So the kids float. They ram around, amble around, talk and dream, and rediscover all the more simplistic philosophical paradoxes. And the ones in the majority who make it (as apparently Miss Linda Lawson was making it) find some bottom within themselves. A place to stand. A meaning derived from fractionated nonsense. They are not a brighter generation than ever before. They have been exposed to more input, so much they have been unable to appraise and a.s.similate it, but are able to turn it into immediate output, impressively glib, and commercially sincere.

And the few that can"t make it, like the younger daughter, exude the ripe odor of the unwashed as opposed to the animal tang of healthy sweat. Their tangled and musty locks make the shining tresses of the others repugnant to all those Neanderthal spooks who would hate and resent youngness no matter how it might be packaged. The lost ones, like Judy, get so far into the uppers and the downers and the mind benders, hardly ever knowing what they are taking, seeking only something in the blood that will bring the big rush, and warp the world-that if told it would make a nice high, they would stuff a dead toad into their ear. The lost ones trade the clap germs back and forth until they cultivate strains as resistant to penicillin as were the Oriental brands of yore.

It is relaxing to climb down off the egomanic pedestal of guilt and blame and shame and responsibility and say, "Who told me I have to understand the causes?" There are bad kids. There are bad trees in an orchard, bad apples on any tree, sick worms in any decaying apple. A world of perfection would be absurd. Even Doris Day couldn"t sustain that kind of concept. Who needs it? We need the flawed ones, the lost ones, as a form of emotional and social triangulation, to tell us if we"ve gained an inch since Hammurabi. Rough rough rough on the people who love them, but by some useful design in the human fabric, the rejects manage to kill most of that love by the time they are grown. Think of it, dear Jane Lawson, as a trick of nature whereby some great smirking cowbird came long ago and laid its egg in your nest.

She came back in and said, "Thanks anyway."

"Something wrong?"

"She"d gone out the back way. I... had to check up on one of my sneaky spy tricks. That green rubber band around her books. I put a hair from my head under it the day before yesterday. It"s still there. If she"s not going to school, they"re going to pick her up. They"ll put her in a state school for girls."

"Probation for what?"

"I"d rather not say. She"s in my custody, but I can"t control her." The tears threatened to come again. "My lawyer said if we could find a place that would take her, we could jump the gun and go to the judge and get a transfer of custody. A private place. But either they won"t take her, or the cost is so fantastic... He"s still looking." She hit her knee with her fist "What am I supposed to do? Chain her to the wall in her room? Beat her senseless?"

What do you say? My best guess would do Jane Lawson no good whatsoever. My best guess was that the girl was on the edge of leaving for good. And in some city as yet unknown, she would be studied with great care by experts. And if they were to decide it was merchandise worth salvage, she might indeed be beaten into total submission, cleaned up, dressed up, trained, and marketed for a few years. The merchandising experts cruise the bus terminals, and they watch the downtown streets for young girls carrying suitcases or packs. Impersonal appraisal. No uggos, no fatties, no gimps, no rich kids, nothing too too young.

"You didn"t come here to get involved in a family problem," she said. She sighed. "Maybe in time she"ll straighten out."

"Sure," I said. We smiled at each other. It was that special social smile people use when they don"t believe anything they are saying.

Chapter Eight.

When I phoned Mary Alice early on Sat.u.r.day morning, she said that I"d caught her just before she went out the door. She said she was going to stop and see how Hirsh was and then do some shopping, and then she was going to her health club and work out, like she did every Sat.u.r.day. What did I have in mind? Nothing special and nothing in particular. I had noticed the ocean was flat calm, and the weather people said the wind out of the west would hold all day, and I"d had a runabout tuned, and it was running well. So, running down outside, I could make it in very good time, and I knew a place that put up a good lunch, and I thought maybe we could run down the bay to a place I knew where we could have our own private patch of Atlantic beach for a swim and picnic. What she could do would be set the time when I could pick her up, say at the Royal Biscayne Yacht Club. She could leave her car there. I could drop her off there from the Muequita Muequita later, or if she wanted, she could come back up to Lauderdale with me, and I"d get her back to Miami somehow. later, or if she wanted, she could come back up to Lauderdale with me, and I"d get her back to Miami somehow.

She thought about it and decided that maybe the health club could be canceled out with no problems. That left the necessary shopping and seeing Hirsh and how about noon at that yacht club, okay? I told her twelve-thirty would be better for me, and she said fine.

I phoned the lunch order and told them when I would pick it up. I was unsnapping the big tarp cover off the Muequita Muequita when somebody called my name. Two men stood on the dock, silhouetted against the glare of blue sky, looking down at me. I said I was indeed he. I freed the rest of the snaps, folded, and stowed the tarp, climbed up onto the side deck of the when somebody called my name. Two men stood on the dock, silhouetted against the glare of blue sky, looking down at me. I said I was indeed he. I freed the rest of the snaps, folded, and stowed the tarp, climbed up onto the side deck of the Flush Flush and went aft, wanting a better look at them before deciding whether or not to ask them aboard. and went aft, wanting a better look at them before deciding whether or not to ask them aboard.

"Permission to come aboard?" one of them said.

"Please do." They came onto the shallow aft deck. Solid handshakes. One was Davis and one was Harris. No first names volunteered. I have spent a lot of years making quick guesses, and at times my health has depended on accuracy as well as speed.

Both in their thirties, both of a size, six feet or a hair under, both somewhere shy of two hundred pounds, both softening in the middle and around the jaws, but not too much. The dark one had a Joe Namath hairdo and a villain"s moustache. The other was red-brown and crinkly, with a swoop of sideburns.

The first impression was that they were used to working together. Men who do not know each other well express an awareness of each other in body movements and expressions. Familiar partners act more as if each were alone.

I couldn"t put any geography together. The voices were Everywhere voices, like the men who do local news on television. Moustache was tanned, and Sideburns was permanently burned several shades of red, several degrees of peeling. Big hands. Old nicks on the knuckles. A very intent intent expression in the eyes, at odds with casual stance. I could read it very close to cop, but a few things canceled that out. The teeth were the persuasive, gleaming white you get from expensive show biz caps. Twenty-dollar haircuts. A drift of male cologne, leather and pine and fresh paper money. Summer weight knits, both slacks and shirts, and shoes so funny looking they had to be very in. Moustache had a fat gold seal ring on his pinky with a green stone in it. expression in the eyes, at odds with casual stance. I could read it very close to cop, but a few things canceled that out. The teeth were the persuasive, gleaming white you get from expensive show biz caps. Twenty-dollar haircuts. A drift of male cologne, leather and pine and fresh paper money. Summer weight knits, both slacks and shirts, and shoes so funny looking they had to be very in. Moustache had a fat gold seal ring on his pinky with a green stone in it.

In the back of my head all the troops hopped up out of the sack, grabbed weapons, and piled into the vehicles. They raced out to the edge of camp and set up a perimeter defense and then lay and waited, weapons off safety, loaded clips in place, grenades handy.

"Can we talk, Mr. McGee?"

"No reason why not," I said. I sat on the rail, one leg swinging free, the other foot braced, the knee locked.

Moustache was Davis. Memory trigger: Jeff Davis, dark hair, moustache. Harris: Harris tweed, tweedledee and dum. I didn"t believe either name. I made no suggestions about where to sit. There was no awkward social hesitation. Davis folded himself into the deck chair, and Harris sat on the curve of railing six feet from me.

"We"re representing somebody," Harris said. "He doesn"t want his name brought into the deal yet."

"What deal?"

"There"s a situation he wants you to look into," Davis said. "He thinks he"s been had. He thinks he got tricked into the short end of a deal."

"You"re confusing me, gentlemen."

"What"s to confuse?" Harris asked, faking bewilderment. "He may want you to take a shot at salvaging the deal for him, getting back what he got conned out of. Isn"t that what you do?"

"Do what?"

"Salvage work!" work!"

"I don"t do anything. I"m retired. Oh, sometimes I do a favor for a friend. I think the man you represent needs a licensed investigator."

"No, Mr. McGee," said Harris. "He needs you. He was very firm on that particular point. The way this thing is shaping up, he maybe might need you at a moment"s notice. So he would be very grateful to you if you would just sit tight and wait to hear." He reached into his pants and took some bills folded once out of his side pocket. He pulled the bills out of a gold clip which said "After Tax" in block letters. He crackled and snapped five one hundreds, one five hundred free of the pack, reclipped the rest and put it away, folded the bills and took a long reach and shoved them into my shirt pocket. "Just to show he isn"t kidding around."

"I couldn"t help anybody I don"t know."

"If he needs your help, you"ll get get to know him." to know him."

I pulled the money out and held it toward Harris. He pulled back. I tossed them into Davis" lap and said, "Sorry."

"You busy or something?" Harris asked with just a shade too much casual innocence.

"I"m doing a favor for a friend of a friend. Trying to, at least."

"What I think you should do is drop that one," Davis said.

"Should I?"

"The man we"re talking about," he continued, "he heard about you someplace or other, and he got a good impression. He"s not used to asking people for help, and they say they"re busy or some d.a.m.n thing."

"We all have these little disappointments in life."

"Is that smarta.s.s?" Harris asked.

"I didn"t mean it that way. Think of it this way, gentlemen. If we all got exactly what we wanted all the time, wouldn"t life get very dull?"

"This man gets what he wants," Davis said.

"Not this time."

"Suppose he wants to give you a choice, McGee," Harris said. "Suppose he keeps the deal open, and when you get out of the hospital and you can move around again pretty good, he sends somebody to ask you again."

I stared at him and then at his partner. "Now come on on! What"s your script anyway? Kick my spine loose and drive away in your 1928 LaSalle? You two looked and acted and talked like you know the names and numbers of all the players. All of a sudden, Harris, you open up with this hospital s.h.i.t, and you sound like somebody got you from Central Casting."

Davis in the deck chair gave me the smile of a lazy hyena. "Every once in a while he does that," he said. "Remember that old movie, The French Connection The French Connection? Want to know how many times this crazy t.u.r.d went to see it?"

"Oh, come on, Dave," Harris said petulantly.

"The thing is," Davis said, "he gets hung up on some kind of image thing, and he likes to use it when he talks to civilians, because if they"ve been to all the same movies, they almost wet their pants when Harry comes on hard."

"You should learn to read people," I told Harry Harris.

Harry shrugged. "So it worked. That was one of the questions, right? To find out if McGee was-"

Davis cut him off. He evened the edges of the six pieces of money as he spoke and folded them once lengthwise. "Suppose you happened to be nibbling around the edge of something where this man we"re talking about has an interest, and so he gets a reading on you, and he gets some kind of idea of what you do. So let"s imagine that having you in the picture makes him back up and take another look at that particular deal. So not knowing how you fit, he thinks the easy way is to give you a retainer so you would come in on his side of it if things are getting fancy, if somebody has been stupid enough to play games with him, even though that somebody came highly recommended."

"How would this man think I"d fit?"

"What he said was you might even be trying to work out a way to give him the short end of that deal."

"I"m only interested in getting back something someone has lost. When there"s no other way to get it back."

"The man could have thought you were trying some kind of Robin Hood bit. Or he might think you could be conned."

"Can we start using his name?" I asked.

"It"s better we don"t," Harris said. "Dave and me, we might not even know his name. Lots of things go through channels."

Davis said, "I can tell you one thing. The man would feel better about this trip we took if you would take this round one." He held the money out. "Kind of like a sign you"re not trying to slip it to him. You don"t have to back off from anything you have going on. It would make him keep on wondering about you if you don"t take it."

I took a step and took the bills and put a haunch back onto the railing. They both looked relieved. The jargon changes constantly due to the telephone taps. Ten bills made a round one. Five round ones to a victor. When we first heard that, Meyer deduced that it came from V for Victor, V being the Roman five. Two victors make a spot. X marks the spot maybe? Ten spots make a big round one. Ten big round ones make a mil, and thus we are back into English.

I was not certain about my own judgment in taking it. It set up a dependency relationship. If you take the money of a man like Sprenger and then work against him, they can find you behind a shed in Tampa in the trunk of a stolen car, shotgunned and six days dead in the bake-oven heat, a silver coin in the rotting mouth.

We shook hands again. Away they went. Dave Davis. Harry Harris. I saw them stop and admire a big new Rybovitch fishing machine, looking like a pair of mod Indiana businessmen hunting for a charter. Dave Davis and Harry Harris?

I went below, went up to the bow and down through the service hatch into the bow bilge. I opened the false hull and stepped back from the slosh of seawater that spilled down and started the automatic bilge pump. I reached in and got my waterproof box, opened it, and put nine bills in with the dwindling reserve fund. It fattened it a little, but not enough.

I was beginning to run late. On the way over to pick up the picnic lunch, I wondered just what micro-percentage of the thousand dollars I had taken came from the pocket money and lunch money of Judy Lawson"s high school cla.s.s. I wondered what kind of little death they were peddling in the girls" rooms this week.

I b.u.t.toned up the Flush Flush, tight and secure. I wanted to talk over the visit with Meyer and get his opinion, but there just wasn"t time. All the required gear was in the Muequita Muequita. She burbled her way past the moored fortune in transient and local cruisers and motor sailers and elegant houseboats. A few friends hallooed. Teak baked in the sun, and brightwork shimmered, and toilet-paper danced in my wake in the bourbon-colored water of the boat basin. I went down past the gas docks, under the bridge, nudging the throttles up as I went through a little tide chop in the pa.s.s. I turned her south short of the sea buoy and angled out. The port engine coughed out at three thousand rpm, kept dropping below two thousand, building up to three, and coughing out again. I called Davey some unhappy names. He swore he had them both running perfectly. I pulled them both down to idle, waited a few minutes, and then popped them up to full throttle. Little doll came surging up onto her plane and scooted, with rpm moving up into the red.

I backed them off to thirty-eight hundred rpm, listened, made my apologies to Davey Hoople, master marine mechanic, age nineteen. A half millimeter nudge on the starboard throttle put them into final perfect sync. I was out far enough to make my straight shot to the Miami ship channel, so I held it on the heading and threw it into automatic pilot. I watched the needle as it searched. I had it about a degree too much west, so I took it out and tried again and hit it perfectly. I took a brew out of the cooler and stood on the pilot seat and sat on the backrest part, sea wind in my face, the horizon misty-pale and gla.s.sy, the Muequita Muequita doing her thirty-eight knots without effort, the wake straight as a line on a chart. doing her thirty-eight knots without effort, the wake straight as a line on a chart.

I kept trying to sort out my guesses as to how and why Sprenger had sent a couple of members of the first team, but some bottomless blue eyes kept getting in the way. Fine day, fine boat, fine beer, and it had been a long long time since blue eyes. So I wrapped up the whole problem and shoved it into a cubicle over in a side corner of my mind and slapped the little door shut. A man should have his weekends, no matter what he does.

I tried to spot a yellow Toyota in the parking area as I came easing down the line of private markers into the protected basin of the Royal Biscayne Yacht dub. The small-boat area was off to the left beyond the rows of yachts and was built of those floating slabs of aluminum and floatation material which move up and down with the tide, simplifying access and mooring. A young Cuban, uniformed in the club colors, came running out, waving me off. "No, no, no!" he yelled. "Ess private! Ess cloob."

"Soy socio, hombre socio, hombre."

He looked startled and uncertain. He looked back over his shoulder for help. "Eh? Nuevo possible, seor?"

"No. De muchos aos."

"Pero-"

"Moment.i.to. Ayudame, por favor. Tengo mi tarjeta de sodo."

He hesitated, then took the bow line and made it fast. I swung it in and cut the engines and jumped out with the stern line. After I made it fast I went back aboard and opened the shallow drawer under the chart bin and found my card. I handed it to him.

He frowned and then smiled. "Ah. Especial. Bienvenido, Meester McGee."

I read his name on the pocket. "Thank you, Julio." I dropped the card back in the drawer. I told him I was looking for a tall, dark-haired lady who was to meet me at twelve-thirty. It was now twelve-forty-five. No, he had not seen such. Would I please come to the small house of the dockmaster and sign the boat register? It would be my pleasure. He hoped he had not offended me. I said that it pleased me to see such care and diligence.

A few years back the cloob had a very ugly problem, and a member had asked me to help them deal with it. I posed as a guest and with a little good management and a lot of good luck, solved it without confrontations or publicity. The Board of Governors wanted to give me some special token of appreciation. They knew I had as much chance of slipping through their Membership Committee as a hog of entering heaven. So at the next meeting they amended the bylaws to permit one special membership, without initiation fees or dues, to be awarded by the board. I was nominated, seconded, and voted in, and then they voted to rescind the amendment to the bylaws. I seldom use it and knew it was childish to use that way of impressing, or trying to impress, Mary Alice McDermit.

I walked up the steps from the dock area to the edge of the lawns that slant down toward the water and the seawalls. A walkway and avenue of coconut palms led up to the main buildings of the club. The old Moorish portion has two new wings attached, wings as stark and modern as anything by I. M. Pei. So all of it together looks like a wedding cake for the Arabian bride of a suitor from Stonehenge. I could walk up there to the lofty paneled wealth of the men"s bar and order one of the finest Planter"s Punches known to man and sign for it. The bill would come in due course, on thirty-pound parchment with an engraved logo. I could stand and drink my drink, looking out through high windows at a dancing pool full of wives and children and daughters and grandchildren.

At least half the tennis courts were being used by hot-weather maniacs, out there going... pung... ponk... pung... ponk, yelling insincerities at each other and screaming of love.

The yellow Toyota came past floral plantings and parked in landscaped palm shade. Julio appeared beside me and said, "Ess your she?" When she got out and stood erect, dwindling her auto with a lot of female stature, I said, "Yes. Ess." And Julio went bounding toward the parking area to help with her gear. A very obliging young man. Very earnest. Very dedicated and doubtless very ambitious. He was bounding proof of the fact that the Cuban colony in Miami has the most upwardly mobile young people and the lowest crime rate of any ethnic colony in the U.S. east of San Francisco"s Chinatown.

My she wore a big floppy fabric hat in a big white and yellow check. She wore a yellow top and a short white skirt so slit that her stride revealed the matching yellow shorts. She wore huge gla.s.ses with lavender lenses. She had a big yellow Ratsey bag and a big white shoulder bag. Julio took the beach bag from her and went on a dead run to stow it aboard the Muequita Muequita.

"I"m so sorry I"m late, Trav. Traffic and bad planning. But, my G.o.d, this is some place to wait, if you have to wait. Wow! I got stopped at the gates, and I had to sign a guest thing and write in the name of the member I was meeting. I was positive you"d just picked this as a handy place. But he looked on a list. You are are a member, huh? This is really some kind of incredible. There must be an army of guys just to keep the flowers looking so great." a member, huh? This is really some kind of incredible. There must be an army of guys just to keep the flowers looking so great."

Maybe it was better than a pretense of total cool, all this happy, awed enthusiasm. But I found myself wishing her approval wasn"t quite as total and quite as genuine.

My twenty-two-foot runabout gave her some more pleasant astonishment. "I thought you had some kind of outboard thing. Hey, this is more like they race to the Bahamas."

"Same hull design they used a few years ago, but they had a lot more muscle than the pair of one-twenty-fives this one is wearing."

She hopped aboard, very lithe and springy for the size of her. She stooped and looked forward, under the bow deck. "Say, you"ve got mattress things and a toilet! It"s all so neat!"

Julio nearly fell in while freeing my lines, because he couldn"t take his eyes off Mary Alice. He radiated a worshipful approval. She had about seven inches and thirty-five pounds on him, and he was doubtless imagining walking her through his neighborhood on Sunday morning, dressed in their best, as if Snow White had finally made up her mind and decided on one of the dwarfs.

As I chugged, dead slow, past the yachts looking like ponderous caprisoned elephants in gleaming outdoor stalls, Mary Alice moved close to me and hooked her left hand over my near shoulder and made a laughing sound of delight. Her hip b.u.mped me. I had the feeling that exact place where she put her hand would turn into a raised, radiant welt showing the precise shape of fingers and palm.

"You know what?" she said.

"What?"

"I shouldn"t even tell you. I figured that this time of year, what happened was the owner hired you to stay aboard The Busted Flush The Busted Flush. I mean, a lot of guys want a woman to believe things. You never really said it was yours. I mean, from the dock it looks kind of lumpy and funny. But that great kitchen and that huge living room and that tub and the shower big enough for four people, practically, and that crazy bed in the main bedroom, like one I saw in a magazine, you know, why should I believe it, Trav?"

"But now you do."

"You just don"t look as if you belong to great clubs and own great boats is all. Or act like you do."

"What do I act like, Mary Alice?"