The Long Lavender Look by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online

killing people."
    No gasps or cooing or joshing or stupid questions. She went to work. She got the phone number. She said that if we were in luck, she could catch Lennie between the apartment and the marina, on his telephone in his car. If he had already taken off, she wouldn't get him until he Page 17

    monitored the Miami marine broadcast at six o'clock. Then she broke it off.
    I told the hero sheriff the call would come back quickly, or not until after six. He looked at his watch. "Wait here for ten minutes. Stand over there against the wall."
    No readable inflection, no emotion in the delivery. So you stand against the wall, in your ratty straw slippers, the pant legs of the coveralls ending about five inches above where pants should end, the top buttons unbuttoned because it is too small across chest and shoulders, the sleeves ending midway between elbow and wrist. So you are a large grotesque unmannerly child, standing and watching an adult busy himself with adult things. Man in a dark business suit, crisp white shirt, dark tie, dark gloss of hair, opening folders, making small marginal notes.
    The law, in its every dimension of the control of criminals, is geared to limited, stunted people.
    Regardless of what social, emotional, or economic factor stunted them, the end product is hate, suspicion, fear, violence, and despair. These are weaknesses, and the system is geared to exploit weaknesses. Mister Norm was a creature outside my experience. There were no labels I could put on him.
    He answered the phone, held it out to me. "Hello, Lennie," I said.
    "From this phone booth, Trav, I can see the Witchcraft, all fueled and ready, and my guests carrying the food and booze aboard, and a pair of blond twins slathering oil on each other up on the fly bridge. It was nice to have known you, pal."
    "Likewise. Take off, playboy. Cruise the ocean blue in your funny hat. Kiss the twins for me."
    "So all right! Bad?"
    "And cute. And for once in your brief meteoric career, you'd be representing total innocence."
    "Now isn't that nice! And I can't get into a front page with it, because if I make you a star, you are going to have to find useful work or starve. Status right now?"
    "Held for questioning. I waived my rights, and then all of a sudden a very bad question came along, and after thinking it over, I took it all back." My mind was racing, trying to figure out some way to clue him into checking out Sheriff Norman Hyzer, because, had I been sure of Hyzer's integrity-and sanity-I would have explained the envelope he had found.
    "Innocence can answer any kind of question that comes up."
    "If everybody is truly interested in the concept, Lennie."
    "Chance of the law there looking for a setup?"
    "It's possible."
    "Annie said something about killing people."
    "At least one, they claim. They haven't said why. Just hinted about some kind of job long ago netting nine hundred thou."
    "So the area swarms with strobes and notebooks and little tape recorders?"
    "Not a one."
    "So they can put a tight lid on and keep it on. Very rare these days, pal. I know they have a lumpy little patch of grass over there because I had to put down on it a year ago when my oil pressure started to look rotten and the mill started to heat on me. Look, I'll have Wes take this party out and anchor someplace down the bay. I'll make some phone calls here and there, and ...
    let me see. I want to hit that grass patch by daylight, so let's say that by six-thirty I'll be holding your hand."
    "And Meyer's."
    "I always told him evil companions would lead him astray."
    Hyzer had me taken back down to my private room. I sat on the bunk and felt very very glad not only about knowing Leonard Sibelius, but about having done him a favor he was not likely to forget. Not a tall man, but notable, conspicuously skinny, with a great big head and a great big expressive and heavy-featured face, and a wild mop of rust-gold hair. A big flexible resonant voice that could range from