The Long Lavender Look (18 page)

"But Mister McGee here seemed anxious to find him?"

"Well ... sort of. And I can understand that, can't you? After all, that man Lew hurt was a very good friend of Travis's. Wouldn't you look for somebody who beat up a friend of yours? Of course, maybe you don't have any friend in particular, Billy."

I saw the momentary narrowing of his eyes. And then he smiled blandly. "Then McGee was only half anxious to locate Lew?"

"That's about it."

"Speaking of my having a friend, Betsy, you've got a real talent for friendship, believe you me."

She turned and leaned her hips on the countertop and bit into her sardine sandwich. "Why, thank you, Billy!"

"I think old Homer ought to write you up in that new brochure he's doing for the Chamber of Commerce."

"How do you mean?"

"I don't rightly know. Maybe like sort of a natural resource of Cypress County. It isn't every little city back here in the swamp country that's got a nice dining room with good food and a hostess with the biggest set of knockers south of Waycross."

Her lips tightened and she held her sandwich out of the way and looked down at herself. "Now Billy. They's not so much of a much." Her accent was turning swampy. "Must be forty fifty women around these parts wear a D-cup, too. Looks like a lot to you on account of the rest of me is on the skimpy side."

"Well, I guess there's enough men around here and there who'd testify they're real enough,
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Betsy." This was a strong sexual antagonism coming out into the open.

She colored, then smiled. "Oh, Billy Cable, I know you're only funnin' me, but when you try to kid around, honey, it comes out like dirty talk. You just don't have the touch. I know you don't mean anything wrong."

"It's nice the way you throw everything into your work Miz Kapp. Obligin'."

She made a plausible attempt at merry laughter, and looked over at me and said, "Darlin', ol'

Billy here could testify how real they are. Must have been a year and a half ago-"

"Watch it!" Billy said sharply.

"Now you started this, Billy, and Mr. McGee might be amused. I thought some sex maniac had got me. Like to scared me to death. I was walking from the Lodge over to my car on a dark night and got grabbed from behind. A girl friend told me one time the thing to do is go all limp and fall down, never try to fight. Well, I sat down on the parking tot and he let go, and I got a look at him, and what do you know, there was ol' Billy weaving and smiling down at me, just couldn't stop hisself from reaching around me and grabbing away like he was trying to honk those old-timey automobile horns. A girl could get a cancer that way. Well, sir, I was so scared and mad I hopped up and swang my pocketbook and knocked poor Billy's glasses right off and they busted. And that made him so mad, he took a swing like to slap my head loose, but I ducked back and Billy fell down. Then what was it you were going to do to me, Billy?"

"Knock it off, Betsy."

"Something about I should take him home with me or I was going to get arrested for every kind of thing he could think of. What did I say Billy?"

"Shut up, Betsy. I forget."

"I said I'd rather spend five years in a prison laundry than five minutes in bed with you. Billy?"

He looked at her and did not answer. She took two steps toward him, thrust her jaw toward him and said in a low voice, "And it's still exactly the same way Deputy. There's nothing you could ever do or say that'd make me change my mind."

He stared at her and then at me. Expressionless masklike face, but the eyes behind the lenses held a cold reptilian venom. He spun and left, slamming the room door, slamming the cruiser door, shrieking rubber halfway to the front exit onto the highway.

She ran to me and I held her in my arms. She was trembling and panting. Aftermath of another of the games Betsy played. But this game was obligatory. And, in its own way, valiant. Nothing but a cap pistol and a cheap whip between her and the tiger.

"I ... I'm sorry it had to be in front of you, Travis."

"I understand."

"Do you? I can't ever let him get away with any part of it, anywhere, no matter what. If I ever do

... then he'll take me, and I don't think I could stand it. It wouldn't be ... nice."

That was the inevitable stipulation. Nice. "Go eat your sandwich, woman."

She walked over and took it from the countertop and said, "He's going to hate you now because you heard it all."

"So I'm about to faint with pure terror."

She hoisted herself up and sat on the countertop, thin legs swinging, holding the sandwich in both hands, munching.

"What a crazy day," she said. "What a weird kind of day!"

"Just wondering something. How did Billy Cable take it when you and Lew Arnstead got together?"

"Not so good. I told Lew about how Billy kept circling me. He thought it was funny. I told him he better not make any smart remarks to Billy about the whole thing. Billy is chief deputy, and there are ways he could make things bad for Lew. They had it out, finally. Lew whipped him, but he didn't tell me any details."

Thick sandwiches and cold beer. She yawned deeply, her face softening, and her eyes suddenly heavy, an abrupt change like that of a sleepy child. She slumped onto the bed and slipped her
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shoes off and yawned again. "Honest, I've got to have a nap."

"You have permission."

She pulled the pillow out from under the spread and lay back. "We can go home later. I wish I could think. What you said about my knowing something and not knowing what I know. There is something, but I can't find it in my head."

"Try again when you wake up."

"Dear?"

'What?"

"Don't try to make love to me, huh? I haven't got anything with me. And ... I might be too willing. That's sort of nasty, isn't it? After ... what we had to do."

"It happens that way. The body wants to celebrate being alive when somebody else is dead.

Anyway I'm going to leave you alone here for a while, Betsy."

Sleepy eyes opened wide. "No!"

"I'll hang the DO-NOT-DISTURB signs on both doors, and I'll lock you in. You'll be fine. I ought to be back by five-thirty or six."

"Where do you have to go?"

"Just an errand. Nothing crucial."

"Okay, so be careful, lover," she murmured. She was on her side, fists under her chin, knees pulled up. In moments she was making a small buzzing sound, with slow deep lift and fall of the narrow, overburdened rib cage. I closed the draperies to darken the room, and floated a blanket over her.

The phone made half a ring before I caught it. It did not disturb her.

It was Meyer. "I am free," he said. "Marked fit for duty. I am an object of awe and curiosity. My once handsome face looks like a psychedelic beach ball. There are two gentle maidens here aboard my humble vessel, taking turns holding my hand and applying cold compresses and fixing me little taste treats. They say to say howdy. Shall I return?"

"Stay where you are. Enjoy."

And how are things on the frontier?"

"Confusing. A fine young man had the taste to give Miss Agnes a lot of tender loving care, but I have to get a part for her out of Palm Beach before she can move."

"Would the man let you move?"

"No point in asking him until I get the part installed."

"What are you doing for excitement?"

"Mighty interesting golf match on television today."

"McGee, do not make childish attempts to mislead me. My brain was not damaged. When we left, you were down. You wanted no part of that brouhaha over there. Your voice dragged.

Now there is a lift, a hint of a pleasurable urgency. You have become involved."

"Now that you mention it, I guess I have."

"Have you been able to pay my respects to Deputy Arnstead?"

"Not yet. He seems to be absent. Or shy. But I still have hopes."

"If the car was roadable, and Sheriff Hyzer said you could leave, would you?"

"Probably not."

"Have you come across an opportunity for some small salvage contract, perhaps?"

"One might turn up. Meyer, I'm glad you're okay."

"I share your gladness."

After the conversation ended, I looked at the screen. A very somber young man in orange garments was hunched over a putt. A knot of muscle bulged at the corner of his jaw. He stabbed at it, and the ball went by the hole on the high side and stopped inches away. The young man looked at the heavens with an expression of agonized desolation, of classic despair. I punched the set off while he was still on camera. I hung the signs, locked her in, and left.

BUTTERCUP CAME at me, running low and rumbling in anticipation of the clamp of his teeth in the flesh of the stranger. I squatted and held my hand out and said, "Easy, Buttercup. Easy boy."

He braked to a stop, leaned, and took a delicate sniff, compared it with the memory banks, and looked dejected. Cora Arnstead came out onto the porch and said, "Who is it now? You home, Lew?"

"Sorry. It's Travis McGee again, Mrs. Arnstead."

"You got anything to tell me about my boy?"

"Sorry. I wish I could tell you something."

"That Billy Cable was here today looking for him, too. They fired my boy. No reason why I should fall all over myself helping them. If they want him, they can find him."

"How is the stock making out? Anything I can do?"

"That's nice of you to offer. But I've got the Silverstaff boy from up the road taking care. He was here most of the morning getting caught up. Come on the porch and set."

A haze had moved across the sun. She leaned back in the cane chair and widened her nostrils.

"Smell that stink, do you?"

"Afraid not."

"Acidy smell. We get it now most times the breeze comes out of the northwest. Phosphate plants up that way. Wind from the south, and you get the county incinerator smell. Nobody gives a damn, Mr. McGee. They talk about it, but they don't really care enough to do anything.

So one day people are going to grab their throats and fall down dead all over the state of Floryda, and I hope I'm safe dead and gone before it happens. What do you want with me?"

"Sheriff Hyzer is trying to locate Lew. Now if he doesn't find him pretty soon, he might come out here or send somebody out here to go through his room, looking for a clue."

"And?"

"He'll find that hiding place just the way I did. I didn't exactly give you an inventory of what's in there."

"Figured you didn't. Filthy stuff?"

"Some standard, under-the-counter dirt, and some pretty vivid love notes from some of his women. And a collection of Polaroid pictures he took of a batch of his girl friends, all naked.

They could cause some trouble in the wrong hands."

"Like if Billy Cable got aholt of them?"

"That's right, Mrs. Arnstead."

"You said he had a lot of those speed pills in there. Would there be maybe enough so he could get into trouble on that account, too?"

"More than enough. They come under the narcotics legislation."

She glowered into space for a long ten seconds. "I don't hold with lying, Mr. McGee. I wouldn't want anybody to come here and find that place of his and find it empty and ask me if I'd let anybody into that room to take stuff away. And if they asked me if I emptied it out and asked me what was in there, I'd have to tell what I took out. No, sir, I can't let you go in my boy's room and take away his personal private stuff and get rid of it any way you see fit. I can't give you permission. Maybe you'd be so kind, Mr. McGee, as to go on in the house and back to the kitchen and get me a glass of water. Best let it run a long time for coolness."

While the water was running, I emptied the cache. Pictures and letters inside one of the books.

Books and pamphlets tucked into the front of my shirt. Pills in the trouser pocket.

I took her the glass of water. She sipped and thanked me.

"You come back and visit with me sometime, hear? Sorry I couldn't give you the right to tote off Lew's things."

"I understand."

"Somehow I have this feeling my youngest isn't going to come back, not ever. I don't know why.

An old woman's notion. He was a good little boy. He really was. He always liked to play by himself. Not much for running with the pack. It was the Army changed him. He wasn't the same after that."

It was uncomfortable booty to carry around. If Hyzer had me picked up for some idiot reason, the list of charges would be fascinating. In the milky fading light of late afternoon I drove north, further out Cattleman's Road into an area of bigger ranches and grove lands. It had been a sentimental mission. After seeing the scene between Billy and Betsy, there was no mistaking the use he would make of Lew's artwork, or the amount of leverage possession would give him.

There was the second objective of sparing the old lady any additional pain. The final chick was dead. Whether she ever learned that or not, never seeing him again was enough of a hurt.

I came up on an unpaved road, braked and turned right, and found an adequate place a mile from the highway, a small grove of live oaks heavily fringed with Spanish moss, and a place to drive in where fencing had rotted away. I gouged a deep hole in the soft dirt with a stick, dumped the pills in, covered them, and stomped the earth flat.

His meager and unusual little library would not be easy to burn. I crackled my shoulder muscles rolling a log over, scooped a shallow hole and laid the books therein and rolled the log back into the earth-groove it had made when it fell.

I sat on it with the correspondence and the picture gallery. I remembered my previous impression of the many pictures of Betsy Kapp. Lean, anemic blonde with an insipid leer and comedy breasts. So the leer became a troubled and uncertain smile, and the breasts were oddly wistful, vulnerable. I decided that in some eerie way it was like those ubiquitous photographs of small boys holding up big fish they have caught. Too much camera direction makes them look uncertain. They ache to look like heroes and do not know how to manage it. And the long-dead fish has become a dead weight of reality, and there is no way to hold him to make him look alive.