John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 16 - The Dreadful Lemon Sky

by The Dreadful Lemon Sky(lit)

  There was a change in the feel of her, in the textures of her, that told me she was now awake. Gently, gently, she disengaged herself as I feigned sleep. She sat on the edge of the bed and groped for the short nightgown, then stood and put it on. Through slitted eyes I saw her put a fist in front of a wide yawn, a yawn so huge it made her shudder. She moved silently across the room and slipped through the interconnecting door. I heard the soft click of the latch and the second metallic sound that meant she had locked the door behind her. A gesture for the motel maid? A disavowal? Or the end of the episode?

  Thirteen

  FREDERICK VAN Harn sat in the same rear corner of the limousine as had the Judge. The black chauffeur sat upon a different bench because the shade patterns were different at ten o'clock on that Monday morning. The engine ran as quietly as before, the compressor clicking on and off.

  I sat on the same jump seat, turned to face him. I wore boat pants, sandals, a faded old shirt from Guatemala. He wore a beige business suit, white shirt, tie of dark green silk, dark brown loafers polished to satin gloss. As he looked directly at me. I saw that his sideburns were precisely even. The sideburn hair was long, brushed back to cover the ears. Neat little ears, I imagined. Maybe a bit pointed on the top. Olive skin, delicate features, long dark eyelashes, brown liquid eyes.

  I had been an annoyance to him when we had met at Jack Omaha's house. He studied me quietly, very much at ease, not the least bit uncomfortable. His hands were long and sinewy, and he clasped his fingers around a slightly upraised knee.

  "Mr. McGee, you got under my skin pretty good when we met at Chris's place."

  "You went into a massive tizzy."

  He smiled. "Are you trying to do it again?"

  "I don't know. What are you trying to do?"

  It was an engaging smile. Very direct. "I'm trying to get you off my back. Uncle Jake thinks you could hurt me."

  "Don't you?"

  The smile faded. He looked earnest. "I really don't see how. Oh, if you were politically inclined you could give me some static by bringing up the dumb-ass bit about flying marijuana in, but you'd have no proof of that, and I think I could deny it convincingly. Besides, I don't think people are as dead set against it as they used to be. The use of it is too prevalent. I hear that a long time ago the rumrunners were folk heroes along this coast. It's getting to be much the same with grass. I'm not sure you could hurt me."

  "What if somebody got notarized statements from Betty Joller and Susan Dobrovsky? Do you think your kinky love life could hurt you any if it came out?"

  He colored but recovered quickly. "People must find it remarkably easy to talk to you, McGee. I don't think there's anything kinky about enjoying the hard sell. Reluctance stimulates me. Maybe in retrospect they see it differently than it was. But in both those cases there were plenty of squeals of girlish joy."

  "Joanna thought you were tiresome."

  "Please stop trying to bait me. Let's try to get along at least a little bit. Try to understand each other."

  "What do you want me to understand?"

  He shrugged. "How I was such a damned fool. I'd flown to most of the islands. I'm a good pilot. I've got a good airplane and I keep it in first-class condition. As lawyer for Superior Building Supplies, I knew Jack and Harry were in bad shape and things were getting worse. I think it was Jack who brought it up, like a joke. I had said something about falling behind on the ranch payments and trying to get an extension on the loan. He said we ought to work out a way to bring grass in. He said he could find a nice outlet for us. We met again and planned how we could do it, still treating it as a joke. Finally I went down and lined up a source in Jamaica and then we... went ahead. We couldn't afford much the first time. But it all worked out okay."

  "Tell me about it."

  He shrugged again. "We'd rendezvous off the north shore of Grand Bahama. The coast was always clear because it's difficult water. I'd circle and drop the stuff. We would have put the big bags inside plastic bags from Omaha's stock and tied the neck so they'd float and the seawater couldn't get to the grass. They'd gather them in with a boat hook. Very simple."

  "How about the last trip?"

  "What about it?"

  "Who was involved?"

  "Just the four of us. Carrie went with me. Jack and Cal were aboard the boat. I had headwinds and I was a little late coming to the rendezvous point. At about five fifteen Carrie started horsing those sacks out the door. She was a strong person. They picked them up. Nine, I believe there were. So I put my ship right down on the deck and crossed the coast north of here and came down to the ranch and landed. She got in the little truck and went to the marina late that night, and they loaded the stuff into the truck. She drove it to the outlet and got paid off and took the money down and put it in the safe at Superior."

  "What happened to Jack Omaha?"

  "I have a theory."

  "Such as?"

  "I think some professionals were moving in on us. It was too easy to score. I think they got to Jack and scared him badly. I think that he stayed with Carrie and they went down and emptied the safe and went their separate ways. A lot of that money was supposed to be mine. It would have helped me a lot to have it. As it was I had to arrange to... borrow it."

  "From Uncle Jake Schermer?"

  His smile was ironic. "And a lot of advice went along with the money. He was upset about the whole thing. I couldn't make him understand that it wasn't as important as he was making out. It was... a caper. It was fun, damn it. Everybody in the group got along all right. Low risk and good money. We were planning on making one or two more trips and then splitting the money and calling it a day. I wanted to come out of it with two hundred thousand clear. And that's what Jack Omaha felt he needed to save the business."

  "Harry Hascomb wasn't in on it?"

  "Harry talks to make himself important. He talks in bars. And bedrooms. Harry is a jerk. I'm talking to you now, McGee, but there is no part of this you can prove. There is no basis for indictment by anybody."

  "And the Judge and his group are going to make certain you have a nice clean record because you are going to make them all rich and happy."

  After a flash of anger he spoke slowly and judiciously. "I don't know how much good I'm going to do them. I really don't. The timing is right. I can get elected. The campaign will be well financed. The incumbent is senile. I've built a good base here. I plan to announce right after the wedding. I love this part of Florida. I'm not at all certain I'd be in favor of a new deepwater port and a lot of phosphate mining and processing. It's a dirty industry. The port will bring in other industries. Maybe a refinery. But those are low employment prospects. They won't keep young people from leaving the Bayside area. And they will pollute the water and the air. On a risk/reward basis I can't make it add up. I have the feeling I want to work in the best interests of the people who will vote me into office, not the few men who have been grooming me for office."

  He was impressively convincing. He emanated a total sincerity. Right at that moment he had my vote. I could see what it was about him that made the Judge label him charismatic. He talked to me as if I were the most interesting person he would meet this year.

  "What do you think I ought to do?" he asked me.

  "Do what you think is right."

  "That sounds so easy. Right and wrong. Black and white. Up and down. It divides the substances of life unrealistically. The world is often gray and sideways. According to the game plan, if I go to Tallahassee I ought to be able to move the situation along in five to six years. If there is world famine by then, it will be the thing I should do."

  He sighed and shrugged.

  "Well, it's my problem and I will have to make the decision. I know I'm going to run for the office. I'll just have to take one step at a time. McGee, I want to thank you for listening to me. I haven't killed anybody. I don't know where the money went. I got into a foolish situation because I didn't weigh all the consequences. And I'm glad now that it's
over. I know that the chemistry between us is not good. I can't help that. I don't expect everybody to like me. I'll depend on, your sense of fair play."

  I found myself shaking hands with him. I got out of the car hastily, and after it drove away I wiped my hand on the side of my trousers. I felt dazed. He had focused a compelling personality upon me the way somebody might focus a big spotlight. He had that indefinable thing called presence, and he had it in large measure. I tried to superimpose the new image upon the fellow I had met in Jack Omaha's house, listlessly tying his tie after a session in Jack Omaha's bed. That fellow's anger had been pettish, slightly shrill. I could overlap my two images of the man. I wondered if my previous image had somehow been warped by the great blow on the back of the head when the explosion had hurled me off my feet.

  This man had been engaging, plausible, completely at ease. He made me feel as if it were very nice indeed to be taken into his confidence. There were dozens of things I wanted to ask him, but the chance was gone. The chance had driven away in a gleaming limousine, cool in the heat of the morning.

  Yes, if he could project all that to a group, he could be elected. No sweat.

  Yet where were you, Van Harn, when big Cal Birdsong was dying in the hospital, with a thin wire sticking him in the heart? Were you beside the bed, charismatic and relaxed? When your men clear new ranchland, do they blow the pine stumps with dynamite? Did those lean sinewy hands hoist Carrie into the front corner of the Dodge truck? Exactly how did you make Susan look so sick at heart, so defeated and sad?

  I had been trying to make it all a single interrelated series of acts of violence. But his convincing presence was making it all come unstuck, turning it all into unrelated episodes.

  Harry Max Scorf said, "Have a nice chat?" Usually I can sense people who move up close behind me. Something gives me warning. Not this time. I leapt into the air.

  "Jesus!"

  "Nope. Only me. Harry Max Scorf."

  "Of the City and County of Bayside. I know. I know."

  "Your nerves aren't real good, son."

  "Yes, I had a nice chat. What else is new?"

  "Let's set," he said, leading the way to a shady bench.

  I sat beside him, leaning back, squinting from the shady place out at the white dazzle of boats at the marina. I could see a brown lady in lavender bikini prone on the foredeck of a Chris, her head near the gray bulk of a big Danforth. Nearby was the silent gleaming bulk of Jack Omaha's muscular Bertram. Was it beginning to look slightly dingy? The unused boat so quickly acquires that abandoned, unloved, uncherished look. Chrome gets foggy. Bronze turns green. Aluminum pits and flakes. The lines get whiskery and the fenders get dirty. By looking to my right I could see into the office to where Cindy Birdsong stood, working on a ledger, elbow on the counter, fingers clenched in her hair, tongue sticking out of the corner of her mouth. Looking beyond the Bertram, beyond the bikini, I could see Meyer and Jason working, sweat-shiny on the sun deck of the Flush, setting and cementing the vinyl sheets. Behind me was the traffic roar of the busy Monday streets and highways. Florida no longer slows down for June. A pity.

  Harry Max Scorf produced a blue bandanna and flicked a shadow of dust off the toes of his gleaming boots. He took off his white Truman hat with care, wiped the sweatband, and placed it between us on the weathered wood of the bench. He seemed to doff force and authority along with the hat. His head was oddly pointy.

  "What is new," he said, "is that the special task force hit Fifteen Hundred Seaway Boulevard at first light this morning. And some sight it was. Nine cars. Twenty-five men. Feds and state people. I was local liaison, sort of observing. They tested me out long ago and know I can keep my mouth shut. I went along with the four who hit Walter J. Demos's apartment. He'd been entertaining a little schoolteacher person in his bed. They found about thirty pounds of cannabis in a plastic bag hanging on a hook about three feet up inside his fireplace. I can tell you it was sorry shit, my friend. Weak and dusty, a lot of big lower leaves cured bad, powdery as senna leaves. Well, those two had got some clothes on and they stood in the living room, both of them crying. The little schoolteacher was crying because she was ashamed and scared for her job, which she will lose. And that ball-headed Demos was crying because he was so goddamn mad at himself he couldn't hardly stand it. All the other men were going through the other apartments. There was one crazy scramble of folks trying to get back to their own beds. I think I've got the figure right. They made fifteen arrests for possession, not counting Demos and the teacher. Of course with Demos with that quantity; it will be for dealing, and that is heavier. You want to put it together for me?"

  "You already have."

  "I know. I know. But you tickle me. You've got cop sense."

  "I can't remember a word of my little talk with him."

  "What do you think you might have said?"

  "Oh, something to open him up. Come on very very heavy, like somebody from the Office taking over the operation. An amateur like Demos would buy an act that wasn't exactly plausible. Then I suppose I would have told him to hold onto his money and wait for a delivery and not get impatient."

  "You just suppose you might have said all that?"

  "And left him a posture he couldn't maintain. He is big jolly old Uncle Walter, head of the family. He is supposed to take care of everything and provide everything to make life juicy for his tenants. So when somebody showed up with some product, Uncle Wally bought it, and then they turned him in. I'd say that he was put out of business by the real professionals, easily, quietly, no fuss. He was buying enough for Fifteen Hundred, to maintain the life-style there. The squire of swingleville. The professionals wouldn't bother to work him over. The professionals use the law to weed out the amateurs."

  "Did they weed out that girl, that Carolyn Milligan?"

  I didn't have to think long. "You don't like that any better than I do, Captain. Makes no sense. I could never believe that."

  He sighed and said, "Neither can I. I tried to figure they'd wipe out the supply group: Omaha, Birdsong, Milligan. Then go after distribution. The trouble is, they wouldn't get into that much trouble for the sake of one channel of supply in Bayside County. There's three or four other groups. It isn't all that big. It's all businesslike. Nobody kills anybody unless there is absolutely no other way at all. This whole thing won't hang together because I don't know some things I ought to know. That's always the way it is. When you know enough, all of a sudden you know it all."

  "What about Carrie? Did you look into that?"

  "I got with Doc Stanyard on that. We went over his autopsy notes. Her left arm was badly abraded on the outside of the forearm and upper arm, with some paint fragments driven into the skin. See what that means?"

  "No."

  "Use your thick head, McGee."

  It took about twenty seconds before light dawned. "Okay, if she was sober enough to pull her car off the road, then she was alert enough to have the normal instinct of lifting her arm to ward off the truck bearing down on her. She would step out and try to ward it off and dodge back. Her arm was hanging at her side when she was hit, so the assumption is that she was unconscious."

  "Or suiciding. Waiting for the right vehicle. Left her purse in the car. Shut her eyes and stepped out. Bam."

  "Which do you think?"

  "I think that unless I learn more, I won't ever know which it was. Why did you have a conference with the Judge yesterday and a talk with Freddy this morning?"

  "We were talking about his appeal to the electorate."

  "His daddy was pleasant. Weak and pleasant and crooked. Funny thing. They say Freddy won't ever have his hand in the till because of what happened to his daddy. It did him good instead of bad. They like the way he's come up so fast."

  "Too fast, Captain?"

  "They changed the retirement rules when it got to be City and County of Bayside. I've got thirteen months to go. If somewhere down the road, before thirteen months are up, I get thrown off, I ride an old bicycle a
nd eat dog food. If I last it out, I'm better off than I would have been under the old rule. If Judge Jacob Schermer and his buddies are playing poker some night and somebody at the table says they've got tired of my face, I'm through the next day."

  "Scare you?"

  He turned and looked at me. Those old eyes had seen everything, twice. They had looked into a lot of people. An echo of a smile touched the corners of his mouth. "Scared shitless," he murmured.