Accepting a sausage, Lu squatted by her side.
They got talking. Katey thought Lu was a superman. She loved his beard, his muscles and his jeering green eyes. Lu had a talent for turning girls on. This was about his only talent as his father, a staid Houston judge, had sadly discovered. Lu was a law drop out. He considered his father and his mother were the world’s biggest drags. He had left home when he was seventeen years of age, and since then, now twenty-three, he had bummed around, picking up some kind of living, doing any job from dish washing to garage work, but happy to be free from the suffocating atmosphere of his home. But after six years of living rough, he had come to the conclusion that money, after all, was important. He had begun to dream of being rich: not peanuts, but real money, and he had also come to the conclusion that he just wasn’t going to become rich by settling to some dreary nine-to-five job.
Arriving at Jacksonville three days ago, he found he hadn’t enough money to buy himself even a hot dog. His hunger overcame the last of his scruples. Walking aimlessly through Confederate Park, he came upon a well-dressed old woman, sitting on a bench, sound asleep. By her side was a large lizard-skin handbag. It was the work of a moment to whip up the bag and run swiftly into the flowering shrubs. The net yield of the bag was an unbelievable $400.
Katey had been living in the colony now for two years, and what she didn’t know about the city, most of the people and their way of life, could be written on the head of a pin.
Seeming to be chatting idly, Lu got from her that Karen Sternwood, the daughter of one of the richest men in the City, owned the cabin right where this hooker was murdered.
‘Karen is okay,’ Katey said. ‘She comes here from time to time. In spite of all her money, she’s our people. Chet digs her.’
Lu became alert.
‘If she’s that rich, what’s she doing living in a shack like that?’ he asked, reaching for another sausage.
‘It’s her love nest,’ Katey explained. ‘Her old man is a real drag. A girl needs to get screwed now and then. If her old man ever knew what went on in that cabin, he would flip his stupid lid.’
‘Would she care?’
Katey laughed.
‘Sure she would. Right now she has everything. She once told me if her old man found out, he’d cut her off without a dime.’ She looked longingly at the sausages she was cooking, but she checked the impulse to take one. She hated being known as Fat Katey. ‘But Karen likes work. Her old man started a branch office in Secomb. She works there: a nine to five stint that would drive me out of my tiny mind.’
‘Is she in charge there?’ Lu asked, ever probing.
‘Oh, no. Ken Brandon is in charge.’ Katey heaved a sigh. ‘There’s a lovely man!’
‘Why do you say that, Katey?’
‘He’s just like Gregory Peck, when young, and he’s nice. He once gave me a hitch into the city.’ Katey closed her eyes and sighed again. ‘He really turned me on.’
Lu’s mind shifted to the man who had been with Karen. Tall, dark, and maybe like Peck. It made sense. A guy working all day with a hot piece like Karen would want to screw her.
‘No romance for you, Katey?’ he said with a sympathetic smile. ‘I suppose he’s married?’
‘Oh, sure. His wife is real smart. She works for Dr. Heintz. He fixes all these rich creeps who get pregnant.’
‘Does Brandon get along with his wife?’
‘Sure. They get along fine together. Any girl in her right mind would get along with him!’
Lu decided he had asked enough questions. He switched the subject and asked Katey how long she planned to stay with the colony.
Katey shrugged.
‘I’ve got nowhere else to go. I guess I’ll stay as long as I’m wanted.’
Lu patted her fat hand.
‘You’ll always be wanted, chick. You’ve got that thing.’ Then he got to his feet. ‘I’ll take a look around. See you, and take care.’
Katey watched him walk towards his cabin.
You’ve got that thing!
She felt a pang. How she wished she had! Then the impulse to eat a sausage proved too much for her.
Back in his cabin, Lu sat on the camp bed. He opened the telephone book and found Ken Brandon lived on Lotus Street. He scribbled the address down on a scrap of paper. Then he counted his stolen money. He was worth $350. He lit a cigarette and sat for a long time, thinking.
This could be his big take, he told himself, but he would have to handle it carefully.
First, he must survey the scene. He must find out about how much Brandon was worth. There would be no problem with the Sternwood girl. According to Katey, her old man was loaded with the stuff. According to Katey, Brandon and his wife were close. This night out was probably Brandon’s first slip up: a strong lever for getting money from him.
If he handled it right, Lu told himself, stubbing out his cigarette, he could pick up ten thousand dollars: the thought excited him.
Then he frowned. If he went ahead, this would be extortion His year in law school had taught him this was a serious offence. Again he thought. He was already a thief. Extortion? If he played this smart, he wouldn’t get caught. Ten thousand dollars!
He scratched his beard while he continued to think. Step by step, he finally told himself: survey the scene.
Getting to his feet, he went into the bathroom and trimmed his beard and hair closely. Then stripping off, he took a shower. Dressed in his best hip-huggers and a white shirt, he surveyed himself in the bathroom mirror. He was convinced that he wouldn’t attract the attention of some nosey fuzz. He looked almost respectable!
Leaving the cabin, he walked over the dunes to the highway. He waited for a City-Secomb bus, then was conveyed to Secomb. While sitting in the crowded bus, he decided he would have to become mobile. After wandering around the crowded streets of Secomb, he came upon a car mart. Two hours later, he drove away in a battered VW. He had paid $155 for the half-wreck, but not before he had squeezed from the dealer a new set of plugs. He was satisfied that the car would run for another five hundred miles. His garage experience had paid off.
He had asked the car dealer where to find the branch office of the Paradise Assurance Corporation. Following the car dealer’s directions, he drove to Seaview Road, and was able to park within twenty yards of the Assurance office. The time now was 13.00. He hadn’t been sitting in the car for more than ten minutes when he saw Ken Brandon leave the office and walk over to the quick-lunch bar, across the road.
Lu immediately recognized Brandon as the man he had seen with Karen on the beach.
Check! he thought.
He then drove into the city. He found parking and bought a map of the city from a drug store. Returning to the car, he located Lotus Street. He drove there, then leaving the car at the top of the road, he walked down, passing bungalows and villas until he came to Brandon’s bungalow. Slowing, but not stopping, he regarded the bungalow with its trim garden, and he nodded to himself. A guy who could afford a place like this, he thought, must be worth at least five thousand dollars.
Returning to his car, he drove back to Secomb, and again found parking near the Assurance office. For some minutes, he watched black people entering the office. He had to be sure that the girl who had been with Brandon was indeed Karen Sternwood. He hesitated. Would she recognize him if he walked into the office? He had trimmed his hair and beard. As she had only seen him in the moonlight, he decided it was unlikely she would recognize him. But suppose she did? Did it matter? He would have preferred the element of surprise, but it was worth the risk.