"Well, I hated to bother you gals so soon after Helena's death. Especially about something pretty trivial. A friend of mine-his name is Meyer-can't seem to get that custom motor sailer you people used to have out of his mind. The Likely Lady. She must be six years old now or a little more. He's been haunting the shipyards and yacht brokers for a long time, looking for something like her, but he can't turn anything up. He wants to try to track her down and see if whoever owns her now will sell. As a matter of fact, I'd already promised him I'd write to Helena when... her letter came. I made a phone call and found out she had... was gone. I told Meyer this was no tune to bother you or Maureen. But then I wondered if... well, there was anything at all I could do. I guess that because I was on the scene the last time, I'm kind of a self-appointed uncle."
Her smile was strained. "Don't get me started again. Lately I just can't stand people being nice to me." She put her glass down and went over and stared at herself in the mirrored door of the bathroom, at close range. After a few moments she turned away. "It works. It always has worked. When we were little and couldn't stop crying, Mom would make us go and stand and try to watch ourselves cry. You end up making faces at yourself and laughing... if you're a little kid." She was frowning as she came back to her chair and her drink. "You know, I just can't remember the name of the man who bought the Lady. I think he was from Punta Gorda, or maybe Naples. But I know how I could find out."
"How?"
"Go down and open up the house at Casey Key and look in Mom's desk. I have to do that anyway, the lawyers say. She was very tidy about business things. File folders and carbon copies and all that kind of thing. It will all be in the folder for that year, the year she sold it. It was such a great boat. I hope your friend finds her and can buy her. Daddy said she was forgiving. He said you could do some absolutely damfool thing and the Lady would forgive you and take care of you. If you could give me your address, I could mail you the name and address of the man who bought her."
"Do you plan to go down there soon?"
"We talked about going down Saturday morning and driving back Sunday afternoon. It ought to give us enough time. But it depends on... how Maurie is."
"Is she physically ill?"
"In addition to being mentally ill? Is that what you mean?"
"Why the indignation? Trying to knock yourself off isn't exactly normal behavior."
"I get... too defensive about her, maybe."
"Just what is wrong with her?"
"It depends on who you ask. We've gotten more answers than we can use. And more solutions. Manic depressive. Schizophrenia. Korsakov's Syndrome. Virus infection of a part of the brain. Alcoholism. Name it, and somebody has said she has it."
"Korsa-who?"
"Korsakov. Her memory gets all screwed up. She can remember everything prior to this past year, but the past year is a jumble, with parts missing. I think sometimes she uses it as a... convenience. She can really be terribly sly. As if we were against her or something. And she does manage to get terribly stinking drunk, and she does manage to sneak away from us, no matter how careful we both are. We put her in a rest home for two weeks, but she was so upset by it, so confused and baffled by it all, we just couldn't stand it. We had to bring her home. She was like a little kid, she was so pleased to be home. Oh, she's not buggy-acting at all. She's sweet and dear and a lovely person, really. But something has just... broken, and nobody knows what it is yet. If I hadn't told you all this, you could come to the house and never know anything was wrong, really."
"But she has tried to kill herself?"
"Three times. And two of them were very close calls. We found her in time the time she took the sleeping pills. And Tom found her in the tub after she cut her wrist. The other time it was just something she'd prepared, a noose thing out of quarter-inch nylon, over a beam in the boathouse. All clumsy knots, but it would have worked."
"Does she say why she keeps trying?"
"She doesn't remember why. She can sort of remember doing it, in a very vague way, but not why. She gets very frightened about it, very weepy and nervous."
"Who's taking care of her now?"
"Tom is home with her. Oh, you mean what doctor? Nobody, actually. You could say we've run out of doctors. There are things Tom and I can do for her. She was doing pretty well until Mom died. Then she had... some bad days."
"Would she remember me?"
"Of course! She hasn't turned into some kind of a moron, for heaven's sake!"
"What about those nuisance phone calls you mentioned?"
Her expression was guarded. "Oh, just from people she gets involved with when she... manages to sneak out."
"She gets involved with men?"
"She goes out alone. She gets tight. She's very lovely. It's hell on Tom and it isn't any of your business."
"That's no way to speak to your kindly old uncle."
A wan smile. "My nerves are ragged. And that part of it just... makes me want to resign from the human race. Those damned oily voices on the phone, like filthy children wondering if Maurie can come out and play. Or like the way you see packs of dogs, following. They don't know she's sick. They don't even give a damn."
"How often does she sneak off?"
"Not often. Maybe three times in the last four months. But that's three times too many. And she never remembers much about it."
I took her empty glass and built her a fresh drink and took it to her, saying, "You must have some kind of a theory. You probably know her as well as anyone in the world. What started all this?"
"When she had the second miscarriage, it was because of some kind of kidney failure. She had convulsions. I thought that could have done something to her brain. But the doctors say no. Then I thought she might have a tumor of the brain, but they did all kinds of tests and there's nothing like that at all. I don't know, Travis. I just don't know. She's the same Maurie, but yet she's not. She's more... childlike. She breaks my heart."
"Care if I stop by and say hello?"
"What good would it do?"
"And what harm could it do?"
"Is it just kind of a sick curiosity?"
"I guess that's my bag, going around staring at crazies."
"Damn you! I just meant that--"
"She's not on display? Right? Okay. She was twenty. She took that ugly business about Mick with a great deal of class and control. I knew how much she adored her father. Look, I didn't ask to be let in on all the family secrets. But I was. I'd like to see what she's like. Maybe you're too close to it. Maybe she's better than you think she is. Or worse. Can you think of anybody else who hasn't seen her since she was twenty?"
"N-No. Suppose I ask Tom what he thinks. And phone you here either later this evening or in the morning."
When she finished her drink, I walked her out to her little red Falcon wagon. She thanked me for the drinks and apologized for being so tired and cross and edgy, and drove off.
She phoned in the morning and invited me to lunch at the house. She said Maurie was looking forward to seeing me again, and that Tom would join us for lunch if he could get away.
6
BRIDGET PEARSON apparently heard the sound of tires on the driveway pebbles and appeared from behind the house, on the lake side. She wore yellow shorts and a white sleeveless top and had her hair tied back with yellow yarn. Her sunglasses were huge and very black.
"So glad you could make it! We're out back. Come along. Tommy fogged the yard before he went to work, and there's hardly a bug. He should be along any minute."
She kept chattering away, slightly nervous, as I followed her out to the slope of lawn overlooking the lake-shore. Tall hedges of closely planted punk trees shielded the area from the neighboring houses. There was a redwood table and benches under a shade tree, a flourishing banyan. The two-story boathouse was an attractive piece of architecture, in keeping with the house. There was a T-shaped dock, iron lawn furniture painted white, a sunfish hauled up onto the grass, a little runabout tethered at the dock. The makings of the picnic lunch were stacked on one end of the redwood table. A charcoal fire was smoking in a hibachi. She pointed out the pitcher of fresh orange juice, the ice bucket, the glasses, the vodka bottle, and told me to make myself a drink while she went to tell Maurie I'd arrived.
In a few moments Maureen came out through the screened door of the patio, moving down across the yard toward me, smiling. Her dead mother had written me that she was stunning. In truth she was magnificent. Her presence dimmed the look of Biddy, as if the younger sister were a poor color print, overexposed and hastily developed. Maude's blond hair was longer and richer and paler. Her eyes were a deeper, more intense blue. Her skin was flawlessly tanned, an even gold that looked theatrical and implausible. Her figure was far more rich and abundant and had she not stood so tall, she would have seemed overweight. She wore a short open beach robe in broad orange and white stripes over a snug blue swimsuit. She moved toward me without haste, and reached and took my hands. Her grasp was solid and dry and warm.
"Travis McGee. I've thought of you a thousand times." Her voice was slow, like her smile and her walk. "Thank you for coming to see us. You were so good to us a long time ago." She turned and looked over her shoulder toward Biddy and said, "You're right. He isn't as old as I thought he'd be either." She stretched up and kissed me lightly on the corner of the mouth and squeezed my hands hard and released them. "Excuse me, Travis dear, while I go do my laps. I've missed them for a few days, and if I stop for any length of time, I get all saggy and soft and nasty."
She walked out to the crossbar of the T and tugged a swimcap on, dropped the robe on the boards and dived in with the abrupt efficiency of the expert. She began to swim back and forth, the length of the crossbar, so concealed by the dock that all we could see were the slow and graceful lift and reach of her tanned arms.
"Well?" Biddy asked, standing at my elbow.
"Pretty overwhelming."
"But different?"
"Yes."
"How? Can you put your finger on it?"
"Maybe she seems as if she's dreaming the whole scene. She sort of... floats. Is she on anything?"
"Like drugs? Oh, no. Well, when she gets jumpy, we give her a shot. It's sort of a long-lasting tranquilizer. Tom learned from one of the doctors and taught me how."
I watched the slow and apparently tireless swimming and moved to the table to finish making my drink. "There's nothing vague or dazed about her eyes. But she gives me a funny kind of feeling, Biddy. A kind of caution. As if there's no possible way of guessing just what she might do next."
"Whatever comes into her head. Nothing violent. But she is just... as primitive and natural as a small child. Wherever she itches, she'll scratch, no matter where she is. Her table manners are... pretty damned direct. They get the job done and in a hurry. And she says whatever she happens to be thinking, and it can get pretty... personal. Then if Tom or I jump on her about it, she gets confused and upset. Her face screws up and her hands start shaking and she goes running off to her bedroom usually. But she can talk painting or politics or books... just so long as it's things she learned over a year ago. She hasn't added anything new this year."
We heard another car on the pebbles and she went hurrying off around the corner of the house. She reappeared, talking rapidly and earnestly to the man walking slowly beside her. A certain tension seemed to be going out of his posture and expression, and he began to smile. She brought him over and introduced him.
He was tall and wiry, dark hair, dark eyes, a face that had mobility and sensitivity, and might have been too handsome without a certain irregularity about his features, a suggestion of a cowlicky, lumpy, aw shucks, ear-ly-jimmy-stewart flavor. His voice did not have the thin country whine of Mr. Stewart, however. It was surprisingly deep, rich, resonant, a basso semi-profundo. Mr. Tom Pike had exceptional presence. It is a rare attribute. It is not so much the product of strength and drive as it is a kind of quality of attention and awareness. It has always puzzled and intrigued me. People who without any self-conscious posturing, any training in those Be Likable and Make Friends courses, are immediately aware of you, and curious about you, and genuinely anxious to learn your opinions have this special quality of being able to somehow dominate a room, a dinner table, or a backyard. Meyer has it.
He shed his lightweight sports jacket and pulled his tie off, and Biddy took them from him and carried them into the house. With a tired smile he said, "I've been worrying all morning about how Maureen would react to you. It can be very good or very bad, and no way to tell in advance. Biddy says it's been fine so far."
"She looks great."
"Sure. I know. Dammit, it makes me feel... so disloyal to have to act as if Biddy and I were keeping some kind of defective chained up in the cellar. But too much exposure to outsiders shakes her up." His quick smile was bitter and inverted. "And when she gets upset, you can be very very sure she's going to upset the outsider, one way or another. She's going to find her way out of the thicket. Someday. Somehow."