Read Online Dress Her in Indigo by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: John D. MacDonald
Tags: Fiction, General, Suspense, Mystery & Detective, Private Investigators, Political, Hard-Boiled, Fort Lauderdale (Fla.), McGee; Travis (Fictitious character)
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accomplished, in good faith. And so Bundy engaged Meyer in amateur archeological talk, saying, fmally, "I just cannot imagine how those priest types could bring the Indian peasants into this terribly inhospitable and certainly waterless countryside and establish a whole culture without losing untold thousands of them."
And that hooked Saunders into his first conversation of the evening. "From what we know now, the system was to send out a large party of specialists, carrying water supplies, just before the rainy season. If they couldn't find reliable wells or springs, they would dig giant cisterns deep in the earth, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, like gigantic bottles made of stone and waterproofed with clay. Then around the top of the bottle, they'd make a hard surface, round, fifty or sixty feet across, and sloping toward the mouth of the bottle. The rains would fill the bottle and they'd put a big clay stopper in place to prevent evaporation. Next they would bring in the Indian families with grain and fowl and tools and tell them where to build the village and where to plant the grain."
Bruce cried that the information fascinated him. How clever those ancient people were! And how clever the ones who were now so carefully reconstructing all that lost marvelous history!
And he kept him going a little while until it was time for dinner. I said we had to leave just to see how much he would protest. And he did, with an earnest vehemence, because it was obvious that if there were just the three of them, he couldn't focus on David.
So we, with show of reluctance, accepted the warm invitation.
Five
THE FOOD was excellent. Candles flared and flickered in the night breeze. He served a good and heady Greek wine.
A round table. Superb silverware, table linen, glassware, pottery. Muted music from a good tape system somewhere in the house. Bundy had Lady Rebecca at his right, David at his left with me Page 31
at Becky's right, and Meyer between me and David.
Rebecca had begun to make an elegant presentation of herself to me, managing in her casual careless way of handling herself, to artfully establish all the sensory awarenesses-of vision, of scent, of apparently inadvertent touch. But more importantly, she knew well that most important ingredient of all charm, all seduction, the art of so listening and responding that she made me feel as if I were the most exciting and rewarding and important man she had met in untold years, that if I had not come along, her life would have continued in its drab and dreary pattern. It requires not only the ability to listen so carefully no word, no nuance, is missed, but also the ability to sense when a contrary opinion will further the growing sense of closeness. I knew what she was doing and knew some of the devices she was using, but that awareness did not prevent my growing feeling that this was, indeed, one hell of a lot of extraordinary woman and nice to be with and worth arranging any further closeness possible.
Bruce Bundy, in another way and on another level, was targeting in on David Saunders. And it was interesting to see how much more masculine Bruce had become, in voice, gesture and opinion. And both Bruce and Becky were using Meyer as that necessary little dilution factor to mask their acquisitive intensity, directing questions and comment to him in much the same way the stage magician makes a great show of letting you look up his sleeves and into his top hat.
Their eyes gleamed in the candlelight, and their faces were smooth and youthful and animated, and their voices were clever, articulate, and amusing. The pretty predators, using their tested skills for the newest stalk.
David Saunders seemed to make, at table, a slightly porcine prey. He would dip his head almost to the plate, shovel in a heaping forkful, chew heavily with rolling bulge of muscle at the jaw corners, and then slosh it down with a gulp of wine, the throat bulging and shifting with the bulky
And that hooked Saunders into his first conversation of the evening. "From what we know now, the system was to send out a large party of specialists, carrying water supplies, just before the rainy season. If they couldn't find reliable wells or springs, they would dig giant cisterns deep in the earth, wide at the bottom and narrow at the top, like gigantic bottles made of stone and waterproofed with clay. Then around the top of the bottle, they'd make a hard surface, round, fifty or sixty feet across, and sloping toward the mouth of the bottle. The rains would fill the bottle and they'd put a big clay stopper in place to prevent evaporation. Next they would bring in the Indian families with grain and fowl and tools and tell them where to build the village and where to plant the grain."
Bruce cried that the information fascinated him. How clever those ancient people were! And how clever the ones who were now so carefully reconstructing all that lost marvelous history!
And he kept him going a little while until it was time for dinner. I said we had to leave just to see how much he would protest. And he did, with an earnest vehemence, because it was obvious that if there were just the three of them, he couldn't focus on David.
So we, with show of reluctance, accepted the warm invitation.
Five
THE FOOD was excellent. Candles flared and flickered in the night breeze. He served a good and heady Greek wine.
A round table. Superb silverware, table linen, glassware, pottery. Muted music from a good tape system somewhere in the house. Bundy had Lady Rebecca at his right, David at his left with me Page 31
at Becky's right, and Meyer between me and David.
Rebecca had begun to make an elegant presentation of herself to me, managing in her casual careless way of handling herself, to artfully establish all the sensory awarenesses-of vision, of scent, of apparently inadvertent touch. But more importantly, she knew well that most important ingredient of all charm, all seduction, the art of so listening and responding that she made me feel as if I were the most exciting and rewarding and important man she had met in untold years, that if I had not come along, her life would have continued in its drab and dreary pattern. It requires not only the ability to listen so carefully no word, no nuance, is missed, but also the ability to sense when a contrary opinion will further the growing sense of closeness. I knew what she was doing and knew some of the devices she was using, but that awareness did not prevent my growing feeling that this was, indeed, one hell of a lot of extraordinary woman and nice to be with and worth arranging any further closeness possible.
Bruce Bundy, in another way and on another level, was targeting in on David Saunders. And it was interesting to see how much more masculine Bruce had become, in voice, gesture and opinion. And both Bruce and Becky were using Meyer as that necessary little dilution factor to mask their acquisitive intensity, directing questions and comment to him in much the same way the stage magician makes a great show of letting you look up his sleeves and into his top hat.
Their eyes gleamed in the candlelight, and their faces were smooth and youthful and animated, and their voices were clever, articulate, and amusing. The pretty predators, using their tested skills for the newest stalk.
David Saunders seemed to make, at table, a slightly porcine prey. He would dip his head almost to the plate, shovel in a heaping forkful, chew heavily with rolling bulge of muscle at the jaw corners, and then slosh it down with a gulp of wine, the throat bulging and shifting with the bulky
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