“And you’ll have sixty more to fool with?”
“Meyer wouldn’t like that verb.”
“Ahh, McGee, all those poor bastards who’ll wish that Tush Bannon never had a friend like you. Anyway, when things get just a little quieter-if they ever do-please let me know because then I think would be a good time for you to phone Jan and tell her that there are papers to be signed or something, any excuse for her to come down there. I’ll talk her into it and keep the kids here, and when she gets down, you make her stay awhile. She needs a change. She needs to get away from the kids and away from here. She ought to get a lot of sun, and walk on a beach and swim and catch a fish and hear music and be near happy people. Okay?”
“Okay Connie. Soon.”
At eight thirty that evening the bing-bong announced that somebody had stepped over the gangplank chain and come aboard. I looked out and saw Meyer. I let him in.
He had a grin like a piano keyboard. He fell onto the yellow couch and said, “Build me one of those death-dealing in-and-out jobs named after somebody who’s name escapes me.”
“You’ll get maudlin.”
“So?”
“Any trouble at all?”
“None. You know, I have seldom seen or touched a greasier, grimier wad of money. I didn’t know hundred-dollar bills ever got so cruddy. They must have come from a fondler.”
“LaFrance was calm?”
“He stammered and sweat and his eyes bulged and he spilled his drink and mine. Otherwise, a cucumber. By now he’s got the greeting card. By now he knows how it was done, by you switching claim checks as you turned away from him to walk over to me. By now he knows you picked it up ten minutes after it was checked. By now maybe he has leaned across the desk and hit Harry in the mouth. What a pity not to see him read the nice card I bought him.”
“You’ll get to see a certain amount of agitation.”
“You can arrange that?”
“The phone is turned off. He’ll be here in the morning. Count on it. Come over early. We’ll play a little chess.”
“I should be down watching the board. Today it moved almost too good. Volume is picking up. Very close to two points. Seven grand, practically, for the widow. I’ve got a friend on the floor of the exchange keeping in close touch with the fellow who maintains the position in Fletcher, and he calls me at my brokers the minute anything starts to look sour. And I should put in some orders for her out of the sixty. We’ll have five days to meet the margin call. I don’t think the mail takes that long from Broward Beach to here. At least not usually.”
“We could be having a little game on the sun deck. The forecast is warm and bright. We invite him aboard. We have a little chat. He goes away.”
“So I could phone in the first order. So it isn’t as risky now in the beginning as it is going to get. Also, there is a variation of the queen’s pawn opening I think I can break your back with. You know, you don’t look so great.”
“I brood a lot.”
He finished the last of the drink in one huge gulp. He shuddered and got up and said, “Now if I can be standing by the bunk when that hits me…”
Fifteen
WE HAD placed the chess table and chairs near the rear of the sun deck so we could look down onto the dock. We surveyed the morning traffic between moves. At one point Hero went by, swaying his big shoulders. The usual lock of hair was combed to fall just right over his forehead. He was taking a morning saunter through the game preserves, just in case he might flush something even at an unlikely morning hour. His gray slacks were tightly tailored to his narrow hips, and the broad belt was cinched tightly around his improbable waist.
He crinkled up at us and said in his mellow bassbaritone, “Morning, gents. Nice day out today.”
“Getting any?” Meyer said contemptuously.
“Can’t complain, gents. It’s the best season for it.” He came to a momentary point and then lengthened his relaxed stride. I turned and saw two girls in beach togs with pale northern faces and legs, heading from the dock area toward the shops. Just as they disappeared from sight beyond the palm fronds Hero was ten feet behind them and, I suspected, clearing his throat and checking the third finger, left hand. That was his quaint little conceit, his only concession to any rule of human behavior. He proclaimed it often, with great conviction and emphasis. “I hold marriage sacred, and never in my life have I knowingly courted nor touched a lady united in the holy bonds of matrimony, no sir. It’s something no gentleman would do.”
A little later Meyer went below and phoned his broker and came back acting less restless. “It opened up a whole point, and then a couple of pretty good blocks came on the market and knocked it down to an eighth below yesterday’s close. Insiders unloading, maybe. If so, in another week or two, they’ll be slitting their throats at what they could have gotten.”
At a few minutes before eleven, Preston LaFrance came along the dock at a half lope. He looked rumpled. He hadn’t shaved. He came to a lurching halt and stared up at us.
“Doctor Mey…” It came out falsetto, so he coughed and tried again. “Doctor Meyerl”
“Hidey, Press,” I said. “How you, old buddy? Come on aboard. Ladderway up here is on the port side.” He came clambering up and came over and stood beside us. We studied the chess pieces.
“Doctor Meyer!”
“Just Meyer,” he said. “Plain old Meyer.”
“But don’t you work for-”
“Work? Who should work? I’m an economist. I live on a little cruiser that has a case of dry rot lately. If I decide to get out the tools and go to work on it, then I’ll be working.”
“Then there isn’t any… offer for the land?”
We both looked up at him: “Offer?” I said.
“Land?” said Meyer.
“Oh Jesus, you two were in this lousy racket together. You are a stinking pair of con men. Oh Jesus God!”
“Please!” said Meyer. “I’m trying to figure out why he moved his bishop.”
“I’m going to have you two bastards thrown in jails.”
“McGee,” said Meyer, “let’s finish the game after the noise stops.” He stood up and leaned against the rail. Meyer in his white swim trunks reminds me a little bit of a man who is all dressed to go to a masquerade as a dancing bear. All that is left to do is put on the bear head and the collar. He stared at LaFrance? “Jail? For what?”
“You two took a hunnert thousand dollars away from me! More than that! That Bannon place isn’t worth half the mortgage on it!”
“Mr. LaFrance,” I said, “the records will show that I paid a legitimate fifteen thousand for Mrs. Bannon’s equity in the Bannon Boatel, and then I turned around and sold that same equity to you for forty thousand. And I think that your banker will remember how anxious you’ve been to get your hands on Bannon’s ten acres on the river.”
“But… but… damn it, that was because you said…” He stopped himself and took a deep breath. “Listen. Forget the forty thousand. Okay. You suckered me. But the sixty thousand I gave this man last night, that’s something else again. I’ve got to have it back.”
“You gave me sixty thousand dollars!” Meyer said in vast astonishment. “Look. Stop standing in the sun. Get some rest.”
He stood there, blinking, clenching and unclenching his boney fists. His color was bad. He smiled what I would imagine he thought was an ingratiating and friendly smile. “You took me good, boys. Slick and perfect. You made a nice score off ol‘ Press LaFrance. And I guess you’re not going to give it back just because I say pretty please with sugar. But you don’t understand. I had to put up the Carbee option to get the sixty thousand. Now, if I had it back, I could go ahead and make my deal with Santo. That’s what I got to trade with, boys. We’ll draw it up legal. You’ll get the sixty thousand back that you stole off me, and twenty more to sweeten the pot.”
“If I had sixty thousand,” said Meyer, “would I be hanging around with such riffraff? I would be riding around in a white convertible with a beautiful woman in furs and diamonds.”