Pale Gray for Guilt (9 page)

"It isn't like that this time."

"Then, you come set on the stoop."

"Thank you. My name is McGee." When we had climbed the steep steps and were seated, Carbee in a rocker and me in an old kitchen chair that had several generations of different shades of paint showing, I said, "I just bought the Bannon place on the river from the widow."

"Did you, now? I seen her once and him twice. Heard he kilt himself last Sunday morning when he found he'd lost the place. Great big old boy he was. Him and that Tyler Nigra come on me one morning drifting on the bay. Year ago maybe. Heavy fog, and me out too deep to pole and the ingin deader'n King Tut. That Tyler knows ingins like he invented them. Spring thing busted on the little arm for the gas feed, and that Tyler fixed it temporary with a little piece of rubber, got it running good. That Bannon wouldn't take a thing for it. Neighborly. Couldn't been too much longer after that Tyler quit him. Heard Tyler is working at the motorsyckle place in town. Anywhere there's ingins he's got a job of work. Maybe Bannon knowed and maybe he didn't that when Tyler quit him, it was because no Nigra with sense like Tyler's got is going to stay in the middle of any white man's fussing. If you're going to run that place, Mr. McGee,, the first thing you better do is get Tyler back, that is if you're peaceful with everybody."

"I'm not going to run it, Mr. Carbee. I bought it as an investment."

"Lease it off to somebody to run?"

"No. Just let it sit."

I let him ponder that one, and at last he said, "Excuse me, but it don't make good sense, unless you got it for the land value alone. The buildings are worth more than the land."

"It depends on who wants the land."

He nodded. "And how bad."

"Mr. Carbee, I've been checking land ownership at the courthouse. You own the two-hundred-acre piece that starts at my east boundary"

"Could be."

"Ever thought of selling it?"

"I've sold a little land now and again. I've got maybe seventeen, eighteen hundred acres left, scattered around the east county, and except for this hundred right here, my home place, I imagine it would all be for sale if the price was right. You thinking of making an offer? If so, you better come up with the best you can do right off, because I don't dicker. Man names a price, I say Yes or I say No, and that's it."

"Best offer, eh? I better tell you, Mr. Carbee, that I would be gambling on being able to pick up other parcels too, and gambling on being able to do it while my chance of resale is still good, resale of the whole two sections. And I'll tell you right now that if everything does work out, I'll make a nice profit, but if it doesn't, I'll have some working capital tied up until I can find some way of getting it back out. The best I can offer on an immediate sale-provided the title is clear of course-would be five hundred an acre."

He rocked forward and slapped his big bare feet on the boards and peered at me. "One hunnerd thousand!" he whispered.

"Less your share of the closing costs."

He got up and stamped over to the railing and spat. I knew the turmoil in his mind. He had wanted to check and see if he had optioned the two hundred acres to Preston LaFrance at a good figure. Two hundred dollars an acre had seemed like a good deal until I named my price. I could assume Tush's investigation was correct, and LaFrance's option was good until April. He wouldn't dare tell me about the option, for fear I would make my deal with LaFrance. And he was afraid that if he told me the land was not for sale, opportunity might move on to some other location and then he might not even get his two hundred an acre.

It was a pretty problem, and I wondered how he would handle it. He came back and sat down. The chair creaked. "Tell you what," he said placidly. "I have to think on that. And I should talk to the man that turns in the government figures for me when I sell things and see where that would put me on taxes and so on. Let me see now. This being Thursday the twenty-third day, that would mean two weeks from today would be… January fourth. Then I'll know more what I should ought to do. A man can't jump at a piece of money like that right off. He has to set and taste it a time."

"I understand. But you will have to tell me Yes or No when I see you again."

"One other thing. You said you were taking a gamble. What you might do is figure on maybe me taking some of the risk too, Mr. McGee."

"How so?"

"From what you said, if your deal doesn't work, then you got a hundred thousand tied up and it will take a long time to move that land at that price. But if it goes like you're hoping, you turn a good profit on it. Maybe double?"

"Maybe not."

"Let's think on it being double. One thousand dollars an acre, two hundred thousand all told. So maybe we could get a paper drawed up between us, a contract saying that you give me five thousand cash money in hand that says come next… oh let's say April the fifteenth… you got the right to buy the land from me for four hundred an acre if you're willing to buy and I'm willing to sell. And if it works out that way, then if you resell it any time inside two years or three, you agree to pay me half the difference between what you bought it for and what you get for it. So if it was for one thousand, you'd for sure clear three hundred an acre profit, and no chance getting stuck with it. Of course if I want to sell on April the fifteenth and you don't want to buy, I keep your five thousand. But if you want to buy and I've decided not to sell, you get it all back."

He looked at me, benign and gentle and O so eager to be agreeable and fair to all. Way up the coast from us were the little nests of the hideaway rnansions of the international bankers, and to the south of us was all the trickery and duplicity of hotel and resort syndicate financing. He had the precise look of a man betting into a pair of kings showing, and him with a three in the hole and a pair of threes up, and a perfect recollection of having seen the other two kings dealt to hands that had folded, one of them a hole card inadvertently exposed when the hand was tossed in.

"Mr. Carbee," I said. "I think we'll get along fine. You might even sell me an undivided half interest for two hundred an acre, and we could make it a joint venture."

"It'll be a pleasure to do business with you, Mister." It seemed to me that old Mr. D. J. Carbee could have floated very nicely in the tricky currents of Hobe Sound or Collins Avenue, and I had a sudden respect for the guile of Preston LaFrance. But I did not envy him the little talk he was going to have to have with the old man just as soon as the old man could catch up to him. There was a shaggy old highsided International Harvester station wagon parked over near the dog run, and it seemed probable that D.J. would be going into Sunnydale either this evening or early in the morning.

It was full dark when I drove into the city of Broward Beach. The stores were open, because tomorrow was Christmas Eve. Hefty Salvation Army lassies in their wagon-train bonnets dingle-dangled spare change into their kettles, and fat foam Santas were affixed to the palm boles and light standards, high enough to keep the kids from yanking their foam feet off. "Adeste Fidelis" was coming from somewhere, possibly a downtown church, electronic chimes that could rattle fillings in teeth, and overpowered the retail sound tracks of sprightlier seasonal music. I went through town and out to the beach and parked in the lot of the place I had told her to be, an expansive, glossy, improbable motel called Dune-Away, with a place pasted to it called The Annex, where food and drink was worth the prices they charge, even in the off season, and where if an attractive lassie wishes to be picked up, the hard-nose management will smooth the way, and if she doesn't, those same professionals can chill the random Lothario quickly, quietly and completely.

I looked at the lounge from the doorway and saw her alone at a banquette against the far wall. As I headed across toward her I was aware of a wary waiter also moving on an interception course. But he and I saw her quick recognition and saw her face light up in greeting. So he held the table out for me to sit beside her, and went off with our order.

"You missed our boy by ten minutes," she said. "He was very dear. Not my type. One of those narrowboned dark ones, a bit stuffy. He wants to be with it, but he laughs a little too soon or a little too late, and he seems to sit and steer his car instead of drive it. Let me see. He's thirty-one and he's been married to Linda for five years, and they have two kids and she is a fantastic golfer, and her father owns the Buick Agency in Sunnydale, and he is worried about her drinking. He kept giving me a certain business with the eyebrows that maybe he learned in front of his mirror, and I made his hands clammy when we sat close. He didn't have the guts to take a hack at me right out of the clear blue. He'd have to be encouraged so that then he could tell himself he hadn't started it, and he's only human, isn't he? He's very nervous about the impression he makes, and he's steeped in all that radical right wing hoke about conspiracies and a bankrupt America and Chinese bombs, and it was a drag to listen big-eyed to that fired gunk and say Oh and Ahh and Imagine that! He does a lot of civic stuff and joins everything, and thinks of himself as being the fearless attorney, standing up for right and purity. As the dear judge would say-Bullshit. He tried to help Tush Bannon, and then when it got a little sticky, he dropped him. Know how he explained it to me? This is precious!"

She paused for the waiter to serve the drinks, then went into an imitation of Steve Besseker. "So long as we are operating under the Capitalistic System, Puss, and remember it is the best the world has yet devised, men will take business risks and some will win and some will lose. I won't deny there were certain pressures on Bannon, but he got so he thought everything was some kind of a plot. He started whining and stopped fighting. That's when I lost my respect for him and washed my hands of him."

"Yes," I said. "That is precious. That is very dear."

"I never met your friend Tush, Travis. But I don't think he ever whined."

"He wouldn't know how. Congratulations. You snowed him very nicely. Have any trouble with it?"

"None! I hitched my chair closer and closer to his and I kept my voice very low and full of secrets, and I kept my eyes wide and I put my fingertips on his arm. I told him that I was employed by Gary Santo and we had investigated him and it was Mr. Santo's decision that he could be trusted with certain delicate and private negotiations involving one of Mr. Santo's operations in this area, and could be trusted not to reveal the name of his client. I explained that it was so hush-hush that if he was foolish enough to even try to reach Mr. Santo by phone or in person, he would ruin everything for himself. But if things went well, then he could think in terms of a retainer of five figures annually. You know, when he began to swallow it, his eyes looked glazed and his mouth hung open. I almost started laughing. So he phoned the query about the eighty thousand to the bank like a good little fellow, and he was so upset when he met me later and told me that Mrs. Bannon had regained title and then sold it to some mysterious stranger named McGee from Fort Lauderdale. I thought he would cry. I told him I was sure that Mr. Santo would be convinced that he had done all he could. I told him he would get his instructions from me by phone or in person. I asked him if he would be willing to meet me sometimes, if it was necessary. In Miami, or even Havana or New York. All expenses paid, of course."

"Who told you to say that?"

"I made it up. It seemed like a good idea. I mean it makes him think more about me and not so much about it being a pretty funny way for a man like Santo to do business. Was I wrong?"

"No. I like it. And the final little hook? Did you remember to get that in?"

"Yes, but very casual, and not until he came in here to have a drink with me. I just said that I know the way Mr. Santo's mind works, and he would certainly wonder if there was any connection between a Mr. Preston LaFrance and Mr. McGee, any business connection, and if he could find out in advance of my phoning him about it, it might make a good impression on Mr. Gary Santo."

"Reaction?"

"Nothing in particular. He said he'd try to find out." She shrugged. "He's just a trivial little man, honey, really. And this is the first little whiff he's had of something big and important and kind of glamorous, and he can't hardly stand it. Feed me, please. I'm sitting here aching and gnawing, and I keep looking at that door where the waiters go by with those steaks."

She ate with a savage and elegant precision, and an occasional little sound of contentment. I told her that as a reward for special sly services and for being a persuasive liar, I would take us to the most elaborate accommodations the Dune-Away could provide.

"And go back in the boat in the morning?" she asked. "Would it be vulgar, dear, if I asked a special favor? So much has happened and I am so pooped, really, that all I can think about is that gigantic, fantastic, marvelous bed aboard the Flush, and it would be a nice place to wake up on the morning before Christmas, and I want to get to that bed faster than your pretty little boat can get me there. Possible?"

"Race you to the car, Red."

She was asleep by the time I hit the first stoplight, and slept all the way back, and groused about being shaken awake to walk from the car to the houseboat. I made her stand on the dock while I went aboard and, before unlocking the door, checked the little bulbs behind the sliding panel in the outside port bulkhead of the lounge. The bulbs were out, so I turned the knife switch below the bulb, turning off the little Radar Sentry that monitored the belowdecks areas of the Flush while I was away from her. Had anyone broken in, their mass and movement would have closed the circuit that lighted the two hidden bulbs, or lighted one of them if by any chance the other had burned out. The gadget can be rigged if anyone wants, to turn on floodlights or sound a siren or even phone the cops. But I didn't want an alarm system that would spook the intruder. I just wanted to know if I'd had visitors, and then I could take the necessary steps to make them welcome if they happened to be still there.