The Good Old Stuff

Breathe No More (aka Breathe No More, My Lovely)

He looked like a fat child as he walked gingerly down the beach. He winced, sat down, picked a wicked little sand burr from the pink pad of his foot. For a time he sat there, pouting and petulant, his fat tummy and thick shoulders an angry pink from the midafternoon Florida sun. A porpoise, chasing sand sharks, made a lazy arc a hundred yards out. The Gulf was oily and torpid. The fat man wore spectacular swimming trunks. He was semi-bald, with rimless glasses pinched into the bridge of his soft nose. He sat and looked dully at the small waves, tasting again the sense of utter defeat that had been with him these past two days on Grouper Island. Defeat. Everything gone. Not much more time left. How would it be to wade out and start swimming? Swim until there was nothing but exhaustion, strangling, and death.

He shivered in the sun’s heat. No.

Slowly he stood up. Sweat trickled down through the gray mat of hair on his chest. He walked back toward the house of his odd host, toward the gleaming-white terraced fortress of the man called Park Falkner.

Twenty feet farther along he angled up across the dry sand. He saw her, bronze, oiled, and gleaming in the sun. She lay on a blanket, her hair wrapped, turban fashion, in a towel, her eyes covered with odd little plastic cups joined together with a nose band. She was in a hollow in the sand, her scanty bathing suit hiding little of her firm, tanned flesh.

The hate for her shuddered up in him, tightening his throat, making him feel weak and trembling. She had done this to him. She had lost everything for him. He knew it was useless, but he had to plead with her again, plead for her silence. He remembered the last time, remembered her evil amusement.

“Laura!” he said softly. “Laura, are you awake?”

She didn’t move. He saw the slow rise and fall of her breathing. Asleep. The wish to do her harm came with an almost frightening suddenness. He looked at the big white house three hundred yards away. No sign of movement on any of the terraces. They would be napping after the large lunch, after the cocktails.

He moved close to her. He knew, suddenly and with satisfaction, that he was going to try to kill Laura Hale. But how? There could be no marks on her throat. No bruise of violence. He squatted beside her. Her underlip sagged a bit away from the even white teeth. Her breathing merged with the husky whisper of the sea. A gull wheeled and called hoarsely, startling him. Sandpipers ran and pecked along the sand.

Methodically, as though he were a fat child playing, he began to heap up the dry white sand, removing the shell fragments. He piled it on the edge of the blanket, near her head. Sweat ran from him as he worked. The conical pile grew higher and higher. The widening base of it moved closer to her head. He stopped when it was over two feet high and again he watched the white house. So far he had done nothing. He forced himself to breathe slowly. He held his hands hard against his thighs to steady them.

Laura slept on. The plastic cups over her eyes gave her a look of blindness.

It had to be done quickly. He went over every step. The pile of sand towered over her face. With an awkward, splay-fingered push, he shoved the tiny mountain over and across her face, burying it deep. He followed it over, resting his chest on the pile that covered her face, grabbing her wrists as they flashed up. He held her down as she made her soundless struggle. Surely she knew who was doing this thing to her. Surely she cursed her own stupidity in sleeping out here alone before the ultimate panic just before death came to her. Her hard, slim body arched convulsively and her hips thudded down against the blanket. She writhed and once nearly broke his grip on her wrist. Then her long legs straightened out slowly, moved aimlessly, and were still. He lay there, pressed against the sand that covered her head, feeling an almost sensual excitement. He released her hand. The arm flopped down as though it were boneless. He squatted back and watched her for a moment. Then, with care, he brushed the sand from her face. Grotesquely, the eye cups were still in place. The sand stuck to the lotion she had used. She did not breathe. The white teeth were packed and caked with sand, the nostrils filled.

Filled with a desperate exaltation, he glanced at the house, sleeping in the white sun glare, then took her wrists and dragged her down to the sea. Her feet made two grooves in the wet sand. He dragged her through the surf and into the stiller water. Her weight in the water was as nothing. He yanked the towel from her head, and her long black hair floated out. He tied the towel around his neck. The sand was washed from her dead face. It was unmarked. He worked her out into deeper water, got behind her, and wrapped his thick arms around her, contracting her lungs and then letting them expand, contracting them again. They would fill with seawater. There would be sand in her lungs also. But that would be a normal thing for one who had died in the sea. If they found her.

He floated and looked at the house again. Safe so far. He wound his hand in her black hair and with a determined side-stroke took her on out, pausing to rest from time to time. When he thought he was far enough out, he stopped. He let her go, and she seemed to sink, but the process was so slow that he lost patience. Her face was a few inches below the surface and her eyes, half open, seemed to watch him. He thrust her down, got his feet against her body and pushed her farther. He was gasping with weariness, and the beach suddenly seemed to be an alarming distance away. As he tried to float a wave broke in his face. He coughed and avoided panic. When rested, he began to work his way back to the beach. He scuffed out the marks of her dragging feet, walked up to the blanket. The eye cups lay there. He spread the towel out to dry, picked up the eye cups and then the blanket, to shake it. He shook it once and then it slipped from his fingers. Her bathing cap had been under the blanket. Why hadn’t he thought of that? He trembled. He picked up the blanket again, shook it, put the eye cups on it next to the bottle of sun lotion.

With the cap in his hand, balled tightly, he walked back to the sea. He swam out, but he could not be sure of the place. When he knew that he could not find her, he left the cap in the sea and swam slowly back.

He walked to the showers behind the house and stood under the cold water for a long time. He went up to his room, meeting no one. He stripped, laid a towel across himself, and stared up at the high ceiling.

He cried for a little while and did not know why.

There was a feeling of having lost his identity. As though the act of murder had made him into another person. The old fear was gone, and now there was a new fear. “I am Carl Branneck,” he whispered. “Now they can’t do anything to me. They can’t do anything. Anything. Anything.”

He repeated the one word like an incantation until he fell asleep.

Park Falkner was awakened from his nap by the sound of low voices, of a woman’s laugh. He stretched like a big lean cat and came silently to his feet. He was tall and hard and fit, a man in his mid-thirties, his naked body marked with a half dozen violent scars. He was sun-darkened to a mahogany shade. A tropical disease had taken, forever, hair, eyebrows, and lashes, but the bald well-shaped head seemed to accentuate the youthfulness of his face. The lack of eyebrows and lashes gave his face an expressionless look, but there was rapacity in the strong beaked nose, both humor and cruelty in the set of the mouth. He stepped into the faded tubular Singhalese sarong, pulled it up, and knotted it at his waist with a practiced motion. Except for the monastic simplicity of his bed, the room was planned for a Sybarite: two massive built-in couches with pillows and handy bookshelves; a fireplace of gray stone that reached up to the black-beamed ceiling; a built-in record player and record library that took up half of one wall, complete with panel control to the amplifiers located all over the house and grounds; an adjoining bath with a special shower stall, large enough for a platoon. The four paintings, in lighted niches, had been done on the property by guest artists. Stimulated by a certain freedom that existed on Falkner’s Grouper Island, they were pictures that the rather prominent artists would prefer not to show publicly.

One whole wall of the bedroom was of glass, looking out over a small private terrace and over the sea. Park Falkner padded out across his terrace and looked down to the next one below. It extended farther out than did his own.

The conversation below had ceased. The two wheeled chaise longues were side by side. The little waitress from Winter Haven, Pamela, lay glassy and stunned by the heat of the sun, her lips swollen. Carlos Berreda, his brown and perfect body burnished by the sun, insistently stroked her wrist and the back of her hand. He leaned closer and closer to her lips. Park Falkner went quickly back into his bedroom and returned with the silver-and-mahogany thermos jug. He lifted the cap and upended it over the two below. Slivers of ice sparkled out with the water.

Carlos gave a hoarse and angry shout and Pamela screamed. Park held the empty jug and smiled down at them. They were both standing, their faces upturned. Pamela was pink with embarrassment.

“Have you forgotten?” Park said in Spanish. “Tomorrow in Monterrey you will meet two friends, Carlos. Friends that weigh five hundred kilos apiece and have long horns. This is no time for indoor sports.”

The angry look left Carlos’s face, and he gave Park a shamefaced grin. “Muy correcto, jefe. But the little one is so... is so...”

“She’s all of eighteen, Señor Wolf.”

“What’re you saying about me?” Pamela demanded.

“That you’re a sweet child, and we want you to come and watch the practice.”

They went down to the patio behind the house. Carlos’s sword handler brought the capes, laid them out on a long table, and, with weary tread, went over to the corner and came back trundling the practice device, the bull’s head and horns mounted at the proper height on a two-wheeled carriage propelled by two long handles.

Carlos grinned at Pamela. “Watch thees, muñequita.” He snapped the big cape, took his stance, made a slow and perfect and lazy veronica as the horns rolled by. The sweating assistant wheeled the horns and came back from the other direction. Carlos performed a classic gaonera. Pamela sat on the table by the capes and swung her legs.

She frowned. “But it isn’t like having a real bull, is it?” she said.

Park laughed, and Carlos flashed the girl a look of hot anger. “Not exactly, niña.” The sword handler guffawed.

After Carlos went through his repertoire with the big cape, Park Falkner took the muleta and sword and, under Carlos’s critical eye, performed a series of natural passes, topping them off with manoletinas to the right and to the left.

“How was it?” Park asked.

Carlos grinned. “The sword hand on the natural passes. Eet ees not quite correcto, señor, but eet ees good. You could have been a torero had you started when young.”

“Let me try!” Pamela said.

Park moved over into the shade. Carlos had to reach around her to show her the correct positions of the hands on the cape. Three more of the houseguests came out to the patio. Taffy Angus, a hard-voiced, silver-haired ex-model, over forty but still exceedingly lovely. Johnny Loomis, the loud, burly, red-faced sports reporter from Chicago, ex-All American, current alcoholic. Steve Townsend, the small, wry, pale man who had arrived in response to Park Falkner’s enigmatic wire.

Park pushed a handy button and a few moments later Mick Rogers, wearing his look of chronic disgust on his battered face, appeared in the opposite doorway, which opened into the kitchen. He winked at Park, disappeared, returned almost immediately, pushing a pale blue bar decorated with coral-colored elephants in various poses of abandon. The glasses clinked as he rolled it over into the shade in the opposite corner.

The others moved over toward the bar in response to Mick’s nasal chant: “Step right up and get it. Give yourself a package, folks. The cocktail hour has been on for five minutes.”

Taffy stayed next to Park. “What is it this time?” she asked in a low voice.

He clicked open her purse and took out her cigarettes and lighter. “What do you think it is?”

“Damn you, Park! One of these times you’re going to go too far. Why can’t you just relax and enjoy it?”

“Baby mine, I’d go mad in a month. Don’t ask me to give up my hobby.”

“Twisting people’s lives around is a hell of a hobby, if you ask me. I don’t know what you’re doing this time, but it has something to do with that horrid puffy little man named Branneck and that unwholesome Laura Hale and that Steve Townsend.”

“How sensitive you are to situations, Taffy!” Park said mockingly.

“Sensitive? I saw Branneck when he got his first look at Laura Hale five minutes after he arrived. He changed from a smug little fat man into a nervous wreck. And she looked as though she had just found a million dollars. I’m just not going to come here to this private island of yours any more.”

“You’ll keep coming, Taffy, every time I ask you. You have a woman’s curiosity. And deep down in that rugged old heart of yours, you have a hunch that I’m doing right.”

“Are you, Park?”

He shrugged. “Who can tell? I’ll be serious for a second or two. Don’t be too shocked, lambie. My esteemed ancestors had the golden touch. Even if there were any point in making more money, it would bore me. The company of my Big Rich friends and relatives bores the hell out of me. So I have some clever young men who dig around in disorderly pasts. When they come up barking, carrying a bone, I just mix some human ingredients together and see what happens. A tossed salad of emotions, call it.”

“Or dirty laundry.”

“Don’t scoff. I just make like fate, and certain people get what my grandmother called their comeuppance.”

“It always makes me feel ill, Park.”

“And — admit it — fascinated, Taffy.”

She sighed. “All right. You win. Fascinated. Like looking at an open wound. But someday one of your salad ingredients is going to kill you.”

“One day a toro may kill Carlos. The profession gives his life a certain spice. And I’m too old to take up bullfighting.”

She gave him a flat, long, brown-eyed stare. “I wouldn’t want you dead, Park.”

“After this shindig is over, Taffy, can you stay here for a few days when the others have left?”

“Have I ever said no?” She grinned. “Goodness! I blushed. I’d better rush right up and put that in my diary. Say, are you flying Carlos to Mexico in the morning?”

“I can’t leave now, the way things are shaping up. I’ll have Lew earn his keep by flying Carlos and his man over.”

“And the little girl too?”

“No. I don’t throw canaries to cats, my love. This evening I’m having Mick drive her back to Winter Haven.”

Taffy whispered, “Here it comes!”

Carl Branneck came slowly out onto the patio. He wore pale blue shorts and a white nylon sleeveless shirt. He was lobster red from the sun and his glasses were polished and glittering. His stubby hairy legs quivered fleshily as he walked. He gave Park a meek smile.

“Guess I overslept, eh?”

“Not at all, Mr. Branneck. Festivities are just starting. Step over and tell Mick what you want.”

Branneck moved away uncertainly. Taffy said, “By tonight that poor little man is going to be one large blister.”

Lew Cherezack, Park’s pilot and driver, came in at a trot. He was young and he had the wrinkled, anxious face of a boxer pup. He grinned and said, “Hello, Taff! Why didn’t I meet you before the war?”

“Which war?” Taffy asked coldly.

“What’s up?” Park asked.

“Well, I see this car boiling out across our causeway, and so I go over to the gate. This large young guy jumps out with a look like he wants to take a punch at me. He tells me he’s come after his girl, Laura Hale, and, damn it, he wants to see her right away and no kidding around. He says his name is Thomas O’Day. I got him pacing around out there.”

O’Day spun around as Park approached. He glanced at the sarong, and a faint look of contempt appeared on his square, handsome face. “Are you Falkner?”

“It seems possible.”

“Okay. I don’t know what the hell you told Laura to get her to come down here without a word to me. I traced her as far as the Tampa airport, and today I found out that your driver picked her up there and brought her here. I want an explanation.”

“Is she your wife?”

“No. We’re engaged.”

“I didn’t notice any ring.”

“Well, almost engaged. And what the hell business is that of yours? I took time off from my job, Falkner, and I can’t stand here arguing with you. I want to see Laura and I want to see her right now. Go get her.”

“You’re annoying the hell out of me, O’Day,” Park said mildly.

O’Day tensed and launched a large, determined right fist at Park’s face. Park leaned away from it, grabbed the thick wrist with both hands, let himself fall backwards, pulled O’Day with him. He got both bare feet against O’Day’s middle and pushed up hard. The imprisoned wrist was like the hub of a wheel, with O’Day’s heels traversing the rim. He hit flat on his back on the sand with an impressive thud. Park stood and watched him. O’Day gagged and fought for breath. He sat up and coughed and knuckled his right shoulder. He looked up at Park and glared, then grinned.

“So I had it coming, Mr. Falkner.”

“Come on in and have a drink. I’ll send somebody after your girl.”

He took O’Day in with him, made a group introduction. O’Day asked Mick for a Collins as Park sent Lew to find Laura. O’Day watched Townsend, finally went over and said, “I’ve got a feeling I’ve seen you before, Mr. Townsend.”

“That could be.”

“Are you from Chicago?”

“I’ve been there,” Townsend said and turned away, terminating the conversation.

Pamela was working the cape and Carlos was charging her with the wheeled horns. She was very serious about it, her underlip caught behind her upper teeth, a frown of concentration on her brow.

“A second Conchita Cintrón!” Carlos called as she made a fairly acceptable veronica. Johnny Loomis, his tongue already thickened, began a braying discourse on the art of the matador.

Lew appeared and caught Park’s eye. He left. Park caught him outside. Lew looked upset. “Park, she isn’t in her room and I’ll be damned if she’s on the island. Come on. I want to show you something.”

The two men stood and looked down at the blanket. The sun was far enough down so that their shadows across the sand were very long.

Park sighed heavily. “I don’t like the way it looks. Break out the Lambertson lungs and be quick about it. Tide’s on the change.”

“How about O’Day?”

“If he can swim, fix him up. It’ll give him something to do.”

The sun rested on the rim of the horizon, a hot rivet sinking into the steel plate of the sea. The angle made visibility bad. Park Falkner was forty feet down, the pressure painful against his earplugs, the lead weights tight around him in the canvas belt. It was a shadow world. He saw the dim shape of a sand shark stirring the loose sand as it sped away. A sting ray, nearly a yard in diameter, drifted lazily, its tail grooving the bottom. The oxygen mixture from the back tank hissed and bubbled. He swam with a froglike motion of his legs, using a wide breaststroke.

The last faint visibility was gone. He jettisoned some of the lead and rose slowly to the surface. The sun was gone and the dusk was gray-blue. He pulled out the earplugs and heard Mick’s shout. Mick was far down the beach. He squinted. Mick and Lew and Townsend were standing by something on the sand. O’Day was running toward them. Park shoved the face mask up onto his forehead and went toward the shore in a long, powerful, eight-beat crawl.

He walked over and looked down at her. She was as blue as the early dusk.

Mick said in a half whisper, “The crabs got her a little on the arm but that’s all.”

“Wrap her in a blanket and take her over to the old icehouse. Lew, you phone it in. Take O’Day with you.”

O’Day stood and looked down at Laura’s body. He didn’t move. Lew Cherezack tugged at his arm. Park stepped over and slapped O’Day across the face. The big man turned without a word and went back toward the house with long strides.

Mrs. Mick Rogers had laid out a buffet supper, but no one had eaten much. The certificate stating accidental death by drowning had been signed. Mrs. Rogers had packed Laura Hale’s suitcase and placed it in the station wagon. The undertaker had said, over the phone, that he couldn’t pick up the body until midnight.

Johnny Loomis had passed out and Mick had put him to bed, just before leaving for Winter Haven with a subdued and depressed Pamela. Carlos had complained bitterly about the death, saying that it was bad luck before tomorrow’s corrida. He had gone nervously to bed after the arrangements had been made for Lew to fly him and his helper to Monterrey at dawn. Park Falkner sat on the lowest terrace facing the sea. Taffy was in the next chair. Townsend, Branneck, and O’Day were at the other end of the terrace. A subdued light shone on the small self-service bar. O’Day, with an almost monotonous regularity, stepped over and mixed himself a Scotch and water. It seemed not to affect him.

The other three were far enough away so that Park and Taffy could talk without being overheard.

“Satisfied?” Taffy asked in a low tone.

“Please shut up.”

“What was she, twenty-seven? Twenty-eight? Think of the wasted years, Park. Having fun with your tossed salad?”

“I didn’t figure it this way, Taffy. Believe me.”

“Suppose you tell me how you figured it.”

“Not yet. Later. I have to think.”

“I’ve been thinking. The little gal was vain, you know. Careful of her looks. You know what seawater will do to a woman’s hair, don’t you?”

“Keep going.”

“I know she had a bathing cap. She didn’t wear it. So she drowned by accident on purpose. Suicide. That’s a woman’s logic speaking, Park.”

“I noticed the same thing, but I didn’t arrive at the same answer.”

“What... do... you... mean?” Taffy demanded, each word spaced.

“You wouldn’t know unless I told you the whole story. And I don’t want to do that yet.”

Branneck stood up and yawned. “Night, all. Don’t know if I can sleep with this burn, but I’m sure going to try.” The others murmured good night, and he went into the house.

O’Day said thickly but carefully, “I haven’t asked you, Falkner. Can I stay until... they take her?”

“Stay the night. That’ll be better. I’ve had a room fixed for you. Go up to the second floor. Second door on the left. Mick took your bag up out of your car before he left.”

“I don’t want to impose on—”

“Don’t talk rot. Go to bed. You’ll find a sleeping pill on the nightstand. Take it.”

Only Taffy, Townsend, and Park Falkner were left. After O’Day had gone, Townsend said dryly, “This is quite a production. Lights, camera, action.”

“Stick around for the floor show,” Taffy said, her tone bitter.

“I can hardly wait. Good night, folks,” Townsend said. He left the terrace.

Taffy stood up and walked over toward the railing. She wore a white Mexican off-the-shoulder blouse. Her slim midriff was bare, her hand-blocked skirt long and full. She was outlined against the meager moonlight, her silver hair falling an unfashionable length to her shoulder blades. In the night light she looked no more than twenty. In the hardest light she looked almost thirty.

Park went to her. “We’ve known each other a long time, Taff. Do you want to help me? It won’t be... pleasant.”

She shrugged. “When you ask me like that...”

“Go on up to your room and get one of your swimsuits. Meet me by the garages.”

She came toward him through the night. He took her wrist, and together they went into the icehouse. When the door was shut behind them, he turned on the powerful flashlight, directed it at the blanket-wrapped body on the table. Taffy shuddered.

“I want to show you something, Taff. Be a brave girl.”

He uncovered the head, held the flashlight close, and thumbed up an eyelid. “See?” he said. “A ring of small hemorrhages against the white of the eye. Something was pressed hard there.”

“I... I don’t understand.”

“I found it right after they examined her. Both eyes are the same. Other than that, and the sea damage, there’s not a mark on her.”

“Wouldn’t contact lenses do that?” Taffy asked.

“They might, if they didn’t fit properly, or if they had been inserted clumsily. But I don’t think she wore them. She was grateful to me for having her come down here. She... attempted to show her gratitude. The offer was refused, but in the process of refusing it, I had a good close look at her eyes. I’d say no. I have another answer.”

“But what?”

He took the plastic cups out and held them in the flashlight glow.

Taffy gasped. “No, Park. Someone would have had to—”

“Exactly. Pressed them down quite hard on the eyes. No point in it unless the pressure also served some other purpose. Smothering her. Evidently she was smothered while in the sun, while on her back. Maybe she was sleeping. The smotherer dragged her into the sea, forgetting the cap or ignoring it.”

“Did he use a towel to do it?”

“I wouldn’t think so. A little air would get through. She’d struggle longer and the plastic cups would have slipped and made other marks. And I don’t think a pillow was used. Look.”

He curled back her upper lip. Up above the ridge of the gum was a fine dark line of damp sand.

“No,” Taffy said in a whisper. “No.”

“It wouldn’t be hard to do. Taffy, maybe I won’t ask you to do what I originally planned.”

She straightened up. “Try me.”

“I want that swimsuit. She’ll have to be dressed in yours. You go on along. Leave your suit here. I’ll change it.”

Taffy said tonelessly, “Go on outside, Park.” She pushed him gently.

Outside he lit a cigarette, cupped his hands around the glow. The luminous dial of his wristwatch told him that it was after eleven. The sea sighed as though with some vast, half forgotten regret. The stars were cool and withdrawn. He rubbed the cigarette out with his toe. She came out into the darkness and silently leaned her forehead against his shoulder. He held her for a moment, and then they walked back to the house together. He took the damp swimsuit from her. When the door shut he went up the stairs to his own room. He sat in the darkness and thought of Laura Hale, of the way the hard core of her showed beneath the blue of her eyes. Mick came back after driving Pamela home, and later he heard another car, heard Mick speak to a stranger. Soon the strange car drove back across the causeway, the motor noise lost in the sound of the sea.

Mick knocked and came in. “Sitting in the dark, hey? They took her off with ’em. I delivered Pamela. She thinks Carlos is coming back to see her after he fights.”

“He might. Go get Branneck. Don’t let him give you an argument or make any noise. Get him up here.”

The lights were on and Park was sitting cross-legged on his bed when Mick Rogers shoved Branneck through the door. Branneck’s pajamas were yellow and white vertical stripes. His eyes were puffy. He sputtered with indignation.

“I demand to know why—”

“Shut up,” said Park. He smiled amiably at Branneck. “Sit down.”

Branneck remained standing. “I want to know why your man—”

“Because seven years and three months ago, in a very beautiful and very complicated variation of the old badger game, a wealthy Chicago citizen named Myron C. Cauldfeldt was bled white to the tune of two hundred and twenty-five thousand dollars. He was in no position to complain to the police until he was visited by the girl in the case. She explained to him that her partner, or one of her partners, had run out with the entire take. She was angry. She went with Cauldfeldt to the police and made a confession. In view of her age — twenty — she was given a suspended sentence and put on probation. The man who had run out with the take disappeared completely. Now am I making any sense?” He paused, waiting.

Branneck gave a blind man’s look toward the chair. He stumbled over and sat down. He breathed hard through his open mouth.

Park Falkner stood up. “Some day, Branneck,” he said lightly, “you ought to do some research into the lives of people who run out with large bundles of dough. They hide in shabby little rooms and slowly confidence comes back. A year passes. Two. They slowly come out of cover and take up the threads of a new life. Sometimes they are able to almost forget the source of their money.”

Branneck had slowly gained control. He said, “I haven’t the faintest idea what you’re talking about, Falkner. It wasn’t true, was it, what you said about wanting to buy some of my properties? That was just to get me to come down here.”

Mick leaned against the closed door, cleaning his fingernails with a broken match. He gave Branneck a look of disgust.

“Let’s review, Branneck. Or should I call you Roger Krindall?” Park said.

“My name is Branneck,” the man said huskily.

“Okay. Branneck, then. You are a respected citizen of Biloxi. You arrived there about six years ago and made yourself agreeable. You did some smart dealing in shore properties. My investigator estimates that you’re worth a few million. You belong to the proper clubs. Two years ago you married a widow of good social standing. Your stepdaughter is now sixteen. You are respected. A nice life, isn’t it?”

“What are you trying to say?”

“You came here thinking that I was a customer for the Coast Drive Motel that you just finished building. Selling it would be a nice stroke of business. I might be willing to buy it. I’ll give you ten thousand for it.”

Branneck jumped up, his face greenish pale under the fresh burn. “Ten thousand! Are you crazy? I’ve got two hundred thousand in it and a mortgage of three hundred and twenty thousand outstanding!”

“He won’t sell, Park,” Mick said.

“No imagination, I guess, Mick.”

Branneck stared hard at Park and then at Mick. “I see what you’re getting at. Very nice little scheme. Now I can figure how you got a layout like this. Well, you’re wrong. Dead wrong. If I was all chump you could have made it stick. But I’ll take my chances on what you can do to me. You’ve got me mixed up with somebody named Krindall. You can’t prove a damn thing. And if you start to spread one little rumor in Biloxi you’ll get slapped in the face with a slander suit so fast your head’ll swim. I’m going back to bed, and I’m pulling out of here first thing in the morning.”

He strode toward the door. Mick glanced at Park for instructions and then stepped aside. Branneck slammed the door.

“He knows Cauldfeldt is dead,” Park said. “And I think he knows that too much time has passed for the Chicago police to do anything to him, even if they could get hold of Laura Hale for a positive identification. I had him going for a minute, but he made a nice recovery.”

“So it blows up in our face?” Mick asked.

“I wouldn’t say so. He killed Laura Hale.”

The match slipped out of Mick’s fingers. He bent and picked it up. “Give me some warning next time, Park. That’s a jolt.”

Park began to pace back and forth. “Yes, he killed her, and he got his chance because I was stupid. And so was she. Neither of us figured him as having the nerve for that kind of violence. She was a tramp all the way through. She thought I had arranged it so we could bleed Branneck, alias Krindall, and split the proceeds. Finding out that I had other plans was going to be a shock to her — but he fixed it so that she was spared that particular shock. He took his chance, and he got away with it. Now I’m sorry I had to bring him in. He’s been warned. And he’ll fight. But we can’t let him leave in the morning. Got any ideas?”

Mick grinned. The flattened nose and Neanderthal brows gave him the look of an amiable ape. “This won’t be good for his nerves, boss, but I could sort of arrange it so he could overhear that the coroner has suspicions and is waiting for somebody to make a run for it.”

“Good!” Park said. “Then he’ll have to make an excuse to stay and that’ll give me time to work out an idea.”

The roar of the amphibian taking off from the protected basin in the lee of the island awoke Park the next morning. Carlos was being carted away to his rendezvous with the black beast from La Punta. At three o’clock, when it was four in Monterrey, he would pick up, on short wave, the report of the corrida. Park pulled on his trunks and went out onto the terrace. The dawn sun behind the house sent the tall shadow of the structure an impossible distance out across the gray morning sea. He stood and was filled with a sudden and surprising revulsion against the shoddy affair of Branneck and Laura Hale. Better to give it all up. Better to give himself to the sea and the sun, music and Taffy. Let the easy life drift by.

But he knew and remembered the times he had tried the lethargic life. The restlessness had grown in him, shortening his temper, fraying the nerve ends — and then he would read over a report from one of the investigators. “A psychiatrist shot in his office here last year. Three suspects, but not enough on any of them to bring it to trial. Think you could get all three down there for a short course in suspicion.” And then the excitement would begin. Maybe Taffy was right. Playing God. Playing the part of fate and destiny. The cornered man is the dangerous man. The cornered woman has an unparalleled viciousness.

He saw a figure far up the beach, recognized Taffy’s hair color. She was a quarter mile from the house, an aqua robe belted around her, walking slowly, bending now and then to pick up something. Shells, probably. He saw her turn around and stare back toward the house. She could not see him in the heavy shadows. She slipped off the robe, dropped it on the sand, and went quickly down into the surf.

Park grinned. In spite of Taffy Angus’s modeling career, in spite of her very objective view of the world, she had more than her share of modesty. She would be furious if she knew that he had watched her morning swim au naturel. He glanced at the sixteen-power scope mounted on the corner of the terrace railing and decided that it wouldn’t be cricket. The perfect gag, of course, would be a camera with a telescopic lens, with a few large glossy prints to...

He snapped his fingers. A very fine idea. One of the best.

At three o’clock in the afternoon, Mick was ten miles down the mainland beach. He was hot, sticky, and annoyed.

“Why do you have to be giving me arguments?” he demanded of the fat middle-aged tourist and the bronzed dark-haired girl.

The tourist looked angry. “Damn it! All I said was that if you stand so far away from us with that camera, you’re going to get a bunch of nothing. We’ll be a couple of dots on that negative.”

Mick said heavily, “Mister, I know what I’m doing. I don’t want your faces to show. This is an illustration for a story in a confession magazine.”

The girl adjusted the suit that had belonged to Laura Hale. “This doesn’t fit so good, Mr. Rogers,” she said.

Mick sighed. “This time I want to get the blanket in too. I’m going back up on that knoll. Now get it right. We got the marks in the sand across the beach where you dragged her. I want you, mister, to be hip deep in that surf and dragging her by the hair. Don’t look around. Girlie, you take yourself a deep breath and play dead.”

“We’re too far away from the camera,” the man said sullenly.

Mick gave him a long, hard look. The man grunted and turned away.

“Come on, sister,” he said.

Mick arrived back at Grouper Island at six with the dozen prints. He found Park, O’Day, and Taffy on the lower terrace. Park stood up at once and they went upstairs.

“He still here?” Mick asked.

“Jittery but still around.”

“How did Carlos do?”

“Too nervous. They threw cushions at him during the first bull. The second bull gave him a slit in the thigh. He’s okay. Now let’s see what you’ve got.”

Park studied the pictures one by one. He laid three aside. “It’s between these three. Nice job, Mick. The beach matches up pretty good. The girl seems a little small, but that man, from the back, is a dead ringer for Branneck. We can’t use the ones with the blanket showing, because we can’t be sure whether or not Branneck shook the sand off it before or after he took her into the water. And we don’t know how he took her out. He could have dragged her by the wrists, hair, or ankles, or even carried her. But I’d bet on wrists or hair. Now let’s see. These two here. The surf blanks it out so he could be holding her either way. We’ll have to take a chance on her being on her back. Did you have enough money with you?”

“Plenty. Twenty apiece to the man and the girl and a ten-buck fee to get ’em developed fast. Am I going to be in on this?”

“It looks that way. Taffy drove Loomis over to Tampa this noon. She ought to be back within the hour. Townsend and O’Day are taking a swim. Branneck is tanking up at the terrace bar, and your good wife is fixing some food. Lew radioed that he’ll be back by seven. You could bring him on up now... no. This’ll be better. I’ve shot my bolt. I’ll be in my room. Send Taffy up as soon as she gets back.”

Taffy sat hunched on the hassock, the picture in her hand. Park finished the story. She said, “Once three of us had an apartment in New York. That was a long, long time ago. We had mice. One of the girls, Mary Alice, bought a mousetrap, a wire thing like a cage. Trouble was, it didn’t kill the mouse. The idea was to catch one and drown him. I remember that first mouse. We got him, and he sat up on his hind legs and begged. He was a nasty little item and I drew the short straw and took him into the bathroom, but I couldn’t do it. We finally got the janitor to do it for us. Then we bought another kind of trap.”

“Laura was taking a nice peaceful sunbath.”

“I know, Park. I know. Don’t worry, I’ll do it.”

“We’ll have the tape recorder on, and for good measure I’ll be in your closet holding a gun on him.”

Branneck came into Taffy’s room and shut the door gently. His smile was very close to a leer. He said, “I’ve been watching you, Miss Angus. You don’t belong here with this crowd of sharpies.”

“I thought that we should get a little better acquainted, Mr. Branneck.”

“Nothing would suit me better, believe me.”

“I suppose, as an important businessman, Mr. Branneck, you have a hobby?”

“Eh? No, I don’t have time for anything like that. Got to keep moving to stay ahead, you know. Say, I’m going to open my new motel in three weeks. Why don’t you take a run over to Biloxi and be my guest? Be the first customer in one of the best suites. What do you say?”

“What would your wife say?”

“Hell, we can use you to take some publicity shots.”

“I’m not as photogenic as I used to be, Mr. Branneck.”

“Call me Carl. Anyway, I can tell the wife you’re there for some photographs.”

“That’s my hobby, Carl. Photographs. I suppose it came from standing in front of so many cameras.”

“Yeah? How about giving me a picture of you? Got any... good ones? You know what I mean.”

“I’ve got one of you, Mr. Branneck. Nobody has seen it but me. I developed it myself. Of course, it isn’t too good of you.”

Branneck beamed. “Say, isn’t that something! A picture of me!”

She walked slowly over and took it from the dresser drawer and walked back to him, holding it so that he couldn’t see it. Her lips felt stiff as she smiled.

“I’ll give you a quick look at it. Here!” She thrust it out. His eyes bulged. As he reached for it, she snatched it back. “This is only a print, Carl.”

“You... you ”

“I used a fine grain. You’d be amazed at how dead she looks when you use a glass on the print.”

Branneck clenched his fists and studied his pink knuckles. He spoke without looking up. “You’re smart, Taffy. I knew that right away. A smart girl. Smart girls don’t get too greedy. They stay reasonable. They don’t ask for too much.”

“Isn’t murder worth quite a lot?”

“Damn it, don’t raise your voice like that!”

“Don’t tell me I used the wrong word.” Her tone was mocking.

“Okay. The word was right. I killed her because she wasn’t smart, because she wasn’t going to take a cut and shut up. She wanted the whole works. You can call that a warning.”

“Don’t scare me to death, Carl. Did she die easily?”

“You saw her. It didn’t take long. It was too easy. What do you want for the negative?”

“Oh, I’m keeping the negative. I put it in a safety-deposit box in a Tampa bank today, along with a little note explaining what it is. I opened an account there, too. I think you ought to fatten it up for me. Say fifty thousand?”

“Say twenty.”

“Thirty-five.”

“Thirty-two thousand five hundred. And not another damn dime.”

“A deal, Carl.”

He stood up slowly and wearily, but the moment he was balanced on the balls of his feet he moved with the deceptive speed of most fat men. His hard-swinging hand hit her over the ear and she slammed back against the closet door, shutting it. He stood with the recaptured photograph in his hand. He gave her an evil smile.

“For this, honey, you don’t even get thirty-two cents. I thought something was wrong with it. If it was me and Laura, there’d be a towel tied around my neck. Very clever stuff, but no damn good.”

Taffy, realizing that the closet couldn’t be opened from the inside, reached casually for the knob. Branneck, alert as any animal, tensed.

“Get away from that door!”

She twisted the knob. Park started to force his way out as Branneck hit the outside of the door, slamming it shut again. He caught Taffy when she was still four steps from the room door. He held her with her back to him. A small keen point dug into her flesh, and she gasped with the unexpected pain.

“Now walk out. Keep smiling and keep talking. This is only a pocketknife, but I keep it like a razor and I can do a job on that body beautiful before you can take two steps.”

Park put his back against the back wall of the closet and braced both feet against the door. His muscles popped and cracked. There was a thin splintering sound, and then the door tore open so quickly that he fell heavily to the closet floor. There was an alarm bell in Taffy’s room. He pushed it, raced to the side terrace in time to see Mick run out from the kitchens, a carbine in his hand, looking back over his shoulder. The causeway was blocked. Taffy appeared on the sand strip, Branneck a pace behind her, the sunset glinting on the small blade in his hand. Taffy stopped. He kept her in front of him and backed slowly out of sight.

Park cursed softly and raced from the terrace across the house. With a rifle he might have managed it. But the .38 didn’t have a high enough degree of accuracy. Branneck pushed Taffy roughly down onto the cabin floor of the small twenty-one-foot cabin cruiser. As he ran to the bow to free the rope, Park risked a shot. Branneck flinched and scrambled aboard. The marine engine roared into life and Branneck swung it around in the small basin, crouching behind the wheel as he piloted it down the narrow mouth, dangerously close to the causeway where Mick stood. Mick leveled the carbine but did not dare risk a shot. The cruiser sped out in a wide curve in the quiet water between the island and the mainland.

Park gave a shout as Taffy jumped up and went over the side in a long, slanting dive. The cruiser swung back and Branneck stood at the rail, the light glinting blood red on the polished metal of the gaff. Park’s fingernails bit into his palm. Branneck raced to the wheel, adjusted the path of the cruiser, and hurried back to the rail. Taffy turned in the water. Branneck lunged for her with the gaff. Even at that distance, Park saw her hand reach up and grasp the shaft above the cruel hook. Branneck tottered for a moment, his arms waving wildly. Park heard his hoarse cry as he went overboard. Two heads bobbed in the water in the wake of the cruiser. Taffy’s arms began to lift in her rhythmic, powerful crawl. Branneck turned and began to plow toward the mainland.

Park ran down and out the back of the house, across the patio to meet Taffy. Mick already had one of the cars started. He spun the tires as he yanked it around to head over the causeway and cut Branneck off.

The cruiser, with no hand at the wheel, came about in a wide curve. Park watched it. He saw what would happen. It swept on — and Taffy was the only swimmer. Mick stopped the car and backed off the causeway and parked it again. The cruiser continued on, missed the far shore, swung back, and grounded itself at the very end of Grouper Island.

Park went down into the water over his ankles. Taffy came out, the powder-blue dress molded to every curve. She shivered against him.

“He... he’s swimming to the mainland.”

“He was. Not any more. The Nancy swung back and took care of that little detail.”

“He tried to gaff me,” she whispered.

“Come on. I’ll get you a drink.”

As they walked up to the house, she smiled up at him. Her smile was weak. “The next time you get me to help in any of your little games”

“Branneck had a capacity for pulling off the unexpected.”

“What will you do?”

“Accidental death. That widow he married may be a nice gal.”

O’Day had left to accompany the girl’s body back to Chicago. Park sat on his private terrace, with Taffy sharing the extra-wide chaise longue.

Townsend came out and said, “Not that I want to be a boor, people, but it is nearly midnight and I’ve got to mark this case off my books and get back to work.”

“Sorry it didn’t work out,” Park said.

“Better luck on the next one. ‘Night.”

He left and Taffy asked, “Who was that man?”

“Internal Revenue. He helped my investigator get a line on Branneck. You see, when Branneck was calling himself by his right name — Krindall — he forgot to declare the money he squeezed out of Cauldfeldt as income. Branneck didn’t know it, but all we were going to do was get satisfactory proof that he was Krindall. Penalties, back taxes, and interest would have added up to six hundred thousand.”

“But Branneck had his own answer.”

After the house was silent, Park Falkner took the woman’s bathing suit, the dozen pictures, the permanent tape off the recorder and put them neatly and gently into a steel file box in the cabinet behind his bookshelves. Once the sticker with the date had been applied to the end of the box, it looked like all the others.

Falkner slept like a tired child.