Bright Orange for the Shroud Page 9

  I could imagine the same tired concept being stated in a thousand private clubs across the country on this May afternoon. They see the result, but they are blind to the cause of it. Forty million more Americans than we had in 1950. If one person in fifty has a tendency toward murderous violence, then we’ve got eight hundred thousand more of them now. And density alone affects the frequency with which mobs form. The intelligence of a mob can be determined by dividing the lowest IQ present by the number of people in the mob. Life gets cheaper. Cops, on a per capita basis, get fewer. And the imponderables of the bomb, of automation, of accelerating social change create a kind of urban despair that wants to break loose and crack heads. All the barroom sociologists were orating about national fiber while, every minute and every hour, the most incredible population explosion in history was rendering their views, their judgments, even their very lives more obsolete.

  They should hark to the locust. When there is only a density of X per acre, he is a plain old grasshopper, munching circumspectly, content with his home ground. Raise it to 2X and an actual physical change begins to occur. His color changes, his jaw gets bigger, and the wing muscles begin to grow. At 3X they take off in great hungry clouds, each cloud a single herd instinct, chomping everything bare in its path. There is no decline in the moral fiber of the grasshopper. There is just a mass pressure canceling out all individual decisions.

  “Am I not right, sir?” demanded the pundit, making a stately turn to include me. I had not heard the more recent statements.

  “Absolutely,” I said. “Right on the button.”

  I was roped into the group, met the mellowed and important gentlemen, heard fond words about good old Frank Hopson, and discovered, fortuitously, that Frank was a realtor. “But with his holdings, he doesn’t have to work at it much. It’s mostly management and rental stuff on what he owns. Poor bastard, he’s a land merchant, and he can’t take a capital gains on anything, so he just doesn’t sell it off.”

  One of them said, not to me, “I heard that for a while there, young Crane Watts was trying to work something out for Frank, some deal whereby he could put everything in one package, real estate business and all, give up his license and retire and sell all his holdings to an outside corporation and take his capital gains.”

  A man beside me lowered his voice and said, “He’d be a fool to let Watts work on anything.”

  “It was some time ago,” another said in the same low tone, and they stared toward the card room. I spotted the one who most clearly matched Arthur’s description. He was playing bridge at the farthest table, slumped, peering slack-jawed at his holding. He selected a card slowly, raised it high, whacked it down with a wolf yelp of laughter, then hunched forward, glowering, as the opposition gathered the trick in.

  “I don’t know how he can afford that game.”

  “He seems to get it somewhere when he needs it.”

  “She’s such a damned fine girl.”

  “Sure is.”

  I detached myself and went wandering to the courts, looking for that damned fine girl, Vivian Watts. A kid resting between sets pointed her out to me. She was in a singles match against an agile blond boy of about nineteen, almost ten years her junior I would guess. It was the only court with an interested gallery. She was of the same physical type as Chook, not as tall. She was dark and tanned, sturdily built but lithe. And, like Chook, she had that hawk-look of strong features, prominent nose, heavy brows. As with all natural athletes, she had an economy of motion which created its own grace. She wore a little pleated white tennis skirt, white sleeveless blouse, white band on her dark hair. Her brown and solid legs had a good spring, bringing her back into a balanced readiness after each stroke, the way a good boxer moves.

  It was easy to see the shape of the match. The boy was a scrambler, going after everything, returning shots it didn’t seem plausible he could reach, lobbing them high enough to give him time to get back for the smash, and preventing her from coming up to the net to pull them away. She tried a cross-court volley and put it just outside.

  “Broke her service again,” a bald little man beside me said. He was as brown and knotty as walnuts.

  “How does it stand?”

  “Six-three to Viv, then seven-five to Dave. Now he’s got her nine-eight.”

  He had a big serve and she waited well back, handled it firmly, moved to center court and drove his ground stroke right back at his ankles. He aced her, on his next serve. Then on the next serve he tried to come to the net and she made a beautiful passing shot. Her return of his next serve floated and he let it go out by six inches. He took the advantage on another service ace. At match point, she again tried the passing shot as he moved up quickly, but the ball slapped the tape and, to the accompaniment of a concerted partisan groan, fell into her court.

  She went to the net and, smiling, tucked her racket under her left arm and held out her right hand to the boy in a quick, firm congratulatory handshake. The smile was the first change of expression I had seen. Her tennis was pokerface, with no girlish grimaces of despair when things went wrong.

  They moved off the court as other players moved on, and I drifted along with them, over toward tables in the shade. The boy went off, apparently to get her something to drink. When I moved near enough, she looked up at me with an expression of inquiry, and I saw that her eyes were a very deep blue instead of the brown I had expected.

  “Just wanted to say that was very good tennis to watch, Mrs. Watts.”

  “Thank you. Last year I could take Dave. Next year I won’t take a set. Do I know you?”

  “Frank and Mandy Hopson fixed up a guest card for me. I’m just in town for a short time. Travis McGee, Mrs. Watts. East Coast.”

  The boy brought drinks, a Coke for himself and iced tea for Viv Watts. She introduced him. Dave Sablett. He seemed a little stiff-necked about her asking me to join them. He had a proprietary air toward her, to which she seemed quite oblivious. She was still breathing deeply, her hair damp with sweat. We chatted for a little while. They were signed up for mixed doubles beginning in a few moments. They were the club’s mixed doubles champions.

  I watched the match begin and it was clear after two points they were going to take it readily. So I went back inside to see, perhaps at closer range, the other half of this happy marriage.

  Seven

  In the Saturday dusk I got a drink from the outside bar and moved out of the throng. In a few minutes Viv Watts came over to where I was standing. She had on a yellow summer cotton, a new mouth. Her manner and expression were tense.

  “Maybe you’ll tell me what happened in there, Mr. McGee.”

  “Nothing important. I guess your husband got a little abusive and his partner quit. So he was getting ugly about having no chance to get even. Nobody wanted to partner him. It was turning into a scene, so I … sat in.”

  “How much did you lose?”

  “Not enough to matter, Mrs. Watts. When I found out what the stakes were, I said it was too much for my blood. Three cents a point can be murder. I said I’d go for a half cent, and your husband said he’d pick up the slack.”

  She looked away with a slightly sick expression. “Five and a half cents a point. Dear God!”

  “He wasn’t in any shape to play. Oh, he wasn’t leading out of turn or forgetting the bid. Nothing like that. He just got too optimistic.”

  “What did you lose?”

  “It doesn’t matter.”

  “I insist!”

  “Twenty-one dollars. But really …”

  She bit her lip, unsnapped her white purse and dug into it. I put my hand on her wrist, stopping her. “I really won’t take it.”

  She gave up, saying, “I really wish you would. Did he go home?”

  “No. After he settled up he didn’t feel very well. He’s in that small lounge off the card room … resting.”

  She frowned. “Maybe I should take him home.”

  “He’s sacked out. So he’s just as well off t
here, isn’t he?”

  She stared beyond me at nothing, her eyes bleak. “He just seems to be getting wor …” She caught herself, gave me an awkward glance. A man going sour puts an attractive wife in a strange bind. Still tied to him by what remains of her security, and by all the weight of the sentimentalities and warmths remembered, she is aware of her own vulnerability and, more importantly, aware of how other men might well be appraising that vulnerability, hoping to use it. Feeling the weight of interest and speculation on the part of friends and neighbors, and sensing that she is moving ever closer to disaster, she feels obligated to be more circumspect. Because this, too, is a kind of loyalty. She wants, when it is over, to find no way to blame herself.

  “Get you a drink?” I said.

  “Please, Scotch and water, please. Tall and weak.”

  As I brought it to her I saw young Dave Sablett talking to her and saw her quite obviously send him away. He looked back at me, surly and indignant.

  “Mr. McGee …

  “Trav.”

  “All right. Trav, do you think he might make a fuss if I tried to take him home now?”

  “He well might, Vivian.”

  She looked startled. “That makes me feel strange. Vivian. Vivi when I was little, and Viv now. Vivian when my mother was really cross with me. Vivian on official papers. But it’s all right. Maybe I’d like to be called that by someone. It could … remind me I have to be a grownup these days.”

  “None of my business, of course. But is something really wrong with him? Health? Business?”

  “I don’t know. He just … changed.”

  “Recently?”

  “I couldn’t say just when it started. A year ago anyway. Trav, I just can’t stay here and … be calm and social and charming, damn it. Not knowing they’re watching me and saying poor Viv. He promised it would be different this time. But if he refuses to come home … it could be worse.”

  “I could bring him along without a fuss.”

  She chewed her lip. “He might respond better to you. But I don’t want to spoil your evening.”

  “I’m here only because I couldn’t think of anything else to do.”

  “Well … if you wouldn’t mind.”

  She showed me where I could bring him out the side door to the far end of the parking lot. The sun was gone, the steak grills cherry red, orange flames flickering atop the Polynesian pedestals in the cookout area, music resonant over the outdoor speakers. We brought both cars around and I parked behind hers, a small white Mercedes with dented fenders. I told her to wait and start up after I put him in my car, and I would follow her home.

  I shook Crane Watts up out of the murks of sleep, and he came up thrashing and whining with irritation. “Lemme lone! Chrissake!” He focused on me, the uncertain peer of the still drunk. “You, partner. Cheap half a cent basser, and you were no damn help at all. I needed you like a head cold, partner what’s-is-name. Gimme anything better than clowns and I can take that pair.”

  “You’re going home, Crane.”

  “Hell you say! You being boy scout for that bitch? Screw you, Samaritan. I’m staying. I’m going to have a ball.”

  I plucked him up off the couch and caught the fist he threw at me, opened it quickly, regrasped it in an effective come-along, a hold which leaves the index and little finger free, and presses the middle two fingers against the palm of the captive hand. Crane Watts, face convulsed, drew his other fist back, and I gave him a good taste of a pain sufficiently exquisite to bypass the alcohol. His face went blank and sweaty and the blood drained out of it. He made a small squeak and lowered the poised fist.

  “Is there some trouble here?” a nervous voice asked, and I turned and saw a club employee in the doorway.

  “No trouble. I was just getting ready to take Mr. Watts home.”

  I cued Watts with a little pressure. “Just going home,” he said in a gassy whisper, and with a strange imitation of a reassuring smile. The employee hesitated, said goodnight and went away.

  Crane Watts made a very cautious attempt to pull his hand free, and found that it added to the pain. He walked out very carefully beside me, quite erect, taking small dutiful steps, not wavering a bit. A Nassau police official had showed me that hold. Improperly applied, it snaps the bones or dislocates the knuckles. In correct adjustment, it pulls the nerves of the two middle fingers against the knuckle bones in a way that you can hit ten on the dolorometer. Nine is the peak for childbirth and migraine, and all but the most stoic faint at some point between nine and ten. You watch their color, their sweat and the focus of their eyes to keep it below the fainting point. And it is a quiet thing. Small pain makes people roar and bellow. The excruciating ones reduce them to an almost supersonic squeak. Also, intense pain is one way to induce a sudden sobriety. By the time I opened the car door for him, I knew he would be no further trouble. I pushed him in and went around and got behind the wheel, started up and followed the Mercedes.

  “Jesus,” he groaned, hugging his hand against his belly.

  “It’ll throb for ten minutes or so, and then it will be all right.”

  “It goes all the way up into the back of my neck, fella. Is it some kind of judo?”

  “Something like that.”

  After a few minutes he slowly straightened up. “Beginning to go away, like you said.”

  “Sorry I had to do it, Crane. I promised your wife I’d get you home.”

  “Maybe I didn’t give you a hell of a lot of choice. Or her.” I felt him staring at me as we passed street lights. “What’s your name again?”

  “Travis McGee. Friend of Frank Hopson. Over here from the east coast on business.”

  “Look at that! She turns without any kind of signal at all.”

  “Maybe she’s got a lot on her mind.”

  “Sure. Like how to get more overspin on her backhand. Don’t let her sucker you, McGee. That’s an ice cold bitch. She’s slowing for the driveway. It’s on the left there.”

  It was a broad driveway and one of those long low Florida block houses with a tile roof, a double carport and, beyond any doubt, a big screened cage off the rear, with or without a pool. Awning windows, glass doors on aluminum tracks, a heat pump system—you could guess it all before you saw it, even to a couple of citrus trees and cocoanut palms out back. Terrazzo floors, planting areas in the screened cage and a computerized kitchen. But even at night I saw other clues, a front lawn scruffy and sunbrowned, a dead tree at the corner of the house, a driveway sign saying The Watts which was turned, bent and leaning from someone clipping it on the way in.

  I parked in the drive, behind her car. He got out at once, advancing to meet her as she walked back toward my car.

  “Congratulations, sweetie baby,” he said. “Now you got proof I spoiled your evening. See how early it is? Now you can suffer.”

  She planted her feet, squared her shoulders. “There might be one member left who would trust you to write up a simple will or even search a title, dearest. So let’s protect all that charming innocent faith as long as we can, shall we? Come on in the house before you fall down.” She turned toward me. “I’d offer you a drink, but I guess you’ve had about all anyone would want of this, Trav.”

  “I might come in for a few minutes, if it’s all right. I would like to ask Crane about something. Something maybe he could help me with.”

  “Him?” she said, loading the word with enough contempt for a month.

  “Loyalty, loyalty,” Crane mumbled.

  We went into the house. She turned lights on. She kept turning lights on, even to the outside floods in and beyond the screened cage, rolling the glass doors open, and, with a gaiety very close to hysteria, she said, “And this is our happy mortgaged nest, Mr. McGee. You may note a few scars and stains. Little domestic spats, Mr. McGee. And did you see that the pool is empty? Poor little pool. It’s a heavy upkeep item to operate a pool, more than you’d think. And we don’t care to run the air-conditioning this summer. You wouldn’t
believe the bills. But you know, I do have my little indulgences. My tennis, and my once a week cleaning woman for some Saturday scrubbing, in case we entertain on a Saturday night, but there aren’t many people left we could invite, really. But, you see, I pay for the tennis and the cleaning woman. I have this lovely little trust fund, a whole hundred and twenty-one dollars a month. Don’t you think wives should have an income of their own, Mr. McGee?”

  She gave me a brilliant smile, sobbed suddenly, whirled and ran, her hands over her face. She went out of sight down a corridor and a door closed behind her.

  Mumbling almost inaudibly, Crane Watts took a bottle from a bar corner and headed for the kitchen. As he passed me, I lifted it out of his hand. “I need that!”

  “Not if we’re going to talk. If we’re going to talk, you need a shower and you need some coffee, before and after the shower.”

  “Talk about what?”

  “Maybe how you can help me make some money.”

  He wiped his face slowly with his hand, stopped and looked at me with one skeptical eye between his fingers. “Mean it?” I nodded. He sighed. “Okay. Hang around. Make coffee, if you can find the stuff.”

  I found powdered coffee. I made a strong mug of it and took it toward the sound of the shower. The bathroom door was ajar. I put it on the counter top next to the sink, yelled to him that it was there, and went back to the living room. Houses where love is dead or dying acquire a transient look. Somewhere there are people who, though they do not know it yet, are going to move in.

  He came wandering in, mug in his hand, hair damp, wearing a blue bathrobe. He sat wearily, sipped the coffee, stared at me. His color was not good. There were dark stains under his eyes. He had a drinker’s puffiness, not far advanced, but enough to alert the observant and the wary. But the mists had lifted.

  “Why me?” he asked. “That’s the best question I can ask.”

  “I could need a hungry lawyer.”