John MacDonald - The Deep Blue Good-Bye

“That’s right! I’m feeling better by the minute. McGee, you must have a very nice punch.”

“He’s very easy to hit. And you’re going too fast again.”

We came into Brownsville. He took a confusing number of turns and put the car in a small Iot on a back street. We walked half a block through the sultry night to the shabby entrance of a small private club, a men’s club, with a comfortable bar and a good smell of broiled steak, and a cardroom with some intent poker players under the hooded green light.

We stood at the bar and he said, “A key for my friend, Clarence.”

The bartender opened a drawer and took out a brass key and put it in front of me. “This is Mr. Travis McGee, Clarence. Trav, that key is good for life. Life memberships one dollar. Give Clarence the dollar.” I handed it over. ‘’Cash on the line here for everything. No fees, no assessments, no committees. And a good steam room.“

We picked up our drinks and I followed George over to a corner table. “We can eat right here when we’re ready,” he said. He frowned. “I just don’t know what the hell to do about that girl.”

“Didn’t Gidge and Tommy work out fine?” It startled him.

“Yes. Sure.”

“Don’t worry about her. She’s a very lush looking kid, George. And probably as healthy as she looks. Probably if you knew everything about Gidge and Tommy at the same age, your hair would turn white.”

“By God, if you were twenty years older, McGee, I’d hire you to watchdog her for what’s left of the summer.”

“You wouldn’t be able to trust me.”

“Anyway, whatever you came to see me about, consider it done. I owe you that much.”

“I want information.”

“It’s yours.”

“How much did Dave Berry steal overseas, how did he steal it and how did he smuggle it back into the States?”

It twisted him into another dimension so suddenly it was like yanking him inside out. His face turned a pasty yellow. His eyes darted back and forth as though looking for a place to hide. He opened his mouth three times to speak and closed it each time. Then he said, spacing the words, “Are you a Treasury Department investigator?”

“No!”

“What are you?”

“I just try to get along, this way and that. You can understand that.”

“I knew a Sergeant David Berry once.”

“Is that the way you want it?”

“That’s the way it has to be.”

“What are you scared of, George?”

“Scared?‘’

“You can’t be scared of Berry. He’s been dead two years.”

It startled him, but not enough. “Dead? I didn’t know that. Did they let him loose before he died?”

“No.”

“There’s no secret of the fact I had to testify for him. I hadn’t gotten out yet. I had to go to the presidio where they tried him. I said I’d served with him for two years and that he was a good competent noncom. I said I’d seen him lose his temper a lot of times, but he’d never hurt anybody before. He’d been drinking. A jackass lieutenant with brand-new gold bars, never been out of the States, didn’t like the way Dave saluted him. He made Dave stand on a street corner and practice. After about five minutes of that, Dave just hit him. And then kept picking him up and hitting him again. And then he took off. If only he’d hit him once, or if he hadn’t run… But I guess you know all about it.”

“Why should I? I want to know how much, and how he got it and how he brought it back.”

“I wouldn’t know a thing about that, friend. Not a single stinking thing.”

“Because you made it the same way and brought it back the same way George?”

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, believe me.”

“Because you can’t be sure there isn’t something official about this. Is that it?”

“McGee, I have had a lot of people asking a lot of questions for a long time, and they all get told the same thing. It was a good try, McGee. Let’s eat.” His morale came back fast.

It was midnight when we left the back-street club. He had a cocky, wary friendliness. As he unlocked the door of the Lincoln and swung it open, I chopped him under the ear with the edge of my hand, caught him and tumbled him in. And felt a gagging self-disgust. He was a semi-ridiculous banty rooster of a man, vain, cocky, running as hard as he could to stay in the same place, but he had a dignity of existence which I had violated.

A bird, a horse, a dog, a man, a girl, or a cat, you knock them about and diminish yourself because all you do is prove yourself equally vulnerable. All his anxieties lay there locked in his sleeping skull, his system adjusting itself to sudden shock, keeping him alive. He had pulled at the breast, done homework, dreamed of knighthood, written poems to a girl. One day they would tumble him in and cash his insurance. In the meanwhile it did all human dignity a disservice for him to be used as a puppet by a stranger.

He stirred once on the orderly trip back, and I found the right place on his neck for the thumb, and settled him back. Assured I was unobserved, I carried him into my chill nest, pulled the draperies, readied him for proof.

I stripped him, bound him, gagged him and settled him into the bottom ofthe shower stall. It was a hair piece. I peeled it away and tossed it onto the lavatory counter. It crouched there like a docile, glossy little animal.

A naked man who cannot move or talk, and does not know whether it is night or day, and is not told where he is or how he got there, will break very quickly.

The cold water brought him awake, and I let it run until I was certain he was thoroughly awake. I sat on a stool just outside the shower stall. I turned the water off. He was shivering. He stared at me with a total malevolence.

“George, do you think any government agency would permit this kind of interrogation? I’ve got several ways of getting rid of you completely. All perfectly safe. You’ve been asleep a long time, George. A lot of people are looking for you. But they’re looking in all the wrong places. Kidnapping is illegal, George. So we have to make a deal or I won’t be able to let you go.”

His eyes mirrored several new concerns, but he was telling himself he would never give in. “I’m after Berry ’s little package, and I need your help. When you’re ready to talk, just nod your head. Your only other choice is to get boiled like a knockwurst.”

I reached up and turned on the hot water. Good motels keep it at about a hundred and eighty degrees, and it doesn’t take long to get there. I gave him a short burst and a cloud of steam. He bucked himself off the floor and screamed into the towel, a small noise. His eyes were maddened and bulging and he forgot to nod. I gave him a second blast, and when the steam cleared I could see him nodding vigorously. I gave him the third blast for insurance and he jumped nicely and nodded so hard he was rapping his head against the wall of the stall.

I reached in and took the gag away.

He groaned. “Jesus God, you’ve scalded me. What are you doing to me? My God, McGee, what are you trying to do?”

I reached my hand up and put it on the hot water lever.

“Don’t!” he bawled.

“Keep your voice down, George. You’re turning nice and pink. Now just talk to me. Tell me all about how you and Dave Berry worked it. And if something doesn’t sound exactly right, I’ll boil you a little, just for luck.”

With a little coaching, he got through it pretty well. He and Berry had worked together from the beginning. At first it was Missionary Bonds purchased in China, shipped back to a friend in the States to cash and send them the money to buy more. Double money on each deal. Then when that was closed out, it was the gold. They worked together, but kept the take separate. They didn’t trust each other completely.