The top bills had begun to curl and change color. A first little wisp of smoke rose from them.
"You've got an interesting way of bargaining, boy"
"Throw me a more important stack, Mr. Yeoman, and I'll aim a little better next time."
"Money don't mean a goddamn thing to you, eh?"
"I am very fond of it. I'm a little particular about the way it's offered."
We sat in silence. I couldn't read his face or those Indian eyes. The corner of the top bill blackened and a little necklace of red sparks began to eat a semicircular hole into it.
"My God, you're a stiff-necked son of a bitch, McGee."
"I said that according to local ground rules, apparently I have to join up somewhere. I didn't say I was for sale."
After a long time he got up and shuffled over to the hearth. He picked up the money by the cool end and slapped the sparks out against his pants, leaving a black smudge. He walked over to me. "I've got your name right? Travis?"
"Trav, usually."
He placed the money carefully on the leather arm of the chair. "Trav, if you'd like to help out a little, I'd be pleased to have you. Kindly accept this little token of my affection and esteem. If I was twenty years younger, we'd go on out into the side yard and bloody each other up for about forty minutes. That's the only way to get to be friends with a son of a bitch like you."
He went back to his chair and picked his glass up.
I put the money into the inside pocket of my jacket after slipping the charred bill out. I tore the charred corner off it and put the bill in my wallet. As though there had been no interruption, I told him all I knew about it thus far. I ended by saying, "Buckelberry didn't tell you because he thought you'd turn into a crazy man.
"Was it a sane man buried that bull jack under an Irish linen handkerchief?"
"Sane in a sense she might have understood, Jass."
"If I go crazy it is going to be from wondering who did it and why."
"She told me she was aware of being followed lately. She thought you were responsible."
"Me? Hell no!"
"Two men questioned her maid about her, the one who quit to get married."
"Dolores. Dolores Canario. Let me see. It's something else now. Estobar. Mrs. Juan Estobar. What the hell would they be after Dolores for?"
"Questions about your wife's personal finances. Dolores and your wife wondered if you were trying to find out if she had squirreled enough away to run away on."
"Son, that is a question I would never have to ask. I learned not to let her have any charge accounts. She got her fifteen hundred personal money the first of every month, and there wasn't a thing she had to use it for, and she was broke by the fifteenth regular."
"So somebody questioned Dolores."
"It sounds to me like a tax investigation, asking that kind of question. When they are working up a case against you on a balance sheet basis, they have to figure what you spend to live. Understand?"
"Not very well. I'm sorry"
"Trav, suppose you were worth a hundred thousand dollars ten years ago. Suppose today you're worth six hundred thousand. Suppose, every year, your net after taxes was fifty thousand. Suppose it cost you thirty thousand to live. Okay, your net worth should be three hundred thousand, not six hundred thousand. So they can build the case and come at you and say that you had three hundred thousand in income you didn't report. Fraud. There's no statute of limitations on that, boy. They can go back to 1913, the year the act was passed. God damn it, I thought I was in perpetual audit and all clean. But it sounds like they're whipping up a little surprise for me. And it can be a surprise, son. They can spend two years working up their case, and you get two months preparing a defense. You know. Funny thing."
"What?"
"I'm trying to get steamed up and I can't. I should go right over to that phone and call Charlie Baker and roust him out and have him check his contacts and find out what they're up to. But I can't seem to give that much of a damn. A tax mess right now would raise hell with a lot of things. But I can't get myself agitated."
"Jass, could they develop a case on that basis?"
He gave me a long slow smile. "They sure as hell could, son. I've been half expecting it for years."
"Could it be based, in whole or in part, on your taking over that estate?"
"Son, the way I picked up the money Cube left scattered here and there, I couldn't exactly declare it as income, could I?"
"Mazzari told me today that she was in such a romantic condition, she would have hurt you if she could, and been damned sorry later."
He started to ask me what I meant and then realized what I meant. "By God, if they'd got around to sitting her down and taking a statement, and she'd given them that big detailed gripe about what happened to this and to that her dear daddy left her, I would have been in the sorry-sling for sure."
"Don't misunderstand me, but doesn't that give you a motive?"
He looked at me in a way which made me glad I would never have the job of quieting him down-twenty years ago-or now. He had the look of the long hard bones, the meat tight against them, laid on in the long flat webs of hard muscle, ancient meat of the western rider, sunbaked, fibrous and durable. He had made trouble in a lot of far places and settled it his way, or he wouldn't have lasted. Cube Fox and Jass Yeoman must have been quite a pair.
"I am misunderstanding you too damn fast," he said in a deadly whisper.
"So fast you're not thinking clearly. If it would give you a motive, it would give somebody else a motive, somebody whose welfare is very closely tied to yours, somebody who would go down if they topple you, Jass."
I saw him work at the anger, pushing it back and down, tucking it away. He frowned. "I go it pretty much alone, son."
"You said you were like that clown with all the dishes spinning on the end of sticks."
"Right about now. Yes. Because I've been unloading things. You want to sell something, you have to pretty it up some. You have to throw money into it to make it look smart and peppy. Like you take an old house, you want to sell it good, you put in a new kitchen to knock the breath out of a woman so she can't even hear her husband talking about dry rot in the sills. In about four ventures I've been digging deep into working capital to fancy them up. I figured to come out of it in a year maybe, with just the horse ranch which damn near pays out by itself, and this house, and about a six or seven million liquid condition which would give me a borrowing power of that plus five times that amount, and I had it in mind to put all them eggs into one basket by taking over control of a very nice little company which I don't even whisper out loud to myself, son. They've got basic patents in about five different areas of the mining industry, and about twenty million cash reserve and nothing but a short-term debt structure. I'm getting too slow for all the wheeling and dealing and I figured to get me my own personal mint. I've got some bright boys working on all the angles of it, but nobody has a piece of the action."
"Okay. When we talk about power, we talk about power vacuums, too. Who runs things around here? Beside you?"
"I guess it would be the boys around the Wednesday poker table at the Cottonwood Club. Boone Kendrick, Joe Gay, Tom O'Dell, Fish Ellery, Jaimie DeVrees, Paul Tower. And maybe two that don't play. Wally Rupert and Sonny Madero. Between us we got the whole ball of wax, mining, banks, newspaper, radio and television, cattle, real estate, transportation, construction, housing, power and light. A couple hundred others fight for the scraps left over. I am fixing to stick some of those boys with the items I want to unload."
"Mazzari said Rupert was a partner of yours."
He raised one eyebrow. "Son, it's not that close. He still has small pieces of two things, and when I get those peddled, we'll be finally unlatched."
"But it was a lot closer than that?"
"Lord yes! We were in there, sweating and scratching, shoulder to shoulder for a long time." He gave a mirthless laugh. "We used up half our working time watching each oth
er. We got hooked up together out of desperation, you might say. And when we got well, it was a delicate chore getting unhooked without getting gutted. We're both loners."
"Jass, all I can do is talk off the top of my head. Sometimes an outsider can see things in a different way. You can tell me if this question is nonsense. If Mona had given a detailed statement to the Internal Revenue people, and if you were indicted for fraud an that balance sheet basis you talked about, would you have to prove that the stolen money went into joint ventures you and Rupert were operating in order to keep from taking the whole rap?"
He stared at me. He knocked the drink off and got up and moved slowly to the bar. He started to fix his drink, turned and stared at me. "Not Wally, son. Not him. Get that out of your head."
"Jass, if they are slowly building up a case, would it be logical for them to contact Wally Rupert?"
"I don't know. They might. They might not."
"If they did contact him, he would get the idea they were after you, and he should let you know, shouldn't he?"
"By God, he would!"
"You talked about Charlie somebody, with good contacts. What if Charlie found out Rupert had been contacted, interviewed, and had said nothing to you? Would that mean anything, Jass?"
He finished fixing the drink. "He would be anxious to cover himself. Christ, we've got it all buried pretty damned well. It was years ago. A lot of the people involved have died off. Some of it was pretty raw, but what could they prove?"
"Raw?"
He sat down, looking uncomfortable. "As executor, I'd sell a hunk of Cube's land to the XYZ Corporation for fifty thousand. XYZ would be Wally and me, but not on the records. XYZ would hold it and resell it to ABC later on for forty-five thousand. That would still be Wally and me. Then we'd sell it to somebody who was really hot after it. We'd sell it for say fifty thousand again, having sort of established that price on it, and take fifty thousand over the table, and a hundred thousand underneath."
"How much did it all amount to, Jass?"
"Understand, son, I was scrambling for my life, and so was Wally. We'd made it from nothing, and we were set to lose it all because we didn't have the cash to protect ourselves."
"How much was involved?"
He waited so long I didn't think he was going to answer. "Call it a million four, boy. I came out with about seven-eight hundred thousand. Wally got maybe four hundred. The rest went for expenses and a little gift money here and there, where it was needed. But you understand we didn't see it right off. We had to use it to bail with to keep from sinking, and it didn't really come back to us until we were over the hump. You know, we could have thrown all that in and still gone broke. But once things paid off all right, then we had that much extra."
"Could Mona have made any statement about Rupert being in on it?"
"She could have got it from Mazzari. There's a bright boy. Mona, one time when we were screaming at each other a couple months back, seemed to mention something about Rupert and me being a pair of thieves. I needed Rupert. All by myself I couldn't have put up enough smoke screen. But he had so many things going for him, we could shove papers around until sometimes even we couldn't figure out how we'd worked it. I want to tell you one thing, Trav."
"Yes?"
"I played it close and I played it sharp. But that is the one and only damn time in my life I stole. I plain had no other choice. The money was there. And I knew that if Cube knew the whole thing, he would have said go ahead, because he would have known I'd never let Mona want for a thing, no matter what."
He smiled. It was half grimace. "But I know damned well I've got to call Charlie Baker, just to prove we're wasting our time wondering about Wally." He stood up. "Come look at my new phone gadget."
I went to the desk with him. There was an important-looking box affixed to the phone, constructed as a part of it. He fingered through a small file, picked out a plastic card, shoved it into a slot and pressed a button. The phone briskly dialed a ten-digit number.
When the operator inquired, he gave her his number. He gave me a shark grin. "They make it impossible for a man to call a friend long distance, then they lease you a gadget makes it almost as easy as it used to be. Fix a drink and go on over and set, boy."
He had one of those special mouthpieces on the phone which made it impossible for anyone in the room to hear his end of the conversation. He talked for about five minutes. He came back and said, "Charlie'll find out. He likes to make it sound impossible. That's so it'll look as if he's earning his money. When he gives me the facts, he'll sound as if he risked his whole career to do me a favor."
"What's Wally Rupert like?"
"He's sixty now. You talk about feudal. Now there is one feudal son of a bitch, believe me. He don't have five friends in the world, but he's sure God got enough family to make up for it. He's gone deep into the service industries these past few years. Dealerships, laundries, hotels and motels, shopping centers. And the old bull-boar has been breeding his own labor supply. His old spread, eleven miles north of here, it's got so many houses on it now they call it Rupertville. He married young. Married Helen Holmes and had six kids by her. When she died, he married her kid sister, Catherine. Catherine was widowed and had two of her own. He took her two in, and bred her for five more. Twelve years. ago, after Catherine died-neither of those Holmes girls were strong-Wally married a seventeen-year-old Mexican gal who worked on the place. Rosa. Little round gal, all tits and big shiny black eyes, and he's had nine young off her at last count. I'd say the oldest boy must be about thirty-nine now, and the youngest maybe three or four months. Twenty of his own, and two step-kids. You take all the wives and husbands and kids and grandkids, Wally must have seventy-five kin out there, and maybe thirty or forty working around the place. And if he gives one little belch, the whole crew leaps into the air and lands looking busy. He's the he-coon out there. Pillar of the church. He's a tough, smart old boy, broad as a barn door, belly like a boulder. But he sure God ain't social. If he speaks to you, it's like it hurts his mouth. Back in the old days, when Cube and I were ripping and snorting around, Wally was behaving himself and quietly piling up the kids and the money. But like I said, if it hadn't been for Cube's estate, we'd have both sunk without a trace back there. No, boy, it couldn't have been Wally having anything to do with this."
He kept telling me that. But he kept talking about Wally. And he kept drinking. As he got drunk he spoke with more precision and walked more carefully and steadily to the bar each time.
As he let me out, he said, "You tried to kick that money into the fire?"
"I tried."
"What if it had gone right on in?"
"It would have been something to remember, I guess."
He chopped at my shoulder with a weathered fist. "It is anyway, son. It is anyway. We got you signed up. You poke around. So will I."
Seven
I FOUND the small house of Juan Estobar on a quiet street in the heat of the mid-morning. It was a small frame house, freshly painted pink and white, set close to the uneven sidewalk. Under the shade of big dusty trees, some frail blades of grass struggled up through the packed dirt. There was new aluminum furniture on the screened porch. The houses were set close. There were many small children at play, birds noisy in the trees, many sounds of music and morning television drama.
Dolores Estobar came to the screened door and looked out at me questioningly. She looked at me with frank female appraisal. She was in her middle twenties, dark and slender and very pretty. She wore navy blue bermudas and a roomy pink smock plumped with an obvious pregnancy.
"Did you want something?"
"Are you Dolores Estobar?"
"Yes, why?"
"My name is McGee. I'd like to talk to you about Mona Yeoman."
"Listen, you people have got to stop bothering me."
"It isn't like that this time."
"Then what is it like?"
"If you want to phone Mr. Yeoman, he'll ask you, as a favor to him,
to talk to me for a little while, if you aren't too busy right now."
"I wouldn't know where to begin to look for her."
"You know she's gone, then?"
"Well, I guess about everybody knows that by now. About nineteen people have made a real point of telling me about it-that she took off with that Mr. Webb the day before yesterday. Mister, they don't need any newspapers in this town. I didn't know she was actually going to do that. I couldn't tell you a thing."
"There's a couple of other things I wanted to ask you about."
"Well... I was just ironing some. You come on in."
The furniture was bright and new, the small house extraordinarily neat. The kitchen was unexpectedly huge, and it looked like a demonstration kitchen, crammed with every electric gadget known.
John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 03 - A Purple Place For Dying Page 10
