Bright Orange for the Shroud by John D. MacDonald Page A

for a Mr. Wilkinson.I identified myself and they gave it to me. It merely said that it looked as if it might be another six months or so before the deal would go through, and probably before the time was up there would be another assessment, just a small one, for operating expenses. My share would probably not be over eight or ten thousand.
    “I just sat there. I couldn’t seem to think clearly. I took a bus back. I didn’t get to the motel until a little after midnight. My key wouldn’t work. I hammered on the door. Wilma didn’t answer. I went to the office and the owner came to the door after I’d rung the night bell a long time. He said the lock had been changed and he hadn’t been paid for two weeks, and he was holding my clothes and luggage until I paid up. I said there was some mistake, that my wife had paid him. He said she hadn’t. I asked where she was, and he said that in the middle of the afternoon he’d seen her and some man carrying suitcases out to a car and driving away, and it made him think we were going to beat him out of the rent, so he had put my stuff in storage and changed the lock. He hadn’t noticed the car particularly, just that it was a palecolored car with Florida plates. She hadn’t left any message for me. I walked around the rest of the night. When the bank opened I found out she’d cleaned out the account the previous morning, when I thought she’d gone grocery shopping and came home with that headache.”
    Toward the end of it his voice had grown dull and listless. Chook stirred and sighed. A gust of the freshening breeze swung the boat, and some predatory night bird went by, honking with anguish.
    “But you found her again, later on,” I said, to get him started.
    “I’m pretty tired.”
    Chook reached and patted him. “You go to bed, honey. Want me to fix you anything?”
    “No thanks,” he murmured. He got up with an effort and went below, saying goodnight to us as the screened door hissed shut.
    “Poor wounded bastard,” Chook said in a half whisper. “It was a very thorough job. They got everything except the clothes he had on. They even milked old friendships.”
    “He hasn’t much resistance yet. Or much spirit.”
    “Both of those are up to you.”
    “Sure, but try to make it a little easier on him, Trav, huh?”
    “She took off in late September. It’s late May, Chook. The trail is eight months cold. Where are they, and how much do they have left? And just how smart are they? One thing seems obvious. Wilma was the bird dog. Rope a live one and bring him to Naples. Remember, she got booted off that cruiser out of Savannah. I think there was one on there a little too shrewd for her, so she took a long look at what we had around here. And picked Arthur. Marriage can lull suspicion, and she used sex as a whip, and when she had him completely tamed and sufficiently worried about money, she contacted Stebber to tell him the pigeon was ready for the pot. It was a professional job, honey. They made him ache to get in on it. They made him so eager he’d have signed his own death warrant without reading it.”
    “Was it all legal?”
    “I don’t know. At least legal enough so that you’d probably have a three-year court fight to prove it wasn’t, and then it would be only a civil action to recover the funds. He can’t finance that. He couldn’t finance two cups of coffee.”
    “Can you do anything?”
    “I could try. If you can prop him up a little, I can try.”
    She stood up and came over and gave me a quick hug, a kiss beside the eye, and told me I was a treasure. Long after she left, the treasure lifted a few score aches and sorenesses and went to bed.

Four
    Late Sunday afternoon, up on the sundeck, I got the rest of the account from Arthur Wilkinson. Chook had him heavily oiled against additional burn. She was using the sundeck rail as a torture rack, and I was pleased to turn so that I could not see her. I had taken so much punishment all day, it