Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

“How do things get done, Elmo?”

“Why, I was just now... Is there more to that question?”

“I was wondering about Martin Cable the Third. And I was wondering about Eloise. How did you get things done with Eloise, Mister Commissioner?”

“She’s a fine-looking woman.”

“Lately she’s taking a big interest in local economics. Martin says she’s real bright about it.”

“You know, you’re being real bright too.”

“Thanks.”

“You ever see that shack Leroy has down in the Taylor Tract east of Everset?”

“No.”

“He calls it a shack, but it’s more a lodge, I guess. Fifty-some acres he’s got down there, gate and cattle guard and a little old windy road going in, so you’d never know he had it fixed up so nice back in there. It’s about the onliest place Leroy can get away from his maw. He’s got power going in there. He’s even got an unlisted phone. Real fine. I guess Eloise has been going down there off and on for six, eight months, little afternoon visits like. There were only three knew about it, them and me. Now it’s four. He’s been teaching her about business, you might say. Martin is a stubborn man, but when he won’t listen to her, she just won’t have anything to do with that poor man at all. And he’s been coming around to her way of thinking. Or Leroy’s way, you might say.”

“Or your way.”

“But she doesn’t know that. She’s just real anxious to help Leroy. Somehow she’s got the idea that unless this development goes through, Leroy is ruined. She’s got a tender heart.”

“I’ll be damned!”

“Leroy wouldn’t like you acting all that surprised, Jimmy. Women take to that old boy.”

“It’s pretty stupid for her to get into something like that, isn’t it?”

Elmo shrugged. “I don’t guess Martin is the most exciting fella in the world for a woman like that to be married to. Granting you it’s stupid for her to fool around at all, she’s doing better with Leroy than if it was some fathead who’d get all carried away and get careless and get them caught. Or take it too serious. A man like Leroy, he understands women like Eloise. They want a little spice on account they get bored, but they don’t want to take any chance on messing up their marriage. Leroy is careful, and he pleasures them nice and he talks the sweet way they like to hear. But if they try to take charge, if they get uppity with him, he takes a switch to them, and that’s something new and different for them too, not getting any of that kind of treatment at home. Leroy, he says he doesn’t see her as often as it could be arranged, because she’s one godawful strenuous woman. He took up with her because we had it figured out that she could help us out with Martin. And she’s done just fine.”

Jimmy pictured Leroy Shannard, the thick white hair, the lean, hard, brown, sleepy face, the wise, remote, indolent eyes, the soft and cynical voice. He imagined Shannard with Eloise, and the match became more plausible — a cautious, civilized lechery appealing to her peasant shrewdness.

Jimmy sighed and said, “I’ve been around. I know a hell of a lot of things I couldn’t put in the paper. But you are beginning to make me feel wet behind the ears, Elmo.”

“Keep standing in the wind and you’ll dry off fast. The next one on the list, Jimmy, is that Doris Rowell. Next to Sinnat, she worries me the most. She does too good a job lining up those fish experts and erosion people. You get onto her next. Get her out of the picture, and maybe we won’t have so many people down here using big words and confusing the voters. But you get some sleep. You did fine on this, but you don’t look so good.”

As Jimmy Wing was heading north on Cable Key toward his cottage, he looked at his watch and saw that it was ten minutes of two. The neon of the Sea Oat Lounge was just ahead, on his left. He was exhausted, but he knew his nerves were so raw he would not sleep without some assistance, such as a couple of quick strong drinks. He braked sharply and turned in and parked. There were three other cars in front of the place.

He went in and sat at the bar, under the festooning of nets and glass floats. There was a noisy party of four in a corner, and one couple dancing, tight-wrapped and slowly, to the muted juke. There was a half drink and a woman’s purse on the bar three stools away. Bernie, the fat bartender, was checking the bar tabs against the register.

He came over and said, “Long time, Jim. You off it?”

“Not so anybody could notice. Beam on the rocks, Bernie. Uh... make it a double. Slow for a Saturday.”

“We did our share, earlier on. We made new friends. We carried out a few.” He put the drink in front of Jimmy.

“Move over here cozy,” a familiar girl-voice commanded. He turned and saw that the half-drink and purse belonged to Mitchie McClure. He grinned and moved to the stool beside her.

“How’s the ink-stained wretching business?” she said. “Tuck the paper to bed, full of scoops and excitements?”

Her voice had the drawling quality which drinking always caused with her. She had a ripely sturdy body, a bland pretty childish face, so unmarked, so much in contrast with the knowing eyes, the sardonic voice, that it had a masklike quality. They had known each other for many years. Her hair was bleached almost white, paler than he had ever seen it, and piled in a contrived tousling which curved to frame her face and curled down almost to her eyebrows in a silky fringe.

“The hair is really something, girl.”

“This week’s hair. The only thing I haven’t tried yet is shaving it off. Every time I get it done I feel like a new woman for twenty minutes.”

“You alone? On a Saturday night?”

“Shocking, isn’t it? There are clowns you can take and clowns you cannot take. I reserve the right to choose, Jaimie. I didn’t send this one on his way early enough. I should know by now. Stick with a friend of a friend. It’s when you get to a friend of a friend of a friend the system collapses. Look up good old Mitchie if you ever get down that way. God, what a boor! I’ll tell you something, Jaimie. It makes a girl treasure her stinking little inadequate alimony, because maybe without it, life would turn into a wilderness of boors. Ha! Adrift in a sea of dullards. I’m a lucky girl. Right, Bernie?”

“Right, doll.”

“One for the road, Bernie. And hit my friend again.”

“Not right off like that,” Jimmy said. “We go to the matches.”

“That’s my game. You can’t win.”

He tore matches out of the ashtray book. She went first, calling two. Their clenched fists were side by side. They glowered at each other. He had one match in his fist. “One,” he said, displaying it. She opened an empty hand. “Horse on me,” she said. “Your call.”

He decided to use bad strategy. He used all three matches, and called four. She waited a long time, guessed three, opened her hand and showed one.

“You lucked out,” she said indignantly. “Your lucky day, eh?”

“Sure. I’m up to here in luck, Mitchie.”

She tilted her head and looked at him more closely. “I’ve seen you looking better, Mr. Wing. Much better. On the other hand, everybody used to look a lot better, every one of us. Right, Bernie?”

“Right, doll.”

“I took canoeing and boating at Sweet Briar,” she said. “It readied me for the world. Heavy weather. We run before the wind, Jaimie. No sea anchors.”

The noisy foursome had paid and left. Bernie went and unplugged the juke. The dancing couple left.

“You have the look of a man trying to close the joint, Bernie.”

“Right, doll.”

They paid, said goodnight and went out. Bernie went to the door and they heard the click of the latch behind them. The spray of sea oats in yellow neon went off. A car whined by. The Gulf mumbled against the dark beach.