I used a long drink from the bottle to make certain my face didn’t show anything. The momentary diversion, and then the strange earnestness. The house and yard full of toys. Mildred Mooney could not have invented that rancid little scene by the beach house pool. Nor could Arthur have invented the telling detail of the little diamond watch he thought Wilma had peddled. Conversely Waxwell could not have known of being seen by Mrs. Mooney, nor of Arthur’s instant recognition of the diamond wristwatch. What could he have been worth in the Wilkinson swindle? Five thousand? Ten at the very top. Maybe twenty-five thousand. And it wouldn’t buy many new toys. I had a sudden and vivid image of that small, delicate, pampered face, wavery under the black slow run of water, of fine silver hair strung into the current flow, of shadowy pits, half seen, where sherry eyes had been.
“So Stebber would be the one for me to ask, I guess,” I said.
“Most likely to know. By now maybe they got a new one going for them.”
“So if I have to work through Stebber, then he’s in on it. And my end is smaller.”
“McGee, what got it in your head you got to have one particular broad, just because she did good on the last one? I could pick you one right out of the air. Thinking on one right now. Little ol gal way up in Clewiston, wasting her talent. Doing waitress work. Had her teaching license, but lost it for all time. Dresses good. Acts like a lady. Pretty face but built only a little better’n fair. Sugar sweet, and a born thief. But I swear and garntee, she get any plain ordinary fella into bed just one time, from then on he can have trouble remembering his own name or how to count to ten. And that’s all you need, isn’t it? That’s how Wilma set them up for Stebber.”
“I better think the whole thing over, Boo.”
“It’s Bike Jefferson over to Everglades, executor on the Kippler land, writing any damn letter they tell me to tell him. He married the youngest Kippler girl, how come he got that job, and she’s years dead. I yell frog one time and Bike jumps till his heart gives out. Down in Homestead is Sam Jimper, a lawyer crooked as a ball of baby snakes, but knowing I was behind you with my eye on him, he’d sooner french-kiss a gator than try to get cute two ways. I’m telling you the way to do is you forget Watts and Stebber and all them, and let me get Melly on down here and you look her over, and give her a trial run if you don’t believe me. She won’t take as big an end of it as you’d have to give Wilma. But I get a good cut because you need me to set it up, because without a genuine big piece of land, all recorded and setting there to look at, you’ve got no way to give a man an itch to double his money, so as to show off for his cute new little schoolteacher wife. And I tell you, Sam Jimper’s got an office paneled in black cypress big enough for a ball game, nothing like that closet Watts has got. I say you give Melly five hundred dollars for front and just turn her and aim her at your man, married already or not, he’s got as much chance as a key lime pie in a school yard.”
“Don’t tell me how to run it, Boo. Don’t tell me who I’m going to use. Maybe I don’t need some nut who tries to kick my knee off before he knows who I am or what I want. I have to think this out. I don’t want it messed up. It’s the biggest piece of money I’ll ever get hold of. Right now I’m going to let things sit for a while. Maybe you make sense. I don’t know. If I decide you do, you’ll hear from me.”
“What if’n I think of something else that’d help?”
“Tell me when I get in touch.”
“An if you don’t?”
“Stop leaning on me, Boo.”
He chuckled. “So you got to go talk it over with somebody. Look like you got a partner.”
“What’s that to you?”
He stood up. “Nothing. Not one damn old little thing, buddy boy. None of my business. Maybe you’re just the errand boy, talking big. Come back. Don’t come back. Ol‘ Boo’s gettin’ along sweet and fine. Leave off your car down the road?”
“Left a boat in Goodland and walked in.”
“Drive you in.”
“Don’t bother.”
“Got to go see somebody anyways. Come on.”
It was going sour. I could sense it. We went in the Lincoln. The abused engine was ragged, and he took the curves of the narrow road in careless skids, spattering shell into the ditches. After coming to a noisy, smoking stop at Stecker’s Boat Yard, he got out with me and strolled out to the dock, talking slurred, amiable nothings. The old man was gone. The pumps were unlocked, but I did not want to spend extra time within range of that blue-eyed stare. I gave it full throttle and at the end of the long white-water curve away from Goodland, I looked back and saw him standing motionless on the dock, watching me, thumbs hooked onto that lethal belt.
It had been all right, and then it had gone subtly wrong in a way I couldn’t explain. I had the feeling it had been a near thing getting away from him at all. Something had changed him, some factor of doubt, some special alertness. A twig snapping, maybe, in the tangly backwoods of his mind, bringing the head up, ears cocked, eyes narrow. I now knew it was going to all move quickly, and I could no longer set the pace. I had done my little prying and poking. The avalanche had started its first grumblings. Then comes the time to try to outrun it.
Ten
AFTER EXPOSURE to Boone Waxwell, the look of Chook and Arthur on the early afternoon beach had the flavor of a great innocence. She was hovering around him, cheering him on with shrill yips. He was braced against an impressive bend in one of the big boat rods. When I beached the Ratfink near the Flush, she hollered to me to come tell them what Arthur was fighting.
I trotted down to where they were. I saw a slow massive boil about a hundred yards out. Arthur, grunting, was trying to horse it enough to get some line back.
“What did you use?”
She held her fingers about eight inches apart. “A shiny little fish I caught, but we think he was dead after Arthur threw him out there a couple of times.”
Arthur gave me a strained grin. He and his quarry were in stasis. I waded in and felt the taut line, then felt that slow distinctive stroke, a kind of ponderous convulsion.
“Shark,” I said. “Sand shark or a nurse shark, probably. Longer odds on a hammerhead.”
“My God!” Chookie cried. “We’ve been swimming in there!”
“Heavens above!” I said. “And sometimes a bat will fly into a house and bite somebody. Or a raccoon will charge, snarling, into a supermarket. Sweetie, the sharks are there all the time. Just don’t swim when the water is all roiled and dirty.”
“What’ll I do?” Arthur asked in a strained voice.
“Depends if you want him.”
“My God, I don’t want him.”
“Then set the drag tight, aim the tip at him, and back away from the water.”
He did. After five strenuous steps, the nine thread line popped, out by the leader swivel. As he reeled in, there was another boil, farther out, as the shark went off to think things out.
“Sharks have no bones,” I announced. “Just gristle. They have rows of hinged teeth that straighten up as they open their mouths. They shed teeth from the front row and the other rows move forward. About one third the body weight is liver. The tiny spikes on their hides are tipped with enamel of the same composition as tooth enamel. Their brains are little nubs on the front ends of their spinal cords. They have no intelligence anyone has ever been able to test. They are a roving, senseless, prehistoric appetite, as unchanged as the scorpion, cockroach and other of nature’s improvisations which had good survival value. A wounded shark being eaten by his chums will continue to eat anything within reach, even hunks of himself which might happen by. End of lesson.”
“Gah,” said Chookie. “And thanks a lot.”
“Oh, two more items. There is no effective shark repellent. And they do not have to roll to bite. They can lunge up and chomp head-on, but when they bite down, then they roll to tear the meat loose. Now, children, we go into conference, critical variety. Everybody into the main Iounge.”