John MacDonald - Slam the Big Door

“They don’t get along so good? The girl and Jamison?”

“Not good and not bad either,” Rob said.

Purdy spat over the railing into the yard. “Boy, what did you find out about that funny-name foreigner staying there? He got any cash money?”

“His name is Rodenska, Mike Rodenska. He’s a newspaperman. His wife died a little while ago. He’s got some money.”

“Has he got enough?”

“I think he’s probably got enough, if he wants to go in with Jamison. I don’t know if Jamison has talked to him or not.”

There was a long and thoughtful silence. “That’s a risk I guess we got to take,” Purdy said. “I’ve just about dried up every other place Jamison could go for cash money. Course, might be we could hedge it a little. Boy, you keep on seeing that Debbie Ann, and see if you can make you a chance to hint to that funny-name fella the land deal is sour.”

Rob said thoughtfully, “Of course it wouldn’t be sour if Troy could get hold of...”

“Boy,” Purdy said harshly. “One half percent of Twin Keys could be fifty thousand cash money.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean anything by what I just said, Mr. Elmarr. Not a thing. I was just working up to something else I think should be considered. I was wondering what there is to prevent Jamison getting in touch with, or being contacted by, one of the big land syndicates, say from the East Coast. They could see the potential in a minute. And he could still get out with a nice profit.”

J. C. chuckled. “Run into that before, Raines. Tell him about that time they come in and tried to grab a deal Wink was interested in, Corey.”

Corey laughed softly. “You can’t make a deal that big quick and quiet. Wink found out long before it was going to be closed. So he started scrambling around. First thing you know the tract comes up for a zoning change and the Ravenna County Board of Commissioners tabled it for further study. Next thing somebody brings an injunction against the bay fill that was going on. Then it turns out maybe somebody got a little sloppy approving the title on the tract. With one thing and another, the Miami boys pulled out, and soon as Wink got it, all those little problems sort of got themselves ironed right out.”

“I get the picture,” Rob said, swallowing. “By the way, Jack Connorly has been after Jamison to run for commissioner in November.”

“Honest to God?” Purdy said with blank astonishment. He rocked his chair down onto four legs, slapped his knees, and began to gasp with laughter. When he caught his breath he said, “That Connorly is pure horse’s ass, I swear. Gawd damn ! Well, if he wants to make a big political figger out of Jamison, he better hustle his ass down the road, ’cause come November, Jamison is going to be back down to his proper size, building little bitty carports.” All amusement disappeared with an almost startling abruptness. “Anybody got anything to add?”

“Just one little old thing I was saving, Purd,” J. C. said, fat little fingers laced across his stomach. “I got this in such a roundabout way, it isn’t worth trying to explain it. But it’s a good guess Jamison has got him another woman. Don’t know who she is, but she’s staying at Shelder’s Cottages on Ravenna Key, there on the bay side, just below Whitey’s Fish Camp. Don’t know if it will have any bearing on what we were talking about, but they say Jamison and Mary Kail ain’t getting on so smooth lately, and the reason might be right there at Shelder’s. You get any hint they’re scrappin’, Rob?”

“Nothing specific. I think he’s drinking a little more than he was, from what Debbie Ann said. I thought it might be because he’s worried about his project. Pre-development sales are way off.”

“Nothing surprising about that,” Corey Haas said. “He can’t make any time sales and give title, on account he has to have cash money to get the mortgage release. And there’s a strong rumor with the real estate boys the development may never get finished. Jamison has cut down to one salesman, and they set in that office over there without much happening. Just be-backs.”

“Just what?” J. C. asked.

“People use up an hour staring at a lot, scuffing their feet, then say we’ll be back. But they never do come back.”

“That about does it for now,” Purdy Elmarr said. “You too dog-lazy to han’ me that bottle, J. C.? Thanks. Here you go, boy...”

A little over an hour later, his mouth slightly numbed by bourbon, Rob Raines plunged his little MGA west over bad roads toward the Tamiami Trail. Liquor made the world exceptionally vivid and slightly unreal. Thoughts, doubts, ambitions, boiled in his mind. Did I make the right impression? I know how they’re using me, but are they also planning to use me in some other way I don’t know about? This is the edge of the big time. One toe in the door. Handle it just right. No mistakes. Then there’ll be fifty thousand, maybe thirty to keep after taxes and all, and they’ll let me in on another one. Elmarr will still use Dillon and Burkhardt for most of his business, but they’re getting pretty old. They took Stan Killian in with them, but Stan is a tanglefoot. They’re all getting along. But they’ll last long enough for me to get in solid.

He thought about Jamison. A sitting duck. He had that big advertising agency background, and he’d done well enough as a small builder, but he didn’t have a chance against Elmarr, Haas and J. C. Arlenton. Jamison had no briefing on those kind of men. They’d tear him apart like a chicken and suck the bones.

He came out onto the Trail at the Stickney Point traffic light, and as he waited for his chance to turn south, all exhilaration faded and, without warning, he felt bleak, depressed.

Is this what I wanted? Is this where I was headed? He turned south, into a long line of traffic on the Trail, boxed behind a car from Ohio. The hell with it. I’ll make mine. It’s all legal. That’s what the training is good for. So you know where the line is, and you can stay on the right side of it. That’s what they use you for, to find out just how far they can go. And the closer to that line you can work, and still guarantee safety, the more valuable you are to those boys.

Forget all that idealism crap. It’s just a blindfold they put on you, so you won’t realize you’re living in a jungle. Whatever happened to Jamison was his own fault. He was like a stupid caveman who’d gotten lucky and felled a big piece of meat, and instead of hacking off all he could carry and taking it back to his cave, he was walking round and round it, stone ax in his hand. It was going to spoil before he could eat the whole thing, so now a bunch of them were watching him from the bushes, waiting for the right minute to spring. They weren’t even going to leave him with nothing — which they could. They were going to give him a little chunk to take home.

His widowed mother, Dolores Raines, called Dee by her garden club friends, sat fatly on her heels in the backyard, wearing her big straw hat, bulging green slacks, khaki shirt and gardening gloves, troweling a flower bed. She grunted erect as he approached, turned, beamed at him, and kissed the corner of his mouth.

“How did it go, sweetie? Are you going to be Purdy Elmarr’s new smart young lawyer? I’m so proud of you, sweetie.”

“I guess it went all right. It’s just a little thing. I’m setting up a little corporation. Purdy and J. C. Arlenton and Corey Haas. We’re going to pick up some land, maybe.”

“We, sweetie? Are you really in with them?”

“Just barely, Mom. One half of one percent.”

She hugged him and made a little squeal of ecstasy. “But it’s a start, sweetie! Even if you only make seven dollars, you’re in with some of the most powerful men in this part of the state.”