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Authors: John D. MacDonald
Tags: Suspense
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get a look, if he’s there. Next, see what you can dig up about a Mr. and Mrs. Vance M’Gruder. Their home could be in Carmel. Ocean racing type. It’s a small fraternity, so it shouldn’t be rough.” I went over and sat beside her and handed her my notes. “These are the names and numbers of all the players, as much as she could remember.” I identified them in the pictures for her. “All clear?”
“Yes sir.”
“Yes,
Trav
. Can we do it that way, Dana?”
“Of course, Trav.”
“When will you get loose?”
“Actually tonight, about midnight. The new girl is taking my accommodations at the Sultana at Miami Beach. Suppose I check in Monday morning with you right here. Nine?”
“Make it ten. Or you can come right here tonight whenyou’re through. There’s an extra stateroom. With a lock on the door.”
She nodded. “It would be simpler. Lock or no lock, Trav, that’s one problem I don’t expect to have, and know how to handle if I do.”
I went to the desk drawer, tossed the extra key to her. She caught it with a deft twist of the wrist. I explained it was to the lounge door, in case I was asleep when she got in. I took her on the tour. She said it seemed very comfortable. I was glad that with a morning attack of the neats, I had made up the Skeeter-tossled bed afresh. She went to the galley and rinsed her glass and set it out to dry. She went to my desk, wrote Gabe’s check, altered my dwindling balance, and presented me the check for signature, saying, “Perhaps you would like me to deposit some of that cash tomorrow? I made a note of the account number.”
“Half of it, I guess. Thanks. Remind me tomorrow.”
I was asleep when she arrived. The little bong of my warning bell alerted me. When anybody comes aboard it rings. Once. That is always enough. I hate unfriendly surprises. I had left a light for her. Gun in hand I prowled naked to the interior door to the lounge, opened it an inch and looked through, out of darkness, saw her open the door, reach back and get a big suitcase and come in with it, moving quietly. It was ten of one. I went back to my bed, behind the closed door to the master stateroom.
She was a quiet woman. A thread of light appeared under my door. In time I heard water running in the head. The thread of light went out. Soft click of latch of the other stateroom. Nightsilence. A faint music from some other boat. Grumble of a truck on the drive. Distant whistling scream of a jet.
A woman aboard, quite unlike any I could remember. This was a staunch one. A lot of people can be gutsy when there is a tiny morsel of hope. Damn few keep plugging when there is none. The human animal is basically selfish. Neither the damaged kid nor the lost husband could know what degree of care they were getting. Society could not let them perish if she ceased her support. They could not accuse her. But she had a moral obligation so strong, any other course was inconceivable to her. They were her family. There was no other consideration for her. Life had burned her out, but what was left was considerably more woman than was Lysa Dean.
The night thoughts of Dana Holtzer depressed me. Self-evaluation. It is the skin rash of the emotionally insecure. I felt as if I had spent a lot of years becoming too involved with some monstrously silly people. McGee, the con artist. I would fatten myself off their troubles, and then take the money and coast for a time, taking my retirement in early installments. I was not a very earnest nor constructive fellow.
But, I thought, what are the other choices? I am not a nine to five animal. I cannot swallow the myths which say that nine to five is a Good Thing because that’s the way nearly everybody else gets stuck. I cannot be an orderly consumer, with 2.3 kids and .7 new cars a year, and an after-hours secretarial arrangement. I am not properly acquisitive. I like the
Busted Flush
, the records and paintings, the little accumulations of this and that which
“Yes sir.”
“Yes,
Trav
. Can we do it that way, Dana?”
“Of course, Trav.”
“When will you get loose?”
“Actually tonight, about midnight. The new girl is taking my accommodations at the Sultana at Miami Beach. Suppose I check in Monday morning with you right here. Nine?”
“Make it ten. Or you can come right here tonight whenyou’re through. There’s an extra stateroom. With a lock on the door.”
She nodded. “It would be simpler. Lock or no lock, Trav, that’s one problem I don’t expect to have, and know how to handle if I do.”
I went to the desk drawer, tossed the extra key to her. She caught it with a deft twist of the wrist. I explained it was to the lounge door, in case I was asleep when she got in. I took her on the tour. She said it seemed very comfortable. I was glad that with a morning attack of the neats, I had made up the Skeeter-tossled bed afresh. She went to the galley and rinsed her glass and set it out to dry. She went to my desk, wrote Gabe’s check, altered my dwindling balance, and presented me the check for signature, saying, “Perhaps you would like me to deposit some of that cash tomorrow? I made a note of the account number.”
“Half of it, I guess. Thanks. Remind me tomorrow.”
I was asleep when she arrived. The little bong of my warning bell alerted me. When anybody comes aboard it rings. Once. That is always enough. I hate unfriendly surprises. I had left a light for her. Gun in hand I prowled naked to the interior door to the lounge, opened it an inch and looked through, out of darkness, saw her open the door, reach back and get a big suitcase and come in with it, moving quietly. It was ten of one. I went back to my bed, behind the closed door to the master stateroom.
She was a quiet woman. A thread of light appeared under my door. In time I heard water running in the head. The thread of light went out. Soft click of latch of the other stateroom. Nightsilence. A faint music from some other boat. Grumble of a truck on the drive. Distant whistling scream of a jet.
A woman aboard, quite unlike any I could remember. This was a staunch one. A lot of people can be gutsy when there is a tiny morsel of hope. Damn few keep plugging when there is none. The human animal is basically selfish. Neither the damaged kid nor the lost husband could know what degree of care they were getting. Society could not let them perish if she ceased her support. They could not accuse her. But she had a moral obligation so strong, any other course was inconceivable to her. They were her family. There was no other consideration for her. Life had burned her out, but what was left was considerably more woman than was Lysa Dean.
The night thoughts of Dana Holtzer depressed me. Self-evaluation. It is the skin rash of the emotionally insecure. I felt as if I had spent a lot of years becoming too involved with some monstrously silly people. McGee, the con artist. I would fatten myself off their troubles, and then take the money and coast for a time, taking my retirement in early installments. I was not a very earnest nor constructive fellow.
But, I thought, what are the other choices? I am not a nine to five animal. I cannot swallow the myths which say that nine to five is a Good Thing because that’s the way nearly everybody else gets stuck. I cannot be an orderly consumer, with 2.3 kids and .7 new cars a year, and an after-hours secretarial arrangement. I am not properly acquisitive. I like the
Busted Flush
, the records and paintings, the little accumulations of this and that which
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