Girl In The Plain Brown Wrapper

by John D. MacDonald

  Lakes amid the rolling land, some natural and some created by the horrendous mating dance of bulldozer and land developer. Golf clubs, retirement communities, Mid-Florida Junior College.

  No boomland this. No pageants, gator farms, Africalands, shell factories, orchid jungles. Solid, cautious growth, based on third- and fourth-generation money and control-which in Florida is akin to a heritage going back to the fourteenth century.

  My afternoon flight on that Thursday a week after Helena's death, wing-dipped into the final leg of the landing pattern, giving me a sweeping look at downtown, half shielded by more trees than usual, at peripheral shopping plazas, at a leafy residential area with curving roads, with the multiple geometry of private swimming pools, and then a hot shimmering winking of acres of cars in a parking area by one of the industrial plants, and then we came down, squeak-bounce-squeak-bounce, and the reverse roar of slowing to taxi speed.

  I had decided against arriving in my vivid blue Rolls pickup of ancient vintage. Miss Agnes makes one both conspicuous and memorable. I certainly was not on any secret mission, but I did not want to be labeled eccentric. I had a mild and plausible cover story and I was going to be very straight-arrow about the whole thing. I just couldn't barge in and say, "Your mother asked me to see if I could get you to stop killing yourself, kid."

  The girls were going to remember me not only because I had been a small part of their lives back when Mick had been killed but also because there are not too many people my size wandering around, particularly ones that have a saltwater tan baked so deeply that it helps, to a certain extent, in concealing visible evidence of many varieties of random damage and ones who tend to move about in a loose and rather sleepy shamble, amiable, undemanding, and apparently ready to believe anything.

  Because the girls would remember me, I had to have a simple and believable story. The simple ones are the best anyway. And it is always best to set them up so that they will check out, if anybody wants to take the trouble. The fancy yarns leave you with too much to keep track of.

  I walked across the truly staggering heat of the hard-pan and into the icy chill of the terminal building. A crisp computerized girl in a company uniform leased me an air-conditioned Chev with impersonal efficiency, then turned from robot into girl when I sought her advice on the most pleasant place to stay for a few days. She arched a brow, bit her lip, and when I said I never had any trouble with my expense accounts, she suggested the Wahini Lodge on Route 30 near the Interchange, go out to the highway and turn left and go about a mile and it would be on my right. It was new, she said, and very nice.

  It was of the same Hawaiian fake-up as most of Honolulu, but the unit was spacious and full of gadgetry and smelled clean and fresh. I was able to put the car in shade under a thatched canopy. Out the other side of the unit I could see green lawn, flowering shrubs partially blocking the view of a big swimming pool in the middle of the motel quadrangle. It was about three thirty in the afternoon when I dialed for an outside line and dialed the number for Thomas Pike. The address was 28 Haze Lake Drive.

  A female voice answered, hushed and expressionless.

  "Mrs. Pike?"

  "Who is calling please?"

  "Are you Maureen?"

  "Please tell me who is calling."

  "The name might not mean anything."

  "Mrs. Pike is resting. Perhaps I could give her a mes-"

  "Bridget? Biddy?"

  "Who is calling, please."

  "My name is Travis McGee. We met over five years ago. At Fort Lauderdale. Do you remember me, Biddy?"

  "... Yes, of course. What is it you want?"

  "What I want is a chance to talk to you or Maurie, or both of you."

  "What about?"

  "Look, I'm not selling anything! And I happened to do some small favors for the Pearson women when Mick died. And I heard about Helena last Monday and I'm very sorry. If I've hit you at the wrong time, just say so."

  "I... I know how I must have sounded. Mr. McGee, this wouldn't be a very good time for you to come here. Maybe I could come and.... Are you in town?"

  "Yes. I'm at the Wahini Lodge. Room One-0-nine."

  "Would it be convenient if I came there at about six o'clock? I have to stay here until Tom gets home from work."

  "Thanks. That will be just fine."

  I used the free tune to brief myself on the geography. The rental had a city-county map in the glove compartment. I never feel comfortable in any strange setting until I know the ways in and the ways out, and where they lead to, and how to find them. I learned it was remarkably easy to get lost in the Haze Lake Drive area. The residential roads wound around the little lakes. There was a big dark blue rural mailbox at the entrance to the pebbled driveway of number 28, with aluminum cutout letters in a top slot spelling T. pike. Beyond the plantings I saw a slope of cedar-shake roof and a couple of glimpses of sun-bright lake. The house was in one of the better areas but not in one of the best. It was perhaps a mile from the Haze Lake Golf and Tennis Club and about, I would guess, $50,000 less than the homes nearer the club.

  On my way back from there toward the city I found a precious, elfin little circle of expensive shops. One of them was a booze shoppe, with enough taste to stock Plymouth, so I acquired a small survival kit for local conditions.

  Biddy-Bridget called on the house phone at five after six, and I walked through to the lobby and took her around to the cocktail lounge close to the pool area, separated from the hot outdoors by a thermopane window wall tinted an unpleasant green-blue. She walked nicely in her little white skirt and her little blue blouse, shoulders back and head high. Her greetings had been reserved, proper, subdued.

  Sitting across from her at a corner table, I could see both portions of the Helena-Mick heritage. She had Helena's good bones and slenderness, but her face was wide through the cheekbones and asymmetrical, one eye set higher, the smile crooked, as Mick's had been. And she had his clear pale blue eyes.

  The years from seventeen to twenty-three cover a long, long time of change and learning. She had crossed that boundary that separates children from people. Her eyes no longer dismissed me with the same glassy and patronizing indifference with which she might stare at a statue in a park. We were now both people, aware of the size of many traps, aware of the narrowing dimensions of choice.

  "I remembered you as older, Mr. McGee."

  "I remember you as younger, Miss Pearson."

  "Terribly young. And I thought I was so grown up about everything. We'd been moved about so much... Maurie and me... I thought we were terribly competent and Continental and sophisticated. I guess... I know a lot less than I thought I knew back then."

  After our order was taken, she said, "Sorry I wasn't very cordial on the phone. Maurie gets... nuisance calls sometimes. I've gotten pretty good at cooling them."

  "Nuisance calls?"

  "How did you know where to find us, Mr. McGee?"

  "Travis, or Trav, Biddy. Otherwise you make me feel as old as you thought I was going to be. How did I find you? Your mother and I kept in touch. A letter now and then. Family news."

  "So you had to hear from her during... this past year, or you wouldn't have asked if you were talking to me."

  "I got her last letter Monday."

  It startled her. "But she'd--"

  "I was away when it arrived. It had been mailed back in September."

  "Family news?" she said cautiously.

  I shrugged. "With her apologies for being so depressing. She knew she'd had it. She said you'd been here ever since Maurie was in bad shape after her second miscarriage."

  Her mouth tightened with disapproval. "Why would she write such... personal family things to somebody we hardly knew?"

 

  "So I could have them published in the paper, maybe."

  "I didn't mean it to sound rude. I just didn't know you were such a close friend."

  "I wasn't. Mick trusted me. She knew that. Maybe people have to have somebody to talk to
or write to. A sounding board. I didn't hear from her at all while she was married to Trescott."

  "Poor Teddy," she said. I could see her thinking it over. She nodded to herself. "Yes, I guess it would be nice to be able to just spill everything to somebody who... wouldn't talk about it and who'd... maybe write back and say everything would be all right." She tilted her head and looked at me with narrowed eyes. "You see, she wasn't ever really a whole person again after Daddy died. They were so very close, in everything, sometimes it would make Maurie and me feel left out. They had so many little jokes we didn't understand. And they could practically talk to each other without saying a word. Alone she was... a displaced person. Married to Teddy, she was still alone, really. If being able to write to you made her feel... a little less alone... then I'm sorry I acted so stupid about it." Her eyes were shiny with tears and she blinked them away and looked down into her glass as she sipped her drink.

  "I don't blame you. It's upsetting to have a stranger know the family problems. But I don't exactly go around spreading the word."

  "I know you wouldn't. I just can't understand why... she had to have such a hellish year. Maybe life evens things up. If you've been happier than most, then..." She stopped and widened her eyes as she looked at me with a kind of direct suspicion. "Problems. About Maurie too?"

  "Trying to kill herself? Not the details. Just that she was very upset about it and couldn't understand it."

  "Nobody can understand it!" She spoke too loudly and then she tried to smile. "Honestly, Mr.... Travis, this has been such a... such a terrible..."

  I saw that she was beginning to break, so I dropped a bill on the table and took her just above the elbow and walked her out. She walked fragile and I took a short cut across the greenery and through a walkway to 109. I unlocked it and by the time I pulled the door shut behind us, she had located the bath, and went in a blundering half-trot toward it, making big gluey throat-aching sobbing sounds, "Yah-awr, Yah-awr!" slammed the door behind her. I could hear the muffled sounds for just a moment and then they ended, and I heard water running.

  I went down to the service alcove and scooped the bucket full of miniature cubes and bought three kinds of mix out of the machine. I put some Plymouth on ice for myself, drew the thinner, semiopaque drapery across the big windows, and found Walter Cronkite on a colorcast speaking evenly, steadily, reservedly of unspeakable international disasters. I sat in a chair-thing made of black plastic, walnut, and aluminum, slipped my shoes off, rested crossed ankles on the corner of the bed, and sipped as I watched Walter and listened to doom.

  When she came shyly out, I gave her a very brief and indifferent glance and gestured toward the countertop and said, "Help yourself."

  She made herself a drink and went over to a straight chair and turned it toward the set. She sat, long legs crossed, holding her glass in both hands, taking small sips and watching Walter.

  When he finished, I went over and punched the set off, went back and sat this time on the bed, half-facing her.

  "Getting any painting done?"

  She shrugged. "I try. I fixed it up over the boathouse into sort of a studio." She made a snuffling hiccupy sound. The flesh around her eyes was pink, a little bit puffed. "Thanks for the rescue job, Trav. Very efficient." Her smile was wan. "So you know about the painting too."

  "Just that it was your thing a couple of years ago. I didn't know if you still kept at it."

  "From what I'm getting lately, I should give up. I can't really spend as much time on it as I want to. But... first things first. By the way, what did you want to talk to Maurie about?"

  "Well, I hated to bother you gals so soon after Helena's death. Especially about something pretty trivial. A friend of mine-his name is Meyer-can't seem to get that custom motor sailer you people used to have out of his mind. The Likely Lady. She must be six years old now or a little more. He's been haunting the shipyards and yacht brokers for a long time, looking for something like her, but he can't turn anything up. He wants to try to track her down and see if whoever owns her now will sell. As a matter of fact, I'd already promised him I'd write to Helena when... her letter came. I made a phone call and found out she had... was gone. I told Meyer this was no tune to bother you or Maureen. But then I wondered if... well, there was anything at all I could do. I guess that because I was on the scene the last time, I'm kind of a self-appointed uncle."

  Her smile was strained. "Don't get me started again. Lately I just can't stand people being nice to me." She put her glass down and went over and stared at herself in the mirrored door of the bathroom, at close range. After a few moments she turned away. "It works. It always has worked. When we were little and couldn't stop crying, Mom would make us go and stand and try to watch ourselves cry. You end up making faces at yourself and laughing... if you're a little kid." She was frowning as she came back to her chair and her drink. "You know, I just can't remember the name of the man who bought the Lady. I think he was from Punta Gorda, or maybe Naples. But I know how I could find out."

  "How?"

  "Go down and open up the house at Casey Key and look in Mom's desk. I have to do that anyway, the lawyers say. She was very tidy about business things. File folders and carbon copies and all that kind of thing. It will all be in the folder for that year, the year she sold it. It was such a great boat. I hope your friend finds her and can buy her. Daddy said she was forgiving. He said you could do some absolutely damfool thing and the Lady would forgive you and take care of you. If you could give me your address, I could mail you the name and address of the man who bought her."

  "Do you plan to go down there soon?"

  "We talked about going down Saturday morning and driving back Sunday afternoon. It ought to give us enough time. But it depends on... how Maurie is."

  "Is she physically ill?"

  "In addition to being mentally ill? Is that what you mean?"

  "Why the indignation? Trying to knock yourself off isn't exactly normal behavior."

  "I get... too defensive about her, maybe."

  "Just what is wrong with her?"

  "It depends on who you ask. We've gotten more answers than we can use. And more solutions. Manic depressive. Schizophrenia. Korsakov's Syndrome. Virus infection of a part of the brain. Alcoholism. Name it, and somebody has said she has it."

  "Korsa-who?"

  "Korsakov. Her memory gets all screwed up. She can remember everything prior to this past year, but the past year is a jumble, with parts missing. I think sometimes she uses it as a... convenience. She can really be terribly sly. As if we were against her or something. And she does manage to get terribly stinking drunk, and she does manage to sneak away from us, no matter how careful we both are. We put her in a rest home for two weeks, but she was so upset by it, so confused and baffled by it all, we just couldn't stand it. We had to bring her home. She was like a little kid, she was so pleased to be home. Oh, she's not buggy-acting at all. She's sweet and dear and a lovely person, really. But something has just... broken, and nobody knows what it is yet. If I hadn't told you all this, you could come to the house and never know anything was wrong, really."

  "But she has tried to kill herself?"

  "Three times. And two of them were very close calls. We found her in time the time she took the sleeping pills. And Tom found her in the tub after she cut her wrist. The other time it was just something she'd prepared, a noose thing out of quarter-inch nylon, over a beam in the boathouse. All clumsy knots, but it would have worked."

  "Does she say why she keeps trying?"

  "She doesn't remember why. She can sort of remember doing it, in a very vague way, but not why. She gets very frightened about it, very weepy and nervous."

  "Who's taking care of her now?"