I tried not to look at the water-stained spot on the rug.
I changed into flannels and a sports shirt, left off the glasses and the hat, put my own wallet in my pocket, walked back to Collins Avenue, and took a cab to Miami. At another car-rental agency I rented a pick-up truck, using my own name and driver’s license, and took off for the Keys. On the way out of town I watched closely for that roadside curio place where I’d stopped before so I’d have its exact location fixed in my mind.
I had a large-scale map, and a pretty good idea of where I’d find the type of place I was looking for, but it was a long way down the small Keys and interminable bridges of the Overseas Highway. On Sugarloaf Key, some hundred and thirty miles from Miami, there was a back-country road that took off through the mangroves and salt ponds and ran along an outer line of small keys parallel with the highway. It was a wild area with practically no houses and plenty of places a car could be hidden.
Shortly after two p.m. I found just the spot I wanted, and checked the mileage back to the nearest bus stop on the highway. I started back. Just before three, I stopped at a roadside place on Big Pine Key and called the bank. Marian had said that on an amount that large they’d rush collection, but I had to be absolutely sure. I got hold of Dakin. He asked me to hold on, and checked.
“Yes, sir. Both your deposits have been collected. The second one came through this morning.”
“Thank you very much,” I said.
All I had to do was write a check Monday morning for a hundred and seventy thousand dollars. We were ready for the last act.
* * *
It was after dark when I got back to Miami Beach. I put the pick-up truck in the garage at the apartment, changed back into Chapman’s suit and the glasses and hat, and went over and picked up the Cadillac. I drove to Hollywood and checked in at the Antilles Motel. It was one of those I’d spotted before, an older type built when land was cheaper, with carport spaces between the units. It sat back off the street on US 1 not too far from the center of town.
The woman in the office was a spry and chatty type of about fifty. I signed the registry card, and told her I’d be there three or four days at least. I was working on a real-estate deal, with Fitzpatrick. Oh, yes, she knew the firm. They were quite nice. I paid her for three days, and said I’d like to have a unit as far back as possible, away from the highway noise. She took me back to the next to the last unit in the right-hand row. It would do nicely, I said. In addition to the front door, there was a side door opening into the car park. The bath was a combination tub-and-shower arrangement, with a curtain rod and plastic curtain. There was a telephone. I asked her what time she closed the switchboard in the office. “Eleven p.m.,” she said.
The next morning I stopped at the office on the way out. She was talking to the colored maid. When the maid left, I asked quietly, after a glance behind me at the door, “Is there a woman registered here who has real blue-black hair, worn in a chignon ? A slender woman, in her thirties?”
“Why, no,” she said, puzzled. “Why?”
“I just wanted to be sure,” I said. “If she checks in, don’t tell her I asked, but let me know right away.”
“Yes, of course,” she said uncertainly. “Could you give me her name?”
“Oh, she won’t be using her right name,” I said. “She’s too clever for that.”
I had some breakfast in town, and drove up to Palm Beach, mostly killing time. In a hardware store, I bought a two-foot steel wrecking bar. I put it in the trunk, and came back to Fort Lauderdale. I cashed several of the checks in a bank, and one in a bar. I sat in the bar for four hours, nursing three drinks, staring straight ahead at nothing and speaking to no one.
At last the bartender became concerned. “are you all right, mister?” he asked.
I turned my head slightly and stared at him. “What do you mean, am I all right?”
“I—I mean, I thought maybe you didn’t feel well, you’re so quiet.”
”Well, I’m all right,” I said. “And don’t you forget it.”
“I’m sorry I bothered you—”
“Maybe I have to have a basal metabolism and a blood count before I can drink in your goddamned bar, is that it? Or you want me to take a Rorschach?”
“Okay, okay, forget it.”
I went on muttering after he retreated, and got up and walked out.
Around eight p.m. I registered in a motel on the outskirts of town, lay on the bed with my clothes on until nearly ten, and then grabbed up the phone and called the office. “Will you, for Christ’s sake, stop that stupid phonograph?”
The manager was puzzled. “What phonograph? Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” I said angrily. “Somewhere back here. If only they’d stop playing that same goddamned record over and over and over— Never mind! I’ll go somewhere else.”
He was standing in the driveway shaking his head as I shot past him in the Cadillac.
I drove down to Miami and called Coral Blaine from a phone booth at two a.m. She was somewhat piqued—she’d been worried, and I’d got her out of bed.
“You haven’t called since Thursday night, and when I tried to reach you at the Clive Hotel they said you’d left.”
“I’ve been moving around,” I said.
“There’ve been several things at the office. The bank wants to know if you’d like to extend the loan on that Washburn property. And the tax people have questioned the depreciation figures on that new gin machinery.”
“Okay. Call Wellman and tell him we’ll renew the loan for another year at the same rate of interest. If he tries to raise us, we’ll pay it off now. I’ll take up the tax thing when I get back. But never mind all that. Do you still see Marian Forsyth around there?”
“Somewhere, practically every day. But, dear, do we have to start on her again?”
“Tell me something. Do you ever speak to her?”
“No. She never speaks to me. Why should I?”
“Clever,” I said, as if talking to myself. “Damned clever.”
“What did you say, darling?”
“Oh,” I said. “Nothing. But, look, angel, I’ll be able to wind up this real-estate deal Monday morning, and probably be home sometime Tuesday.”
I drove back to the motel in Hollywood and went to bed.
* * *
The next morning I drove down to Miami Beach, parked the Cadillac in the business area not too far from Dover Way, left the hat and glasses in it, and walked to the apartment. I changed to khaki fishing clothes and a cap, backed the pick-up out of the garage, and drove down to the Keys. It was one-thirty p.m. when I reached the turn-off on to the back road on Sugarloaf. Since it was Sunday, fishermen were rather numerous, pulling boats behind their cars or casting from the bridges. Three miles from the highway there was a dim trace of a road leading off to the left through heavy scrub where the water’s edge was a tangle of mangroves. The mangroves thinned out after about a mile, giving way to open areas where boats could be launched. Several cars with empty boat trailers were parked in the vicinity, but there were no people around at the moment. The nearest boat I could see was about a half-mile offshore. I parked the truck off to one side, locked it, and started walking back. There was only a remote chance anybody would bother it, and it would attract no attention, since everyone would merely assume it belonged to another fisherman.