Read Online Cinnamon Skin by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online

around here? Kind of a dimwit but a good worker?"
    And somebody else would say, "Guess that was before my time."
    Nobody remembers very long any more. Like the half owner of the Nancy Mae III, which Dan List skippers. Three seasons ago, as a defensive lineman for the Dolphins, he made thirteen sacks in the regular season before they smashed his knee. And now I can't remember his name. Six-five, about two fifty-five, quick as a weasel. And I can't remember any part of his name.
    Intimations of mortality often make me lonesome. I went back to the Flush and stretched out and called Annie Renzetti on the new private line that rings in her office and in her beach bungalow over there in Naples. Four rings and hang up. If she was alone she could catch it on four rings. If not alone, she could call me back. If she wasn't in, nobody else would answer that line. It was known to be private.
    I tried again at nine fifteen, and she answered from the bungalow. "How's with you, Annie?" I asked her.
    "This day has just about flattened me, love. They start arriving tomorrow before lunch."
    "Who?"
    "My convention, dummy. Did you forget? Fifty-three specialists and their wives, or husbands, or special close friends. Proctologists."
    "I forgot it was this week."
    "By Monday afternoon when they all leave, my smile is going to feel as if it was nailed on my face. Tomorrow, early, some computerized little snit from company headquarters will be here to double-check my arrangements. This group doesn't strike bargains. They want it nice. They'll get it nice. Management wants them back here every year. What I have paid out for beef you wouldn't believe. Lobsters and clams are coming by air express. Orchids for the ladies. A really good trio in the lounge. And by the time they arrive I will have personally inspected every room, every suite, every bath towel, tested every light bulb. The thing I resent, Trav, is their thinking they have to send somebody down to backstop me. I've proved I'm a damn good manager here. I get the printouts from the whole chain every month. I'm always in the top ten on the ratio of gross profit to gross sales, percentage occupancy, personnel turnover. They hired me to manage so they should let me manage, right?"
    "Right!"
    "My, my, my, how I do go on. Why should I take it out on you?"
    "I'm your friend. Remember?"
    "But if you were thinking of driving over about now…"
    "Forget it?"
    "Yes. Look me up after the convention. I fought it, you know. I don't think we should have conventions here, even in the slack season, even at top rates. I've had to turn away reservations good old customers wanted to make, just to accommodate these… these…"
    "Careful."
    "Are you okay, love? You sound kind of down."
    "Lonesome, sort of. Meyer phoned from Houston. He got permission to stay in her apartment while he takes care of the details. He sounded depressed, but he seems to be coping. But I know something he doesn't know, and I don't know whether I should tell him. I'm going over there soon. Maybe tomorrow."
    "Whether you should tell him what?"
    "I won't go into how I found out, but if only three people were blown to bits on Meyer's boat, one was his niece, one was Hacksaw Jenkins, and one was a local retard, an itinerant worker everybody called Pogo, actual name unknown."
    "What do you mean, if only three?"
    "The photo taken showed three. Maybe Evan Lawrence was below. But I have the queasy feeling he was on shore. I have the feeling that maybe he was where he could watch the Keynes and push a button on a transmitter. I have that feeling in spite of believing he was not the kind of person to do something like that. I really liked him. He had a good face, good laugh lines. You know?"
    "I know what you mean. How would he arrange to stay ashore?"
    "I don't know. Back out at the last minute. Plead an upset stomach. And Hack would have picked up Pogo to help with the fishing because he'd be busy at the wheel out there in that chop. The