Dead Low Tide (6 page)

It was eleven-thirty by my watch when the MG came snorting and whuffing down the road and side-slipped into my personal jungle. This time she didn’t catch me with the shirt off, just unbuttoned.

She came in as if she lived there, skirt swirling around her lean tan legs. She dropped herself into a chair so hard her legs swung up, and then her heels banged back onto my floor. “God, what a mizrable ole evening, Andy! Just plain terrible.”

“You’re early. Cigarette?”

“Thanks, dear. I had to get away early or die in my tracks.

It was so good of you to change your mind, Andy.”

“I want to talk to you about that. Drink?”

“Bourbon, if you have it. On the rocks.”

I left her there and went out and made her a fat one. She might well need it. I carried it back in to her, sat down opposite her, and sipped my own drink, smiling like a death mask and wondering how to start.

“Did you find out something, Andy?”

“I want to make it clear, Mary Eleanor, that I made no attempt to find out anything.”

“But you did, didn’t you? I can tell. You look and act so funny.”

“I might have.”

“Then you have to tell me. You have to.” She had leaned forward, and her eyes looked like black glass.

“I want a couple of things clear. First, I didn’t try to find out anything. And second, I don’t want the sources to get back.”

“You know you can trust me.” I heard Christy park my car outside, walk off down the road.

Now I had backed myself all the way into a corner. So I gingerly repeated my conversation with John Long, editing it considerably, and watching her face all the time. She sat utterly still. I wished I had seated her where the light would reach her face. I left some things out, and softened the rest of it.

“Tell me what
you
think,” she said, her voice very calm.

“Oh, I think he’s a little sick or something. He knows he needs a rest. And he’s afraid that will interfere with Key Estates. He couldn’t trust Dake or Gordy to do it, alone or together, and—Well, when I went out there, it gave him the idea he could use me along with Dake and Gordy, and get it finished, and it eased his mind.”

She took a cigarette out of her evening case and tapped it
sharply on the back of her hand. “The job is going well out there?” she asked.

“Fine, as far as I could tell. Faster than I thought.”

“You hinted, Andy, about him saying that one of the reasons, or something, for finishing it wasn’t good any more.”

“Something like that. I suppose he meant you can’t enjoy the money you make so much if your health isn’t good. Something like that.”

“But he
did
say you wouldn’t be cheated out of this bonus you’re supposed to get. What does that mean?”

“Well, if he couldn’t actively run the business somebody else would have to, and their ideas might be different.”

“Did you ask him directly what the trouble was?”

I had expected a rattled woman, and Mrs. District Attorney seemed to have arrived. “I asked him if something was bothering him. He said nothing bothered him long.”

“But it all sounded as if he expected—his work to be interrupted.”

“That’s right.”

“And soon?”

“I don’t know. He’s getting me out there soon to break me in on the job.”

“And you think it could be sickness.”

“It just—Well, it just sounded that way.”

She leaned forward suddenly, her arms crossed, braced down against her knees, head lowered so that I was looking directly at the top of her head.

“It sounds as if he thinks he’s going to die,” she said softly. “It sounds just like that. Oh, God—”

“It probably isn’t that serious,” I said.

She sat up, picked up her drink, belted it down without a
pause. As she drained it I heard the shrunken ice cubes clink forward against her teeth.

“What are you going to do?” I asked.

“I truly don’t know. If it’s something I—something he doesn’t want me knowing, then I’ve got to make out to him like I don’t know. I want to thank you for helping me, Andy. It was nice. It was sweet.”

“I didn’t know it was going to come out this way.”

“Of course you didn’t. Andy—you won’t tell anybody about this? That girl, even.”

“No,” I lied. “I won’t tell anybody.”

“He’s a proud man. He wouldn’t like anybody knowing anything like this.”

“Sure.”

She got up in a weary way. She said, “How soon will you go out there? To Key Estates?”

“Tomorrow’s Friday. I guess about the middle of next week, if he gets a man I can break in on chasing materials soon enough.”

I walked her to the door and out to her car. She walked slowly, her head bowed, scuffing her heels. At the car she turned, and said, “If anything—happens to him, Andy, I want you to know I’m glad you’re close by.”

“Thanks.”

She put her hand out and I took it. She held my hand in both of hers. Her hands were small, hot, dry, thin-fingered. There was a feel of restlessness in them.

“I’m still thanking you for finding out, Andy.”

Standing that close, with her hands on mine, I became acutely conscious once more of that invisible emanation, that faint tart effluvium of desire. In spite of her spindly little
body, the chipmunk look of her face with its dark eyes and oversized front teeth, she had that weird knack of making you overly aware of her femininity, aware of a thin urgency in her body, a sort of prehensile inventiveness. I had the crazy feeling that I could kiss her once, pick her up, and carry her—burning in my arms—right back into the house. Maybe there’s an extra sense that enables a woman to sense that particular moment. She let go of my hand and turned and got into her little black bug of a car. I chunked the door shut and she looked up at me. “Anyways, I can see if I can find out what it is. From Dr. Graman. I’ll let you know.”

“I hope you find out we’re wrong.”

“I hope so, Andy. I hope so.”

Her lights went on and she backed in a sharp arc, shot forward down the road, raining shells and sand into the foliage. She left me feeling ashamed of my base instincts, and impressed by her courage. I pried up the top of my car and rolled up the windows. There was a wind off the bay, driving the mosquitoes inland, and the tide was down so there was a fishy tang in the wind. I wandered down the road. There was a light on at Christy’s. I started to look in and then said, “Ooops!”

“Damn Peeping Tom,” I heard her say.

I turned my back and pretty soon, she said, “O.K.” I turned back and she had a robe on and she was on her stomach on her bed, her head at the foot of the bed, six inches from the screen, the light behind her and showing pale through her hair.

“Don’t you ever close blinds?”

“And lose that wonderful breeze? Don’t be silly. Out with it, Andy. Did she blow up?”

“She was like ice. I edged up to it. She took it, filled in the blanks. She isn’t going to let him know she knows. She’s going to check with the doctor.”

“That’s funny, you know. From what you told me about her before. I thought she’d go up like sky rockets. I was going to trot over when I heard screaming.”

“You know, she’s attractive in a funny kind of way.”

“Oh, dear Lord!”

“It was just a comment. I can make a comment.”

“You can make all kinds of comments, McClintock.”

I looked through the screen at her. She looked out at me. I heard my voice drop half an octave, as I said, “Here’s a comment. You look wonderful. Lovely.”

“That’s two comments,” she said, barely moving her lips. “Keep count.”

“I know, I know. And we decided not to—keep on until it was on the same basis as a reflex, didn’t we?”

“Shut up. I’m holding my hand. It wants to creep over and unhook the screen.”

“I’m always irresponsible after midnight.”

“Shut up.”

“But you look so damn good.”

“Shut up.”

“Good night, Christy.”

“Good night, Andy.”

I walked away slowly, quietly. As I reached the road I heard a small grating click. It could have been the screen hook. I looked back. The window was dark. All of Tickler Terrace was dark, except my empty house. I stood in the night, then wiped the palms of my hands on the sides of my
pants and walked toward my place. Partway there I picked up a handful of shells and flung them viciously into the brush. They whipped against the leaves. I felt virtuous, undone, and lonely. I had a noggin twice the size of the one I had fed Mary Eleanor and went to bed.

HAVING, IN MY LONELY SPLENDOR
, forgotten to set the alarm, I found Joy Kenney waiting when I arrived break-fastless at nine-fifteen. I let her in and went down to Saddler’s and had a quick breakfast.

When I got back Big Dake was waiting for me. His right name is Bigelow Dake, and he looks like something out of the Old Testament. Big, mild, bearded—and full of unshakable convictions about everything. He is a master builder. He was a successful man in Michigan when his wife died several years ago. They were childless, and he decided there was no point in continuing. He sold out, stopped shaving, moved to Florida, built a house with his hands, to die in, then got so bored he had to go to work or go crazy. He has a massive contempt for the short-cut shoddy methods that John Long often uses. If he were willing to accept the responsibilities, he could set up and, with his knowledge, become one of the finest
builders on the west coast of Florida, because he has no reluctance about using experimental materials, or building to the most advanced designs. But should he do that, unless he could hire someone to translate his orders to his workmen, he would fail, because there is his weak point, and the one place where he gives me trouble.

He was in, as usual, because of trouble. Half the crew had quit because he had fired one unskilled laborer. I’d fix it up for him to hire the man back and I’d switch him over to Gordy’s job, and everybody would be happy. I asked him how things were going otherwise, and he said things were fine, provided you liked your buildings constructed of cardboard and spit, and he lumbered out, looking like a benign bear.

I barely had time to get Joy going on some routine work when Steve Marinak came in, wearing an orchid shirt with gray globs on it. He sat down and panted and thumbed open his briefcase and pulled out an impressive-looking document and handed it to me. “John says for you to tuck this away safe, Andy.”

“What is it?”

“Contract between you and John Long, Contractors, Incorporated. He has the authority to commit the corporation. Doesn’t make much sense to me, though. The contract does, because I wrote it, but the idea of making out a contract isn’t the way he usually operates.”

I read it carefully. It was very fine. In the event that John Long, through his own choice, or through circumstances outside his control, was unable to finish Key Estates, I would be placed in charge at a salary of two hundred a week. And as each house was sold at the figure shown in the planning
schedule, I would receive a bonus of three hundred dollars. Close to an eight thousand dollar bonus.

It began, almost, to sound as if there
were
opportunities in small organizations. I didn’t want Steve worrying about his good friend John Long, so I said, “Oh, I just told John that I’d rather have a contract.”

“Is he going to let you finish off his baby?” Steve asked, his round eyes going wide.

“He might. I guess he’s got other plans, too.”

“Well, come on and we’ll get your signature notarized, too, and then you can hide it in some safe place.”

We stood on the street afterward and he told me about his two redfish and I told him about the snook, and he said when things were organized we’d have to go out on his boat after some kings. He started away and then turned back, and said, “Where’ve I seen that girl in your office?”

I named the restaurant.

He poked me with his chubby elbow and winked, and said, “Maybe she can learn to type, too.”

“A hell of a reputation I’ve got around here,” I complained. “Fitch sent her over and she’s damn good.”

“I only wish I had your youthful vigor again, Andrew.”

I inferred that he was a disreputable old goat, but he merely looked soulful and plodded away, his red neck on fire in the sunlight. I got back to the office and found that eighteen things were all going wrong at once. The rest of my day was a vague blur of irritation and purposeless energy through which stalked the tall coolness of Joy Kenney, unflaggingly efficient, calm, resourceful.

At the end of the day when I was ready to stagger home, I was perfectly willing to admit that I didn’t know how I’d
manage without her. Again she turned down a ride. I collapsed for a time with a tall cold gin drink, then showered and hunted up Christy.

She told me I looked pretty, and she too wanted to get away from it all, so we drove up to Sarasota and had dinner on me in celebration of the raise I had forgotten to tell her about. We had dinner at the Plaza, compared weather notes with Randy, and over dinner, I told her about my contract, which she admired greatly.

“Watch it, boy, or you’ll be moving away from Tickler Terrace. Your position, you know.”

“Never. I’m too fond of you common people.”

“You flatter us, sire.”

After dinner we went over and listened to Charlie for a time, and we drank out of the cool copper mugs, and maybe because the piano was saying the right words, or the wrong ones, we got that feeling of falling into each other’s eyes, and I knew it had been the hook on the screen that had grated, and I knew it was all something we shouldn’t begin again, that it would do no good, and knew at the same time that we were going to begin again, because, looking back, we knew it had been shaping up again for too many long weeks, too many indeed.

On the way back she sat close to me, and there were Cuban drums on the car radio, and we had nothing to say to each other, which, at the time, seemed perfectly right and good. We were back at one-thirty and my Christy got out of the car and stretched like a big sleepy golden cat, and we went into the darkness of my house, hand in hand. In the stillness I heard a familiar sound that for a moment I could not identify. Then I recognized it as the ping that the back screen
door always makes. I left her and went through the house, just as fast and quietly as I could. I found the switch and turned on the floodlight over the kitchen door. It made a harsh white light on the bushes, and I heard a thrashing and then silence, and a distant pad of feet on the sand road, fading.