John D MacDonald - Travis McGee 08 - One Fearful Yellow Eye

by One Fearful Yellow Eye(lit)

  I had noticed a small community bayfront park at the intersection of Osprey Lane and Citrus Lane, so I pulled in there and turned Agnes off and reached across Heidi into the back of the shallow shelf under the glove compartment and took out the little canvas zipper case, extracted the Bodyguard, and worked it into my right-hand pants pocket.

  "To see Anna Ottlo?" she said incredulously. "Hear dem bells. In the back of my head. Better safe than sorry. A stitch in time. A penny saved. Hell, dear, I'm cowardly."

  "But clean."

  "You wait here. Think pretty thoughts. Paint a painting in your head."

  Circular drive. Double carport. Dark blue Buick station wagon in one stall. Power mower and golf cart in the other. Drops from the sprinkler pattering off elephant ear leaves. Birds yammering. Blue bay beyond. Sizable cinderblock house, awning windows, Bahama gray with white trim, glaring white roof.

  When I pressed the button the chimes came loud and clear through the screening of the , door. They were not as ornate as the Shottlehauster set. When I heard a female voice call, "Coming," I moved a little to one side, turned my back toward the door. "Yes?" she said. "Yes? What is it?" I heard the spring creak on the screen door and I turned and caught it and faced her.

  "Hello there, Anna!"

  She had been somewhat thinner in the Welcome Party picture, and since _ then she had lost a great deal more weight. Her white hair had been dyed a peculiarly unpleasant shade of building-brick red, and cut into a style that would have looked cute on a young girl, the bangs curving down to eyebrow level. She wore dangling gilt earrings, a yellow blouse, purple pants, and zoris. It was a grotesque outfit for a woman in her middle fifties. The meaty face had lost no weight, and the pottery-blue eyes were the same.

  "Anna, what happened to the vaudeville accent?" She frowned and shook her head. "Young man, you apparently think I am someone else."

  "I think you're trying to be someone else."

  She turned and shouted into the sunny vistas of the house. "Perry! Sweetheart! Come here, dear. There's a man here saying the strangest things. Hurry, sweetheart!"

  "Cleverness isn't enough," I said. "It takes luck too."

  "You must be insane, young man." I realized how perfect a place she had picked. Guaranteed respectability. Immediate group identification. She was wearing the uniform of the day. Again she turned and shouted over her shoulder, "Will you please come out here at once, Perry, and help me with this...."

  It covered any small sound he might have made when he came up behind me. Something flickered in front of my eyes and then as I gasped with surprise, the standard reaction, something was yanked to a fatal tightness around my throat. I spun to grapple with whoever had sneaked up behind me, and I saw a plump bald man hop nimbly backward. But the pressure on my throat did not lessen. I could not take a breath. My ears began to roar. I tried to get my fingertips under whatever it was, but it was sunk too deeply into the flesh. I reached to the nape of my neck and felt some kind of a clip device and felt of the free end that dangled down my back. I fumbled with the metallic-feeling clip. The screen door had shut. She stood watching me through the screen. He stood with the same expression-interest and mild concern. Vision began to darken. I thought of the gun and I willed my hand to go down and take it out of the pocket and put one through the screening and one into the plump belly. But my hand was more interested in trying to dig enough meat out of my throat to get to the tightness and pull it free. Roaring had turned to a siren sound. I felt a jolt and a faraway pain in my knees. The world went from dark gray to black and I pitched from my kneeling position, face forward over the edge of the world, spinning down and down and down.

  Brightness shone through my eyelids. My chin was on my chest. I tried to swallow the gravel packed into my throat but I couldn't budge it. I opened my eyes and tried to sit higher in the chair and saw at once why I could not. It was a tubular aluminum lawn chair, the kind with a double bar for the armrests. My forearms were fastened with wide white surgical tape from wrist to elbow to the chair arms, wrapped around arm and armrest, tight and overlapping, so that my hands had darkened and puffed. My legs were straight out, heels resting on terrazzo, pants cuffs hiked up by the same kind of tape which had also been used to fast en my ankles together.

  I lifted my head. I was on the sort of jalousied porch locally called a Florida room. Anna sat ten feet away and a little off to my left. Behind her was a picture window from ceiling to floor and ten feet wide, framing the swimming pool beyond. There was a row of little white seahorses on the glass to keep the unwary from trying to walk through it. I could see a dense hedge of punk trees, tailored grass, concrete pool apron, redwood picnic furniture, a stone barbecue, a wall of pierced concrete block painted white. A blow-up duck, big enough to ride, floated high on the pool water, being drifted in random turning patterns by the light breeze.

  On the table beside Anna was my undersized.38 special. She was using yellow needles and knitting something out of bright blue yarn.

  She gave me a merry little glance and said, "You're very heavy, Mr. McGee. It took both of us to drag you."

  I started to speak, but it was a rusty whisper. I cleared my throat and managed a guttural rasp. "Was the code word sweetheart?"

  "Hoping we'd never have to use it. You certainly had good luck. But when you add stupidity, what good is the luck?"

  "Where is sweetheart?"

  "Taking a little stroll. He wants to know how you got here and if you brought anyone along."

  "Nobody important. Some state cops."

  "I hardly think so."

  "Not a trace of accent. You're very good."

  "Thousands and thousands of hours, Mr. McGee, in my room, listening to your damned dreary radio programs, practicing into a tape recorder, playing it over and over and over, correcting it each time. Discipline. Endless self-discipline. Endless patience. And now, you see, we are quite safe. You are an annoyance only."

  "You dosed Gloria, didn't you?"

  "I knew where it was and what it was, and knew it would not change the taste of her morning orange juice. It was interesting, but it was just a little bit careless. I indulged myself. When she asked me what I was mailing to Marco Bay, I should have made quite sure, don't you think? Perry is very annoyed. The silly sentimental little bitch was quite amusing, gasping and panting and slapping at her clothes to put out imaginary fires."

  "Anna, wouldn't it have been a lot easier to live the lush life by marrying your daughter off to the Doctor?"

  The needles stopped clicking and she stared at me. "My daughter! If I'd ever had children, my dear man, I can assure you they would have had considerably more intelligence than Gretchen. But then again, had she been brighter, perhaps she couldn't have been persuaded to believe I was her mother. I had her on my hands only seven years, thank God. A tiresome child. Oh, you asked about the marriage. If the man in that untidy situation had been very rich and very obscure, it might have been an acceptable solution. But Fortner Geis was somewhat of a celebrity, and it would have been a treat for your dirty-minded newspapers, and I could not risk their prying into my personal history, of course."

  "What are you wanted for?"

  She saw me start and look beyond her. She turned and saw the bald man bringing Heidi around the house. He had her hand in his and she walked quite rigidly, with a twist of pain on her lips.

  "Heavens!" said Anna Ottlo. "What a small world it is after all."

  The man opened a jalousied door and pushed Heidi in and followed her. Heidi massaged the hand he had been holding and she stared at me and then at Anna and then back at me. "Tray, what are they... He walked me and said such terrible things to me. Anna, my God, what are you trying to..."

  "I asked her name and she told -me," Perry said. He stood beaming. His bald head was sunburned and peeling. He wore a sport shirt of pillow ticking, dark blue walking shorts, white canvas boat shoes. He wore his stomach high. It looked solid. He had meaty and muscular forearms, and spindly, hairy, p
ipestem legs. He had little brown eyes, a broad flattened nose, and a heavy sensuous mouth. "She made it too easy. I see you're breathing again, sonny," he said, turning toward me and giving me a quick little wink.

  Anna shook her head. "How perfectly delicious, Perry. Dear Heidi. The arrogant bitch of all time. Why make her bed when old Anna could do it? Drop the clothes where you take them off. Never carry a plate to the kitchen. The cool, golden, superior princess."

  "Anna! You don't have any accent at all."

  "What a marvel! What a miracle! Stupid housekeeper. What a treat to have you here, Miss Heidi." Heidi lifted her chin. "Stop this nonsense at once and take that tape off Mr. McGee."

  Anna faked vast astonishment. "Is that an order?"

  "I think I made it quite clear."

  "Perry, if you could teach this child to sing us a little song, I think her manners would be better."

  "My pleasure," Perry said, with a little bow. He moved over in front of Heidi, his pudgy back toward me. He hooked one arm around her and yanked her close and busied the other hand between them. I could see the elbow turning and working.

  Heidi gave a harsh gasp of shock and outrage, then her eyes and mouth opened wide and she flapped her arms weakly at the plump shoulders of the man and gave a squalling sound of pain and fright.

  He let her go. She staggered, going so pale her tan looked gray-green. Her face was shiny with sweat: She took two weak steps to an aluminum and plastic chaise and half fell onto it and bowed her head all the way to her knees, flax hair aspill.

  "A pretty little song, dear," Anna said. "Now mind your mouth." She 'spoke to Perry in a fast guttural rattle of German. He answered and seemed to ask her a question. She thought, shrugged, gave a longer speech and he nodded, gave a short answer, gestured toward Heidi. Anna responded and he went beaming to her and picked up one hand and hauled her to her feet.

  He put an arm around her and led her into the house proper. She gave me a gray, lost, hopeless look as he led her by me. In a cooing little voice he said, "Tender little dearie. Dainty little dearie."

  "Hardly little," Anna said. "She's a half-head taller than he is. You couldn't have made him happier." "Look. She got a case of the hots and I made the mistake of letting her come back to Florida with me. She doesn't know anything about anything. She's a clumsy lay, and she's a bore."

  "Perry won't be bored."

  I heard a sharp thin high scream from somewhere inside the house. Anna looked irritated and yelled some kind of an order in German. He answered in a placating tone.

  "Now he'll go get your truck and bring it around," she said. "All he was supposed to do was secure her in there. They have a charming little practice here in Marco Bay Mr. McGee. We all have these little round signs on sharp sticks that we can stick in the ground out at the end of the driveway to show we are taking naps. They. say Hush, Friend on them. Nobody ever violates the rule. Perry stuck ours in when he went to get Miss Heidi."

  "Did both of you work on Saul Gorba?"

  "Just Perry. Saul was a fool. Very smart and very sly, but careless and impulsive. Hard to control. He couldn't see why it was best he should marry Gretchen. We did not wish to alarm him by telling him that if the Doctor became stubborn it would be necessary to arrange certain accidents so that in the end Susan would be the only heir. Perry is very skilled at such things. But the Doctor decided not to be stubborn. I knew how much money there would be. I knew how long he thought he might live. I knew his warm feeling for Mrs. Stanyard, and knew when she visited her husband. I knew many useful things. Perry found that farm for them, a place good for our purposes. We needed Saul Gorba for certain risky things, like taking Braniy for the ride, like breaking into Mrs. Stanyard's apartment to do the thing with the cat. And he was very good at documents. Perry and Wilma Hennigan are very welldocumented people. Saul had a great greed for money. It was amusing to discuss it with him in. German. Stupid Gretchen had lost almost all of her German. Saul taught me how to wire the noisemaker to Gloria's little automobile. And, of course, when the gift of candy was in the house, I opened it carefully and fixed a special treat for Miss Heidi."

  "Why did Dr. Geis set up Mrs: Stanyard for Susan to go to if she needed help?"

  "There was a certain threat made against the girl, a nastiness to be done to her. This was over the telephone, you understand. That is how negotiations were handled. A whisper over a pay telephone, by Saul, of course. We told him what to say. We frequently... encouraged the Doctor in that way." She bit her lip. "I could not say. Perhaps Saul was a little too convincing when he spoke of the girl. At any rate, I saw the letter before it was mailed to Mrs. Stanyard. I told Saul about it, and the fool told Susan he knew where she'd. go for help, after he had beaten..."

  Perry came out onto the sun porch from the main part of the. house. They carried on a lengthy conversation. I got the impression she made a suggestion he did not like, and he made a series of alternate suggestions. She turned every one down, firmly. He pouted like a fat child. She gave him a lit tle lecture, a teasing tone in her voice. He shrugged, smiled, brightened up and went back into the house.

  Anna said, "Poor disappointed man. He has all the rest of the day and into the night for both of you, and I have told him that under no circumstances must you he marked, either of you." She got up and came over and bent to peer at my throat. She rubbed it briskly with the flat of her hand and went back to her chair saying, "That will not be noticeable." She sat down and picked up her knitting: "We have decided to hold your faces down in a basin of salt water from the bay so that the lungs will be proof of death by drowning. And tonight late we shall undress you both on a quiet beach we found that is twenty miles from here, and put your clothing on the seat of that truck of yours and push you into the sea and drive back in our car together. A blanket on the beach and perhaps some beer, that will add conviction."

  I heard Heidi's voice whimpering and pleading. Anna smiled. "I told him it is a test of his ingenuity. Many things can be managed. At least he has time, not the way it was with Gretchen when Saul called up in panic to say she had guessed what he had been up to and was threatening to take the children and leave. He had only one hour with her." A sudden harsh hoarse cry of anguish from Heidi sickened me. It sounded effortful enough to tear her throat.

  "His little bird sings well for him. You understand, of course, about people like Perry. I like a bit of it, for amusement. But to him it is necessary. A sexual orientation, I suppose. First there must be the gross humiliations, the unthinkable violations of the precious citadel of self, with pain as the spice and fright as the sauce. But he will have to do with what variations he can invent on that theme, because he cannot have what he likes best, to create those moments of ultimate hopeless horror when his companion experiences damage she knows cannot be undone, cannot be mended, and then begins to wonder how long he or she will be forced to sustain the burden of consciousness and of life itself."

  Out of the silence Heidi began to make an explosive sound, a kind of squealing grunting sound repeated over and over in abrupt jolting rhythm, then dying slowly away.

  Anna listened with tilted head, half-smile. "Ah, he is a rascal, that one!"

  My heart was breaking for Heidi. All the silky luxuries of her, and the sense of fun, and all her quick sure hungers.

  "Listen, Anna. Make him stop. Please. I'll make a deal. I got to the farm before the police did. I found what Perry couldn't find. Maybe the figure is proof enough. A hundred and seventy-eight thousand, six hundred and fifty. I kept it. I'll make a deal. If she has to die, okay, but no more of him. Make it easy for her and I'll tell you where it is and how you can get it in absolute safety"

  She put the knitting aside, next to the revolver on the table beside her chair. "Poor Saul thought he would keep that money. He could not know he was only holding it for us until it was time to leave. Then he lost his silly head over that juicy little wench and after beating her in a temper, let her sneak away. So when he found out she was gone, h
e went to a pay phone and called me late that Monday afternoon and I told him to get the children out of the house, to leave them with friends."

  "God! God! God!" Heidi cried, her voice rusted almost shut.

  "Stop him," I yelled.

  "Where was the money Mr. McGee?"

  "Hidden in dings he put into the fenders and body and covered over with plastic and painted. Stop him. Please!"

  With half-smile and half-frown she said, "But I'd have to give him a reason. Saul died after just a few hours. Perry was furious. He searched as long as he dared and then came back. It would be nice to have that money, but not really essential. I think you must have given it to Mr. Andrus anyway. If I called Perry and told him such nonsense he would just say that when he finishes with her and gets to you, you will tell him everything you know anyway, so what is the point? I wouldn't think of spoiling his pleasure."