by Ted Lewis
Somehow, the early morning air around Florian’s has an expensive feel about it as if he’s had it specially flown in. From my vantage point slightly farther up the hillside, the still blue oblong of Florian’s pool looks flat as plastic and the layout around it, the patio and all that stuff, looks as though it never knew a thing like dust existed. Everything’s sweet, everything’s still, everything’s perfect, just poised for the daily routine which I guess has already started inside the house and will very soon be moved out into the clear sharp sunshine.
I don’t have to wait long.
The sliding glass slides open and Earl Connors walks out carrying a towel and surveys the morning scene. Then he stands aside and out comes Florian almost Roman in his white tow-eling robe. He breathes in some of his air and does a few limbering-up exercises and then he unties his belt and Earl helps the robe off his shoulders and lays it neatly on one of the poolside chairs. Florian makes a nice neat dive and breaks up the surface of the pool. That’s Earl’s cue to sit down and light up a cigarette and enjoy doing nothing for five minutes or so. It’s also my cue to move.
I crouch my way down the hillside, doubled lower than the height of the bushes, until I get to the wall that’s parallel to the oblong of Florian’s swimming pool. Then I turn west and go in the shadow of the wall until I get to the corner and go down the next piece of wall that runs along the blind side of the house and I go along this until I get to a point where there’s a hillock of earth. I stand on it and bend my legs jumping up to hold a couple of the spiked railings that decorate the top of Florian’s wall and I pull myself up and take a little look. There’s nobody walking around the grounds since I moved down the hillside and nobody can see me because there’s no windows on this side of the building. The only evidence of life is the sound of Florian splashing up and down in his pool. So I heave myself up to the top of the wall and gently let myself down the other side and make it silently through the foliage to the blind side of the house and then to the corner beyond which is the pool. I wait until the sounds of Florian’s aqua show are going away from me and then I turn around the corner and there’s Earl, his back to me, and Florian swimming to the far end of his pool. I stick close to the wall until I’m about four feet away from Earl and then I say, “It’s Boldt, Earl. And there’s nothing you can do. You know that.”
Earl is suddenly like marble. Nothing moves at all.
“So knowing that, take your gun out and put it down by your chair and when Mr. Florian touches the far end, you get up and you go and stand at the edge of the pool and tell Mr. Florian who’s here to see him. And explain how I want Mr. Florian to get out of the pool and how I want you both to go back in the house.”
Still nothing. But when Florian does a flip and starts heading his backstroke this way, Earl gets up and goes and stands by the edge of the pool and does just as I tell him to. Florian stops swimming when he hears the sound of Earl’s voice and so as to catch what Earl’s saying, he floats on his back on the pool’s surface. Then when he’s taken in Earl’s words, he paddles his hands slightly and drifts around so he’s in a position to verify what he’s just been told. He looks at me and I look at him. Then a moment or two later, Florian says, “Okay, Earl.”
Then he twists over in the water, swims slowly over to the side and climbs out of the pool.
He pauses at the edge for a moment and looks at me.
“Is it all right if I put on my robe?” Florian says.
“I’ll bring it in for you,” I tell him.
Florian nods and begins to walk toward the glass doors and Earl follows after him. I move very quickly and pick up the robe which is no heavier than it should be, and then I pick up Earl’s gun and go in after them.
They’re both standing in the broad low room, three or four feet apart, watching me as I come in out of the sunlight. They’re both wise enough not to make any move, at least, just yet.
The room we’re in is Florian’s gym-cum-den-cum-games room. There’s a lot of pine and some keep-fit gear and a pool table and a bar and some nice self-consciously masculine furniture and sheepskin scatter rugs all over the floor; on the pool table is Florian’s morning gear all neatly laid out.
“Where’s Hammett?” I ask Florian.
“He gets here at nine,” Florian says.
He’s also wise enough not to chance any wrong answers.
“Who else is here?”
“The cook. She’ll be fixing my breakfast around now.”
“How many on the gate?”
“Only one.”
“The one that’s been there since midnight?”
“Yeah.”
“When’s the changeover. Eight?”
Florian nods.
“That’s fine. That’s just about great.”
I smile at them both.
“Well, Earl,” I say to him, “I’d like you to lie down on the floor and face the rug.”
Earl looks at Florian as if he’s expecting some kind of answer. The only answer he gets is a nod from Florian and so Earl goes down on his knees, turns around and prostrates himself.
“Now,” I say to Florian, “you flip a switch on your little box there and you tell your cook you changed your mind; you don’t feel like your breakfast. You tell her that the guy on the gate’s going to come in a little early for his. And then you flip another switch and tell the guy on the gate that you’re expecting Mr. Draper and when Mr. Draper comes through the gate, your guy can come in a little early and have his breakfast where he usually does. And in both cases you emphasize you want no interruptions.”
Florian looks at me and there’s no expression at all on his face. Then he says, “Draper.”
“Oh, yeah,” I tell him. “I almost forgot. I want you to call Draper. Tell him you’ve got news on me. Tell him he’s got to get over fast but tell him nothing else. You understand?”
Florian understands all right but at the same time he doesn’t understand. All he knows is that for the moment he has to go along with anything I say because if he understands anything at all, it’s what would happen if he were to do the slightest thing any different. So he does the first two things and when it gets to phoning Draper, he pauses for a moment to compose himself. Then he lifts the receiver and dials the number and two minutes pass before there is any response at the other end of the line. Then Florian says, “It’s Florian.” A couple of seconds then he speaks again.
“I got news. I got a fix on Boldt just come through.”
Another couple of seconds.
“Yeah. Right away.”
Then Florian puts the phone back on its cradle. Naturally he’s trying to work out what I have in mind but he’s never going to ask, not Florian. So he stands there and waits to see what I have to say next, but instead of saying anything I go over to the pool table and take a look at Florian’s clothes: polo shirt, checked sportscoat, gabardine slacks, and on the floor calfskin slip-ons. I feel the clothes and I say to Florian, “Nice. Quality goods. I was just seeing if they carried your trademark.”
Florian doesn’t answer.
“Okay,” I tell him. “Now get dressed.”
Florian takes off his robe and his trunks and puts on his clothes.
“Now sit down behind the desk with your hands on top and when Draper comes in you do nothing at all. He’ll see Earl but don’t let that be any concern of yours. Just stay behind the desk and no movement.”
Florian does as he’s told and sits behind the desk. I go over to the wall next to the door that Draper’s going to be coming through and stuff as much of Earl’s gun in the top pocket of my denim jacket as I can and then I lean for a while.
Time passes. I look at my watch. I figure a quarter of an hour at most. Soft ripples, reflections from Florian’s pool, illuminate the wooden ceiling and the whole house is very quiet.
> After a while Florian says, “I’d like to smoke a cheroot.”
I look at the desk. His silver case and his lighter are lying on the desk in front of him, clear of anything else.
“Sure,” I tell him. “Why not?”
Florian very carefully picks up the cigarette case and opens it and takes out a cheroot. He puts it in his mouth and the case snaps shut and it’s like the sound of a gun going off. Just as carefully he lights his cheroot and replaces the lighter and after he’s blown out some smoke he says, “It doesn’t have to work out this way.”
“What way would that be?”
Florian doesn’t answer that but instead he says, “In my library, I got a safe. In it there’s close to forty grand. You walk out of here and it belongs to you.”
“Sure, and then when my blood is seeping into your gravel drive, you walk over and pick up the money and put it back in the safe again.”
Florian shakes his head.
“I guarantee,” he says. “I guarantee you—”
“Shut up,” I tell him.
Florian doesn’t shut up. Instead he starts talking to himself but it isn’t what you’d call a conversation; it’s a string of meaningless obscenities because there’s nothing for him to say that means anything anymore. Then from the rug comes the muffled sound of Earl Connor’s voice and for the first time in his life he answers Florian back by saying, “For Christ’s sake, shut up, for Christ’s sake.” But Florian doesn’t pay any attention; he’s in a world of his own cursing the impotence of his situation.
Then, drifting around the side of the house and in through the sliding windows comes the sound of a car climbing the hill toward Florian’s gates. Florian shuts up and Earl stops telling him to shut up and the room is quiet again, gradually filling up with the sound of the approaching car. Then the sound reaches its height and cuts out and a door slams and there’s silence for a full minute during which silence I ease Earl’s gun out of my pocket. Then there’s footsteps outside, making for the door. After that, the door opens and in comes Draper making it across the room toward Florian, but before he can speak or even take in Earl, I kick the door closed very hard and say, “Hello, Draper.”
Draper spins around like a top.
The smoothness of his appearance doesn’t matter anymore because anybody looking at him right now would just naturally be unable to tear their eyes away from Draper’s face which has fallen apart completely—like as if somebody had dynamite-blasted Mount Rushmore. His arms automatically push outward from his body, palms open, as though somehow he could stop what he thinks is about to happen by doing that. He starts staggering backward as if that might help, too, but all he achieves is to get to Earl and fall backward, hitting another of the scatter rugs and sliding on it across the polished floor until he reaches Florian’s desk. Earl himself doesn’t move which is what I would have expected. Neither does Florian. But Draper’s still a bundle of action, and now he’s scrambling himself up the side of Florian’s desk. But by the time he gets to his feet Florian says to him, “You try and run out the window, you’re dead.”
This brings Draper back to some kind of sanity so he sticks by Florian’s desk, gripping onto the edge of it like a security blanket, as though without it he’d fall over which is probably true. And all the while, ever since he came into the room, whatever position he’s been in, he’s never broken his gaze; his eyes full of terror have never left my face.
I move forward until I’m close to Earl and then I say to the assembled company, “What we do now is walk out of this room and across the hall to the door that leads to the garage; then you and Draper and me get in the back of the President and Earl drives us out and down the driveway and through the gates. Then Earl turns left instead of right and takes the mountain road until it drops down again to where it joins the highway. Everybody got that?”
There’s no answer.
“Everybody got that?”
Earl, unable to see anybody else, nods his head into the sheepskin. Draper’s still looking at me as though I’m Banquo’s ghost, but Florian rises slowly from his seat and begins to walk around the desk close to where Draper is.
“Not just yet,” I say to Florian. Florian stops moving. I step over Earl and feel inside of Draper’s jacket and take his gun away from him and throw it on the pool table. During the time it takes for me to do that, Draper doesn’t move a muscle; he just stays in the same statue-like position. Then I step over Earl and say to Florian, “It’s your house. You lead the way.”
Florian begins to move again and then suddenly Draper finds his voice, only it’s not Draper’s normal voice; it’s like the sound of a tape running on a machine set a little too fast.
“What are you going to do?” he asks me. “What do you think you’re going to do?”
Florian looks at him in disgust.
“He’s going to kill us, you prick,” he says to Draper. I smile at them.
“That’s not strictly true,” I say. “That’s not quite the way it’s going to be.”
When we’re halfway down the mountain road, about three miles off where it joins the highway, I take the intercom and tell Earl to stop the car so that I can get out and push the button that locks the back doors once I’ve done that. Draper and Florian are sitting motionless on the jump seats facing me. I have the broad back seat all to myself. The car rolls to a halt and I get out and watch Earl press the button and when he’s done that, I try both doors and they’re okay; then I walk around to the driver’s side and tell Earl to get out and stand by the car which Earl does.
“Take your clothes off, Earl.” I tell him. “Take off your suit and your shirt.”
Earl looks at me and doesn’t move but I don’t repeat what I’ve just said, so Earl begins to do what he’s been told. I stand there in the morning’s rising heat until he’s down to his T-shirt and shorts, holding his clothes, waiting for me to tell him what to do with them, but I’m never going to tell him that. Instead I say, “Remember the bedroom, Earl?”
He doesn’t say anything.
“Remember the hotel?” I ask him. “Remember Murdock’s guts all over the floor spilling out of his shirt front?”
“It wasn’t me,” Earl says, dropping his clothes to the ground. “I didn’t shoot Murdock’s guts out.”
“But you helped, Earl,” I tell him. “And if it’d gone a little differently, you would’ve. Wouldn’t you?”
Earl shakes his head and beads of sweat flick off him into the heat of the morning.
“I didn’t know the deal,” he says. “All I knew was—”
“Stop it, Earl,” I tell him. “It won’t help.”
“Christ—” he begins, but I cut in on him again.
“No,” I tell Earl. “He won’t help you either.”
I level at a point where the bullets will enter Earl’s navel.
“Don’t,” he says. “Please don’t.”
“Just about there,” I say, putting the barrel against his stomach. “That’s just about where Murdock got his.”
I look into Earl’s eyes and I can see that even though he knows it won’t do him any good, he’s got to try and run even though there’s nowhere for him to go and at this point I squeeze the trigger twice. Earl is thrown backward by the impact and lands flat on his back among the roadside stones. But he only holds that position for a second because the pain is so great he twists himself over onto his face, clutching his stomach, jack-knifing himself so that his bottom is raised toward the sun.
“How’s it feel, Earl?” I ask him, but I’m not sure he can hear me, he’s screaming so loud. So I watch him for a moment and then I put the gun to the back of Earl’s head and squeeze again but this time only once. Earl shudders but apart from that, he doesn’t move for a while; in fact, he doesn’t move until I’ve taken off my own clothes and put on his, and
by the time I’ve done that, Earl’s relaxed a little bit, as much as he’ll ever relax again.
Then I lean into the car and press the button and the rear doors are unlocked again. I open the door on Draper’s side and tell him to get out. Draper doesn’t move. I tell him again.
“Please,” he says. “Please don’t.”
“Look,” I say to him. “You got it all wrong. All I want you to do is drive.”
Florian is sitting in exactly the same position as he was an hour ago. The morning traffic on the highway is getting a little heavier and the sky is a sharp, clear blue. This time I have the window between front and back open so that Draper knows I have a clear shot at his head if he tries anything.
“About a quarter of a mile farther on, there’s a turn-off to the left,” I say to him. “A desert road. Take it.” I look at Draper’s eyes in the driving mirror. They flicker like the eyes of a rabbit in a trap. But when we get to the turn-off, the one that leads to the ranch before Sammy’s, he takes it and he keeps on going. Twenty minutes later, I tell him to stop the car. I get out and go to the driving door again and tell him to get out and get in back, an order he’s only too glad to carry out because he was thinking that now it was his turn. I lock the two of them in again and press another button—the one that raises the hood. When that operation’s finished, I close the window between front and back.