Part 7 (1/2)
So the kids float. They ram around, amble around, talk and dream, and rediscover all the more simplistic philosophical paradoxes. And the ones in the majority who make it (as apparently Miss Linda Lawson was making it) find some bottom within themselves. A place to stand. A meaning derived from fractionated nonsense. They are not a brighter generation than ever before. They have been exposed to more input, so much they have been unable to appraise and a.s.similate it, but are able to turn it into immediate output, impressively glib, and commercially sincere.
And the few that can't make it, like the younger daughter, exude the ripe odor of the unwashed as opposed to the animal tang of healthy sweat. Their tangled and musty locks make the s.h.i.+ning tresses of the others repugnant to all those Neanderthal spooks who would hate and resent youngness no matter how it might be packaged. The lost ones, like Judy, get so far into the uppers and the downers and the mind benders, hardly ever knowing what they are taking, seeking only something in the blood that will bring the big rush, and warp the world-that if told it would make a nice high, they would stuff a dead toad into their ear. The lost ones trade the clap germs back and forth until they cultivate strains as resistant to penicillin as were the Oriental brands of yore.
It is relaxing to climb down off the egomanic pedestal of guilt and blame and shame and responsibility and say, 'Who told me I have to understand the causes?' There are bad kids. There are bad trees in an orchard, bad apples on any tree, sick worms in any decaying apple. A world of perfection would be absurd. Even Doris Day couldn't sustain that kind of concept. Who needs it? We need the flawed ones, the lost ones, as a form of emotional and social triangulation, to tell us if we've gained an inch since Hammurabi. Rough rough rough on the people who love them, but by some useful design in the human fabric, the rejects manage to kill most of that love by the time they are grown. Think of it, dear Jane Lawson, as a trick of nature whereby some great smirking cowbird came long ago and laid its egg in your nest.
She came back in and said, ”Thanks anyway.”
”Something wrong?”
”She'd gone out the back way. I... had to check up on one of my sneaky spy tricks. That green rubber band around her books. I put a hair from my head under it the day before yesterday. It's still there. If she's not going to school, they're going to pick her up. They'll put her in a state school for girls.”
”Probation for what?”
”I'd rather not say. She's in my custody, but I can't control her.” The tears threatened to come again. ”My lawyer said if we could find a place that would take her, we could jump the gun and go to the judge and get a transfer of custody. A private place. But either they won't take her, or the cost is so fantastic... He's still looking.” She hit her knee with her fist ”What am I supposed to do? Chain her to the wall in her room? Beat her senseless?”
What do you say? My best guess would do Jane Lawson no good whatsoever. My best guess was that the girl was on the edge of leaving for good. And in some city as yet unknown, she would be studied with great care by experts. And if they were to decide it was merchandise worth salvage, she might indeed be beaten into total submission, cleaned up, dressed up, trained, and marketed for a few years. The merchandising experts cruise the bus terminals, and they watch the downtown streets for young girls carrying suitcases or packs. Impersonal appraisal. No uggos, no fatties, no gimps, no rich kids, nothing too too young.
”You didn't come here to get involved in a family problem,” she said. She sighed. ”Maybe in time she'll straighten out.”
”Sure,” I said. We smiled at each other. It was that special social smile people use when they don't believe anything they are saying.
Chapter Eight.
When I phoned Mary Alice early on Sat.u.r.day morning, she said that I'd caught her just before she went out the door. She said she was going to stop and see how Hirsh was and then do some shopping, and then she was going to her health club and work out, like she did every Sat.u.r.day. What did I have in mind? Nothing special and nothing in particular. I had noticed the ocean was flat calm, and the weather people said the wind out of the west would hold all day, and I'd had a runabout tuned, and it was running well. So, running down outside, I could make it in very good time, and I knew a place that put up a good lunch, and I thought maybe we could run down the bay to a place I knew where we could have our own private patch of Atlantic beach for a swim and picnic. What she could do would be set the time when I could pick her up, say at the Royal Biscayne Yacht Club. She could leave her car there. I could drop her off there from the Muequita Muequita later, or if she wanted, she could come back up to Lauderdale with me, and I'd get her back to Miami somehow. later, or if she wanted, she could come back up to Lauderdale with me, and I'd get her back to Miami somehow.
She thought about it and decided that maybe the health club could be canceled out with no problems. That left the necessary shopping and seeing Hirsh and how about noon at that yacht club, okay? I told her twelve-thirty would be better for me, and she said fine.
I phoned the lunch order and told them when I would pick it up. I was unsnapping the big tarp cover off the Muequita Muequita when somebody called my name. Two men stood on the dock, silhouetted against the glare of blue sky, looking down at me. I said I was indeed he. I freed the rest of the snaps, folded, and stowed the tarp, climbed up onto the side deck of the when somebody called my name. Two men stood on the dock, silhouetted against the glare of blue sky, looking down at me. I said I was indeed he. I freed the rest of the snaps, folded, and stowed the tarp, climbed up onto the side deck of the Flush Flush and went aft, wanting a better look at them before deciding whether or not to ask them aboard. and went aft, wanting a better look at them before deciding whether or not to ask them aboard.
”Permission to come aboard?” one of them said.
”Please do.” They came onto the shallow aft deck. Solid handshakes. One was Davis and one was Harris. No first names volunteered. I have spent a lot of years making quick guesses, and at times my health has depended on accuracy as well as speed.
Both in their thirties, both of a size, six feet or a hair under, both somewhere shy of two hundred pounds, both softening in the middle and around the jaws, but not too much. The dark one had a Joe Namath hairdo and a villain's moustache. The other was red-brown and crinkly, with a swoop of sideburns.
The first impression was that they were used to working together. Men who do not know each other well express an awareness of each other in body movements and expressions. Familiar partners act more as if each were alone.
I couldn't put any geography together. The voices were Everywhere voices, like the men who do local news on television. Moustache was tanned, and Sideburns was permanently burned several shades of red, several degrees of peeling. Big hands. Old nicks on the knuckles. A very intent intent expression in the eyes, at odds with casual stance. I could read it very close to cop, but a few things canceled that out. The teeth were the persuasive, gleaming white you get from expensive show biz caps. Twenty-dollar haircuts. A drift of male cologne, leather and pine and fresh paper money. Summer weight knits, both slacks and s.h.i.+rts, and shoes so funny looking they had to be very in. Moustache had a fat gold seal ring on his pinky with a green stone in it. expression in the eyes, at odds with casual stance. I could read it very close to cop, but a few things canceled that out. The teeth were the persuasive, gleaming white you get from expensive show biz caps. Twenty-dollar haircuts. A drift of male cologne, leather and pine and fresh paper money. Summer weight knits, both slacks and s.h.i.+rts, and shoes so funny looking they had to be very in. Moustache had a fat gold seal ring on his pinky with a green stone in it.
In the back of my head all the troops hopped up out of the sack, grabbed weapons, and piled into the vehicles. They raced out to the edge of camp and set up a perimeter defense and then lay and waited, weapons off safety, loaded clips in place, grenades handy.
”Can we talk, Mr. McGee?”
”No reason why not,” I said. I sat on the rail, one leg swinging free, the other foot braced, the knee locked.
Moustache was Davis. Memory trigger: Jeff Davis, dark hair, moustache. Harris: Harris tweed, tweedledee and dum. I didn't believe either name. I made no suggestions about where to sit. There was no awkward social hesitation. Davis folded himself into the deck chair, and Harris sat on the curve of railing six feet from me.
”We're representing somebody,” Harris said. ”He doesn't want his name brought into the deal yet.”
”What deal?”
”There's a situation he wants you to look into,” Davis said. ”He thinks he's been had. He thinks he got tricked into the short end of a deal.”
”You're confusing me, gentlemen.”
”What's to confuse?” Harris asked, faking bewilderment. ”He may want you to take a shot at salvaging the deal for him, getting back what he got conned out of. Isn't that what you do?”
”Do what?”
”Salvage work!” work!”
”I don't do anything. I'm retired. Oh, sometimes I do a favor for a friend. I think the man you represent needs a licensed investigator.”
”No, Mr. McGee,” said Harris. ”He needs you. He was very firm on that particular point. The way this thing is shaping up, he maybe might need you at a moment's notice. So he would be very grateful to you if you would just sit tight and wait to hear.” He reached into his pants and took some bills folded once out of his side pocket. He pulled the bills out of a gold clip which said ”After Tax” in block letters. He crackled and snapped five one hundreds, one five hundred free of the pack, reclipped the rest and put it away, folded the bills and took a long reach and shoved them into my s.h.i.+rt pocket. ”Just to show he isn't kidding around.”
”I couldn't help anybody I don't know.”
”If he needs your help, you'll get get to know him.” to know him.”
I pulled the money out and held it toward Harris. He pulled back. I tossed them into Davis' lap and said, ”Sorry.”
”You busy or something?” Harris asked with just a shade too much casual innocence.
”I'm doing a favor for a friend of a friend. Trying to, at least.”
”What I think you should do is drop that one,” Davis said.
”Should I?”
”The man we're talking about,” he continued, ”he heard about you someplace or other, and he got a good impression. He's not used to asking people for help, and they say they're busy or some d.a.m.n thing.”
”We all have these little disappointments in life.”
”Is that smarta.s.s?” Harris asked.
”I didn't mean it that way. Think of it this way, gentlemen. If we all got exactly what we wanted all the time, wouldn't life get very dull?”
”This man gets what he wants,” Davis said.
”Not this time.”
”Suppose he wants to give you a choice, McGee,” Harris said. ”Suppose he keeps the deal open, and when you get out of the hospital and you can move around again pretty good, he sends somebody to ask you again.”
I stared at him and then at his partner. ”Now come on on! What's your script anyway? Kick my spine loose and drive away in your 1928 LaSalle? You two looked and acted and talked like you know the names and numbers of all the players. All of a sudden, Harris, you open up with this hospital s.h.i.+t, and you sound like somebody got you from Central Casting.”
Davis in the deck chair gave me the smile of a lazy hyena. ”Every once in a while he does that,” he said. ”Remember that old movie, The French Connection The French Connection? Want to know how many times this crazy t.u.r.d went to see it?”