“How in hell should I know about that, buster boy?”
“How in hell should I know until I ask, Waxwell?”
“What did Watts say?”
“Before I got around to that he’d started to do so much lying I couldn’t sort it out.”
“I say it wouldn’t hurt to have Cal Stebber. That fat happy little son of a bitch could sell snowflakes in hell. He makes it go smooth. But you get Watts, and you don’t get Stebber or the woman. Or Boo Waxwell. He was a one-time thing. I got only one more little piece of business with lawyer boy, and that’s all. You see that Viv? She look at old Boo like he’s a spitty place on the sidewalk. I got it in my mind to take care of that. I had other things going then, and no time to line her up. She’s got next to no man atall, and it’s sure a waste. She’s all solid woman, and when ol’ Boo gets her steadied into it one of these days, she’ll come on like an ol’ walkin beam pump machine with no place to turn her off. I got that one marked in my mind, because any fool can see she sure ain’t gettin what she come after so far.” He winked. “And she was just a little too snotty to ol’ Boo, which is always a good sign ever time. They get like that when they get little ideas in their pretty little heads, making them skitty.”
I sensed it was a diversion, but could not imagine why.
“But to get back to it, Waxwell. Is the woman as good as Watts seems to think?”
He shrugged, went out after more beer, came back and, as he handed me mine, said, “She has Arthur clamped down like one of those little hairy dogs rich women tote around. She married him legal. Always does, Cal Stebber said. Gets herself Alabama divorces. Makes no money claim and it goes through quick and easy. Married up with maybe eleven of them, and her and Stebber and Gisik, one way or another, picked every one clean. Averages out maybe one a year. Maybe she doesn’t hit it off so good with your man. She’s no kid anymore.”
“Where can I find her?”
He stared blankly at me then. “Why ask me?”
“Why not? Watts told me that after you cleaned Wilkinson, you and Wilma shacked up right here.”
He looked around at the room as though seeing it for the first time. “Here? Why would he say a thing like that?”
“Because Wilkinson told him how it was, months later, when he showed up demanding money. Wilkinson was sent on a wild goose chase up to Sarasota. When he came back to the motel, Wilma had cleared out. Wilkinson told Watts he found you and Wilma here, and you beat him up.”
Waxwell threw his head back and guffawed, slapped his knee. “Oh, that! Goddam! He sure did come around here. Drunk or sick. God knows. I had me a little friend here, waitress that come over from Miami to see me. Little bit of a woman no bigger than Wilma, silvery color hair like Wilma. About sundown and the light not too good. That fool Arthur got it in his head she was Wilma for sure. Maybe out of his head from losing the money and her taking off. Hard to say. I had to bust him up a little and run him off the place.”
He shook his head, stopped smiling, looked earnestly at me. “Mind you I’m not saying I wouldn’t want to a had Wilma here a while. I did give it a little try. But I struck out swinging on three pitches, man. Hurt my pride some, but it wasn’t the first time I missed and won’t be the last, and a man has to face it there’s some you can’t get to. With her, it was all business. She didn’t see no point in just for the fun of it. Cold, maybe. I don’t know. Or maybe no money, no kicks. Way I figure it, while Arthur was riding that bus up to Sarasota, she was long gone on her way to Miami with her end of the loot, and from there God knows where, someplace where she could live good until the money got small enough so she had to start on suckering the next one for them to squeeze dry.”
I used a long drink from the bottle to make certain my face didn’t show anything. The momentary diversion, and then the strange earnestness. The house and yard full of toys. Mildred Mooney could not have invented that rancid little scene by the beach house pool. Nor could Arthur have invented the telling detail of the little diamond watch he thought Wilma had peddled. Conversely, Waxwell could not have known of being seen by Mrs. Mooney, nor of Arthur’s instant recognition of the diamond wristwatch. What could he have been worth in the Wilkinson swindle? Five thousand? Ten at the very top. Maybe twenty-five thousand. And it wouldn’t buy many new toys. I had a sudden and vivid image of that small, delicate, pampered face, wavery under the black slow run of water, of fine silver hair strung into the current flow, of shadowy pits, half seen, where sherry eyes had been.
“So Stebber would be the one for me to ask, I guess,” I said.
“Most likely to know. By now maybe they got a new one going for them.”
“So if I have to work through Stebber, then he’s in on it. And my end is smaller.”
“McGee, what got it in your head you got to have one particular broad, just because she did good on the last one? I could pick you one right out of the air. Thinking on one right now. Little ol’ gal way up in Clewiston, wasting her talent. Doing waitress work. Had her teaching license, but lost it for all time. Dresses good. Acts like a lady. Pretty face but built only a little better’n fair. Sugar sweet, and a born thief. But I swear and garntee, she get any plain ordinary fella into bed just one time, from then on he can have trouble remembering his own name or how to count to ten. And that’s all you need, isn’t it? That’s how Wilma set them up for Stebber.”
“I better think the whole thing over, Boo.”
“It’s Rike Jefferson over to Everglades, executor on the Kippler land, writing any damn letter they tell me to tell him. He married the youngest Kippler girl, how come he got that job, and she’s years dead. I yell frog one time and Rike jumps all his heart gives out. Down in Homestead is Sam Jimper, a lawyer crooked as a ball of baby snakes, but knowing I was behind you with my eye on him, he’d sooner frenchkiss a gator than try to get cute two ways. I’m telling you the way to do is you forget Watts and Stebber and all them, and let me get Melly on down here and you look her over, and give her a trial run if you don’t believe me. She won’t take as big an end of it as you’d have to give Wilma. But I get a good cut because you need me to set it up, because without a genuine big piece of land, all recorded and setting there to look at, you’ve got no way to give a man an itch to double his money, so as to show off for his cute new little schoolteacher wife. And I tell you, Sam Jimper’s got an office paneled in black cypress big enough for a ball game, nothing like that closet Watts has got. I say you give Melly five hundred dollars for front and just turn her and aim her at your man, married already or not, he’s got as much chance as a key lime pie in a school yard.”
“Don’t tell me how to run it, Boo. Don’t tell me who I’m going to use. Maybe I don’t need some nut who tries to kick my knee off before he knows who I am or what I want. I have to think this out. I don’t want it messed up. It’s the biggest piece of money I’ll ever get hold of. Right now I’m going to let things sit for a while. Maybe you make sense. I don’t know. If I decide you do, you’ll hear from me.”
“What if’n I think of something else that’d help?”
“Tell me when I get in touch.”
“An if you don’t?”
“Stop leaning on me, Boo.”
He chuckled. “So you got to go talk it over with somebody. Look like you got a partner.”
“What’s that to you?”
He stood up. “Nothing. Not one damn old little thing, buddy boy. None of my business. Maybe you’re just the errand boy, talking big. Come back. Don’t come back. Ol’ Boo’s gettin’ along sweet and fine. Leave off your car down the road?”
“Left a boat in Goodland and walked in.”
“Drive you in.”
“Don’t bother.”
“Got to go see somebody anyways. Come on.”
It was going sour. I could sense it. We went in the Lincoln. The abused engine was ragged, and he took the curves of the narrow road in careless skids, spattering shell into the ditches. After coming to a noisy, smoking sto
p at Stecker’s Boat Yard, he got out with me and strolled out to the dock, talking slurred, amiable nothings. The old man was gone. The pumps were unlocked, but I did not want to spend extra time within range of that blue-eyed stare. I gave it full throttle and at the end of the long white-water curve away from Goodland, I looked back and saw him standing motionless on the dock, watching me, thumbs hooked onto that lethal belt.
It had been all right, and then it had gone subtly wrong in a way I couldn’t explain. I had the feeling it had been a near thing getting away from him at all. Something had changed him—some factor of doubt, some special alertness. A twig snapping, maybe, in the tangly backwoods of his mind, bringing the head up, ears cocked, eyes narrow. I now knew it was going to all move quickly, and I could no longer set the pace. I had done my little prying and poking. The avalanche had started its first grumblings. Then comes the time to try to outrun it.
Ten
After exposure to Boone Waxwell, the look of Chook and Arthur on the early afternoon beach had the flavor of a great innocence. She was hovering around him, cheering him on with shrill yips. He was braced against an impressive bend in one of the big boat rods. When I beached the Ratfink near the Flush, she hollered to me to come tell them what Arthur was fighting.
I trotted down to where they were. I saw a slow massive boil about a hundred yards out. Arthur, grunting, was trying to horse it enough to get some line back.
“What did you use?”
She held her fingers about eight inches apart. “A shiny little fish I caught, but we think he was dead after Arthur threw him out there a couple of times.”
Arthur gave me a strained grin. He and his quarry were in stasis. I waded in and felt the taut line, then felt that slow distinctive stroke, a kind of ponderous convulsion.
“Shark,” I said. “Sand shark or a nurse shark, probably. Longer odds on a hammerhead.”
“My God!” Chookie cried. “We’ve been swimming in there!”
“Heavens above!” I said. “And sometimes a bat will fly into a house and bite somebody. Or a raccoon will charge, snarling, into a supermarket. Sweetie, the sharks are there all the time. Just don’t swim when the water is all roiled and dirty.”
“What’ll I do?” Arthur asked in a strained voice.
“Depends if you want him.”
“My God, I don’t want him.”
“Then set the drag tight, aim the tip at him, and back away from the water.”
He did. After five strenuous steps, the nine-thread line popped, out by the leader swivel. As he reeled in, there was another boil, farther out, as the shark went off to think things out.
“Sharks have no bones,” I announced. “Just gristle. They have rows of hinged teeth that straighten up as they open their mouths. They shed teeth from the front row and the other rows move forward. About one third the body weight is liver. The tiny spikes on their hides are tipped with enamel of the same composition as tooth enamel. Their brains are little nubs on the front ends of their spinal cords. They have no intelligence anyone has ever been able to test. They are a roving, senseless, prehistoric appetite, as unchanged as the scorpion, cockroach and other of nature’s improvisations which had good survival value. A wounded shark being eaten by his chums will continue to eat anything within reach, even hunks of himself which might happen by. End of lesson.”
“Gah,” said Chookie. “And thanks a lot.”
“Oh, two more items. There is no effective shark repellent. And they do not have to roll to bite. They can lunge up and chomp head-on, but when they bite down, then they roll to tear the meat loose. Now, children, we go into conference, critical variety. Everybody into the main lounge.”
When they were seated and expectant, I said, “I learned that it wasn’t Wilma you saw with Boone Waxwell, Arthur. It was a girl who looked a little like her.”
Arthur’s jaw dropped. “But I was certain it … Oh, come on! I know it was Wilma. Or an identical twin. And I saw her watch. She told me once it was a custom design. I couldn’t mistake it. No, that was Wilma, even to the way she was asleep in there, her posture.”
“I agree. It was Wilma. And ol’ Boo went to great lengths to prove it wasn’t. It seems it is very important to him to establish that Wilma was never there.”
“But why?”
“Because that’s where he killed her. And took over her share. And used it to buy himself lots of pretty toys he doesn’t take very good care of.”
“Killed Wilma,” Arthur said in a sick voice. He swallowed. “Such a … such a tiny woman.”
“And it’s a good guess she was your legal spouse, Arthur. She’d been working with Stebber for years. Maybe he had a little stable of Wilmas. Legal marriage makes it neater, and divorce is no great problem. You might have been husband number eleven. Marriage enlarges the areas wherein the pigeon can be plucked.”
“What a charmer,” Chookie said softly. “Lady spiders eat their mates for dessert. I read about one real smart kind of little boy spider. He doesn’t come courting until he’s caught a juicy bug. Then while she’s enjoying the gift, he’s off and away like a flash.”
“A quarter of a million dollars is a juicy bug,” Arthur said.
“Made her rates pretty high,” Chook said tartly. “Trav, my God, how did you figure this out?”
“I didn’t. It just seems like what must have happened.” And I gave them a condensed but uncensored report. His little knife trick made Chook gasp. I got paper and wrote down the names he had mentioned before they slipped out of my mind. I gave the most weight, detail and careful choice of words to the feeling I had right at the end.
“So here it is. This is his country. I’ll bet he knows every boat for fifty miles around. He’s not going to take me at face value. He’s going to feel uneasy until he finds where I’m holed up. By now it’s certain that there are people at Marco who know where we’re anchored, know there’s two men and a woman aboard. The more he learns, the less he’s going to like the smell of it. And he’s the type to make his moves and to do his thinking later. Cute as we’ve been, we’ve left a clear trail.”
“So we rub it out and pick a new base,” Chook said.
“Right. And then we think up some good safe way to decoy ol’ Boo, so I can have enough time to take that rat nest of his apart.”
“What do you mean?” Chook asked.
“This is a recovery operation, isn’t it? I doubt he’s spent it all. He wouldn’t bank it. It’s in some hidey hole. And not an obvious one. He’s devious, not in any reasoned way, but by instinct. He has that bluff, battered soldier-of-fortune look, and a ton of ironic charm in that grin, and he makes me think that under other circumstances he’d be the man I’d want to go ashore with in a strange port where there would be good booze and a chance of trouble. But that would be wrong. The essence of him is feline, and not house-kitty. A bigger predator. I wonder how many people he’s conned with that swampy folktalk which isn’t even very consistent. It’s a good cover. His way of life is a predator way of life, a cat-habit. He has his home range, most of four counties to roar around in that abused Lincoln, whipping the other males so ruthlessly nobody challenges him, bringing prey back to the den, protecting the den violently and instinctively, and ready at any time to fade back into the Glades. I’m saying all this because I don’t want us to make the mistake of assuming he will respond predictably to any action of ours. Something that might send another man hustling to a faraway place might make Boo Waxwell run a little way and circle back. And, when he came so damned close to stomping me, I realized it has been a long time since I have seen anyone move that fast.”
“Trav?” Chookie said in a strange and subdued tone.
“What, dear?”
“Maybe … maybe he is you, gone bad. Maybe that’s what he smelled. Maybe that’s why you can handle him.”
My immediate instinct was to get blazing mad, tell her it was a rotten analogy. It was a response the head-feelers would call significant.
“Maybe I’m being dumb or something,” Arthur said. “If this man is all that dangerous, and you’re pretty sure he … killed Wilma, well then I’d think there would be things the police could find out. I mean, maybe an identification of the gray car he had when he took her from the motel while I was gone. Maybe he went with her to the bank when she cleaned out that joint account, before I left on the bus. I could swear I saw her at Waxwell’s cottage. Maybe somebody else saw her there, or when he drove her in through the village. I mean wouldn’t we be better off if he was in jail?”
“Arthur, it is very nice to believe in an orderly society. By and large, all the counties of Florida have pretty good law officers. Some are excellent. But the law isn’t growing even half as fast as the population. So it is selective. From their point of view, how excited could they get over the possibility of a transient woman of dubious character getting herself killed well over six months ago, a woman who was never reported missing. Collier County will have some deputies who know the score in the Marco Island area, and much as they might itch to put Boo away for keeps, they’d know their chances of finding a body if he was able to take it into the islands and rivers and swamps and hide it. Now after Boo beat you so badly and those nice people who found you on the highway took you in, you must have had some idea of getting the law after Boone Waxwell. Did they give you an opinion?”
“They said to forget it. They said nothing would happen, and it could make trouble for them. They said there were Waxwells all over, and a lot of them were decent quiet people, but there were a lot of wild ones like Boone, and if they wanted to take it out on Sam Dunning, sheltering somebody trying to make trouble, his nets could get cut up and his charter boat could catch fire and nobody would know who did it. The best thing to do, they said, was keep your head down. Trav, I ought to see those good people. I went off and said I’d come back soon. And they haven’t heard a word.… It isn’t right.”
“Another thing, Arthur,” I said. “If you made the complaint about Boo, remember it would be coming from a man who recently chopped brush on a Palm County work gang. A man with no funds and no employment. When there isn’t enough law to go around, it has to work on a status system. And suppose you did get them to take Boone Waxwell in. They’d seal his cave, and maybe they would come across whatever he has left, if anything. Then it would be out of reach for keeps.” I looked at Chookie. She sat with chin on fist, scowling. “You’re getting good grades so far,” I said. “What else should we do?”
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