John MacDonald - The Deep Blue Good-Bye

One was a pale-haired girl of about seventeen. She was slumped back in the couch against pillows. She had on short khaki shorts and a pale gray blouse unbuttoned to the waist. She had the long sprawled luxurious body of maturity, and she was breathing deeply, her face revealing that telltale slackness, the emptiness of prolonged sexual excitement. It was a child’s mouth and a child’s eyes set into a woman’s face. Her lips were wet and her nipples swollen, and she was very slow in coming back from the dreamy land of eros. The boy was older, twenty possibly, and he was a massive brute, all hair and muscles and jaw corners and narrow infuriated eyes.

Left to my own devices, I would have gone very quietly away from there. But her warrior gave me no chance. “Why don’t you knock, you silly son of a bitch?” he said in a gravelly voice.

“I didn’t know it was a bedroom, boy.”

He stood up, impressively tall and broad. “You insulted the lady.”

The lady was sitting erect, buttoning her blouse. The lady said, “Deck him, Lew!” Sick him, Rover. He swarmed at me, obedient as any dog.

I am tall, and I gangle. I look like a loose-jointed, clumsy hundred and eighty. The man who takes a better look at the size of my wrists can make a more accurate guess. When I get up to two twelve I get nervous and hack it back on down to two oh five. As far as clumsiness and reflexes go, I have never had to use a flyswatter in my life. My combat expression is one of apologetic anxiety. I like them confident. My stance is mostly composed of elbows.

Lew, faithful dog, wanted it over right now. He hooked with both hands, chin on his chest, snorting, starting the hooks way back, left right left right. He had fists like stones and they hurt. They hurt my elbows and forearms and shoulders, and one glanced off the top of my shoulder and hit me high on the head. When I had the rhythm gauged, I counter punched and knocked his mouth open with an overhand right. His arms stopped churning and began to float. I clacked his mouth shut with a very short left hook. He lowered his arms. I put the right hand in the same place as before and he fell with his mouth open and his eyes rolled up out of sight.

The little lady screamed. People came running. I massaged my right hand. “What’s going on!” Brell yelled. “What the hell is going on!”

I was too angry for polite usage, for the living room turn of phrase. “I walked in here to look at the painting. I thought the room was empty. This crotch jockey had his little girl all turned on and steaming and they resented the interruption, and she told him to deck me. But it didn’t work out.”

Brell turned on the girl, anguish in his voice. “Angie! Is this true?”

She looked at Lew. She looked at me. She looked at her father. Her eyes were like stones. “What do you really care who gets laid around here anyway!” She sobbed and brushed by him and fled. After a stunned hesitation, he ran after her, calling to her. A door slammed. He was still yelling. A sports car rumbled and snorted and took off. Rubber yelped. it faded, shifting up through the gears.

“God love us,” Gerry Brell said. She took a vase from the table and stood thoughtfully and dumped it on Lew’s head, flowers and all. The Hingdons and I were busy trying not to look squarely at one another.

Lew pushed the floor away and sat up. He looked like a fat sad baby. His eyes were not properly focused.

Gerry sat on her heels beside him and put her hand on that meaty shoulder and shook him gently. “Sweetie, you better haul your ass out of here right now, because if I know George Brell, he’s loading a gun right this minute.”

The eyes focused, comprehended, became round and wide with alarm. He jumped up and without a glance at anyone or another word went running heavily and unsteadily out.

Gerry smiled at us and said, “Excuse me, please.” She went off to find George.

Little Bess Hingdon stayed close to her big and rather solemn young husband as we went into the long living room. “Dear, I really think we should go.”

“Just leave?” Hingdon said uncertainly. There was a nice flavor about then, that scent of good marriage. Separated by a room of people, they were still paired, still aware of each other.

‘’I’ll find Gerry,“ she said and went off.

Sam Hingdon looked curiously at me and said, “That Lew Dagg is a rough boy. Linebacker. One more year to go, and the pros are watching him.”

“Like what did I hit him with?”

He grinned. “Something like that.”

“Maybe he’s out of condition. He should use the summer for a different kind of exercise. Is that Angie George’s eldest?”

“Youngest. She’s the onlly one left home. Gidge is the eldest. She’s married to a boy in med school in New Orleans. Tommy’s in the Air Force. They’re Martha’s children.”

Bess came hurrying in, carrying her purse. “It’s all right, honey. We can leave now. Good night, Mr. McGee. Hope we’ll see you again.”

I went out to the terrace and made myself a weak drink. I could hear Gerry and George yammering at each other. I could hear the music but not the lyrics. Fury and accusation. A pretty girl in dark braids and a uniform came onto the terrace and gathered up the debris of the cocktail snacks, gave me a shy glance and cat-footed away.

Finally George came out. He looked sour. He grunted at me, poured bourbon over one cube and downed it before the ice had a chance to chill it. He banged the glass down. “Trav, Gerry has a headache. She said to apologize. Jesus, what an evening!”

“Apologize to her for me. Tell her I didn’t stop to think that could be your daughter when I spoke so rough. I was still angry. And about hitting that kid, he gave me no choice.”

He stared at me with evident agony. “Just what were they doing, McGee?”

“I didn’t actually see them doing anything. He had her blouse unbuttoned and her bra unhooked, but she had her shorts on.”

“She doesn’t even start college until fall. Goddamn that ape! Let’s get out of here, Trav.” We went out and got into the Lincoln. He drove swiftly through a long maze of curving roads and then slowed as we passed a house as conspicuous as his. I caught a glimpse of the Triumph. He speeded up. “Gerry said that’s where she’d go. It’s her closest girlfriend.”

He didn’t speak again until we were on 77 heading south. “It’s a hell of a thing for something like that to happen, the first time you’re in my home.”

“Worse for you than for me.”

“How the hell am I supposed to keep an eye on her? That’s Gerry’s job and she’s goofing it. She says she can’t control her. She says Angie won’t listen to her. I’m a busy man, goddamn it. I’ve got to send the kid away, but where? Where can you send them in August, for God’s sake? There’s no relatives to park her with. Did you hear what she said to me?” He banged the steering wheel with the heel of his hand. “What do you think, McGee? Do you think that ape is actually screwing my little girl?”

“I think you’re driving too damned fast, George. And I don’t think he is. Yet.”

“Sorry. Why don’t you think he is?”

“Because if he was, he would have had her off someplace where he could, without interruption. And from the look of her, that was the next step, George.”

He slowed down a little more. “You know, that makes sense. Sure. He’s probably trying to talk her into it. He’s been hanging around for about a month. Trav, that’s the second good turn you’ve done me tonight.”

“And she doesn’t care too much for the boy.”

“How do you know?”

“When she ran out, he hadn’t moved a muscle. She couldn’t know but that I’d killed him.”