But I had to remember her, too vividly, lighting Stebber’s cigar.
“Sweetie,” I said, “you are a penny from heaven. And you probably know lots and lots of tricks. But every one would remind me that you are a pro, from Wilma’s old stable of club fighters. Call me a sentimentalist. The bloom is too far off the rose, sweetie. I’d probably keep leaving money on the bureau. You better peddle it. Thanks but no thanks.”
The lips curled back and her face went so tight, I saw what a pretty and delicate little skull she’d make, picked clean, as Wilma’s now was, in the dark bottom of Chevelier Bay. Without a word she whirled and went off toward the distant cab.
The driver looked at me as if I’d lost my mind. He managed three bags on the first trip, and came after the others at a trot, looking whipped with a salty lash.
I don’t know what it is that makes that difference. I don’t know now, and maybe I never will. Maybe the people who fit have some forlorn fancy about perfecting themselves in their own image, about living up to some damned thing always a little out of reach. But you try. You reach and slip and fall and get up, and you reach some more.
I went below, slapped a wrench on a nut, put my back into it, and took the hide off the top of three knuckles.
I sat down there in the hot gloom like a big petulant baby, sucking on my knuckles, remembering the shape and sway of her in gray, walking away, and thinking some of the blackest thoughts I own.
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Table of Contents
Travis McGee #6 Bright Orange For The ShroudJohn D. MacDonaldRIGHT ORANGE FOR THE SHROUD 21BRIGHT ORANGE FOR THE SHROUD 123