"Well... if you"ll promise not to tire Helen, I think you might be able to talk to her at about four o"clock, if you"ll come here to the house." I said I would. It was at 90 Rose Street, and she told me how to find it. "It"s a little white frame house with yellow trim, on the right, on the second corner, with two big live oak trees in the front yard."

After I hung up, I phoned the Pike place and Biddy answered.

"Well, h.e.l.lo!" she said. "Yes, Maurie is doing just fine, thank you. We were just about to have a swim before lunch."

"I wondered if I could come out and talk to you about something after lunch."

"Why not? What time is it? Why don"t you make it about two thirty or quarter to three? She"ll be having her nap then. Will that be okay?"

I said it was just fine. I dressed and had lunch at the motel and then went strolling through the rear areas looking for Lorette. There was a service alley behind the kitchen. When I walked along it, past a neat row of garbage cans, I came to an open door to a linen storage room. I looked in and saw Lorette, still in uniform, sitting on a table laughing and talking and swinging her legs. There were two older black women in there, not in uniform. The rubber-tired maid carts were aligned against the wall near a battered c.o.ke machine and a row of green metal lockers.

She saw me and the talk and laughter stopped. She slid off the old wooden table and came and stood in the doorway, her face impa.s.sive, her eyes down-slanted. "You want something, sir?"

"To ask you something," I said, and walked on to a place where the roof overhang shaded a portion of the alley and a flame vine was curling up a post that supported the overhang. She had not followed me. I looked back and she shrugged and came slowly toward me. She put her hands in in her skirt pockets and leaned against the wall. her skirt pockets and leaned against the wall.

"Ask me what?"

"I didn"t know if you could talk in front of those other women. I wanted to know how Cathy is."

"Jes fine." Her face was blank and she let her mouth hang slightly open. It made her look adenoidally stupid.

"She come out of it okay?"

"She gone on home."

It was all too familiar and all too frustrating. It is the black armor, a kind of listless vacuity, stubborn as an acre of mules. They go that route or they become all teeth and giggles and forelock. Okay, so they have had more than their share of grief from men of my outward stamp, big and white and muscular, sun-darkened and visibly battered in small personal wars. My outward type had knotted a lot of black skulls, tupped a plenitude of black ewes, burned crosses and people in season. They see just the outward look and they cla.s.sify on that basis. Some of them you can"t ever reach in any way, just as you can"t teach most women to handle snakes and cherish spiders. But I knew I could reach her because for a little time with me she had been disarmed, had put her guard down, and I had seen behind it a shrewd and understanding mind, a quick and unschooled intelligence.

I had to find my way past that black armor. Funny how it used to be easier. Suspicion used to be on an individual basis. Now each one of us, black or white, is a symbol. The war is out in the open and the skin color is a uniform. All the deep and basic similarities of the human condition are forgotten so that we can exaggerate the few differences that exist.

"What"s wrong with you?" I asked her.

"Nothin" wrong."

"You could talk to me before. Now you"ve slammed the door."

"Door? What door, mister? I got to get back to work."

Suddenly I realized what it might be. "Lorette, have you slammed the door because you know that this morning I stood out in front of this place talking to a couple of cops?"

There was a sidelong glance, quick, vivid with suspicion, before she dropped her eyes again. "Don"t matter who you talkin" to."

"Looked like a nice friendly little chat, I suppose."

"Mister, I got to go to work."

"That housekeeper here, Mrs. Imber? If she hadn"t happened to look into 109 on Sat.u.r.day afternoon and saw me there sacked out, it wouldn"t have been any nice friendly conversation with the law. And it wouldn"t have happened out in front of this place. It would have been in one of their little rooms, with n.o.body smiling. They would have been trying to nail me for killing that nurse."

She turned and leaned against the shady wall, arms folded, her face no longer slack with the defensive tactic of improvised imbecility. She wore a thoughtful frown, white teeth biting the fullness of her underlip. "Then it was that nurse girl with you in the room Friday night, Mr. McGee?"

"That"s how I got acquainted with the law, with Stanger and Nudenbarger."

"The way I know you had a woman with you, Cathy she told me Stanger asked her if when she did the room she saw any sign you"d had a woman in there. That was before you helped her some. No reason to try to save any white from the law anytime. She said you surely had a party. So it was a lucky thing about Miz Imber checking the room, I guess."

"Yes, indeed."

Her brown-eyed stare was narrow and suspicious. "Then, what call have you got to fool around with those two law?"

"I liked the nurse. If I can help find out who killed her, I"d buddy up to a leper or a rattlesnake. It"s a personal matter."

Her eyes softened. "I guess being with someone you like, being in the bed with them, and they"re dead the next day, it could be a sorrowful thing."

It struck me that this was the first sympathetic and understanding response I"d had from anyone. "It"s a sorrowful thing."

With a sudden thin smile she said, "Now, if she was so nice and all, how come she was giving it away to such a mean honk lawyer like that Mr. Holton? Surprised I know? Man, we keep good track of everybody like Holton."

"What"s your beef with him?"

"When he was prosecutor, he got his kicks from busting every black that come to trial, busting him big as he could manage. Ever"time he could send a black to Raiford State Prison, it was a big holiday for him, grinning and struttin" around and shaking hands. The ones like that, they can"t get anybody for yard work or housework, at least n.o.body worth a d.a.m.n or a day"s pay."

"She didn"t like Holton, Lorette. She was trying to break loose. Being with me was part of the try. Didn"t you ever hear of any woman with a hang-up on a sorry man?"

There had been antagonism toward me when she had talked of Holton. I was on Holton"s team because of my color. But by telling her how it was between Penny and Rick, I had swung it all back to that familiar lonely confusing country of the human heart, the shared thing rather than the difference.

"It happens. It surely happens," she said. "And the other way around too. Well, yes, I heard you was with those two this morning. Lieutenant Stanger, he isn"t so bad. Fair as maybe they let him be. But the one called Lew, he likes to whip heads. Don"t care whose, long as it"s a black skull. Stanger don"t stop him, so the day they go down, they both go down like there was no difference at all."

"I wanted to ask you how Cathy made out. I had no way of knowing how much she drank out of that bottle."

Her stare was wise, timeless, sardonic. "Why, now, that big ol" gal is just fine. Big strong healthy gal. On account of you didn"t get her fired, she might be real thankful to you. How thankful do you want she should be, man?"

"Dammit, why do you think that"s what I"ve got in mind?"

She laughed, a rich, raw little sound, full of derision. "Because what the h.e.l.l else could you want from black motel maids? Sweepin" and cleanin" lessons? A walk in the park? A Bible lesson? Those women back in that room, now. I know exactly what they"re thinking. They got it all figured that finally, somehow a whitey got to me, and probably tomorrow I switch with Cathy, one of mine for her One-O-nine, because I decided to be motel tail and pick up some extra bread. Those women know there"s not another d.a.m.n thing in the world about me or Cathy you could be after. And that"s how it is."

"And that is exactly what you believe about me?"

"Mister, I don"t know what what to believe about you, and that"s the truth." to believe about you, and that"s the truth."

"I hunted you up because I wanted to see how Cathy made it. And I wanted to ask a favor."

"Like what?"

"I"ve seen a lot of towns like this one. Enough to know that the black community knows everything that happens in the white community. Maids and cooks and yard men make one of the best intelligence apparatuses in the world."

"Sneaky n.i.g.g.e.rs listening to everything, huh?"

"If I happened to be black, you can d.a.m.n well bet I"d keep track, Mrs. Walker. Just to keep from getting caught in the middle of anything. I would have to be just that much faster on my feet, just to get a job and keep a job. I"d listen and I"d know."

She tilted her head as she looked up at me. "You almost know where it is, don"t you, man? If you were black, now, wouldn"t you be too smart to be a yard man?"

"Exactly the same way that if you were white, you"re too smart to be a motel maid."

"So what makes you think I"m so stupid I"d get myself messed up in some white killing by coming to you with anything I hear about it?"

"Because I liked that nurse. Because without special help the cops might plumber this one. Because you can follow your hunch, which tells you I"d never make any attempt to bring you into it at all. But the big reason you"ll do it is because it"s one of the last things in the world you ever thought you"d do."

She snickered. "My grandma kept telling me, she"d say, "Lorrie, when you got your haid in the lion"s mouth, just you lay quiet. You keep forgetting and it"s gone get you in bad trouble.""

"So?"

"Mr. McGee, I got to do the late checkouts. Cathy wasn"t all as fine as I said. She said she felt far off. She worked slow and her tongue sounded thick and she said she felt like her skull was cracked open up on top. So Jase drove her on home, and I got two of her late rooms and three of my own to do up."

"Will you think about it, at least?"

With an enigmatic smile she walked away slowly. She had her hands in the pockets of the uniform skirt. She scuffed her heels and went a dozen steps, then stopped and looked back at me over her shoulder, her smile merry and impudent.

"I might see if there"s a thing worth knowing. But if there was and I told you and you told somebody I told you, if they come to me about it, they"re going to come up onto the dumbest black girl south of George Wallace."

n.o.body looks far enough down the road we"re going. Someday one man at a big b.u.t.ton board can do all the industrial production for the whole country by operating the machines that make the machines that design and make the rest of the machines. Then where is the myth about anybody who wants a job being able to find it?

And if the black man demands that Big Uncle take care of him in the style the hucksters render so desirable, then it"s a sideways return to slavery.

Whitey wants law and order, meaning a head-knocker like Alabama George. No black is going to grieve about some nice sweet dedicated unprejudiced liberal being yanked out of his Buick and beaten to death, because there have been a great many nice humble ingratiating hardworking blacks beaten to death too. In all such cases the unforgivable sin was to be born black or white, just as in some ancient cultures if you were foolish enough to be born female, they took you by your baby heels, whapped your fuzzy skull on a tree, and tossed the newborn to the crocs.

And so, Mrs. Lorette Walker, no solutions for me or thee, not from your leaders be they pa.s.sive or militant, nor from the politicians or the liberals or the head-knockers or the educators. No answer but time. And if the law and the courts can be induced to become color-blind, we"ll have a good answer, after both of us are dead. And a b.l.o.o.d.y answer otherwise.

13.

I STOPPED in the driveway at 28 Haze Lake Drive at ten of three. As I got out of the car motion caught my eye and I saw Biddy waving to me from the window of the studio over the boathouse. in the driveway at 28 Haze Lake Drive at ten of three. As I got out of the car motion caught my eye and I saw Biddy waving to me from the window of the studio over the boathouse.

She opened the door as I got to the top of the outside staircase. She seemed to be in very good spirits. She wore baggy white denim shorts and a man"s blue work shirt with the sleeves scissored off at the shoulder seam. The seams came about four inches down her upper arms. She had a little smear of pale blue pigment along the left side of her jaw and a little pattern of yellow spatter on her forehead. The familiar slow heavy breathing was coming over the intercom.

"Maybe it"s the extra sleep you let me have, Travis. Or maybe because it"s a lovely day. Or maybe because Maurie seems so much much better." better."

"Electrosleep?" I asked, gesturing at the speaker.

"Oh, no. Just to get her to sleep and then I took it off. It"s more natural that way, even though I don"t really think she gets quite as much rest out of it."

I looked at the canvas she was working on. "Seascape?"

"Well, sort of. It"s from the sea oats that used to grow in front of the Casey Key place, the way you could see the blue water through the stems and the way they waved in the breeze. It"s coming along the way I want it. We can keep talking while I work."

"So she"s much better?"

"I"m sure of it. Strange how maybe something changed for her when she was lost and we were trying to find her. At least she didn"t go off and let somebody buy her too many drinks and get into some kind of nasty situation. I guess she must have been wandering around in the brush. But she doesn"t remember anything about it. She just seems to... have a better grip on herself. Tom is terribly pleased about it. I even think it might be all right to take her to the opening tomorrow night, but Tom is dubious."

"Opening of what?"

"Maybe you noticed that big new building at the corner of Grove Boulevard arid Lake Street? Twelve stories? Lots of windows? Well, anyway, it"s there and it"s new, and it"s a project Tom has been working on for almost a year now. He organized the investment group and got the land lease. The Courtney Bank and Trust will move into the first four floors next week, or start moving next week. Almost all the s.p.a.ce is rented already. Tom is moving his offices to the top floor. It"s really a lovely suite of offices, and the decorators have been working like madmen to get it done in time. So tomorrow night it"s sort of a preview of the new offices of Development Unlimited, a party with bartender and caterer and all, beginning just at sundown. He thinks it will be too much for her, but if she is as good tomorrow as she is today, I really think we ought to try it. If she begins to act as if she can"t handle it, I can always bring her home. She is sleeping well now, because I made her swim and swim and swim."

I looked down into the back lawn and saw a chin-whiskered man in overalls and Mennonite hat guiding a power mower.

"What did you want to ask me about, Trav?"

"Nothing of any importance. I wondered if you know a Mrs. Holton. Janice Holton?"

"Is she sort of... dark and vivid?"

"Yes."

"I was introduced to her once, I think. But I really don"t know her. I mean I would speak to her if I saw her, but I haven"t seen her in weeks and weeks. Why?"

"Nothing. I met her Sunday night after I left here, and she looks like somebody I used to know. I didn"t get to ask her. I thought you might know something about her, like where she"s from, so I could figure out if she"s the same one."

"I really don"t know a thing about her except she seems nice. She must have had quite an impact on you, if you came all the way out here to ask me that."

"I didn"t. I just had some odds and ends. That"s one of them. I wondered about something else. I don"t mean to pry. But remember, I"m sort of an unofficial uncle. Did your mother leave you enough to get along on?"

She rolled her eyes. "Enough! Heavens. When she knew she needed the first operation, back before Maurie became so sick with that miscarriage, she told each of us how she had set things up and asked us if we wanted anything changed while she still had time. Some enormously clever man handled her finances after Daddy died, and made her a lot of money. There are two trust accounts, one for me and one for Maurie. After estate taxes and legal costs and probate costs and all that, there"ll be some fantastic amount in trust for each of us, close to seven hundred thousand dollars! So as soon as it"s settled and the Casey Key house is sold and all, we"ll start getting some idiotic amount like forty thousand a year each. I had no idea! It"s tied up in trust until each of us reach forty-five, or until our oldest child gets to be twenty-one. If we have no children, then of course we just have access to the whole amount when we"re forty-five. But if we do, then each child gets a hundred-thousand-dollar trust fund when it gets to be twenty-one, and because, by the time you"re forty-five, you certainly know there aren"t going to be any more kids, the same amount is sequestered-is that the word?-for your kids, like if you have five all under twenty-one, then a hundred thousand would be set aside for each one for their trust funds, and you would get what"s left over."

"What happens if either of you die?"

"All the money would be left in trust for the kids, if I was married and had any. And if not, the trust would just sort of end and Maurie would get the amount that"s in trust. G.o.d, Travis, it is such a horrid feeling thinking these past weeks what would happen if Maurie did manage to kill herself. Hundreds of thousands of dollars directly to me, and all that income from the trust. It"s spooky, because I never knew and I never thought of myself that way. I knew there would be some, of course. But past a certain point it just gets ridiculous." She turned from the painting, brush in hand, and smiled at me. "Dear Uncle, you do not have to worry about my finances." Her face saddened abruptly. "Mother just didn"t have much of a life, the last six years of it. After we got back to the Key, after my father died, we"d take long walks on the beach, the three of us, every morning. She talked to us. She made us understand that Mick Pearson just could not have ever accepted a neat, tidy, orderly, well-regulated little life. He had to bet it all, every time. And I remember that she said to us that if she"d only had five years of him, or ten, or fifteen instead of twenty-one, she would still have settled for that much life with him instead of forty years with any other man she"d ever met. She said that was what marriage was all about and she hoped we"d both find something just half as perfect."

"Did she have her first operation here?"

"Yes. You see, Maurie was almost five months pregnant and she"d lost the first baby at six months. It was an absolutely stupid accident the first tune. She drove down to pick up a cake she"d ordered for Tom"s birthday and it was in July two years ago, and she was driving back in a heavy rain and she started to put on the brakes and the cake started to slide off the seat, and she grabbed for it and when she did, she stomped harder on the brake and the car slid and she went up over the curb and hit a palm tree, and the steering wheel hit her in the stomach, and about three hours later, in the hospital, she aborted and the baby was alive, actually, a preemie, but less than two pounds, and she just didn"t make it. It was very sad and all, but Maurie told me on long distance there was no point in my coming down. She recovered very quickly. So I guess mother thought she"d better come over and keep Maurie from running into any palm trees so she would have her first grandchild. After she was here a week or so, she noticed some bleeding and had a checkup and they decided they"d better operate. She had Doctor William Dyckes, and he is fabulously good. When we knew she was going to be operated on, I came down to be with her and do what I could. Then, three days after she was operated on, Maurie went into some kind of kidney failure and had convulsions and lost her second baby, and hasn"t been right since. While they were both in there, I flew up and packed and closed my apartment and put stuff in storage and had the rest shipped down."

"When was all that?"

"A year ago last month. Or a lifetime ago. Take your pick. Doctor Bill operated on Mother again last March. And then she died on the third of this month." She frowned. "Only eleven days ago, Tray! But it seems much longer ago. And it was, of course. They kept her so doped, trying to build her up at the same time, for the operation. She was so tiny and shrunken. She looked seventy years old. You"d never have known her. And she was so... d.a.m.n brave. I"m sorry. Excuse me. What the h.e.l.l good is bravery in her situation?"

"Was there any chance?"

"Not the faintest. Bill explained it to Tom and me. I had to give permission. He said he thought it might help her to do another radical, take out more of the bowel, cut some nerve trunks to ease the pain. He wasn"t kidding me. I know he didn"t give her much chance of surviving it. But... he liked Mom. And she might have lasted for another two months, even more, before it killed her."

I sat and made casual talk for a little while, watching her at work. She asked me to come to the party Tuesday evening. I said I might if I didn"t have to leave town before then. She said that if Tom wasn"t tied up, the three of them were going to drive down to Casey Key next Sunday, and she would look for that information about the Likely Lady. Likely Lady.

I found the Boughmer house at 90 Rose Street without difficulty, but it was twenty after four when I walked up the porch steps and rang the bell. The blinds were closed against the afternoon heat. A broad doughy woman appeared out of the gloom and looked out at me through the screen. She wore a cotton print with a large floral design. She had bra.s.s-gold hair so rigidly coiffed it looked as if it had been forged from a single piece of metal.

"Well?"

"My name is McGee, Mrs. Boughmer. I called about talking to your daughter on that insurance matter?"

"You"re not very businesslike about arriving on time. You don"t look like a business person to me. Do you have any identification?"