The Scarlet Ruse by John D. MacDonald Read Free Book Online Page B

pilings at low tide, with weed and barnacles on the exposed part, with four brown pelicans perched on individual pilings, and two more sailing in to land on the empty ones. She paints them in varying sizes and frames them in different styles, in order to have a useful range of prices. They all sell. They hang in untold hundreds of northern living rooms, all signed in the bottom right corner. Jennifer Thurston.
    She is chunky, forthright, salty, and loyal to her friends. She paints as many paintings as she needs, in order to get along. She has pretty eyes and good legs. From time to time, sturdy young men move in with her, aboard the West Bank. The average tour of duty has been about three months. The old timers have learned to estimate the probable date of departure very accurately. They detect in the young man a certain listlessness, a sallowness, a general air of stupor.
    So we sat in the night and talked about old times and people long gone. Sam Taggert. Nora Gardino. A girl named Skeeter. Puss Killian. Remember when… Hey, what about the time… Were you around when…
    It was all nostalgia, sweet and sad, and it was good therapy. Sometimes you need that special kind of laughter.
    I went down the ladderway with her and walked aft to the gangplank. I bent and kissed her and felt her mouth sweeten and flower under the pressure when she grabbed hold to make it last longer. She sighed as I straightened, and she said, "Sometimes I wisht I didn't have my rule about sleeping with my friends."
    "A lot of the trouble in my life has come from not following your rule, Jen."
    "It's always better when you don't have to give a damn."
    "Take care of yourself."
    "Let's try to see if we can find a place most of the old hands can tie up permanent. You know. Enough room and everything."
    I watched her walk away. She slapped her old boat shoes down with stumpy authority. Her hair had smelled fresh and sweet. I needed a lady to be happy with. Not that lady, though. It had been a long time between amiable ladies. Chauvinist pig yearning for new playtoy, new love object? Not so as you would hardly know it. Reverse of Jenny's dictum: It's always better when you give a damn. But how do you tell a genuine damn from one you muster up to justify tupping the wench? Well, you can tell. That's all. You can. And so can she. Unless, of course, she is just a female chauvinist pig yearning after you as a playtoy, a sex object, and drumming up her little rationalizations.
    I dreamed about a lady I saw on one of those stamps. Antigua. 1863. Lady in profile in rosy mauve, with an elegant neck, a discreet crown on her pretty head. She turned with a half smile, looking out of the stamp at me, then shook her head, frowned, and said, "Oh, golly. You again, huh?"

Chapter Five
    The First Atlantic Bank and Trust Company occupied the first two floors of its own office building on a noisy corner. The four of us walked from Fedderman's shop to the bank. Meyer walked ahead with Hirsh. I followed with Mary Alice McDermit. Anyone would probably mention that she was tall enough for me. In hardly any heels at all, she came close to six feet. It was a stifling Thursday morning. September can be a seething bitch in Miami. She wore some kind of sunback dress with about five inches of skirt. Maybe six inches. Her glossy black hair bounced to her free stride. Her fair skin had taken a tan the color of weak butterscotch. Her face had good bones, but it was slightly plump, and something about her expression and the way she dressed made me think of a very large twelve-year-old girl.
    "I can't believe it," she kept saying. "I just can't believe it."
    "Hirsh believes it. He got a good look two weeks ago today. The good stuff is gone, except what you put in that day."
    "We knew something was awfully wrong. The way he's been acting. Jane and I talked about it. We tried to find out from him. I just can't believe it."
    It felt good to walk with a girl who matched my stride, nice brown