John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 05 - A Deadly Shade of Gold

by A Deadly Shade of Gold(lit)

  She lit two cigarettes and gave me one.

  "Are you tracking, Travis? Do you think you can understand what I tell you?" she asked.

  After a slow count of ten, I said, "Travis. My wallet?"

  "That's the way a snoopy woman amuses herself, Mr. McGee. It is now midnight, my dear. You were shot about twenty-two hours ago. I am sorry we had to bring you such a terrible distance. I wouldn't have taken the risk. But Paul gave the orders and did the driving. You are in a cabin which belongs to one of Paul's friends. It is near the San Bernadino National Forest, and not far from Toro Peak, and it is five thousand feet in the air. You've been winking off and on like a weak light. You've had a doctor. He's a good doctor, but he doesn't have a license in this country. He also is a friend of Paul's. He works for a vet in Indio.

  "He did a lot of prodding and disinfecting and stitching, and he put in some drains. He doesn't ask questions and he doesn't report gunshot wounds. He says you are fantastically tough, and you took the bullet in a very good place. If he had you in a hospital, he would open you up. And it may still come to that. We'll wait and see. He'll be back tomorrow. We have provisions, firewood, water and an old jeep. There isn't a living soul within six miles of us. You are not to move, for any reason. He gave you some shots. Paul went back. When you want the improvised bedpan, shout. It seems you might live. In the meantime, you are a big nuisance to everybody."

  I closed my eyes to think it over. I drifted away and came back.

  "Are you still there?"

  "I think so."

  "You can have some hot broth, if you think you can keep it down, and if I can make that damned wood stove work."

  "I could keep it down."

  She had to wake me up for the broth. She wanted to feed it to me, but after she got my head braced up, I was able to handle it.

  "What about... have they said anything? Have you heard any news?"

  "Strange news, Travis. Television executive slain in gun battle over beach girl, at millionaire's canyon home. Beauty contest winner slain by stray shot in bedroom gun battle. Charles "Chip" Fertacci, skin-diving instructor, held in connection with the dual slaying, found unconscious in bloody bedroom. All very sexy and rancid, dear."

  "No mystery guest sought?"

  "And no Venezuelan heiress either, according to the news. But they could be looking."

  "You can be damn well certain they are. What about Tomberlin?"

  "Oh, he's in the hospital. Smoke inhalation and nervous collapse after successfully fighting a fire that broke out mysteriously in his photo lab. It seems he is a hobby photographer. The official diagnosis is that it was some sort of spontaneous combustion of chemicals. Minor fire damage. No report of anything missing."

  "They don't tie it up with the other story at all?"

  "Just that it was a coincidence it happened the same night at the same house, and that Tomberlin's collapse might be partially due to shock and learning of the murders."

  "When is Paul going to come back?"

  "He didn't say. But he'll be back."

  I started to take the last sip of the broth, and without warning my teeth tried to chatter a piece out of the rim of the mug. My arm started twitching and leaping, and she reached and grabbed the mug. I slid down and curled up, wracked with uncontrollable chills. She tucked more blankets around me. Nothing helped.

  She went over and put logs on the fire, came back and took off the khaki jacket and came into the bunk with me. With tender and loving care, she wrapped me up in her arms, after unbuttoning the front of her pyjama coat to give more access to her body warmth. I got my arms around her, under the pyjama jacket, and held her close, my face in her sweet hot neck, shuddering and huffing and chattering. I was not a little old man. I had slipped back to about ten years old. I felt cold and scared and dwindled. This was the mama warmth, sweet deep musk of hearty breasts and belly, of big warm arms enclosing, and soft sounds of soothing, down in the nest of wool. At last the shudderings came less frequently. I was waiting for the next one when I toppled off into sleep.

  I awoke alone in stillness, red coals on the hearth, a white of moonlight patterning the rough floor. I listened until I found the slow heavy breathing mingled with that silence, and traced it, and found it came from above me. At the foot of the bunk I could make out the rungs of the ladder fastened there. I swung my legs up and sat up. At the count of three I made it to a standing position. I held onto the edge of the upper bunk. She had her back to me, pale curls on pale pillow. The khaki jacket was on the straight chair. I was nine feet tall, and I had been put together by a model airplane nut. I got the jacket on, realizing it was not a case of gaining strength, but merely using what I had for what I had to do, before the strength ran out.

  I made the door, opposite the fireplace. I leaned on the frame and slid the bolt over. It creaked as I let myself out. Porch boards creaked under my feet. There were no steps, just a drop of a few inches to stony ground. It was a pale landscape on the far side of the moon, sugar stones and a tall twist of pines and silence. Something far off made a sad sad cry.

  I braced my back against one of the four by fours that held up the porch roof. Huge and virile project for a hero. Relief in the night, a stream to arch and spatter, small boy's first token of virility. As I finished the porch creaked again and she said, "You fool! You absolute and utter idiot!"

  "How high are we?"

  "Five thousand feet. Come back inside."

  "What makes that mournful sound, Connie?"

  "Coyotes. Come back inside, you burro."

  "I can make it."

  But I probably wouldn't have. I put a lot of weight onto those big shoulders. She sat me down, took the jacket, swung my legs in, tucked me in.

  "If you want anything, wake me! Understand?" She laid the back of her hand on my head. She made a snort of exasperation and climbed back up her ladder. She flounced around up there, settling herself down.

  "McGee?"

  "Yes dear."

  "You are muy macho. You have to be the he-mule. Too much damned pride. That pride can kill you, the way you are now. Let me help you."

  "I'm not going to die."

  "How do you know?"

  "I keep remembering how you cured my chill. If I was going to die, I wouldn't have that on my mind."

  "God help us all. Go to sleep."

  The little doctor came in an old Ford in the late afternoon, roaring up the final grade in low. He had a leathery frog-face, and it was part of the deal that he did not give his name. He asked questions about fever, appetite, elimination. He inspected the wounds. He made clucking sounds of satisfaction. He bandaged again. He left more pills. He said he would be back. He would skip one day and then come back.

  On the following afternoon I was stretched out on a blanket on the side yard in my underwear shorts when I heard another car come up that last pitch. It sounded like more car than the little doctor had. Connie brought Dominguez and another man around the corner of the cabin and out to my blanket.

  "See him?" she said. "Disgusting. He said weak men have to have meat. I drove that foul jeep to Indio. I bought four steaks. He ate two for lunch."

  "How do you feel, amigo?" Paul asked.

  "Perforated."

  "Permit me to introduce Senor Ramon Talavera." Talavera was a slim dark-haired man, with a Spanish pallor, a dark and clerical suit. I hesitated and then held my hand out to him. His hesitation was longer than mine, and then he bent and took it.

  Paul turned to Connie. "If you don't mind, chica." She plumped herself down on the corner of the blanket, affixed her stretch-pants legs Buddha style and said defiantly, "I sure as hell do mind. What do you think I am? The criada around here?"

  Paul looked inquiringly at Talavera. The pale man gave a little nod of agreement. Paul got two fat unsplit chunks from the woodpile, and they used them like stools. Connie handed cigarettes around.

  Paul said, "It could be a mistake, but from what Connie said to me, I thought it would b
e wise to bring Ramon here to talk to you."

  I looked at the pale man and said, "You have my sympathy in the loss of your sister and your friends."

  "Thank you very much, sir."

  "I think I know what you want to know, Mr. Talavera. Tomberlin wanted to stop Mineros' activities. He knew that, because of past history, he could make Mineros lose his head if he could bring him face to face with Carlos Menterez. If Mineros killed Carlos and was caught, it solved the problem. If Carlos killed Mineros, it solved the problem. Tomberlin had two people planted down there. Miguel Alconedo, on Menterez's staff, and Almah Hichin, his mistress. I imagine he got word to them to try to take care of Mineros. Tomberlin used the collection of gold figures as a smoke screen. He is a very devious man. Almah Hichin talked Taggart into helping Miguel kill those four people. Then Tomberlin began to worry I think, about the reliability of Almah and Miguel. He sent people down-Fertacci and the beach girl-to deliver an order to Miguel to kill the Hichin woman and escape in the boat. They booby-trapped the boat. Tomberlin's orders were given through Claude Boody."

  "Who is dead," Talavera said gently. "We got word that one of the men who killed them was on the way up from Mexico to sell things to Tomberlin. We approached Tomberlin. He did not know anything about anything, but he promised to cooperate. When he was contacted, he let us know at once. We tricked the man out of the gold, but we missed him. When he made contact to sell the last piece, I had the honor of being selected to go and deal with him." He looked into my eyes. "I understand he was your friend?"

  "He was. He didn't know there would be a woman aboard. He had been sold an entirely false story about the whole thing. Almah Hichin was a sly woman. She made me believe she was telling me the whole truth by only telling me a part of it, in great detail."

  "Your friend, Taggart, tried to tell me these things, but it was too late by then. A sister can be the most special person one can have, Senor McGee."

  "He tried a bad gamble and it went wrong. There's been too much blood since then. It happened a long time ago, Talavera, and I have lost interest in it."

  "Thank you. These other things you say, are they guesses?"

  I held my hand out. "Boody burned my hand to be certain I was unconscious. But I wasn't. I listened to Boody talk to Fertacci about these things. I was able to fill in the blanks. I took a chance and knocked their heads together. I think Boody's heart gave out. The girl got a gun and started shooting at me. She missed with three shots from close range. I tried to knock her down with Boody's gun without killing her. But it threw high and to the right. So I disabled Fertacci and set the scene and let myself out. Neither Fertacci nor Boody nor the girl had the slightest idea who I could be. The girl remembered seeing me at Puerto Altamura. It made them very nervous. And I think that having Chip Fertacci in custody is going to make Tomberlin very nervous."

  "Bail was set at fifty thousand," Paul said, "and he was released today. I have a strong feeling that young man is going to disappear."

  Talavera got up quickly and walked away. He went about fifty feet and stood with his hands locked behind him, staring at Toro Peak.

  "The poor twisted son of a bitch," Paul said softly. "He thought you would want to try to kill him. If it's any consolation to you, McGee, you took a perfectly legal authorized official bullet in the back. I have my little sources. The gentleman who plugged you broke his cover by doing so. He was assigned to infiltrate Doctor Girdon Face's organization. He had the idea that Face was using Tomberlin's dirty pictures to extract contributions for the cause. When he found there was a fire aboard, and saw you running with sacks, he thought the fire was a coverup, and you were taking off with the files and record. It upset him because he was on the verge of getting a search warrant. Even though I... do a little work on the side for the same organization, I am glad that stuff got burned. It shouldn't sit in government file cabinets."

  "Pablo," I said, "now that we know where Tomberlin stands, I get confused by this relationship with Dr. Face."

  He gave a latin shrug. "Why should you be confused? Reasonable conservatism is a healthy thing. But that kind of poisonous divisionist hate-mongering Face has been preaching is one of the standard Communist techniques. If you create a radical right, their vicious nonsense pushes more people toward the radical left. Then-when fear pushes people into violence, or silence, the comrades enter and flourish. My friend, any way that they can make Americans hate Americans helps the cause. They would like to make Rockwell stronger too. That is the heart of contemporary propaganda, amigo, to strengthen ignorant terrible men who believe themselves to be perfect patriots.

  "Now Tomberlin's other activities begin to seem most curious too. Suppose there are three groups of Cuban exiles eager to hurt the Castro regime. Two are plausible, sane and orderly. One is reckless and wild and dangerous. Tomberlin strengthens the dangerous element, thus dividing the cause. Perhaps he is under orders. Perhaps he is merely a dilettante. The effect is the same."

  Ramon Talavera came back to the group.

  He sat down and studied his knuckles and said, "I can promise one thing. I can make them understand that Rafael's program was so effective, it had to be stopped by them, one way or another. When they understand that, they will take heart. It will all be organized again, stronger than before. I promise that."

  "Count me in," Connie said. "Count me in this time."

  Talavera smiled at her. "Of course. I will squeeze money out of you, Senora." The smile was gone abruptly. "And there is that one small thing left unfinished, Mr. McGee. I would have thought, when you had the chance... "

  "I had no taste for it. Not after that girl."

  "Of course. But I have made a personal vow. I shall not please myself by doing it myself. It was no pleasure, actually... that other time."

  "It never is," Paul said gently.

  "That man did not beg. I wanted him to beg. He merely fought. I think this might be a good time. While that man is still in the hospital. There is some sort of rupture of the diaphragm which they wish to mend. He has special nurses, of course. If one became busy on other matters, I believe a replacement could be arranged."

  Connie shivered, though the sun was hot. "Shall we drop it right there?"

  "Of course, Senora. Forgive me. I was merely saying that it is not remarkable when persons die in a hospital." He turned to Paul. "I will need help to continue Rafael's project. There can be money for staff salaries."

  "Let's talk about that while we're driving back." Connie walked off with Talavera. Pablo grinned at me.

  "So the adventurer has the woman and the gold and the healing wound, eh?"

  "Thanks for the help. The place and the doctor. And the nurse."

  "A little money was needed. I found it in your wallet and in your belt."

  "Let's not say it's all roses, Paul."

  "I did not imagine that it was. Is it ever? You add things in your mind and wonder where you are, and where you have been, and why. But you have much woman for a nurse, my friend. Sometimes a woman is a better solution than too much thinking. No one has yet tamed this one. But it is amusing to try, eh?"

  "Are they looking for her?"

  "Not seriously. What will you do now?"

  "Mend. Send her home. Go back where I came from."

  He shook my hand. "Goodby. I think you have done some good around here. I do not think you meant to do it. I think it was incidental to the gold. But some people will think of you with gratitude. Kiss Nita for me. And tell Raoul he is an ugly fellow."

  I heard their car leave. Connie came back. She sat on the blanket again, cocked her head, stared at me and sighed. "Your eyes look sad, querido."

  "I was doing some forlorn mathematics. Sam, Nora, Alma, Miguel, Dru, Boody Rafael, Enrique, Maria, Manuel. Ten. And three to go."

  "Three?"

  "Carlos Menterez, Chip Fertacci, Calvin Tomberlin. Thirteen, Constancia."

  "And almost you, darling. Two inches to the left, and it would be you too."

&
nbsp; "But who are the good guys and who are the bad guys?"

  "Darling, death does not make those distinctions. With your pale pale grey eyes, perhaps you are an angel of death. Perhaps you are the branch that breaks, the tire that skids, the stone that falls. Perhaps it is not wise to be near you."

  "You can leave."

  We glowered at each other, her eyes golden slits, her big mouth ugly, the cords of her neck tautened. She broke first, saying, "Ah, you are incredible. I have four and a half million of your dollars, and here I am cooking and sweeping, carrying wood, pumping water, making beds. Doesn't anything impress you?"