Part 15 (1/2)
Thirteen.
FREDERICK VAN Harn sat in the same rear corner of the limousine as had the Judge. The black chauffeur sat upon a different bench because the shade patterns were different at ten o'clock on that Monday morning. The engine ran as quietly as before, the compressor clicking on and off.
I sat on the same jump seat, turned to face him. I wore boat pants, sandals, a faded old s.h.i.+rt from Guatemala. He wore a beige business suit, white s.h.i.+rt, tie of dark green silk, dark brown loafers polished to satin gloss. As he looked directly at me. I saw that his sideburns were precisely even. The sideburn hair was long, brushed back to cover the ears. Neat little ears, I imagined. Maybe a bit pointed on the top. Olive skin, delicate features, long dark eyelashes, brown liquid eyes.
I had been an annoyance to him when we had met at Jack Omaha's house. He studied me quietly, very much at ease, not the least bit uncomfortable. His hands were long and sinewy, and he clasped his fingers around a slightly upraised knee.
”Mr. McGee, you got under my skin pretty good when we met at Chris's place.”
”You went into a ma.s.sive tizzy.”
He smiled. ”Are you trying to do it again?”
”I don't know. What are you trying to do?”
It was an engaging smile. Very direct. ”I'm trying to get you off my back. Uncle Jake thinks you could hurt me.”
”Don't you?”
The smile faded. He looked earnest. ”I really don't see how. Oh, if you were politically inclined you could give me some static by bringing up the dumb-a.s.s bit about flying marijuana in, but you'd have no proof of that, and I think I could deny it convincingly. Besides, I don't think people are as dead set against it as they used to be. The use of it is too prevalent. I hear that a long time ago the rumrunners were folk heroes along this coast. It's getting to be much the same with gra.s.s. I'm not sure you could hurt me.”
”What if somebody got notarized statements from Betty Joller and Susan Dobrovsky? Do you think your kinky love life could hurt you any if it came out?”
He colored but recovered quickly. ”People must find it remarkably easy to talk to you, McGee. I don't think there's anything kinky about enjoying the hard sell. Reluctance stimulates me. Maybe in retrospect they see it differently than it was. But in both those cases there were plenty of squeals of girlish joy.”
”Joanna thought you were tiresome.”
”Please stop trying to bait me. Let's try to get along at least a little bit. Try to understand each other.”
”What do you want me to understand?”
He shrugged. ”How I was such a d.a.m.ned fool. I'd flown to most of the islands. I'm a good pilot. I've got a good airplane and I keep it in first-cla.s.s condition. As lawyer for Superior Building Supplies, I knew Jack and Harry were in bad shape and things were getting worse. I think it was Jack who brought it up, like a joke. I had said something about falling behind on the ranch payments and trying to get an extension on the loan. He said we ought to work out a way to bring gra.s.s in. He said he could find a nice outlet for us. We met again and planned how we could do it, still treating it as a joke. Finally I went down and lined up a source in Jamaica and then we... went ahead. We couldn't afford much the first time. But it all worked out okay.”
”Tell me about it.”
He shrugged again. ”We'd rendezvous off the north sh.o.r.e of Grand Bahama. The coast was always clear because it's difficult water. I'd circle and drop the stuff. We would have put the big bags inside plastic bags from Omaha's stock and tied the neck so they'd float and the seawater couldn't get to the gra.s.s. They'd gather them in with a boat hook. Very simple.”
”How about the last trip?”
”What about it?”
”Who was involved?”
”Just the four of us. Carrie went with me. Jack and Cal were aboard the boat. I had headwinds and I was a little late coming to the rendezvous point. At about five fifteen Carrie started horsing those sacks out the door. She was a strong person. They picked them up. Nine, I believe there were. So I put my s.h.i.+p right down on the deck and crossed the coast north of here and came down to the ranch and landed. She got in the little truck and went to the marina late that night, and they loaded the stuff into the truck. She drove it to the outlet and got paid off and took the money down and put it in the safe at Superior.”
”What happened to Jack Omaha?”
”I have a theory.”
”Such as?”
”I think some professionals were moving in on us. It was too easy to score. I think they got to Jack and scared him badly. I think that he stayed with Carrie and they went down and emptied the safe and went their separate ways. A lot of that money was supposed to be mine. It would have helped me a lot to have it. As it was I had to arrange to... borrow it.”
”From Uncle Jake Schermer?”
His smile was ironic. ”And a lot of advice went along with the money. He was upset about the whole thing. I couldn't make him understand that it wasn't as important as he was making out. It was... a caper. It was fun, d.a.m.n it. Everybody in the group got along all right. Low risk and good money. We were planning on making one or two more trips and then splitting the money and calling it a day. I wanted to come out of it with two hundred thousand clear. And that's what Jack Omaha felt he needed to save the business.”
”Harry Has...o...b..wasn't in on it?”
”Harry talks to make himself important. He talks in bars. And bedrooms. Harry is a jerk. I'm talking to you now, McGee, but there is no part of this you can prove. There is no basis for indictment by anybody.”
”And the Judge and his group are going to make certain you have a nice clean record because you are going to make them all rich and happy.”
After a flash of anger he spoke slowly and judiciously. ”I don't know how much good I'm going to do them. I really don't. The timing is right. I can get elected. The campaign will be well financed. The inc.u.mbent is senile. I've built a good base here. I plan to announce right after the wedding. I love this part of Florida. I'm not at all certain I'd be in favor of a new deepwater port and a lot of phosphate mining and processing. It's a dirty industry. The port will bring in other industries. Maybe a refinery. But those are low employment prospects. They won't keep young people from leaving the Bayside area. And they will pollute the water and the air. On a risk/reward basis I can't make it add up. I have the feeling I want to work in the best interests of the people who will vote me into office, not the few men who have been grooming me for office.”
He was impressively convincing. He emanated a total sincerity. Right at that moment he had my vote. I could see what it was about him that made the Judge label him charismatic. He talked to me as if I were the most interesting person he would meet this year.
”What do you think I ought to do?” he asked me.
”Do what you think is right.”
”That sounds so easy. Right and wrong. Black and white. Up and down. It divides the substances of life unrealistically. The world is often gray and sideways. According to the game plan, if I go to Tallaha.s.see I ought to be able to move the situation along in five to six years. If there is world famine by then, it will be the thing I should do.”
He sighed and shrugged.
”Well, it's my problem and I will have to make the decision. I know I'm going to run for the office. I'll just have to take one step at a time. McGee, I want to thank you for listening to me. I haven't killed anybody. I don't know where the money went. I got into a foolish situation because I didn't weigh all the consequences. And I'm glad now that it's over. I know that the chemistry between us is not good. I can't help that. I don't expect everybody to like me. I'll depend on, your sense of fair play.”
I found myself shaking hands with him. I got out of the car hastily, and after it drove away I wiped my hand on the side of my trousers. I felt dazed. He had focused a compelling personality upon me the way somebody might focus a big spotlight. He had that indefinable thing called presence, and he had it in large measure. I tried to superimpose the new image upon the fellow I had met in Jack Omaha's house, listlessly tying his tie after a session in Jack Omaha's bed. That fellow's anger had been pettish, slightly shrill. I could overlap my two images of the man. I wondered if my previous image had somehow been warped by the great blow on the back of the head when the explosion had hurled me off my feet.
This man had been engaging, plausible, completely at ease. He made me feel as if it were very nice indeed to be taken into his confidence. There were dozens of things I wanted to ask him, but the chance was gone. The chance had driven away in a gleaming limousine, cool in the heat of the morning.
Yes, if he could project all that to a group, he could be elected. No sweat.
Yet where were you, Van Harn, when big Cal Birdsong was dying in the hospital, with a thin wire sticking him in the heart? Were you beside the bed, charismatic and relaxed? When your men clear new ranchland, do they blow the pine stumps with dynamite? Did those lean sinewy hands hoist Carrie into the front corner of the Dodge truck? Exactly how did you make Susan look so sick at heart, so defeated and sad?
I had been trying to make it all a single interrelated series of acts of violence. But his convincing presence was making it all come unstuck, turning it all into unrelated episodes.
Harry Max Scorf said, ”Have a nice chat?” Usually I can sense people who move up close behind me. Something gives me warning. Not this time. I leapt into the air.
”Jesus!”
”Nope. Only me. Harry Max Scorf.”
”Of the City and County of Bayside. I know. I know.”
”Your nerves aren't real good, son.”
”Yes, I had a nice chat. What else is new?”