In a nearby specialty shop, still open, we let Lysa Dean refurbish our dwindled wardrobes to the extent of swim trunks for me and a swim suit for the lady. We fixed ourselves tall ones of gin and bitter lemon. Dana swam with utmost earnestness, chin held very high, using a stroke I told her was early sheep dog.
In the bathroom, in fading light of day, her body bore the halter marks of the long sunny ride, her broad flat breasts pale, responsive to soapy ablutions cooperatively offered. In a predictable haste, I toted the untoweled seal-shape of her, dripping, to bed, a firm, lithe, gleaming, chuckling burden which seemed to have no weight at all. Ceremonial celebration of our twenty-fourth hour.
Eased and complete, in mild and affectionate embrace, we took up the duty of talking about M’Gruder, weighing the merits of the possible methods of contact.
I could not tell her precisely what I hoped to accomplish. If M’Gruder was the man, I wanted to stir him up. I didn’t want him to believe he had any chance at all. A man running is a dead man. A trial would finish Lysa Dean as well. And when you take someone’s money for expenses, there is a morality involved. He would have some confidence he had gotten away with it. I had to blast that out of him and set him running. And arrange a chase.
The Barnweather number was listed. We went over it carefully. I coached her. She added a few ideas. There was a phone extension in the bath. I went in there and listened.
A servant said the M’Gruders were in the guest house. He gave Dana another number to call.
A man answered. A cultivated baritone, loosened slightly by drink, admitting that he, indeed, was Mister M’Gruder himself.
“You don’t know me, Mr. M’Gruder.”
“From your charming voice, that is my loss, my dear. What is your name?”
“I’ve just picked a new name for myself. I wondered if you’d like it. Patty Ives. Do you like that name?”
It was a slow five-count before he spoke. His voice was under careful control. “You sound as if you thought you were telling me something. But I am afraid I don’t follow.”
“I guess I do have you at a disadvantage. I know so much more about you than you know about me.”
“I don’t wish to be rude, but I don’t like guessing games, whoever you are. So if you don’t mind…”
“I thought we might make a date for a quiet talk, if you would like to sneak away from your little bride, Vance. We have mutual friends. Carl Abelle. Lysa Dean. Cass Edgars. Nancy Abbott. Martha Whippler. Of course Sonny Catton is dead. Poor Sonny”
Again I could have counted to five. “I think you might be a very foolish girl.”
“Foolish, but not very greedy. And very, very careful, Vance.”
“Let me put it this way. You might have something you think is valuable. But suppose it is only an annoyance?”
“Oh, wouldn’t it have to be a lot more than that!”
“You are talking in circles, my dear. I am quite certain I can be forgiven for old indiscretions. Life with my ex often became very unwholesome. Mrs. M’Gruder is aware of that. I’ve reformed. The police were here yesterday afternoon, cooperating with the Las Vegas police, I imagine. To make certain I hadn’t killed Patty. I’m not sorry she’s dead. I’m not that much of a hypocrite. She was a horrid woman. I had to get free of her in any way I could. All this is none of your business, of course. But I didn’t want you to think you’ve alarmed me. You just make me feel… irritable. Please don’t phone me again.” Click.
I reached and put the phone on the hook and then sat back on the wide yellow rim of the little triangular tub. In a few moments Dana appeared in the bathroom doorway. She had put on my sport shirt. She leaned against the door frame and said, “Well?”
“I don’t know. I just don’t know. Either we’re dead wrong, or he’s got the nerve of a headwaiter. So much points his way. Damn it, it has to be him. We’re going out there.”
“Just like that?”
“We’re going to be invited out, I hope.” There is one theory that there are but a hundred thousand people in the United States, and the rest of the 189,900,000 is a faceless mob. The theory further states that any person in the hundred thousand can be linked to any other by no more than a three-step process.
Example: Ron knew Carol’s brother at Princeton; Carol’s husband worked with Vern at the Ford Foundation; Vern’s cousin met Lucy at the film festival. Thus when Ron and Lucy meet as strangers, and sense that they are each members of the hundred thousand, they can play a warm and heartening and satisfying game of who-do-you-know, and, with little cries of delight, trace the relationship.
By dint of past endeavors I had acquired provisional membership in the group, and it seemed likely to me that Glenn and Joanne Barnweather would be solid members. So I had to tap other members most likely to know them. I tried Tulio in Oklahoma City and drew a dead blank.
I remembered Mary West in Tucson. She knew them, but not well. But she did know Paul and Betty Diver in Flagstaff who knew them intimately, and she was certain she could get Betty to play along. If there was any hitch, she would phone back. If not, I would hear from Joanne Barnweather directly. She briefed me on what I’d have to know about the Divers.
We had a twenty-minute wait before the phone rang. “Trav McGee?” a woman asked. “This is Joanne Barnweather. I just got a call from our very dear mutual friend, Paul Diver, saying you’re in town. Could you come out to the place? Are you free?”
“If I can bring along a gal.”
“Of course you can, dear. Glenn and I will be delighted. We’ve got some people in to meet our houseguests and we’re just churning around here, very informal, drinking up a small storm and waiting for time to throw a steak on. Do come as you are. We’ll be delighted to see you.” She gave me directions.
Dana had been nestled close to me, listening. When I hung up she gave me a look of mock admiration. “You are a scoundrel, McGee.”
“Darling, go put on your green.”
“She said to come as we are.”
“Then at least button my shirt.”
Fourteen
ON THE way out, under a chilly spangle of stars, I had briefed Dana on how we’d handle it. She was to stay away from M’Gruder, target on his young Swede bride if possible. I would do what I could with M’Gruder.
The Barnweather place was a simple little quarter-million-dollar ranch house a few hundred yards into a lot of rocky acreage, with fifteen cars glinting in the starlight, music and festive sounds coming from the floodlighted pool area.
I sensed that Dana took a deep breath and braced herself as we walked toward the party jabber. There were infrared heaters focused on the broad terrace area at the house end of the pool. A gleaming, beaming little fellow in a red coat tended bar.
These were a pack of the young marrieds, the success-prone ones. The tense and girlish mothers of three and five and seven young, their beefier husbands, expansive with bourbon and land deals. About thirty-five people in all, forming and reforming their little conversational groups. Dress was varied, all the way from shorts and slacks to some of those fanciful ranch coats on the men, the pale whipcord jobs with the pearl buttons and pocket flaps. The audible talk had that Southwest flavor so quickly acquired by the people who move there from Indiana and Pennsylvania.
When we hesitated, a slender pretty woman came smiling toward us, holding one hand out to each of us. “Trav? I’m Joanne.”
“And this is Diana Hollis.” We had decided it was possible Lysa Dean had spoken of her girl Friday to M’Gruder, and the name was just unusual enough to stick in his mind.
“So glad you could come, dears. Come meet the group.”
She steered us over for a drink first, and then swung us through the throng, rattling off the names and identifications. Glenn was one of the burly ones in whipcord. Joanne made a little more special thing of the introduction to their house guests.