having a place to live. And if she had a record, and if it was a dangerous and conspiratorial game she was playing, it had to be under a different name. Otherwise the police would have had the local address very quickly.
Little Mother came silently back across the carpeting, handed me the picture and an unlined file card. I had heard a distant clicking of a typewriter. On the card was written Miss Tami Western, 8000 Cove Lane Apartment 7B, Quendon Beach.
'Sorry to take so long, sir. As Miss Western pays cash, Miss Gates had to look through the delivery file. Some things which had to be altered were delivered. It would be three miles or so south of the city line.'
'Thank you very much.'
'We're glad we could be of service, sir.'
I started toward the door and turned back. 'None of my business, but there I was improving your day, and all of a sudden I'm Typhoid Mary. Would it help anything if I bought something?'
'I would be happy to wait on you, sir.'
'Come out, come out, wherever you are, and tell me, please, why that picture turned you off?'
'I'm sure I don't know what you'
She stopped abruptly, made a wry face. 'Maybe you're not having me on after all, Mr. 'McGee. Travis McGee.'
'Mrs. Wooster. You give the impression of being able to find your way around, Mr. McGee. And if you'd never seen her in your life, that picture should give you some kind of a message. But you spent an evening with her. I don't want to say anything more. I don't want to knock a steady customer.'
'I was under the spell of black velvets. From two o'clock on. Half and half, stout and champagne. They came aboard at six. If you've ever tried that magic potion.. She laughed. 'Sure have. Everything gets such a lovely glow.'
'That's why her name is gone too. And what she does. Some kind of an entertainer, I think. I mean that's the way the picture looks.'
'Mr. McGee, you are backing me into a corner. I don't want to make any moral judgments. She has a lovely face and a lovely body. And we can guarantee she's well-dressed. But do one little thing. Take a look at that picture again, and let's just say she doesn't sing and she doesn't dance, and she isn't an actress, nor does she entertain with Aloha and other requests on her musical saw. And let's say she distributes quite a few of those pictures.'
I looked at it again. 'Mrs. Wooster, you may have saved me from a very awkward little situation.'
She lowered her voice. 'If there was a chance of my being wrong, one small chance, I would have kept my mouth shut, believe me. But about five months ago she was here one afternoon with a little redheaded girlfriend, and it had been a long and liquid lunch. The girlfriend was DeeDee or BeeBee or something. They were both back in the fitting room, and there was a good customer there too, and the customer said something that apparently annoyed the redhead. I would guess that... the redhead actually has a better background than Miss Western. But, to shock the other woman, the redhead, who'd been sitting waiting for Miss Western to get her suit fitted, she jumped up and... like a circus barker or something, she pretended to be auctioning off the merchandise, patting Miss Western and turning her around and displaying her charms and... saying it would cost for this and for that... a kind of obscenity I never heard before. Miss Western was helpless with laughter. The other customer fled in tears. And... they weren't kidding. It was as if, all of a sudden, they had both changed into something we never saw around here before. They were both hooting with laughter when they left. And when Miss Western came in the next time, Miss Gates asked her not to bring her friend back again ever. She took it all right. You just don't look as if... that is the sort of girl you'd want to look up. Or, excuse me, have to look up.'
'Now you're making my day. But what sent the woman out in tears? Bad language?'
'The redhead was making some ugly comparisons. Andra confronted her and apologized and said the redhead would never be permitted inside the shop again. But she never has come back.'
'I guess this makes you the only friend I have left in town,' I told her.
She sighed. 'You know, it's a shame. I have a perfectly great gal in mind. So she's visiting your sister in Chicago. If I were you... I mean trying to think like a guy, spending just a few days here, you probably belong to something that has some kind of reciprocal deal with the Yacht Club. They've got a pool and tennis courts and so on, and it's relaxed and friendly. What I wouldn't do is go pub-crawling down Sand Alley. That's the strip down at the beaches. It is sort of what they call a little bit wide open. Let's just say there's a lot of different kinds of Tami Westerns, and people have gotten served some pretty strange drinks.'
Off to the right of A1A as you head south are the random, unzoned living areas. Barren trailer parks making a huge hot aluminum glitter in the sunshine. Other trailer parks with shade and space and waterfront. Tract houses in clusters that vaguely resemble a game of Monopoly. Improbable groups of high-rise apartments. Curiously architectured conglomerations of condominium apartments.
I found Cove Lane a mile south of the Bimini Plaza, turning off AlA between a shopping plaza and a self-service car wash. Two blocks west it changed from business to residential. Number 8000 took up half of the south block, and was far more attractive than I had any reason to expect. They were garden apartments, single story, in gray weathered cypress trimmed white. Ten numbered units, each containing four apartments A, B, C and D--but so laid out, like the spokes of a wheel, with plantings, high basketweave fencing, access drives of white crushed shell, that each have a look of restful pleasure and the look of being near the sea.
A small sign advised me to inquire at Howard Realty, three blocks east, for rental information. There were little hooks on the sign, on which HR hung a gray and white sign saying Apartment for Rent.
At Howard Realty, a sallow, spidery young woman with very thick glasses, a bright yellow blouse and bright pink shorts was minding the store.
'Eight Thousand,' she said, 'is as nice as anything you can find up or down this whole beach. It shows what a real smart architect can do. But before we waste any time, or...'
'McGee.'
'The minimum lease period is three months. We've got five empties right now, which you can believe me when I say that's unusual. And the summer rates right now on the cheapest are ninety-five a month without utilities, and that goes up to a hundred and thirty-five on the cheapest from November first to May first. Still curious?'
'So far.'
'No kids and no pets. There'd be two of you?'
'Just me.'
She took me over to an attractive wall panel, about eight feet long and three feet wide, in effect a map of Eight Thousand Cove Lane, with the road, drives, fenced patios shown. Pieces of plywood had been cut to the shapes of the ten structures and affixed to the panel and painted white. Keys hung from hooks in the plywood, under the number for each apartment. Five red tags were hung with five of the forty keys.
'In each unit, is a studio apartment with Bahama beds. C is the small one-bedroom, like this one. B is the larger one-bedroom. A is the two-bedroom job. Heat pumps, wall ovens, tubs and showers, wall-to-wall carpeting, fiberglass draperies, private patios with redwood lawn furniture, completely furnished. We have, let me see, one A, two B's and two D's. So I'm wasting my time if I quote a C rate. The D's are ninety-five until November first, and the B's are a hundred and sixty two fifty. Two twenty during the season. Being alone you wouldn't want that A, I guess. Two months in advance.'
'How about maid service?'
'That's something you'd have to arrange yourself. We'd help you as much as we can, of course.'
'I'd like to go take a look at one of the B units.'
'If... you could come back about four o'clock. I'll be all alone here until'
'I'm not planning to steal the lamps or the silver or the TV set,' I said, taking my wallet out.
'I know that, Mr. McGee. It's just that'
I gave her four fifty-dollar bills. 'Why don't you just hang onto this for a little while, and if it's as good as it sounds, I'll be back and give you the rest of the two months in advance. Okay?'
Eyes distorted to hugeness by the heavy lenses inspected me, and she nodded and said, 'Here. Hang onto the money yourself. I think the B's in the odd-numbered units are more attractive somehow than in the even ones. Two B and Five B. Here's the key to Five, Mr. McGee.' She lifted it off the hook and handed it to me. 'Hurry back,' she said, smiling.
I bent over the model again and said, 'Is this the same layout?'
'Yes. Just like this.' I stared, trying to think of something to ask, demanding that the fates send me a phone call. After a few moments, just when I would have had to turn and go, they relented and sent me a mailman. He trudged in and said, 'Registered letter, Bitsy.'
As she went over to sign for it, I straightened up, plucked the Seven B key off the board and hung the Five B key in its place and, as I passed them on my way to the door I said, 'Thanks. Be back in a little while.'
I turned into the shell drive. I parked by the fence gate to Seven B. I knew that any slightest furtiveness could be dangerous, and so I walked to the front door, put the key in the lock,
