The Quick Red Fox Part 2

She moistened her lips. "Under community property, one half of about eighty million, honey. I am his dear faithful little darlin'. It made the whole thing a lot more... chancy. Otherwise I would have borrowed some muscle from an old buddy in Vegas and turned them loose on this clown photographer. They'd be smart enough to handle that, but they're not smart enough to handle what I need now. Actually, if Mr. X had no knowledge of my friend, and how long it takes to bull something through that Vatican crowd, he made a very stupid pitch. But with my friend in the background, there was just too much chance it might backfire. Before you bet, you count what's in the pot. All my potential plus my friend's heavy purse. So I paid off."

"And hoped that was the end of it. And it wasn't. Incidentally, can he clear you with his church?"

"I was never married in his faith, so nothing counts. I get a clean bill. By the way, McGee, Dana doesn't know a thing about my plans for my friend."

I asked her how she thought the pictures had been taken. "It had to be a long lens," she said. "You can see the flattening and foreshortening effect. Off to the left, south of the house, I remember a little rocky ridge higher than the house with some knotty little trees clinging to it. It had to be from there. The angles match. But he had to be part mountain goat, and it had to be a tremendous lens."

"Is there any clue at all in that letter itself, any hint that's made you think of a specific person?"

"No. I read it over and over. He's been around the industry in some connection, and I think he tried to sound as if he knew me, but he calls me Lysa instead of Lee. That could be a cover-up, of course. And it has a phoney kind of limey slant to it, calling me ducks."

"What size were the negatives?"

"Little. Like so." She indicated a 35mm frame size.

"You checked them against the prints each time?"

"Sure did. But in a lot of cases the prints were just an enlargement of part of the negative, even less than half sometimes."

"So you were all paid up well over a year ago. And you thought it was over. When was the next contact?"

"Two months ago. Less than that. Early in January. An old friend, trying to make a comeback, was opening at The Sands in Vegas, and a bunch of us were rallying around to give him a good sendoff. It was in the papers that we were all going to be there. Dana was with me. We had a suite at the Desert Inn. Somebody left this envelope for me at the desk at The Sands. I guess they thought I was staying there. They sent it over. Dana got it. I was just waking up from a nap. She came in with the d.a.m.nedest expression on her face and handed it to me. She had opened it. It was another set of the pictures. There wasn't any return address. The desk had no idea who had left it off. Dana wanted to quit right then and there. She is a strange gal. I had to explain the whole thing the way I explained it to you, Trav. She knew right away that it was the same thing that had cost me all the money. She still wanted to quit. I had to beg her to stay. Our relations.h.i.+p hasn't been the same since she saw the pictures. I don't blame her. I'd still hate to lose her. This is the envelope. You can see how it was addressed. Somebody just cut my name off the front of a fan magazine, something like that. Here is the note that was with it."

It was quite different. Individual words and letters had been cut from newsprint and newspaper stock and pasted to cheap yellow copy paper. It said: Shameless wh.o.r.e of Babylon you will be cut down by the sord of decency and money will not save your dirty life this time but you better have money ready you wh.o.r.e of evil I will come to you and you will no the truth and I will set you free.

She hugged herself. "That one just scares the h.e.l.l out of me, Trav. It's kind of sick and crazy and terrible. It just isn't the same person. It can't be."

"So you went and saw Walter?"

"No. I just got more and more jittery the more I thought of it. I'm still shook. I was at a big party at the Springs and I got a little stoned and made a scene and dear Walt was there and he took me for a walk. I hung onto him and cried like a baby and told him my troubles. He said maybe you would help. I guess you can say something was stolen from me. My privacy or something. And somebody wants to steal my career or maybe my life. I don't know. I've been carrying cash around with me. In thousand-dollar bills. Fifty of them. I don't expect you to get back what I paid. But if you could, you could keep half. And if you can get that nut off me, you can have the money I'm carrying around."

"Are the pictures in that envelope?"

"Yes. But do you have to see them?"

"Yes."

"I was afraid of that. I am not going to let you see them until you say you'll try to help me. Every time I think of that note I feel like a scared kid."

"It's a very cold trail, Lee."

"Walter said you are clever and tough and lucky, and he said being lucky is the most important." She gave me an odd look. "I have this feeling that my luck is running out, darling."

"How many people know about this?"

"The four of us, dear. You and Dana and me and Walter. But you know more than the other two. Not another soul. I swear."

"Wouldn't it be logical for you to tell Carl Abelle?"

"Sweetie, when one of those things is over, it is over all the way. Enough is enough forever."

"Could he have set you up for it?"

"Carl? Definitely no. He's a very sunny type. Very simple needs and very simple habits. Totally transparent, really"

"Usually I gamble expenses, then take them off the top before the fifty-fifty split. But this is a little too chancy for that."

"Expenses guaranteed up to five thousand," she said without hesitation, "and when that's gone we'll talk some more."

"Walt must have said I could be trusted."

"What other choice do I have? That's one thing about this. There hasn't been any trouble making decisions. There's been just one way to go. Will you try? Please? Pretty please?"

"Until it looks hopeless."

She scaled the envelope into my lap. "G.o.d knows I'm not the shy type, sweetie, but I don't think I could watch anybody look those over. I'll take a walk. Take your time."

She went to the heavy door and let herself out quietly.

Three.

AFTER A little time I put the twelve photographs back into the envelope. I took a slow turn around the room. I am too big a boy to be churned up by the explicits of other people's kicks.

Nor did I feel any compulsion to make moral judgment. These were modern animals caught in black and white at their silly play. Such sport was not for me, and very probably not for anyone whose friends.h.i.+p I claimed. There seemed to be some kind of severe selection involved. An acceptance of that presupposed an inability to accept or believe in a lot of other things. Personal dignity for one.

But something still bothered me, something I could not quite define. So I took them out and shuffled through them again. The clue was there. It was the terrible loneliness on their faces. Each one of them, in all that lazy confusion of intimacies, in that lexicon of clinical descriptions, looked utterly, desperately alone.

And they were beautiful people. Lysa Dean was the featured player in every shot, and her body was as superb as its promise.

I felt as if I had glimpsed the edge of some great paradox. The grotesque ultimate of togetherness is the final loneliness of the human spirit. And once you had been that far out on that barren limb, there was no chance of ever coming all the way back.

I shrugged and looked at them again to see if they told me anything about time lapse. I put them away again.

From the varying lengths of shadow in the pictures, from the changing positions on the sunny terrace, I could tell that they had been taken over a matter of hours, perhaps on separate days.

Soon she returned, coming in with a look half challenge, half calculated demureness. "Well?" she said.

"It doesn't look as if it was a h.e.l.l of a lot of fun.

That response startled her. She stared at me. "Oh, you are so right! You know, it seems to me as if it was all a thousand years ago. I guess I've been trying to fade it out of my mind. Oh Christ, there's kind of a sickly excitement about it, I guess. But what I remember now is being constantly cross and irritable and impatient. And sleepy. Just terribly sleepy and never being allowed to sleep long enough, and having the feeling that all the rest of them were just one... one thing somehow. Not like the pictures."

"Are these exactly like the other pictures you got?"

"They are the twelve exact same shots, but not exactly like the others. These are fuzzier and grayer, sort of. Not as sharp. But I didn't save any of the others to compare, of course."

"We have to look through these together so you can give me the names to go with the faces, Lee, and tell me what you know about each one."

"I suppose it has to be done."

"Like a trip to the dentist. I think there's at least one fair picture of every other person in the group."

She made a face. "Those pictures are such a big boost to my pride, Travis. It does something for a girl to look like a fifty-peso floozy in a back-room circus in Juarez."

I turned a light on and we sat at the desk in the sunken part of the room. I found a pencil and paper. I pointed to the pictures and asked the questions. She answered in a thin small breathy voice, her face half turned away. I took the following notes.

1. Carl Abelle-about 27-six-footer-husky, blond-has left the Valley-try Mohawk Lodge near Speculator, New York.

2. Nancy Abbott-about 22-tall, dark, slender, heavy drinker, good singing voice, believed to have been divorced, perhaps daughter of an architect. Took ski lessons from Abelle at Sun Valley. Believed to be a house guest of 3. Vance and Patty M'Gruder, perhaps of Carmel, married couple in middle twenties, apparently well-off, Vance a sailboat buff, ocean racing etc., have house in Hawaii (?), husband very tanned, short, broad, muscular, going prematurely bald, wife lush fair, very long blonde hair, quarrelsome, strong English accent.

4. Ca.s.s-could be first name, last name or nickname. Seemed to have known M'Gruders previously. About thirty. Dark, hairy, handsome, very powerful. Amusing (?). A painter, perhaps. Friend of...

5. Sonny, a little younger than Ca.s.s, slender, cold-eyed, flavor of violence, untalkative, occupation unknown, who had brought along...

6. Whippy. About nineteen then. Copper curls, freckles, perhaps a waitress or clerk, scared of Sonny.

7. Two college boys from the east on a summer trip, apparently joined the group at the bar where Abelle ran into Nancy Abbott. Boys about 20 or 21, Harvey a big blond cheery one and Richie a smaller dark nutty one. Cornell.

On the clearest prints of each I had marked the corresponding number from my notes. I could sense Lee's relief when I put the photographs back into the envelope.

"Who got it all started?" I asked her.

She tightened up again. "Why? What do you mean?"

"I don't think a camera gets that lucky. Somebody had to set you up. Or maybe the real target was somebody else, and you turned out to be a bonus."

"It was a long time ago, and I was tight most of the time."

"Tell me what you can remember of how it got started."

She got up slowly and went over and rested her fists on a windowsill, staring out, the fox pelt hair softly backlighted. I leaned a shoulder against the wall by the window. She talked. Her voice was small. I could not see much of her profile because of the way the hair swung forward. Round of forehead, soft snub tip of nose. I did not press her. I let her find her own words in her own time.

Her memory was more acute as regards textures than incident. Six men and four gals that first evening and night. Four places to go-two bedrooms, a long couch in the living room, the leathery sunpads on the night terrace. It was a prowling thing then, pursuits and tensions, Lysa Dean a primary target for all but Carl, low lights and ultimate arrangements, and some re-pairings when partners slept.

In phrases and fragments, theatrical sighs and beautifully timed hesitations, she painted the flavor of the hot bright terrace on that first full day of houseparty. Pitchers of b.l.o.o.d.y Marys, vodka haze, arrows of white sunlight through squinting eyes, compulsive beat of the music on the portable radio, oil and aromatics of sun lotion, jokes and tipsy laughter.

A game of forfeits, with the rules rigged so that to play was to lose, and to lose was to soon be naked. In half-sleep, mildly and amiably drunk, after the game had ended, she had fended off the increasing insistence of Ca.s.s, whining at him irritably when he became too bold.

Finally, propping herself up to drink again, she saw several sound asleep, and saw others who were accepting what she had refused. So, squeezing her eyes hard shut to achieve the illusion of privacy, she had surrendered herself to Ca.s.s and her own responses.

She straightened and turned toward me and hooked the fingertips of both hands into my belt, leaned her forehead against my chest. She sighed and said, "Then I guess it stops mattering so much. I don't know. You just seem to learn how to turn one whole part of your mind right off. It's all just something that happens. Everybody is in the same boat. So it doesn't seem to make any difference any more. Nothing does."

She sighed again. In the cold soft light I could see the scalp, clean and white as bone under the coppery spring of hair. "I don't know who started it. Patty was bossy. I can remember people getting mad. Whippy cried sometimes. Ca.s.s knocked Carl down once, I don't know why. One of those college kids, the big one, kept getting sick. He couldn't drink. It's all so vague, sweetie. If you watched, and you were all turned off, it was just sort of stupid and boring, and if you'd, started to hum a little, you could get into that one or set up something else, or go take a shower, or go make a sandwich, or go build another pitcher of drinks. It just... wasn't all that important."

She slid her small hands around my waist, laid her cheek against my chest and held tight. I stroked her hair. She took the deepest breath of all and said, "Listen to me! G.o.d, I know it was important. There are some kinds of poisons, I heard you look as if you got over it, but you never really do. I wish somebody could stick a knife in my head and cut out those four days and nights, Trav. A girl thinks about herself a different way, after that. I have this lousy dream ever since. I've fallen into this empty white swimming pool and the sides are too high to get out. The pool lights are on so it's bright as a stage. And there are six ugly snakes in there on the tile, all after me. I can run and dodge fast enough to keep away from them no matter how they try to hem me in. They all look exactly alike. Then I keep calling for help and suddenly I see that the walls are all kind of coming in. It is getting smaller and smaller. Then I know they are going to get me. As the place gets smaller the snakes get bigger, and I scream and wake up, all sweaty and trembling. Just hold me tight, Trav. Please."

She was trembling and I wondered if it was faked. After several minutes she quieted down and moved away from me, shoved her hair back with the back of her hand and said, with a funny little shy smile, "You don't want me, do you? I could tell. Just from your hands. Kind of gentle and... fatherly and remote. G.o.d, I wouldn't blame you for not wanting such a public piece."

"It's not that."

"No? You are certainly not one of those, sweetie."

"No. Well, in all honesty, if that's what you want, I guess the pictures have something to do with it. A man likes the illusion of exclusive option, even on the most temporary basis, I guess. But with or without pictures, let's just say I'm not a trophy hunter."

"What the h.e.l.l does that mean?"

"Every redblooded American boy should ride a bike no hands and win some merit badges and go to bed with a household name. Some of them don't get over it, that's all. I had my celebrity innings, but I'm not a locker room historian. I outgrew my bike too, Lee. It's a big scene here. Rich silent house and the closed door and your tight pants and that rostrum type bed. And mutual attraction. But it isn't worth it. It would be like being taught to dance by your elder sister. She would keep trying to lead, and giving irritable little instructions, and counting out loud and spoiling the music. Then she would give you a patronizing pat and say you did just fine."

For a moment she had the malignant rigidity of a temple demon. Then an urchin grin, seen often in your favorite movie palace, broke it up. "My G.o.d, you are a strange one, McGee. You wouldn't want me as a gift, eh?"

"Not unless and until it could be more than this for us, Lee."

"You mean like real true love?"

"Affection, understanding, need and respect. You can be sarcastic about that too, if you want. Bed is the simplest thing two people can do. If it goes with a lot of other things, it can be important, and if it goes with nothing else, it isn't worth the time it takes."

She strolled over and curled up in a big chair and pondered me, finger laid against the side of her small nose. "The next time around, Mr. McGee, can you arrange to show up in Dayton about fifteen years ago?"

"I can make a note of it, Miss Dean."

"I've been through too many mills this time."

"Not necessarily"

"But you said respect."

"Once in a while you stop posing for me and remembering lines from old movies, and then I could respect the person that shows through."

"It could be strange to have a friend like you. I have no female friends, really. And just two male friends, fine old guys, both in their early sixties. I love them dearly. Males in your bracket are either studs or compet.i.tors, sweetie, or they want to find an angle to get rich off me."

"We might end up friends, Lee. I better go along. I am going to take these pictures along." As I picked them up from the desk she hopped up out of the chair and came running over and grabbed at the envelope. I did not let her pull it out of my hand. I said, "Either you trust me all the way, or I get off right now, Lee. I need them for information and leverage."

After looking at me with a long and searching intensity, she let go. "I never thought I'd let anybody even see those. Tray, will you be terribly careful?"

"Yes."

"I can send Dana over with the expense money tomorrow. Will that be all right?"

"Fine."

"Please be careful with those pictures. If they get out, my career is dead right now. And... as you must d.a.m.n well know, it is the only thing I have left."

Tears balanced on her lower lids, and one broke loose and tracked her cheek. It did not look real. A makeup man had darted onto the set and put them there with an eyedropper. Pure glycerine. Maybe they weren't real. She would have learned to cry almost at will, and cry in a way that would leave her as lovely as before.