Travis McGee 16 - The Dreadful Lemon Sky

Scorf’s coat was spread, showing the gun butt. With a swift and insane delicacy, with a mind bulging awareness of my own madness, I leaned into the field of fire of the big automatic, snatched Scorf’s weapon free, and fell to the cement on the far side of the Cougar from the immobilized Hascomb. He fired as I disappeared from his view, and like an after-echo of the hefty bam, I heard the slug clunk into the loading dock. An instant later Scorf slid off the hood onto his side, landing with a heavy clopping and thudding.

Doubtless Harry Hascomb had some sort of a script in mind. Maybe the automatic was due to end up in my dead hand, and Harry was due to end up in Peru.

I am not one for the shootout at the O.K. or any other corral. I have no wish to stand in full view with steely nerves and draw a bead on the chap trying to blow my head in twain.

I hitched quickly into the prone position and steadied the short-barreled weapon by grasping my right wrist in my left hand and pushing outward. I aimed under the low road clearance of the Cougar, and I aimed at the front ankle creases in his Western boot and did not miss at that range. He yelled and started gimping around. I missed the other boot the first try and then got it on the second try. All of Harry Hascomb came tumbling down, making shrill sounds of total dismay. He thought to return the fire in the same manner, aiming under the car. I was after his hand or wrist, but I hit the automatic by accident. The slug spanged and went screeing off in ricochet, and the Colt killed the muffler on the Cougar before it went spinning away from him.

Without any conscious thought and without the awareness of any lapse to time, I found myself standing over Hascomb, picking a place right between the eyes.

Then I realized it would mean I would spend the best years of my life in Bayside, filling out forms and answering questions. He was not going anywhere, but to be safe I took both sets of car keys. I walked all the way to the phone booth beside the gas station, the one Carrie had patronized.

Eighteen

A WIND had come up and blown all the smutch into somebody else’s sky. Cindy and I sat on the deck chairs on the sun deck, side by side, and looked up at all the diamonds in the sky.

“You said they found it, Trav, but where was it?”

“In a box labeled Camp Stove. He was getting ready to go camping. And get lost in the woods. Forever.”

“He said he killed Carrie?”

“Knocked her cold. Waited for the right kind of traffic and then took her by the crotch and the nape of the neck and slung her into the farm truck.”

I sensed the way she shuddered.

She said, “I suppose, in a way, some of the money is mine.”

“In a way. But your chances of getting it…”

“I know. I’ll just have to make it anyway.”

“Couldn’t you sell out?”

“

Sure. But then what?“

“What do you mean?”

“Trav, darling, I like to work. I like to run things. And I like to have security. I’ve got a hundred thousand mortgage to pay off, and the place is worth ten times that. I am really going to have to pitch in.”

“And I was going to ask you to pack a bag and come cruising.”

“Well… someday, maybe.”

“I gather that you are underwhelmed.”

“Male pride talking. Can’t you accept the fact that I’m tied to this place?”

“And you want to be tied to it.”

“Please. I don’t want to fight with you. Please, dear.”

I stretched until my shoulders creaked. “Okay, Cindy. You are very realistic and diligent and all that. Maybe I have a grasshopper philosophy, but it strikes me there are a lot of dead people around here. Given advance warning, they could have done more living.”

“We don’t know each other.”

“What does that mean?”

“I found out from you I’m a more physical person than I thought I was. Okay, so it makes me skeptical of myself and impatient about things. So, being a careful person, I need time. I just can’t go mooning and dreaming around here and letting important things slide.”

“Mooning and dreaming are very good stuff.”

“Sure, sure, sure. We really don’t know each other at all. And I am a drone. A worker. A builder. Maybe I can learn to play someday. But I have to have something solid, all built, before I’ll dare. Please understand.”

I gave up. I lifted her hand up and opened it and kissed the palm. She shivered. I said, “Give me a call when you get all your ducks in a row. When you feel like getting acquainted.”

“Could you call me?”

“I suppose so. Why?”

“It’s very strange to feel so shy about somebody you’ve been to bed with. But I do.”

“Cindy, I will call you. But when?”

She inhaled and exhaled deeply, a sign of relaxation and contentment and eventual anticipation.

“Just try me every once in a while, okay?”

And it was okay because it had to be. There wasn’t any other choice. Sometimes it is a relief not to have a choice. I will have to get Meyer to explain this concept to me.

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Table of Contents

The Dreadful Lemon SkyJohn D. MacDonaldPEDESTRIAN FATALITY