John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 05 - A Deadly Shade of Gold

by A Deadly Shade of Gold(lit)

  Nora was gone a long time. A very long time. Though I was watching the church, I did not see her until she was about twenty feet from me. Her color looked bad, her mouth pinched.

  "Let's walk," she said.

  I got up and went with her. "Bad?"

  "He's a good man. It got to me a little. Let me just unwind a little bit." She gave me a wry glance. "Mother Church. You think you've torn loose, but... I don't know. I lit candles for him, Trav. I prayed for his soul. What would he think of that?"

  "Probably he would like it."

  We. headed back out of town, toward La Casa Encantada. After we passed the last of the houses, there was a path worn through grass down toward the beach. She hesitated, and I nodded, and we went down the path. The beach was the village dump, cans and broken bottles and unidentifiable metal parts of things. There was some coarse brown-black sand, and outcroppings of shale, and tumbles of old seaworn rock. We went down where the tide kept it clean, and after a hundred yards or so, came to an old piece of grey timber. She sat there and leaned on her knees and looked out. The big protective islands looked to be about eight miles offshore. An old fish boat was beating toward town, with a lug-rigged sail tan as lizard hide.

  "He didn't speak very much English, Trav. Knough, I guess. When he realized who I was asking about, he became very upset. He said perhaps some people hoped Sam would come back here, but he hoped the man would never return. He said he had prayed that Sam would never return. Prayer answered, I guess. He kept getting excited and losing his English. He came here four years ago, at just about the time the hotel was finished. Sam showed op, he thought, over a year later. He arrived on a private yacht from California. He was the hired captain. There was some kind of difficulty, and Sam was fired. He stayed. The yacht went on. The hotel needed somebody to run one of the fishing boats for guests. They helped Sam get his workpapers straightened out, a residente permit. Then he... he lived with a girl who worked at the hotel, a girl from the village. Felicia Novaro. Then there was some trouble at the hotel, and he left and went to work for one of the families in one of those big houses beyond the hotel. Their name is Garcia. He abandoned Felicia for someone in the Garcia household. And there was trouble there. He left suddenly. I didn't get all of it, Trav. Federal police came after he left, and asked questions. It's possible that he killed someone. The priest was very cautious about that part. Trav... it didn't sound as if he was talking about Sam. He was talking about some stranger, some cruel, dangerous, violent man."

  "What did he do for the Garcias?"

  "Ran their cruiser, apparently, and perhaps something more. Several times he seemed on the verge of trying to tell me something, and then he would stop. Felicia Novaro doesn't work at the hotel any more. She works in town. She does not go to church. He takes that as a personal failure. She works at the Cantina Tres Panchos, and her family do not speak to her. Her people are very devout. She lives over the cantina, and he said she does foolish things, but if she comes back to God, He will forgive her."

  "Will he talk to anyone about this?"

  "I'm sure he won't."

  I touched her shoulder. "We've got the starting place, Nora."

  "Maybe I don't want to find out all these things."

  "We can stop right here."

  "No. I do want to find out. But I'm scared."

  We walked up the beach until we came to too many big rocks, and then we picked our way through nettles and brambles and sea oats, back to the road.

  In my room, I rang for Jose, and he said it was perfectly possible to have "ahmbaorgers" served at poolside, with cold Mexican beer, and he would do it at once. I told him fifteen minutes would be better than at once. I changed to swim trunks and went down and found a white metal table shaded I by a big red umbrella. Nora came down in her beach coat and her green sheath suit.

  The scuba kids and the newlyweds and two couples of young marrieds apparently traveling together were in and around the pool. Nora and I swam until we saw Jose coming with the draped tray, and then I climbed out and pointed out our table to him. The "ahmboorgers" came with crisp icy salad, and very small baked potatoes.

  After lunch the pool boy got us two sun mattresses and I had him put them over on the far ridge of the big apron, near the flowers and away from the other people. We stretched out under high hot sun, with just enough sea breeze to make it endurable, a breeze that clattered palm fronds and rustled the wide leaves of the dwarf banana trees, and brought little creakings and groanings from a tall stand of bamboo on the slope leading down to the boat basin.

  "So?" she said at last in a sun-dazed voice.

  "So we don't rush things. We don't charge around. We give the folks a chance to label us."

  "As what, Trav?"

  "Furtive romance, woman. You had to show identity for the tourist card. Connecting rooms. We couldn't be Mr. and Mrs. Jones."

  "I realize that! But I just..."

  "Excuse me," a girl voice said. I sat up. It was one of the two scuba girls from the motor sailor, the blonde who had been in the bar in the expensive shirt. Now she was in a wet black tank suit that looked as if it had been put on with a spray can. She had the starlet face, bland, young, sensuously perfect, utterly unmarked with any taint of character, force or purpose. The lithe ripeness of her body had been tautened by the surfing, skin diving, water skiing and the beach games. This was the genus playmate, californius, a sun bunny.

  She hunkered down, teetered, caught herself with knuckles against the concrete and said, "Oops," and settled into tireless balance, sitting on her heels like a Kentucky whittler, the webbed muscles of her brown thighs bulging against a tanned softness. She was mildly, comfortably stoned.

  "What it is," she said, "it's a bet. How about two years ago, three years ago? You were offensive end with the Rams. Right?"

  "Wrong."

  "Oh shit," she said. "Excuse me. The loser, that's me, gets to go overboard and scrub the whole goddam water line with a brush. You looked like that guy, I can't remember his name. They'd throw it right into his hands, he'd drop it, but throw it off target, he'd grab it like miracles. Anyhow, you look the type. You play pro with anybody?"

  "Just pro ball for a college."

  "End?"

  "Defensive line backer. Corner man."

  She looked at me like a stock yard inspector. "You're big enough for pro."

  "It wasn't such a big thing when I got out. And I had knee trouble off and on the last two years of it."

  "Excuse me too," Nora said and got up and headed for the pool.

  The sun bunny peered after her. "My asking you gave her a strain?"

  "She just wants to cool off I guess."

  "She's built darling for an older woman. I guess I got to get back and say I was wrong."

  "Are you people moving on soon?"

  "I guess so. Maybe tomorrow. Chip hasn't said. What we figured, we'd stay longer. It used to be there was always a brawl going on they say, one of the houses over there. None of us were here before, but Chip had a note to the people, a friend of a friend, you know, so we'd get in on the action, but he couldn't even get past the gate, and Arista says no parties this year up there, so that's it and it's pretty dead here. I want to go where there's good reefs. I just want to go down and cruise the reefs. It's the only thing I can't ever seem to get sick of. All the colors. Like dreaming it. Like I'm somebody else."

  "What house was it, where the parties were?"

  "Oh, the pink one furthest up the hill there. People name of Garcia. Real rich and crazy, Chip's friend said. Fun people, house guests and so on.

  Well, see you around." She stood up and trudged back to her friends, giving me a parting smile over a muscular brown shoulder.

  Nora came back and toweled herself, saying, "Just think how many of them would flock around if you were alone, dear."

  "She said you're built darling for an older woman."

  "God, I couldn't be more flattered."

  "Nora, even if I had sent for her
, why should you get huffy?"

  She looked angry and then smiled. "Okay. It was a reflex. The war between women. And that, you must admit, is quite a package."

  "Not my kind of package."

  "I'd say it was any man's kind of package."

  "Take a look at the three gorgeous meatballs she and her girlfriend are slamming around with. They are the masculine parallel. Take your pick."

  She looked over at them, and then back at me. "No thanks. Okay. I never thought of it that way. There wouldn't be anybody to talk to, would there?"

  "Not after the first day. But she came up with something."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  I told her about the fine parties, now over. And then I said, "What we're both thinking becomes pretty obvious after a while."

  "Garcia. That's like calling yourself John Smith, isn't it?"

  "Instead of Carlos Menterez y Cruzada."

  "But wouldn't that be terribly difficult for him to arrange?"

  "Expensive, maybe. But not too difficult. He had to scoot out of Havana nearly five years ago. A man Ilke that would be thinking ahead all the time. Mexico is a lot less corrupt than other Latin American countries. But immunity is always for sale, if you have enough money, if you work through an agent who knows the ropes. He would be afraid of people wanting to settle old scores. A remote place like this would be perfect. Big house, wall and gate, guards. Enough money to last forever. But he'd want a chance to live it up. Raoul told me about his taste for celebrities when he lived in Havana. And for American girls. He could make cautious contact with friends in California. He'd be afraid to go where the parties are, so he'd have to bring them here. Big cruiser at the dock over there on the other side. Goodies shipped in. It probably would have been impossible for him to get into any kind of business venture in Mexico. Is he dead? Is he sick? Has somebody gotten so close to him he's had to slam the gates and stop the fiestas? Maybe the people who sold him the immunity have kept on bleeding him. Sam worked for Garcia. Sam got hold of the Menterez collection. And somebody knew he had it and took it away from him. We find that somebody by finding out what went on here."

  "How?"

  "We nudge around until we find somebody who would like to talk about it."

  "Felicia Novaro?"

  "Maybe. I'll try her, alone. Tomorrow night."

  "Why not tonight?"

  "I saw that cantina. It's just off the square. I want to do a little window trimming tomorrow afteriuoon. With your help."

  "Like what?"

  "I'll tell you as we go along. It'll be more convincing."

  An hour later Nora got sleepy and went yawning back to her room to take a nap. With a vague idea I went down the steps to the boat basin. It was the siesta lull. I padded slowly around, looking at the boats. The dockmaster had a shed office and supply store at the end of the basin, beyond a gas dock. They looked as if they were set up to do minor repairs.

  The sun was a palpable weight against my back and I squinted into the water glare. Some fish I couldn't identify hovered close to the cement pilings. I went to the office. A man with red-grey hair and a perpetual sunburn sat sweating at a work table, copying figures from dock chits into a record book. He turned pale blue eyes at me and said, "Ya?

  "You the dockmaster?"

  "Ya."

  "Pretty nice layout you've got here."

  "Something you want?" he asked. He had a German accent.

  "Just looking around, if you don't mind. I live aboard a boat. In Florida. I wish I could get it over here, but there's no way, unless I want to deck-load it on a freighter."

  "Big boat?"

  "Barge type houseboat. Custom, fifty-two feet, two little Hercules diesels. Twenty-one foot beam. I've got a four hundred mile range at nine knots, but she won't take much sea."

  "Not good for these waters. Better where you are."

  "I guess so." I wandered over to the side wall and began to look at the pictures. They were black and white polaroid prints, scores of them, neatly taped to the composition wall. Boats and fish and people. Mostly people, standing by fish hanging from hooks from a sign saying La Casa Encantada, smiling, sundark happy people, and limp fish. And I saw Sam Taggart. In at least a dozen of them, off to one side, grinning, always with a different group of customers, a raunchy yachting cap shoved back on his hard skull, his teeth white in his deep-water face. In most of them he was wearing a white, short-sleeved sport shirt, open down the front, the tails knotted across his waist.

  The dockmaster had gone back to his records. He kept the office very tidy. I saw the books on a shelf, four of them, each labeled by year, each titled Marina Log.

  "Mind if I see if I know any of the boats that slopped here?"

  "Go ahead."

  I took the one for three years back, and sat on a crate by the window and slowly turned the pages. The sign-in columns were for boat name, length, type, port of registry, owner, captain. I found it for July 11th, over two months after Sam had left Lauderdale. Quest IV, 62 ft, custom diesel, Coronado, California, G. T. Kepplert, S. Taggart, Capt. All In Sam's casual scrawl. It jumped out of the page at me. Business wasn't tremendous. Page after page was blank. I put it back and took down the more recent book and went through that and put it back.

  "You get some big ones in here," I said.

  "Anything over eighty feet, they anchor out, but it's a protected harbor."

  I went back to the wall where the pictures were. A young Mexican in paint-stained dungarees came to the doorway and asked a question through the screen. The dockmaster rattled an impatient answer in fast fluent Spanish and the boy went away. He finished the accounts and closed his book and stood up.

  "Lock up here now for an hour," he said.

  I had found the picture I wanted. "This man looks familiar to me. I'm trying to remember his boat."

  He came over and looked at the picture. "Him? He had no boat. Look, he is in this picture, that one, that one, lots of them. No, he worked for me."

  "That's funny. I could have sworn. Haggerty? Taggerty?"

  "So! Maybe you did know him. Taggart. Sam Taggart. Yes, now I remember, he was in Florida maybe. He spoke of Florida. Yes. He worked for me here. Find the fish pretty good. Handled a boat too fancy, roar in here too fast, showing off. Hard fellow to control. But the people liked him. They would ask for him first. Maybe once he owned a boat, not when he was here. Maybe in Florida he owned a boat."

  "That must be it."

  He put his hand out. "My name is Heintz. You want some nice fishing, it's a good time for it now, and I reserve you a good boat, eh?"

  "I'll think it over. McGee is my name."

  "Five hundred pesos all day. The hotel packs lunch, Mr. McGee. A big man like you can catch a big fish, eh?"

  "I can't imagine how Taggart happened to come work here. Is he still around?"

  "No. He hasn't worked for me a long time. He took over a private boat. He's gone now."

  I sensed that one more question was going to be one question too many. I went out with him and he locked the office door. He gave me an abrupt nod and marched away, and I climbed the steps back to the pool level. Nobody was in the pool. The brown bodies looked as if a bomb had exploded nearby. I climbed on up to the sun deck. I looked at the sea glitter, and then looked at what I could see of the pink house, near the crest of the small tropic slope beyond the boat basin, just a small pink peak, an angle of wall, a fragment of white slanting roof.

  Sometimes, when things are coming together, when fragments start to fit, you can get the dangerous feeling of confidence that you are hovering over the whole thing, like a hawk unseen, riding the lift of the wind. Like all other stimulants, it is a perilous thing to rely on. It makes you reckless. It can kill you.

  That night, at dinner and in the bar afterwards, Nora was strange. She wore a slate blue dress so beautifully fitted it made her figure seem almost opulent. She was very gay and funny and quick, and then she would get tears in her eyes and try to hide them with ha
rd little coughs of laughter. At last, in the bar, the tears went too far, and when she saw she could not stop them, she said a strangled goodnight and fled. I did not stay long. I took a walk in the night. I thought of ways things could be done, ways that seemed right and ways that felt wrong. Slyness has no special logic. Sam had done something wrong. Knowing the shape of his mistake could help me. I took the problems to bed, and they followed me down into sleep.