John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 12 - The Long Lavender Look

by The Long Lavender Look(lit)

  "Not over forty times."

  I said, "I don't want to spoil your comical routine, Priskitt, but how is Professor Meyer making it?"

  "I got him some aspirin and some ice to suck on. I wouldn't say he feels great. But maybe not as bad as he did."

  "I got to look in Nat's book and find out what the last name was on that Cuban kid," King said. "I'll get him showered. Come on, McGee. Tote that basket."

  The cement shower room smelled of mildew, ammonia, and Lysol. There was a sliver of green soap and a drizzle of tepid water from a corroded shower head, and a thin gray towel.

  What you need on the inside of any institution whatsoever are friends. "King, I'm a little ashamed of thinking you busted my friend up. I should have known you've got more class than that."

  "Aw, what the hell. I mean I can see why."

  "No, really. I saw you fight. You could have been one of the great ones. You know that? A few breaks here and there."

  "Breaks, sure. They woulda helped. But I coulda stood better equipment. I cut too easy and my hands were brittle. But I could always move good, and I could take a punch off anybody."

  "Where are you from originally?"

  "New Jersey. Nutley. Fourteen years old, I was in the Golden Gloves. Fleet champion in the Navy, coming in light heavy. Had fourteen years pro, two in the amateurs. Ninety-one bouts. I win sixty-eight, lose seventeen, draw six. It's all in the record. McGee, what do you go? Maybe around two-oelght?"

  "Very close."

  "The clothes on, I would have said one ninety, maybe less. You fooled me. You holding pretty good shape, fella. You ever do any fighting when you were a kid?"

  "Nothing serious. Just horsing around."

  "You can keep your own underwear. And put the coveralls and these here straw scuffs on and put your other stuff in the basket."

  I did as directed. The twill coveralls had been washed threadbare, and they were soft as the finest lightweight wool.

  "Come at me a little, McGee. I want to see if you know how to move. Good Christ, don't look at me like that! I'm not making up some kind of way to bust you up."

  So I shrugged and went at him, doing my standard imitation of a big puppet badly manipulated from above, jounce and flap, keeping an assortment of elbows and shoulders and wrists in front of the places I don't like to have thumped, keeping a wide-focus stare aimed at his broad gut, because that is the only way you can see what the head and hands and feet are doing, all at the same time.

  I don't know how many years older he was. He moved in a slow, skilled, light-footed prance, and the slabbed fat on his body jounced and shook like the pork fat on a circus bear. He held his big paws low and stayed pretty much in the same place. Had it been for real, I would have had as much chance against him as a little kid with a piece of lathe against a member of the Olympic fencing team. Pro is pro. I slapped empty space, sometimes a shoulder. Each effort of mine resulted in a quick little stinging whack of fingertips against jaw, cheekbone, rib cage. Then I decided to try to protect myself. But here is how it is with a pro: You duck under a high left jab, and you see the feet, body, shoulder, head, all moving into the logical right hook, and when you move to defend from that, you are suddenly open for two more quick jabs. You shift to handle that, and there is the right hook you were going to block earlier, so you rush him to get inside, and he isn't there because he has twisted, tipped you off balance, and stands braced and ready for you to bounce back off the wall. Explosive snort. Grin. Hands raised in signal of peace.

  So I gratefully emerged from my ineffective shell and said, "You are real quick, King."

  "Hell, I'm slowed down to nothing. Reflexes all shot. Seems quick to you because I know where you're going to be by the time I tap you. Listen to me huff and puff. McGee, you would have made it pretty good if you started soon enough. It would be hard to take a good shot at you. I'd have to bomb you downstairs until you couldn't get your arms up. Then drop you."

  He led me to the single cell, telling me, on the way, of the time he had come the closest to top ranking, when Floyd Patterson had nailed him as they came out for the second, and he had faked rubber legs well enough to bring Patterson in, too eager and careless, and he had pivoted and stuffed his big hand and glove deep into Floyd's tough middle, just above the belt, turning him gray and sweaty and very tired. Chased him for seven rounds, while Floyd had slowly regained his strength and health despite all King Sturnevan could do in the way of wearing him down. And then Floyd stabbed and chopped and split his way to the technical knockout.

  He dogged the door shut, big face still rueful with the memory of not being able to nail down the disabled Patterson. I said, "What's with this sheriff of yours, King?"

  "How do you mean?"

  "What kind of an act is it?"

  He shifted the wire basket to his other arm. "It's no act. Mister Norm upholds the law, and the County Commission backs him a hundred percent. We got modern stuff here, McGee. We got a teletype tied into FLEX, and one of the first things he did was see if there was any package on you with the R.C.LC. and then the N.C.LC., and it puzzled him some, maybe, to come up empty on both of you."

  "Real modern methods, King, spoiling Meyer's face."

  "All you got is my word, but it isn't like that around here."

  "Then why did Deputy Billy Cable bring me through here to admire Meyer before he took me to Hyzer?"

  "Billy got gnawed down to the bare bone on that one. He was off in the MP's for a while. Sometimes he forgets Mister Norm doesn't like those little tricks."

  "Now how would you know Hyzer came down on Billy Cable?"

  "You learn to read that man's face. It isn't easy, but you have to learn. I saw he was upset, and I could guess why. He'd already found out about Meyer, and he was upset about that, too, about it happening at all. By now he's got Billy all peeled raw."

  "Who did it?"

  "I didn't see a thing."

  Priskitt came to the cell. "I thought this man had probly jumped you and made good his daring escape, champ. You want me to lock you in there with him so you can keep the dialogue going, or do you want to go back to work? As a special favor to Mister Norm."

  "He called for me?"

  "He surely did."

  And with a single bulge-eyed look of anxiety, King Sturnevan went off, in a light-footed, fat-jouncing trot.

  "The department seems to have a plentitude of deputies, Mr. Priskitt."

  He looked at me happily. "Plentitude! One rarely hears the good words around here, Mr. McGee. I would say that Mister Norm has an adequacy of deputies. Not a superfluity. Whatever Mister Norm feels is necessary for the pursuit of his sworn responsibility, he asks for. And gets. We must chat later."

  He hurried away and I stretched out....

  Four

  IMMOVABLE BUNK and a thin hard mattress pad. Cement floor with a center drain. Bright bulb countersunk behind heavy wire mesh in the cement ceiling. Iron sink with a single iron faucet and no drain pipe so that water from the sink would run down the pitch of the floor to the drain three feet away. Toilet with no lid or seat. No window. No way to see any other cell through the top half of the door which was of sturdy bars. The lower half was steel plate.

  Stretch out on the back, forearm across the eyes. Shove the whole damned mess over into a corner cupboard and kick the door shut. Save it until later, because trying to think about it would only bring the anger back. Angry men do a bad job of thinking.

  There had been a lot of waiting-time in my life. Sometimes it was cat-time, watching the mouse hole for all the endless dreary hours. Sometimes it had been mouse-time, waiting all the day through for the darkness and the time for running.

  So you learn the special resources of both memory and imagination. You let the mind run through the old valleys, the back hills, and pastures of your long-ago years. You take an object. Roller skate. The kind from way back, that fastened to the shoes instead of coming with shoes attached. Look and feel and design of the skate key. With
old worn shoes you turn the key too much and you start to buckle the sole of the shoe. Spin one wheel and listen to the ball-bearinged whir, and feel the gritty texture of the metal abraded by the sidewalks. Remember how slow and strange and awkward it felt to walk again, after all the long Saturday on skates, after going way to the other end of town. Remember the soreness where the strap bit into the top of your ankle. When it got too sore, you could stop and undo the strap and run it through the top laces of your shoe. Thick dark scab on the abraded knee. The sick-making smack of skull against sidewalk. Something about the other end of the skate key.... Of course! A hex wrench orifice that fit the out on the bottom of the skate so you could expand it or contract it to fit the shoe. If you didn't tighten it enough, or if it worked loose, then the skate would stealthily lengthen, the clamps no longer fitting the edge of the shoe sole, and at some startling moment the next thrust would spin the skate around, and you either took a very nasty spill, or ended up coasting on the good skate, holding the other foot with dangling skate up in the air until you came to a place to sit down and get the key out and tighten everything again. Roller skate or sand box or apple tree or cellar door. Playground swing or lumberyard or blackboard or kite string. Because that was when all the input was vivid. All of it is still there. So you find a little door back there, and like Alice, you walk through it into the magic country, where each bright flash of memory illuminates yet another.

  It doesn't work that way for everybody. Once I worked a stakeout for two months with a quiet little man. We were talked out after two days. But he seemed totally patient, totally content. After a month I asked him what he thought about. He said he was a rubber bridge addict. So mentally he would deal himself a random hand, then out of the thirty-nine cards left, deal a random hand to the opponent at his left, then to the other one at his right, and give what was left to his partner. Then he would go through the bidding, the play of the cards, and mark the result on the running scorepad in his head. He said that sometimes when he was a little fatigued, he might forget whether the jack of diamonds had been dealt at his left or his right. Then he would have everybody throw their hands in and he would deal again.

  When the people we were covering finally made their move, there was a communication problem. We couldn't get through to the vehicle parked six blocks away. So the bridge player handled that problem, at a dead run. He got there in time and they closed that door before the quarry tried it. He sat in the back seat, they said, and gasped and laughed, then squeaked and died. I saw him for a couple of moments, and thought of all the bridge games that died inside his head when all the other things stopped.

  "McGee?"

  I looked up and got up and went over to the door. "Sheriff?"

  "I researched that problem you raised, McGee. I do not want to take any chance of reversal of conviction on a very minor point. I think I am right. If tomorrow were a working day, I would take my chances. But running it over into a Saturday might be questionable. It's a little after four now, but you should be able to reach your Mr. Sibelius, I think."

  The operator left the line open on my person-to-person collect call, and I could hear the girl at the other end being professionally indefinite about where and how Lennie could be located.

  "Operator, is that Miss Carmichael?"

  "Trav? This is Annie, yes."

  "Are you accepting the collect call, Miss?"

  "Well... I guess so. Yes. Travis? Why collect, for goodness' sake?"

  "It seemed simpler, on account of I am here in the county jail in Cypress County on suspicion of killing people."

  No gasps or cooing or joshing or stupid questions. She went to work. She got the phone number. She said that if we were in luck, she could catch Lennie between the apartment and the marina, on his telephone in his car. If he had already taken off, she wouldn't get him until he monitored the Miami marine broadcast at six o'clock. Then she broke it off.

  I told the hero sheriff the call would come back quickly, or not until after six. He looked at his watch. "Wait here for ten minutes. Stand over there against the wall."

  No readable inflection, no emotion in the delivery. So you stand against the wall, in your ratty straw slippers, the pant legs of the coveralls ending about five inches above where pants should end, the top buttons unbuttoned because it is too small across chest and shoulders, the sleeves ending midway between elbow and wrist. So you are a large grotesque unmannerly child, standing and watching an adult busy himself with adult things. Man in a dark business suit, crisp white shirt, dark tie, dark gloss of hair, opening folders, making small marginal notes.

  The law, in its every dimension of the control of criminals, is geared to limited, stunted people. Regardless of what social, emotional, or economic factor stunted them, the end product is hate, suspicion, fear, violence, and despair. These are weaknesses, and the system is geared to exploit weaknesses. Mister Norm was a creature outside my experience. There were no labels I could put on him.

  He answered the phone, held it out to me. "Hello, Lennie," I said.

  "From this phone booth, Trav, I can see the Witchcraft, all fueled and ready, and my guests carrying the food and booze aboard, and a pair of blond twins slathering oil on each other up on the fly bridge. It was nice to have known you, pal."

  "Likewise. Take off, playboy. Cruise the ocean blue in your funny hat. Kiss the twins for me."

  "So all right! Bad?"

  "And cute. And for once in your brief meteoric career, you'd be representing total innocence."

  "Now isn't that nice! And I can't get into a front page with it, because if I make you a star, you are going to have to find useful work or starve. Status right now?"

  "Held for questioning. I waived my rights, and then all of a sudden a very bad question came along, and after thinking it over, I took it all back." My mind was racing, trying to figure out some way to clue him into checking out Sheriff Norman Hyzer, because, had I been sure of Hyzer's integrity-and sanity-I would have explained the envelope he had found.

  "Innocence can answer any kind of question that comes up."

  "If everybody is truly interested in the concept, Lennie."

  "Chance of the law there looking for a setup?"

  "It's possible."

  "Annie said something about killing people."

  "At least one, they claim. They haven't said why. Just hinted about some kind of job long ago netting nine hundred thou."

  "So the area swarms with strobes and notebooks and little tape recorders?"

  "Not a one."

  "So they can put a tight lid on and keep it on. Very rare these days, pal. I know they have a lumpy little patch of grass over there because I had to put down on it a year ago when my oil pressure started to look rotten and the mill started to heat on me. Look, I'll have Wes take this party out and anchor someplace down the bay. I'll make some phone calls here and there, and... let me see. I want to hit that grass patch by daylight, so let's say that by six-thirty I'll be holding your hand."

  "And Meyer's."

  "I always told him evil companions would lead him astray."

  Hyzer had me taken back down to my private room. I sat on the bunk and felt very very glad not only about knowing Leonard Sibelius, but about having done him a favor he was not likely to forget. Not a tall man, but notable, conspicuously skinny, with a great big head and a great big expressive and heavy-featured face, and a wild mop of rust-gold hair. A big flexible resonant voice that could range from mountaintop oratory to husky, personal, confidential whisper. Fantastic memory, vast vocabulary, capable of making speeches on any subject at any time. A con artist, a conniver, a charmer, a spellbinder, an eccentric. Italian clothes, fast cars and fast planes and fast boats. In spite of the emaciation, which made him look like a chronic invalid, he could work at top speed all day and play all night, week after week. Charging through life, leaving a trail of empty bottles and grateful blondes and thankful clients. Huge fees from those who could afford it, and when they couldn't a
fford it, there was always a market for the life story of any man defended by Lennie Sibelius, after the accused had signed over his rights to the fees and royalties therein. Total defense, in the courtroom, the newspapers, and on the television talk shows. Making it big and spending it big, and running all the way. And, somehow, laughing at himself. Ironic laughter. His black jest was that he had lost only one client. "It took that jury two days to bring back a guilty verdict. There were so many errors by the court, I knew it wouldn't stand up. The route was through the appellate court to the state supreme court to the federal district court to the Supreme Court. And I had just finished a beautiful brief to present to the district court when the silly son of a bitch hung himself in his cell, just two weeks before our book climbed onto the best seller list."

  It felt fine to know he was on the way. This whole thing was making me very edgy. It is one of the penalties of playing one of the roles society wants you to play. No regular hours, no mortgage payments, life insurance, withholding, retirement benefits, savings program. "Okay, where were you, Charlie, at two o'clock on Tuesday afternoon, the tenth of April, seven years ago?"