Slam the Big Door

by John D. MacDonald

  He left Troy there for a moment while he went into the big tiled bathroom and got the shower going at the right temperature. When he went back to the bedroom Troy was sitting, his head almost between his knees. Mike got his wrists and pulled him up and wrestled him gently into the bathroom. He could detect vague attempts at cooperation. He got Troy into the shower but when he handed him the soap, it slipped out of his hand. Mike sighed, stripped down to his shorts, found a bath brush, and scrubbed Troy as if he were a sleepy, spiritless horse. He pulled him out of the shower, perched him on a bath stool, toweled him dry, found clean pajamas and got him into them.

  He leaned close to him and said, “Sleeping pills! Have you got sleeping pills? Where’s the sleeping pills!” He slapped Troy lightly. “Sleeping pills!”

  The eyes tracked a little and he made an aimless gesture toward the medicine cabinet. “Blue,” he mumbled. “Blue’n white. Lil bo’ll.”

  Mike found the little bottle. Blue and white capsules. The dosage was one. And no more than two. In Troy’s condition, one should do it, one should take him beyond that state where, after three hours of semi-sleep, alcohol induced, he would wake up with nerves like icy screaming wires.

  He fed him one, poking it into his mouth, sluicing it down with water. When he pulled him off the stool he nearly lost him, nearly went down with him at the unexpected lurch. He turned one of the beds down, got Troy into it. He put his own clothes back on, took his first good look at the room. It was in shades of blue with a deep blue rug, and had wide doors that swung open onto its own tiny private patio where there was a table and two chairs. Atop Mary’s dressing table was a big colored photograph in a plain silver frame. He picked it up and turned it toward the light of the dying day. It had been taken on a boat, the two of them sitting side by side on the transom, Troy and Mary, brown, grinning, holding hands. The ensign was snapping on its staff—a fat white wake boiled through blue water—there was wind in Mary’s dark hair—in the background, far away, was a tall sailboat, and close at hand a gull was caught in one teetering instant. Good composition. A vivid little piece of happiness, frozen in place by Kodak.

  And again, with no warning, the towering wave smashed at him, slamming him down into savage undertows. Not enough pictures of her. All the chances gone. Camera dusty on a shelf on the days she laughed. And he was far away from love, tending a drunk.

  “Mike,” Troy said in a blurred way.

  He put the picture back and went to the bed. He was certain Troy, up until then, had had no idea who was helping him. So this was a return of lucidity on the edge of sleep.

  “What is it, boy?” He sat on his heels by the side of the bed, his face a foot from Troy’s blurred face.

  “Mary took off. Gone two days.” The words were slow, the efforts of pronunciation clear.

  “I know.”

  “That isn’t why … this.”

  “What reason then, Troy? Why this?”

  Troy closed his eyes for so long Mike thought he had gone off, but then he opened them again. “It’s … a thing in my head. It’s there, Mike. It’s been there … long, long time.”

  “What kind of a thing?”

  “Right … in the middle, Mike. Round. Black thing. All … knotty like … black rubber ball of dead snakes. So there isn’t room … room in there for me. Didn’t want to tell anybody.”

  “A long, long time?”

  “Went … away by itself. Came back.” Suddenly he lifted his head from the pillow and reached out and caught Mike by the shoulder with fingers that dug so strongly Mike wheezed with pain. In a voice suddenly clear and strong he said, “I had it licked today, Mike. I made it go away. I felt so damn good. I knew all the things I had to do. I sang, Mike. I was drunk outside, but ’way down inside I was sober like I’ve never been, seeing everything about me like I was on a hill looking down. And I knew, Mike. Everything was going to be right for me. I’d licked everything by myself.” His hand fell from Mike’s shoulder. His head dropped back to the pillow, voice blurred again. “Then they were pulling me out of the car. Didn’t know where the hell I was. It’s … back again. It … takes up too damn much room.”

  “Here is what we are going to do, Troy,” Mike said. He spoke slowly, distinctly, precisely. “We’re going to find a doctor for you. He will make that thing go away and stay away.”

  Troy closed his eyes. “Sure,” he murmured.

  “You can’t handle a thing like that yourself. You should have told Mary, me, somebody.”

  Troy sighed.

  “When you know something’s wrong, you can get it fixed.”

  Troy had begun to breathe heavily, slowly. Mike looked at him for a few moments. He got to his feet. The cramped muscles of his legs creaked, and his knees popped.

  He picked up the bundle of ruined clothing, closed the bedroom door quietly behind him, and, after he had disposed of the clothing, took the number Debbie Ann had given him out of his wallet and phoned the Lazy Harbor Motel on Longboat Key. There were evidently phones in the rooms.

  Mary answered. “Oh, Mike, I was hoping you’d call yesterday, and if you hadn’t phoned I was going to wait until seven and then phone you.”

  “Is this a private line here?”

  “Yes. What’s happened?”

  “Something bad and something good. The bad isn’t too serious, Mary. Just messy.” He told her about the arrest, the car, told her Troy was in bed asleep.

  “I shouldn’t have gone away like this. It was a bad idea.”

  “No, it wasn’t. Maybe it brought it all to a head. I’ve got news on the land thing, and I guess it’s good news, but it isn’t the good news I meant.” He told her about Troy’s confession of the black object in his head.

  “I’ll come back right away.”

  “Now wait a minute. He talked to me. He promised he’d see a doctor. I’ll get one lined up. I’ll refresh hell out of his memory if he pretends to draw a blank. I’m no shrinker, but I don’t think this is physical. You know, a tumor, anything like that. I think it’s a kind of anxiety. I think he scared hell out of himself today, and I think that’s good. I think we’re getting someplace. But I’m afraid if you come roaring back, he’s going to back off into a defensive position again, and maybe we won’t be able to get him to cooperate. Do you see what I mean?”

  “Yes, but …”

  “I’ll be talking to him tomorrow. And then I’ll be in touch with you, Mary, and I swear if I think you can help me get him to do something constructive about this, I’ll yell for you. I promise.”

  “All—all right, Mike.”

  “Cheer up, honey. I think we’re moving in the right direction.”

  “That sounds like an order. All right. I’ll cheer up.”

  “I talked to an old duck today who wants to see you sometime. Purdy Elmarr.”

  “Purdy! My goodness, how did you happen to meet him?”

  “It’s a long story. I’ll tell you the whole thing later on. I’m an expert on Florida land development all of a sudden.”

  “Mike, would you do one thing for me?”

  “Of course.”

  “If … it should happen that you don’t think it would be wise for me to come back, after you talk to Troy tomorrow, could you come up and tell me what’s been happening? Phones are no good. Not for a thing like this.”

  “It might be Friday instead of tomorrow.”

  “That would be all right. But phone me tomorrow anyway.”

  “Sure.”

  After he hung up he looked at Troy again. He was reasonably certain Troy wouldn’t stir for at least fourteen hours. With luck he’d sleep through the more desperate symptoms of hangover.

  As he walked back into the living room, Debbie Ann came in, eyebrows high in inquiry.

  “I got him hosed off and sacked out,” Mike said.

  “Good.”

  “I just talked to your mother.”

  “That’s what I wanted to ask you about, if you or I should phone her. Is she
upset?”

  “Sure, she’s upset.”

  “Is she coming back?”

  “Not right away. I told her you did a fine job of taking care of things.”

  “Up to a point.”

  He shrugged. “You couldn’t have helped me with what I had to do.”

  “I’ve had more experience than you might guess, Mike. Dacey tied on some beauts. It’s quite an experience, swabbing off lipstick and wondering whose it is. I just got fed up with him, with Troy, on the way back.”

  “Why? What happened?”

  “I think he thought I was somebody else. I couldn’t understand him very well, but he certainly called me all the names in the book. He started with slut and went on from there. Of course, deep in that alcohol fog, he may have known exactly who he was talking to.”

  “Have you given him cause?”

  “That’s a funny damn question.”

  “I just wondered whether he ever got that towel routine you worked on me.”

  Anger went out of her. “Why, I’m just a simple little affectionate girl-type girl,” she lisped, “and I just can’t understand why the menfolks keep getting wrong ideas about me, I swear I cain’t.”

  “That ends the discussion, of course, which is just what you wanted to do. You’ve got more defenses than a radar system.”

  “So let’s not tire ourselves out emotionally, Mike. There are more practical things to consider. Food. Drink.”

  “You look all gussied up for a date.”

  “I had one, but I just canceled out. I couldn’t stand the thought of all that polite, humble attentiveness from Rob again. He keeps looking at me like a spaniel begging me to throw a stick so he can show how wonderfully he can bring it back. I had one meager idea. I looked in the deep freeze. There’s a steak in there the size of a coffee table, and a charcoal grill over at the cabaña, so let’s get into beach togs and phone Shirley and I’ll pick her up while you do something important about some drinks and the charcoal.”

  Rob Raines had been within minutes of leaving to drive out to the Key and pick Debbie Ann up when she had called him and had broken the date with such a bored, irritable, arrogant manner that it cut deeply.

  “But I thought we could just …”

  “I don’t want to do anything. I just don’t feel like seeing you. Isn’t that clear enough?”

  She had hung up on him. After a few seconds he put the phone back on the cradle.

  His mother called to him from the kitchen. “Who was that, sweetie?”

  “Uh … Debbie Ann.”

  She came into the hallway, licking chocolate from her thumb. “She just can’t leave you alone, can she. You’re going out there anyway, but she just has to call up and …”

  “She broke the date, Mom. She … doesn’t feel well.”

  “Ha! If I know that one, she’s got somebody else all lined up all of a sudden, and she knows she can lead you around by the nose any old time, and she …”

  “Cut it out, will you?”

  “You don’t have to yell at me, sweetie.”

  “But you keep on bad-mouthing her every chance you get. I get sick of it.”

  “The only reason I even asked about the phone call at all, Robert, was on account of I thought it might be Purdy Elmarr calling you, or Mr. Arlenton or Mr. Haas. You know, sweetie. Your new business associates. I’m so proud of how well you’re doing, honey.”

  He shrugged and went to his room. And a half hour later Purdy Elmarr, much to Rob’s astonishment, did call him.

  “Raines? Elmarr talkin’. Wondered how you’re comin’.”

  “Oh, I’m coming along fine, just fine,” Rob said heartily. “I’m getting the Twin Keys Corporation all set up just the way you said you wanted it, and …”

  “Any fool knows how to set up a little corporation, boy. You think I’d bother phoning you to ask about that?”

  “Well … I guess not, Mr. Elmarr.”

  “Then you know what I am asking about. I want to know about that funny-name foreigner.”

  “Mr. Rodenska? Well, sir, I talked to him, like you suggested. I think I got it across pretty strongly that he’d be making a mistake going into Jamison’s project with him.”

  “You tole him it was real sour, eh?”

  “I got that across all right.”

  “And he believed you?”

  “Yes sir. I’m … pretty sure he did.”

  There was a long silence during which Rob got more and more uncomfortable. “Then maybe you can tell me this, boy. Maybe you can tell me how come that Rodinsky fella is going all over town asking a lot of questions about Horseshoe Pass Estates.”

  “I … I didn’t know that, Mr. Elmarr.”

  “You’re supposed to know stuff like that. Has Rodinsky talked to Jamison about loanin’ him money?”

  “I don’t really know.”

  “Then you better start hustlin’ your tail to and fro and be a-findin’ out some of these things you don’t know, boy. Or we can get right impatient with you, hear?”

  Purdy Elmarr heard the nervous protestations as he slowly placed the phone back on the hook.

  Seven

  THOUGH MIKE HAD ENTERED into the beach arrangement with many reservations, it turned out to be almost astonishingly pleasant. By the time Debbie Ann got back with Shirley, there was still a pink line of sunset low over the Gulf. Just as drinks had been fixed, a couple, neighbors named Briggs and Mildred Thatcher, came walking north along the beach, heading home.

  They accepted a drink, confessed a lack of plans, inspected the steak, and agreed to help with it, provided they could contribute one large bowl of salad. It was already made and on the ice, so Briggs went home and drove back with it.

  As it was obvious Shirley and the Thatchers would see the news item on Troy in the morning paper, Debbie Ann told Shirley and the Thatchers of Troy’s mishap, telling it in a joking way. She covered her mother’s absence by saying she was visiting friends. All in all, Mike thought she handled it very well.

  And he soon found he enjoyed talking to Briggs Thatcher. He was about forty-five. They had two girls in college in the north. Briggs had been almost at the peak of a highly successful career as an industrial designer when he had had a coronary that had nearly killed him. Now, after one year of being an invalid, and a second year of being cautious, he was getting back into his profession slowly and carefully. He worked at his home on the Key, on small projects for the firm he had once owned. He had an agile, unorthodox intelligence, and his wife, Mildred, was a musician of almost professional calibre.

  After the steak, perfectly done, had been consumed to the last scrap, they sat around in the big deck chairs on the cabaña porch and talked with that special intimacy sometimes achieved with strangers. The dark water was phosphorescent, and the stars looked bright and low.

  Mike had gathered that the Thatchers kept themselves from participating in some of the attitudes of the residents of the north end of the Key. He was cued by Mildred’s imitation of Marg Laybourne, high comedy which could have been vicious, but wasn’t. So at one point he said to Briggs, “I guess all this, this social community, is sort of a unit. But I’m not up on the tribal customs.”

  Briggs said, in his dry way, “It takes a little while to get the picture, Mike. These people call themselves Floridians. We’re guilty of that sometimes. But it would be like our embassy people in Mexico calling themselves Mexicans. We’ve got our tight little structure here. Same as on Ravenna, Siesta, Manasota, Casey, St. Armands, Longboat—all these exclusive sandpits along the west coast. Own houses, pay taxes, vote—but it doesn’t make us a part of Florida. It’s like a bunch of cruise ships. Come the hot months, the cruise will be over, and eighty percent of us will flee north. When we’re here, we don’t accept the environment. We alter it. Air-conditioning. Screening. Bulldozing out the natural stuff and replacing it with tropical exotics for the next freeze to kill. We’ve got our clubs and maids and gossip and pretty boats and yardmen and confu
sed offspring. The Kodachrome life. But it isn’t Florida. Not their Florida.”

  He made a wide, nearly invisible gesture toward the mainland and continued, saying, “Oh, there’s some fine people living snug in this icing on the cake. Productive human beings. But too many of them are rootless. So they fill their days with a special emptiness made up of garden clubs, cocktail parties, social vendettas, adventures in pseudo-culture, hypochondria, semi-alcoholism, random fornications, sports cars, and when it gets so dull that even they become aware of it, they take all their frantic aimlessness to Jamaica or Cuba or Nassau. And brag about their hangovers when they get back. But I’m the big serious wheel. I sit around designing a new soap dish. Significant.”

  “We’re all just a mess,” Debbie Ann said.

  “Not as messed up, honey,” Briggs said, “as the sixteen-to-twenty group, the children of these people. Charge accounts, club memberships, no obligation to go get an education. They knock themselves off on the highways with miraculous efficiency, and the drama of mourning is intense but short, because when you’ve ceased feeling very much of anything else except the sensations of self-gratification, it’s tough to summon up legitimate grief. I will now knock this off, to the audible relief of all.”

  “But you can live here,” Mike said. “Without going native.”

  “If you have some purpose beyond watching the golden years go by. And if, like Mildred and me, you can get a certain amount of amusement out of watching the monkey cage, and throwing the random peanut.”

  “It’s all those wooden-headed colonels that get me down,” Mildred said. “They think people are troops or something. There ought to be one day a month set aside for them, so they could stride about clanking their medals and yelling atten-shun.”

  “My anti-militarist wife,” Briggs said. “One of them once ordered her to go get him a drink. Sure you can live here. The sand and the sea, et cetera. Enjoy it. Be my guest.”

  There was a long time of lazy talk. World problems were settled. And the impromptu party ended. The Thatchers drove on home, forgetting the empty salad bowl. Debbie Ann and Shirley did the minor scullery work required. Mike thanked them and said good night and went for a walk south down the beach.