John MacDonald - The Deep Blue Good-Bye

Returning to Candle Key to rape and corrupt the lonely woman who found him distasteful had been foolish. Bashing Cathy had been idiotic. Showing gems to the little Haitian bitch had been the act of a careless, over confident man. He was a swaggering sailor with money in his pocket, and if he kept on being careless, neither he nor the money could last very long. Viewed in that light, his luck was impressive. His victims, thus far, had kept their mouths shut. Perhaps his present victim, whoever she might be, might not be so obliging. And I might not have very much time.

A sulphur sun pierced the gloom, and the rain stopped and I drove to the hospital.

She could look at me out of both eyes now, and the shape of her mouth looked more familiar. Chook had brought her a pretty new robe. With the nurse’s permission, she moved from the bed into a wheel chair, and I pushed her to the sun room at the end of the corridor.

“Tomorrow I can go home,” she said.

I moved a chair closer to her. Old bruises turn green and yellow. The old swelling kept her brown eyes pinched small.

“Maybe I’m going to catch up with him soon, Cathy.”

“What are you going to do?”

“Play it by ear.”

“I’d like it fine if you could kill him some way you wouldn’t get into trouble about it.”

“I didn’t know you were so savage about it.”

“Savage? I’m not savage about it at all. The way that man does you, he’s better dead. I was plain foolish, Trav. Even after everything. I was still hoping. You know? He’d find out it was best he should be back with me. Now wasn’t that dumb? I couldn’t even let myself know that was what I was wishing on. Then when he taken me and hammering me there in the dark, nobody to hear, not caring if he killed me dead, that killed it for good. I saw his face once when he’d spun me toward the palm tree lights, and he was smiling.”

“Had he come looking for you?”

“He didn’t say.”

“Do you think he did?”

“I think it was just accident. There aren’t so many places with a summer show, and a man roving around could come there and be as surprised as I was to see him. Trav. you be careful getting near him. He’s mean as anything you like to find in a swamp.”

“I’ll be careful.”

“I have the feeling he’s not long for this world, and I don’t want him taking you with him when he goes. I think when they had him locked away for five years, something went wrong with him. Something stopped. Something other people have. And he’s sly. He must have tricked my daddy, and my daddy was real sly hisself, they say.” She stared thoughtfully at me. “I guess you have to be a sly man too. Your face doesn’t show much. But go careful with him, like as if he’s a snake.”

I got back to the Busted Flush at six-thirty. The rain had washed the sunset time to a lambent beauty. A fine east wind had driven the bug life inland. Scores of little groups were cocktailing aboard their craft, lazy-talking, working themselves into Saturday night.

Buddy Dow, hired skipper of a big lunker owned by an insurance company in Atlanta, had enlisted two recruits and was despairingly in need of more. He tried to enlist me, and I paused for a moment to say no politely. He had them primed. A plain hello was a comedy line that set them all giggling. What Buddy calls the dog-ratio ran pleasantly low on this group. I had the feeling that if I got too close, greedy secretarial hands would haul me aboard, kicking and screaming. They all work toward a memorable vacation.

I went on along to my broad scow, and for a time it seemed as if she wasn’t going to unlock it and let me inside. When she did, she went running to the couch and threw herself face down, rigid.

“What’s the matter with you?”

An agony had blanched and dwindled her face. “He’s here,” she whispered.

“Junior Allen?”

“He saw me.”

She was too upset to be very coherent, but I got it all out of her. She had gone down to the marine supply place to look for some kind of a small present for me. Just to give me a present. And she had wandered out onto the gas dock just beyond the offices and the tall control tower for the marina. And the Play Pen had been there, gassing up. Junior Allen had straightened up, stared at her, grinned at her, and she had fled.

“He didn’t follow you?”

“No. I don’t think so.”

“Was he alone?”

“No.”

“Who was with him?”

“I don’t know. Young people. Three or four. I don’t know. All I could see was him.”

“What time was all this?”

“A-about quarter after five, I think.”

WILLY LAZEER is an acquaintance. His teeth and his feet hurt. He hates the climate, the Power Squadron, the government and his wife. The vast load of hate has left him numbed rather than bitter. In appearance, it is as though somebody bleached Sinatra, skinned him, and made Willy wear him.

I knew he was off at six, and I knew it took him an hour of beer to insulate him against going home, and I knew where he would be loading up. I sat beside him at the bar. He gave me a mild, dim glance of recognition. His hour was almost up. I prodded his memory.

“Play Pen. Play Pen. Sure, I seen that today.”

“Forty-foot Stadel custom, white topsides, sray hull, blue line. Skippered by a rugged brown guy with white curly hair and small blue eyes and a big smile.”

“So?”

“I was wondering where he’s docked.”

“How should I know, McGee? How the hell should I know?”

“But you do remember him?”

“He paid cash.”

“Stopped a little after five?”

“So?”

“What kind of people did he have aboard, Willy?”

“Smart-ass kids.”

“Tourists, college kids?”

He stared through me for a moment. “I knew one of them.”

“One of the kids?”

“What the hell are we talking about? One of the kids. Yes. You know over the bridge on the right there, past where they’re building is a place called Charlie Char-Broil.”

“I know the place.”

“I seen her there as a waitress. Young kid. They got their names on little badges. Hers is a funny one. Deeleen. I ain’t seen her there a couple months. How come I remember her, she got snotty with me one time, bringing me the wrong order.”

It was as far as he could go with it.

I went back to Lois. She had a glass of bourbon that looked like a glass of iced coffee. Her smile was loose and wet and her eyes didn’t track. I took it away from her and took her into her stateroom. She made little tired singing sounds and lurched heavily against me. I tipped her onto the bed and took her shoes off. In three minutes she was snoring.

I locked up and went off on a Deeleen hunt. Charlie Char-Broil smelled of burned grease, and she didn’t work there any more. But a friend named Marianne did, a pretty girl except for a rabbit mouth she couldn’t quite manage to close. Nineteen, I guessed. Once she was convinced I wasn’t a cop, she joined me in a back booth.

“ Dee, she got fired from here when they changed the manager. The way it was, she did anything she damn pleased, you know? The manager we had, he was all the time taking her back in the storeroom, and finely somebody told the company. I told her it was the wrong way to act. She had a couple other jobs and they didn’t last and I don’t see her much any more. I did see her. But, I don’t know, some things can get too rough, you know what I mean? Fun is fun, but it gets too rough. What I found out, on a blind date she got for me, geez, it was a guy like could be my father, you know? And there was a hell of a fight and I found out she took money from him for me to show up. I ask her what she thinks I am anyhow. I think she’s going to get in bad trouble, and I don’t want to be around, you know?”