Frederick Zackel - Dead Wrong About the Guy

Ivy was both astonished and desperate. "What am I supposed to think now? How could you--demand--so much after such a short time together? How could you be so sure after such a short time together?"

I didn't know. "I just do."

"No shit?"

"No shit," I said. "Do you want the lights on or off?"

"Turn them off," Ivy said. "Let's celebrate."

The lights in my room went off.

Morning brought a blood-red sunrise over Maui. In the west a full moon was falling slowly into the sea. Ivy and I were finished with sex. Both of us were exhausted. Ivy took the nearest pillow and used it as a sponge to soak the sweat off her naked chest.

I looked over. "Finally-- Finally-- Have you had enough?

Ivy was exhausted. "Aw, god--. Yeah."

I stroked her thigh, then kissed it.

But then I got up and got out of bed.

Ivy almost panicked at the suddenness of my move.

"Where are you going?"

"The shower."

Ivy calmed. "Don't take too long."

An hour later I walked with Saundra Collins on the beach and told her, "A national park is just talk at this stage. There'll be a million public hearings before any decision will ever get contemplated."

"Because Smokey the Bear hates getting sued," Saundra said, grinning.

"A national park might be one alternative to more hotels."

Saundra picked up a seashell, rinsed it in the surf, then gave it to me. "A souvenir of Hawaii."

"Thanks. You're a beachcomber."

Saundra was gracious. "Thank you. That's just about the nicest thing anyone's said about me in years."

"D'you know the names of everything that washes up on the beach?"

Saundra laughed. "Not all of them, no. But most of them. Crazy, right?"

I didn't understand. "Why should that be crazy?"

Saundra focused on me. "Do you know the price of gold these days?" She indicated the seashell. "Well, what's the price of a seashell these days? When people lose their values, all they're left with is greed." She gestured at the whole wide world. "They think I'm crazy. I know they're crazy."

"That's the way you look at it."

"I won't look at it any other way. When I was growing up, my father used to tell people he didn't want to be the richest man in the cemetery."

"So what is important to you?"

"Living a good life."

"Have you had a good life so far?"

Saundra considered my question seriously. "I've been very lucky."

"Any family?"

Saundra nodded. "Oh, there's my husband and me. Our two boys are both grown men and moved away. A grandson and another one on the way--"

"What's your husband like?"

Saundra spoke carefully. "He's a good man. We've been married twenty-five years next month."

"And you still love him?"

"Oh yes. Very much."

I ate lunch in the Pier Inn and read a newspaper as I ate. Ivy came and joined me. Her eyes were wide and she seemed solemn. She had a brown paper bag in one hand.

"This morning, when you went in to take a shower, I needed a cigarette."

I said, "Yeah?"

"Your suitcase was opened." She opened the brown paper bag and showed me my Browning nine-millimeter. "I found your gun," she said.

"Thank you," I said. Casually I took the Browning from her and slipped it into my jacket pocket. I resumed reading and eating. But I wasn't reading anything and I wasn't tasting anything I was chewing. I may have looked calm and collected, but my mind was a roller coaster of conflicting emotions.

Ivy said, "After you dropped me off at my apartment, I followed you. With all the tourist traffic, staying close enough behind you not to lose you and far enough away not to be seen was easy."

I cursed myself for thinking I was in paradise.

"You stopped outside the Collins' processing plant. I saw you and Saundra Collins talking together on the docks. Then I watched you two walk away from the processing plant towards the beach, still talking together."

"We were talking about the national park."

She tapped the paper bag that held my gun. "You said National Park Service," Ivy said. "You said Smokey the Bear."

"People who cause forest fires oughta be shot."

Ivy snorted her disbelief and contempt for my answer. "Who are you?"

"Sometimes I get scared at night in a strange town. That's why I carry a gun."

"Then how do you know Flea Nichols?"

I had wary eyes. "The game's up?"

"Who are you?" Ivy insisted.

Go for it, I thought. See if you get away with it.

"I'm a collector of last resort," I explained. "I collect gambling debts. Football pools, mostly, but whatever else, too. A guy makes a bet in a bar about a football game, his team doesn't win, he has to pay off."

"He pays you?"

"I get twenty-five percent of whatever I collect."

"What about Corky Collins?"

"I'm just here to collect what he owes another guy."

"How come he hasn't paid you yet?"

I could be magnanimous. "He needs a couple days to get it together."

"Are you going to beat him up if he doesn't?"

"I don't beat people up. People pay off their gambling debts. It's a matter of pride. The principle of the thing."

"What if Corky doesn't pay you?"

"He'll pay me," I said.

Ivy was dubious. "Then what's the gun for?"

"I don't want to be robbed."

"What!"

"The money's not mine. If I'm robbed, I have to pay it back."

She stared into my eyes to read my soul.

"See, that's why I want us to start my life over. I don't want to do this shit no more. That's why I want us to work so well together."

She wasn't sure if she should be skeptical or not.

"If you think I'm lying, Ivy, there's no reason for us to stay together."

She loved me. She hugged me with all her heart and soul.

Me, I kept worrying.

Corky banged on the door like a deranged husband. When I let him in my room, he was livid with rage.

"What were you doing with my wife on the beach this morning?"

I amused. "Do I tell you how to do your job? Do I bother you when you're working?"

"You'll jeopardize everything!"

I stopped him. "It can go down tonight, if you're ready." Smiling: "It'll look like a robbery, a burglary gone bad. And you'll be down at the bowling alley having a beer."

"With Debra?"

I shrugged. "Sure. Why not?" I had a sudden thought and stopped. "Are you both planning to go somewhere together afterwards? Las Vegas or Acapulco or Paris? Maybe meet there, having come separate ways, under assumed names, and then celebrate together?"

Corky's guilty expression was enough to convict him.

I was ice-cold. "Don't."

Corky swallowed hard. "What do you want me to do tonight?"

An hour before twilight I stood on a deserted beach. I held my Browning like a crucifix. Flea was on the ridge above the beach with a pile of empty soda cans. I had my back to him.

I spoke to myself: "A professional calls his shots and then makes them." Then, calling to Flea: "Now!"

Flea threw an empty can down the rocky slope towards the beach.

I heard the clattering can, spun and fired once from the hip. The tin can was hit by my bullet, which sent the can flying.

"The longer I'm here," I said to myself, "the harder a clean hit becomes."

I turned my back and waited for Flea to throw the next tin can.

When it came clattering down the rocky slope, I fired again.

The tin can blew apart.

"And then there's Ivy," I said, and turned my back.

When Flea threw the next can down the rocky slope towards the beach, I watched the clattering can and fired my pistol from the waist. I shattered the can.

"I'll call her," I said, "tell her, gotta go, take care of yourself."

When Flea threw the last can down towards the beach, I heard the clattering can, spun around, aimed and fired. The can went flying, then landed among the other tin cans.