be there three or four days at least. I was working on a real-estate deal, with Fitzpatrick. Oh, yes, she knew the firm. They were quite nice. I paid her for three days, and said I’d like to have a unit as far back as possible, away from the highway noise. She took me back to the next to the last unit in the right-hand row. It would do nicely, I said. In addition to the front door, there was a side door opening into the car park. The bath was a combination tub-and-shower arrangement, with a curtain rod and plastic curtain. There was a telephone. I asked her what time she closed the switchboard in the office. “Eleven p.m.,” she said.
The next morning I stopped at the office on the way out. She was talking to the colored maid. When the maid left, I asked quietly, after a glance behind me at the door, “Is there a woman registered here who has real blue- black hair, worn in a chignon ? A slender woman, in her thirties?”
“Why, no,” she said, puzzled. “Why?”
“I just wanted to be sure,” I said. “If she checks in, don’t tell her I asked, but let me know right away.”
“Yes, of course,” she said uncertainly. “Could you give me her name?”
“Oh, she won’t be using her right name,” I said. “She’s too clever for that.”
I had some breakfast in town, and drove up to Palm Beach, mostly killing time. In a hardware store, I bought a two-foot steel wrecking bar. I put it in the trunk, and came back to Fort Lauderdale. I cashed several of the checks in a bank, and one in a bar. I sat in the bar for four hours, nursing three drinks, staring straight ahead at nothing and speaking to no one.
At last the bartender became concerned. “are you all right, mister?” he asked.
I turned my head slightly and stared at him. “What do you mean, am I all right?”
“I—I mean, I thought maybe you didn’t feel well, you’re so quiet.”
”Well, I’m all right,” I said. “And don’t you forget it.”
“I’m sorry I bothered you—”
“Maybe I have to have a basal metabolism and a blood count before I can drink in your goddamned bar, is that it? Or you want me to take a Rorschach?”
“Okay, okay, forget it.”
I went on muttering after he retreated, and got up and walked out.
Around eight p.m. I registered in a motel on the outskirts of town, lay on the bed with my clothes on until nearly ten, and then grabbed up the phone and called the office. “Will you, for Christ’s sake, stop that stupid phonograph?”
The manager was puzzled. “What phonograph? Where is it?”
“I don’t know,” I said angrily. “Somewhere back here. If only they’d stop playing that same goddamned record over and over and over— Never mind! I’ll go somewhere else.”
He was standing in the driveway shaking his head as I shot past him in the Cadillac.
I drove down to Miami and called Coral Blaine from a phone booth at two a.m. She was somewhat piqued— she’d been worried, and I’d got her out of bed.
“You haven’t called since Thursday night, and when I tried to reach you at the Clive Hotel they said you’d left.”
“I’ve been moving around,” I said.
“There’ve been several things at the office. The bank wants to know if you’d like to extend the loan on that Washburn property. And the tax people have questioned the depreciation figures on that new gin machinery.”
“Okay. Call Wellman and tell him we’ll renew the loan for another year at the same rate of interest. If he tries to raise us, we’ll pay it off now. I’ll take up the tax thing when I get back. But never mind all that. Do you still see Marian Forsyth around there?”
“Somewhere, practically every day. But, dear, do we have to start on
“Tell me something. Do you ever speak to her?”
“No. She never speaks to me. Why should I?”
“Clever,” I said, as if talking to myself. “Damned clever.”
“What did you say, darling?”
“Oh,” I said. “Nothing. But, look, angel, I’ll be able to wind up this real-estate deal Monday morning, and probably be home sometime Tuesday.”
I drove back to the motel in Hollywood and went to bed.
* * *
The next morning I drove down to Miami Beach, parked the Cadillac in the business area not too far from Dover Way, left the hat and glasses in it, and walked to the apartment. I changed to khaki fishing clothes and a cap, backed the pick-up out of the garage, and drove down to the Keys. It was one-thirty p.m. when I reached the turn- off on to the back road on Sugarloaf. Since it was Sunday, fishermen were rather numerous, pulling boats behind their cars or casting from the bridges. Three miles from the highway there was a dim trace of a road leading off to the left through heavy scrub where the water’s edge was a tangle of mangroves. The mangroves thinned out after about a mile, giving way to open areas where boats could be launched. Several cars with empty boat trailers were parked in the vicinity, but there were no people around at the moment. The nearest boat I could see was about a half-mile offshore. I parked the truck off to one side, locked it, and started walking back. There was only a remote chance anybody would bother it, and it would attract no attention, since everyone would merely assume it belonged to another fisherman.
I came back out on to the secondary road, and had gone less than a half-mile toward the highway when a man and his wife stopped and picked me up. They were from Marathon, and had spinning rods in the back seat. I told them the battery had gone dead in my car and I was going out to the highway to pick up a new one. They dropped me at the filling station and general store. I drank a can of beer and read the Sunday papers until the Key West-Miami bus came through. When I got off at the Greyhound terminal in Miami I ducked into a phone booth and called Justine Laray, a little anxiously because it was already after eight p.m. Call girls didn’t stay home all the time. But luck was with me. She was in.
“Where on earth have you been?” she asked. “I thought you were going to call me Friday.”
“I’ve been out of town,” I said. “But, look, do you want to take a little trip? I’ve got to go up to Palm Beach for a couple of days, and we just might get a chance to look into the gown situation around there.”
“I’d love to go, honey.”
“Pack an overnight bag, and I’ll pick you up as soon as I can get loose here. Where you live?”
She gave me her address.
“I’ll see you,” I said.
I took a cab over to Miami Beach to the apartment, and changed back into Chapman’s clothes. Next I removed all identification and the cards from his wallet, dropped them in the pocket of my jacket, and counted the money in it. Nearly all the checks were cashed now, and even with the way I’d been throwing it around it came to a little over three thousand, four hundred dollars, mostly in twenties and fifties with four or five hundreds scattered through it. It made an impressive-looking roll, and the wallet would scarcely bend any more. I shoved it in my pocket, and then made a bundle of the fishing clothes and the cap, making sure my own wallet was still in the trousers.
I called Justine again.
“Look, sex-pot, I’m still tied up in this deal, over in Miami Beach. But I’d tell you what. I thought we’d stay in Hollywood tonight at that motel where I’ve been, and go on up to Palm Beach tomorrow. So why don’t you run on up to Hollywood? I’d just go on out the beach and cut across.”
“But how am I going to get there? And where do I meet you?”
“Hell, take a cab. I’d pay for it. There’s a bar—the Cameo Lounge. Meet me there at, say, ten-fifteen.”
I locked the apartment and walked over to where I’d left the Cadillac that morning. I put the fishing clothes in the trunk, along with my canvas shoes and a flashlight. Going up to a drugstore in the next block, I got a handful of change, went to the phone booth, and put in a call to Robin Wingard’s home address in Thomaston. He was in.
“Oh, hello, Mr. Chapman,” he replied. “How are you? And did Miss Blaine tell you—”
“You mean the FCC citation?” I interrupted. “Yeah. I told her to authorize you to get anything you needed to take care of it. But I’m calling about something else.”
“Yes, sir?”
I lowered my voice a little. “Listen. This is strictly between the two of us; don’t even mention it to Miss
