Read Online Slam the Big Door by John D. MacDonald - Free Book Online Page A

underpaid his help, was generous with his friends, knew almost to the penny what he was worth at all times, and hated to see a month go by without adding to it. He was in citrus and celery, cattle and securities, motels and shipping, dredges and draglines, shopping centers and auto agencies. But the basis of all of it was land. He loved land with almost the same degree of intensity as he loved money.
    He knew more about other men than they were ever able to learn about him. He knew the flaws and strengths and habits and vulnerabilities of every long-term resident in three counties who had a net worth of over twenty-five thousand dollars. Those men could be divided into three categories. There were those who had never had any dealings with Purdy. To them he was a mysterious, powerful, slippery old coot. Then there were those who had gone in with him on something and tried to get fancy and had got thoroughly stung. To them he was a vicious, crooked, merciless old bastard. Others had gone in with him and let him call the turn, and taken their profit. To that last group, Purdy was the salt of the earth.
    The four men sat in comfortable old wicker chairs on the wide front porch of the ranch house. Purdy Elmarr was the eldest. Rob Raines was the youngest, twenty-seven, a solidly-built young man with a small mustache who had the manner of earnest reliability of the ambitious young lawyer. (A manner which, he had begun to suspect, was not helping him at all in his program of re-seduction of Debbie Ann.) On this day, in this place, he was so full of deference as to hover dangerously close to obsequiousness. He had the wind-and-weather look of the sailing enthusiast. After much thought he had worn a necktie, which he now knew was a mistake, but it was too late to take it off. It was his first invitation to the ranch. He sensed that his career was balanced on the sultry edge of this idle afternoon—and here it would be determined whether, in the far golden years, he would become Judge Raines, a figure of dignity, solemn with wealth—or ole Robby Raines, that lawyer fella they say had a real good chance and muffed it that time, back when old Purd Elmarr was still alive, making deals. Rob Raines wondered whether he had poured too much or too little bourbon into his glass. As the idle talk went on, with nobody coming to the point, he was getting more instead of less nervous.
    It seemed as though J. C. Arlenton would drone on forever. He was Buddha fat, pink-bald, with little short thick hands and feet. He wore khaki pants and a white shirt and carpet slippers, and he had driven out in a Cadillac that was as dirty as any car Raines had ever seen. Rob knew he had been in the state legislature one time, a long time ago, and since then had shoved a couple of governors into office. He had a lot of grove land over in Orange County, and a good-sized building-supply business, and he was known to be in a few things with Elmarr. One of them was the regular poker session.
    J. C. Arlenton sat hugging his glass with his little thick hands and said in a tone of complaint to the fourth man present, Corey Haas, “Now Corey, damn it, you know better’n to set right there telling me Wink Haskell ever had one dollar put into Sea-Bar Development. Wink, he never went into nothing without control and that was the reason how he lost out here and there, and Sea-Bar was one he lost out on, so don’t you let him suck you in hinting on like how he had him a fine thing there, because Wink, he’s like to do that way to you, proving how smart he is. When Sea-Bar sold that whole tract to Mackel, ole Wink didn’t get one dime on account he wasn’t in it, so don’t let him hint you different.”
    “Have it your way, J. C.,” Corey Haas said indifferently. “You’ve been down on Wink ever since he crossed you on that zoning thing and ever’body knows it.”
    Corey Haas was, in this matter, Rob Raines’ ticket to join the discussion. Corey had thrown Rob a