Джон Макдональд - S*E*V*E*N

Can fix, he thought. Will have to fix, or really lose her this time. Get this over and get the banking arrangements put through, and have Cramer make the transfers and put the after-tax proceeds into high-rated municipals with a good yield. Would figure out at probably sixty-five thousand income-tax free, after paying the preference income tax. Nice liquidity while I go shopping, taking my time, because the money squeeze has to loosen up. February next year would be a good time to go to Montevideo and check out the project Perez outlined. It’s summer then. She likes summer, likes the heat and the sweat of it. Too far in the future, though.

Something real quick. Hell, I should have remembered Winkler’s sloop. Perfect. Use it any time, Aldo. Feel free. It just sits there. Crew of three. Marvelous area, the Virgins, to just cruise around aimlessly. Swim and fish and loaf.

So I can send Lee Rountree and his big wife back to Miami aboard the Lear with Roy, and Miss Faxton and I can take a little feeder flight from here to St. Thomas. She will be very cold, distant, disapproving. And one night under the right moon at the right anchorage, we’ll sit on the deck and I will tell her how, at precisely five thirty on this day, I remembered my grandfather and the woodchuck. I will tell her the story and she will understand a little more about me, maybe, that little bit more I think I understand today.

She had understood the first part of it too quickly, he remembered. He had checked over the details of the trip with her, the papers they should bring along. They were in his tower suite of offices in the new bank building in Tulsa, and the rest of the staff had gone home an hour ago.

“Can you think of anything I’ve forgotten? Larssen is a very thorough guy.”

She said, “Can’t think of a thing. Four days you think it will take?”

“Minimum three, maximum a week. Should give you some good beach time and sun time while that sleepy Swede tries to steal half my equity.”

She smiled. “I can use it, Aldo. After too many ten-hour days.”

“Know something? It might be a good chance to reward another job well done. Lee Rountree really did one hell of a promotion job on moving those units.”

She looked skeptical. “And so?”

“He could tell the Swedes the methods he used, the kind of media that got the best results. He and his wife could fly down there with us. Give you some girl-type company on the beach.”

“Aldo! God’s sake!”

“What’s the matter with you?”

“I don’t need girl-type company or girl-type talk. She’s just a kid, Aldo.”

“What’s that got to do with anything?”

“Item: You had it all set to give the Club de Playa promotion to Newcomb. In fact, I think you had started briefing him. Item: You happened to run into Lee Rountree when he was accompanied by his wife of one year at that time, of a year and eight months now. Item: Lee is a very nice big amiable diligent guy six foot four, age twenty-six. Mrs. Lee Rountree, Elizabeth, known as Liz, is at least five foot ten and a half in her bare feet. She is a big, merry, jolly, happy blonde, age twenty-two, lively and bouncy and beautifully stacked, and she assumes everybody is a perfectly wonderful human being until proven otherwise. Item: You suddenly give the Club de Play a promotion to Lee Rountree instead of to Newcomb. And with Lee, it’s such an earn-as-you-learn bit, you have to wet-nurse him personally until he gets far enough along to handle it on his own. Item: This involves dropping in on the happy couple quite often, even after he is all straightened away and doing well. Item: They have no kids. Item: You are the big kindly boss-fellow giving the young husband the big break. Item: If your ex-wife had been delivered of a daughter one year after you married her, the daughter would be the same age as Liz Rountree. Item: I have watched the same game a lot of other times. Remember? Item: All of a sudden you think I need a girl companion.”

“That’s quite a presentation there, Miss Faxton.”

“Just don’t give me injured innocence. Okay?”

“What is it? Jealousy all of a sudden?”

She had not gotten angry, as he thought she would. Instead she had frowned, looking beyond him, her lean face thoughtful. “No, Mr. Bellinger. It isn’t that. I think really it’s a problem of my own self-respect. I am involved in a relationship with you. We have no exclusive claims on each other. I guess I just want to believe that I could not willingly keep on giving myself to a man who... is not merciful.”

“Merciful!?”

She shrugged. Sad, sour little smile. “You’re a clever man, Aldo. And you are watchful, patient, and as charming as you decide to be. You understand people and what motivates them. But I wonder if you have any mercy. She loves him, you know.”

He smiled. “Then there’s no cause for alarm, is there? If she loves him, she’s invulnerable.”

“Then you are taking aim?”

“It’s just a little coincidental maneuver, Anne. No confidence at all I can swing it. But thinking about it keeps my eyes clear and my mind sharp and my waistline under control. If it looked easy, I wouldn’t be interested.”

“Know bow you can show mercy, sir?”

“How?”

“All you really want, you know, is the ego satisfaction of knowing you can lay her if you stalk her properly. But what will that do to her if you do? And to Lee? If you could create the opportunity, make sure you can, then back off from it in the name of honor and decency and all that, then it would be an act of mercy.”

“If the chance ever arises, I’ll give your suggestion some thought, Anne.”

It had been an improvisation. One makes do with the materials at hand. After Larssen had agreed to the price, Aldo had found Roy and told him that he would probably be going over to Miami the following morning and bringing Cramer, Hollister, and Keyes back. Roy said the replacement parts for the aircraft were probably in Miami by now and suggested he run it over and get the work done, stay over, and bring the three men back in the morning. He said he’d feel better about the reliability of the communication equipment when it was fixed up and checked out.

Aldo Bellinger said he approved. He said he would find Lee Rountree to drive Roy out to the airfield, so he could bring the car back. And he had some notes he wanted Roy to give Cramer to study before going over the draft of the agreement. He got the notes out of his room first. He found Lee in the lobby waiting for Liz to come down. As they walked toward the car the improvisation began to take form. He waited until they had backed out of the parking slot and then decided to ride out with them.

At the airfield, he suddenly decided that Cramer and the others might have some questions not covered in his notes. He asked Lee if he would mind taking the notes to Cramer, and because Lee had followed the negotiations from the start, he could answer questions Cramer and the others might have. Lee jumped at it. Another fragment of the big chance. “Sure, Aldo. Glad to do it. Explain to Liz, huh? I can pick up a toothbrush at the Miami airport. Should have thought of it myself. See you tomorrow morning.”

As he drove away, Aldo saw Roy pull the aircraft up into its steep angle of climb, turning toward the northwest, white aircraft with a shark mouth and a high whining roar of power.

So he explained to Liz in such a way that she was grateful for the expression of confidence in her big husband. He spent some beach time with Larssen and then came back and saw Liz in the pool. He changed to swim trunks and came down and joined her. He bought two rounds of planter’s punches, and they went walking on the beach, came back and swam in the pool again, and had a light late lunch under canvas shade on the patio by the pool. He bought two more punches over her protests, picking them up at the thatched bar on the beach, making one a double. Gave her the double. Talked about her husband, about how well he would do, given the chance. Saw her adaze, aglaze with sun and rum and heat, told her there was something he wanted to show her in confidence, a plan for a future project involving Lee. Carried their drinks upstairs, down the long tiled corridor, into the muted cool green blue country of his apartment.