Part 11 (2/2)
”I think it was just accident. There aren't so many places with a summer show, and a man roving around could come there and be as surprised as I was to see him. Trav. you be careful getting near him. He's mean as anything you like to find in a swamp.”
”I'll be careful.”
”I have the feeling he's not long for this world, and I don't want him taking you with him when he goes. I think when they had him locked away for five years, something went wrong with him. Something stopped. Something other people have. And he's sly. He must have tricked my daddy, and my daddy was real sly hisself, they say.” She stared thoughtfully at me. ”I guess you have to be a sly man too. Your face doesn't show much. But go careful with him, like as if he's a snake.”
I got back to the Busted Flush at six-thirty. The rain had washed the sunset time to a lambent beauty. A fine east wind had driven the bug life inland. Scores of little groups were c.o.c.ktailing aboard their craft, lazy-talking, working themselves into Sat.u.r.day night.
Buddy Dow, hired skipper of a big lunker owned by an insurance company in Atlanta, had enlisted two recruits and was despairingly in need of more. He tried to enlist me, and I paused for a moment to say no politely. He had them primed. A plain h.e.l.lo was a comedy line that set them all giggling. What Buddy calls the dog-ratio ran pleasantly low on this group. I had the feeling that if I got too close, greedy secretarial hands would haul me aboard, kicking and screaming. They all work toward a memorable vacation.
I went on along to my broad scow, and for a time it seemed as if she wasn't going to unlock it and let me inside. When she did, she went running to the couch and threw herself face down, rigid.
”What's the matter with you?”
An agony had blanched and dwindled her face. ”He's here,” she whispered.
”Junior Allen?”
”He saw me.”
She was too upset to be very coherent, but I got it all out of her. She had gone down to the marine supply place to look for some kind of a small present for me. Just to give me a present. And she had wandered out onto the gas dock just beyond the offices and the tall control tower for the marina. And the Play Pen had been there, ga.s.sing up. Junior Allen had straightened up, stared at her, grinned at her, and she had fled.
”He didn't follow you?”
”No. I don't think so.”
”Was he alone?”
”No.”
”Who was with him?”
”I don't know. Young people. Three or four. I don't know. All I could see was him.”
”What time was all this?”
”A-about quarter after five, I think.”
Once
w.i.l.l.y LAZEER is an acquaintance. His teeth and his feet hurt. He hates the climate, the Power Squadron, the government and his wife. The vast load of hate has left him numbed rather than bitter. In appearance, it is as though somebody bleached Sinatra, skinned him, and made w.i.l.l.y wear him.
I knew he was off at six, and I knew it took him an hour of beer to insulate him against going home, and I knew where he would be loading up. I sat beside him at the bar. He gave me a mild, dim glance of recognition. His hour was almost up. I prodded his memory.
”Play Pen. Play Pen. Sure, I seen that today.”
”Forty-foot Stadel custom, white topsides, sray hull, blue line. Skippered by a rugged brown guy with white curly hair and small blue eyes and a big smile.”
”So?”
”I was wondering where he's docked.”
”How should I know, McGee? How the h.e.l.l should I know?”
”But you do remember him?”
”He paid cash.”
”Stopped a little after five?”
”So?”
”What kind of people did he have aboard, w.i.l.l.y?”
”Smart-a.s.s kids.”
”Tourists, college kids?”
He stared through me for a moment. ”I knew one of them.”
”One of the kids?”
”What the h.e.l.l are we talking about? One of the kids. Yes. You know over the bridge on the right there, past where they're building is a place called Charlie Char-Broil.”
”I know the place.”
”I seen her there as a waitress. Young kid. They got their names on little badges. Hers is a funny one. Deeleen. I ain't seen her there a couple months. How come I remember her, she got snotty with me one time, bringing me the wrong order.”
It was as far as he could go with it.
I went back to Lois. She had a gla.s.s of bourbon that looked like a gla.s.s of iced coffee. Her smile was loose and wet and her eyes didn't track. I took it away from her and took her into her stateroom. She made little tired singing sounds and lurched heavily against me. I tipped her onto the bed and took her shoes off. In three minutes she was snoring.
I locked up and went off on a Deeleen hunt. Charlie Char-Broil smelled of burned grease, and she didn't work there any more. But a friend named Marianne did, a pretty girl except for a rabbit mouth she couldn't quite manage to close. Nineteen, I guessed. Once she was convinced I wasn't a cop, she joined me in a back booth.
” Dee, she got fired from here when they changed the manager. The way it was, she did anything she d.a.m.n pleased, you know? The manager we had, he was all the time taking her back in the storeroom, and finely somebody told the company. I told her it was the wrong way to act. She had a couple other jobs and they didn't last and I don't see her much any more. I did see her. But, I don't know, some things can get too rough, you know what I mean? Fun is fun, but it gets too rough. What I found out, on a blind date she got for me, geez, it was a guy like could be my father, you know? And there was a h.e.l.l of a fight and I found out she took money from him for me to show up. I ask her what she thinks I am anyhow. I think she's going to get in bad trouble, and I don't want to be around, you know?”
”Where does she live?”
”Unless she's moved-she moves a lot-she's in the Citrus Inn. It's up like opposite Deerfield Beach, kind of an apartment-hotel kind of thing, sort of old and cruddy. In 2A up there, with a girl named Corry, that's where she was last I knew, getting her unemployment.”
That was all the time she could spend with me. She slid out of the booth, patting at the blue and white skirt of her nylon uniform. She seemed to hear the total effect of her own words, and looked a little disconcerted. She was a strong-bodied girl whose rather long neck and small head made her look more delicately constructed than she was. Her fine silky hair was a soft brown with bleached streaks.
”Don't get me wrong about Deeleen,” she said. ”I don't want you should think I'm trine to cut her up. The thing is, she had an unhappy love affair when she was just a kid.”
”How old is she now?”
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