"MacDonald, John - Travis McGee 06 - Bright Orange for the Shroud" - читать интересную книгу автора (MacDonald John D)

"She got cause to come looking for you?"

"No."

She nodded to herself. "The law doesn't pay it no mind unless somebody comes along to make a fuss. You just keep your mouth shut about that wife. Cobb is too proud to let her set up any common law thing with you, so all you have to do is keep your mouth shut and marry her, and who does that hurt? Nobody, and does you both good, and gives that bush kitten

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she's carrying a daddy. Christine, she can make a garden bear the year round, and with a snitch hook she's good as you'll ever see, and it don't make for bad living having a young wife grateful to you."

Chook completed her series of tortures and came and sat by us, breathing deeply, brown body gleaming with perspiration, hair damp. "Surprised we ever saw you again, Arthur."

"Maybe you wouldn't have. I thought about it. She was as trusting and affectionate as a dog you bring in out of the rain. I could have stayed right there the rest of rny life. But I kept remembering eight friends who had believed in me. Somehow that was worse than my money being gone, the way theirs went with it. I couldn't hide from that the rest of my life. And the pressure from Leafy and Christine merely made me more aware of it. So I told them 1 had something personal to take care of, and I'd be back as soon as I could, maybe in a few weeks. That was two months ago. I went back to Naples thinking I could try to recover enough just to pay back my friends."

He had gone to the Citrus Blossom Motel and found that his possessions had long since been sold, leaving a deficit of nine dollars on the room. He paid it out of the seven hundred he'd saved. He found another room. He bought the clothing I'd thrown in the dockside trash can. He went to see Crane Watts. Watts got the file out. There had been one additional assessment. When attempts to contact Mr. Wilkinson had failed, his participation was eliminated according to the terms of the agreement. As they had been unable to acquire an option on the Kippler Tract after lengthy negotiations, the syndicate had been dissolved and all monies remaining in the account had been divided on the basis of final participation. Arthur had demanded the addresses of Stebber and Gisik, and Watts had said that if he wished to write them, the letters could be sent to Watts' office for forwarding. Arthur told Watts, with some heat, that he felt he had been defrauded, and he was damned well going to stir up all the trouble he could for them, and if they wanted to settle, to avoid investigation, he would sign an unconditional release in return for a ten-thousand-dollar refund. Watts, Arthur told us, looked unkempt in beard stubble, soiled sports shirt and bourbon breath at eleven o'clock that morning. Heartened by Watts'



lack of assurance, Arthur had lied to him, saying that his attorney was preparing a detailed complaint to be filed with the Attorney General of the State of Florida, with a certified copy to the Bar Association. Watts, angered, said it was nonsense. There had been no illegality.

Arthur gave his temporary address, and said that somebody better get in touch with him, and damned soon, and bring the money.

He got a phone call at five that evening. A girl with a brisk voice said she was phoning at Crane Watts' request, to say that Calvin Stebber would like to have a drink with Mr. Wilkinson at the Piccadilly Pub on Fifth Avenue at six and discuss Mr. Wilkinson's problem.

Arthur was prompt. The tap room was luxurious and exceedingly dark. He sat on a stool at the padded bar, and when his eyes had adjusted, he searched the long bar and nearby tables and did not see Smiling Calvin. Soon a young woman appeared at his elbow, a trim and tailored girl, severe and pretty, who said she was Miss Brown, sent by Mr. Stebber who would be a little late, and would he come over to the table. He carried his drink over. Miss Brown parried his questions about Stebber with secretarial skill. She took microsips of a dry sherry. He was paged, went to the phone, found that it was a mistake. Someone wanted a Mr. Wilkinson, sales representative for Florida Builders Supply. Back at the table, suddenly the room tilted and he sprawled over against Miss Brown. She giggled at him. Then, in foggy memory, Miss Brown and a man in a red coat were helping him out to Miss Brown's car. He woke up in another county, in Palm County, in the drunk tank, without funds or identification, sick, weak and with a blinding headache. In the afternoon a sheriff's deputy, with a massive indifference, told him the score. He'd been picked up, stumbling around on a public beach, stinking and incoherent, brought hi and booked as John Doe. They had a film strip of him. Standard procedure. He could plead guilty and take a thirty-day knock right now, or plead not guilty and go loose on two hundred dollars bail and wait for circuit court which would be about forty days from now. And he could make one call.

He could have called Leafy. Or Christine. He elected the

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Chook and Arthur had showered and changed, and it was immediately obvious they had somehow made each other totally unhappy. Arthur was leaden and remote. Chook was brisk and remote. All they would exchange were the most formal politenesses. I showered amid the fading scent of Chook's perfumed soap, in that absurd mirrored stall, big enough, almost, for a Volkswagen garage. It is a grotesque waste of space in a fifty-two-foot houseboat, even with a twenty-one foot beam, almost as much of a waste as the semisunken pale blue tub, seven feet long and four feet wide. I imagine that the elderly Palm Beach party who lost the vessel to me over the poker table needed such visual stimulations to do right by his Brazilian mistress.

In response to the unexplained drearies of my boat guests, I had a vicious attack of the jollies, regaling them with anecdote, absurdity and one-sided repartee, much like a solitary game of handball. Once in a while they would pull their lips away from their teeth and go heh-heh-heh. And then politely pass each other something that was within easy reach of everyone in the small booth adjoining the galley.

I judged it a favorable development. People were choosing up new sides. Chook and I had been united in caring for the sick. Now any relationship, even a rancorous one, which shut me out, was proof that he was not entirely defeated. She had to pump some spirit into him or my chances of any salvage were frail indeed. And maybe this was a start.



ON Monday we pulled the hooks and droned in stately fashion down to a new anchorage off Long Key, charging the batteries and getting beyond the range of the sooty mosquitoes which were restricting us to the belowdecks areas. During the swimming that followed, I was heartened by a small triumph. The long contest was around a distant marker and back to the boarding ladder. Halfway back she pulled even and moved a half length ahead. I knew from the pain in my side that in another hundred yards I would begin to wallow and roll and lose the stroke. Suddenly the reserves were thereЧmissing so long it was like welcoming an old friend. It was as if a third lung had suddenly opened up. I settled into it until I was certain, then upped the tempo and went on by her in a long sprint finish, was clinging to the ladder when she arrived, and feeling less like a beached blowfish than on other days.

"Well now!" she gasped, looking startled and owlish.

"You had to let me win one of these."

"The hell I did! I was busting a gut trying to keep up." She

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snapped her head back and gave me the first grin I had seen since rowing back with the groceries.