"So I'd better know how much you know."
"Merely that there has been, we shall say, an indiscretion. Show business people, Mr. McGee, are high-spirited and hot-blooded, and some people can take advantage. What we have going is an unfortunate situation where some character wants to give her a rough time. What the little lady feels is that after you started to perform, then you went off on a tangent. Time has been wasted. We got certain information from you in New York. One Samuel Bogen wanted already by the cops. There is no picture. Fingerprints only. A complete description which could be ninety-five thousand guys including me, almost. So we laid on special guards with that description in mind. Nothing in New York. Nothing in Chicago. No contact. As I get it, certain financial inducements were offered. Our star gets nervous, Mr. McGee. What we need now is some way to bring this to a head. If you can solve that, the little lady says she will live up to her end of your deal. I do not want to know your deal, believe me."
"I had one idea worked out."
"So?"
"I wanted to be part of it. I'm not in top shape at the moment."
"So I see."
"It depends on several things. Could you set up a time for her arrival at Los Angeles by air and give it a lot of publicity around Los Angeles?"
"But naturally. It's done every day."
"The man who is after her is disturbed. I think that except for one trip to Vegas, he's stayed in the Los Angeles area. He might come to the airport. He might be waiting at her house. He may want money. He may want to kill her. He might not even know which he wants."
"Please. It gives me cramps."
"You have to know a few things, Mr. Louker. We don't want to endanger your star. You could arrange a reasonably good facsimile?"
"The right size, right dye job, right clothes, dark glasses, makeup, a quick study in the way she waves and walks. Sure. Ten minutes on the phone I've got one, believe me."
"But she gets maximum protection too."
"I would insist."
"Now here is the delicate point, Mr. Louker. If this Bogen is picked up, the cops are going to know the name he is using and the address he is using in about three minutes. Somebody has to be ready to move very quickly. At that address are going to be some things which should be destroyed, or maybe your star's career goes down the drain. Somebody has to be smart and quick."
"Are you going to give me more cramps?"
"Photographs, Herm. Of your star in a circus. A mob scene. If they got out it might not dent her too badly as long as she stays big at the box office. But two dog pictures in a row could cook her."
He got up and tiptoed about, patting his stomach, moaning softly. There was a lot of stomach. It started under his chin and descended in a long penguin curve to his knees.
"How can we get the pictures?" he demanded, more of himself than of me.
"Get a very nimble lawyer, and charge Bogen with stealing them from her. Get them impounded for her identification, then returned to her for destruction, and give him some impressive pieces of cash to hand out if he has to. Hell, you people have given out little gifts other times."
He studied me. "I know you from someplace, maybe? Like in Rome with Manny?"
"No."
"It will come to me. We'll work it out somehow." He took a wad of currency out and counted out a thousand dollars. "She said expenses. You can sign the receipt okay?"
I managed. He wished me well and left, looking gastric.
Dana wasn't very responsive the next morning. After I left her room the head nurse on the floor intercepted me. She was wearing a curious expression, as if she had just discovered that if she flapped her arms hard enough she could fly.
"Lysa Dean came to see her."
"Was she conscious then?"
"Oh no. Miss Dean was very shocked. She was very upset. I think she has a very warm heart."
"She must have."
"She left this for you, sir."
I opened it with one hand on my way down the hall. Heavy blue paper, scented. Sprawling backhand in blue ink. "I must see you. Please. L."
The cab took me there. The desk said sorry, she isn't registered here, sir. I gave them my name. Oh. Go right up, sir. She has the west wing on the fourth floor. A cop type guarded the wing. He glanced at the sling and spoke my last name with a question mark after it. Last door on the right, he said.
She sat on a dressing table bench in a white robe. A man was saying rude words over a phone. A thin man was fixing her hair. A girl in glasses was reading her a script aloud in a nasal monotonous voice. She shooed them all out.
"Dear McGee," she said. "Your poor arm, dear. Oh my God, the way Dana looked. It broke my heart. It really did. I actually wept."
"That's nice."
"Please don't be sullen. We're going to do what you suggested to Herm. They're going to fly a girl in. I'm going to hide out here like a thief, dear. God, things are going to get into the damnedest mess without Dana. They're going to pot already. How could she?"
"I guess it was just thoughtlessness."
She studied me, head cocked on the side. Then she laughed aloud. "Oh, no! Really? But when I kidded you in Miami, I never really thought you could actually get her. You must be very damned..."
"You would be doing me one of the world's greatest favors to please shut your mouth, Lee. There's been a lot of dying done. My shoulder aches. Dana is worth ten of you."
She went back and sat on the bench. "At least I know why you two were futzing around out here on my expense money. Making the fun last, eh?"
"That's right."
"Damn you, tell me the real reason."
"The man who took you for a hundred and twenty thousand was murdered. It looked as if M'Gruder might have done it and could be arrested for it sooner or later. Then that house party would have figured in the trial. I wanted to check it out."
The quick red fox stared at me with foxy eyes, instantly aware of the implications. She fingered her throat. "Off the hook on that, eh?"
"Yes. And I have a hunch you'll be in the clear on the other too. I wonder about you, Lee. Take a look at that house party list. Nancy Abbott is beyond hope. Vance and Patty and Sonny Catton are dead. The photographer is dead: Poor little Whippy is trade for the butch."
"Really? What is all this? The hand of God? Punishment? Don't be an ass, McGee. Sometimes the swingers go quicker. Maybe because they don't have their feet braced. If that kind of little fun-party could kill, honey, lower California would be shrinking. You know, you do drag a little. Have you noticed it? Oh, hell, I don't want to fight you. It's going to be weeks and weeks before Dana can get back on the ball. That's what they told me. I'll keep her on salary, of course. And there's a sick benefit thing she's entitled to. Scotty will check that all out for her and take care of it. I think..."
Herm came to the door and beckoned to her. She excused herself and went to him. They talked a few moments in low tones. He left and she came slowly back to me. "There's a meeting I don't dare miss. Damn it. I did want to see Dana, at least once more. Herm is going to have to smuggle me into town and bring the stand-in along later. McGee, my darling, I've got a thousand things to do..."
"You sent for me. Remember?"
She snapped her fingers. "Of course. Darling, you got the thousand expenses? You understand that our deal was to get me completely free and clear. Right? It's all or nothing, you understand. If your plan works, you come to see me and we'll settle up. All right? Darling, I do love Dana like a sister, but sick people depress me so. Could you find some nice little dude ranch or something for her, and a woman to take care. I'll have Victor Scott work out the money end with you. Would you mind terribly? After all, you must find each other attractive. I'm entirely clear publicity-wise on this end because, thank God, there isn't a shred to link me to Vance in any way." She patted my face. "Be a dear and take care of our girl. Give her my love, and bring her back to me when she's truly healthy again."
On Thursday afternoon the improvement in Dana was astonishing
. The puffiness was gone, but there were saffron marks of the bruises. She wore lipstick. She was propped up. Her smile of greeting was shy.
They let me have an hour with her. She was anxious to know what had happened. I knew it might tire her, but I had to brief her before some official visited her and asked questions. I caught her up to date, including the plan to trap Bogen.
When I got back to The Hallmark at four that afternoon, there was a message to call a Los Angeles operator. When it went through, Lysa came on the phone, yapping with glee and relief. "McGee, darling? It worked, you shrewd, shrewd man! Our own people got him, and took away the nasty little gun he was going to shoot me with. Shoot the stand-in, I mean. And they went to his nasty little rooms and got all the photographs, and then they turned him and his nasty little gun over to the law. My God, I didn't even know the terrible tension I was under. It's such a relief."
"Wouldn't it be nice if you asked about Dana?"
"Give me time, for God's sake! All right. How is she?"
"Much, much better."
"That's fine. That's good to hear."
"You and I have a little accounting to do."
"I know that. Damn it, what makes you so sour? Give me a chance. What's today? Thursday. Let me look at my book." I waited five minutes and she came back on the line. "Darling, I'll be home Monday afternoon. You fly in and come talk to me about it."
"Talk to you about it?"
"Darling, you don't exactly have a contract, you know. And a frightened person can make some very rash promises. Technically, you really weren't in at the kill, were you?"
"Monday afternoon," I said and hung up. I did not know why I had been sour with her. Something was wrong, and I did not know what it was.
On Sunday afternoon I found out what my instincts had been trying to tell me. The nurse and I helped Dana into the wheelchair and I rolled her to the big sun room, to a private corner.
"Here's the way I have it lined up," I told her. I sat holding her hand. "Ten days before they spring you, then say a week or so more before you can travel, honey. So I tote you east, get you settled aboard, and after a few days we can go cruising. How does that sound?"
She gently, firmly pulled her hand away from mine. She looked away from me. "Travis, you have been very good to me."
"What's the matter?"
"It was all... mixed up and crazy. It wasn't me, really. I don't know how to tell you. I'm not like that. I'm married. I don't even know how I could have been so... so silly. I think it was because of working for her, maybe. I'm not going back to her."
I put my fingertips under her chin and turned her head and made her look at me. I looked at her until she flushed and twisted her head away. She meant it. A new conception. You could get a hit on the head that could knock love out of you for good and all. When their eyes go that dead for you, there's no way to ever get back. I knew what my instincts had been trying to tell me.
"You don't have to stay around," she said. "I mean, I'm used to looking after myself. I'll be fine, really. I do want to thank you for everything. I feel so sorry about... giving you the wrong idea and a lot of false hopes and..."
"You can still be honest, can't you?"
"Of course."
"How do you feel about my coming to see you here, Dana?"
She hesitated, then lifted her chin a half inch. "I d-dread it, Travis. I'm terribly sorry. It just keeps reminding me of something I'd rather forget."
Then all that was left us was the goodby ritual, which was, after the details of what to do with her belongings, and my promise to send a nurse to wheel her back to her room, a handshake. McGee, the great lover. This was one I wanted to keep. No, not this one. I didn't even know this one. The one I wanted to keep was the one Ullie had bashed on her way to go kill herself. This Dana wanted to forget that Dana. And damn well soon would. So shake hands with your darling and say goodby and try not to see the evident relief she tries to hide.
The cab deposited me in front of Lysa Dean's iron gates on Monday afternoon. The Korean let me through the gates. The maid let me into the house and then disappeared. The house was as silent as when I had been there with Dana. The big oil portraits of Lysa Dean stared emotionally at me through the halfgloom of draperied sunlight.
I roamed and plinked two notes out of the gold and white piano. Lysa Dean came swiftly into the room, in black knit pants and a white silk overblouse, an effective combination to go with gold-red hair in a room of whites and blacks and golds. She wore woolly white slippers and carried a white envelope in her hand. She hurried to me, stretched up to kiss me with the faked sweet-shyness of a welcoming child, and took me by my good hand to a vast couch in a shadowed alcove.
"How is dear Dana?" she asked.
"Marvelously improved."
"When can she come back to work, dear? I really need her, desperately."
"She'll have to take it easy for a while."
"McGee, darling, do use your influence on her. Tell her Lysa needs her sooooo much."
"I'll tell her that the very first chance I get."
"You are a huge old sweetie. Now what about the photos I gave you in Miami?"
"I've destroyed the ones I had made, with your face blanked out. When I get back, I'll destroy the other ones... unless you want them."
"God, I don't ever want to see them again. Darling, they say that little Bogen is way way off. If he'd tried to fire his rusty little gun, it would have blown his hand off. They are going to put him away."
"So now your life is all neatened up, Miss Dean. And you'll get to marry your dear friend. Congratulations. Is that my money you keep hanging onto?"
She handed me the envelope. I fumbled it open, and saw that it was light, and found that it counted up to ten thousand. It wouldn't count one inch past that. Before I could get the first word out, she was hanging onto me, laughing and teasing, saying, "Now darling, do be realistic, after all! I gave you all that nice travel money, and sent you off with quite a handsome and exciting gal, and you had some exciting and delicious adventures, all on the house. I'm really not made of money, darling. Taxes are fantastic. Really, when you think of it, I think you are doing terribly well out of this, and some of my advisors would think I was out of my head to give you all this."
As she was talking she got the money out of my hand and slipped it into the inside pocket of my jacket, and was going quite directly and efficiently to work on me, with the quickness of a lot of little kissings, and an arching and presentation of all the celebrity curves and fragrances, a lot of cleverness of little hands, and a convincing steaminess of breath and growing excitement, worming her way astride my lap.
This was the artist at work, at the work she knew best, operating from a life-long knowledge of the male animal, and quite convinced, apparently, that a good quick solid bang would send the man away too happy to care about being shorted, too dazed to object. Already she was beginning to work her way out of those soft knit pants and simultaneously beginning the little pressures which were supposed to topple me over onto my back on the big couch under a picture of the lady herself.
I got my good left arm in between us and my palm flat against her wishbone, then abruptly straightened my arm, sending her catapulting back, scrambling, slipping on the smooth hard terrazzo, sitting hard on a white furry rug and riding it back like a sled to end up under another picture so soulful the artist had indicated a halo effect.
She bounded up, hair masking one eye, yanking the knit pants up over the white behind. "What the hell!" she squalled. "Jesus Christ, McGee, you could have bust my tail bone!"
I was standing up, fixing my sling, starting toward the door.
"It's okay, Lee baby," I said. "I'll take the short count. You don't have to try to sweeten it. It wouldn't mean one damn thing to you, and it would mean just a little less than that to me."
I left amid a shrieking of ten-letter words, and I was hastened on my way by a hail of elephants. She had a collection. She threw fast, but not well.<
br />
I crunched down the finest grade of brown gravel, past sprinkler water pattering on fat green leaves. The Korean let me out. I could feel the meager money-weight in my jacket pocket. I stopped and took my arm out of the sling and stuffed the sling in a pocket. The arm did not feel good swinging, so I tucked a thumb in my belt.
I walked and thought of what a weird way to lose a good woman. I saw old men carefully driving lookalike cars with names like Fury and Tempest and Dart. Through a fence I saw a quintet of little girls dashing in and out of the silvery spray of a sprinkler, shrilling. A dog smiled at me.
What a ridiculous way to lose a woman. They do not like pedestrians in that neighborhood. Polite cops stopped, asked polite questions, and politely drove me to the nearest taxi stand. I got into the cab and the only place to go was my hotel room, and I didn't want to go there, but I couldn't think of anything else.
John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 04 - The Quick Red Fox Page 18