John D MacDonald Page 9

  "It’s not only hedging the bet. He, at the same time is acquiring a hell of a competent man."

  "Buying his soul?"

  Cam gave me a sour look of annoyance and got up and paced over to the window to look down the slant of lawn toward the water. "Faustus is a little dated, Sam. You’re a nice guy, but this is a practical world and you have to live in it. You’ve got to get the hell off your white horse or be left behind."

  "I know all the rationalizations too. The world is insecure. Let me get mine first. They’ve given up the premium on decency."

  He turned and the lamplight on his face emphasized the deep hollows in his cheeks. "Am I an indecent man?" he asked softly.

  "Answer it yourself. Every man lives with himself. Every man shaves himself. And why the hell are we both feeling uncomfortable and slightly guilty right now just because I brought up the question of decency? What’s turned it into a shameful subject?"

  His smile was crooked. "I give you the pat answer. The decay of public morality, political morality, private morality. The venality of public institutions."

  "So what you are saying to me, you and Mike Dean, is that these are the rules of the game, and it’s time I accept the rules and make my pile. So it’s a cynical invitation."

  He sighed and collapsed into his chair. "You’re a hell of a difficult man, Sam. I like you. I know what you’re talking about. But I’ve outgrown my boyhood urge to fight windmills. Maybe you haven’t. Take a good hard look at where you stand. I personally don’t think Mike has to hedge the bet. I think he’s going to acquire control anyway. And so do you. Suppose you stand on principle and refuse this offer. The Dean organization moves in. You go out on your ear, and in order to justify tossing you out there’ll be some publicity about a young, dreamy-eyed idealist who was so completely unsuited to running a big corporation that Mike had to bounce him in order to save everybody’s marbles. And don’t think that Guy Brainerd’s mill won’t grind that out in a way that will really sting."

  "So?"

  "So it’s going to happen anyway. What do you do when a building is burning down? Do you paint safety slogans on the walls, or do you carry out the cash?"

  "When do you want a decision?"

  "There’s no rush."

  "There’s no point in my carrying this stuff around. Here." He put it in the drawer. "Should I wait around for Mike to come back?"

  "No. I’ll tell him you’re thinking it over."

  I stood up and started toward the door and then turned back and said, "About this Bowman. Working with him would hardly be a joy."

  "Mike makes optimum use of him. He makes optimum use of me. There’s something to be said for being constantly stretched to fulfill your capacities. When you understand Fletcher he isn’t so bad. He is just a completely and astonishingly emotionless man who has had to learn how to simulate warmth in order to get along."

  I managed to get down to the dock without running into anybody. I went out toward the end to get away from the mosquitoes. I sat with my legs dangling. The fuzziness of the liquor was entirely gone.

  Basically, what the hell did I owe anybody? By bucking Dean I was asking for five years of grueling, tense work, and the chance of success was smaller than it had seemed. Maybe getting away had given me some perspective. And there was a hell of a good chance that I wouldn’t be able to buck him anyway. Louise was depressed and discontented. With the right urging, she’d sell out. Did I owe her anything? Or Tommy? Or Warren? Or Tom McGann dead over two and a half years? Hadn’t I fulfilled the promise I made him? I’d come back to Harrison, and I’d put in eight years, nearly. Was I supposed to sink with the ship, standing at attention, saluting the McGann banner?

  And how about my duty to all those people who depend on the Harrison Corporation? Those poor desperate people who so delight in drawing eight hours’ pay for two hours’ work.

  One third of a million bucks, plus forty thousand a year for at least three years, and probably a fatter contract when that one ran out.

  Gene and Cary and Al were pulling for me. I’d had to stick my head in the lion’s mouth, and they were hoping I’d give him a bad case of indigestion. It wasn’t as if I owned the company. I was just a hired hand.

  Anybody else in the world would jump at it, Glidden. So what the hell is wrong with you? Scruples? It can’t be so bad with Dean. Cam keeps his self-respect. It’s a jungly world. A corporate entity is like a living creature. If it gets sick and wobbly, the other creatures bring it down and gorge on the fat.

  Maybe I could sign up and talk Mike into doing it my way. Maybe, after I sign up, he’ll be more willing to listen.

  Stop kidding yourself, Glidden. Do yourself one little favor. Whatever you do, don’t lie to yourself. It gets to be a habit.

  I heard the sound of high heels on the dock. She was walking carefully, and silhouetted against the house lights.

  "Sam?" she said.

  "Right here, Louise."

  She came and sat down beside me, close to me, and accepted a cigarette. "I understand there was a sort of a little conference tonight. I’ve been looking for you."

  "How are things meanwhile back at the ranch?"

  "Sticky. Little Bundy talked Bonny Carson into singing some of the numbers from the musical they want Mike to back. She’s tight again and she went flat and we had to clap and everybody had horrid frozen smiles on their faces. Tommy and Lolly are having a desperate pingpong tournament. There’s a poker game going--Mike and the Crowns and Cam and Guy Brainerd and Amparo, with Elda looking on. Murphy or Bridget, or whatever you’re supposed to call her, is in a corner of the lounge typing something. That Jack Buck person is being a charm boy with our Puss, filling her full of Texas talk. How did your conference go, Sam?"

  I swear that I had intended to be completely honest with, her, and tell her the details of the offer they made me.

  "I was interesting," I said

  "I’ll bet."

  "Mostly I guess they just wanted to get my views on what I think can be done to make Harrison healthy. I gave them the three-star spiel."

  "How did they take it?"

  "It’s hard to tell. They listened. Maybe I was wrong. Maybe Mike wants to do it my way. And, of course, that would give us better backing."

  She took hold of my hand. "Sam, that’s wonderful1 Was that all?"

  "That was all." The lie had a sick and sour taste. I’d taken my first Judas step. And I could see how the rest of it would go. Seriously, Louise, I see no harm in signing proxies over to Mike. Mike is a great guy. Very sound. You and Tommy sign the proxies and everything will be just dandy. Then he’ll control two hundred and eighty out of four hundred and forty thousand shares, and your pal Sam Glidden is set for life.

  Almost as though she had read my mind, she said, "I’ve decided to do whatever you recommend, Sam. You’ll know what’s best for Harrison. But . . ."

  "But what?

  "I’d like to sell out and go away. I think that if Warren and I could go away alone, things might be different."

  So, if that was what she wanted, I knew how it could be arranged.

  There was a heavy stride on the dock. He came out and stood heavily behind us. Louise looked up at him and said, "Oh, hello, Warren."

  "Oh, hello, Warren," he simpered. "Am I interrupting anything? You go fishing together and you like to be in the dark together, and today you had a nice little nap together. Was it fun?"

  She got up quickly. "What are you trying to say?"

  "I’m telling you that you’re a bitch. And I’m telling you I’m not stupid."

  "You’re just drunk, Warren," she said in a tired voice.

  "Bitch," he said. "Stupid bitch."

  "Watch it!" I said.

  He swayed and peered at me. "Here comes noble white knight to the rescue. Galumph, galumph. After lunch and that tiring, tiring morning fishing you are both soooo tired. So you took naps. So I went back to the room, and what do you know, no sleepy little wife. Where could she be?
I wonder. So I went tippy-toe to the window of the room of the big young industrial genius and I couldn’t see in, but I could hear real good. You two were having such a nice active nap. Did the tropics get to you, honey?"

  "You don’t know what you’re saying, Warren. I couldn’t sleep. I walked west along the beach, looking for shells. The shells I found are in a paper bag on my bureau."

  "Bitch, bitch, bitch," he said with satisfaction. "I heard you, you bitch. Moaning and sighing. I heard you."

  "You heard somebody else," I said. "Not Louise."

  In the silence she gave a little gasp. I suspect that if she were shot through the heart, she might give the same little gasp before crumpling to the ground. She walked quickly away from us and she was running by the time she reached the end of the dock.

  "You put on a good act, you filthy bastard," Warren said.

  "Just get away from me. Get the hell away from me."

  I never saw the punch. The side of my jaw blew up and, after a curious interlude of weightlessness, I landed flat on my back in the water below the dock The water cleared my head. I am so big I have never had to do much fighting. People think it over a long time before taking the risk of starting anything. I have an amiable streak that makes me think that fighting a man with your fists is stupid.

  But I was very, very tired of Warren Dodge and I was in a kind of ferment of despair over how he had forced me to ruin Louise’s opinion of me.

  I swam to where I could walk, and I walked ashore. He was waiting for me. I knew his reputation as an able and savage brawler. I am reasonably co-ordinated, but not fast. During my brief football career I depended on power rather than speed.

  He waited for me up on the lawn and we circled cautiously in the shifting light. Then he yelled: I knew what he wanted. He wanted the others to come and watch how he could cut the bigger man down. It worked. They came out. Mike bulled his way between us and said, "You both think this is necessary? We said it was. "So go ahead then."

  He came in and hooked me three times on the jaw and once in the stomach and I clubbed him hard, but too high on the head. It hurt my hand. He came in again, and it was the same sort of thing, but I hit him a little bit better. I didn’t think about the pain or the blood in my mouth or the people watching. I thought about staying on my feet and getting that one solid blow. The pattern was set. It was the only thing I could do.

  "Fall .. . damn you. Fall!" he said, and I knew he was winded. It gave me a little hope, and hope made me just a little bit quicker. And when he came in again, I knocked him down. He got up quickly and tried again and I knocked him down. He got up slowly and I walked toward him but he didn’t wait. He dropped down onto his knees and said, "Thass enough!"

  "Apologize!" I said My voice sounded thick and funny.

  "Okay, okay. I’m sorry."

  I walked by him and up to the house, marching on doughy legs. Amparo Blakely took over. She had a first aid kit in her room. She had done some nursing once upon a time. All the time she was fixing me up, her hands very gentle, she was saying, "How perfectly asinine! Grown men acting like naughty little boys. I’ve never seen anything so ridiculous in my life."

  "Sometimes it’s the only thing you can do."

  "Nonsense! There! You’re not half as bad as I thought you would be. Let me see that hand."

  It was puffy and it hurt. She prodded my knuckles and made me work my fingers until she was reasonably certain I hadn’t broken anything. I could wiggle one tooth with my tongue tip. There were lumps on my jaw and cuts inside my mouth, and the one he had landed on my throat had hoarsened my voice.

  When we went out the fight was still being discussed. Warren had gone to his room without a word of explanation to anyone. I was handed a drink and then they demanded that I tell them what it was about.

  "He was tight and nasty," I said "I was sitting on the dock with Louise and we were talking business. He put a wrong interpretation on it. When I stood up he knocked me off the dock. I better go put some dry clothes on."

  "Maybe you ought to go to bed," Amparo said.

  "Not for a while. I don’t feel too bad."

  "You will," she said, meaningfully.

  After I ceased being the center of attention, I found myself alone with Amparo. We sat on the veranda. She was a woman who could maintain a very comfortable and comforting silence.

  "Mike says you’re thinking about joining our clan," she said after a while.

  "It needs consideration."

  "I think you’d like it It’s . . . what do they call it? . . . a taut ship."

  "Flying the jolly roger?"

  "According to the opposition."

  "How about according to you, Amparo?"

  "Well . . . I wouldn’t call it a pirate ship, but I wouldn’t say we don’t have our moments. I’d say privateer."

  "You’re just fiddling around with semantics, aren’t you?"

  "Maybe. But it’s exciting. Of that you can be sure. Never a dull moment in Deanland."

  "Have you been with him long?"

  "For more years than I care to think about Mike’s anxious to have you aboard. There’s some hot spots coming up where he can use you."

  "Hasn’t he got anybody else?"

  "Sure. But Mike has the idea that you get better service from the able and hungry young men, How are you feeling now, Sam?"

  "A little shaky."

  She patted my arm. "You better go off to bed, really. And try to sleep in if you can."

  SIX

  WHEN I WOKE UP at the usual six-thirty on Friday morning, I felt like hell. Every joint and muscle ached and twanged when I climbed laboriously out of bed. A long hot shower eased some of the anguish. The mirror told me my puffed mouth was back almost to normal. The tooth didn’t feel quite as loose. My right hand was damned sore. When I walked quietly down the veranda the bright morning had a garish look of unreality about it.

  I felt that the place was changing me, and I wished I was back in my familiar office. Life moved a little too fast here, and it was a little too rotten ripe for my tastes. I thought about the papers waiting for my signature and I knew that the scene on the dock had, at least, done one thing. Until I knew which way Louise was going to jump, I had no decision to make. It could well be that any chance of further co-operation between us had been lost.

  Booty came out to take my breakfast order while I was still wallowing in the pool. I clung to the side and gave her the order. Yesterday’s burn showed fine promise of eventually turning into a tan. Booty brought my breakfast and then backed up and stood there. I looked at her and she had her underlip caught in white strong teeth and she looked shyly troubled.

  "What is it, Booty?"

  "You fight that mon. I hear you beat that mon."

  "Yes, I guess I did"

  "I am glad"

  "Don’t you like him?"

  "I do not like that mon. No. When I am in a room and I am cleaning, he wants me to do an evil thing. And that mon laughed when I run. I do not tell. I do not know if I should tell Mr. Dean."

  I thought quickly. "No, Booty. Don’t tell Mr. Dean I’ll speak to Mr. Dodge. He won’t bother you again."

  "Thank you very much, sar. But all the same I will have with me a knife. Here." She touched the side of her right thigh lightly, touched the white starch of her skirt She turned and walked away.

  I could think of very few men aside from Warren Dodge who would try anything like that.

  At seven-thirty Louise came along in a different swim suit, a yellow one. She had a slightly sallow look and there were dark smudges under her eyes. She gave me a cool nod and one millimeter of formal smile, put her towel and lotion and dark glasses on the edge of the pool, tucked her dark hair into a white cap and dived in. I sipped my coffee and watched her sleek stroke. After she pulled herself out she headed for a far table.

  "Sit here, Louise," I said.

  She hesitated, came back and sat opposite me. "Thank you," she said. She made a small formal ceremony of si
tting down. In the process she erected a glass wall between us, perfectly transparent and about three inches thick. We could converse through it by means of an electronic communication system.

  "How is Warren?"

  "The left side of his face looks horrible," she said, and I thought I saw a little gleam of satisfaction.

  "We seem to be the earliest birds in the outfit."

  "Yes, don’t we?" Booty came out and Louise ordered toast and coffee.