Джон Макдональд - A Flash of Green

“So let’s go.”

After it was done, they waited around and picked a couple of the first copies off the press run. Brian had phoned Nan so she wouldn’t worry. There was no one to worry about when Borklund came home.

“You better keep him,” Haas said. “Like a rare butterfly.”

Jimmy went to the car and checked and came back. “His eyes are open. He did a little thumping and grunting. I think he’s annoyed.”

“How’s your hand?”

“I have pretty dimpled knuckles. I better not turn him loose until circulation is too far along to be stopped.”

“Want to park him in front of my house for a little while?”

“I better not. I want to keep you clean.”

They stood under the streetlight on Bayou, smiling at each other. Haas said, “You were a sneaky bastard, working for Elmo, you know.”

“The job had small compensations. I got to take Buck’s girl to Tampa and put her on a plane.”

“I wondered what happened to her.”

“She made Martin Cable nervous.”

“When Eloise reads the morning paper, she’s going to be the nervous one.”

“Almost as nervous as Leroy.”

“Mr. Wing, it has been a pleasure being associated with you. In a day when the newspaper business has become about as glamorous as chicken-plucking, you have created a new legend with a nice old-timey ring to it. May I suggest that you seek your next employment in Portland, Anchorage or Honolulu, and as quickly as possible?”

“After I stay and watch what happens.”

“Don’t stay too long. I’ll say goodbye to Nan for you.”

After Haas drove off, Jimmy walked slowly to his car. He had had little sleep, but he did not feel tired. He felt stimulated and mildly reckless, a three-drink condition achieved without drinking. But at unexpected intervals a little streak of fright would flash across the back of his mind, like a penny rocket. He kept thinking of a bloody old joke about a man reputed to be very quick with a razor. Ho, ho, ho, you missed me, boy. Did I, now? Just you try turning your head. Beyond old jokes, and the little gleams of fright, and the problem of what to do with Borklund, and the ache of his bruised hand, were the tangled sensory memories of Katherine, untouched, unsorted — all the jumbled, silky tumbling of her, white long clean lines and the gasping, all untouched, unsorted, and too soon over. For a time there had been one incredible answer to everything, a solution of such curious simplicity it had been overlooked. But, almost within moments, it had become a false answer to all the wrong questions, and she came tapping back in on her tall heels, her face cool, her mouth sucked to an unforgiving tightness, to tell him that little boys who write nasty words on the blackboard lose their chance to attend the school picnic.

He turned to look toward the rear of the station wagon and said, “Borklund, old buddy, what would you like to do? We’re too late for the bars. They closed at two. We lost our chance to pick up a couple of girls. About the only thing to do is ride around. Okay with you? Fine. We’ll just ride around.” Borklund made a muffled growling sound and thumped with his heels on the tin deck of the wagon.

He drove aimlessly for nearly an hour, and finally parked at the small public beach at the north end of Cable Key. Two other cars were parked there, in search of love. There were hungry mosquitoes ranging the beach. He left the windows open a few inches, locked the doors on the inside, sprayed the interior of the car with the bug bomb he carried in the glove compartment, stretched out on the front seat and went to sleep. It was early daylight when he awakened. The other cars were gone.

He dropped the tail gate, hauled Borklund into a handy position and stripped the tape off. Borklund looked older and smaller, gray in the mild morning light. He sat on the tail gate, his legs dangling. His jaw was lumpy and discolored.

“Glasses,” he said in a dusty voice.

Wing got them from the glove compartment. One lens was almost opaque with a network of fine cracks. Borklund put them on. He fingered his jaw tenderly. He spat onto the compacted shell of the parking area. He stepped down and walked in a small circle, slowly, lifting his knees high, flexing his arms. He stopped in front of Jimmy and said, “I don’t want you sent to Raiford. I want you serving county time, so on the hot afternoons I can drive out and park and watch you swinging a brush hook on a county road gang.”

“You’re a hard man to put down.”

“What the hell is it all about, Wing?”

Jimmy handed him the paper. Borklund leaned against the tail gate and read it. Then he slowly rolled the paper into a small hard cylinder. He stared out at the Gulf and whapped the paper against his thigh and said, “You poor damn fool. You poor sorry ignorant damn fool.”

“Could I have gotten it in any other way?”

“No. That isn’t what I mean. You going to leave me here, or do you plan to drive me back to my car?”

“I’ll drive you in.”

Borklund got into the car. As Jimmy backed out, he said, “Who was in this with you? Haas?”

“He was there, but he didn’t know anything about you.”

“I got to get my other glasses and change my clothes and go see Mr. Killian and then go sign a complaint.”

At noon on Wednesday Jimmy parked on Center Street and walked a block and a half to the Bay Restaurant. He walked slowly in the hot sun. He had the feeling that if he looked down at the front of his clean shirt, he would be able to see his heart beating. There was a ludicrous flavor to the situation. It seemed that it had happened to him before, and then he remembered it was just a stock situation in ten thousand westerns. Ol’ Jimmy Wing, the tumbleweed kid, has come into town a-knowing the Bliss gang has swore to shoot him on sight. Play a little High Noon music while the townspeople gasp and bug their eyes and scuttle out of the line of fire.

He gave a hitch at his gun belt, narrowed his eyes, and listened to the slow jingle of his spurs. But there were tourists who didn’t scuttle, and glanced at him blankly, if at all. He went into the coolness of the lounge and stood at the bar where many members of the business community could be found at lunchtime, and had the small satisfaction of noting that he had put an abrupt end to about fifteen simultaneous conversations. When the conversations began again, they had a different character, a hushed sibilance. He ordered a drink and nodded and spoke to the ones within range.

“Hi, Les, Charlie. How you, Wade? How’re things, Will?”

The responses were guarded. They left him ample elbow room at the bar. Leroy Shannard came in at quarter after twelve, heading toward the dining room. He saw Wing and stopped abruptly and came over to him.

“I’ve been boring hell out of our mutual friend all morning, James,” Shannard said. “I keep saying to him I told you so.”

“What’s a good word for him? Disgruntled?”

“That word has always bothered me. If you’re not disgruntled, you have to be gruntled, don’t you?”

“What’s a better word for Elmo today?”

“I’d say hurt. Just plain hurt. He said if anybody was to see you, tell you he’d like a little chat with you. He should be at his office all afternoon. I guess he wants to talk to you like an uncle.”

“You seem calm and contented, Leroy.”

“I’ve had a busy morning, a right busy morning indeed, soothing some people down and chewing out other ones. I have to keep explaining how you snuck that into the paper without permission, and have been fired. Poor Eloise had hysterics over the phone after Martin left the house. Poor fellow has been adding two and two and coming up with twenty-two, but he can’t back out on the financing now without confirming all the gossip that’s going around. Darse Coombs was stamping around my office demanding we sue somebody. But, yes, I guess I’m calm and contented, James. The worst fuss is over already. It’ll be downhill from here on. Tonight in a thousand happy homes, they’ll use that paper to wrap the garbage. You’d better talk to Elmo. He’s upset about what you said about retaliation. I guess he isn’t entirely sure about what you meant, James. You’ve got no job with the paper and no job with him, and no chance of any kind of a job in Palm County. And of the people left who’ll still speak to you, there isn’t a one of them who’ll ever trust you. So he seems to feel you’ve given yourself all the retaliation one man can use.” He glanced at his watch, nodded at Jimmy and said, “Good luck, boy,” and headed for the dining room.