John D MacDonald

by A Man of Affairs

  "It would give her such a pretty problem though. Mike is Guy’s valued client. What happens to the valued contract if Guy’s favorite lady editor makes a scene over a gesture of affection on the part of one of Mike’s bright young lawyers?"

  "She looks as though she could make her decision in midair and come down’ with her script all planned," Cam said.

  "Poor Guy," Amparo said. "He seems to be inevitably and fatally attracted to tailored women who jangle. But I’m afraid we’re talking out of school in front of Sam. Sam, we’re both fond of Guy and you would be too if you could know him. He’s a very sincere man, and he has a genius touch for public relations. But he has foul taste in women, and each new one breaks his heart, and this one is just a bit more grim that the last two or three."

  "Now?" Cam asked.

  "You really mean it, you wretch! All right. Now."

  Cam winked owlishly and strolled over to where Elda Garry stood talking with Bundy and Jack Buck and Warren Dodge, laughing her silvery and shimmering laugh at them, inundating them with her fashionable little restaurant chatter.

  Cam edged in beside her, between her and Warren, and put his arm casually around her narrow waist., Amparo and I watched intently. We saw her stiffen and attempt to pull away and glance around at where Guy stood talking with Bridget. But Cam blithely hauled her back and she apparently decided to suffer the unexpected embrace. Then Cam’s thin hand slid down and, deliberately, emotionlessly, callously, he caught a tender roundness of flesh between thumb and finger and pinched and twisted at the same time. Elda Carry went up onto her toes and took a quick half step toward little Bundy, then recovered herself and turned sharply and stared at Cam. He gave her his ugly and amiable smile. It seemed almost possible to hear the little chromed gears meshing in the sleek blond head. She glanced at Guy again, and glanced at Mike Dean as he came into the room in his Basque shirt and black Bermuda shorts, and brought her eyes back to Cam. And added it all up and gave him a pointy little smile and leaned closer and said something half under her breath. In a few minutes Cam came back to us.

  "You are a foul rascal," Amparo said, laughing.

  "It’s all real," Cam said. "And taut as a winter apple. You’re the analyst, Miss Blakely. As soon as she decided not to go up in smoke, what did she say to me?"

  Amparo frowned and pursed her lips and looked at the floor for a few moments. "Hmmm. Something like, You are a naughty, naughty man.’ Bight?"

  He shook his head. "You kill me, Amparo. I wouldn’t have minded a close guess, because it’s pretty obvious the kind of thing she would say. But you hit it precisely on the button, and that almost alarms me."

  "We’re not always like this, Sam," Amparo said.

  "Just when we get down here to the island. Then all the shoes come off and the hair is let down."

  "You shook me up with that idea about falsies," Cam said. "After suggesting a horror like that, I was forced to go check it out. Everybody is empty, and the bar is yonder."

  We went into the play room. I had been hearing the sound of table tennis for several minutes. Tommy McCann was playing with a young girl. She was quick and slim and dark, and her hair was in long braids. She was dark as any gypsy, teeth flashing white in her face, lips painted a burgundy red. She wore a red off-the-shoulder blouse and pink skin-tight pants that came slightly below the knee and were laced with black at the sides.

  "Is that the Crown girl?" I asked Amparo.

  "That’s Lolly. I envy the resilience of the young, Sam. At three she got so potted I didn’t think she’d be able to find her room. Port was very annoyed with her. And now look at her."

  After we put in the drink order, I turned and watched her. She seemed to be giving Tommy a close battle. Tommy won, twenty-one to sixteen, then Puss McCann and Jack Buck joined them in doubles, Jack and Puss against Tommy and Lolly. Jack Buck was the poorest player, but Puss was, by a considerable margin, the best. When Lolly was not smiling her face had a sullen look. Her young breasts were sharp against the red blouse. Jack Buck had the square face and the yellow brush cut of any Navy recruiting poster. But he did not manage to look like a clean cut young man. He looked like a dogged and somewhat dangerous young man. There was a knife tattooed on his right forearm, with a snake writhing around it. His gray eyes were slightly undersized and there was a hint of brutality around his mouth. I decided that were I Porter Crown, I would not take my rebellious daughter on a prolonged cruise with Jack Buck.

  The meal was served buffet style. The food was abundant and excellent. I wound up eating with Bridget, Amparo and Mike Dean at a table in the corner of the living room. Mike Dean ran the conversation like a train. Bridget and Amparo were the straight men. They fed him the right lines at the right times. Mike told the history of his looking around for a hideaway, and all the misadventures before he finally had it the way he wanted it. It was entertainingly told and in spots it was funny as hell. Mike made himself the stupid and innocent victim of all kinds of ludicrous mistakes, including one narrow mistake of nearly building on the wrong island. It was all much fun; and when the meal was over I wasn’t one millimeter closer to knowing anything at all about Mike Dean.

  After dinner Mike and Fletcher Bowman disappeared, and I guessed they were in their habitual nightly communication with the man in Connecticut. The bar was open. There was a fine moon. There was high fidelity music and dancing on the shadowy veranda, for those who cared to. Guy Brainerd, Porter and Tessy Crown and Cam Duncan played bridge.

  Bonny Carson had taken over the record player. She selected a lot of old stuff. And she would sit there on the floor, legs crossed, eyes shut, swaying back and forth and singing the lyrics without making a sound, glass handy beside her.

  I danced with Puss McGann. I had never danced with her before. It was precisely what I had expected. Dancing is supposed to have sexual overtones and implications. Puss turned it into an exercise as sterile as tennis. She moved gracefully and correctly and followed well, but I could have been dancing with a sister. When Tommy and Puss danced, aside from the I fact she was a little too tall for him, they were of almost professional talent. And Tommy danced very well indeed with Lolly Crown. She was smaller, and she seemed to fit his arms better than Puss did. I saw her watching them while they danced. She wore a slightly wistful expression.

  Dancing with Bridget was very pleasant indeed, She was a little warm and wavery with drink, but not too much so. She had an annoying tendency to hum the melody slightly off key, but that was all right too because she smelled good and felt good and was warm against me, and her face in the moving shadows was astonishingly pretty. Warren Dodge was gone. I was surprised he had lasted as long as he had. During the day he had taken on enough liquor to drop a moose in its tracks. Little Bundy kibitzed the bridge game, turning every ten seconds to look at Bonny Carson in a worried way. I wondered if he was trying to count her drinks. I watched Jack Buck dance with Tessy Crown, and there was a certain flavor about their dancing that made me wonder whether old Port was being stupid about his daughter or about his wife. I guessed Jack Buck at about twenty-eight, and Tessy somewhere in the ripeness of her thirties. Jack Buck was closer to her in age than Port in his early sixties.

  I found Louise on a big settee on the veranda and I asked her if she would dance. I had not danced with her before. She butted her cigarette and stood up obediently and came into my arms. Though she had that look of almost-tallness, she was not tall. I often have a great deal of difficulty dancing with women her size, particularly the ones who seem to feel awkward unless they can stab you in the side of the throat with their chin. But Louise had a sweet and easy and natural grace. She was feathery and lithe in my arms, tender and vulnerable and curiously precious. When the long record ended I said, "That was nice."

  "I was afraid you’d be too tall. You’re not. Why do so many big men move so lightly?"

  "There’s a breeze now and it ought to keep the buss off the dock."

  We walked down to the dock. There were mosq
uitoes in the grass, but when we were on the dock the wind from the northeast was stiff enough to keep them away. From the dock we could see the moon three quarters full back over the house. The silver moonlight made the house lights look orange. We climbed into the cockpit of the _Try Again_ and sat in the two fishing chairs and I lighted our cigarettes. We were better than two hundred feet from the house and the music came down sweetly to us, nostalgic. When I looked at her the moonlight was so bright on her still face that I could see that she was crying, making a private matter out of it, crying without a sound.

  "Louise."

  "I’ll be all right in a minute."

  "Want to talk about it?"

  After a long pause she said, "No," so quietly I barely heard it. I wanted her to talk about it and yet I didn’t. I wanted her to talk because then she would be closer to me. But I also wanted her to be loyal to him in spite of what he was, because it is a cheap thing and a destructive thing in any marriage to spill your bitterness and pain and resentment all over someone else. And I thought that if she confided in me, she might end up resenting me.

  When her tears were over we talked casually about things of no importance, and then she said she thought she would go to bed. I got onto the dock and gave her my hand and pulled her up with just a bit too much energy so that she staggered against me. I put my hands on either side of her face, thumbs near the comers of her eyes, fingers in her dark hair. I looked down at the quiet face. Her eyes were unreadable pockets of a shadow. I kissed her gently and her lips were cool and unresponsive. Then I released her. She turned and walked away from me. I watched her. At the path she turned and walked at an angle across the lawn to one of the doors on the right wing of the veranda. She disappeared from the moonlight into the shadows.

  I sat on the edge of the dock for a long time, and then I went to bed.

  FOUR

  I AM CURSED by an inability to sleep later than six-thirty in the morning. I put on swimming trunks and a gray sports shirt and took a towel with me to the pool. When I climbed out the girl named Booty came from the house in her white uniform and, wearing a shy and grave half smile, asked me if I would like my breakfast by the pool, and what would I like. When the juice and easy-over eggs and bacon and coffee were laid out on the metal table under the umbrella it looked like a Kodachrome ad for breakfast.

  The Bufords joined me when I was on my second cup of coffee. They were ready for another day of fishing the flats. I asked him about the land development, and he went on and on about it. There were fourteen thousand acres, twenty natural lakes. It was called Lakeshore Gardens, and by God, it was the biggest and best development Florida had ever had. They’d put up four hundred homes already, and by the time they were through it would be a city of thirty or forty thousand people, with schools, city services, outdoor movies, shopping centers, the whole shooting match.

  Booty brought me more coffee after they left, and soon Louise joined me. She wore a pink swim suit with black ruffles at the bodice. You couldn’t have told from the way she acted that last night had ever happened. "Sam, has Mike Dean said anything to you about talking business?"

  "Only that we’d get around to it sooner or later."

  "Suppose they arrange to talk to us separately?"

  "That would be okay. But I would like your word that you won’t sign anything until we’ve talked it over together."

  "I’m agreeable to that."

  "This isn’t anything like I thought it would be," Louise went on. "It’s a little confusing. All these weird people. Did you hear the horrible fight in the night?"

  "I didn’t hear a thing."

  "It was on the veranda. Men yelling at each other and a woman crying. Warren was snoring so loud I couldn’t understand what it was all about. But I think the woman was Bonny Carson and one of the men was Fletcher Bowman. It was about three o’clock. Then some doors slammed and it was over."

  "There’re all the ingredients here for a lot of trouble."

  "What are the plans for the day?"

  "First find out if Mike wants to talk business. If not, I want to try some fishing."

  "Tommy is going to do some skin diving."

  "Amid the barracuda?"

  "He says they won’t bother anybody."

  "Is he sure they have the word?"

  "You know Tommy. He probably half hopes one will make a pass at him."

  "How about fishing from the shore with me if we’re not required around here?"

  She hesitated for a moment and then agreed. I borrowed her sun lotion and used it liberally while she swam up and down the pool. There weren’t very many early risers in the group. It was nearly quarter of nine before Fletcher Bowman put in an appearance. He wore brief knit trunks and had a striped towel around his neck. He was well browned and impressively muscled. He wore his All-American smile, and I was certain the label in the trunks would be a good one.

  After he had sat with us and told us what a beautiful day it was, and how many gallons of water the pool held and how the purifying plant worked, he said, "I do hope you people weren’t upset in any way by the little disturbance we had in the wee hours."

  "I heard it," Louise said, "but Sam slept through it and so did Warren. I don’t know about the others. What was it about?"

  He looked uneasy for the first time since I had met him. "It was a little shabby, I’m afraid. Poor Bonny Carson was completely and soddenly drunk. I don’t think she knew where she was or what her name was. Let’s say she is at a . . . difficult transition place in her life. She and Mike have been friends for years. Now she wants Mike’s backing for a new musical. He doesn’t think she ought to try it. We don’t think much of the book or the songs, and he’s afraid of what a flop might do to her. But no decision has been made as yet. Anyway, that’s just background. That young Jack Buck got just tight enough to decide to take Bonny to her bed, probably so he could brag about it later. She certainly wasn’t in any condition to provide anything but acquiescence. Bundy took objection to the plan. Jack knocked him down. Bundy came and woke me up and we intercepted them outside Bonny’s room. By then she was having a crying jag. Jack was ugly about it, but I broke it up. If Port Crown wasn’t such a stubborn man, Jack Buck would be gone long ago. But Jack is the son of some old rancher buddy of Port’s who died broke, and Port thinks Jack is a fine virile young man. I think he’s a punk with a mean streak. Were I Port, I would no more travel with Jack and my wife and daughter than I’d stick my arm in a snake pit. After Jack went out last night to sleep aboard the _Portess_, I sat on the veranda for a half hour to make certain he wouldn’t try again. Enough of that. I hope we won’t have any more of that sort of thing. What are your plans for today?".

  "We’ve been waiting to see what Mr. Dean has in mind," I said.

  He gave me a quick look of disapproval. "Mike and I have been going over a few things with Cam Duncan this morning. I asked him when we ought to have our little meeting about the Harrison Corporation and he said there was no rush about it. I gathered from that he doesn’t want to bring it up today. In fact, Mike and Port and Cam and I are going out in the _Try Again_ at nine-thirty. We’re taking lunch with us and we’ll be back about four-thirty. I wish we could take more, but four is about the maximum for comfort and good fishing. I talked to Tommy last night. Tomorrow he and Puss are going out on the _Try Again_ with Mike and Amparo. Warren wasn’t interested. Maybe the next day you and Sam could go, Louise?"

  There was a little needle in the offer, very subtle, but sharp enough. "Sam and I are going to do some fishing today," she said.

  "From the shore," I said. "How about tackle?"

  "There’s more than enough in the dock house. Just take what you think you need and rinse it in fresh water before you put it back. If you go east up the beach to where the rocky point is, there’s supposed to be good fishing there. Wear something on your feet. Those rocks are jagged."

  We saw the _Try Again_ off at nine-thirty, wished them luck and waved to them as they sped out
of the bay. A sleepy Bridget walked down with Tommy and Puss to help us wave them off.

  "Hung?" I asked her.

  "Not too terribly. Something keeps going sort of bong bong right between my eyes. But I’ve got the remorses about running off at the mouth. To you and other people. Was I completely horrible?"

  "Just gay," I said, grinning at her.

  "My God, you look bigger undressed than you do dressed. Sam the moose."

  "Don’t hurt his feelings," Puss said. "He’s very sensitive. Say, what are you kids going to do after breakfast?

  "Me," said Bridget, "me, I’m going to slob around in the sun and try to forget I should be inside at the good old Olivetti Studio 44, pecking out something deathless about our host for the lady editor."

  "And I’m going to see if I can spear something," Tommy said.

  "We’ve had breakfast and we’re going up the beach to fish," Louise said. "You want to come along, Puss?"

  "Three’s a crowd," she said. "Oops, that doesn’t sound right. Anyhow, Tommy makes me so nervous I have to watch the water and keep wringing my hands until he bobs up again."