The Dreadful Lemon Sky

by John D. MacDonald

  When I told him I didn’t want in, he wanted me to set it all up for him. I could stay outside and get a piece of it in exchange for management skills. I said no, I didn’t want to go down that particular road. If you make it with grass, you find out that hash and coke are more portable and profitable. You kid yourself into the next step, and by the time they pick you up, your picture in the paper looks like some kind of degenerate, fangs and all. And all you can say is, gee, the other guys were doing it too.

  If I were really going to do it, I would refit the Muñequita for long-range work. Tune her for lowest gas consumption and put in bigger tanks. She’s already braced to bang through seas most runabouts can’t handle. Then I would …

  Whoa, McGee. There is larceny in every heart, and you have more than your share. So forget how far it is across the Yucatan Straits, leaving from Key West.

  Seven

  It was an overcast morning with almost no wind at all. The wide bay was glassy calm, the outlying headlands misted, looking farther away than they were.

  There was a narrow, scrabbly, oyster-shell beach beside the cottage at 28 Mangrove Lane where Carrie Milligan had once lived. A narrow wooden dock extended twenty feet into the bay. It was still solid, just beginning to lean. It was good, I guessed, for another couple of years. Two old skiffs were high on the beach, overturned, nosing into the sea grapes.

  Jason sat on the end of one of the skiffs. He wore a white shirt and white trousers. He had a big plantation straw hat shadowing his face. He was playing chords quite softly on a big guitar with a lot of ornate fretwork against the dark wood. The chords were related but did not become any recognizable song. They were in slow cadence, major and minor.

  Meyer and I joined the group, standing a bit north of most of them, in the shade of a small gnarled water oak. I saw Harry Hascomb and the young man who had been counting stock in the warehouse. I saw Mrs. Jack Omaha, Gil from Gil’s Kitchen, Susan Dobrovsky, Frederick Van Harn, Oliver from the marina, Joanna from Superior Building Supplies, and a man it took me a few moments to place. He was Arthur, the younger of the two cops who had subdued Cal Birdsong.

  There were seven young ladies in long pastel dresses. The dresses were not in any sense a matched set. They were all of different cut and style, but all long and all pastel. Susan wore a long white dress which was just enough too big so that I suspected it was borrowed. Susan and the other girls all had armfuls of the lush Florida flowers of late springtime.

  A young man stepped out of the group and turned and faced us. He had red hair to his shoulders and a curly red beard. He wore a sports jacket and plaid slacks.

  In a resonant and penetrating voice he said, “We are here today to say good-by to our sister, Carrie.” The guitar music softened but continued. “She lived among us for a time. She touched our lives. She was an open person. She was not afraid of life or of herself. She was at home being Carrie, our sister. And we were at home with her, in love and trust and understanding. In her memory, each one of us here now most solemnly vows to be more sensitive to the needs of those who share our lives, to be more compassionate, to give that kind of understanding which does not concern itself with blame and guilt and retribution. In token of this pledge, and in symbol of our loss, we consign these flowers to the sea.”

  He moved to the side. The guitar became louder. One by one the pastel girls walked out to the end of the dock and flung the armloads of blooms onto the gray and glassy bay. There were tear marks on their cheeks. The flowers spread and began, very slowly, to move outward and in a southerly direction with the current. It was a very simple and moving thing. I had the feeling of a greater loss for having so undervalued Carrie. I excused myself by saying I had really not known her very well. But that was what Red-beard had said, that we should be more sensitive to the needs of others—and more sensitive, I added, to their identities as well. If she had meant this much to these people, then I had slighted her value as a person.

  The music trailed off and stopped. Jason stood up and bobbed his head to indicate that was all. The murmur of voices began. Susan went a little way down the beach and stood, watching the floating flowers.

  I looked at the twenty or so people I did not know, and I realized anew that there is a new subculture in the world. These were mostly young working people. Their work was their concession to the necessities. Their off-work identities were contra-establishment. Perhaps this was the only effective answer to all the malaise and the restlessness and the disbelief in institutionalized life, to conform for the sake of earning the bread and then to step from the job into almost as much personal freedom as the commune person.

  I realized Meyer was no longer at my elbow. I looked around and did not see him. Jason nodded to me and said, “Was it okay?”

  “It was beautiful.”

  “I figured if I just noodled around it would be better. If you play something, people start making the lyrics in their heads and they miss the other words. Robby did fine, I thought. He’s an architect. Cindy wanted to make it to the service here, but she’s still too shook.”

  “She shouldn’t have even thought about it.”

  “Well, she thought a lot of Carrie. When Cindy was sick last year, Carrie came over and straightened out the books. It took her a whole weekend to do it, the way Cal had screwed things up. Look, I think I ought to talk to Susan. You think it would be okay?”

  “I think it would be fine.”

  He moved off down the beach. Meyer came up to me and said, “There’s a hex nut on the bottom of the gas tank. The undercoat is off it on one of the surfaces, and the metal is shiny where the undercoat flaked off.”

  I stared at him in disbelief. “With all these people around, you were damn fool enough to—”

  “I was flipping my lucky silver dollar and catching it, like this. I dropped it and it hit the toe of my shoe and rolled under the Datsun. I didn’t get a good look or a long look.”

  “Don’t try to be cute about these things.”

  “Don’t try to be McGee, you mean?”

  “Don’t get huffy. If you want to travel with the team, learn the ground rules. I’ve told you before. Don’t ever take a risk you don’t have to take, just to save time or inflate your ego.”

  “Now wait a minute—”

  “There are a lot of things you can tell me that I would never know or guess unless you told me. You have a lot of special information in your head. So have I in mine. My information can make you live longer. And better.”

  “Better than what?” a girl asked. I turned. Joanna. Miss Freeler, recently of Superior Building Supplies. Dear friend of Harry Hascomb. Ex-friend. Slender girl with a delicate and lovely face, long fall of ginger-colored hair. Green eyes, slightly protruding and very challenging. The girl challenge, old as time.

  “Live better than Harry is going to live for a while.”

  “That wouldn’t be hard,” she said. “Bet your ass. Harry is going to have to give up a lot of goodies. I know you from the office yesterday, when I quit. I remember you because you’ve got weird eyes. And for other reasons too, I might add. I bet you hear that from all the girls. You know, you got eyes the color of gin. What’s your name?”

  “McGee. And this is Meyer. Joanna Freeler.”

  “Hello, Meyer,” she said. “Hello, McGee. What are you two dudes doing here at the memorial?”

  “Friends of the deceased,” I said. “From Lauderdale.”

  “Sure. That’s where she married that muscle bum. Why didn’t she marry you? Weren’t you available, McGee?”

  “Weren’t. Aren’t. Won’t be.”

  “Now you’re singing my song,” she said.

  She was wearing a long orange dress. The color was not good with her coloring. She had thrown her flowers farther and spread them wider than any of the others.

  “You seem to be in good spirits,” I said.

  She clenched her jaw and glared up at me. “That’s a shitty thing to say, friend. I miss her like hell. And in on
e way or another, I’ll always miss her. Okay?”

  “I didn’t mean anything by what I said.”

  “Then apologize for letting your mouth run with your head turned off, McGee.”

  “I do so hereby apologize.”

  She hugged my arm and smiled and said to Meyer, “You run along, dearie. I have to ask this man something.”

  Meyer said, “I’ll walk back to the boat.”

  “You’ve got a boat here? At Westway? Hmm. A fast boat?”

  “If you really press her, she’ll do seven or eight knots.”

  “You a pilot? Like in an airplane?”

  “No.”

  “Come along. I just don’t like to say some kinds of things in front of two people. All right?”

  She led me well away from the others, over to the far edge of the lot. One water oak had sent out a huge limb, parallel to the ground, the top of it almost as high as my shirt pocket. Joanna gave a little bounce and put her palms on the limb and floated up, turning in air to sit lightly. She patted the limb beside her. “Come into my tree, friend.”

  I sat beside her. She took my hand and inspected it carefully, back and front.

  “Hmm. You’ve had an active past.”

  “You could have said that in front of Meyer.”

  “It’s hard to say what I want to say in front of just one person. I mean it’s so easy for you to get the wrong idea. I’ll miss Carrie. But she is dead, right? And the world goes on. One thing I know from all this, maybe the same thing Carrie figured out, there’s got to be more to living than sitting on your butt forty hours a week in an office and getting laid once in a while by the joker who signs your paycheck. I could retire, maybe. If I play it right. But what I want is more interesting work. Like what Carrie was doing.”

  “What was she doing?”

  “Don’t try to get cute, McGee. Listen, I knew that girl. There’s four of us in the cottage now. Me and Betty Joller and Nat Weiss and Flossie Speck. So before she moved out and since, Carrie was supplying the cottage with free grass for her friends, like a paper bag this big half full. We must have two pounds left. Do I have to spell it out? What I wasn’t told, I can guess. So it all fell apart for you people. She went to Lauderdale. Now you are here to put it back together again, right? So this is a job application. I’m very smart and I know how to keep my mouth shut.”

  “I wouldn’t say you know how to keep your mouth shut.”

  “This one time I have to take the chance, or where am I? Outside, as usual.”

  “Who do you think I represent?”

  “You are sitting in my tree playing stupid. You look smart and rough. You’re in distribution after the crazy people bring it in. I want to be a crazy people because I need something weird to do, and the money is nice. I told Carrie she shouldn’t be involved, and here am I asking to get involved. What did happen to Jack?”

  “Didn’t Carrie tell you that?”

  “She said he got scared and probably grabbed his share and ran. But that doesn’t …”

  “Doesn’t what?”

  “Never mind. Skip it.”

  “Did Harry know what was going on?”

  “Cowboy Harry? He’s a jerk. How could he know what was going on? It takes him both hands to find his ass. Why did you come to see him anyway?”

  “To talk to him about Carrie.”

  “Why would you want to talk to him about Carrie?”

  “You can keep your mouth shut?”

  “You know it!”

  “Just trying to get a line on who pushed Carrie in front of that truck.”

  The color drained out of her face. She wiped her mouth and shuddered. “Come on, now!”

  “She was killed. I guess you could call it an occupational hazard, right? If you want to accept that kind of risk, maybe we can find something for you.”

  “But who … who …”

  “The competition, probably.”

  She looked down and plucked the orange dress away from her body. “I’m getting all hot and sticky. I better change. Don’t go away, huh? I want to think this over, okay?”

  Joanna dropped lightly from the limb and went to the cottage, striding long, and disappeared inside. A lot of people had left. Some had gone into the cottage. Others were talking, by twos and threes. I saw Susan walking toward the Datsun, so I dropped down and got to the car just as she did. Her eyes were red, but she managed a smile.

  “I think Carrie would have liked it,” she said.

  “I’m sure she would. Yesterday I walked off with her rings. I forgot to give them to you. And I left them on the boat. We could go get them now.”

  She frowned and shook her head. “There’s no hurry. I have to be here a few days anyway, Fred … Mr. Van Harn says.”

  “Do you want me to go and pick up that package from Mr. Rucker?”

  “Oh, no, thanks. I already talked to Betty about it, and she’s coming with me now and we’ll go over there before two o’clock. It’s perfectly all right, really. But thank you.”

  A sturdy girl in a yellow dress came hurrying to the car, saying, “Sorry, Sue. I got to talking to somebody.”

  “Betty, this is Travis McGee. Betty Joller.”

  She had one of those plump pretty faces which go with wooden shoes and beer festivals. Her eyes were Dutch blue, and her smile was totally friendly and not the least bit provocative. “When I saw you standing with Meyer, I figured it had to be you,” she said. “Carrie told me once that the only really happy time she could remember was when you loaned her and Ben your houseboat for their honeymoon. We’re all going to miss her so much around here.”

  They got in, and Susan hitched her white dress up above her knees and then backed smartly around and they left. At my elbow Joanna said, “Now that Susan is some kind of great package.”

  “And Jason has his eyes on it.”

  “I noticed that. She’s too young for you, chief.”

  “So are you.”

  She laughed so hard it bent her over. The laugh was silver bright under the shade trees, unfitting for the occasion. “Me? Me?” she gasped. “I’m the oldest person around anywhere.” She wore little salmon shorts and a soft gray top. She had wound her ginger hair into a pile atop her head and pinned it in place casually. Ends were escaping. It made her throat look very slender and vulnerable.

  She looked around. “Where did you leave your wheels?”

  “We walked over from the marina.”

  “So I’ll walk back with you, okay?”

  “Okay, Joanna.”

  “We haven’t made our deal yet.”

  “Deal?”

  She carried a small white canvas beach bag. She twirled it by its draw cord. “Keep playing dumb and I’ll brain you, honey.”

  So we went out to the sidewalk and walked through sun and shade, past little frame houses and new little stores, to the marina. Jason was back at work. He was in his khaki shorts standing on the bow deck of a big Chriss, hosing it down, washing off the salt, and the new arrivals, a pair of small round white-haired people in bright boat clothes, stood sourly watching his every move. “Get that cleat too,” the man yelled. “The cleat!”

  “Yessir,” said Jason the musician. “Yessir, sir.”

  Joanna was loudly enthusiastic about the below-decks spaces of the Busted Flush. While she was trotting around, oh-ing and ah-ing, Meyer told me he had some errands. I gave him the car keys. I did not know if he had errands or a sudden attack of discretion.

  I caught up with her in the head, standing in front of the big mirror, touching her hair, turning and looking back at herself over her shoulder. She saw me in the mirror and said, “This is really some kind of floating playpen. It’s funny. I keep feeling left out. I keep thinking that it isn’t right that all this has been going on without me. After all, I’m the best in the world. You didn’t know?”

  “You hadn’t mentioned it before.”

  “Don’t tell me you designed all this?”

  “No. It was a
s is when I won this barge in a poker game.”

  “Ah. Hence the name.”

  “There was a Brazilian lady that went with it, but I wouldn’t let him bet her.”

  “Are Brazilians so great?”

  “I wouldn’t know. Anyway, I kept the decor.”

  She was smiling. Then suddenly she slumped her shoulders, shook her head, her face somber. “It’s so great to kid around, isn’t it? I guess the real reason I’m quitting the job is because it wouldn’t be the same there without Carrie. Can I have a beer?”

  “Of course.”

  We sat in the galley booth, facing each other across the Formica top. She was pensive, silent, unreadable.

  Finally she said, “So it isn’t any game. So I don’t want in, thanks just the same. Sorry I bothered you.”

  So I told her the truth about my relationship to Carrie. And why I was here with Meyer. She turned beet red and had to get up and pace around to control her restless embarrassment. It took me about five minutes to get the record straight. I left out the part about the money.

  “You must have thought I’d lost my mind!”

  “I decided you weren’t too tightly wrapped, kid.”

  “You encouraged me, damn you!”

  Finally she calmed down and sat down, sipped her beer, and said, “Okay, I can see why you think she was killed. The purse and the gas and so on. But why? She wasn’t into anything that rough. Everybody and his brother is hustling grass into Florida. There’s absolute tons of it coming in all the time. It’s about as risky as running a stop sign.”

  “Did she tell you how it worked?”

  “Not in so many words. It was no secret they used Jack’s cruiser. There is no way this coast can be policed. Too many small boats and little airplanes and all.”

  “Didn’t anybody at the cottage ask Carrie where she got it?”

  “Betty always did, and Carrie would say something different every time. Like she’d say they had a special on it at Quik-Chek. It was top quality, cured right. Jason says it’s the best he’s ever run into. It was fun, the four of us, Betty and me, Carrie and Floss. Betty got a little machine and made cigarettes. And we had the cookbook, too, and made those hash puppies. Like on an evening, there’d be eight or ten of us sitting around, and maybe Jason making music, and we’d get onto a real nice level. And there’d be good relaxed talk that made sense, not like when everybody is drinking and people get ugly or silly. They say now it can mess up having babies, and it can lower your resistance to colds and flu and infection and so on. So? Automobiles can kill you, and people don’t stop driving.”