Dress Her in Indigo

by John D. MacDonald

  I got the screen open as far as the door, and knew I would need a few more inches before I could go through it sideways. Had just put my palm against the edge of the door and the screen when I heard breathing. Not the deep breathing of sleep. This was more like the long distance runner. Bellows, getting deeper and faster, a huffing and a panting, then a cough and then the unmistakably, wide-open-throated, strained, soft, have-mercy cawing of woman in climax. It ended. There were some whisperous murmurings, too faint to catch. Then silence. A new set of rules had just been posted.

  The bed creaked and suddenly a pale shape moved past the corner of the bed and stopped in the light, facing the balcony. I had pulled back quickly, but one instant had stamped it into memory for as long as memory would last. Naked, skin so white it seemed to blaze in the downthrust of the ceiling spot. An incomparable figure, simultaneously rich and delicate, without blemish. Nipples of that rare youthful pink, soft pubic bush, a color paler than old pennies. And it did what the picture could not do. It brought her into the focus of memory, of almost a year ago, when Meyer took the wheel and I went forward to bend a line on the new anchor. She was the one who stood at the bow in white shorts and a red top, and had looked out across Lake Worth with almost the same soft, brooding, dreamy, inward expression. The wind had tangled her hair that day as much as bed had tangled it a year later. Welcome back from your damp Florida grave, Miss Bix.

  The throaty, French-lady voice from the bed corner said, “Darling? You’re too sweaty to stand in that cold night air. You’ll get chilled.”

  “Can we go out on the balcony and look at the stars, Eva?”

  It was a little-girl voice, humble and obedient.

  “Of course, darling child. But we’ll have to put something on.”

  I wondered if there was a gap at the other end of the draperies, where I could look in through the glass, from a darker area. I moved over and stood up and found a slit just wide enough. I saw Eva come to the edge of the light and hang some kind of floor-length cape or cloak over the girl’s shoulders. It was a dark, rich blue, a violet-blue. She kept her hands on the girl’s shoulders and I could hear her distinctly as she said, “Did I make you happy?”

  The taller, younger girl turned quickly into Eva’s arms, eagerly, gladly. Murmurous love-words. A soft, triumphant little laugh. Long kisses. And then Bix went off into shadows while Eva stood in the edge of the light, half-smiling. Hers was a slightly more spare and forthright body, as feminine, but with more of a look of function, so that naked she seemed more naked. Swarthy skin tones, sharp breasts with broad umber-dark nipple areas, long downsweep of muscular belly to the wide, vital spread of curly blackness, a look of compacted sinew along the tops of the thighs.

  Bix brought a tailored gray robe and held it for Eva to slip on. My mind had been caroming around amid probables and improbables, bouncing off obstacles, like the shiny ball finding its way down the pinball machine, looking for the bumper that would ring the bells, flash the lights, award me some free games.

  As Eva Vitrier looked down to fasten the belt of the robe, taking her first step toward the balcony, I pulled the doors wider and stepped into the room.

  “Hate to bust in like this,” I said.

  Bix Bowie moved back into the shadows and stood staring at me without expression, yet with a kind of market-dog wariness which says that to find out if stones will be thrown, or food, one must wait, ready to run and ready to eat.

  Eva Vitrier leaned forward in fishwife fury, backs of her hands against her waist, elbows cocked forward. I think that had I been able to understand French, the words would have chopped out little chunks of my flesh and left smoking craters. As I waited for her to run down, she whirled and dived to grab the nightstand phone. I clapped the cradle back down an instant after she lifted it. She hit me in the middle of the forehead with the earpiece. I clopped her on the side of the head with a cupped palm. It knocked her onto her hands and knees. She rose slowly, touching her hair, and said, “Bixie sweetie, go into the bathroom and close the door.”

  “I want to watch, Eva.”

  “Mind me! Or there’ll be no surprise tomorrow, and no candy.”

  The girl turned and went into the bathroom and closed the door. And Eva came after my eyes with ten long nails. A wiry, furious, unrestrained woman can be dangerous to all men who, out of some notion of chivalry, try to quell her furies, hold her wrists and avoid her kicks and bites until she gives up.

  Chivalry is pretty flexible. And sometimes it is dead.

  So I hooked her a pretty good one in the stomach as she was coming in, and it was on a slightly upward angle, so her heels lifted off the floor, her legs swung up, and the first thing that hit the floor was that rear end which Enelio had found so delectable long ago. Momentum rolled her over onto her back, and her legs went up and over and she ended on her knees, the gray robe forward, and all entangled about her head and arms, which were resting on the floor. Enelio might find that angle even more entrancing. She rolled onto her side, sat up, smoothed the robe down. She reached and caught a chair and pulled herself up and sat on it, making inhalation groans to try to suck enough air back into herself. Hit a woman, would you, McGee? I surely would, now and then.

  All the spark and snap was gone. I saw switches by the door and went over and turned on the rest of the room lights. I closed the glass doors and pulled the lined draperies shut. I sat on the foot of the tousled bed.

  She straightened herself. “You know, I could have you killed for that.”

  “If you know where to go and how much to offer.”

  “I can find out.”

  “And I can walk you into the bathroom there and try to teach you to breathe underwater, and I might have to do just that if I don’t like the answers.”

  “There won’t be any answers.”

  “Suit yourself, French lady.”

  “What are you looking for?”

  “Something to knot you up with. Nylons are great. Stronger than steel. Then we’ll see how much of this Kleenex we can cram into your mouth, and I’ll tie that in place, roll you under the bed there, get Miss Bowie into some clothes and take her to the Embassy and phone her father from there. So forget the answers. I don’t need them.”

  “Wait a minute. Sit down. Stop opening drawers, please. Listen to me a minute. I brought her back from living death, Mr. McGee. You don’t know what she was like. Even I didn’t know how lovely she would look.”

  “What is she blasting lately? She’s way off center right now.”

  “She can’t get along at all without something. I don’t think she ever will. She’s on charas. An agent brings it in for me from Calcutta. It’s like marijuana, but very, very powerful. They use just the resins. I let her smoke three tiny little cigars of it a day. We make a ceremony out of it. Don’t you understand? She’s been too badly damaged. She can’t exist in the real world.”

  “But your world is just dandy. Best thing for her.”

  “She gets love and protection, and I keep her in good health. We have silly little games we play. I make her keep herself clean and pick up her clothes.”

  “And you get her her distemper shots and keep her coat glossy, and some day you can bury her in the foot of the garden and put a mossy little headstone up. Bix. Beloved pet. But that would be a little sentimental, huh?”

  “You are certainly a cruel bastard. All right! So maybe I don’t want any more challenging human relationships.”

  “After four old husbands?”

  “You meet the simple young ones who can introduce you to the important young ones who can introduce you to the important and rich old ones. And you work at it, you know. You give fair value. All of them use you like a waste bin, a conveniently shaped receptacle, just as males used Bixie. But there is tennis and sailing and all the vigorous games in bed, and the old ones do not last long. The money was earned. The privacy was earned. The freedom was earned.”

  “I might pop you another one, just for luck.”


  “I don’t think it would astonish me, actually.”

  “So she gets love. From you.”

  “I saw her and Minda in the zocalo. I followed them. They had to keep stopping at benches so Bix could rest. There was something about her. I had to know her. They needed help. The word probably doesn’t mean anything to you, but do you know that she had never been sexually awakened? Can you imagine how much restraint and patience it took? But now she is more easily stimulated each day. She’s very sensual. But she lives on Lesbos forever, because it is the only island she has ever known.”

  “That’s pretty poetic there, French lady. What are you getting at? You want to keep her around the house?”

  “She can never endure any contact with any part of her old life without reverting. I arranged to have her tourist permit renewed, in Minda McLeen’s name. It was expensive. I am taking her … to another country where identities can be purchased. I intend to see that if anything should happen to me, she shan’t want for anything.”

  “So Minda went off the hill in the yellow car. That’s why she doesn’t need her own papers. And Bix’s papers went to Florida with the body and the personal effects. Was it expensive getting Minda bumped off the road, French lady?”

  “It wasn’t that way.”

  “What way was it?”

  “Minda began to get suspicious after Bixie began to improve. And she began spying on me, and finally caught me … caressing Bixie in a way that couldn’t possibly have been anything except what it was. She made a very ugly scene, and said some very ugly things. She said she would not permit it. Permit it! Can you imagine the impertinence? She tried to stay with Bix every moment, day and night. I asked Minda to my room to discuss the problem. I tried to seduce her, because I knew that would shut her mouth, but she acted as if I were some sort of sickening animal. She said she was going to get in touch with Bix’s father. So as I was afraid I might lose Bix, the next time Minda left the house, I had a trusted friend of mine come at once in her car and pick up Bix and bring her up here to the city; I asked her to stay here in the suite with Bix until I could arrive. I informed the hotel they would be using the suite. I knew I could trust my friend to be careful and discreet, but I knew she would never be able to keep from making love to such a lovely child. But I had to accept that, even though it made me feel wretched. So when Minda came back I asked her if she had seen Bix. I pointed out that all her things were still in her room. I said she had wandered out and that I was worried. Minda knew it was a trick of some kind. She said she would stay with me and I would lead her to wherever Bix was.”

  The bathroom door opened and Bix came wandering out. “I’m tired of staying in there, Eva.”

  “Just a little bit longer, dear. Please.”

  “Well … all right.” She went back in.

  “On Saturday, in the early afternoon, that Rockland person came to my home demanding to see Minda. She did not know of it. She was in her room. I had Rockland brought to me, at the garden house beyond the pool, and I had Ramón and his nephew stay close by. I told you before, it was easy to see he was a low type, crafty and arrogant. One must exploit their greed to find out what plan they have. He was so obviously relieved to find no one else had been there before him, asking about her. It took a little time and a few simple threats, but I found out that Minda’s father was in Oaxaca and had looked for Rockland and found him. Rockland had made an arrangement to deliver the girl to her father for money. He thought he could get ten thousand American dollars if he managed the affair skillfully. Nothing could have been more obvious to me than that if he did manage it, Minda would seek aid from her father in taking Bix away from me. One cannot tell how much resource an American businessman has in such matters. It would be obvious that at the very least he would feel an obligation to acquaint the other father with the state of affairs. I would want neither the notoriety nor the legal problems, nor want to take the chance of losing the girl. So I offered him twice what he expected from Mr. McLeen, if he would take Minda away with him on some pretext and leave her far enough away so that by the time she made her way back I could be gone and there would be no way to reach or find me. Then, if he chose, he might be able to continue his arrangement with her father.

  “We set the schedule. I gave him five thousand dollars and suggested he take her to Coatzacoalcos on the Gulf of Campeche, on the pretext of taking her to where Bix was. Transportation is awkward from there to Oaxaca. He had a car. He could drive far into the night. It is something over three hundred miles from Oaxaca. He was to abandon her there, without funds, and return quickly. I would wait until a nine o’clock flight out of Oaxaca Monday evening. I would give him the rest of the money then, and he would, if ever questioned, swear he had loaned Bix money to fly back to the states.”

  But, she related, she had been awakened at midnight on Sunday night to be told that the young American was back, that he was on foot, that he was at the gate demanding to be let in. She dressed and went down to the gate and they talked in the courtyard. He said he had been too tired to drive so far. He thought it would be just as good to take her up into the mountains. She had gone willingly when he said that Bix needed her and he was taking her to where Bix was. But she became suspicious. He had found a place to pull off the road when night fell. He had kept her there with him. He had wanted to wait long enough so that she, Mrs. Vitrier, would think he had taken Minda a long way away. He had not wanted to lose track of her because of her resale value. It was his plan to tie her to a tree or something, out of sight of the highway on Monday, and go down and get the money and come back and pick her up again and make his deal with Wally.

  Late Sunday afternoon while she was napping in the back seat of the little car, he had fallen asleep in the front seat. He had slept so heavily that apparently she had been able to work the car keys out of his pocket, put the key into the ignition, silently open a front door, brace her back against the other door, put her feet against him and suddenly shove him out onto the ground, yank the door shut and lock it. As he tried to break in, she got it started and pulled out and headed down the mountain, accelerating. He had picked a spot, after a long walk, where trucks would have to shift way down to negotiate a steep uphill curve. He had to wait hours before one came along with a tailgate he could climb onto. He had dropped off in the city and made his way to Eva’s house. When he found that Minda had never arrived, he was certain she had gone off the mountain. And if she had, she was dead.

  “I took him to the sitting room which adjoins my bedroom. We discussed the possible repercussions of this event. It had been a car he had taken without permission, but he was quite certain the owner would give very little if any information to the police, and he explained why. By then, you see, I knew that a car had gone off the mountain, and they would look for it by daylight. It sickened me to think of it. She was being very difficult, but I had not wished that for her. But it had happened. And in many ways it simplified things. One must be mature and accept facts, yes? So he said he must have the rest of the money because it had been promised. He was looking at me strangely, I thought. He said that in addition, I would give him the ten thousand he would have gotten from the father. I told him that was not my affair. He said it had become my affair. I had given him money to get rid of the girl and he had gotten rid of her. He said it would all be difficult to explain.

  “By then I began to see that he could be of some danger to me. He was greedy and crafty and brutal, but not intelligent. It had been a mistake to make an arrangement with him. I knew that to disarm him I had to appear to be … manageable. I said I did not have so much in American dollars in the house, but I could make up the difference in Swiss francs. I got it all for him and explained the rate of exchange. I even told him the name I use in this hotel. He counted the money too many times and, also, too many times he told me that it was the last time I would have to give him money. It meant that he was thinking that he would ask again.

  “He began looking at me in an
other strange way and said that we were now associated in this affair. He said he knew from Minda what I was, but that it would please him to come into my bed and use me as a woman, just to verify our trust and friendship. I told him there would be no pleasure in it for me, and he said that it did not particularly matter whether there was or not. At such times one must be very careful. And so I pretended fear and begged him not to, then seemed to accept the inevitable, and asked him if he minded if I had some brandy before all this would take place. He said, as I expected, that he would enjoy some also, and that we could drink a toast and seal the bargain. I got a special bottle kept in a special place, and silver glasses so that he could not tell that I would let it run out of my mouth back into the glass. In a little while he smiled foolishly and his words blurred and soon his head toppled forward and he began to snore. I took the money from him and replaced it in the wall safe in the back of my bedroom closet. I felt as if I were moving through a dream. I had quite a lot of the meperedine left, which we had sometimes given Bix when she became unmanageable. Ten little ampules. I had been taught how to administer hypodermics when my first husband was dying, and of course I had given Bix injections. I prepared him properly, with an alcohol swab, and knelt by his chair. But I could not. One wonders if it is possible to kill a human being. I had a dozen reasons to do this thing. But I could not. I could touch the point to the vein on the inside of his arm, but I could not shove it through the skin, no matter what I told myself.”

  So in the end she had tied him securely, binding his wrists and ankles to the heavy chair. She had paced the floor until dawn, wondering what to do. When he began stirring, she had sedated him heavily. On Monday morning, early, Wally McLeen had arrived, having at last tracked his missing daughter to her house. She had taken him to the garden house and had given him some of the vivid highlights of Minda’s Mexican vacation, throwing in incidents that had happened to Bix as though they had happened to Minda, including how Rockland had taken her into the cornfield to service the men who had showed up out of the night at the campsite. From his reactions she was afraid he was having a massive coronary. When he was at last more normal, she had said that it was possible that Minda was dead and that Rockland was responsible. She did not say more than that. She said that if he would get hold of some vehicle and if he would come to the vehicle gate at ten that night, there was a possibility she might be able to deliver Rockland over to him, so that he could take Rockland to the police. She showed him where the vehicle gate was. She would not answer his questions.