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fat foam Santas were affixed to the palm boles and light standards, high
enough to keep the kids from yanking their foam feet off. "Adeste Fidelis" was
coming from somewhere, possibly a downtown church, electronic chimes that
could rattle fillings in teeth, and overpowered the retail sound tracks of
sprightlier seasonal music. I went through town and out to the beach and
parked in the lot of the place I had told her to be, an expansive, glossy,
improbable motel called Dune-Away, with a place pasted to it called The Annex,
where food and drink was worth the prices they charge, even in the off season,
and where if an attractive lassie wishes to be picked up, the hard-nose
management will smooth the way, and if she doesn't, those same professionals
can chill the random Lothario quickly, quietly and completely.
I looked at the lounge from the doorway and saw her alone at a banquette
against the far wall. As I headed across toward her I was aware of a wary
waiter also moving on an interception course. But he and I saw her quick
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recognition and saw her face light up in greeting. So he held the table out
for me to sit beside her, and went off with our order.
"You missed our boy by ten minutes," she said. "He was very dear. Not my type.
One of those narrowboned dark ones, a bit stuffy. He wants to be with it, but
he laughs a little too soon or a little too late, and he seems to sit and
steer his car instead of drive it. Let me see. He's thirty-one and he's been
married to Linda for five years, and they have two kids and she is a fantastic
golfer, and her father owns the Buick Agency in Sunnydale, and he is worried
about her drinking. He kept giving me a certain business with the eyebrows
that maybe he learned in front of his mirror, and I made his hands clammy when
we sat close. He didn't have the guts to take a hack at me right out of the
clear blue. He'd have to be encouraged so that then he could tell himself he
hadn't started it, and he's only human, isn't he? He's very nervous about the
impression he makes, and he's steeped in all that radical right wing hoke
about conspiracies and a bankrupt America and Chinese bombs, and it was a drag
to listen big-eyed to that fired gunk and say Oh and Ahh and Imagine that! He
does a lot of civic stuff and joins everything, and thinks of himself as being
the fearless attorney, standing up for right and purity. As the dear judge
would say-Bullshit. He tried to help Tush Bannon, and then when it got a
little sticky, he dropped him. Know how he explained it to me? This is
precious!"
She paused for the waiter to serve the drinks, then went into an imitation of
Steve Besseker. "So long as we are operating under the Capitalistic System,
Puss, and remember it is the best the world has yet devised, men will take
business risks and some will win and some will lose. I won't deny there were
certain pressures on Bannon, but he got so he thought everything was some kind
of a plot. He started whining and stopped fighting. That's when I lost my
respect for him and washed my hands of him."
"Yes," I said. "That is precious. That is very dear."
"I never met your friend Tush, Travis. But I don't think he ever whined."
"He wouldn't know how. Congratulations. You snowed him very nicely. Have any
trouble with it?"
"None! I hitched my chair closer and closer to his and I kept my voice very
low and full of secrets, and I kept my eyes wide and I put my fingertips on
his arm. I told him that I was employed by Gary Santo and we had investigated
him and it was Mr. Santo's decision that he could be trusted with certain
delicate and private negotiations involving one of Mr. Santo's operations in
this area, and could be trusted not to reveal the name of his client. I
explained that it was so hush-hush that if he was foolish enough to even try
to reach Mr. Santo by phone or in person, he would ruin everything for
himself. But if things went well, then he could think in terms of a retainer
of five figures annually. You know, when he began to swallow it, his eyes
looked glazed and his mouth hung open. I almost started laughing. So he phoned
the query about the eighty thousand to the bank like a good little fellow, and
he was so upset when he met me later and told me that Mrs. Bannon had regained
title and then sold it to some mysterious stranger named McGee from Fort
Lauderdale. I thought he would cry. I told him I was sure that Mr. Santo would
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