The Last One Left by John D. MacDonald Page A

of. At a hundred yards, old buddies, the figure is still twenty years old. But put a hard-focus closeup on the face in the cruel sunlight and it will read thirty, which is just as much a triumph because that is still a half dozen and better years off the truth.
    “Oliver?”
    “M’am?”
    He still did not look up at her standing there above him on the dock. “Now don’t you go running off, hear? I owe you for the last two days, so you come to the house when you’re through here.”
    “Yes m’am.”
    She went slowly and lazily up the long curve of the stone stairway—wide shallow steps hewn out of coquina rock and set intothe slope of the lawn. Halfway up she made a mental wager with herself, turned her head quickly and caught him motionless, hunkered there, sail cover in hand, staring at her. He looked down quickly. Smiling to herself she climbed the last step and crossed the patio to the roofed terrace, walked to the far end of it, rolled the glass door back and went into her bedroom. It was a few minutes before six. She opened the panel in the wall of the lounge portion of the bedroom and turned the television set on. Local news at six on Saturday night.
    She opened the door to the bedroom wing corridor and bawled, “Francisca! Francisca, damn it!”
    In moments her little Cuban housemaid came scurrying in, eyes wide in mock alarm.
    “Damn it, you
had
to see us come in!”
    “I’m not watch. Honest to Jesus, Miss Creesy.”
    Local news had begun. “Hold it a minute,” Crissy said. She moved over to the television set.
    After a report of a drowning and a bloody automobile accident on the Tamiami Trail and an averted strike, he said, “As yet the large-scale air and sea search in the Bahamas for the missing yacht, the Mu—”
    Crissy clicked it off and said, “Did they come and fix that damned pump?”
    “Si! Yes. What was in it?” The girl frowned, wrinkling most of her delicate face. She held forefingers a few inches apart. “
Una lagartija
. Eh?”
    “A what?”
    “How is it a snake, but has feets?”
    “A lizard. You mean a lizard got into the pump?”
    Francisca’s smile was full of joy. “Damn well told.” She wore a bright red skirt, white blouse, gold sandals.
    “Got a guest, have you?”
    “Some friend only I think.”
    Crissy stripped off the two bikini halfs, balled them, tossed them to the girl. “Now for once in your life get your mind off your friend and see if you can do three things right. I’m only going to tell you once.”
    Francisca gave her deft imitation of nervous, humble fright. We’re trapped in this act of ours, Crissy thought, the cruel mistress and the terrorized servant. But an act makes it easier. You know where you are.
    “First, go get that green ice bucket, fill it halfway with ice and bring it here and put it on the bar over there. Next, hang around the terrace until the sailboat boy comes after his money, and then bring him here—not through the place, but by way of the terrace. Third thing, I’ll be going out to eat. So go do as you please until you bring me my coffee tomorrow morning.”
    Her cowed repetition of the orders was marred by the little knowledgeable gleam in her chocolate eyes.
    As she hurried out, Crissy stared after her, thinking: Better you don’t laugh, you sexy little spook. Don’t tell your friend any funnies about Mees Creesy and the sailboat
muchacho
. Don’t smirk a smirk, sweetie, because everything has to add up just so, just exactly so, in a game where you don’t dare take a single chance.
    She went into her gold and white bath and took a very quick shower. Her body radiated the sun-heat of the sailing day, prickling to the spray of the water. She toweled her cropped hair with muscular energy, brushed it semi-dry, painted her mouth, touched her body with perfume, pulled on a Lilly Pulitzer shift, a coarse, heavy weave in a vertical pattern of wide orange and white stripes, lined with silk. It was short, almost to mid-thigh. At