A Purple Place for Dying (14 page)

"I went through John's papers today. He had a twenty thousand dollar insurance policy, a group thing through the school. I'm the beneficiary. When they find his body I'll get the money and give you half to find who did it."

"That isn't necessary"

"Do you know what I'm going to do with that money?"

"No."

"I still have that non-transferable lease. I am going back to the islands. My father changed the name of it to Webb Cay. I can get the house fixed up. I could live there on the income from twenty thousand. Forever. My God, I am sick of people. I've had enough to last me the rest of my life. I could be contented there. In this incarnation, I just didn't make it. I'll mark time and wait for the next one, Travis."

I took the drugstore tube out of my jacket pocket and put it in front of her. "Little present. It's that sun-proofing stuff for your lips."

She picked it up, peered at the label in the dim light, and then began to cry.

I was a few minutes late. He was pacing around in his driveway. He grunted a surly welcome, and then tried to make a sports car out of his big Chrysler. We burst out of the city, hurtling north toward the bailiwick of the Rupert clan, through a cool blue night, with a faint red still visible along the western horizon.

I had one of those strange moments of unreality, that old what-am-I-doing-here feeling. I did not know this rugged old bastard, had not known his wife, had not planned this much involvement with his life. Somehow, without meaning to, I had forfeited a part of my necessary independence. I was uncomfortable in a crypto-employee role. A very strange gal was sleeping in my rental bed. And somewhere out in the blue night, a big blonde and a professor were sleeping a good deal more soundly. 'Doesn't know I'm coming," Jass mumbled. "He never goes out. He's always there in the evening."

"What am I supposed to do, Jass?"

"Stand by. Watch him. Listen to him. Later you tell me how much you believe and how much you don't."

"You know him better than I do."

"With Walter Rupert, that ain't much help." It was twelve miles out of town, with a big ranch gate that I had to get out and open and close after Jass took the car through. We went about a half mile and came onto a great sprawled complex of ranch houses, barns, bunk rooms, outbuildings. Jass parked by the largest house and we got out. There was a night-flavor, of life and movement. Lights and bits of music, the sounds of children at play, people going to and fro between other houses. Two cars left, going out the way we had come in.

A man came sauntering out of the shadows and put a light on us. "Mr. Yeoman, isn't it?"

"Want to see Wally"

"You just wait right there a minute, sir."

It was a good five minutes before he came back. "Mr. Rupert he says take you in the main house and have you wait on him. He finishes up what he's doing, he'll be along."

We followed the man into the main house, into a long room with two stone fireplaces, trophies on the wall, deep leather chairs. The man gestured toward a small bar in the corner of the room, said, "He'p yourself, gentlemen," and left us alone.

I fixed a drink for Jass and one for myself. As he took it he said slowly, "The thing is never knowing just how far he would go, one way or another. If we'd stayed locked close in a business way he'd have ate me up, slow and sure, on account of he takes pains with every little tiny thing. I had to pry myself loose. We still have a couple of small things together, but the contact on those is all through lawyers, and they're closing out a little at a time. But by God he should have had the decency to give a man warning. No matter what."

I asked a question. He didn't seem to hear it. I gave up. In a little while I heard the heavy sound of a door closing. A big old man paused in the doorway and looked in at us. He was big-shouldered, big-bellied, broad, bandy-legged. He was dressed like a country deacon, in lifeless black with a white shirt, dark tie. He stood with his chin lowered, looking out at us from under gray shaggy brows, the room lights gleaming on his baldness. His nose was hooked, his mouth large and narrow. Anthropoid arms were heavy and long. He had a masculine force about him, a great presence, born of his certainty of his own force. He was a dynastic man. He was the bull-beast and this was his grassland. Three wives and a score of children seemed a perfectly natural result of this controlled energy.

"Hate to interrupt a man when he's out back someplace bailing up money," Jass said. Rupert stared at me. He came slowly into the room. He made me feel as if I wanted to apologize for something.

"Meet Travis McGee," Jass said. "He works for me."

Rupert stared until he had finished his exhaustive inventory, and then went to the bar and fixed himself a tall glass of soda without ice. As he fixed it, he said, "I was trying to think of the last time you were here, Jasper." His voice was shocking. Apparently something was wrong with his throat. Each word was spaced, given equal weight and emphasis, as though a machine had been taught to talk.

"When Catherine died."

"Long time ago," Rupert said. He sat in one of the leather chairs, his face in shadow.

Jass leaned forward. "I come onto some information, Wally. The government is building a tax case against me. A big one. I find out you've been cooperating with them."

"Yes."

"Couldn't you've tipped me off?"

"Why?"

"Goddammit, it would have been the decent thing to do."

Rupert was silent for what seemed to me a long time. "Long ago, Jasper, we helped each other. Not out of love. We did some things. So we could survive. The things we did were dangerous. There is no statute of limitations about fraud. Now it is up to each of us to save ourself, not the other fellow. You wonder if I made a deal. Certainly. What was the deal? I testified under oath to all I could remember. The records are gone. You know that. I agreed not to inform you. I made a settlement with them. Larger than I'd hoped it would be. But I'm in the clear now, Jasper. They won't smash me or jail me. If they bring criminal charges against you, I will testify. That is part of the deal."

"You son of a bitch," Jass whispered.

"Why get emotional? What should I have done? Be a nice fellow and hurt my family to keep from hurting you? You are a silly man, Jasper. If you were careful, you would have known what they were planning and what they were doing, and maybe you could have protected yourself while there was still time. Maybe you could still run, if you plan it carefully, if you don't attract their attention while you're turning things into cash."

"I don't think I give a damn about all that," Jass said.

For the first time I sensed that Walter Rupert was very slightly off balance. "What?"

"Suppose you didn't tell them everything, Wally."

"I don't understand."

"You could have told them the stuff that makes me look the worst, and saved the stuff that makes you look most like a thief. Maybe, with more information, they'd come back on you again."

"Please try to make sense, Jasper."

"They were going to talk to Mona."

"So?"

"Could she have fixed your wagon a little bit? She and that lawyer of hers dug up some stuff."

"So?"

"They never got to talk to her."

"But they will. I think you should make sure she keeps her mouth shut. Anything she can say will hurt you more than me."

"You hear she'd run off with that schoolteacher?"

"Somebody said something, yes."

"She didn't. Somebody killed the both of them, and tried to make it look as if they'd run off."

After a long silence Rupert said, "Now I know why you wasted your time coming here. I don't have your flaw. I don't get emotional about these things. The answer is no. If a person was a great danger to me, if there was no other way, I could have them killed. But there would be nothing clumsy about it. If you know she didn't run off, this thing must have gone wrong for someone. I would have to know nothing would go wrong, or I wouldn't risk it. No, Jasper. She was no danger to me. You see, when I decided to take my gamble, I decided not to hide anything-even little things that had nothing to do with you and that you never knew about. Because, you see, I know you will fight. The way it is, nothing you can tell them about me will surprise them. I thought it all out. I am not a nice fellow, the way you think of these things. Maybe you're not one either."

Jass stood up quickly. He glared down at Walter Rupert. "You don't scare me, Wally. You scare a lot of people. All these people of yours out here, you got them so scared maybe they could go too far trying to please you. A little hint or something, and they jump the gun. How about that?"

"No, Jasper."

"How can you be so sure?"

With eyes almost closed, Rupert said, "I know what every one of them is doing at all times. I make it my business to know. Some of my sons are very crafty. I'm sorry your girl is dead. But it has nothing to do with me and mine. Goodnight, Jasper."

He didn't stand or speak or even turn his big head when we left the room.

I expected a chilling ride back to the city, but Jass drove very slowly.

"What do you think?" he asked me.

"I don't know. I believe him, I guess. He… he seems to be an unusual man."

Jass snorted. "Unusual! One of those is all the world can stand."

"I guess he's made things pretty rough for you on this tax thing."

"It's going to be bothersome."

"No more than that?"

"It could sting a little. It could cost me. I got a great big packing case full of old records. I'll drag it out long as I can, then when it gets real tight, I'll all of a sudden find those records. A lot of them are correct and a lot of them are part correct and a lot of them have got nothing to do with anything that ever happened. By the time that stuff gets all hashed out they'll start dickering toward a settlement. If I don't like it, I just could find two more crates full of old records in a warehouse someplace. I can keep ten CPA's and ten lawyers going for a long time. Maybe as long as I live. And then who gives a damn?"

"You must have been a great pair, you two. The fox and the weasel."

"Watch your mouth, son."

"How did the widows and the orphans make out when you two were operating?"

"They stood in line for it, boy. They always do. Ring the bell and the suckers come on the run. In this world, you either take or you're tooken. Figures lie and liars figure, and the only thing worth all the trouble is a good bourbon, a good bed and a busy woman. There are a hundred and fifty thousand new folks, net, in the world every day, and the sun will set on all but one or two of them before they can even get to lift their head. So set the hook deep while you got the chance."

"The Yeoman philosophy."

"It's worked so far."

He turned into his drive and I said, as he parked it, "It's worked fine, I guess, Jass. You're in such great shape right now."

As we walked toward the doorway of his house he said, "But think how good I had it, and how long I had it good."

"I liked you a little better when you were talking about burying a jackrabbit, Mr. Yeoman."

"Don't get the wrong idea," he said. "I loved that woman."

He had stopped in his indignation, turning toward me, and in the heavy shadows of the grounds, I saw the dark shape come plunging out of the tall shrubbery toward him, ten feet behind him and off to the side, and I caught the small flicker of reflected light from a narrow blade held low. I was very close to choking up. A knife will do that. It freezes the lower part of the gut. Astoundingly few people have the stomach even to try to use one. I let out the big bellow as I made my dive. It is a psychological weapon, unexpected and often unnerving. My shoulder bounced Jass back off the the path.

I feinted left and fell right, rolling and swinging my feet up at the shadowy figure. I stamped both heels into it solidly, bellowed again as I used the rebound to roll again, up onto tiptoe and fingertips, facing him. He was half down, making a gasping, grunting noise. But he gathered himself and ignored me and sped toward Jass, crouching low, blade out. Jass shot him twice in the face, and stepped aside like a matador. The figure landed heavily, coughed and spasmed once and was still. The knife tinkled along the path.

"God, I hate a knife!" Jass said in a husky whisper.

Lights were coming on. Excited voices were raised in question. Two men came running up across the yard. Floodlights went on, turned on by somebody inside the house. The two men were in uniform.

"Mr. Yeomanl Mr. Yeoman, you all right? My God, what was that terrible bellering?"

"I'm all right. I thought Fred told you to keep an eye on this place."

"We been watching it, I swear."

"Let's find out who we got here."

They used flashlights to supplement the floodlights. House servants had come out into the yard, staying a cautious distance from the body.

"Whoever he is, he's sure enough dead," one of the deputies said. "You shoot him, Mr. Yeoman?"

"Just because you see this here gun in my hand, and you see that knife he was coming at me with? What in the world would make you think I shot him?"

"Well, I was just…"

"Shut up," Jass said. I moved closer. They had rolled him onto his back. He was young. His elaborate hairdo was in greasy disarray. The ruined face had that pachuco look. It went with the tight pants, the dirty pin-striped button-down shirt under the dark green satin nylon jacket. I had seen him on a hundred corners in a dozen cities, staring at me with a combination of defiance and stupidity, standing with an indolent tomcat grace.

They went through his pockets. He had a hundred dollars, ten tens rolled into a tight cylinder and fastened with a rubber band. He had eighty-eight cents in change. He had a yellow plastic comb. He wore a gold wrist watch that told the time in all the capitals of the world. He wore black suede shoes with thick rubber soles. He wore no socks. He wore a good-luck ring of two pot-metal snakes intertwined.