Alison Lurie - The Truth About Lorin Jones

“Maybe you haven’t been to the right places. You like to dance?”

“Yes ... no.” She felt as if her feet were sinking into quicksand. “It depends.”

“Depends on what?”

“Well —” Polly was rescued by the arrival of their beers.

“Thanks, Susie. ... So, here’s to your stay in the last resort.”

“The last resort?”

“That’s what we call it.” He lifted his sloppily foaming glass and knocked it against hers. Polly heard herself laugh awkwardly. “So what’ve you seen up to now?”

“Nothing much. The ocean, a lot of art galleries. I mean, one resort town is much like the next, isn’t it?”

“Not always.” Mac grinned. “There’s some special attractions here in Key West. Have you seen the pelicans yet?”

“Pelicans?”

“Yep. Big seabirds, they sit on the piers down by the docks, waiting to steal fish off the boats.”

“How big?”

Mac paused and tilted his head. “Oh, four, five feet tall, some of them.”

“Five feet tall?”

“You go down to Garrison Bight at the right time, you’ll see them.” He must be kidding, Polly thought, but she wasn’t sure. Key West was weird enough to have birds like that. “Okay, what did you want to ask me?” The question was put almost mockingly; Mac clearly thought it had been just an excuse to meet him.

“I wanted to know —” Polly took a breath. “That house you were working on this afternoon —”

“Mm?” He sat back, smiling lazily. The colored bulbs in the bush beside him cast a hot red-and-blue half light on the flat weathered planes of his cheek and jaw.

“On Frances Street, near the cemetery.” Polly plowed ahead. “You were there with a pickup truck. REVIVALS CONSTRUCTION.”

“Right: I was cleaning out the gutters. They always get jammed up with leaves this time of year.” He frowned, as if suspecting Polly for the first time of an ulterior, nonsexual motive, then smiled slowly. “You want something revived, maybe, or constructed?” His tone hovered equivocally between contractor and seducer.

“No, what I want —” Polly remembered to smile back. “See, I was trying to find the man who lives there, Hugh Cameron —“

“Yeah?” Now Mac looked wary, displeased: the progress of his pickup had been interrupted.

“I came down here to Key West to interview him, actually.” Polly leaned toward Mac, smiling, but his manner and tone remained cool.

“Oh, yeah? What did you want to interview him for?”

“Well, it’s for this book I’m writing. It’s a biography of a painter he used to know. I’ve been phoning him ever since I got here Tuesday night, but nobody answers. I was wondering if he was out of town.”

“Yes, he might be.” Mac leaned back even farther now, and looked away.

“You haven’t seen him lately?” she persisted, knowing as the words sounded out that this was a strategic mistake.

“What? No.” Mac took a swig of beer, staring into the foam-crusted glass. “The house is rented out from this weekend, anyhow.”

“Rented?”

“Oh, yeah. A lot of local people rent their places in the winter. A house like that, three bedrooms, a pool, you can get twenty-five hundred a month for it, easy.” He still wasn’t looking at her.

“Really?” Polly smiled hard, and tried to reestablish a friendly conversational tone. “I had no idea of that. No wonder there’s so many yuppie types around.”

Mac did not reply, only shifted in his chair and stared off sideways. She followed the direction of his gaze to three pretty girls at a table on the other side of the garden. He’s caught on that I’m not interested in him, she thought, so he’s turned off. She felt a researcher’s anxiety — and a stupid, automatic pang of loss. “You think Mr. Cameron’s left town already?”

“Could be.” Mac shrugged.

“Do you have his new address?”

He shook his head slowly.

“But you must know how to get in touch with him,” Polly persisted. “He has to pay you for cleaning his gutters, doesn’t he, for instance?”

“I’ve been paid already.” Mac surveyed the garden again, drained his beer, checked his watch. “Listen, I’ve got to go. Got to have dinner with some friends.”

“Okay,” Polly said in a falling tone of frustration and disappointment. Her bad luck had returned with a vengeance.

“Well.” Mac stood up. “See you around.” He produced a meaningless, empty smile.

“Thanks for the beer.”

“No problem.” Mac started to lope away; then he stopped and turned, looking hard at her. “Say.” He took a step nearer, paused for what seemed to Polly a long while, then added, “How about you meeting me later on tonight? We could go dancing.”

A reprieve, Polly thought. “Sure, why not?” she heard herself answer. It’s not that I care anything for him, she told herself, but I’ve got to get that address.

“I could pick you up about nine. If you’re not too fancy to ride in a truck.” He grinned.

“Of course I’m not.” Polly tried to make this casual rather than either indignant or suggestive.

“Okay then. Just say where.”

Back at the guest house Lee, in a tropical-flowered red muumuu, set two plates of steamed fish on the table and refilled both their balloon wineglasses. She’d insisted on cooking supper, though she’d allowed Polly to contribute a bottle of Soave. “So now tell me all about your day,” she said, smiling.

“Okay.” Polly described her lunch with Ron and Phil, her frustrating visits to Cameron’s house and to the galleries, and the sunset on Mallory Dock. She included Mac’s aphorism on this ceremony (without attribution) but not her conversation with him at Billie’s. It was bad enough to admit that she was seeing him again later that evening.

“You’re going out with this guy you saw coming out of a house with a ladder?” Lee leaned forward; her black looped hair swung and her nearly black eyes sparkled with amusement.

“I’ve got to,” Polly explained. “He’s the only person I’ve met who has any connection with Hugh Cameron.”

“So what’s he like?”

“Oh, I don’t know. About forty-five; not bad-looking,” she said indifferently.

“Not bad-looking, huh?” Lee laughed suggestively.

“If you like that sort of thing,” Polly said flatly.

Lee gave her a weighing look. “Well, have a good time, and stay out of dark alleys,” she said finally, and stood to clear the plates away.

“Don’t worry.” Polly also started to rise, but Lee pushed her down with a warm brown hand.

“No, don’t get up. I’ve got a rule, no guests in my kitchen.”

Alone, Polly sat frowning at the hand-loomed tablecloth, displeased with herself. Because of her impatience, she had nearly messed up at Billie’s. She should have let Mac think she was here on vacation, and later just casually asked him about Hugh Cameron. In fact, she should have followed Jeanne’s advice on sweet-talking men, advice that had made her so uncomfortable when it referred to Jacky Herbert and Garrett Jones. But after all, Jacky was almost a friend, and Garrett was an important critic, someone she’d probably know professionally for years. Mac was just a local handyman; after she left Key West she’d never see him again.

Now, though, she had to spend a whole evening with him in some local dive. Well, it could be worth it. He must know how to reach Hugh Cameron, or at least be able to find out. And he might have other information too. If he’d worked for Cameron before, for instance, he could have been inside the old bastard’s house and seen if he’d still got any of Lorin’s paintings. Until Polly found out all Mac knew, she’d better go on pretending she was interested in him.