John MacDonald - The Deep Blue Good-Bye

“You don’t think Corry will be back?”

“Man, I know she won’t be back. She and Pete took off together, and they’re shacked someplace. She’s out of the picture, Trav. You know, I wisht Patty was more of a doll, and then maybe you’d like to come along, because now there’s room. What you do, when you come around, you take a good look at her. It could turn out three’s a crowd and she’ll need comforting the way she feels now. She’s really got a nice complexion. And she says things you would laugh yourself sick when she’s feeling good.”

“That would be up to Dads.”

“You can come around and if you like the idea, then we can ask him, but it wouldn’t be fair not telling you you don’t make out with Patty. She’s got a thing about it, scared or something. I don’t know. Maybe it would be different, off on a cruise. The way I figure it, if you want to go, honey I can make Dads do about anything I want. Come right down to it, this cruise was my idea in the first place.”

“I guess he can afford it.”

“A guy like that, he gets what he wants and I get what I want, so it works out nice, and he wants to keep it that way. You come around later on, huh?”

“I’ll be there.”

“You don’t have to bring any bottle, honey. Dads has loaded cases of it aboard.”

My lady returned. Tilty eyes, swirl of a white skirt, little beads of the hotness on her upper lip and at her hairline.

I took her hands. Swung her around. “You are a fine, fine thing.”

“What’s happened to you?”

“I like lovely ladies. You are refreshing.”

“I’m hot and sticky.”

“And rich?”

“I mailed the check to the bank.” I beamed at her. She asked me again. “What’s going on?”

“It’s the contrast, I think. Because you can cry and not know why. Because I was looking around and saw your toothbrush. And some diaphanous items dripping dry in our shower stall. And because you have tidy hips, and when you are very passionate, it is all of you trying to say what your heart is saying, not just an end in itself-which sounds like a vulgar pun and isn’t at all.”

“Have you been drinking?”

“I’m drunk with power. Phantom McGee strikes again. Junior Allen is a stupid crafty man. And McGee is going to put him out of business.”

She looked alarmed. “Darling, he’s a terrible man.”

“I am even more terrible in my wrath. How’s this for glower?”

“Remarkable.”

“No hairs in the sink and you put the butter away.”

She looked owlish. “Are we engaged?”

“Ask me again, after we put this dull, foolish, sly fellow out of commission.”

She swallowed. “We?”

“I need one very small assist from you.”

She swallowed again. “And this act you’re putting on is supposed to give me confidence?”

“Doesn’t it?”

“Not very much.”

“No danger for you.”

“You know what just seeing him did to me.”

“I know. Lois, he just isn’t that ominous. Evil, but not ominous. Sly, but not prescient. Once he is off balance, he will stay off balance, and fall heavily. And the law will gather him in.”

She sat, her face wan and thoughtful. “What do you want me to do, Travis?”

In the sultry blue dusk, the three of us lounged in the spacious cockpit of the Play Pen, kindly old lump-jawed, crinkle-eyed Dads Allen in his spotless whites, Deeleen slumped and placid in low-waisted short shorts and a narrow halter which provided a startling uplift, Fearless McGee in pale blue denims and an old gray sport shirt. McGee with a short sturdy pry bar taped to his leg, and an old white silk sock in his pocket, with a goodly heft of bird shot knotted into the toe of it.

A lazy hour of the day. Deeleen yawned and said, “Patty should be along any time.” She lazily scratched her belly, her nails making a whispering, fleshy, sensuous sound. “How about Trav coming along with us, lover?”

“I don’t know whether I want to,” I said.

Dee snickered. “He wants another look at Patty, huh?”

“We haven’t invited him yet,” Junior Allen said.

“What I want to do over there,” Deeleen said, “I want me one of those buckets with the glass in the bottom, and you look at the coral and fish and stuff. And I want to go shopping in Nassau. Are you going to take me for a little shopping, lover?”

“All you can use,” he said, his smile white in the night. Lights were reflected on the still black water of the sea-walled canal. Two kinds of music merged in the softness of the night.

“Geez, I wish we could take off tonight, as soon as Patty gets here,” she said.

“How is she going to get here?” I asked.

“She’s taking a cab, like to go to the bus station, but she isn’t,” Dee said. She tilted her glass. The ice rattled up against her lips. I had been trying to time the drinks, and this time her glass and mine were empty, and Junior Allen’s was more than half full. I stood up and reached and took her glass and said, “Okay if I fix a couple?”

“Go ahead,” he said.

I went below. There was a light on in the galley. Spotless galley. Pristine whites. Trim happy ship. I gave her a heavy shot and hoped it would cover the other taste. Twisted the two capsules open, spilled the powder, stirred it in. A powerful barbiturate. Even with the liquor, I was more than reasonably sure it would do her no harm. She was a young and healthy animal. Fifteen minutes after she got it down, she would become unbearably sleepy. It would knock her out for a good fourteen hours, and leave her dulled and lethargic for the following two days. I wondered with a certain irony if it wasn’t practically what Junior Allen had all planned for her, and I was merely jumping the gun. Or maybe he had decided she would be a willing accomplice.

I put no liquor in mine.

She murmured thanks when I gave her the drink. I had observed her drinking habits. One swallow at a time, one minute between swallows, until it was all gone. The taste seemed to suit her.

A breeze moved the cruiser, nudged it gently against a piling.

“She oughta be here pretty soon,” Dee said. “If she doesn’t come, the hell with her, lover. Who needs her?”

“She’ll be along,” Junior Allen said.

“Just the three of us, we could have a ball,” Dee said. “She’s not much of a swinging thing. Who needs her?” She yawned. “And she’ll be drag-assin‘ around, crying over Pete anyways.”

Dusk had deepened into night, and I saw the stars, and two planes winking, and heard the cheeing of the night insects mingled with the sound of music.

Deeleen yawned vastly and said, “I can’t keep my eyes open. Lover, I’m going to go sack out for a while.” She stood up heavily. She looked at him and made a kissing sound. As she passed me, she dragged her fingertips across my cheek. She went below, wobbling along the narrow area between the bunks as though the Play Pen were in a choppy sea. She bent and rolled herself heavily onto a bunk. From where I sat, I could see a narrow path of light from the galley light stretching diagonally across her, across the downy small of her back, the deep crease of her waist and the high gluteal round of her hip. Sweet dreams, sweet girl. Slide way way down. Stay out of the action.

I talked with Junior Allen. He didn’t have his mind on it. He was crouched in the brush, and he could taste lamb, and he was alerted for the first shy sound of the little hoofs coming along the trail. I gently and indirectly advanced the idea of my coming along, and he firmly closed the door. He got up and sprang nimbly onto the dock, snapped the weak dock light on, checked his lines, adjusted a fender and came aboard again, restless.

Suddenly a man came onto the dock out of the shadows. He wore a gaudy shirt, wrinkled pants and a bright red fishing hat.