Pale Gray for Guilt by John D. MacDonald Page B

rocked forward and slapped his big bare feet on the boards and peered at me. "One hunnerd thousand!" he whispered.
    "Less your share of the closing costs."
    He got up and stamped over to the railing and spat. I knew the turmoil in his mind. He had wanted to check and see if he had optioned the two hundred acres to Preston LaFrance at a good figure. Two hundred dollars an acre had seemed like a good deal until I named my price. I could assume Tush's investigation was correct, and LaFrance's option was good until April. He wouldn't dare tell me about the option, for fear I would make my deal with LaFrance. And he was afraid that if he told me the land was not for sale, opportunity might move on to some other location and then he might not even get his two hundred an acre.
    It was a pretty problem, and I wondered how he would handle it. He came back and sat down. The chair creaked. "Tell you what," he said placidly. "I have to think on that. And I should talk to the man that turns in the government figures for me when I sell things and see where that would put me on taxes and so on. Let me see now. This being Thursday the twenty-third day, that would mean two weeks from today would be… January fourth. Then I'll know more what I should ought to do. A man can't jump at a piece of money like that right off. He has to set and taste it a time."
    "I understand. But you will have to tell me Yes or No when I see you again."
    "One other thing. You said you were taking a gamble. What you might do is figure on maybe me taking some of the risk too, Mr. McGee."
    "How so?"
    "From what you said, if your deal doesn't work, then you got a hundred thousand tied up and it will take a long time to move that land at that price. But if it goes like you're hoping, you turn a good profit on it. Maybe double?"
    "Maybe not."
    "Let's think on it being double. One thousand dollars an acre, two hundred thousand all told. So maybe we could get a paper drawed up between us, a contract saying that you give me five thousand cash money in hand that says come next… oh let's say April the fifteenth… you got the right to buy the land from me for four hundred an acre if you're willing to buy and I'm willing to sell. And if it works out that way, then if you resell it any time inside two years or three, you agree to pay me half the difference between what you bought it for and what you get for it. So if it was for one thousand, you'd for sure clear three hundred an acre profit, and no chance getting stuck with it. Of course if I want to sell on April the fifteenth and you don't want to buy, I keep your five thousand. But if you want to buy and I've decided not to sell, you get it all back."
    He looked at me, benign and gentle and O so eager to be agreeable and fair to all. Way up the coast from us were the little nests of the hideaway rnansions of the international bankers, and to the south of us was all the trickery and duplicity of hotel and resort syndicate financing. He had the precise look of a man betting into a pair of kings showing, and him with a three in the hole and a pair of threes up, and a perfect recollection of having seen the other two kings dealt to hands that had folded, one of them a hole card inadvertently exposed when the hand was tossed in.
    "Mr. Carbee," I said. "I think we'll get along fine. You might even sell me an undivided half interest for two hundred an acre, and we could make it a joint venture."
    "It'll be a pleasure to do business with you, Mister." It seemed to me that old Mr. D. J. Carbee could have floated very nicely in the tricky currents of Hobe Sound or Collins Avenue, and I had a sudden respect for the guile of Preston LaFrance. But I did not envy him the little talk he was going to have to have with the old man just as soon as the old man could catch up to him. There was a shaggy old highsided International Harvester station wagon parked over near the dog run, and it seemed probable that D.J. would be going into