Bright Orange for the Shroud by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

hundred thousand. The remaining two hundred and thirty thousand was represented by Crane Watts and Boo Waxwell, one hundred even by Watts. He said those small pieces were a nuisance, but it was essential to have a bright young lawyer on the scene, and that Boo Waxwell was the one with the close association with the Kippler heirs and able, if anybody was, to talk them into the deal. The New York associate had bowed out and there was five hundred thousand open. He said my five hundred thousand would become three million, a net return of one million nine after taxes, and my investment back.
    “I said I’d like one hundred thousand worth, and he looked at me as if I was a dog on the street and he rolled up the maps saying he hadn’t realized he was wasting his time as well as mine, and thanks for stopping by. Wilma was furious. She said I’d blown the whole thing. She said she’d talk to Calvin Stebberagain and see if there was any chance at all of his taking me in on the basis of two hundred thousand. I said it didn’t seem smart to gamble the whole thing, and she said it wasn’t a gamble.”
    “Then he let you in.”
    “Reluctantly. I sent an airmail special to my brokerage house to sell at current market and airmail me a certified check for two hundred thousand. We met on the yacht, I signed the syndicate agreement, and it was witnessed and notarized. It gave me 9 and 15/100ths shares in the syndicate.”
    “And you didn’t have a lawyer of your own check it out.”
    “Travis … you can’t understand how it was. They seemed so important. They were doing me a favor to let me in. Without Wilma, they would never have let me in. It was my chance to afford her. And from the moment I’d messed the deal up when I had the first chance, Wilma wouldn’t let me near her. She’d hardly speak to me. She moved to a different bedroom in the beach house. And … they said it was a standard agreement. It was about six pages, single-spaced, on legal size paper, and I had to sign four copies. Wilma stood with her hand on my shoulder as I signed, and gave me a big kiss when it was over.”
    “Stebber left soon after that?”
    “A day or two later. About then Boo Waxwell began to hang around. He’d drop in without warning. It was obvious to me that he was attracted to Wilma. And she seemed too friendly toward him. When I complained to her, she said Calvin Stebber had said we had to be friendly to him. I tried to find out from Waxwell how things were going, but he’d just laugh and tell me not to sweat.”
    “When did they ask for more?”
    “On August first I got a letter from Crane Watts. It referred to paragraph something, sub-paragraph something, and asked for my check in the amount of thirty-three thousand three hundred and thirty-three dollars and thirty-four cents at my earliest convenience. I was shocked. I dug out my copy and looked at the paragraph. It said that members of the syndicate could be assessed on the basis of participation to cover additional expenses. I went to see him right away. He wasn’t as friendly as before. I hadn’t seen his office before. It was north of the city on the Tamiami Trail, and it was just a cubicle in a roadside real estate office. He acted as if I was taking up valuable time. He said that negotiations had progressed to the point where the Kippler heirs had decided they wanted thirty-five dollars option money per acre, which meant the syndicate members had to come up with an additional three hundred and five thousand dollars, and simple mathematics showed that 9.15 percent of that was what he had requested by letter.
    “I said that I didn’t think I could make it, and that I guessed I’d just have to accept a proportional reduction of my share of the venture. He gave me a funny look and said he could understand my request, but if I had examined the subparagraph immediately following, certainly I’d realize it couldn’t be done. I hadn’t brought it. He got out an office