The Dreadful Lemon Sky (14 page)

"Thanks."

"Believe me, it's nothing."

"I know. I know."

"How about this blue? Indoor-outdoor. Won't fade."

"It's truly lovely, Meyer."

"Come on. Don't you care how it's going to look?"

"Intensely."

"All things considered, you should be jollier, Travis."

"Than whom?"

"Than whom has not such a handsome lady tending his convalescence."

"I feel disoriented. I have a dull ache in the back of my head, and I live in a motel."

Further discussion of my melancholy was terminated by the arrival of Jason-Jesus with Susan Dobrovsky. She looked sallow and subdued, with smudges under her eyes and a listless manner. Jason was being very firm and forthright. The protector. No social strokes. No discussion of the weather. He planted his feet and got right into it. "Susan and I have been developing a useful dialogue about her situation here. We've decided that it is more important for her to get away, to get back to Nutley, than it is to hang around while Van Harn takes care of the last little legal details regarding Carrie's death."

She sat on the edge of the yellow couch which was going to have to be recovered. "I want to leave," she said, in a very small voice. "Everything here has been so rotten."

"Mr. McGee, Susan told me that you told her that you owed Carrie some money. You paid off the funeral home in cash. Is there more money Susan should have?"

"Yes."

"How much?"

"What's your special interest in this, Jason?"

"Somebody has to care about situations like this. People have to take care of people."

"Granted. Let me talk to Susan alone. Meyer, why don't you go topside with Jason?"

When they had left and the Pliofilm curtain had fallen back into place, I went over and sat beside her on the couch. She became very still, quite rigid. It seemed a curious reaction. I touched her arm and she made a huge flinching motion, ending up two feet farther away from me.

"Hey" I said. "Whoa. Settle down."

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. It's just that I'm not reacting to things… normally. To being touched by anybody. I can't help it."

"What happened to you?"

She gave me a wide, bright terrible smile. "Happened? Oh, I was a guest at the V-H Ranch yesterday and the day before. That's all. Mr. Van Harn raises Black Angus and breeds horses. He has twelve hundred acres out there, and the old Carpenter ranch house was built out of hard pine in nineteen twenty-one and it's still as solid as a rock. I… nothing… can't…"

She bent abruptly forward, face in her hands, hands resting on her knees. I reached to touch her and pulled my hand back in time.

"Were you forced?"

Her voice was muffled. "Yes. No. I don't know. I don't know what to say. He kept after me and after me and after me. It went on and on. I got so tired. So I thought… I don't know what I thought. Just that if I let him that would be the end of it."

"Susan, I have to know something. Did he ask you anything about Carrie?"

"There wasn't much talking."

"Did he ask you anything at all about Carrie?"

"Well, he wanted to know the last time I'd talked to her, and so I told him about the long phone call, the one I told you about too. He made me remember everything she said. One part that I told him was about you. You know. Carrie said to me that if a person named Travis McGee got in touch with me I was to trust him all the way."

"Did he seem interested in that?"

"Not any more than in any of the rest of it. He just kept me going over it and over it until he saw there wasn't any part of it I hadn't told him. That was the only talking there was, mostly."

"When did this conversation take place?"

"Yesterday, I think. Yes, yesterday. Early in the morning, I think. I remember the sounds the birds were making. Early sounds."

"How did you get back?"

"He drove me in and let me off at the Inn. He had a meeting. Maybe it was three o'clock yester day afternoon. Jason came over this morning. I… told him about it. I wanted to tell somebody about how damned dumb I was."

"How did Jason react?"

"He wants to go kill him. What good would that do anybody? I shouldn't have gone out there with him. Joanna told me enough about him so I should have been careful, more careful. Mr. McGee, is there any more money? And you still have Carrie's rings. I remember Mr. Rucker giving them to you. He tried to give them to me and I couldn't take them then. I can now. Is there any money?"

"A lot of money."

"A lot?"

"Ninety-four thousand dollars in cash."

Her face went quite blank as she stared at me. She rubbed the palms of her hands on her forearms, one and then the other, "What?"

"Ninety-four thousand two hundred, less six hundred and eighty-six fifty that I paid Rucker. Ninety-three thousand something."

She rubbed the palms of her hands together. She narrowed those tilted gray-green eyes. She swung her hair back with a toss of her head. "Where would… Carrie get that?"

"From something she was involved in."

"From smuggling marijuana?"

"Did someone suggest that to you?"

"Betty Joller. It had something to do with why she left the cottage and went to live at that Fifteen Hundred place, Betty said. Would she make that much all for herself?"

"It's possible."

"She always wanted to have a lot of money."

"On the other hand, maybe the money is Van Harn's."

Her sallow round face looked stricken. "Would she be mixed up with him in anything? I wonder if he ever… made love to my sister. Jesus! That word doesn't fit. Love!"

"I wouldn't know."

She looked thoughtful. "She was always a stronger type person than me. I mean she could probably handle that kind of a man better than I could. Being older and married and so on. I never knew about men like that. He just kept confusing me. I guess I want that money now. Where is it?"

"In a very safe place."

"Can you get it for me?"

"Do you want to travel with that much in cash?"

"Oh. No, I guess not."

"I can get it to you later. What are you going to do with it when you get it?"

"I don't know. Put it in a deposit box, I guess. I don't know about taxes and so on. And her estate. On the phone something she said made me think she gave you some money too."

"She did. I hope it's going to be enough to get my houseboat fixed up. It was a fee for services. I am trying to find out who killed her."

"Who killed her! You're confusing me."

"Fly out of here. Fly home. I'll bring the money."

"When?"

"When I find out what went on here."

"And you'll tell me? Did somebody actually kill Carrie?"

"It's a possibility."

"Because of what she was doing? Because of the smuggling?"

"I would think so. In the meanwhile, Susan, not one word to anybody. Not even Jason."

"But I am very-"

"Not even Jason. Damn it, she told you to trust me. So trust me. Don't stand around dragging your feet."

"Well, then. Not even Jason."

As I went out onto the side deck with her, I saw Oliver trotting toward the Flush. He looked solemn. "Judge Schermer wants to talk to you, Mr. McGee."

"Send him along then."

"Oh, no. He wants you at his car. He's up there by the office."

A young woman stood beside the car. She put her hand out. "I'm Jane Schermer, Mr. McGee. Sorry to disturb you like this, but my uncle is anxious to talk to you."

She was a young woman with a sunburned flavor of ranchlands, cattle, and horses. She had a prematurely middle-aged face, doughy and slightly heavy in the jowls. She was oddly built, tall and broad, with vestigial breasts and very little indentation at the waist. The accent was expensive finishing school, possibly in Pennsylvania.

Jane opened the rear door and said, "Mr.McGee, Uncle Jake."

"How do you do, Judge Schermer," I said politely.

"Jane, you go take a little walk for yourself. This is man talk. Give us fifteen minutes. McGee, come on in here, but don't sit beside me. You can't talk to a man sitting beside you, damn it. Open up that jump seat and sit facing me. That's fine. Please don't smoke."

"I had no intention of so doing."

He chuckled. "No intention of so doing. You ever read for the law? Can't get the stink out of the upholstery."

He looked ludicrously like Harry Max Scorf. He looked as if somebody had taken Harry Max and inflated him until his skin was shiny-tight and then had spray-painted him pink. His round stomach rested on his round thighs. He wore khakis and a straw ranch hat. The motor purred almost soundlessly. The compressor for the air conditioning clicked on and off.

"You're one sizable son of a bitch, aren't you?" he said. "That's some goddamn pair of wrists on you. You go about two twenty-five?"

"Few people guess it that close."

"I guess a lot of things close. It's been a help over the years."

"Do you want to get to some kind of point?"

"Saving us both time, eh? I have a protege."

"Named Freddy Van Harn, who is engaged to be married to your niece, Jane Schermer. People think he has a political future. Then there could be those who don't think he has any future at all."

"You are a quick one, all right. You surely are. Frederick and I discuss his future and his current problems from time to time. You came up as one of his current problems."

"Me?"

"Pure bug-eyed astonishment, eh? Frederick is a lively young man. It's entirely possible for a fellow like him to become involved in something foolish out of a sense of risk and adventure. At his age-he's only twenty-nine-a single man can do some foolish things, never quite realizing that he might be destroying his whole future and destroying the dreams of the people depending on him: A man can have his sense of values warped by expediency sometimes, McGee. In Frederick's case, he's wanted to make money fast and make it big to wipe out the local memories of his father, a man who made a terrible mistake and took his life. Frederick became overextended, and he took a foolish risk in an effort to make some quick money. I've been very severe with him about that."

"What kind of risk?"

"We don't have to go into that here."

"Then let's say he was flying in grass, dropping it to a friend in a power boat. That would be profitable and foolish enough, don't you think?"

"Out of the goodness of my heart, I would advise you not to get too smart-mouth and high-ass around me. It makes me irritable, and when I get irritable, I'm harder to deal with."

"I'm not after a deal."

"You might be sooner than you know."

"Whatever that might mean."

"Frederick Van Harn is a very talented attorney, and he has that special kind of charisma which means he can go far in public service. It's past time that me and my little group had somebody in Tallahassee speaking up for this county and our special problems here. We've all helped him along every way we could, ever since he got out of Stetson and set up practice here. Once he's married to Janie he won't have any more money problems to fret about and do foolish things trying to solve them. You get what I mean. Janie inherited ten thousand acres of the most profitable grove lands in this whole state."

"How nice for her."

"McGee, we're talking about image here. We're building an image people are going to trust. You ought to hear that boy give a speech. Make you tingle all over. What I wouldn't want to happen, I wouldn't want anybody to come here, some ntranger, and try to make a big fuss based entirely on the word of some dead thieving slut."

"You wouldn't?"

"Especially when it would be bad timing for Frederick in his career. A man shouldn't lose his whole future on account of one foolish act. It wouldn't be fair, would it?"

"To whom?"

"To those of us working hard to see dreams come true."

I shook my head. "Judge, you picked the wrong protege. You picked a bad one."

"What are you talking about?"

"This Ready Freddy is kinky, Judge. He's all twisted in the sex areas."

"By God, there's nothing twisted about a man liking his pussy and going after it any danged place he can find it. When I was that boy's age I was ranging three counties on the moonlight nights."

"He likes it to hurt them, Judge. He likes to force them. He likes to scare them. He likes to humiliate them. He leaves them with bad memories and a bad case of the shakes."

"I'd say you've been listening to some foolish woman with too many inhibitions to be any damn good in bed. I'd stake my life that boy is normal. And when he's got a wife and career he'll be too busy to go tomcatting."

"That sexy wife ought to keep him at home, all right."

"Watch yourself! You got a lot more mouth than you need."

"Judge, we have arrived at the end of our discussion. Weird as it may seem to you, I think your protege is a murderous, spooky fellow. I think he has been going around killing people. I think he killed two friends of mine. Tell him that."

I reached behind me for the door handle. "Wait!" he said sharply. "What are you trying to pull? You can't believe that shit!"

"But I do!"

We locked stares for ten long seconds. And then he looked down and away, lips pursed. "We couldn't be that far wrong," he said softly, wonderingly. He shook himself and glowered at me. "You want to raise the ante. All right. Here is your deal. Twenty-five thousand dollars cash to get out of this county and stay out."

"Not for ten times the offer, Judge."

"You are dead wrong about Frederick. Believe me."

"I'll have to prove that to myself in my own way."

"Stop reaching back of you for that door handle. Set a minute. Everybody wants something bad. What is it you want?"

"It isn't nice to go around killing people."

"Frederick wouldn't kill anybody. Have you got some romantical notion about getting even for Carrie Milligan? My God, McGee, these people that get into drugs, they've got the life expectancy of a mayfly. That girl probably didn't know where she was or what she was doing. She walked into traffic."

"Like Joanna."

"A bomb? Frederick Van Harn fooling around with bombs? That's ridiculous. What do you want? What are you after?"

"Nothing you'd understand, Judge."

"I understand a lot of things. I understand the world is too full of people and half a billion of 'em are starving this year. I understand there's a few million tons of phosphate under the ranchlands down in the southeast corner of this county, and the ecology freaks have kept National Minerals Industries from strip-mining it, and there's a group of us thinks if we put Fred in the State Senate, that might get changed around and a lot of people might make out pretty good. I understand that we're not going to stand for anybody coming in here and messing up our plans. People are starving because of the shortage of fertilizer. Phosphate is high priority McGee. Now who's going to do the most good in the world, Van Harn or you?"

"It's nice to know why you're so interested in me."

"You know what I'm going to do for you? I'm going to set up a little session between you and Frederick, and I'll let him tell you just what his involvement was."

"Are you sure you want to do that?"

"What's the matter? Afraid he'll shoot your theories full of holes?"

"I met him once. He didn't impress me, Judge."

"You caught him at a bad time. He told me about it."

"Why should he tell you?"

"I asked him if he'd ever met you."

"I'll talk to him, sure. Send this car back with him in it, and I'll talk to him right here. Like this. Alone. If he's willing."

"He's willing to do what we want him to do."

"Let's make it tomorrow. There isn't enough of today left. I seem to get tired easily."

"Tomorrow morning."

I got out. Jane Schermer was strolling slowly toward the limousine. When she saw me holding the door for her, she quickened her step. The Judge kicked the jump seat back into its niche. I handed her in and closed the door. The driver climbed in and chunked his door shut, and the car moved off through the late heat of the day, with barely audible hum of gears and engine.

Cindy was in the office. A man from Virginia was settling up, preparatory to leaving in the early morning on Monday. He was signing travelers' checks. He wore red-white-and-blue shorts and a yellow shirt, funny shoes, and a funny hat. He had narrow little shoulders and a yard of rump. He was telling Cindy how great it had been, except when the bomb went off. She said she was sorry about that bomb. He said he didn't know what people were thinking of these days. Like in Ireland.

He went out with his receipt and with Cindy's wishes for a good cruise back to Virginia. The door swung shut and she said, "You look practically gray. What is it, dear?"

"The Judge wore me down. I'm going to go lie down."

"Before you fall down."

"I'm going to swim in that motel pool first."

"Should you?"

"If I don't get the dressing wet."

"Somebody ought to be with you."

The new fellow came in. Ritchie. A little older than Ollie and Jason, a lot less hairy. He said Jason was out on the docks and sure, he'd take the desk.

I went to the Flush and got swim trunks. Meyer wasn't aboard. I changed in the motel, and by the time I got to the pool Cindy was there, taking long sweeping strokes, a fast crawl from end to end, using kick turns. The dusk light was turning orange, making the world look odd, as though awaiting thunder. I sat on the edge of the pool and admired the smooth flexing of the muscles of her back and hips and thighs as she made those turns. Then I lowered myself into the pool and paddled lethargically around, keeping my head high. She wore a white suit, white swim cap.

When I clambered out, refreshed and relaxed, she was still swimming hard, but she was beginning to labor, beginning that side to side roll of exhaustion. At last she came to the edge and clung, panting audibly. I went and took her wrists and hoisted her out. She stumbled against me and recoiled, turning away from me.

"What was that all about?"

"What was what all about?" She walked over to her towel and mopped her face, tugged the cap off, shook her dark hair out, and sat an aluminum chaise and closed her eyes.

I sat on the concrete beside the chaise and took hold of her hand. It was brown and boneless, without response. "What was the compulsive swimming all about?"

"Exercise. That's all."

"All?"

"Well. I guess I was fighting us. Working off anger."

"Why?"

"It just seems too pat. Just too damned easy, that's all. Nothing comes for free. Everything costs. I walk around all day wanting to be in bed with you. Knowing I will be. But maybe I won't be."

"Why not?"

"Weren't you listening? I said it was too easy for us."

"And that makes it bad? That makes it ugly?"

"I didn't say that."

"Meyer is the one with the erudition. Meyer is the one with all the smarts. I can give you something secondhand from Meyer which might help. It comes from a smart tough old Greek by the name of Homer. I'll tell you what he said… if you'll use it."

"I'll try."

"He said, 'Dear to us ever is the banquet and the harp and the dance and changes of raiment and the warm bath and love and sleep.'"

She kept her eyes closed and her face told me nothing. Finally she said, "Dear to us ever. Yes." She turned her head toward me and opened her eyes and linked her fingers in mine. "Maybe that old Greek meant that a thing in and of itself is okay, without deadlines or promissory notes or anything. Just in and of itself alone."

"In and of itself together."

"Well, sure."

And so we went into the motel where there was a last pink tinge of sunlight dimly reflected on a far wall. Out of the wet suits our bodies were enclasped clammy cool, but swiftly heating. There was no constraint in her, only a merging and changing energy, quite swift and certain of itself, strong and searching.

When I awoke she was gone. There was a rusty old projector in the back of my mind, showing underexposed film on a mildewed screen. The projection bulb kept burning out and the film kept jamming in the gate, but by watching closely I could make most of it out. Memory was healing itself, taking me from banyan shelter in the rain to Fifteen Hundred to my talk with the bald man.