Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

She sat on a foot stool, glowering into her drink. “Buck Flake, Leroy Shannard, Doc Aigan, Bill Gormin, Burt Lesser. Jimmy, maybe one of them is in real bad financial condition. You could find that out, couldn’t you? If a man was worried, he might do terrible things. I saw that Buckland Flake with a very spectacular girl.”

“I suppose I can ask around.”

She stared at him. “Well, don’t be overcome with enthusiasm.”

“I don’t know exactly where to start, Kat. But... I’ll see if I can figure out something.”

“When are they going to petition for a change in the bulkhead line?”

“At the County Commission meeting tomorrow morning at ten o’clock.”

“So soon!”

“It’ll be an open battle from then on.”

“Excuse me. I thought it had already started.” She tilted her head and listened. “Here’s Jackie and Ross.”

Jackie came striding in first, gawky, flamboyant and slightly drunk, wearing a denim dress, carrying half a drink in a huge old-fashioned glass. “Unless you had a lot better luck than I did on the phone, Katty love, let’s not talk about it, because I find it extremely distressing. Hello, Wing. What have you done for us lately? Excuse me, dear. You probably have some adorable ideas. Meager but adorable.”

“She’s been working on this since about quarter of six,” Ross said. “She’s a swinging thing tonight.”

“Give my little husband a weak drink, somebody,” Jackie said. “Leave him in shape to take me home over his shoulder. Honest to God, Kat, this Dial Sinnat thing floored me. After you called Tom from the bank this afternoon to tell him definitely no dice, he spread the bad word. I never heard Tom sound so low. So I phoned Dial. He’d just gotten home. The son of a gun thanked me for my interest in his personal decisions. He brushed me off like an expert. Then poor Wally Lime phoned me and we wept together, and then I started belting these lovely things. Are we mice or people? Are we a committee or a burial detail? I’ve got the general idea, kids. Somebody pressured Di. So let’s us pressure some of their boys. Walk me to a bay filler, fellas. I’ll lunge at his jugular. Bring me a big one. Like Flake, or a little one like Aigan. Makes no difference to Killer Halley tonight.”

“Can’t she fill a room, though?” Ross said with awe and pride.

Kat’s children came home from the Sinnats. Kat filled their plates and said they could stay up until nine-thirty if they played quietly in Roy’s room, and didn’t spill any food in there. Jimmy guessed that Kat was serving the small buffet sooner than she had planned. Jackie needed food and coffee.

“The trouble with us,” Jackie said as they were all eating, “we’re too damn nice. Even you, Wing. Perfect little gennlemen. What have we got left? A couple army types, you and me, Kat, a darling art gallery type, little Wally — our Madison Avenue South — and who else? Oh. Fat Doris. You know, it comforted me having Di on the squad. I thought he was the one with cojones , but he turns out to be a capon.”

“Down, Jackie!” Kat said firmly.

“What? What’s the matter?”

“You don’t know all the facts or all the reasons or how Di feels. Maybe you’d do the same thing. How can you tell?”

Jackie looked at her with one eyebrow tilted abruptly. “Sweet Katherine,” she said. “Sweet, gentle, forgiving, understanding Katherine.”

“Now, honey,” Ross said.

“The thing,” Jackie said, “is to see him in proper perspective. Okay? He could fool around with our little project as long as it didn’t cost him anything except time and money.” She turned her bright stare toward Jimmy. “The wise old owl that doesn’t say a word turned out to be a pretty stupid bird.”

“Am I supposed to say something significant?” he asked.

“You could give it a try.”

“I said it last week when I was talking to Kat about this. I said people were going to play rough.”

“And so are we!” Jackie said, banging her plate down.

“Fight, team, fight,” Ross said.

Jackie stood up and looked solemnly at her husband. “Funny man,” she said, and walked out of the house.

“Should you... go with her?” Katherine asked, worried.

“She’s okay,” Ross said. “Good groceries, Kat. Oh, she’ll hike around with steam coming out of her ears. She gets sore. She works it off. She’ll be back.”

They finished eating. Jimmy helped Kat take the dishes out to the kitchen. Jackie came back, as noisy as before, with Burt Lesser in tow. “See what I got!” Jackie said. “A hunk of the opposition. He was home alone, helpless and apologetic.”

Burt Lesser acted as though it was some sort of party game, as if he were the permissive, good-humored trophy in a scavenger hunt. He wore a pale blue coverall suit with short sleeves and a tricky brass buckle and his initials in dark red on the breast pocket.

“Well, well, well,” he said, and took out a handkerchief and took off his heavy glasses, huffed on the lenses, and stood wiping them, looking at them all with an uncertain yet jolly look, his oval fleshy face naked without his glasses, and his belly thrusting the brass buckle forward with a look of comfortable arrogance.

Kat went to him quickly and said, “Burt, you know you’re welcome here any time. We didn’t send Jackie out to bring you back.”

“Cowards,” Jackie said. “Sit right there, Burt boy. This is an inquisition. We’re getting tough. We’ve got some questions to ask.”

Burt sat on the couch. He put his glasses on and looked hesitantly at Jimmy Wing. “I’m not in a position to make any official statement.”

“This is off the record,” Jimmy said, “whatever you say, Burt.”

“Get him a drink, Kat,” Jackie said. “Then you all sit down. I’ll be Perry Mason.”

Jackie stalked slowly back and forth in front of Burt Lesser, scowling, darting fierce looks at him from time to time. She was the only one who didn’t seem to sense the awkwardness of the situation.

“Now then,” she said, “are you the president of the Palmland Development Company?”

“Yes, I am.”

“Is it the purpose and intent of this company to fill Grassy Bay and make a lot of money?”

“Uh... to make a lot of money for everyone. Yes indeed.”

“You were not in favor of the Grassy Bay fill two years ago, Mr. Lesser. Is that true?”

“I wasn’t in favor of it. I didn’t... uh... actively oppose it, but I wasn’t in favor of it either. But this is a different situation.” He smiled at Kat and Ross and Jimmy, the smile of someone who is going along with a joke and wants to be appreciated.

“What’s so different about it?”

“Several things, Mrs. Halley. Several important things. We’re in a little business slump in Palm County, and we weren’t two years ago. This could be a tremendous shot in the arm. Also, having local people in control of it assures a real tasteful development. We don’t want to foul our own nest, you might say. Palmland Isles will be a credit to the area in every sense of the word.”

“Is that what you’re calling it? Ugh!”

“In every sense of the word. And we shall place all possible contracts and orders right here in Palm County. I have close contact with all the businessmen in the area, Mrs. Halley. I can assure you that the support for Palmland Isles is overwhelming. I think that you people are... uh... doing a disservice to the community by trying to oppose it.”

Jackie paced for a few silent moments. She stopped, whirled, pointed her finger so energetically at Burt that it made him flinch. “You have the feeling that this project will go through?”

“Oh, yes! There’ll be a clear majority in favor of it.”