John D MacDonald – Travis McGee 10 The Girl In The Plain Brown Wrapper

“You’re going to tell me anyway.”

“Why, so I am! Who else can I tell? I went right to a fellow who happens to be the second oldest of those six brothers of Penny Woertz and who happens to work for Central Florida Bell, and I told him I was in need of a little illegal help, and first thing you know, we had a nice tap on both Pike’s private unlisted lines. Nothing I can ever take to court, naturally.”

“Naturally.”

“Lord God, that man has had trouble this morning! Between keeping people busy hunting all over for his missing wife and trying to calm down the people who want to take their money out of his little syndicates and corporations, I bet you ol’ Dave Broon had to try a lot of times before he got through. About ten of eleven when he did. Had to put in thirty-five cents for three minutes.”

“So?”

“So thank God when Tom said they could meet at the usual place, Dave didn’t want any part of it. Saves a lot of trouble. Dave Broon picked the place. Six miles southwest of town. I just got back from there, checking it over, getting something set up. Pretty good place to meet. Big piece of pastureland. Used to be the old Glover place. Pike and some people bought it up a while ago to turn it into something called ranchettes. Two-acre country estates. There’s a gate with a cattle guard near the west side and a lot of open land and just one big old live oak shade tree smack in the middle, maybe a quarter mile from the nearest fence line.”

“When do they meet?”

“Two thirty. But I left Nudenbarger staked out. We can swing around and go in the back way and cut across to where I left him. Less chance of running into either of them.”

“You seem very contented, Mr. Stanger.”

“Sure. Broon told him to bring a big piece of money. They haggled some. Pike said thirty thousand was absolute tops. Broon said it would have to be an installment. Broon told him not to get cute. It’s sure empty out there. Bugs, buzzards, and meadowlarks. They’ll meet by the tree and have a nice talk.”

“And you bugged the tree.”

His face sagged and his mouth turned down. “You take the pure joy out of things, McGee. I’m sorry I decided to bring you along for the fun.”

“I’m sorry I spoiled your fun. I haven’t had anything to eat yet. Is there tune?”

“Fifteen minutes.”

Stanger drove the city’s sedan hard. He took a confusing route through the back country, along small dirt roads. At last he stopped and got out at a place that looked like any other. He extended the aerial of a walkie-talkie and said, “Lew? You read me?”

“I read you, Al. No action yet. Nothing. Hey, bring that bug dope out of the glove compartment.”

“Okay. We’ll be coming along now. Let me know if either one shows up before we get there.”

He told me that he’d left Nudenbarger staked out with binoculars, a carbine, and the receiver-recorder end of the mike-transmitter unit he’d tied in the oak tree. He said we had a mile to go. He hadn’t wanted to put the car on any directly connecting road for fear Broon or Tom Pike would drive a circuit around the whole ranch to see if everything was clear before driving in.

We had to crawl under one fence and climb over another. The air was hot and still, but there was a hint of coolness whenever the breeze stirred. Stanger seemed to be plodding along listlessly, but he covered ground faster than one would think.

We came out onto a dirt road, crossed it, leaped a watery ditch on the other side. I followed Stanger into a clump of small pines, thick ones, eight to ten feet tall. He motioned me down, and we crawled the last dozen feet to where Nudenbarger lay on his belly close to the fence, staring through the binoculars. He turned and looked with a certain distaste at me and said, “Nothing yet, Al. Maybe they called it off, huh?”