Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

Kat went into the bedroom and changed into the fussy yellow blouse and wide vivid skirt. When she called Ross, he came out of the studio with camera and sketch pad. “Hi, Lady Kat. Mmmm. Just about right.”

“This shade of yellow makes me look like death.”

“I don’t want it for the color, m’am.”

“Hair?”

“As is, I think. No, you better sleek it back a little. Give me more ears.”

“I’ve got horrible ears.”

“I’ve got a whole file drawer full of ears.”

Smiling, she went and fixed her hair. Ross took her out into the side yard and had her sit in a garden chair under the shade of a punk tree. He squatted on the corner of the deck above her and had her move the chair a few times until the angle was right and the play of light and shadow was what he wanted. He was a square quick man with a metallic voice, a tall black brush cut which looked dense and harsh as a nylon brush, a solid bar of black eyebrow, little black shoe-button eyes.

“Little more toward me. Chin up. You’re looking up at a guy you didn’t expect to see, but you’re glad to see him. And you’re going to get out of the chair. Lean just a little forward. Okay. Now start to reach out a little with the right hand. Okay. Chin higher. Okay. Not so much smile. Okay. Pull your feet back a little. Okay.”

The camera ticked. Ross perspired in the sun. He changed angles slightly. He took two rolls of film, then made a few quick free sketches of details. After they went back into the house, he paid her in cash and she signed a receipt form. Jackie came back with the children, and a bucket of oysters. After Kat had changed back into her sun dress, she found that Ross had gone back out onto the oyster bar with the children.

“Can he take the time off to mind those two?” Kat asked.

“Heck, he’s way ahead of the art directors for a change. Let’s get going on our gals. I got the file out last night. Take turns? Here’s your stack. I’ll go first.”

By five o’clock on that Saturday afternoon, Kat Hubble and Jackie Halley were depressed and concerned. They sat on stools at the kitchen bar, the phone between them, their file cards and notes in front of them. Roy and Alicia were out at the end of the Halleys’ narrow dock, catching bait fish on tiny hooks and putting them in the bait well of Ross’s old skiff at the customary rate of two cents a fish.

Ross came out of his studio into the living room and said, “I developed the roll of black and white, Kat. It’s fine. Hey, are you two about to break into tears or something?”

“Shuck the oysters, dear,” Jackie said in a weary voice.

“Shuck the oysters, please , dear,” he corrected. “Where’s the oyster knife?”

“Please, then. Where it always is.”

“Hey, Ross, we got eleven!” Roy yelled.

“Good work, men! What’s with you sad ladies anyhow?”

“We’re not scoring so well,” Jackie said.

“Some of our best gals won’t do it this time,” Kat said.

“Word seems to have gotten around,” Jackie explained.

“They don’t even want to be members any more.”

“Twelve!” Alicia yelled.

“Just one card left?” Jackie said. “Go ahead, dear. Who is it?”

“Donna Armstrong.”

“Hmmm. Whose husband happens to be a car dealer,” Jackie said. She laughed bitterly. “Make three guesses. Go ahead.”

Kat dialed. “Donna? This is Kat Hubble. The S.O.B.’s are declaring a state of emergency, and we’re calling you back onto active duty. What? Yes, it’s Grassy Bay again. How did you know? Oh, I see. Well, you will help us...? I’d like to know, of course.”

Kat put her hand over the mouthpiece and looked hopelessly at Jackie and said, “She doesn’t want it filled, but...” She listened for a few more moments and then said, “We’ll miss you, Donna. You were so wonderful last time. But if Si really says you shouldn’t, I guess there isn’t much you can do. But please do ask him again, will you? And let us know if you can. Thank you, dear. I’m sorry too. ’Bye.”

Kat hung up. “It seems a Mr. Flake buys his cars and trucks from Mr. Armstrong’s agency. And it even seems that Si Armstrong has a teeny tiny piece of Palmland Development. And just last week Si let her in on the secret and laid down the law.”

“Well, that’s it. Let me check this thing. We called forty-two women. I’ll mark Donna for a flat no. At least she’s more honest than the ones who got so terribly vague about the whole thing. Thirteen acceptances. There is a nice lucky number. Fifteen refusals. Excuse me. Eleven refusals. Plus Donna is twelve. Nine couldn’t be reached. Six gave us that let-you-know-later jazz. So out of the group who worked like dogs last time, it’s twenty-one to thirteen against. So we should pick up maybe three more out of that nine — sixteen when we’ll need forty. And we’ve lost some of the very best ones, dammit!”

“I keep thinking about Hilda.”

“I’d rather not think about her.”

“Just how did she word it?”

“Oh, she just gave a merry little ho ho and said, ‘But, Jackie, lamb, I’ve promised to organize a telephone campaign in favor of this project. This will be a delicious program, and it won’t hurt Grassy Bay a bit, and my Danny says only the forces of reaction will be against it.’ And so on and so on. Ugh! Her Danny was dragging his feet the last time. Remember? Eight hundred potential customers for dear Danny’s appliance business. Do I sound like a snob? I’m not. Selling appliances is a good wholesome way to make a living in America. But damn if I like them filling the bay so they’ll have a place to put them. Hilda was our best man, Kat.”

“So we’ll find other women just as good.”

“You have considerable jaw on you when you shove it out that way, honey.”

“And we’ll make the sixteen work twice as hard as last time, and you and I will work four times as hard. And, as Tom says, if the commissioners vote the wrong way after the public hearing, we’ll take the fight to Tallahassee.”

“Stop glaring at me, for goodness’ sake! I’m with you. Don’t you think we’ve earned a drink?”

“I guess so. Weak for me, please.”

“It’ll have to be something with rum. Okay?”

“Fine.”

As Jackie fixed the drinks, Kat walked out on the deck. The kids were quarreling over their fish count. Ross was finishing the oysters down on the dock. As she watched, he scraped the last one into the pan and waded out with the two buckets of shells and dumped them back onto the oyster bar.

“Jackie, would it cover that oyster bar?”

“Probably not that one, but it would cover the big ones out there, and it would block the tide flow to this one so that it would probably die. Here’s your drink.”

The first tall tree shadows were reaching out toward the dock, the intent children, the old skiff. The thunderheads were over the mainland, far inland, piled seven miles high, suddenly as monstrous in her mind as the tree shadows. “Seventeen!” Alicia called, her voice unbearably clear and sweet in the first silence of the coming evening. “That makes seventeen! Take him off my hook, Roy.”

Kat felt a coldness along her back, like a leathery touch, reptilian. “Everything changes,” she said. “Everything dies.”

“Hey now,” Jackie said gently.

“I’m sorry. Everything seems... like some kind of a dirty trick on people.”

Jackie gave her a quick, rough, shy hug, a one-armed gesture which spilled some of Kat’s cool drink on the back of her hand. “In the deathless words of my husband, dear, you can’t win ’em all. He has a crapshooter’s approach to eternity. He says he’s small time at a big table. He drags back when he wins, and he covers so many numbers they can’t ever hurt him too badly.”