The Dreadful Lemon Sky by John D. MacDonald
Authors: John D. MacDonald
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Crime, Private Investigators, Mystery Fiction, Hard-Boiled, Fort Lauderdale (Fla.), McGee; Travis (Fictitious character)
Ads: Link
work. Tune her for lowest gas consumption and put in bigger tanks. She's already braced to bang through seas most runabouts can't handle. Then I would…
Whoa, McGee. There is larceny in every heart, and you have more than your share. So forget how far it is across the Yucatan Straits, leaving from Key West.
Seven
IT WAS an overcast morning with almost no wind at all. The wide bay was glassy calm, the outlying headlands misted, looking farther away than they were.
There was a narrow, scrabbly, oyster-shell beach beside the cottage at 28 Mangrove Lane where Carrie Milligan had once lived. A narrow wooden dock extended twenty feet into the bay. It was still solid, just beginning to lean. It was good, I guessed, for another couple of years. Two old skiffs were high on the beach, overturned, nosing into the sea grapes.
Jason sat on the end of one of the skiffs. He wore a white shirt and white trousers. He had a big plantation straw hat shadowing his face. He was playing chords quite softly on a big guitar with a lot of ornate fretwork against the dark wood. The chords were related but did not become any recognizable song. They were in slow cadence, major and minor.
Meyer and I joined the group, standing a bit north of most of them, in the shade of a small gnarled water oak. I saw Harry Hascomb and the young man who had been counting stock in the warehouse. I saw Mrs. Jack Omaha, Gil from Gil's Kitchen, Susan Dobrovsky, Frederick Van Harn, Oliver from the marina, Joanna from Superior Building Supplies, and a man it took me a few moments to place. He was Arthur, the younger of the two cops who had subdued Cal Birdsong.
There were seven young ladies in long pastel dresses. The dresses were not in any sense a matched set. They were all of different cut and style, but all long and all pastel. Susan wore a long white dress which was just enough too bigso that I suspected it was borrowed. Susan and the other girls all had armfuls of the lush Florida flowers of late springtime.
A young man stepped out of the group and turned and faced us. He had red hair to his shoulders and a curly red beard. He wore a sports jacket and plaid slacks.
In a resonant and penetrating voice he said, "We are here today to say good-by to our sister, Carrie." The guitar music softened but continued. "She lived among us for a time. She touched our lives. She was an open person. She was not afraid of life or of herself. She was at home being Carrie, our sister. And we were at home with her, in love and trust and understanding. In her memory, each one of us here now most solemnly vows to be more sensitive to the needs of those who share our lives, to be more compassionate, to give that kind of understanding which does not concern itself with blame and guilt and retribution. In token of this pledge, and in symbol of our loss, we consign these flowers to the sea."
He moved to the side. The guitar became louder. One by one the pastel girls walked out to the end of the dock and flung the armloads of blooms onto the gray and glassy bay. There were tear marks on their cheeks. The flowers spread and began, very slowly, to move outward and in a southerly direction with the current. It was a very simple and moving thing. I had the feeling of a greater loss for having so undervalued Carrie. I excused myself by saying I had really not known her very well. But that was what Red-beard had said, that we should be more sensitive to the needs of others-and more sensitive, I added, to their identities as well. If she had meant this much to these people, then I had slighted her value as a person.
The music trailed off and stopped. Jason stood up and bobbed his head to indicate that was all. The murmur of voices began. Susan went a little way down the beach and stood, watching the floating flowers.
I looked at the twenty or so people I did not know, and I realized anew that there is a new subculture in the world. These were mostly young working people. Their work was
Whoa, McGee. There is larceny in every heart, and you have more than your share. So forget how far it is across the Yucatan Straits, leaving from Key West.
Seven
IT WAS an overcast morning with almost no wind at all. The wide bay was glassy calm, the outlying headlands misted, looking farther away than they were.
There was a narrow, scrabbly, oyster-shell beach beside the cottage at 28 Mangrove Lane where Carrie Milligan had once lived. A narrow wooden dock extended twenty feet into the bay. It was still solid, just beginning to lean. It was good, I guessed, for another couple of years. Two old skiffs were high on the beach, overturned, nosing into the sea grapes.
Jason sat on the end of one of the skiffs. He wore a white shirt and white trousers. He had a big plantation straw hat shadowing his face. He was playing chords quite softly on a big guitar with a lot of ornate fretwork against the dark wood. The chords were related but did not become any recognizable song. They were in slow cadence, major and minor.
Meyer and I joined the group, standing a bit north of most of them, in the shade of a small gnarled water oak. I saw Harry Hascomb and the young man who had been counting stock in the warehouse. I saw Mrs. Jack Omaha, Gil from Gil's Kitchen, Susan Dobrovsky, Frederick Van Harn, Oliver from the marina, Joanna from Superior Building Supplies, and a man it took me a few moments to place. He was Arthur, the younger of the two cops who had subdued Cal Birdsong.
There were seven young ladies in long pastel dresses. The dresses were not in any sense a matched set. They were all of different cut and style, but all long and all pastel. Susan wore a long white dress which was just enough too bigso that I suspected it was borrowed. Susan and the other girls all had armfuls of the lush Florida flowers of late springtime.
A young man stepped out of the group and turned and faced us. He had red hair to his shoulders and a curly red beard. He wore a sports jacket and plaid slacks.
In a resonant and penetrating voice he said, "We are here today to say good-by to our sister, Carrie." The guitar music softened but continued. "She lived among us for a time. She touched our lives. She was an open person. She was not afraid of life or of herself. She was at home being Carrie, our sister. And we were at home with her, in love and trust and understanding. In her memory, each one of us here now most solemnly vows to be more sensitive to the needs of those who share our lives, to be more compassionate, to give that kind of understanding which does not concern itself with blame and guilt and retribution. In token of this pledge, and in symbol of our loss, we consign these flowers to the sea."
He moved to the side. The guitar became louder. One by one the pastel girls walked out to the end of the dock and flung the armloads of blooms onto the gray and glassy bay. There were tear marks on their cheeks. The flowers spread and began, very slowly, to move outward and in a southerly direction with the current. It was a very simple and moving thing. I had the feeling of a greater loss for having so undervalued Carrie. I excused myself by saying I had really not known her very well. But that was what Red-beard had said, that we should be more sensitive to the needs of others-and more sensitive, I added, to their identities as well. If she had meant this much to these people, then I had slighted her value as a person.
The music trailed off and stopped. Jason stood up and bobbed his head to indicate that was all. The murmur of voices began. Susan went a little way down the beach and stood, watching the floating flowers.
I looked at the twenty or so people I did not know, and I realized anew that there is a new subculture in the world. These were mostly young working people. Their work was
Similar Books
