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

by The Long Lavender Look(lit)

  It was ten-thirty when he dropped me off at the Baither place, wished me luck, and drove off.

  It took longer than usual for my vision to adjust to the night. Priority one was slathering myself with repellent before a couple dozen of the more muscular hummers got together and lifted me up and wedged me into a tree to consume at their leisure. I checked out the pump house by leaving the flashlight on inside, closing the door, and waiting again for night vision to see how much light came out. It was pretty good. A narrow crack above the knob, and a wider gap at the bottom. I could fix those on the inside by cutting some strips from one of the old blankets inside.

  It took over an hour to set it up the way I wanted it. I had bought enough wire so I could take the long way through the brush from the pump house to the old wooden bridge. I turned out my flashlight each time I heard a car coming. In time I located an old gray warped plank with the right gap underneath and enough give to it. I taped my little brass terminals from a dismembered flashlight to the warped underside and to the supporting timber. I brought the buzzer along the road and put it down close enough to hear it from the bridge. There was no way to walk across or drive across without closing the circuit.

  For somebody who, for some reason, wanted to come in from another direction, I used the primitive old black thread and rattle-can device. Closed the pump house door, turned on the flashlight, covered the cracks, made and wolfed a pair of thick sandwiches, drank a quart of the almost-cool water. Stretched out on the narrow cot to find the place to prop the weapon where my hand would find it with no fumbling, no loss of time.

  Turned the light out, opened the door, stretched out on the cot again. I invited sleep by willing the relaxation of neck and shoulders. Deputy McGee on duty. It is to laugh. Or cry.

  And I let myself down into that dark turbulence knowing I would find there the dusty-looking eyes of Arnstead, and Betsy playing her lavender game with stomach-turning grimace, and a flat steel handle sticking straight out of a twill armpit, and the foam caked into the corner of the dead mouth of the mad young girl.

  Twenty

  AT FIRST light I got up and checked my warning system, took my thread and tin cans down and stowed them under the cot. Later, at sunup, I prowled the area, locating logical access so I could do a better job of hooking up the dangle-cans at nightfall.

  I found a way of wedging the pump house door so it would appear to be locked if anybody tried it. Hyzer did not want the seals broken on the doors to the Baither house. I found a window catch I could slip, and climbed in over the sill. The wide white tape still dangled from the armchair where Baither had died, and under the chair and in front of it were the crusted black places on the brown rush rug where his blood had dried.

  I found a shady thicket with a good view of the terrain and settled in, carbine beside me. There was a nostalgia about it. Not the warm kind, with the misted eye and the sad smile. The other kind, that sucks the belly muscles in, and gives you access to the old automatic habits of survival, such as holding half a breath from time to time while you listen to bird sounds and bug sounds, waiting for them to stop in some unseen area. Listening for some little clink or jingle of equipment, or oiled snick of weaponry being readied. Nostrils widen and you snuff the faint movement of the breeze, for taint of alien sweat. You move a little bit from time to time because if you remain still, muscles can lock and when you must move, it might be necessary to move quick as a lizard, or take the hammer blow of unexpected automatic weapon.

  At eleven the bridge boards rattled and an old white Mustang came in, packed with kids: two bleached boys in the bucket seats, three limber, noisy, bikinied young girls sitting high on the downfolded top. The driver swung it around the old red pickup so spiritedly, one of the girls nearly fell off. The girl in the middle grabbed her. They stopped and I could hear them clearly from my sundappled thicket.

  "Tommy! You bassar, you like to kee-yul me, doon that crazy kind of drivin'."

  "Not ef you land on your haid, Bunny Lee." They piled out and went to the house and circled it, peering in every window. I heard the girls saying how spooky it was. They were all telling each other what happened to Frank Baither.

  "Let's bust in and get a good look," one of the boys said.

  "Hell with that," the other said. "Ol Hyzer has got it sealed. You maybe want him on your ass? Not me."

  "Come on," the first one said. "Look at old Norma Jean here. She's dead set on getting in there and making out with me in old Baither's sack."

  "That's grass talking, goddam you Tommy!" a girl said.

  The girls were slapping at their bare legs and shoulders. One of them said, "Get me out of here, you guys. I'm about to get et up. There's nothing here. Let's go bug old Dolores."

  They ran for the car, piled in and charged out, shrilling the tires when they hit the paved road.

  I took another tour. There was a crude patio off the other side of Baither's house, about twelve feet square, three steps down from a sealed door to the living room. It had a low wall around it of block painted pale blue. There were some planting pots with dead sticks coming out of the baked dirt inside. The patio area was paved with solid cement block a little larger than shoeboxes. They had been laid on tamped earth with sand poured between the cracks and watered down. It had been a sloppy job. The rainy season had washed the foundation uneven. Weeds grew out of the cracks. An old redwood chair, bleached gray, with a broken arm, crouched in a corner. Some blocks were missing.

  I sat for a little while on the low wall, being scolded by a blue jay. I was thinking of Betsy Kapp in her grave up near the other end of Cypress County. And something in the back of my mind was looking at more immediate things, and finally sent the message upstairs that it seemed odd that some of the blocks looked paler and newer than others.

  So I squatted and lifted one out and turned it over and replaced it and had the answer. Hyzer had directed a thorough search. So the blocks had been taken up and they had done some digging, or some probing with sharpened reinforcing rod, and had then replaced the patio floor. They had not taken the time or trouble to replace them all the same side up as they had been before. So the ones which went back in upside down looked a little newer. They had not had as much time to weather.

  In fact, they had not even taken the trouble to put them all back. Four were missing from the far corner.

  Everyone has their own fund of small idiotic compulsions. There are people who have to have their papers perfectly aligned with the edge of the desk. There are picture straighteners, and compulsive cleaners of ashtrays. I am a jigsaw freak. If I find myself in a room where there is a partially completed jigsaw puzzle, I find myself circling, then hovering, then finding the piece that goes here and the piece that goes there. Small triumphs. I cannot stand the sight of a fishrod rack that will hold five rods and has only four rods in the clips. I go through life fitting objects into their obvious and proper places.

  So while thoughts moved away from the scene, back to the trailer this time, Henry circling it, I went scuffing through the rank grass and weeds, back and forth, around and around the three sides of the patio, moving further away from it, hunting for the block that would satisfy my moronic sense of order and fitness.

  I woke up about forty feet out from the patio. No block. Irritation. What the hell did they do with it? Pause for thought. Okay. So they searched the patio. Took up all the block. Piled it out to the side, probably, but close. No need to tote it an inch further than necessary. Very probably they had piled it on the broad low wall.

  So maybe there hadn't been quite enough block to pave the patio in the first place, and I was looking for something that didn't exist.

  I went over to the corner and gave it close inspection. No, dammit. You could see the oblong depressions in the dirt underneath. And here was where one of the vine weeds had been torn when they had been lifted out. Green at the root end, and brown beyond the tear.

  I straightened up and stood with my mouth hanging open. I st
ood in a comic strip, with a big light bulb suspended in space over my head.

  I heard Lennie Sibelius, in that resonant and flexible voice, "... medium height with a bull neck and very broad thick shoulders. As a kid he had worked for his uncle who operated a little yard making cement block, and he had carried enough tons of mix and tons of finished block to give him that muscular overdevelopment."

  My light bulb faded and dimmed. Hold it a minute, temporary deputy. Wouldn't a brand new patio completed during Frank's two weeks before he went to jail stand out like one very large and very inflamed thumb? And this block looks old. Maybe twenty years old.

  But Baither had that old truck and he could take the original block far away and dump it. And he could add stain and dirt to the next mix. I yanked a block out and put it on its side on top of the wall. I yanked a second block out and slammed it down on the first one. It bounced off and nearly landed on my instep. The second smash broke a corner off. The third blow broke it open like a walnut. The meat inside the shell was the right size and shape. It had to be skinned. I got down to two banded packets of ten-dollar bills. Two thousand racetrack dollars. It had been wrapped in heavy plastic, tightly taped, then dipped in paraffin. From then on the process could be easily guessed. Pour a layer in the bottom of the greased wooden mold. When it started to set up, put the package on it, well centered, and finish the pour.

  One hell of a lot of work, Mr. Baither. Two weeks of it. Off somewhere, probably, where you wouldn't be disturbed. Truck it in and lay it down, trying to make it look as beat as the original block, chipping it, scarring it. You could have added a little rock salt to the mix to get the right pitted effect. You must have been tired, fellow, when you finally got shoved into a cell.

  I never would have found it or thought of it had not those four been missing, and had I not seen from the broken weed that they had been taken recently. Somebody would have been in a sweat to make certain that the water treatment had gotten the truth out of Lilo Perris. So they had nipped in and grabbed samples last evening, before Hyzer posted me here.

  Dilemma. Turn the whole thing over to Hyzer right now. He had said, "Unless you get a visitor, don't call me and blow the cover. I'll get in touch with you."

  Explicit. Follow orders. But first take certain steps which are part precaution, part ugly surprise.

  I found a rusty old pickax behind the pump house. I soon learned the force required to pop the blocks open without gouging the cash. I stacked the waxed oblongs on the broad wall. There were one astonishing number of blocks in a twelve-by-twelve space, and I found only seven which were solid all the way through.

  I improvised a Santa sack out of a frayed old army blanket from the pump house. I made it in five heavy loads, and I didn't finish the job until four-thirty. I crawled into my thicket, aching and winded and incomparably smug. Some very sneaky thoughts came sidling into my mind. With a little applied intelligence a man ought to be able to tie himself up impressively, and give himself a good thump on the head... "My God, Sheriff, he must have gotten behind me somehow. I never got a look at him."

  It would figure out to about twenty years of splendid living. Untraceable. Spendable. With nobody with an ugly disposition coming looking for it, and you. Maybe.

  I remembered Meyer telling me that if I ever scored very very big, I had the natural tendency to turn into a one-hundred-percent bum. "And when you lose that last one percent," he said, "I might find you dreary. Sporadic monetary anxiety becomes you. It keeps you polite."

  When the sun was very low, I began to make my preparations for the night. I was near the pump house when the buzzer sounded, and as a wind had come up I could not tell whether it had been a vehicle or a footstep which had done it. I ducked around behind the pump house, and heard the car, looked around and saw the green sedan with the blue flashers on the roof.

  So I came out, carbine in hand, a tired and honest man ready and willing to make his honest report to his honest temporary boss man. But it was King Sturnevan who pulled his bulk out from behind the wheel and watched me approach, his back to the round golden sun.

  "King," I said, "I hope you're delivering groceries and a cold beer."

  "If I'd thought of it, pally I'd of done just that."

  "Then suppose you go tell Mister Norm it would be very nice if he would bring one hot sandwich and one cold beer to the recruit."

  "Tell him and duck?"

  "Seriously, I have to see him. I want him to get on out here as soon as he can. Would you call in, please?"

  "Sure thing." He got into the car again. He fiddled with the transmitter, spoke into the hand mike. "Nine to CCSD, come in. Nine calling CCSD, come in." Nothing. He tried a couple more times, then got out, saying, "I told Red this damned set has got something loose on it. Sometimes it works, sometimes it's like dead."

  "There's a window I can slip, and I think the phone in there is working. I'm not supposed to call in. Why don't you use it and just say to him that... you want to show him something at the Baither place."

  "You got something to show him? You find something, McGee?"

  "Yes and no. Look King. I'm reporting direct. You know how it is."

  "Hell, I know you're reporting direct. He just said I could stop by and see how you're making out. So whyn't you tell me and I can run back in and give him a direct report, and keep it off the air and off the phone?"

  I wanted to think it over, and I eased over to lean against the side of the car. But he got in the way, a little clumsy on his feet. But he had moved very well in his little shower room demonstration.

  So I said, "Okay, King. That's probably the best way. I'll tell you the whole thing. But let's sit in the car. Okay?"

  "It's too hard for me to get in and out of that little tin bucket. They make cars too small for guys my size."

  "Okay. You stand outside and I'll get in the car." And when he was still in the way, I knew. And I jumped back a good ten feet from him and put the muzzle of the carbine in direct line with his belly.

  "What's with you, buddy boy? You some kind of flip?"

  "Put the right hand on top of the head, slowly. Now!"

  "Dammit, you're acting like..."

  The holstered weapon was on the belt threaded through his pant loops. "Now undo the belt buckle with the left hand. Now the top button. Unzip and let them fall."

  "But... "

  "King, you better believe me, I will blow a hole right through the middle of you."

  He let the pants drop, and I had him pull them off and move away from them, away from the car, so I could circle and, holding the gun on him, look into the car. I didn't see it at first, and if he had been more casual, maybe I never would have noticed it. He had pulled the mike jack out of the radio panel. The mike was on the dash hook, the connector cord hanging straight down.

  "I nearly handed it to you," I said.

  "You better start making sense soon. This is King. This is the guy on your side, pally." He really looked upset and distressed. He wore blue boxer shorts. His legs were massive and white and hairless. It made me think of something else. I had him unlace a shoe, take it off, and back away from it. I advanced as he backed up. I picked it up and held it toward the light and saw the serrations across the bottom, the place at the ball of the foot worn smooth.

  I took a deep breath and let it out slowly, and took the slight tension off the trigger. "You nearly had it right then, King. It was close."

  "Somebody better lock you up before you hurt somebody, boy."

  "How are you at grave-digging?"

  "Now you wouldn't ask a fella big as me to dig his own hole."

  "You don't work very hard, King. Got any fresh blisters?"

  He looked involuntarily at his right hand, and, like a little kid, put it behind him. "Worked in my garden lately."

  "What did you plant in your garden? A dead lady?"

  "For God's sake, McGee!"

  "And spread the pine needles back neat. But we brushed them away very carefully, and t
his shoe is going to match the mold Hyzer took. You didn't have any trouble following Henry's car. You hung back and saw me leave and went right in. Held her head in the bucket. You're big enough and strong enough."

  "You shove it under the skin, or take it right in a vein?"

  "King, I am not going to risk messing around with you. You are too good. Now turn around very slowly. I am going to wrap you up, and when your place is searched, they are going to come up with some chunks of broken cement and some wax and some plastic and some cash money."

  It was my intent to get close enough to chunk him in the back of the skull with the butt of the carbine, then cuff him to his own steering post, once I drove the car close enough.