Bright Orange for the Shroud

by John D. MacDonald

  “Is that when he explained the deal to you?”

  “Just in broad outline, Trav, not in detail. We were in the main lounge, and he spread the maps out on the chart table. What he called the Kippler Tract was marked off and tinted. Sixty-one thousand acres. It was a strange shape, beginning north of Marco and getting wider over east of Everglades City, and going practically to the Dade County line. The syndicate was negotiating the option of it on a two-year basis at thirty dollars an acre against a purchase price of a hundred and twenty an acre. As soon as they had a firm option, he and another group were setting up a development corporation to buy the tract from the syndicate for three hundred and eighty dollars an acre. It meant that, after taking off syndicate overhead and operating expenses, the members would end up with five dollars for every dollar invested in the option—which would come to one million eight hundred and thirty thousand just for the option. He showed me the prospectus of what Deltona was doing at Marco Island, where the Collier interests along with Canadian money were planning a community of thirty thousand people. He said his staff had investigated every aspect of the plan, projected growth, water resources and so on, and if we could just get the option, it couldn’t miss.

  “Then he told me that he was in for seven hundred thousand, Gisik for four hundred thousand, a New York associate for five hundred thousand. The remaining two hundred and thirty thousand was represented by Crane Watts and Boo Waxwell, one hundred even by Watts. He said those small pieces were a nuisance, but it was essential to have a bright young lawyer on the scene, and that Boo Waxwell was the one with the close association with the Kippler heirs and able, if anybody was, to talk them into the deal. The New York associate had bowed out and there was five hundred thousand open. He said my five hundred thousand would become three million, a net return of one million nine after taxes, and my investment back.

  “I said I’d like one hundred thousand worth, and he looked at me as if I was a dog on the street and he rolled up the maps saying he hadn’t realized he was wasting his time as well as mine, and thanks for stopping by. Wilma was furious. She said I’d blown the whole thing. She said she’d talk to Calvin Stebber again and see if there was any chance at all of his taking me in on the basis of two hundred thousand. I said it didn’t seem smart to gamble the whole thing, and she said it wasn’t a gamble.”

  “Then he let you in.”

  “Reluctantly. I sent an airmail special to my brokerage house to sell at current market and airmail me a certified check for two hundred thousand. We met on the yacht, I signed the syndicate agreement, and it was witnessed and notarized. It gave me 9 and 15/100ths shares in the syndicate.”

  “And you didn’t have a lawyer of your own check it out.”

  “Travis … you can’t understand how it was. They seemed so important. They were doing me a favor to let me in. Without Wilma, they would never have let me in. It was my chance to afford her. And from the moment I’d messed the deal up when I had the first chance, Wilma wouldn’t let me near her. She’d hardly speak to me. She moved to a different bedroom in the beach house. And … they said it was a standard agreement. It was about six pages, single-spaced, on legal size paper, and I had to sign four copies. Wilma stood with her hand on my shoulder as I signed, and gave me a big kiss when it was over.”

  “Stebber left soon after that?”

  “A day or two later. About then Boo Waxwell began to hang around. He’d drop in without warning. It was obvious to me that he was attracted to Wilma. And she seemed too friendly toward him. When I complained to her, she said Calvin Stebber had said we had to be friendly to him. I tried to find out from Waxwell how things were going, but he’d just laugh and tell me not to sweat.”

  “When did they ask for more?”

  “On August first I got a letter from Crane Watts. It referred to paragraph something, sub-paragraph something, and asked for my check in the amount of thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three dollars and thirty-four cents at my earliest convenience. I was shocked. I dug out my copy and looked at the paragraph. It said that members of the syndicate could be assessed on the basis of participation to cover additional expenses. I went to see him right away. He wasn’t as friendly as before. I hadn’t seen his office before. It was north of the city on the Tamiami Trail, and it was just a cubicle in a roadside real estate office. He acted as if I was taking up valuable time. He said that negotiations had progressed to the point where the Kippler heirs had decided they wanted thirty-five dollars option money per acre, which meant the syndicate members had to come up with an additional three hundred and five thousand dollars, and simple mathematics showed that 9.15 percent of that was what he had requested by letter.

  “I said that I didn’t think I could make it, and that I guessed I’d just have to accept a proportional reduction of my share of the venture. He gave me a funny look and said he could understand my request, but if I had examined the subparagraph immediately following, certainly I’d realize it couldn’t be done. I hadn’t brought it. He got out an office copy and showed me the paragraph. It said, in effect, that if any participant failed to meet approved assessments, his share of the venture was forfeit, and would be divided among the remaining members in proportion to the interest they held at the time. He said it was perfectly legal, and the document had been signed, notarized and recorded.

  “I went back to the beach house and it took me quite a while to get it through Wilma’s head. Finally she understood that unless I came up with the additional money, we’d lose the two hundred thousand. She said it wasn’t fair. She said she would phone Calvin Stebber and get it all straightened out. I don’t know where she finally located him. She didn’t want me in the room. She said I made her nervous. After she talked to him, she came out and told me that he’d said his hands were tied. If he made any special arrangement for me, the others would raise hell. She said she’d asked him if he’d buy my share out, but he said his cash position at the moment was too low even to consider it at that time. He recommended raising the money, saying it was undoubtedly the last assessment, and he was certain the deal would go through any day. Wilma was agitated for a long time, but finally we sat down and tried to work it all out. I had, at current market, about fifty-eight thousand left in just two stocks. Standard Oil of New Jersey and Continental Can. I was going to have to sell something anyway to meet current expenses, as we had five hundred in the bank and three thousand in unpaid bills. I left twenty thousand in stocks, paid Crane Watts and the bills and put three thousand in the checking account.

  “On September first the option price went up to forty dollars an acre, and they asked for exactly the same amount again. By then I had four hundred in the bank and the twenty thousand. But I knew we had to raise it. I’d taken the agreement to another lawyer by then. He said it was ironclad, and only a damn fool would have signed such a thing. That was the time Wilma really cooperated. I thought that she was really beginning to understand the value of money. We sat down together and put everything into the pot. The rest of my stock, the car, my cameras, her furs and jewels. She went over to Miami and sold her stuff. We were just able to get it all together, with about four hundred dollars over. We paid off, and gave up the beach house and moved to a cheap motel room five or six blocks north of the intersection of Fifth Avenue and the Trail, the Citrus Blossom it was called. We cooked on a grill in the room.

  She kept asking what in the world we’d ever do if they asked for more. And she’d cry. It was her idea that I should make up a list of old friends who might come in on a good thing. She kept after me. I didn’t want to do it. Finally I had a list of thirty-two reasonably successful people who might be willing to trust me. She rewrote my letter several times, making it sound like the greatest opportunity in the world, and we made up thirty-two originals on the motel typewriter and sent them off, asking for a minimum of one thousand each, and any amount up to ten thousand they might want to put in. Then we waited. There were sixteen replies. Eight of them sai
d they were sorry. Eight sent money. Four of them sent a thousand each. Two sent five hundred. One sent a hundred dollars and one sent fifty dollars. Fifty-one hundred and fifty that we put in the joint account. No letters came in the next week. I sent signed notes to the eight friends as I had promised in the original letter. Then I got a call at the motel from Crane Watts. Calvin Stebber was staying at the Three Crowns in Sarasota and he wanted us to come up and see him. Watts said it might be good news. Wilma had such a headache she said I better go alone. We had no car. I took a Trailways bus to Sarasota and got there at five o’clock, and at the desk they told me Mr. Stebber had checked out but he had left a message for a Mr. Wilkinson. I identified myself and they gave it to me. It merely said that it looked as if it might be another six months or so before the deal would go through, and probably before the time was up there would be another assessment, just a small one, for operating expenses. My share would probably not be over eight or ten thousand.

  “I just sat there. I couldn’t seem to think clearly. I took a bus back. I didn’t get to the motel until a little after midnight. My key wouldn’t work. I hammered on the door. Wilma didn’t answer. I went to the office and the owner came to the door after I’d rung the night bell a long time. He said the lock had been changed and he hadn’t been paid for two weeks, and he was holding my clothes and luggage until I paid up. I said there was some mistake, that my wife had paid him. He said she hadn’t. I asked where she was, and he said that in the middle of the afternoon he’d seen her and some man carrying suitcases out to a car and driving away, and it made him think we were going to beat him out of the rent, so he had put my stuff in storage and changed the lock. He hadn’t noticed the car particularly, just that it was a palecolored car with Florida plates. She hadn’t left any message for me. I walked around the rest of the night. When the bank opened I found out she’d cleaned out the account the previous morning, when I thought she’d gone grocery shopping and came home with that headache.”

  Toward the end of it his voice had grown dull and listless. Chook stirred and sighed. A gust of the freshening breeze swung the boat, and some predatory night bird went by, honking with anguish.

  “But you found her again, later on,” I said, to get him started.

  “I’m pretty tired.”

  Chook reached and patted him. “You go to bed, honey. Want me to fix you anything?”

  “No thanks,” he murmured. He got up with an effort and went below, saying goodnight to us as the screened door hissed shut.

  “Poor wounded bastard,” Chook said in a half whisper. “It was a very thorough job. They got everything except the clothes he had on. They even milked old friendships.”

  “He hasn’t much resistance yet. Or much spirit.”

  “Both of those are up to you.”

  “Sure, but try to make it a little easier on him, Trav, huh?”

  “She took off in late September. It’s late May, Chook. The trail is eight months cold. Where are they, and how much do they have left? And just how smart are they? One thing seems obvious. Wilma was the bird dog. Rope a live one and bring him to Naples. Remember, she got booted off that cruiser out of Savannah. I think there was one on there a little too shrewd for her, so she took a long look at what we had around here. And picked Arthur. Marriage can lull suspicion, and she used sex as a whip, and when she had him completely tamed and sufficiently worried about money, she contacted Stebber to tell him the pigeon was ready for the pot. It was a professional job, honey. They made him ache to get in on it. They made him so eager he’d have signed his own death warrant without reading it.”

  “Was it all legal?”

  “I don’t know. At least legal enough so that you’d probably have a three-year court fight to prove it wasn’t, and then it would be only a civil action to recover the funds. He can’t finance that. He couldn’t finance two cups of coffee.”

  “Can you do anything?”

  “I could try. If you can prop him up a little, I can try.”

  She stood up and came over and gave me a quick hug, a kiss beside the eye, and told me I was a treasure. Long after she left, the treasure lifted a few score aches and sorenesses and went to bed.

  Four

  Late Sunday afternoon, up on the sundeck, I got the rest of the account from Arthur Wilkinson. Chook had him heavily oiled against additional burn. She was using the sundeck rail as a torture rack, and I was pleased to turn so that I could not see her. I had taken so much punishment all day, it hurt to watch her. But over Arthur’s recital I could sometimes hear her little gasps of effort, a creak of a joint strained to the maximum, and even that was mildly upsetting.

  Arthur had gotten absolutely no satisfaction from the young lawyer. He had offered to sell Watts his syndicate shares for twenty-five thousand. Crane Watts said he wasn’t interested. Next, in a kind of bemused desperation, he had tried to find Boone Waxwell, had learned that Waxwell had a place at Goodland on Marco Island. With the last of the small amount of money he had taken on the Sarasota trip, he had taken a bus to the turnoff to Marco, had hitched a ride to the island bridge, and then had walked to Goodland. At a gas station they told him how to find Waxwell’s cottage. He got there at sunset. It was an isolated place at the end of a dirt road, more shack than cottage. A pale gray sedan was parked in the yard. Country music was so loud over the radio they didn’t hear him on the porch, and when he looked through the screen he saw Wilma sprawled naked, tousled and asleep on a couch, and with a particular vividness he remembered her pale blonde head resting on a souvenir pillow from Rock City. Boo Waxwell, in underwear shorts, sat slumped by the little radio, bottle on the floor between his feet, trying to play guitar chords along with the radio music. He saw Arthur and grinned at him, and came grinning to the screen door, opened it and pushed Arthur back, asking him what the hell he wanted. Arthur said he wanted to speak to Wilma. Waxwell said there wasn’t much point in that on account of Wilma had gotten herself a temporary divorce, country-style.

  Wilma had then appeared in the doorway beside Waxwell, light of the sunset against her face, a small and delicate face puffy with sleep and satiation, eyes drained empty by bed and bottle, nestling in soiled housecoat into the hard curve of Boo Waxwell’s arm, looking out at him with a placid and almost bovine indifference, outlined in that end-of-day glow against the room darkening behind her.

  He said it was strange how vivid the little things were, the precise design in faded blue of an eagle clutching a bomb, wavering as the muscles of Waxwell’s upper arm shifted under the tattoed hide. The irregular deep rose shade of a suckmark on the side of Wilma’s delicate throat. And tiny rainbow glintings from the diamonds of the watch on her wrist—the watch she had claimed she sold in Miami.

  Then he knew that it had all been lies, all of it, with nothing left to believe. Like an anguished, oversized child, he had rushed at Waxwell to destroy him, had landed no blow, had been pummeled back, wedged into a corner of porch post and railing, felt all the grinding blows into gut and groin and, over Waxwell’s diligent shoulder had seen the woman small in the doorway, hugging herself and watching, underlip sagging away from the small even teeth. Then the railing gave way and he fell backward into the yard. He got up at once and slowly walked back the way he had come, hunched, both forearms clamped across his belly. He had the feeling that it was the only thing holding him together. His legs felt feathery, floating him along with no effort. Somewhere along the dirt road to the cottage he had fallen. He could not get up. He felt as if something was shifting and flowing inside him, the life moving warmly out of him. He would have slept, except for mosquitoes so thick he breathed them in, snuffing them from his nose, blowing them from his lips. He squirmed to a tree and pulled himself upright and went on, trying all the time to straighten himself up a little more. By the time he got to the bridge he was almost straight. There was a pink glow left in the west. He began the long walk back to the trail and for a time he was all right, and then he began falling. He said it was ver
y strange. He would find himself way out by the center line, and then when he went over to the shoulder, a dark bush would seem to leap up at him and he would land heavily, gasping.

  An old pickup truck stopped as he was trying to get up, and they came and put a bright flashlight beam on him, and from far away he heard a man and woman discussing in casual nasal tones how drunk he was and from what.

  Summoning the last of energy, he said very distinctly, “I’m not drunk. I’ve been beaten.”

  “Whar you want we should take you, mister?” the man asked.

  “I’ve got no place to go.”

  When things came back into focus, he was between the man and the woman on the front seat of the pickup. They took him home. East on the Trail to the turnoff to Everglades City, through Everglades and across the causeway to Chokoloskee Island, and over to the far shore, where these people named Sam and Leafy Dunning lived with their five kids in a trailer and attached cottage and prefab garage. He learned later they had spent a picnic day over on Marco Beach, and when they had picked him up, the five kids and the picnic gear and beach gear were in the bed of the old pickup.

  Sam Dunning, in season, operated a charter boat out of the Rod and Gun Club over at Everglades City. It was out of season, and he was netting commercial with a partner, even shares, using an old bay skiff.

  For three days Arthur could hobble about like an old man. All he could keep down were the soups she fixed for him. He slept a great deal, sensing it was in part an aftermath of the beating, and partly the emotional exhaustion of what had happened to him. He slept by day in a string hammock in the side yard, and by night on a mattress in the garage, waking often to find the children staring solemnly at him.