Travis McGee 12 - The Long Lavender Look by John D. MacDonald

Author:John D. MacDonald
Language: eng
Format: mobi
Published: 2011-03-20T05:00:00+00:00

Thirteen

BUTTERCUP CAME at me, running low and rumbling in anticipation of the clamp of his teeth in the flesh of the stranger. I squatted and held my hand out and said, “Easy, Buttercup. Easy boy.”

He braked to a stop, leaned, and took a delicate sniff, compared it with the memory banks, and looked dejected. Cora Arnstead came out onto the porch and said, “Who is it now? You home, Lew?”

“Sorry. It’s Travis McGee again, Mrs. Arnstead.”

“You got anything to tell me about my boy?”

“Sorry. I wish I could tell you something.”

“That Billy Cable was here today looking for him, too. They fired my boy. No reason why I should fall all over myself helping them. If they want him, they can find him.”

“How is the stock making out? Anything I can do?”

“That’s nice of you to offer. But I’ve got the Silverstaff boy from up the road taking care. He was here most of the morning getting caught up. Come on the porch and set.”

A haze had moved across the sun. She leaned back in the cane chair and widened her nostrils. “Smell that stink, do you?”

“Afraid not.”

“Acidy smell. We get it now most times the breeze comes out of the northwest. Phosphate plants up that way. Wind from the south, and you get the county incinerator smell. Nobody gives a damn, Mr. McGee. They talk about it, but they don’t really care enough to do anything. So one day people are going to grab their throats and fall down dead all over the state of Floryda, and I hope I’m safe dead and gone before it happens. What do you want with me?”

“Sheriff Hyzer is trying to locate Lew. Now if he doesn’t find him pretty soon, he might come out here or send somebody out here to go through his room, looking for a clue.”

“And?”

“He’ll find that hiding place just the way I did. I didn’t exactly give you an inventory of what’s in there.”

“Figured you didn’t. Filthy stuff?”

“Some standard, under-the-counter dirt, and some pretty vivid love notes from some of his women. And a collection of Polaroid pictures he took of a batch of his girl friends, all naked. They could cause some trouble in the wrong hands.”

“Like if Billy Cable got aholt of them?”

“That’s right, Mrs. Arnstead.”

“You said he had a lot of those speed pills in there. Would there be maybe enough so he could get into trouble on that account, too?”

“More than enough. They come under the narcotics legislation.”

She glowered into space for a long ten seconds. “I don’t hold with lying, Mr. McGee. I wouldn’t want anybody to come here and find that place of his and find it empty and ask me if I’d let anybody into that room to take stuff away. And if they asked me if I emptied it out and asked me what was in there, I’d have to tell what I took out. No, sir, I can’t let you go in my boy’s room and take away his personal private stuff and get rid of it any way you see fit.

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