Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

“My, my,” Elmo said. “Think of that! I know how to handle a little case of where folks mess around in the ordinary ways, but what the hell do you do with a thing like this?”

“It doesn’t have to be complicated, Elmo. She doesn’t even have to know we’ve done anything about it. I can look up the list of the experts who testified last time and just mail them, with no comment and no return address, the copies of the news items, with ‘Doris’ and ‘Rowell’ underlined in red wherever those names appear.”

“You mean that would do it? They wouldn’t come down?”

“It would be very unlikely.”

“And she wouldn’t know what was wrong, would she?”

“She might guess, sooner or later, but she could never be sure who spread the word.”

Elmo closed his eyes and pinched the bridge of his nose. “You go right ahead and do it that way, Jimmy. I think I like it. Tom Jennings will be leaning heavy on having those experts telling everybody how terrible it is to mess with breeding grounds and tide flow and so on. This way he may not find out until the very last minute they’re not coming. I want him to walk in there with the heart tooken right out of him, with nothing left on his side but nuts and bird-watchers opposing the march of progress and prosperity.”

“Tom told me a little while ago that you have to win every battle to win the marbles, and all he has to do is win one.”

“I know that just as well as he does. What I got to do is win the first battle so big there won’t be anybody left to fight on his side. I’ve got lots and lots of people working, and now that it’s out in the open, they can work harder. By the time of the hearing, boy, I want to have this county so worked up that if anybody should speak out against the fill in a public place, they get cracked right in the mouth by the first person who can get to him.”

“Who’s next on the priority list?”

“You gettin’ eager, Jimmy?”

“Not noticeably.”

“Come on around to the house tonight when you get finished up. There’ll be some folks milling around out there. You an me and Leroy can have a little chat. Don’t look so nervous, boy. You’re supposed to go where the news is.”

“The morning paper ought to please you, Elmo.”

“Ben Killian promised Leroy it would.” Elmo slumped slightly in his chair. “You run along now and close the door, boy. I’ve got some quiet thinking to do. I’ve got to catch up on my mess list.”

“On your what?”

“Whenever I get into anything, boy, whenever I take one of those bites I was telling you about, I like to take time off to just set and make myself up a list of every possible thing that could go wrong, every bad break I can imagine. And I decide just what I would do in each case. Then when things blow up in my face, it doesn’t take me by surprise. I know just what direction to move because I’ve got it planned.”

“Elmo, who phoned Sinnat?”

“Nobody he knew. Nobody you know. And they’ve got no way of knowing either you or me had anything to do with any part of it. One nice thing about this mess list is the way you get in the habit of doing things in such a way you cut way down the number of things which could go wrong. The only time to get brave is when you’ve got aces back to back.”

“Is that what you have now?”

“It’s more like queens backed, but the up card is the highest one on the table so far. If I was raised, I’d bump it again, because there is one hell of a lot in the pot. The opener was forty thousand.”

“From Mrs. Lesser?”

“Most of it.” Elmo smiled and closed his eyes. Jimmy went out and closed the door quietly. As the little elevator descended in the airless shaft, he decided he would work at home that day, and bring his copy in by late afternoon.

The table-top model of Palmland Isles was brought into the bank as soon as the doors were closed to the public. It was set up about fifteen feet behind Kat Hubble’s desk. A railing was installed around it, just far enough to keep the public from touching the exhibit.

A placard on a nearby easel was inscribed, Palmland Isles — A Planned Community — Styled for the Best of Tropical Living .

Martin Cable and Burt Lesser looked it over after it was set up. After they left, the bank employees gathered around it.

Kat stood beside two girls from the installment loan section.

“All the work in that thing!” one of them said.

“It’s absolutely gorgeous!” the other one said. “Chee, would I ever love to live there! What a place for kids, huh? What I’d like is that cute gray house there on that kinda point where the road curves around.”

“So tell Johnny you won’t settle for less.”

“Hah! Waterfront land? The only waterfront I’ll see is the kitchen sink. The closest I’ll get to that house is going by in a rowboat.”

“That bay belongs to both of you,” Kat said.

The two girls turned and stared blankly at her. “What do you mean, Mrs. Hubble?” the taller one said.

“You can use the bay now, Betty. Nobody can chase you off.”

“What would I use it for? Nobody swims there. It might as well be houses for all I care. Because I can’t afford it, it doesn’t mean other people shouldn’t have it that good.”

“Hey, I like the little red house best,” the other girl said. “On the wide canal there. A convertible in the front yard and a cruiser in the backyard. Wow!”

Kat went back to her desk. For the first time she had a hopeless feeling about their chances of defeating it. The model was the first tangible evidence that they were up against competence, imagination, money and a disheartening confidence.

She finished her routine typing a few minutes before three, and phoned Tom Jennings.

“They just set up a big model of that thing right here in the bank, Tom.”

“I saw it at the meeting this morning. It was a little like being hit in the head. I’ve been a little dazed ever since.”

“Somebody heard over the radio the hearing is two weeks from tomorrow. Is that right?”

“Yes.”

“Golly, that’s awful soon, isn’t it?”

“It’s being rammed through, Kat. The commissioners went along with it like lambs. All except Elmo Bliss. He gave me a chance to object, but they voted for that date. He was the only one who seemed to resent the very smooth job Lesser and company was doing on them.”

“He’s sort of an expert at the same thing.”

“Yes. I suppose. Anyway, it was the only help I got in any form, so I was grateful. I’ve been alerting the others about how little time we have. No pleasant chore. Doris Rowell was very savage about it. By the way, Kat, that model is out of scale. There won’t be that much of the bay left. I noticed that and called attention to it at the meeting. I hope the paper will make some mention of that. Both Mr. Borklund and Jimmy Wing were there. And a lot of pictures were taken. I’m going to go over the budget tonight with Harry and Wallace Lime and see what we can afford in the way of radio spots and newspaper ads. It won’t be much, I’m afraid.”

“I have to hang up, Tom. They want to close the switchboard.”

“I’ll phone you about the date of the next meeting, Kat. Don’t let that table-top promotion scare you.”

At home, after she changed, she walked to the Sinnats. The children, a half dozen of them, were on the beach with Esperanza, building sand forts and moats. Florence Riggs, the housekeeper, said, “Natalie drove them on over in the big car to catch that boat, Mrs. Hubble. She said she’d probably be back here about eight or nine o’clock if you want to see her.”

“It’s not important, Floss, thanks.”