A Flash of Green

by John D. MacDonald

“So let’s go.”

  After it was done, they waited around and picked a couple of the first copies off the press run. Brian had phoned Nan so she wouldn’t worry. There was no one to worry about when Borklund came home.

  “You better keep him,” Haas said. “Like a rare butterfly.”

  Jimmy went to the car and checked and came back. “His eyes are open. He did a little thumping and grunting. I think he’s annoyed.”

  “How’s your hand?”

  “I have pretty dimpled knuckles. I better not turn him loose until circulation is too far along to be stopped.”

  “Want to park him in front of my house for a little while?”

  “I better not. I want to keep you clean.”

  They stood under the streetlight on Bayou, smiling at each other. Haas said, “You were a sneaky bastard, working for Elmo, you know.”

  “The job had small compensations. I got to take Buck’s girl to Tampa and put her on a plane.”

  “I wondered what happened to her.”

  “She made Martin Cable nervous.”

  “When Eloise reads the morning paper, she’s going to be the nervous one.”

  “Almost as nervous as Leroy.”

  “Mr. Wing, it has been a pleasure being associated with you. In a day when the newspaper business has become about as glamorous as chicken-plucking, you have created a new legend with a nice old-timey ring to it. May I suggest that you seek your next employment in Portland, Anchorage or Honolulu, and as quickly as possible?”

  “After I stay and watch what happens.”

  “Don’t stay too long. I’ll say goodbye to Nan for you.”

  After Haas drove off, Jimmy walked slowly to his car. He had had little sleep, but he did not feel tired. He felt stimulated and mildly reckless, a three-drink condition achieved without drinking. But at unexpected intervals a little streak of fright would flash across the back of his mind, like a penny rocket. He kept thinking of a bloody old joke about a man reputed to be very quick with a razor. Ho, ho, ho, you missed me, boy. Did I, now? Just you try turning your head. Beyond old jokes, and the little gleams of fright, and the problem of what to do with Borklund, and the ache of his bruised hand, were the tangled sensory memories of Katherine, untouched, unsorted—all the jumbled, silky tumbling of her, white long clean lines and the gasping, all untouched, unsorted, and too soon over. For a time there had been one incredible answer to everything, a solution of such curious simplicity it had been overlooked. But, almost within moments, it had become a false answer to all the wrong questions, and she came tapping back in on her tall heels, her face cool, her mouth sucked to an unforgiving tightness, to tell him that little boys who write nasty words on the blackboard lose their chance to attend the school picnic.

  He turned to look toward the rear of the station wagon and said, “Borklund, old buddy, what would you like to do? We’re too late for the bars. They closed at two. We lost our chance to pick up a couple of girls. About the only thing to do is ride around. Okay with you? Fine. We’ll just ride around.” Borklund made a muffled growling sound and thumped with his heels on the tin deck of the wagon.

  He drove aimlessly for nearly an hour, and finally parked at the small public beach at the north end of Cable Key. Two other cars were parked there, in search of love. There were hungry mosquitoes ranging the beach. He left the windows open a few inches, locked the doors on the inside, sprayed the interior of the car with the bug bomb he carried in the glove compartment, stretched out on the front seat and went to sleep. It was early daylight when he awakened. The other cars were gone.

  He dropped the tail gate, hauled Borklund into a handy position and stripped the tape off. Borklund looked older and smaller, gray in the mild morning light. He sat on the tail gate, his legs dangling. His jaw was lumpy and discolored.

  “Glasses,” he said in a dusty voice.

  Wing got them from the glove compartment. One lens was almost opaque with a network of fine cracks. Borklund put them on. He fingered his jaw tenderly. He spat onto the compacted shell of the parking area. He stepped down and walked in a small circle, slowly, lifting his knees high, flexing his arms. He stopped in front of Jimmy and said, “I don’t want you sent to Raiford. I want you serving county time, so on the hot afternoons I can drive out and park and watch you swinging a brush hook on a county road gang.”

  “You’re a hard man to put down.”

  “What the hell is it all about, Wing?”

  Jimmy handed him the paper. Borklund leaned against the tail gate and read it. Then he slowly rolled the paper into a small hard cylinder. He stared out at the Gulf and whapped the paper against his thigh and said, “You poor damn fool. You poor sorry ignorant damn fool.”

  “Could I have gotten it in any other way?”

  “No. That isn’t what I mean. You going to leave me here, or do you plan to drive me back to my car?”

  “I’ll drive you in.”

  Borklund got into the car. As Jimmy backed out, he said, “Who was in this with you? Haas?”

  “He was there, but he didn’t know anything about you.”

  “I got to get my other glasses and change my clothes and go see Mr. Killian and then go sign a complaint.”

  At noon on Wednesday Jimmy parked on Center Street and walked a block and a half to the Bay Restaurant. He walked slowly in the hot sun. He had the feeling that if he looked down at the front of his clean shirt, he would be able to see his heart beating. There was a ludicrous flavor to the situation. It seemed that it had happened to him before, and then he remembered it was just a stock situation in ten thousand westerns. Ol’ Jimmy Wing, the tumbleweed kid, has come into town a-knowing the Bliss gang has swore to shoot him on sight. Play a little High Noon music while the townspeople gasp and bug their eyes and scuttle out of the line of fire.

  He gave a hitch at his gun belt, narrowed his eyes, and listened to the slow jingle of his spurs. But there were tourists who didn’t scuttle, and glanced at him blankly, if at all. He went into the coolness of the lounge and stood at the bar where many members of the business community could be found at lunchtime, and had the small satisfaction of noting that he had put an abrupt end to about fifteen simultaneous conversations. When the conversations began again, they had a different character, a hushed sibilance. He ordered a drink and nodded and spoke to the ones within range.

  “Hi, Les, Charlie. How you, Wade? How’re things, Will?”

  The responses were guarded. They left him ample elbow room at the bar. Leroy Shannard came in at quarter after twelve, heading toward the dining room. He saw Wing and stopped abruptly and came over to him.

  “I’ve been boring hell out of our mutual friend all morning, James,” Shannard said. “I keep saying to him I told you so.”

  “What’s a good word for him? Disgruntled?”

  “That word has always bothered me. If you’re not disgruntled, you have to be gruntled, don’t you?”

  “What’s a better word for Elmo today?”

  “I’d say hurt. Just plain hurt. He said if anybody was to see you, tell you he’d like a little chat with you. He should be at his office all afternoon. I guess he wants to talk to you like an uncle.”

  “You seem calm and contented, Leroy.”

  “I’ve had a busy morning, a right busy morning indeed, soothing some people down and chewing out other ones. I have to keep explaining how you snuck that into the paper without permission, and have been fired. Poor Eloise had hysterics over the phone after Martin left the house. Poor fellow has been adding two and two and coming up with twenty-two, but he can’t back out on the financing now without confirming all the gossip that’s going around. Darse Coombs was stamping around my office demanding we sue somebody. But, yes, I guess I’m calm and contented, James. The worst fuss is over already. It’ll be downhill from here on. Tonight in a thousand happy homes, they’ll use that paper to wrap the garbage. You’d better talk to Elmo. He’s upset about what you said about retaliation. I guess he isn’t e
ntirely sure about what you meant, James. You’ve got no job with the paper and no job with him, and no chance of any kind of a job in Palm County. And of the people left who’ll still speak to you, there isn’t a one of them who’ll ever trust you. So he seems to feel you’ve given yourself all the retaliation one man can use.” He glanced at his watch, nodded at Jimmy and said, “Good luck, boy,” and headed for the dining room.

  After lunch he went to see Sheriff Wade Illigan at his courthouse office. Wade had the mild pink face of a fat man, and a stringy, durable body. After he was seated, Wade got up and shut the door and went back to his desk.

  “I was expecting to be picked up by the city police,” Jimmy said.

  “Well, I heard about that, and the way I understand it, Jim, they decided against it. Borklund was for it, but Ben Killian was against it. They’ll explain just how you worked it in tomorrow’s paper, and publish it along with Elmo’s statement calling it a pack of lies.”

  “Wade, we’ve known each other a long time.”

  “Don’t expect much trade out of that, Jim. I’m an elected official.”

  “Elmo knows how badly I’ve hurt him. Maybe nobody else realizes yet except Elmo, and me. Wade, what happens to people who hurt Elmo?”

  “He doesn’t do anything without a purpose in it.”

  “How about Pete Nambo? Pete is nice and tame now.”

  “Maybe Elmo used to be rougher than he is now.”

  “Do you believe that?”

  “Not especially. What are you getting at, anyhow?”

  “I might not be worth taming.”

  “If there’s any laws violated in Palm County, outside the incorporated areas, I intend to do my duty.”

  “Wade, damn it, I want to know what could happen!”

  Illigan leaned back in his chair, and his face was still a fat man’s face, but no longer mild. “There’s a lot of people, some of them kin to Elmo, some not, thinking he’s the second coming of Jesus. He’s put a lot of meat in their mouth. They could just get the idea you’d done Elmo a hurt and he might like something done. But they wouldn’t let it point back to Elmo. It would have to be one of two things, Jim. You’d have to have some kind of innocent accident. Or else one day you’d just be packed up and gone, which would seem likely.”

  “So, in either case, how close would you check it?”

  “What are you trying to ask me? I’m an elected county official. I got half the budget I need. You know that. When, like they say, an aroused populace is on my tail, demanding justice, I have a hell of a lot of work to do. But with you, Jim, it’s like this. Who is going to get aroused? Just who? I grease the wheels that squeak loudest. If it looks like you left, who’s going to insist you get found? If you smoke in bed, who’s going to order an autopsy? The county coroner?”

  “So … I’m out in the cold.”

  “You knew that before you came in here.”

  “I guess I did.”

  Wade stood up, a sign that the talk was over. “I’m not saying anybody is going to even think of doing anything. I’m just saying you’re awful short on friends. You’ve got nobody here. A sister you’re not real close to. Who else? I were you, I’d leave. I surely would. You’ve wore this place out for yourself.”

  “I’ll think about it, Sheriff.”

  Illigan said, “Good luck, Jim.” He looked uneasy. “When I walk you out the door, I got to cuss you some and give you a little push. Don’t take it too personal.”

  • • •

  Jimmy Wing sat stiffly on the couch in Elmo’s office. Elmo paced slowly back and forth in front of the couch, his hands locked behind him. He sighed audibly.

  “Look at it this way, Elmo,” Jimmy said. “This is the time you took too big a bite.”

  Sandra Straplin sat on Elmo’s desk, swinging her beautiful legs, glowering at Jimmy. “The hell he did!” she said. “Everything was fine. Then you turned stinker. You betrayed him!”

  Elmo turned toward her and said in a weary voice, “Now, you get on out of here, Sandra.”

  She crossed to the door with an exaggerated swing of her sturdy hips and banged the door shut behind her.

  Elmo looked toward the door. “She got all worked up. Dellie got all worked up. My oldest four kids got all upset to hell. The other two are too little to understand. I tell you, when a man has so many folks depending on him and looking up to him, he carries a heavy load. Anything happens, he feels like he was letting ever’ last one of them down. Sandra there was about the worst of all. You know you have a steady thing going with an office woman, and after a while she gets to take herself too damn serious.”

  “Should I take her to Tampa and put her on an airplane?”

  “Don’t you get smart-mouth with me, boy. I’ve got awful damn sick of you awful sudden. Here I am giving you the fairest offer in the world. You got a little upset and confused in your mind on account of your wife dying. You get up in the Municipal Auditorium tonight and confess you made it all up so as to help those bird lovers. You say you’re putting yourself under a doctor’s care. In return, I either get you back onto the paper, or I get you into the county somewheres at good pay.”

  “For the last time, Elmo. No!”

  Elmo stood and looked down at him and smiled in a sad way. “Boy, you are not only stubborn, you are right stupid.”

  “So be it.”

  “You could wind up tied to a tree, boy.”

  “I could wind up a lot of ways.”

  “Are you too dumb to be scared?”

  “That must be it, Elmo.”

  “The pity of it is you’re causing me no real hardship, you know? Two out of that five are going to use it as an excuse to back out of their promise to sell me the share they agreed. I can smell that already. But when the time comes, they’ll be brought around so fast it’ll put a cramp in their necks.”

  “But what are you going to use the money for, Elmo?”

  “I told you that once.”

  “But it isn’t going to work now. You have to run against somebody, Elmo. And as soon as you start running, they’ll start talking about Palmland, and they’ll have names, dates, places and amounts. Your name will have a nice clinging little stink of corruption about it. You’ll never get the state backing in the party you’d have to have. Elmo, I’ve cut down on the size of the bites you’re going to take for the rest of your life.”

  Elmo studied him somberly. “What got you hating me so much?”

  “I don’t hate you at all. I think we both got trapped in a typical folk dance, Elmo. I think that every time—almost every time—a greedy little second-rater like you starts to get too big for his pants, some clown like me has to come along and cut him down. I don’t think you or I could have kept this from happening, one way or another. Without me coming along just now, I think your chance of making governor was about one in five thousand anyhow. Now it’s nothing in five thousand. I’ve drawn a line around you, Elmo. The border of Palm County. Get as big as you want to, but don’t cross the line.”

  Elmo shook his head. “And the one I was most worried about was Leroy. Beats all, don’t it? Anyhow, you’re wrong. This will all die down. I just wait longer, that’s all.”

  Jimmy stood up and moved a few steps toward the door and turned and looked curiously at Elmo. “Are you going to have me killed?”

  “Killed! Lord God, fella, what kind of a man do you think I am? I’m a businessman who’s got into politics a little. I got a wife and six kids and another on the way. Why, if I went around having everybody killed that let me down in some little way, I’d be busy night and day. Christ, I got to tell Dellie this. She’ll laugh herself sick.”

  “I’ll see you around, Elmo.”

  “Well, I’ll say one thing to you. Don’t hurry back. You’ve give me just enough misery so I can get along just fine if I don’t see you again.”

  Jimmy Wing arrived at the Municipal Auditorium at twenty of nine. The large parking area was almost completely filled. He parke
d at the farthest fringe of the lot.

  “And now what?” Mitchie McClure said in a tone of bored impatience. “Christ, Jaimie, this evening is full of such dizzy excitement I don’t think I can bear it.” She was slumped in the seat beside him, the hem of her short white sheath hiked above her round solid brown knees.

  He opened his door and said, “Sit tight. I’ll be back in a little while.”

  She sat upright. “Oh, no! You can’t attend that clambake. Please, dear. They’d shred you.”

  “I just want to listen for a couple of minutes. Outside. Wait right there.”

  She caught up to him when he was fifty feet from the car. “I’m coming along to see you don’t get any dramatic ideas, lover.”

  The sound was audible a long way from the auditorium. A male voice would give a long impassioned metallic garble, and then there would be a hard concerted roar of enthusiastic approval. It would die away quickly and the voice would begin again. He stopped fifty yards from the building. It was a hot and windy night, and the air was not as moist as usual. There were many city police standing near the exits. Groups of children romped and rolled and yelped on the green lawns of the auditorium. Bands of teenagers were clotted in the shadows, making their obscure jokes, tilting communal bottles.

  Mitchie took hold of Jimmy’s hand and said, “Just listen to them! It makes creepy things run up and down my back. And it reminds me of something.”

  “Newsreels, Mitchie? From long ago. We couldn’t understand what that voice was saying either, but they all yelled the same way.”

  “Jaimie, it scares me a little.”

  “It’s a mob. Mobs always believe they are brave and strong and a thousand percent right. There’s an old definition of how to find out how smart a mob is. You take the I.Q. of the most stupid person in the group, then divide that number by the number of people in the group.”

  “Let’s go, hon. Please let’s go.”

  As they started back toward the car there was prolonged applause and cheering, then a frailer voice and then a great flood of jeering, hissing, booing, derisive yelps.