Alligator (14 page)

"Jesus Christ, I just don't know what's happenin' to me," he said out loud. He picked up the brief, but immediately threw it back down. Slowly his face broke out in a smile. He pushed the buzzer on his intercom and called to his secretary. "Sandy?"

"Yes."

"Do you like raspberry jello?"

Sandy Dodd entered the bathroom and checked the bright-purple gelatinous mass that was hardening in the tub. She smiled to herself. It was a crazy idea, but she guessed that was what a college education did—it made you more inventive.

She was feeling good. She had always thought Sam Pruett was nice, but had never realized he even noticed her. Well, he had, and she was glad of it. After all, life was short; the one thing she'd learned recently was that.

A year ago, when Sandy Dodd's husband, Elmer, had been carted off to the slammer for auto theft, she had been inconsolable. She had cried for six weeks straight, and walked around town like a zombie, with her hair greasy and her eyes puffed and red. She had sobbed over the supermarket shelf of Mallowmars, Elmer's favorite cookies, let her house become a disaster area and her two-year-old boy run around the yard bare-assed. In fact, she acted just as everybody expected and wanted her to act. However, something strange started happening to Sandy Dodd during that seventh week, and since then her beds were made by eight A.M. and her child was dressed and washed by eight ten. In short, there was something very suspicious going on, and the whole town of Everglades could guess what it was. However, by that time Sandy was well beyond the point of caring what they said.

Sandy put on a long turquoise robe and furry white slippers.

"All I could get was grape," she called to Sam from the bedroom. "But I made Hendricks put in an order."

Sam was sitting on the toilet seat, watching Sandy flit between the bathroom and bedroom. He was stripped down to his undershorts. He just couldn't undress any further, nor could he get himself dressed again and run. He was trapped in his ridiculous-looking striped boxer shorts, with his skinny legs hanging out of them like flagpoles, sitting on her pink fluffy toilet-seat cover. He didn't say anything; he was afraid if he opened his mouth, he might cry. For a moment, he contemplated committing suicide, but that would mean having to stand up.

He dunked his finger into the purple spongy mass in the tub. It felt cool and silky, just as he had expected it to feel. Why was he always so afraid of looking ridiculous, he asked himself. Sandy was there with him, and she didn't seem worried about making a fool of herself.

He stuck his hand farther into the tub and felt the jello slide through his fingers.

"Grape is fine," he answered as Sandy came back into the bathroom. "As a matter of fact, when I was a kid, grape was the only flavor I liked."

"Really?" Sandy was relieved.

"Absolutely," answered Sam.

Sandy smiled like a little girl sharing a secret and unbuttoned her robe. Sam averted his eyes. He wished they were back at the office; if she had been taking off her clothes there, he would have felt less ill at ease. Being in her home made it more intimate.

Sandy wriggled out of her underpants and slid into the tub. The jello shuddered and rolled around her. "Ooooo, ain't it soft," she giggled as the transparent, frothy jello squeezed through her thighs. "Now ain't you smart to have thought of this. I once read a book that had whipped cream in it. But whipped cream gives me the hives, so I never gave it no more thought."

Sandy scratched her neck, and a large, trembling glob of jello dropped onto her chest. It clung, quivering, then slowly rolled toward her firm young breasts. Sam watched, fascinated, as it progressed over her chest, leaving a pale purple streak behind.

Finally it slid onto her breast and hung, a crystalline teardrop, from her upturned nipple.

Sandy noticed the droplet, picked it up on her finger, and licked it. Waves of passion swelled through Sam's thighs.

Sandy looked over at Sam and, realizing he hadn't moved, said, "I guess you are disappointed in the grape, aren't you, Mr. Pruett?"

"Oh, no," he answered. "It'll give us something to look forward to." Gathering up his courage, he turned to the wall and took off his shorts, then climbed into the tub and let the cool smoothness of grape envelope him.

While Sam Pruett was struggling against a tub full of jello, Albert Johnston was wrestling with a problem of his own. It was well past nine P.M. before he broached the subject. At first he told himself he wanted to wait until most of the dinner customers left before he said anything. Now he had to confront the fact that he was just stalling for time.

He carried a large tray of glasses to his wife, Matty, who stood at the sink. "I been thinkin'," he said, trying to sound as casual as possible.

"Now ain't that a switch." Matty took the glasses from him and dumped them into the sink. Her arms were bright red and steaming from the hot water, and clumps of bubbles clung to her fiery knuckles. She dunked her hands back into the soapy water and, with the kind of speed that insures against cleanliness, began washing the hundreds of greasy plates and glasses stacked next to her.

Albert allowed her sarcasm to pass over him. "What would you say if I was to tell you I was goin' gator huntin' tomorrow?"

"I'd say you was crazy." She laughed cheerfully and looked back at Albert while her hands continued to make the dishes fly from the water to the drainer.

"I guess you'd be right." He sounded discouraged.

"You're serious?" said Matty, picking up his tone.

"I think I am."

Matty walked to Albert and put her steaming, red arms around him. "It's because of me, ain't it? You think I've taken a fancy to Rye, and you want to show him what kind of man you are."

"No, it ain't that," he said.

"Of course it is," said Matty, trying to look concerned, but inwardly beaming with pride. "Honey, look at me. I don't give a damn about Rye, and that's the truth."

"I know it," said Albert. It was clear from his tone that he did.

Matty deflated like a balloon. She didn't like it when Albert had a passion unrelated to herself. She allowed him to unhook himself from her arms and went back to her dishes. "All right, then why?" Her voice was cold and flat.

"You wouldn't understand."

"Try me."

"It won't do no good. You're a woman."

"So?"

"So, how many times I tried to explain the infield-fly rule to you?"

"What the hell has the infield-fly rule got to do with a gator hunt?"

"Everything," said Albert. "It's got everything to do with it."

Albert picked up a damp rag and went back out into the bar to clean off tables. Matty watched him leave. Sometimes she hated men and their bantam-cock secret society. "Gator huntin'," she snorted derisively, then turned back to the sink and started washing the dishes again, clattering them loudly, as if defying them to break.

Maurice Gainor shifted in the bed and looked at the clock. It was well past midnight. The combination of the heavy dinner they had eaten at Albert's and the steaming night air was making him drowsy, but he was scared of the dreams he would have if he fell asleep.

John didn't seem to be having the same trouble. He had turned in early, in anticipation of tomorrow, and was sleeping like a dead man. Maurice felt more alone than he had ever been before.

He picked up the paperback edition of the
Hunter's Bible
he had bought at Levi's. Maybe, if he read it, he might have a shot at coming through the hunt alive.

Fear-gripping and agonizing, lost-in-the-woods experiences, common injuries and camper-caused fires can be avoided... Here is how the circle method works: Blaze an anchor or base tree at or near your camp on all four sides with your knife, ax or with the edge of a sharp rock. Next, walk in a northerly direction as far as you can in a straight line without losing sight of your anchor tree.

Maurice closed his eyes and lay back against the headboard. He couldn't remember what he had read if his life depended on it. The scary part was, it just might.

Outside, the noise of traffic had stopped, and he could hear the swamps which lay just outside his window. It wasn't the shrieking of owls or the croaking of frogs that unnerved him. It was the unidentified sounds: the rustling of bushes, the sudden splash.

He contemplated backing out. If he left now, he could hit his porch at the same time as the morning paper. No, it would never do. He went back to reading his book.

If you do get mixed up, don't call yourself lost! You may just be confused for a few minutes. Remain calm, sit down and relax. Have a smoke or chew some gum—think things over—don't panic and worsen the situation.

Don't panic? How could he do anything else?

Maurice picked up the telephone to call Rye. Before the operator could answer, he replaced the receiver with a sigh. He knew Rye would think he was a coward, and being with Rye, even if sometimes it was only as a lackey, was too important to Maurice to chance losing his friendship. That's why Rye's not trusting him hit him so hard: His relationship with Rye was one of the few bright spots in his life.

On the surface it might have seemed that Maurice was born with a silver spoon in his mouth, but it wasn't like that at all. He was born in Atlanta, Georgia, forty-three years ago. His mother, Millie, was heiress to the Georgia Expansion Belt fortune, which was best remembered for its slogan: "It's a cinch if it's Georgia." His father, Ezra, was one of those brilliant men who either succeed in a big way or fail miserably. From what Maurice could gather, at the time of their marriage Ezra was an inventor, and extremely close to the formula for a non-chip nail polish that might have revolutionized the cosmetics industry. Maurice's mother had kept quiet all during their courtship about what she considered to be Ezra's unstable business prospects. But before the six-tier cake had even been cut, the formidable committee of Millie and her father had approached Ezra about entering the family business. By the time the candy and nuts came, he had yielded.

Ezra Gainor's first official act as company president was to take to the road like a bat out of hell and drink his way from one convention to the next. Within two years, the Georgia Belt millions were speeding headlong toward bankruptcy.

When Ezra returned home, it was with a whopping dose of the clap and the D.T.'s. He tried to take up inventing again, but his creative juices were all dried up.

Fortunately, Millie's confidence and creative juices were abounding, and she took over the reins of the ailing firm.

Maurice was born the following year. Millie said he was the only one of his father's inventions that ever earned a dime.

Maurice's birth was greeted with delight. Millie was hoping that finally she would have a real man at her side, and Ezra was looking forward to an ally in his daily skirmishes with the Cast-Iron Cunt, as he called Millie.

Maurice had proved a disappointment to them both. By a trick of genetics, he had inherited his mother's creativity and his father's business acumen, and the war over him, which had started with so much hope and anger, was dropped by his third birthday.

After that, Maurice was left pretty much to his own devices. He soon learned that if he couldn't win love, he could buy it. Through the purchase of ice cream, candy, and hot dogs, Maurice was able to surround himself with friends. He remembered himself as a short, heavy-set, unattractive kid who was always running and doing. He never sat still for a moment; he felt that if he stopped, everyone would be gone and he would be left alone.

At seventeen, Maurice fell in love with a pale-skinned blonde named Phyllis, who always wore angora sweaters. He pursued her with a vengeance, piling gift upon gift, until her room looked like a garage sale, but the week before graduation, she eloped with a used-car salesman. Maurice lashed out in fury and despair and married the first girl who would accept him. Sally Gainor was neither bright nor graceful. She was, however, grateful as hell, and lately he'd begun to realize it was the best decision he'd ever made.

In 1959, when Millie died and Maurice stepped into his mother's shoes, the Georgia Belt Company was a mess. Through a series of disastrous business decisions and the advent of the self-belt, the family firm was in dire straits, and despite Maurice's desperate attempts, it collapsed six months later.

Maurice went right from the lawyers to the bar downstairs, and began a drunk that was to last twenty-one days. It took him across the city in a downward spiral that ended at a whorehouse in the neighborhood called Crab Alley. It was there he met Rye Whitman.

Maurice never forgot who he owed his life to.

It was close to one A.M. when Rye, in the middle of his nightly wrestling match with the terrors, pulled the curtains and glanced out the window. What he saw there drove him to the phone.

"Get me Thompson!" he bellowed when Thompson's wife, Ricky, answered. "I don't give a damn if he's dying. I want to speak to him." Rye hooked his hand around the phone and carried it with him to the window.

By the dim pier lights, he could see the outline of the Saurian, the airboat he had leased from Naples. Its aluminum struts and caged motor glittered in the moonlight. Tied up next to it were ten skiffs that hadn't been there that morning. Straining against their ties with a weird moan that carried all the way to the hotel, their silhouettes looking like ghosts in the strange half lieht, there was something so ominous about them that Rye was riveted to the window.

"Hello," said Thompson. His voice was thick with sleep.

"What the hell is going on!" yelled Rye. "There must be twenty-five boats parked next to mine!"

"Ain't twenty-five boats in the whole town." Sheriff Thompson laughed.

Rye ignored this. "What are they doing there?"

"Ready to go gator huntin' for tomorrow, I guess," said Thompson, matter-of-factly.

"Stop 'em. I'm going out tomorrow, and I don't want no one else goin' with me."

"What am I supposed to do about it?" asked Thompson.

Rye paced the room impatiently. There was nothing more aggravating than dealing with local police; they were invariably dense. "Throw them in jail if you have to!" he barked.