Read Online Dead Low Tide by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John D. MacDonald
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the coroner was bending over. Other men stood around with that particularly useless and thoughtful expression worn in the sight of sudden and violent death.
I moved around Wargler. John lay on his back, his head braced at an oddly nauseating angle against a lumber pile. One leg was outstretched and the other leg was doubled up, the knee canted outward. Beside him was one shoe, the sock laid across it. A pale gray sock with a chinese-red clock. He wore a white shirt and gray slacks. There was a great deal of blood. He looked smaller, and older, and grayer, and shrunken. From the throat socket, at an angle, protruded the gleaming stainless-steel haft of the sort of harpoon they use in skin fishing. His right foot was bare. Near the coiled fingers of his right hand lay a Hawaiian rig. I saw the scratch in the metal where I had banged it on a rock. I saw everything clearly. Every pebble and tiny fragment of white sun-hot shell, and every splinter on the edges of the boards in the wood pile. His face was turned so that the eyes, dry of moisture, seemed to look at the haft of the slim harpoon. There is seldom expression on the faces of the dead. Or perhaps, there is only one expression, always. A look of austere, remote, and yet humble dignity. As though they say, “All along I knew I was clay. Now see me and know thyself.”
The white shirt was unbuttoned and peeled back from the left shoulder. The coroner reached down and pulled the thermometerfrom the armpit. He looked at it and looked at his watch. He was a small man with a look of eternal indignation.
“With the goddamn sun,” he muttered to himself, “and the heat, who can tell a goddamn thing? Sometime between midnight and five-thirty, or maybe even six.”
I looked at my rig and I nibbled the tip of my tongue. What to do? Point and say, “Hey, that’s mine!”
Maybe you do. Maybe there are a lot of people in the world who go around instinctively doing the logical, uncompromising thing. Maybe they haven’t any imagination, too. I’m always blundering around paying so much attention to what other people could think, that I’m always balanced on a rough rail of indecision, tarred and feathered with my own doubts.
I lit a cigarette and it tasted like burned farina. I found out that there are two ways of gagging. One is in the throat—a very ugly spasm. The other one is back in the mind, and you wish it were in your throat.
The coroner fussed and muttered and wrote things down. Two frail clerical men brought the basket woven of metal straps. They set it down, argued about the harpoon and what to do until the coroner, in a fury of impatience, wedged the heavy body over onto its side, grasped the bloodied barb, and pulled the haft quickly and neatly through the torn wound.
Wargler said, in his buzzing voice, “By Henry, when I get around one of these days to killing myself, I’d sooner stick this here muzzle in my mouth than pig-stick myself with that darn thing. George, Marvin got all his pitchers. You set that wicked thing in the back of the sedan. You there. Take that shoe and sock along. George, you and—you there,McClintock, give those puny fellas a lift on that now they got him strapped in. John was hefty.”
We grunted up with it and slid it in. Wargler came over and said to the driver, “He goes to Dangerfield’s, and you there, you tell Billy Dangerfield to make John look perty enough real quick so his missus can come identify.”
Six
EVEN BEFORE I GOT BACK to the office, it was becoming apparent to me that the firm of John Long, Contractors, Inc., was in a fine mess. It would have been all O.K., and if not O.K., at least a hell of a lot better, if John Long had been less secretive about his business affairs. At no time had I been given any overall picture of what was going on. I had my routine chunk. Steve Marinak had a portion. Another law firm, and a firm of accountants in Tampa, had some more. And apparently Harvey Constanto of the Gulf
I moved around Wargler. John lay on his back, his head braced at an oddly nauseating angle against a lumber pile. One leg was outstretched and the other leg was doubled up, the knee canted outward. Beside him was one shoe, the sock laid across it. A pale gray sock with a chinese-red clock. He wore a white shirt and gray slacks. There was a great deal of blood. He looked smaller, and older, and grayer, and shrunken. From the throat socket, at an angle, protruded the gleaming stainless-steel haft of the sort of harpoon they use in skin fishing. His right foot was bare. Near the coiled fingers of his right hand lay a Hawaiian rig. I saw the scratch in the metal where I had banged it on a rock. I saw everything clearly. Every pebble and tiny fragment of white sun-hot shell, and every splinter on the edges of the boards in the wood pile. His face was turned so that the eyes, dry of moisture, seemed to look at the haft of the slim harpoon. There is seldom expression on the faces of the dead. Or perhaps, there is only one expression, always. A look of austere, remote, and yet humble dignity. As though they say, “All along I knew I was clay. Now see me and know thyself.”
The white shirt was unbuttoned and peeled back from the left shoulder. The coroner reached down and pulled the thermometerfrom the armpit. He looked at it and looked at his watch. He was a small man with a look of eternal indignation.
“With the goddamn sun,” he muttered to himself, “and the heat, who can tell a goddamn thing? Sometime between midnight and five-thirty, or maybe even six.”
I looked at my rig and I nibbled the tip of my tongue. What to do? Point and say, “Hey, that’s mine!”
Maybe you do. Maybe there are a lot of people in the world who go around instinctively doing the logical, uncompromising thing. Maybe they haven’t any imagination, too. I’m always blundering around paying so much attention to what other people could think, that I’m always balanced on a rough rail of indecision, tarred and feathered with my own doubts.
I lit a cigarette and it tasted like burned farina. I found out that there are two ways of gagging. One is in the throat—a very ugly spasm. The other one is back in the mind, and you wish it were in your throat.
The coroner fussed and muttered and wrote things down. Two frail clerical men brought the basket woven of metal straps. They set it down, argued about the harpoon and what to do until the coroner, in a fury of impatience, wedged the heavy body over onto its side, grasped the bloodied barb, and pulled the haft quickly and neatly through the torn wound.
Wargler said, in his buzzing voice, “By Henry, when I get around one of these days to killing myself, I’d sooner stick this here muzzle in my mouth than pig-stick myself with that darn thing. George, Marvin got all his pitchers. You set that wicked thing in the back of the sedan. You there. Take that shoe and sock along. George, you and—you there,McClintock, give those puny fellas a lift on that now they got him strapped in. John was hefty.”
We grunted up with it and slid it in. Wargler came over and said to the driver, “He goes to Dangerfield’s, and you there, you tell Billy Dangerfield to make John look perty enough real quick so his missus can come identify.”
Six
EVEN BEFORE I GOT BACK to the office, it was becoming apparent to me that the firm of John Long, Contractors, Inc., was in a fine mess. It would have been all O.K., and if not O.K., at least a hell of a lot better, if John Long had been less secretive about his business affairs. At no time had I been given any overall picture of what was going on. I had my routine chunk. Steve Marinak had a portion. Another law firm, and a firm of accountants in Tampa, had some more. And apparently Harvey Constanto of the Gulf
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