The Way of All Fish

by Martha Grimes

Donny took off his cap and scratched his gray head. “Jesus! Just wait till I tell Dave.”

  Please don’t. That would mean both fiction and nonfiction landing on his desk simultaneously. But having established some street cred with Donny Lugz, Clive could now break away. He handed over a fifty and said, “For the gas.”

  Donny was still gazing at the card. “Clive Ester—”

  “Esterhaus. If you could just give me the change, I’ve got to get going. Got an appointment.”

  “New York. My God. Oh, the gas. Here, just forget it and pay me next time you drop by. Ain’t got no change anyway.”

  “I’ll do that. Nice meeting you, Mr. Lugz.”

  Clive banged out the door and into his gas-guzzling SUV.

  The Sawgrass Motel was as he’d imagined it: like all of the other small motels lined up the Tamiami Trail or Route 29.

  He tossed his overnight bag on the double bed (fast becoming a relic), switched on the palm-frond fan, which circled raspingly, and looked over the galley kitchen. The cups and mugs appeared to be various cast-offs from garage sales; the pots and pans had been hammered out back in the Industrial Revolution. He checked out the bathroom, just large enough for him to stand in the doorway and take aim at the toilet.

  He glanced at his watch, saw it was approximately the time he’d told Simone Simmons he’d be calling on her, and opened the door. He was thankful that the ’Glades was not at his doorstep, waiting and panting.

  31

  After he’d rung the surly-sounding bell, Clive stood outside her door, observing a large tree entwined—or one might say embraced (though he wouldn’t)—by some sort of ropelike smaller tree. How strange, he thought. But it was the land of the strange, and one had to get used to it.

  Clive frankly thought it remarkable that Aunt Simone had ever been Uncle Simon. Even with the advantage of foreknowledge, he couldn’t really see it. She was shoed in Louboutin (ah, those red soles!) and layered in L’Heure Bleu (a scent recalled from a former lady friend). Yes, Simone had taken a hike away from Simon.

  She wore her dark hair in a thirties bob, had unusually white skin and high cheekbones, and except for being reminded of the Addams family, he found her quite attractive.

  “Mr. Esterhaus? How nice. Do come in.”

  “Mrs. Simmons.” He smiled and did as he was bade. The cottage was large but not ostentatious. The furniture was typical Floridian, Tommy Bahama strewn with near-reckless abandon, white wicker and bamboo. What surprised Clive was the color that drenched the room, including Simone herself: She wore a drapery of silk on which great swirls of yellow vied with deep blue, as across one shoulder a random trail of marquisette looked like a trail of distant stars. Well, van Gogh’s signature had to be somewhere on that dress. The curtains and chair cushions were so jazzy with color that they had to be Jackson Pollock. Most surprising was the big Mark Rothko parrot, deep red and dead black, and squawking at him from its stand in a huge gilt cage.

  “His name is Jasper,” said Simone.

  Clive canvassed the room quickly. Jasper Johns hadn’t made the cut.

  “Would you care for something? I make excellent martinis.”

  “And I drink them.”

  She drifted off to a dining room and a bamboo sideboard where bottles were clustered. He helped himself to a seat in a white basket-weave chair with a tall, deeply rounded back, more of a hut than a chair. He liked the privacy as he listened to the rattle of ice against glass and the gurgle of bottles. And Jasper punctuating this harmony with a squawk.

  Back she came, carrying two very large fan-shaped chilled glasses with a lemon shaving floating on each surface. They were triples, at least, and icy-cold.

  “I believe in chilling glasses and warming dinner plates. One shouldn’t compromise heat and cold.”

  Clive gave some thought as to whether Sartre or Santayana might find some moral point to argue. He raised his glass to her, then sipped.

  “Now, you wanted to see me about my nephew, Bass. You’re in publishing, you said on the phone.”

  “Right. Mackenzie-Haack.” Clive was damned if he was going to say D and D. “Senior editor.” He also wasn’t going to bother with his imprint, since people outside of publishing didn’t know what that meant: “A Clive Esterhaus book.” Big deal to him, but not to many others. “I’ve known Bass for a long time. I know he visits you from time to time.”

  “Every November. Thanksgiving. He stays for one week. He hates Florida.”

  Clive feigned surprise.

  “Loathes it.” She drew the word out to such lengths that it sounded multisyllabic.

  Clive smiled. “Indeed.”

  “As he’s the last of the family, I insist he come. He pretends to enjoy it, but he can’t unwind. It’s not New York that has him that way, it’s that Bass is such a tight-ass.”

  Clive had just taken a drink of the martini and almost choked. He cleared his throat. “Really?”

  “Oh, come, now. You know him.” She sipped her martini, placed it on the Tommy Bahama coffee table.

  Clive considered dispensing with the ruse but decided against that line of action. “I agree, he does seem hyper-controlled. Maybe that’s the trouble. He’s been acting very strangely.”

  “Spare me. How much stranger can he get?”

  Clive was having a hard time striking a tone. He doubted that Simone had been apprised of the Cindy Sella case. “I think Bass might be having an emotional crisis.”

  “Bass? A nervous breakdown?” She laughed and then cut the laugh so short she might have taken scissors to it. “He doesn’t have nerves.”

  She was hardly the doting aunt. Clive said, “Right now he’s caught up in a legal battle.”

  “He’s very litigious.” She studied her flame-painted nails. “That’s because he always thinks he’s right.”

  “I honestly believe a change of scene would help him. If you could get him to come here—”

  “If my nephew is truly in a state of nervous collapse, this is the last place he’d want to be.”

  “Hm. Well, he seems to have fallen out with the wrong people.”

  Her heavily green-shadowed eyes widened. “He has?” She seemed more hopeful than distressed by this news.

  “There was a shooting in a café. Police are quite certain it was a Mob hit. The shooters appeared to be after Bass. He was in the restaurant.”

  “Good Lord, someone took a contract out on Bass? How intriguing.” She sipped her drink. “Whatever did he do?” Her brown eyes sparked.

  Clive sidelined the truth. Turning down Fabio’s novel seemed a weight that the truth couldn’t bear. “Insulted one of the capos.”

  All she could do was laugh. “You’re saying the spineless wonder actually stood up on his hind legs and told off the Mob? Well!” She polished off the rest of her martini, rose, and collected Clive’s half-empty glass. That Bass had no idea who he was dealing with when he refused to take on Fabio as a client was beside the point.

  Simone said, as she made her way to the drinks table, “He won’t, of course, tell me who it was.”

  Ice rattling in a shaker. Lovely sound. She continued talking over her shoulder from the dining room: “And he’ll say coming here is inconvenient. No, I don’t see how I’d ever persuade him.” She came back and placed Clive’s fresh drink on the table.

  Clive was slightly buzzed already. If he drank this one off, he’d have had the equivalent of four martinis. Not bad. Made daring by vodka, he said, “I see a way. Tell him you’re changing your will.”

  She looked twice surprised. “He told you he was the sole heir?”

  Clive just smiled and drank.

  She also smiled and drank. Then she said with a swish of a leg as she crossed them, “The thing is, Mr. Esterhaus—”

  “Clive.”

  “Clive. You see, Bass isn’t getting all he thinks he is. At least half of the money is going to the Everglades. I feel very strongly about the Everglades and its depredation over the last two
centuries. Oddly enough, I was doing just that, changing my will. Changing it to favor the Friends of the Everglades. Bass will be speechless with fury.” She laughed and drank.

  “Have you told him that?”

  “No. Why is it you want me to?”

  “It would get him down here.” Clive thought for a moment. “Or you could tell him you’re dying. And you want to talk over several points in your will. That this simply can’t wait until November. Is he the executor?”

  “God, no. You think I’m barmy? No. My bank is the executor, together with my houseboy.” When she saw Clive look around, she added, “Oh, he’s not here. He watches over things when I’m away. He’s really quite clever.”

  A houseboy as executor? “You trust him?”

  “No, but he’ll get a salary, you see, while he’s taking care of things. I’m thinking that might keep him from trying to rummage around in the trust fund. Quite a lot of the estate will go to the Everglades Foundation. The houseboy will get enough. The rest will go to Bass. He’ll be unsatisfied, but it will be hard for him to contest the will.”

  “You think he’ll contest it, then?”

  “Of course he will.” She picked up her glass. “Dear me, I’m empty. You, too.” She rose and collected his glass and went to the drinks table.

  With a furious flapping of wings, the Mark Rothko parrot vented its irritation at always being left out.

  “Where did you get Jasper?” He was hoping she’d say at the Museum of Modern Art.

  “I got him at one of those turn-in-your-exotic-pet things. It’s a way of keeping people from releasing their pythons into the swamp.” She was back, handing Clive his third—meaning seventh—martini before she sat down with hers.

  “What will happen to Jasper when you die?”

  “He’ll be well taken care of. I’ve arranged for a friend to take him in. This, too, is in the will. Now, are you sticking with the wrong sort of people?”

  Clive frowned. “I beg your pardon?”

  She sighed. “That’s the trouble when you’re less than truthful. You can’t recall the details. The reason you want Bass to come to Florida: that he’s in danger. I don’t believe this for a minute. And we’ve jettisoned his having a breakdown, so what’s left? What’s the real reason for your coming here? Not that I mind your coming, understand.”

  Clive stretched out his legs and didn’t answer immediately because he could think of nothing inventive enough. He decided he might as well let the truth in. “Let’s just say we want to get your nephew off somebody’s back, and forgive me if I don’t say who or why.”

  She plugged a cigarette into her long holder, saying, “That’s quite all right, only how would his spending a week here accomplish that? Wouldn’t he just return to New York and get right on this person’s back again?” She held out her cigarette for a light and then said, “Or were you going to ask me to kill him?”

  Clive guffawed and picked up the ornate cigarette lighter. “We have a small plan which includes the Everglades.”

  “And who is we?”

  “Several acquaintances.”

  “So Bass has ticked off a number of people, and they’re out to get him. Is his wife among them?”

  Surprised, Clive raised his eyebrows. “No.”

  “She can’t stand him, either. Poor woman. Her name’s Helen. It should be Joan of Arc. Now, shall we have dinner? I know a fabulous little restaurant in Naples. It’s a drive, but it’s worth it.” She rose from the sofa.

  “By all means.” Clive was almost glad to leave the rest of his drink undrunk. Perhaps only the first one had been the equivalent of three. So it was only really four or five. He wasn’t sure he could lift himself out of the chair, but he made it.

  She returned to find him looking into the glassed-in room full of plants: orchids and succulents. “That’s my orchid room. I guess that’s obvious. Would you like to go in?”

  Not really, but he did.

  They passed between cluttered tables of bromeliads and birds of paradise, plants that Clive had never admired. Succulents had always given him the creeps. The very name conjured images of plants smacking their lips over food he would rather not think about. They looked tough, as if they meant business. Simone pointed out a creeping fig terra, then a walking iris, which made him shudder all the more. He had never gotten over The Day of the Triffids.

  “Do you like orchids?”

  He nodded. Depends, is what he wanted to say, as they stood by a table on which orchids stood in their customary histrionic postures and theatrical colors. “They require a lot of attention, don’t they?”

  “Not really. The temperature is important, of course. One I’ve always wanted is the ghost orchid. It grows in the Everglades. It’s quite rare. I actually went out on an expedition with a guide, but I hate walking through sucking mud, don’t you? Anyway, I would never take one; it’s illegal in the Everglades. I just wanted to see them.”

  Clive thought for a moment and said, “What you ought to do is send your nephew. Send Bass to search for this ghost orchid.”

  She considered, smiled broadly, and clapped her hands. “What a magnificent idea! He’d go mad at the thought of it. Except I wouldn’t want him to get one.”

  “He wouldn’t, would he? I doubt he’d give it much of a try, beyond having you think he did. Certainly not if they’re so difficult to find. Anyway, that’s not the object; the object is simply to get him into the swamp.”

  “I can’t imagine what you have in mind. It sounds awfully amusing.”

  “Um. Perhaps we’re being too hard on him.” As if.

  “No, we’re not. Shall we go to dinner?”

  “Lead on. I’m starving.”

  They went back into the living room, where she donned a lightweight coat. Pale pink and white and yellow flowers on a pale blue background.

  Manet?

  Jasper screeched.

  Outside, Clive inquired about the tree held fast by the thin entwining arms of some paler tree. “Oh, that? That’s a strangler fig.”

  “Strangler fig?”

  She nodded.

  This place would have him for dinner if they weren’t quick about it.

  Clive hurried Simone up the walk.

  32

  At about the same time Clive was on his way back, L. Bass Hess was talking about Florida.

  “Florida?” said Paul Giverney, feigning surprise. “Why in hell would you go to Florida?” He knew why. Because Hess’s aunt Simone had demanded that he come. Given Clive’s description in the call from Miami International, Simone sounded like quite a gal/guy.

  Paul and Bass sat on opposite sides of Hess’s coffee table with tiny little cups of espresso. His secretary had ground the beans.

  “I go every year to see my aunt. In November, for Thanksgiving. It’s her kind of ritual, you could say. This time it appears she’s quite ill. Dying, she claims.”

  “God, I’m sorry. You two are close, I guess.” No, he wasn’t, and no, they weren’t. It was all going according to plan. Paul felt quite proud of himself as he plunked another sugar cube into his cup of bitter-as-hell coffee. The cubes were tiny, too. He could have been taking his coffee with Munchkins.

  “Quite close, yes. Peas in a pod, really. Regrettable.” Bass tented his fingers.

  Given L. Bass’s perky little smile, it was clear that regret had gone south, to be followed by Bass the next day.

  Paul drank his sugared-up, sludgy coffee. “You’re flying to—?”

  “Miami. I’ll rent a car and drive to Everglades City.”

  Everglades City was a point on the map that Bass would happily drive a stake through. But if the damned woman were dying, and Bass suspected he—or rather she—was telling the truth, then Everglades City would soon be a thing of the past.

  All that money! He could leave the big, drafty house in Wilton, along with Helen and his incorrigible stepdaughter, Esme; he could pay back the money he’d had to beg Helen to invest in the agency; he would ne
ver have to see another writer again; and he could go to the South of France. He could kiss all of these ego-driven writers good-bye. Oddly, given his phenomenal success and all his money, Giverney was not beset by the monstrous ego that Bass found in so many writers, but he was being impossible when it came to negotiating this contract that Bass himself had been slaving over. Giverney and Mackenzie deserved each other, both with their impossible demands and their idiotic terms.

  “Exactly what do you want, Paul? We’ve got three million, e-book rights, bonuses if the book stays on the list longer than twelve weeks, again if it’s on the list for five months, cover approval—and did I ever have to fight for that!—what else to you want?”

  “More,” Paul said. “I want interior design approval.”

  “What? What? You mean the way the words appear on the page?”

  “I believe that would be the design of the interior, yes.”

  “God! Nobody asks for that!”

  “I do.”

  “You mean you’ve had design approval before?”

  “No. But I regretted it. You have no idea how they can fuck up a page.”

  “All right, all right. I’ll discuss it with Mackenzie.”

  Paul took his feet off the coffee table. “I want it in the contract, not just a verbal agreement. Bobby Mackenzie’s a thief and a liar—”

  Which was exactly what Bobby Mackenzie had said about Paul.

  “—and he’ll fuck me over just because he can. He can if it’s not in the contract.”

  “Why do you want him to publish you, then? Do you want another publisher?”

  Paul snorted. “Don’t be ridiculous. The industry is not a world of nuance. Better the devil.”

  A world of nuance? Better the devil? The man spoke in tongues.

  But the money!

  A four-hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar commission for one book, and since Paul Giverney regularly produced a book a year, Bass was looking at a fortune. He could drop every other client and deal exclusively with Paul. He’d be making four or five times what he was pulling in now. He could do it, dear God!, from the South of France!