?"

  "Oh, I went there all right. I didn't have any appointment, and I had a hard time getting to talk to anybody, even this pretty little quail. Now, I suppose whatever we said was taped, just as a matter of convenience, you know, for reference. But I don't think you can introduce that kind of a tape, and even if you can, it would have to be the whole tape, not just some edited parts of it."

  "There is a tape, of course," Spartan said. "And we can prove it predates Mr. Santo's interest in Fletcher common."

  "Spartan," said Gary Santo, "I think this son of a bitch is too cute. I think he was working for somebody. I think he was setting me up."

  "Sometimes I work for people," I said. "But not for long. Mary, you remember the long talk we had about that Gary's parcel he holds up there in Shawana County under the name of Southway Lands, Inc.?"

  "What?" she said. "There wasn't anything like that."

  "But, honey, you confirmed the rumor that Southway was going to sell out to Calitron for a nice price, if a fellow up there by the name of LaFrance could assemble the rest of the acreage."

  "But what are you trying to do to me?" she asked.

  "Say! If I've spilled the beans and gotten you into some kind of trouble or anything... I guess we didn't talk about it up in the offices. That was later, honey."

  "We never talked about that!"

  I shook my head. "But you told me how Bannon got through to you, and you had a drink with him at the airport, and he told you how he was being squeezed and wanted Santo's help, and you decided you couldn't take a little thing like that to Mr. Santo and waste his time with a little guy who got caught in the middle."

  She caught her little lip in her teeth the same way she had when talking to Tush.

  I continued. "Remember, honey? You said that you thought Mr. Santo had mentioned how, up in the hotel penthouse in Atlanta, LaFrance had tried to get Santo to buy Bannon out and Santo told LaFrance that it was his problem and he should handle it? That was the same night you told me you'd give me a clean bill with Santo."

  I moved just fast enough. Santo got up and got over to her and got his hand back for a slap that would have loosened her teeth. I caught his wrist. The position gave me very nice leverage. I swung the wrist back and over and down and ended up in about the same position as a pitcher after letting go of his best fast ball. Santo boomed into the yellow couch hard enough to snap his head back and then bounced forward onto his hands and knees on the rug.

  "Now just a minute. Gentlemen! Just a minute?" Spartan said.

  Santo shook his dazed head. I picked him up by the nape of the neck and sat him on the couch.

  I stood in front of him and said, "Fun time is over, Gary baby. I didn't get a damned word of this from pretty-bit over there. She's devoted. She's energetic. She just never got a chance to get close to me. I made sure of that. Tush Bannon was a damned good friend. Your pressure, second-hand, drove him into the ground. And it went a little wrong up there and they went further than they had to and killed him." He stared up at me, very attentive.

  "I squashed LaFrance. I would have squashed you too if I could have figured a way. But you're too big and too spread out. All I could do was sting you a little."

  "A little?" he said wonderingly. "A little? You cut my venture capital right down to the nub, friend. You fixed me so I'm associated with any new stock issue and it never gets off the ground. Sting me a little! God damn you, I might never take up the slack you put in me. And all of this was over some... dreary little smalltime buddy of yours?"

  I leaned over and slapped his face sideways and backhanded it back to center position.

  "Manners," I said.

  I moved back to give him a chance to come off the couch. He thought it over. Then he took out a frostywhite handkerchief and patted the corner of his mouth and examined the dappling of blood.

  I turned to Spartan. "Tell him how he stands if it checks out that I've never owned a share of Fletcher."

  "Well... it would eliminate one possible way to ease the present situation."

  I turned back to Santo and looked for that tinge of gray under the barbered, lotioned, international complexion. Saw a little. Not like LaFrance. Saw enough of it, and enough slump of resignation. He dabbed at his mouth again and got up.

  "Come on, Spartan," he said. He stopped so close in front of Mary Smith's chair there was not room for her to get out of it.

  "You're fired, you s
tupid bitch!"

  "But you heard him say I didn't-"

  "You didn't do what you're overpaid to do, which is to stick close and check every little thing out. You could have saved me going into the tank for enough to buy five thousand of you for a lifetime. And that makes you too damned expensive. I'll have your office stuff packed and dropped off at your place. I'll have your check mailed. I couldn't look at you again without feeling sick."

  "Gary, you just don't know how mutual that feeling is."

  His arm came halfway up. "Uh uh!" I said. He lowered it and left swiftly. Spartan hurried behind him, and gave me a single despairing glance as he left.

  She slumped in the chair. "Hooo, boy." she said wearily. "They told me there'd be days like this." She gave me a look through the emerald lenses. "Thanks heaps, McGee."

  "I didn't exactly intend it that way Mary Smith."

  "But that seems to be the way it is. In many respects that was a very very very nice job, lad. It did have its cruddy intervals. You know, I didn't realize how much enjoyment I'd get out of seeing the great Gary Santo get clouted around. Funny. In three years he's popped me in the face three times. And I told myself that one more time, brother, and that's it. Would I have quit, though? I wonder? I am going to believe I would."

  "Will he send any muscle around to teach me I can't do that?"

  She looked at me, head cocked, wearing a little frown. "I'd say not. I mean if he thought you were absolutely alone in this, I think he would. But when he thinks it over, he's not going to believe that a person of your type could con him so completely. He'll think you're a front man, and I think he'll leave well enough alone. Besides, he's got a lot to think about."

  "Do you think I'm a front man?"

  "I am inclined to doubt it somehow. How about buying an unemployed girl a drink and then some lunch? You know. Like no hard feelings. You know, this is quite a setup you've got here, McGee. I couldn't tell much from the outside that time."

  "Bourbon straight, water with no ice on the side?"

  "Exactly."

  As I was fixing the drinks Johnny Dow hallooed and stuck my mail under the corner of the deck mat. I gave her her drink and went out and brought the mail in, flipped through the customary junk and came upon an airmail one from Chicago in Puss's broad, round scrawl.

  "Excuse a little mail-reading?"

  "Sure. I'll just sit here and plan my future."

  Old dear darling, I said one time that I would write it down to get it straight for you, and so I have and even have the eerie idea you might be able to read all the words between the words. The name was right. I lied about that. But the town wasn't, and Chicago isn't the town either. And there was no divorce. And I love Paul very dearly and have all along, and love you too, but not quite as much. That lousy Meyer and his lousy Law. Get a pretty girl to kiss Old Ugly and tell him he was absolutely right. You see, my dear, about six months before you met me on the beach with that living pincushion stuck into the sole of my foot, they took a little monster out of my head, maybe as big as an English walnut almost, and with three stumpy little legs like a spider. Half a spider. And the men in white dug around in my head to try to find every little morsel of the beast, because he turned out to be the bad kind. So... I got over confusions and got my memory all straightened out again, and my hair grew back, and I pinned an old buddy of mine to the wall of his office and he leveled because he has known me long enough to know I have enough sawdust to keep me solid. His guess was one chance out of fifty. No treatments possible. Just go off and get checked every so often, bright lights in the eyes, stand and touch the tip of your nose with your fingertip while keeping the eyes closed. That stuff. And pens drawing lines on little electric charts. I could accept it, my dear, because life is very iffy and I have busied up my years in good ways. But I could not accept the kind of life that went with the waiting. Dear as Paul is, he is a sentimental kraut type, and we had the awareness of the damned time bomb every waking moment. So life became like a practice funeral, with too many of our friends knowing it, and everybody trying to be so bloody sweet and compassionate during a long farewell party. I began to think that if I lucked out, I'd be letting them down. So I finally told Paul that if it was the end of my life, it was getting terribly damned dreary and full of violin music, and I am a random jolly type who does not care to be stared at by people with their eyes filling with tears. So I cashed in the bonds for the education of the children I'll never have, and I came a-hunting and I found you. Was I too eager to clamber into the sack? Too greedy to fill every day with as much life as would fit into it? Darling, I am the grasshopper sort, and so are you, and, bless you, there were dozens of times every day I would completely forget to sort of listen to what might be happening inside my redheaded skull. Be glad you jollied and romped the redheaded lady as she was coming around the clubhouse turn, heading for the tape. She loved it. And you. And how good we were together, in a way that was not a disloyalty to Paul! He is one of the dogged and steadfast ones. Can you imagine being married, dear, to Janine, great as she is, and having her know you could be fatally ill? She would mother you out of your mind until you ran. As I ran. But there was the little nagging feeling I was having it all too good. I kept telling myself, Hell girl, you deserve it. And then hairy old Meyer and his damned Law about the hard thing to do is the right thing to do. I suppose you have been wondering about me and maybe hating me a little. I had to run from you exactly when I did and how I did, or I couldn't have left at all. You see, the dying have a special obligation too, my dear. To keep it from being too selfish. I was depriving Paul of his chance of being with me, because it is all he is going to have of me... all he did have of me, and I was forgetting that I had to leave him enough to last him long enough to get him past the worst of it at least. The darling has not done the interrogation bit, and if he thinks or doesn't think there was a man in the scene, I couldn't really say. You would like each other. Anyway, the female of the species is the eternal matchmaker, and I have written the longest letter of my life to Janine, all full of girl talk, and about living and dying, and I have, I hope, conned her into spinning a big fancy pack of lies about the Strange Vacation of Puss Killian, because I am leaving her name and address with Paul, saying that she could tell him how I was and what happened among people who didn't know. It is a devious plot, mostly because they would work well. He is a research chemist, and perhaps the kindest man alive. Anyway, last week all of a sudden the pupil of my big gorgeous left eye got twice as big as it should, and they have been checking and testing and giving me glassy smiles, and I am mailing this en route to the place where they are going to open a trap door and take another look. So they may clap the lid back on and say the hell with it. Or they may go in there and without meaning to, speed me on my journey, or they may turn me into a vegetable, or they may manage to turn me back into me for another time, shorter or longer. But from the talk around the store, the odds on that last deal make the old odds seem like a sure thing bet. Do you understand now? I'm scared. Of course I'm scared. It's real black out there and it lasts a long time. But I have no remorses, no regrets, because I left when I had to, and Meyer got me back in good season. Don't do any brooding because if I can try to be a grownup, you ought to be able to take a stab at it. Here's what you do, Trav my darling. Find yourself a gaudy random gorgeous grasshopper wench, and lay aboard the Plymouth and the provisions, and go fun-timing and sun-timing up and down the lovely bays. Find one of good appetite and no thought of it being for keeps, and romp the lassie sweetly and completely, and now and again, when she is asleep and you are awake, and your arms are around her and you are sleeping like spoons, with her head tucked under your ugly chin, pretend it is...

  Puss, who loved you.

  "Is something wrong?" a voice said.

  I looked at Mary Smith, realizing that it was not the first time she had asked me.

  "Wrong? No. Just a letter from an old friend."

  "You looked funny."

  "I guess
it was... because the old friend decided to cancel an old debt." I got up and got the bottle and refilled her shot glass.

  She lifted it in toast. "Here's to vacations without pay. Oh, Christ, that was such a great job! Such a sweet lush life, dear. But you know, sometimes you get an instinct. I think other things are going to go bad for Santo. I think he's going to strain too hard to catch up, and he'll choke, and he'll lose his style, and in a couple of years he'll be one of those whatever-happened-to people."

  Puss's letter said, It's real black out there and it lasts a long time."

  I could feel my heart fall. It dropped a certain distance and there it would stay.