The Only Girl in the Game

by John D. MacDonald

  Inevitably he sailed her back to Nassau, back to the big waterfront house which had been too empty for him, with terrace and tropical gardens and small staff of servants. Her papers were in a frightful mess, but he had friends at Government House who straightened them out quickly, so that she and Temple could be married three days after they arrived. It was a big festive wedding, and everyone seemed marvelously friendly, and just as skeptical of her as she had expected them to be.

  They took a month-of-May honeymoon touring the Out Islands in the Party Girl. She learned about rigging and handling lines and reading the water and spotting the buoys and markers, at the same time that she came to realize she had at last reached the place she had been expecting with bland confidence all along.

  She knew the limitations of her position. She could never achieve complete acceptance in the top social echelons of New Providence. Even were she from titled stock, marriage to an American immigrant would have nullified that goal.

  Temp, in his marriage contract, in the unwritten words between the spoken lines, assured her the pleasant stature of a nice home, servants, a circle of reasonably amusing friends, charge accounts at good shops, visits to interesting places, and the warm security of feeling adored. Should these factors change, the bargain would be, by her standards, voided.

  She would, if he kept his side of it, live up to her own bargain in all respects, and she felt it was rather a good one for Temple Shannard also. He had acquired a young wife in remarkably good health, sound of wind and tooth and limb. He had acquired, along with her, the history she had invented for herself. It was plausible, interesting, and impossible to check, and she had lived with that invented dossier long enough so that it was highly unlikely she would contradict herself. She had felt compelled by honesty to tell him before they were married that she could not have children, but the fact was not important to him.

  She knew that she would give him complete faithfulness and loyalty. She would give him all the help in his work she could. She would see he ate properly, got ample exercise and did not drink too much. She would care for him in sickness, and she would, at all times, suppress her own moods in deference to his. She would learn what pleased him most in a sexual partner, and she would become exactly what he desired, never denying him. She knew she would be expensive to maintain, but she would not require more of him than he was able to provide.

  She well knew the world was full of wives who supplied considerably less.

  Had Vicky been endowed with more imagination, more sensitivity, her past would have marked her too deeply to be concealed by any playacting. But she was a realist of unusually stubborn fiber. In the back hallway of her memory was a rather nauseous tangle of black deeds and twisted acts and horrid requirements. She had been badly used by an indifferent world. At the time of her marriage she went into that back hallway with housewifely bustle, dustpan, broom and cleaning powder, and piled it all into a crate which she dragged out to the roadside for the trash men to truck away. She dusted her hands and went confidently into marriage.

  And thus Temp Shannard, insulated forever from truths that would have buckled his knees, acquired a young, pretty, warmly eager bride, unsoiled by the fingerprints of strangers. She had a remarkably even disposition. She was fastidious as any kitten, wholesome as a milkmaid, trying always to look and act to suit his pleasure. She had lost all the accent of her origin, and she had absorbed the manners and the outlook of the better environments she had known. Throughout that May of honeymoon, his bride renewed him, and it was the youth he thought was gone forever who sat at the tiller and grinned at his girl. And it was that same youth who, during the moonlit nights, at anchor in tropic harbors, would fall asleep in the small cabin, in the sweet bridal arms, his graying head cradled between her truly marvelous breasts. They had had six good years and she was thirty, and now, standing in the lobby of the Cameroon, she could feel the queasy shifting of fear, as though it were a small scaly animal who slept poorly in a pocket close to her heart. Before marriage she had never felt this kind of fear. There had been times of anxious planning and a careful weighing of alternatives, but she had known all the time that everything would come out right for her. In the last six months she had lost this confidence. It was a feeling she did not like. And it was the first thing in six years of marriage to affect the way she had kept her half of the bargain. It was not a case of scenes and quarrels. It was, instead, a subtle alteration in the entire spectrum of their marriage. It was as though she had spent each day painting a bright and joyful and affectionate picture, and suddenly the pictures had become a little bit drab. The colors were not as pure and distinct. The oils she was using were fading, and there was no way to buy fresh supplies.

  Lately it had begun to seem to her that she and Temp were people who said memorized lines to each other in an empty theater.

  A bellhop wheeled a cart over for their luggage, followed closely by Temp in his pale blue hopsacking jacket, white shirt, the inevitable gray silk bow tie. He walked in the eager lunging way characteristic of him, a grin for her cracking the hard brown face and accentuating the sailor’s wrinkles around his eyes. His cropped hair was more white than gray of late, and there was a nervous tic near his left eye that occurred in times of stress, annoying him exceedingly.

  “We’re set, honey,” he said. “Come on. What’s that number again, son?”

  “Eight oh three, sir. Would you follow me, please?”

  “Wherever is Hugh, dearest?” she asked him.

  “They’re looking for him to tell him we’re here, Vick. He’s well past the point of working behind a registration desk.”

  “Of course.”

  Touching her arm lightly in the protective way she liked, he took her into the elevator—a fit brown urbane man with all the brisk confidence of the born promoter, escorting his expensive little confection of a wife who wore, here and there, the discreet, faceted gleamings that betokened his pride, his success and his devotion.

  As they walked into the suite, Vicky was acutely observant. She had always been responsive to her immediate surroundings. She saw the size and luxury of it, the panoramic windows that looked out along the wide bright ribbon of the Strip to the brown silence of the low mountains beyond. It all had a freshness that meant recent redecoration. There were floor vases of fresh flowers, a huge bowl of fresh fruit and candies, and an ice bucket containing a bottle, next to a tray with three shining wine glasses. A penciled sign propped against the neck of the bottle read “Do Not Touch”. She looked into a bath suitable for a sultan, touched the nubby material of the sand-colored draperies and said, “You know, this is rather nice, isn’t it?”

  Temp tipped the boy and, when the door was closed, went to her and put a light kiss on the immature tip of her nose and said, “The red carpet, mouse. With bugles and drums.”

  “This is utterly vast, you know. Did we really need a suite, dearest?”

  “What is this economy kick you’re on, Vick?” He grinned at her. “After this many years of you, it comes as a shock, somehow.”

  “I definitely wouldn’t want anything cheap and tiny, Temp, but this seems like so very much more than we need. That’s all I meant.”

  “Leave things up to me, please.” He was still smiling, but there was a trace of harshness in his tone. “The accommodations fit a business purpose.”

  “Of course, dearest,” she said. “I’ll settle us in, shall I?”

  “You do that.”

  Though they had traveled overweight, she found more drawer and closet space than they could possibly use. She put everything away with neatness and method and, after she had arranged her cosmetic array on the dressing table, she laid out what they would wear after they had bathed. She glanced through the doorway into the sitting room of the suite from time to time, looking at Temp as he sat reading the newspaper they had given him at the desk. The bedside radio, adjusted by the bellhop, changed from music to soap opera, and so she changed it to another place, to Latin m
usic, all gourds and chantings and marimbas, turning it just loud enough to carry into the other room, but not so loud that she failed to hear the quick knock at the door.

  Hugh found himself smiling with the anticipation of pleasure as he strode down the corridor to the suite he had assigned the Shannards. Temp, as a part owner of the hotel at Governor’s Harbor at Eleuthera, had come to his rescue at a very crucial point in the career of Hugh Darren. He had not only resolved the immediate difficulties, but he had set it up so that Hugh had a much freer hand to pursue his own policies in the future. Friendship had developed from this contact. Temp and Vicky had never made any attempt to patronize Hugh. He had gone sailing with them, gotten slightly drunk with them, and had stayed in their Nassau home.

  Temp opened the door of the suite, and went into vast, loud, energetic greetings. Vicky came smiling, hurrying from the bedroom, with a quick embrace to be given, and a cheek to be kissed. They all tried to talk at once, all stopped at the same moment and did the same thing again, and had to laugh at themselves.

  Vicky told Hugh he was looking wonderfully fit and happy. Temp told him he was looking too damn fatuously successful. He told them they were both looking wonderful, and he hoped he made it sound convincing. Neither of them looked the way he remembered. He could sense tension and see the traces of it in their faces. Their cheer seemed forced and, what was more distressing to him, he sensed the cool, withering breath of estrangement.

  “What the hell is this ‘Do Not Touc’ routine?” Temp asked.

  “He wouldn’t say a word about the lovely flowers, of course,” Vicky said. “He would only complain about the wine. He’s a greedy, impossible type.”

  “Do not touch until I get here,” Hugh said. “And I am here.” He took the bottle out and showed them the label. “Champagne, of course.”

  “What a gloriously low habit!” Vicky cried. “Champagne at this time of the day.”

  “It’s a very low town, doll,” Hugh said, twisting the wire off and working at the cork. It clicked off the ceiling and into a low chair by the windows.

  They touched glasses. “Old friends, old times and old places,” Temp said. And they drank and smiled and moved over to the grouping of low blonde chairs, and Temp told Hugh the news of the Bahamas since he had been gone—from the Jack Paar invasion at Christmastime, to all the vast new resort projects and the continuing incredible increases in the cost of land in the developments on New Providence. When the champagne was gone, Vicky stood and said, “Aircraft erode me horribly, chums. I look a dreary old bag for days, so it’s me for a steaming tub and a champagne nap. Will one of you gentlemen please knock me up when it’s time to get festive?”

  “Love those limey expressions,” Temp said fondly. “We’ll awaken you.”

  She looked with mock disdain at their grinning faces. “You both have dreadfully dirty minds, dears.” She winked at them and went into the bedroom, closing the door behind her.

  “Marvelous girl,” Temp said.

  “Best of the breed.”

  “Can you chat for a while, or should you be running around managing things, Hugh?”

  “This place is in practically full operation twenty-four hours a day. I live right on the premises. They know where I am, Temp, and somebody will yell if there’s a jam they can’t handle, so I’m working right now. But I can’t talk with an empty glass. Bourbon?”

  “Ingenious idea.”

  Hugh phoned down for a bottle and setups and went back to his chair.

  “Hell of a big operation you’ve got here,” Temp said.

  “Service staff of four hundred and sixteen, as of right now, not counting casino personnel, or the entertainers, of course. And it was such a loose operation, Temp, it’s taken me this long to begin to feel I’m getting on top of it. It’s been a brute of a job, but they’re paying me damn well—so well, in fact, that I may be around to see you for that construction loan a lot sooner than I thought.”

  “That’s fine, Hugh. That’s great!” Temp said, but it was strangely forced. Hugh felt a small new worry, one he had not anticipated.

  “What’s the matter, Temp?”

  “Nothing. Nothing at all. Just that it’s a damn good thing you’re not looking for that money right now.”

  The waiter knocked. Hugh let him in. Temp Shannard made a very uncharacteristic half-hearted attempt to get the service check. In past days it had been almost impossible to pay for anything when Temp was in the party. This was an additional clue that made Hugh increasingly uneasy.

  As he was fixing the highballs he said, “I could be knocking on your door in about two years, Temp, the way it’s going. You’ll have it then, won’t you?”

  “Of course, dear boy! Of course.”

  “You remember the way we laid it all out that night with Alec Whitney. I put up Peppercorn Cay free and clear, plus thirty thousand. You and Alec each come in with sixty thousand, forty of which will be a loan, and twenty will be for fifteen per cent of the limited partnership.” He handed Temple his drink.

  “Don’t look so worried about it, Hugh. I’ll be flying like a big bird again by the time you come for the money.”

  “What’s happened, Temp? Are you in trouble?”

  Shannard gave him a smile of confidence, but there was an uncertainty, a shifting, half-apologetic expression around his eyes that spoiled the effect. “Nothing I can’t work my way out of, Hugh.”

  “What went wrong?”

  Temple Shannard leaned back, holding his glass in both hands, frowning at it. “Quite a few things went wrong. The law of averages should have protected me from such lousy timing. Damn it, I was a tiger in the backfield, playing offense and defense. I could diagnose all the plays and pick off those passes, and I could call the right sequences and make those first downs, one right after the other. But it has been like I’d lost a half step somewhere. They’re red dogging me now and smearing me in the backfield, and on defense they’re passing just over my head. If I was part paranoid I’d begin to think it was a conspiracy, that the whole damn world was out to get me.”

  “It’s serious, then.”

  “It didn’t seem so in the beginning. Maybe I was too damn confident. I’ve moved fast, Hugh, because I’ve been willing to extend myself so far it would give a nervous man a chronic spastic colon. I’ve operated out of pure faith in the Bahama boom, and God knows, except for that strike a few years back, it hasn’t even faltered. So when a few things soured, I didn’t get too upset. A bad title mixup smeared one deal. On another an insurance company found a way to eel out of their responsibilities on a technicality, and it fell back on me.”

  He upended his drink, got up and made himself a heavier one, and began to pace as he talked. “Things like that, Hugh. Damnable, unforeseeable things, as though I had to have a run of bad luck to make up for all the good. If I’d been playing it close to the vest all along, I could have rolled with it, but it all started to hit me just when I’d stretched myself as far as I dared. And you know how fast bad news travels. So the people who would have been delighted to give me extensions have all tightened down on me.”

  “What can you do?”

  Temp gave him a fighting grin. “I had to find a way to lick the bastards. If I let them force me to liquidate right now, not only would I be dealing myself out of potential millions to be made in new projects, but I’d end up in such a lousy net-cash position I wouldn’t have a big enough lever to pry my way back into the big-time deals down there. I’d have to start again with the little stuff, and I just haven’t got the patience for that. I can’t get money down there because now they have the idea they can lay back and pick off my good holdings for less. So I made up a brand-new package, Hugh.

  “I’ve got a prospectus that would knock your damn eye out. I sold the pieces of the hotels because I could get a fair price there. I’ve put the house and the insurance and every other damn thing in hock, and I paid off just a bare minimum of the people who are leaning on me, and I’m stallin
g hell out of the rest of them, and I’ve got a hundred thousand bucks cash I moved to the Morgan Guarantee Trust so nobody could get too wise down there and put any kind of attachment on it. I know this much, Temp. You can’t sell a big deal unless you can show that you’re willing to go into it in a respectable way yourself. Otherwise you’re a dubious promoter. I’ve consolidated my personal holdings in raw land, all the stuff on Andros, Eleuthera, Abaco, Spanish Wells and San Salvador. I have maps, descriptions, mortgage deeds, and exhaustive reports on the future of the islands based on the past growth record. I’ve got all the papers on Island Associates, Limited, set up and ready to go.”

  “Who’s in with you?”

  Shannard ignored the question. “The way it will work, I will put my equities in the land and my hundred grand into the pot in return for thirty thousand shares worth four pounds a share … call it ten dollars a share. I take in seven hundred thousand dollars for the remaining seventy thousand shares. That money pays off the balance on all the land, leaving over three hundred thousand to begin the development of the Eleuthera piece first. That property adjoins the Arvida piece, and I’ve got an engineering and development study that’s a gem. It can’t miss, Hugh. I know those islands. It just can’t miss. Fix you a fresh one?”

  “I’ll ride on this, thanks.”

  Temp brought a fresh drink back to his chair and sat down a bit heavily. “That’s the picture. With that much backing I can then pledge my Island Associates shares for the line of credit to handle the stuff I’ve been dodging, and then I can save those deals where I’m in with other people. It’s a hell of a lot of scrambling, but I’ll come out the far end smelling like a rose, believe me. In the meantime I’ve been living it wide and handsome. I’ve been the most confident-looking man in town. You have to keep it up, Hugh, even when it hurts.”

  “Like asking for a suite?”

  “You’re getting the message.”