John MacDonald - The Good Old Stuff

“Where would he have gone to find that other girl?”

“I think he came out of here, and it was just beginning to get dark, and he looked from the parking lot and saw the lights of the Tide Table up the road, and it was just as easy to walk as drive.”

Darrigan nodded. “That would make sense. Is it a nice place, that Tide Table?”

“A big bar and bathhouses and a dance floor and carhops to serve greasy hamburgers. It doesn’t do this section of the beach much good.”

“Was Davisson dressed right for that kind of a place?”

“I don’t know. He had on a white mesh shirt with short sleeves and tan slacks, I think. Maybe he had a coat in his car. He didn’t wear it in here. The rules here say men have to wear coats in the bar and dining room after November first.”

“That Mrs. Marrick wouldn’t have met him outside, would she?”

“Not her. No, sir. She rents one of our cabañas here.”

“Did she notice him?”

“I’d say she did. You can’t fool Kathy Marrick.”

Darrigan knew that Teddy could add nothing more. So Darrigan switched the conversation to other things. He made himself talk dully and at length so that when Teddy saw his chance, he eased away with almost obvious relief. Darrigan had learned to make himself boring, merely by relating complicated incidents which had no particular point. It served its purpose. He knew that Teddy was left with a mild contempt for Darrigan’s intellectual resources. Later, should anyone suggest to Teddy that Darrigan was a uniquely shrewd investigator, Teddy would hoot with laughter, completely forgetting that Darrigan, with a minimum of words, had extracted every bit of information Teddy had possessed.

Darrigan went out to the desk and asked if he might see Mrs. Marrick. The girl went to the small switchboard and plugged one of the house phones into Mrs. Marrick’s cabaña. After the phone rang five times a sleepy, soft-fibered voice answered.

He stated his name and his wish to speak with her. She agreed, sleepily. Following the desk girl’s instructions, Darrigan walked out the beach door of the lobby and down a shell walk to the last cabaña to the south. A woman in a two-piece white terry-cloth sun suit lay on an uptilted Barwa chair in the hot sun. Her hair was wheat and silver, sun-parched. Her figure was rich, and her tan was coppery. She had the hollowed cheeks of a Dietrich and a wide, flat mouth.

She opened lazy sea-green eyes when he spoke her name. She looked at him for a long moment and then said, “Mr. Darrigan, you cast an unpleasantly black shadow on the sand. Are you one of the new ones with my husband’s law firm? If so, the answer is still no, in spite of the fact that you’re quite pretty.”

“I never heard of you until ten minutes ago, Mrs. Marrick.”

“That’s refreshing, dear. Be a good boy and go in and build us some drinks. You’ll find whatever you want, and I need a fresh gin and tonic. This glass will do for me. And bring out a pack of cigarettes from the carton on the bedroom dressing table.”

She shut her eyes. Darrigan shrugged and went into the cabaña. It was clean but cluttered. He made himself a rum collins, took the two drinks out, handed her her drink and a pack of cigarettes. She shifted her weight forward and the chair tilted down.

“Now talk, dear,” she said.

“Last Friday night at about eight thirty you were alone in the bar and a bald-headed man with a deep tan sat at the bar. He was interested in you.”

“Mmm. The missing Mr. Davisson, eh? Let me see now. You can’t be a local policeman. They all either look like full-backs from the University of Florida or skippers of unsuccessful charter boats. Your complexion and clothes are definitely northern. That might make you FBI, but I don’t think so somehow. Insurance, Mr. Darrigan?”

He sat on a canvas chair and looked at her with new respect. “Insurance, Mrs. Marrick.”

“He’s dead, I think.”

“His wife thinks so too. Why do you?”

“I was alone. I’m a vain creature, and the older I get the more flattered I am by all little attentions. Your Mr. Davisson was a bit pathetic, my dear. He had a lost look. A... hollowness. Do you understand?”

“Not quite.”

“A man of that age will either be totally uninterested in casual females or he will have an enormous amount of assurance about him. Mr. Davisson had neither. He looked at me like a little boy staring into the candy shop. I was almost tempted to help the poor dear, but he looked dreadfully dull. I said to myself, Kathy, there is a man who suddenly has decided to be a bit of a rake and does not know just how to go about it.”

“Does that make him dead?”

“No, of course. It was something else. Looking into his eyes was like looking into the eyes of a photograph of someone who has recently died. It is a look of death. It cannot be described. It made me feel quite upset.”

“How would I write that up in a report?”

“You wouldn’t, my dear. You would go out and find out how he died. He was looking for adventure last Friday night. And I believe he found it.”

“With a girl with dark hair?”

“Perhaps.”

“It isn’t much of a starting place, is it?” Darrigan said ruefully.

She finished her drink and tilted her chair back. “I understand that the wife is young.”

“Comparatively speaking. Are you French?”

“I was once. You’re quick, aren’t you? I’m told there’s no accent.”

“No accent. A turn of phrase here and there. What if the wife is young?”

“Call it my French turn of mind. A lover of the wife could help your Mr. Davisson find... his adventure.”

“The wife was with a group all evening.”

“A very sensible precaution.”

He stood up. “Thank you for talking to me.”

“You see, you’re not as quick as I thought, Mr. Darrigan. I wanted you to keep questioning me in a clever way, and then I should tell you that Mr. Davisson kept watching the door during his two drinks, as though he were expecting that someone had followed him. He was watching, not with worry, but with... annoyance.”

Darrigan smiled. “I thought you had something else to tell. And it seemed the quickest way to get it out of you, to pretend to go.”

She stared at him and then laughed. It was a good laugh, full-throated, rich. “We could be friends, my dear,” she said, when she got her breath.

“So far I haven’t filled in enough of his day. I know what he did up until very early afternoon. Then there is a gap. He comes into the Aqua Azul bar at eight thirty. He has had a few drinks. I like the theory of someone following him, meeting him outside. That would account for his leaving his car at the lot.”

“What will you do now?”

“See if I can fill in the blanks in his day.”

“The blank before he arrived here, and the more important one afterward?”

“Yes.”

“I’m well known up and down the Gulf beaches, Mr. Darrigan. Being with me would be protective coloration.”

“And besides, you’re bored.”

“Utterly.”

He smiled at her. “Then you’d better get dressed, don’t you think?”

He waited outside while she changed. He knew that she would be useful for her knowledge of the area. Yet not sufficiently useful to warrant taking her along had she not been a mature, witty, perceptive woman.

She came out wearing sandals and a severely cut sand-colored linen sun dress, carrying a white purse. The end tendrils of the astonishing hair were damp-curled where they had protruded from her shower cap.

“Darrigan and Marrick,” she said. “Investigations to order. This might be fun.”

“And it might be dull.”

“But we shan’t be dull, Mr. Darrigan, shall we. What are you called?”