The Quick Red Fox Part 13

She poked at her tangled hair. "I'm a mess, I bet."

Her dark vital eyes were puffy, shadowed with fatigue. Her lips were swollen, pale without lipstick. There was a long scratch on her throat, three oval blue smudges on the front of her left shoulder, where my fingers had bruised her.

"You look just fine, Dana."

Her face got pink. She would not look directly at me. "I bet. Uh... what time is it?"

"Twenty of one."

She said she would finish the cheesecake later. She asked me to please turn my back. She lugged our suitcase into the bathroom. I heard her take a quick shower. In a little while after the water stopped, she came shyly out, hair brushed, mouth made up, and she was wearing a little blue hip-length nightgown, diaphanous, with lace at throat and hem. Rather than making any attempt to model it, she scuttled for the bed in a knock-kneed half-run, slightly hunched over. She piled in, covered herself and said, blushing furiously, "It isn't exactly what I thought I was buying."

I laughed at her. She frowned part way through the cheesecake and then managed a timid smile, a direct but fleeting glance. "I'm not used to this sort of situation, Trav. I'm sorry."

"Don't be. n.o.body else is."

She swallowed and looked pained. "I was so... I don't know what you must th... I never... Oh h.e.l.l, anyway!"

"Stop fussing. So it's a new relationship. We are something to each other we weren't before. And took a risk. You know that. Somebody, Hemingway maybe, had a definition of a moral act. It's something you feel good after. And, coming back here to you after where I've been makes us seem like the innocence of angels."

She showed her concern. "What happened, dear?"

The cheesecake and tea were long gone by the time I finished with the facts and the speculations.

She looked dubious. "It seems like an awful lot of guessing."

I went through it once more, in precise form. "What do we know about M'Gruder? He is feisty, rich, ruthless and stingy. And, with no occupation, he is highly mobile. He's brown and fit and d.a.m.ned callous. Okay, as the purchaser of a service, he got into direct contact with Ives. Ives, seeing a golden opportunity, recognizing Lysa, took all the pictures he could get, hundreds of them, knowing he could crop and enlarge to exhibit every relationship that went on during those four days. a.s.sume that when M'Gruder learned where the party was going to be, he got to a phone and alerted his hired photographer. We know one thing about Ives. He was greedy. He did his job for M'Gruder and got his fee. He collected big from Lysa Dean. He took a hack at the Abbott money and struck out, because Nancy was past protecting.

"Now we have to guess. M'Gruder was hot to marry the young Atlund girl. Her professor father disapproved. M'Gruder won him over. I think that with a Swedish girl's traditional respect for parental authority, the professor had to be won over or there would have been no marriage. I think Ives made the mistake of trying to blackmail a previous client, someone John D. MacDonald who knew who he was and where to find him. The timing fits. Ives threatened to show Professor Atlund the terrace pictures featuring M'Gruder. Anything that rancid would have b.i.t.c.hed the marriage forever. The professor would not have his dear girl marrying a libertine like that. Ives did not think M'Gruder dangerous. Maybe he underestimated his stinginess. M'Gruder followed him, saw a good opportunity, and smashed the top of his head in. A couple of weeks later he married his Ulka.

"Take it a step further. We have to a.s.sume that Patty M'Gruder learned the name of the photographer from Vance. He would delight in telling her how smart he had been, how cleverly he had cut her loose from the M'Gruder money. He would want to rub her nose in it. He would have to hate her. He is a very virile type, and it would be an outrage to his pride to realize his English wife had merely pretended pleasure with him, and actually preferred girls. Patty got a letter from somebody. Gossip, perhaps. Vance's child bride and the problem with the professor. It started her thinking. She had known of Ives' death. She knew Vance. She knew him d.a.m.ned well, and how his mind operated, and his capacity for violence. Somehow, checking this out by phone, she be222

THE QUICK RED FOX.

came convinced Vance had done in Ives. So she sent a letter to Vance. It would be a very veiled hint. Come through with the money you cheated me out of, boy, or the Santa Rosita police are going to take an interest in you. Words to that effect. He couldn't risk that. I'd say he'd write back something about planning to be in Phoenix and be willing to discuss her financial situation at that time. She would realize she had struck gold.

"Now he could not risk being publicly in Las Vegas. When women die, they check out their ex-husbands. I say he set up a good solid alibi in Phoenix, and came over here last night and killed her. He smashed the top of her head in. He would imagine he had no other choice. She hated him as much as he hated her. She would show no mercy. She would bleed him forever."

She thought it over. "I guess it does make sense. But, Trav, is it our problem? Isn't Samuel Bogen our problem, really?"

"At this moment, my darling Dana, some very shrewd cop may be checking out some small slip M'Gruder made. The death of Patricia has to require he be checked out. So they grab him for murder first. Do you think he would maintain a chivalrous silence? He would want to lay all the facts on the line, with little distortions here and there, to try to show justification or at least a plausible excuse for murder.

"Once they round up Ca.s.s and Carl and Martha Whippler and start questioning them one at a time, how long do you think Lysa Dean would stay in the clear. Make up a headline, honey. Star Implicated in Orgy Murder. She'd be even worse off. I have to find out how good these guesses are. If she's going to be in the soup, the best I can do is warn her. Maybe she can take some steps. Long-term contracts. Public relations advice. Something."

Dana frowned. "I see what you mean. But he could have just said Phoenix."

"I think he's there. It's close. I want to check it out."

"All right, dear."

I patted her on the foot. "I like obedient women."

She yawned. "I just feel terribly pa.s.sive, I guess."

"Entirely, completely pa.s.sive?"

She pursed her lips. She tilted her head. She laid a finger alongside her nose. "Well... I wouldn't go so far as to say that."

Thirteen.

I HAD the random idea of poking around the Four Treys to see if I could find small hint of a visit from Vance M'Gruder the night of Patty's death, but my few small memories of the hardnosed vigilance of the Las Vegas cops outweighed the impulse. They deal, day and night, with every kind of spook and hustler in the world, and they would be focused very intently on this murder, and I did not relish the prospect of being bounced up and down while trying to explain my pa.s.sing interest.

Besides, if M'Gruder was as bright as I imagined, he would not have put in an appearance in the stage lighting of any of the downtown casinos. He would have her Desert Gate address. Once he got to town it would be no great feat to find out when her shift ended.

As I shaved I tried to guess his most plausible mode of transportation. It was just about three hundred miles to Phoenix. I decided that if I were doing it, I'd settle for a good fast car. With enough muscle under the hood, and the right kind of springing for the mountain curves, you could safely call it a five-hour run.

Leave Phoenix at six and arrive at eleven. Spend an hour hunting her down and killing her. Back by five-thirty in the morning. Sneak into the bridal bed. A private car was safer than a bus, a scheduled flight or a private plane. Cash for gas. No records, no fellow pa.s.sengers.

Properly done, casually done, he could have people convinced he had never left at all. If he had the cold nerve necessary to make that earlier run to Santa Rosita...

We walked to the dining room for breakfast, my lady wearing that green which was all she happened to have. My drowsy lady walked close at my side, without haste, her smile as inward and bemused as that of the Mona Lisa. She hugged my arm and beamed up at me and gave me a sleepy wink. And then she yawned.

Between us we ate a mountain of wheat cakes, a bale of bacon.

I found a Phoenix paper in the lobby rack, checked through it and found a society editor by-line. I coached Dana and put her into a phone booth with a fake name and a reasonably plausible cover story. I stood outside the booth and saw her eyes go fierce and bright. She gave me a savage little nod.

When she came out, she said, "What a sweet woman! The M'Gruders are staying with a couple named Glenn and Joanne Barnweather. She spake their names with social awe. Old friends of his, apparently. They flew in from Mexico City about five days ago, she thinks. She had an item on it. They're staying at the Barnweather ranch out beyond Scottsdale. You were sure, weren't you?"

"Not completely. But I'm beginning to be. So let's go take a look at them."

We went back to the room and packed. A tremendous ch.o.r.e. She made a housewifely ceremony of it, trotting around the room in a charade of seeing that no meager possession was overlooked, earnest frown between her eyes, white teeth biting into the fullness of underlip.

I caught her as she went by, planted a kiss upon the frown lines and told her that she was a fine girl. She said she was glad I thought she was a fine girl, but it might be a pretty good Idea to just leggo of the fine girl or maybe we wouldn't be out of there by noon, which she had happened to notice was checkout time.

We were on our way with the top down heading toward Boulder City by noon, after one quick stop at a department store for a stretch denim skirt and halter top and bright yellow scarf for her, white sport shirt for the driver.

The car was heavy and agile. The day had a honeymoon flavor. The sun and the dry wind baked us. We laughed. We made bad jokes. She slanted dark eyes at me, lively with her mischief. This was the way I had wanted her to be. Totally alive and free, not tucked back into her own darkness.

But, totally alive, she was an impressive handful. This was not some pretty little girl, coyly flirtatious, delicately stimulated. This was the mature female of the species, vivid, handsome and strong, demanding that all the life and need within her be matched. Her instinct would immediately detect any hedging, any dishonesty, any less than complete response to her-and then she would be gone for good. Wholeness was all she could comprehend or accept. For now there were no shadows in her eyes, no hesitations as a bad edge of memory stung her. Even in this pursuit of murder, it was a fine fine world.

When we stopped for lunch in an outdoor patio in heavy shade, I looked at her and said, "Why?"

She knew what I meant. She scowled into her iced coffee. "I guess way back after you came back to the room after seeing Carl Abelle. I don't know. You could have stomped around, the hard-guy grin and all that. But you felt bad about hurting and humiliating him. And he isn't much, certainly. So I figured out you don't go around proving you are a man because you are already sure you are. It isn't all faked up. And in the same way you didn't have to try to use me to prove what a h.e.l.l of a fellow you are. Even though we were both... being attracted in a physical way. I know this sounds as if I'm some kind of an egomaniac, but I just thought well... heck, if being a man is a good and valid thing, then there should be like an award of merit or something, an offering. In Abner-talk, namely me. As if I'm so great."

"Don't do that to yourself, Dana. You are implausibly... astoundingly, unforgettably great. And I don't mean just in a..."

"I know. It isn't me, and it isn't you. Let's not talk about it. It's the total of us, the crazy total. I'm not going to talk about it, or think of what comes after. Okay? Okay, darling?"

"No talk. No a.n.a.lysis."

"We are kind of beautiful," she said. "It's enough to know that, I guess. Alone I'm just... sort of efficient and severe and a little heavy-handed. Defensive. Alone you're just sort of a rough, wry opportunist, a little bit cold and shrewd and watchful. Cruel, maybe. You and your sybarite boat and your d.a.m.ned beach girls. But we add up to beautiful in some crazy way. For now."

"For now, Dana?"

"I'm no kid, Travis. I know hurt is inevitable, always-"

"Shut up."

"I talk too much?"

"Only sometimes."

So off we went, to Kingman, to Wikieup, to Congress-up into cold places, down into heats-to Wickenburg, to Wittman, and down into the richness of the old Salt River Valley where Phoenix presides over the boom that threatens never to quit. It has become a big fast rough grasping town, where both the irrigation heiresses and the B girls wear the same brand of ranch pants.

The sun was low behind us as we came in, breasting the outgoing traffic of the close of Friday business. I cruised and settled for a gla.s.sy sprawl called The Hallmark, a big U of stone, teak and thermo-windows enclosing a great green of lawn and gardens, a blue of water in a marbled pool in the shape of a painter's palette.

In a nearby specialty shop, still open, we let Lysa Dean refurbish our dwindled wardrobes to the extent of swim trunks for me and a swim suit for the lady. We fixed ourselves tall ones of gin and bitter lemon. Dana swam with utmost earnestness, chin held very high, using a stroke I told her was early sheep dog.

In the bathroom, in fading light of day, her body bore the halter marks of the long sunny ride, her broad flat b.r.e.a.s.t.s pale, responsive to soapy ablutions cooperatively offered. In a predictable haste, I toted the untoweled seal-shape of her, dripping, to bed, a firm, lithe, gleaming, chuckling burden which seemed to have no weight at all. Ceremonial celebration of our twenty-fourth hour.

Eased and complete, in mild and affectionate embrace, we took up the duty of talking about M'Gruder, weighing the merits of the possible methods of contact.

I could not tell her precisely what I hoped to accomplish. If M'Gruder was the man, I wanted to stir him up. I didn't want him to believe he had any chance at all. A man running is a dead man. A trial would finish Lysa Dean as well. And when you take someone's money for expenses, there is a morality involved. He would have some confidence he had gotten away with it. I had to blast that out of him and set him running. And arrange a chase.

The Barnweather number was listed. We went over it carefully. I coached her. She added a few ideas. There was a phone extension in the bath. I went in there and listened.

A servant said the M'Gruders were in the guest house. He gave Dana another number to call.

A man answered. A cultivated baritone, loosened slightly by drink, admitting that he, indeed, was Mister M'Gruder himself.

"You don't know me, Mr. M'Gruder."

"From your charming voice, that is my loss, my dear. What is your name?"

"I've just picked a new name for myself. I wondered if you'd like it. Patty Ives. Do you like that name?"

It was a slow five-count before he spoke. His voice was under careful control. "You sound as if you thought you were telling me something. But I am afraid I don't follow."

"I guess I do have you at a disadvantage. I know so much more about you than you know about me."

"I don't wish to be rude, but I don't like guessing games, whoever you are. So if you don't mind..."

"I thought we might make a date for a quiet talk, if you would like to sneak away from your little bride, Vance. We have mutual friends. Carl Abelle. Lysa Dean. Ca.s.s Edgars. Nancy Abbott. Martha Whippler. Of course Sonny Catton is dead. Poor Sonny"

Again I could have counted to five. "I think you might be a very foolish girl."

"Foolish, but not very greedy. And very, very careful, Vance."

"Let me put it this way. You might have something you think is valuable. But suppose it is only an annoyance?"

"Oh, wouldn't it have to be a lot more than that!"

"You are talking in circles, my dear. I am quite certain I can be forgiven for old indiscretions. Life with my ex often became very unwholesome. Mrs. M'Gruder is aware of that. I've reformed. The police were here yesterday afternoon, cooperating with the Las Vegas police, I imagine. To make certain I hadn't killed Patty. I'm not sorry she's dead. I'm not that much of a hypocrite. She was a horrid woman. I had to get free of her in any way I could. All this is none of your business, of course. But I didn't want you to think you've alarmed me. You just make me feel... irritable. Please don't phone me again." Click.

I reached and put the phone on the hook and then sat back on the wide yellow rim of the little triangular tub. In a few moments Dana appeared in the bathroom doorway. She had put on my sport shirt. She leaned against the door frame and said, "Well?"

"I don't know. I just don't know. Either we're dead wrong, or he's got the nerve of a headwaiter. So much points his way. d.a.m.n it, it has to be him. We're going out there."

"Just like that?"

"We're going to be invited out, I hope." There is one theory that there are but a hundred thousand people in the United States, and the rest of the 189,900,000 is a faceless mob. The theory further states that any person in the hundred thousand can be linked to any other by no more than a three-step process.

Example: Ron knew Carol's brother at Princeton; Carol's husband worked with Vern at the Ford Foundation; Vern's cousin met Lucy at the film festival. Thus when Ron and Lucy meet as strangers, and sense that they are each members of the hundred thousand, they can play a warm and heartening and satisfying game of who-do-you-know, and, with little cries of delight, trace the relationship.

By dint of past endeavors I had acquired provisional membership in the group, and it seemed likely to me that Glenn and Joanne Barnweather would be solid members. So I had to tap other members most likely to know them. I tried Tulio in Oklahoma City and drew a dead blank.

I remembered Mary West in Tucson. She knew them, but not well. But she did know Paul and Betty Diver in Flagstaff who knew them intimately, and she was certain she could get Betty to play along. If there was any hitch, she would phone back. If not, I would hear from Joanne Barnweather directly. She briefed me on what I'd have to know about the Divers.

We had a twenty-minute wait before the phone rang. "Trav McGee?" a woman asked. "This is Joanne Barnweather. I just got a call from our very dear mutual friend, Paul Diver, saying you're in town. Could you come out to the place? Are you free?"

"If I can bring along a gal."

"Of course you can, dear. Glenn and I will be delighted. We've got some people in to meet our houseguests and we're just churning around here, very informal, drinking up a small storm and waiting for time to throw a steak on. Do come as you are. We'll be delighted to see you." She gave me directions.

Dana had been nestled close to me, listening. When I hung up she gave me a look of mock admiration. "You are a scoundrel, McGee."

"Darling, go put on your green."

"She said to come as we are."

"Then at least b.u.t.ton my shirt."

Fourteen.