Authors: Charles Williams
“Good.” He was pleased. “I think that’s wise. Mrs. Forsyth—”
“Goddammit, never mind Mrs. Forsyth!” I barked. Then I relented. “Sorry, Chris. What was it you started to say?”
“Oh—I was going to ask if you wanted to put the proceeds from the Warwick in some sound utility, just for the moment?”
“No,” I said. “Leave it in cash. As a matter of fact, while I’m over here I’m taking a good look at real estate. This place is booming—But never mind that. Just unload the Warwick. G’bye.”
I hung up, elated. It was perfect. Neither of them had suspected a thing, and I was already laying the groundwork.
I nipped through the paper to the classified section. Real estate. Here we were. Acreage. There were several big listings, some ocean front, and some highway frontage. I tore the section out, and looked at my watch. It was a little after one now. I dressed, closed the bags, put on the straw hat, and called the desk.
“Would you get my bill ready, please? And send a boy up to two-two-six for the bags.”
“Yes, sir. Right away.”
I looked at myself in the bathroom mirror. I was tired; dead tired. But the exhaustion merely made me look a little older. Marian had been right all the time. Chapman and I might not look anything alike actually, but within the limits of the average description we were indistinguishable.
Pretty big man. Above average size, anyway. Six feet, like that. 180, 190. Not old, not young. Thirties, I’d say. Brown hair. Dark, light, reddish? Well, uh, brown, you know. Blue eyes. Gray eyes. Green eyes.
Add the mustache, horn-rim glasses, cigarette holder. Add his car, his clothes, his identification. Add the personality traits. Throw in a week or ten days between observation and description. And finally throw in the fact that from beginning to end there was never any reason to doubt that Chapman was Chapman, and what did you have? Chapman.
But only if nobody had ever seen us both. That was vital.
I followed the boy with the luggage down to the desk. They were all different—porter, clerk, cashier. I’d noted them carefully last night while he was checking in.
I scrutinized all the items on the bill, and took out the traveler’s checks. “Would you cash an extra one for me?” I asked. “I need some change.”
“Yes, sir. We’d be glad to.”
I signed them, and as they lay on the desk I compared the signatures with the originals. Good. Very good. I put the change in the wallet, tossed the car keys to the porter, and said. “Gray Cadillac, Louisiana plates.” I stuck one of the filter cigarettes in the holder, lit it, and followed him. Chapman had come in here, and I had gone out. There was nothing to it.
He stowed the bags and the recorder and briefcase in the trunk. I gave him a dollar, and got in. The car was almost new, and was upholstered in pale blue leather. It was unbearably hot, and I hit the buttons to roll the windows down. I rummaged in the glove compartment for a Florida highway map, and found one, and also came up with a pair of clip-on sun-glasses. Fastening them on my frames, I looked at myself in the mirror. It was better all the time. I could
be
Chapman. Then I shuddered. Except that Chapman was lying on the bottom in six hundred feet of water, in the gloom and the everlasting silence, with his chest crushed by pressure. I shook it off.
I took out the classified real-estate ads I’d torn from the
Herald,
and checked some of the listings against the highway map. Several looked promising. One was a block of highway frontage on US 1 between Hollywood and North Miami, listed with the Fitzpatrick Realty Co. of Hollywood at an asking price of three hundred and seventy-five thousand.
I drove up and cruised around the town for about half an hour, looking it over. It appeared to be just about right. There were several motels of the type I was looking for, and it wasn’t too far from Miami. It was overflowing with real-estate outfits, of course, and I dropped in at three of them, introduced myself, and explained I was just looking over the local real-estate picture.
It was a little after two-thirty when I looked in on Fitzpatrick. He had a rather small place in a good location on one of the principal streets. Two salesmen and a girl were at work at desks out front. I bypassed the salesmen, gave the girl one of Chapman’s business cards, and said I’d like to talk to Fitzpatrick if he was in. She disappeared into the inner office. I slipped one of the cigarettes into the holder and was lighting it when she came back out and nodded.
He was a heavy-set and balding man in his fifties with the easy manner of a born salesman and a big nose crisscrossed with tiny purple veins. It was a nose that showed years of loving care, and I reflected that his liver probably looked like a hob-nailed boot. We shook hands. I sat down, unclipped the sun-glasses, and dropped them in my pocket. It wouldn’t do to have people remembering that I had worn them inside.
He leaned back in his chair, glanced at the card, and asked, “What line of business are you in, Mr. Chapman?”
“Oh, several,” I said. “Cotton gin, radio station, newspaper—Actually, I’m down here on vacation, for a little fishing. In the Keys, and maybe over at Bimini for a few days. It’s been about three years since I was in the Miami area, and I was just wondering what was happening in real-estate values.”
“I’d tell you,” he said, “but since you’re a businessman yourself you’d call me a liar.”
He then proceeded to tell me. He did a convincing job. In Florida real estate all the women were beautiful and all the men were brave, he believed it himself, and he possessed the lyricism of the Irish. Fortunes were made right under his nose every day. We decried a tax set-up under which is was impossible to make money and keep any of it except in capital gains or oil. He suggested we take a ride around and he’d show me a few of the listings they had. His car was just up the street in a parking lot. Why didn’t we take mine? I asked. It was parked out front.
“Nice cars, these Caddies,” he remarked, as we got in.
I clipped on the glasses. “I’m not much of a car fan. But, hell, when you can charge them off at least you got something out of the deal. What do you think of highway frontage along US 1 here? Has it priced itself out of the market yet?”
“Turn right,” he said, “and I’ll show you a block of it that’ll double in price in the next two years. Let me tell you what motel sites are bringing—per front foot—right now, within two miles of it—”
We drove out and looked at it. I asked a few questions about the taxes, total acreage, highway frontage, and how firm he thought the price was, but remained noncommittal. We stopped at a bar on the way back and had a drink. He wanted to know where I’d be staying the next few days, and I gave him the name of the motel in Marathon. Fitzpatrick was interested. He’d been in the business long enough to know when he smelled a sale.
I dropped him at his office, and headed south. On the way through Miami I stopped at a florist and wired two dozen yellow roses to Coral Blaine at her home address. They were her favorite flower.
He sometimes sent all the girls in the office inexpensive gifts when he was away on vacation, and I had an idea now. I could accomplish two things at once. On the way out of town, going south towards the Keys, I began watching for one of those roadside curio places that sold concrete flamingos. I finally located one, and pulled off.
It was the usual tourist-stopper seen along the highways all over south Florida, cluttered with four-foot clam shells from the Great Barrier Reef, cypress knees, alligator skins, coconut monkey heads, boxed fruit, and postcards. It was run by a cold-eyed man with a Georgia accent and a brow-beaten woman I took to be his wife. I poked disdainfully around in the junk for a while and finally settled on the gift boxes of exotic jellies, GUAVA, SEA GRAPE, TANGERINE MARMALADE—WE PACK AND SHIP.
“How much off for four?” I asked.
His bleak eyes shifted from me to the seven thousand dollars’ worth of car out front, and back again. “Same price, mister, one or a hundred.”
“I can see you’re a born merchandiser,” I said. I opened the briefcase, dug out the list Marian had given me, and wrote down the names and home addresses of the four girls: Bill McEwen at the paper, and Mrs. English, Jean Sessions, and Barbara Cullen at the office.
“One box to each address,” I said. I paid him, and added, “Give me a receipt. I’ve been stung on these deals before.”
He gave me one. I carefully stowed it in my wallet, and went out. The concrete flamingos were lined up along the fence at the right of the building. “What the devil are those things?” I asked. “I’ve been seeing them all along the road.”
“Ornamental flamingos,” he replied.
“What are they made of?” I asked. “And what good are they?”
“Plaster,” he said. “Concrete. These ones are concrete. You stick ’em up on lawns, or in the shrubbery. The ones with bases you set in paddlin’ pools.”
I shook my head. “God, the things you people sell to tourists.” He watched coldly as I got back in the car and drove off.
I arrived at Marathon and checked into the motel with almost an hour to spare before I was supposed to call Coral Blaine. I was practically out on my feet. After a shower and a harsh rubdown, I set up the tape recorder, put on the No. 5 roll, which was devoted almost altogether to her, and listened with the volume turned down. I found I didn’t need it any more. My mind ran ahead of the tape. There were tens of thousands of things I didn’t know about her and about Chapman, but everything on those five hours of tape was stamped into my brain.
I called her at exactly nine, and again it was easy. She’d got the roses; that helped. She was going to somebody’s house to play bridge. Two of the names she mentioned were familiar, so I made some appropriate comment. I was excited about tomorrow’s fishing, and I was getting burned up with Chris Lundgren. If he didn’t stop throwing Marian Forsyth’s advice at me I was going to switch my account to Merrill Lynch or somebody. Any time I needed that woman’s advice about anything—
She sniffed, and agreed with me. It was just too bad about poor Marian, but she guessed when women reached that age they got sort of—well, you know, frustrated and embittered.
“She’s in New York, you know. She called Bill McEwen today—”
“What’d she call her for?” I demanded suspiciously. “Bill, I mean.”
She gave her an ad to run in the paper. She’s selling her house. Bill said she told her she’d be back here Saturday.”
”Yeah. And I suppose she’d be talking about me behind my back to everybody in town. After I offered her six months’ pay, when she blew up and quit.”
“Well, I certainly wouldn’t worry about
her
talking about somebody—”
We exchanged the usual I-love-you’s and the I-miss-you’s, and hung up. It was beautiful, I thought. And I was becoming about as fond of the catty little witch as Marian was.
I called Captain Wilder of the
Blue Water III,
and told him I was in town and would be on the dock at eight a.m. He told me how to get there. I left a call for seven, took off my clothes, and fell into bed. The moment the light was out, I thought of Marian, and was so lonely for her I ached. I didn’t even have a photograph. Then twenty-four hours of tension uncoiled inside me like a breaking spring, and I dropped into blackness. . . .
She was running ahead of me along a sidewalk supported by giant cables in catenary curves, with only emptiness and fog beneath us. She was drawing away, and she ran into the fog and I lost her, and there was nothing but the sound of her footsteps dying away. I awoke and was tangled in the sheet and the phone was ringing.
It all came back, and for a moment I was sick with terror. Then it was gone. I’d expected it, of course; at the precise moment of waking you’re defenseless. It was nothing, and would wear off in a few days. I picked up the phone. It was seven o’clock.
Captain Wilder was a chubby and jovial man with an unending supply of chatter and dirty stories, and his mate was a Cuban boy with limited English. To both I was merely another faceless possessor of traveler’s checks, to be fished successfully and made happy. I wore the dark glasses, of course, and a long-vizored fishing cap. I used Chapman’s few words of Spanish on the Cuban boy, and talked a little about fishing at Acapulco.
There was no enjoyment in it. I kept thinking of his body lying down there somewhere crushed under the tons of water. We didn’t catch anything to speak of, which was good. I wouldn’t have to fight off the photographers. I explained we’d have to cut the first day short because I had an important business call to make, and we were back at the dock at three.
That was two p.m., New Orleans time. I called from the motel.
“Chris? Chapman. How are you making out with that Warwick?”
“Oh, hello, Mr. Chapman,” he replied. “The fishing all right?”
“Lousy,” I said shortly. “But about that oil stock—?”
“Hmmm. Let’s see. We unloaded six thousand shares of it yesterday, at two seven-eighths. It went to three-quarters, and we disposed of two more at that price. It sold off to five-eighths at closing, and has been hanging there and at a half all day. So we still have two thousand.”
“Right,” I said briskly. “Just let it ride until we can get three-quarters.” I made a rough calculation. “Now, look. My cash position must be around thirty thousand at the moment, or a little better? That right?”
“Ye-es—I think so. I haven’t got the exact figures, but it should be in the neighborhood of thirty-four thousand.”
“Fine. Now here’s what I want you to do. I came in from fishing early so I’d catch you in time, since tomorrow’s Saturday. Send me a check for twenty-five thousand, airmail Special Delivery, care the Clive Hotel, Miami. That’s C-l-i-v-e, Clive. Get it off this afternoon, without fail. I’ve run into something here that’s beginning to look terrific, if I can get it at my price, and I think I can. But I’m going to need some cash to hit ’em with, either for an option or as earnest money when I make the offer.”
“Real estate?” he asked. I could sense disapproval. The securities men and the land dealers shared a deep mutual distrust of each other’s “investments”. Then I realized it ran deeper than that; he didn’t have a great deal of faith in my judgment. I’d got where I was in the stock market by riding on Marian Forsyth’s back, and now that I’d ditched her there was no telling what would happen. That was fine. What I was doing was right in character. “Excuse me,” he went on. “None of my business, of course. I didn’t mean to pry.”
“Not at all,” I said. “As a matter of fact, it is real estate. Highway frontage on US 1. And it’s big. If I can get it, I could net a quarter million, after taxes in eighteen months. It’s going to take a sizable chunk of cash, but I’d worry about that after I hit ’em with the offer. And you’d shoot that check out to me right away, huh?”
“Yes, sir. It’d be in the mail tonight. Airmail Special.”
“Thanks,” I said. “G’bye.”
I hung up, breathed a quiet sigh, and poured a drink of the Scotch. We were rolling.
Next I called the reservations desk at the Clive and asked for a room Sunday night, and added, “I’m expecting a very important letter that’ll probably get there before I do. Be sure to hang on to it.”
“Yes, sir, Mr. Chapman. We’ll hold it.”
I took out some stationery and a pen and practiced writing the signature for a solid hour, striving for perfection and at the same time trying to condition myself to signing Harris Chapman so it would be automatic and I couldn’t slip and sign Jerry Forbes some time when I was thinking of something else. It occurred to me that in the short time I’d been in Florida I had been three different people—George Hamilton, Jerry Forbes, and now Chapman, and that in another ten days I’d go back to being Forbes again. A little more of this and I wouldn’t really know who I was.
I compared the results of the practice with the originals on the traveler’s checks. To my eye, they were indistinguishable; presumably an expert could tell them apart, but there was no reason the question should ever arise. I tore up the sheets and flushed them down the John.
Around six I showered and shaved, and dressed in one of Chapman’s suits. The trousers were about two inches too large in the waist, but it didn’t show with the jacket buttoned. Wearing his clothes made me feel queasy, but it had to be done. I found a surprisingly good restaurant and had dinner, after two Martinis at the bar, but it was necessary, for strategic purposes, to ruin the steak beyond the semblance of flavor. Chapman always ate them incinerated, so I ordered it well-done. When the waiter brought it out, I cut into it just once, beckoned peremptorily, and told him to take it back and tell the chef to cook it.
He returned with it a few minutes later. I cut into it, scrutinized it carefully, and gave him a glacial stare.
Tm sorry,” I said, “but this steak is still raw. Maybe if I wrote the chef a note—”
The place was crowded, and people at nearby tables were turning to stare. I stared back at them, completely unperturbed. The waiter would have liked nothing better than to poison me, but he removed it once more. This time I ate it when he brought it back. It was like charcoal.
I paid with one of the traveler’s checks. The cashier glanced at the signature, and as she counted out my change she said, “I’m sorry about the difficulty with your steak Mr. Chapman. We’ll do better next time.”
It had been quite successful.
I called Coral Blaine around eight, and it went off beautifully. I was discovering again how right Marian had been. She’d said I wouldn’t have much trouble with her. She was such a featherbrained chatterer she’d probably never pay any great attention to anything I said. I got her started on some of her upcoming “parties” and let her rattle. It was only towards the end that I mentioned the real-estate deal and said I’d probably be going back to Miami in another day or so.
The next day I raised and landed a sail, but told Wilder to release it. It was Saturday, of course, so I didn’t have to talk to Chris. I called Coral. It was becoming routine by now. When there was a pause in the flow of her gossip, I asked, “How would you like to live in Florida, angel?”
“Heavens, darling, what are you talking about?”
“Just an idea,” I said. “We might move down here some day. Not for a few years, of course, but it’s worth thinking about. This is a big-time country, and there’s real money to be made here. I’m feeling out a deal right now that could put a quarter of a million in our pocket. That’s a lot of mink stoles, angel.”
“Gracious, Harris, anybody would think I was marrying you for mink. But about moving to Florida—I’d have to think about that. With all the dear friends we have here.”
Well, she had one more dear friend there than she’d had yesterday. Marian Forsyth would have arrived in Thomaston this morning.
I’d hardly hung up when the phone rang. It was Fitzpatrick at last. “Well, Mr. Chapman, how’s the fishing been?”
“Not too bad,” I said. “I released a six-foot sail today.”
“Fine, I’m glad to hear it. But you want to come down in January some time and hit ’em off Palm Beach when they’re schooled up. Magnificent fishing.”
I smiled. Fitzpatrick was one of the good ones. He’d probably never fished in his life, but he’d talked to a fisherman before he’d called me.
“But I’ll get right to what I called you for,” he went on easily. “The owner of that piece of highway frontage dropped by today and we talked about it a little. Now he didn’t say so in so many words, but I’ve just got a hunch he might be open to an offer.”
“Hmmm,” I said thoughtfully. “It’d take a lot of cash to swing a deal like that— What kind of financing did you say it had on it now?”
“One of the Miami banks has a first mortgage for a hundred and fifty thousand. But I could almost guarantee that if you wanted to refinance, you could get two.”
“And he’s asking three seventy-five?”
“That’s right. But as I say, you can always try with an offer.”
“I’ll tell you what,” I said. “I’m coming back to Miami tomorrow for a few days, and I’ll keep it in mind.”
“Good. Ah, where’ll you be staying, Mr. Chapman?”
“Clive Hotel,” I said.
* * *
We fished with indifferent success until shortly after noon the next day, and came in. I checked out of the motel around two-thirty and drove to Miami. The Clive was a large hotel on Biscayne Boulevard and very convenient to everything downtown. The doorman called the garage to send a man after the car. I followed the boy in to the desk, and when I asked for my reservation the airmail Special from Webster & Adcock was waiting for me. I slit it open and looked at the check for twenty-five thousand dollars. This was just the first trickle, to break the dike.
After I’d registered, I stepped over to the cashier’s window and cashed three more of the traveler’s checks. There was no use letting them go to waste, and I was going to need plenty of cash before I was through. We went up to the room. It was one of the expensive ones, looking out over the waterfront park and the bay. As soon as the boy was gone, I put through the call to Coral Blaine. I was always jittery while that was hanging over my head. And it was time, too, to give her the first little nudge.
“I’m back in Miami, angel,” I said. “At the Clive Hotel, if you have to reach me for anything the next few days.”
She was in a kittenish mood tonight. “I just hope you’re behavin’ yourself
“I am,” I said. “As a matter of fact, I’m working. That real-estate deal with Fitzpatrick.”
“Darling, you’re supposed to be on vacation.”
“I’m never on vacation when there’s money to be made. You know that, honey. Oh, say, I saw Marian Forsyth on the street this afternoon. Did you know she was in Miami?”
“You
couldn’t
have. Dear, she’s right here in Thomaston. Don’t you remember, I told you—”
“Sure. I know you said she’d told Bill she was coming back Saturday. But I could have sworn this was her. She went past in a car.”
She became considerably cooler. “Maybe you just miss her, Harris. Or you’re thinking about her.”
“Cut it out, Coral. You know better than that. The only thing I’m thinking about her is that I don’t trust her. But you’re sure she’s there?”
“Of course, dear. I saw her myself, just this morning.”
”Well, you watch out for her. She’s probably spreading lies behind my back. By God, what does she want, didn’t I offer her half a year’s pay?”
“Darling,” she said wearily, “you’ve been more than fair with her. But do we
have
to talk about Mrs. Forsyth?”
“Of course not, honey. And I’m sorry. It was just somebody that looked like her. Let’s talk about the future Mrs. Chapman.”
When we’d hung up, I got Fitzpatrick’s card out of the wallet and called him at his home. I caught him in. “Chapman,” I said. “You remember—?”
“Oh, yes, Mr. Chapman. How are you?”
“Just fine. I was hoping you could help me out with something. I want to open an account in a local bank, and wondered if you could recommend one. I thought you might have connections—”
“I sure have. The Seaboard First National. Go in and see John Dakin. He’s the Assistant Cashier, and a good friend of mine. I’ll call him as soon as they open in the morning.”