The Long Lavender Look by John D. MacDonald Page A
Authors: John D. MacDonald
Tags: Fiction, Mystery & Detective, Private Investigators, Hard-Boiled, Fort Lauderdale (Fla.), McGee; Travis (Fictitious character)
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pretty dolly in tight pants, visiting for a while. Hyzer is concerned about Cypress County, not about what Frank Baither might be doing elsewhere. Then a funny thing happened. Smart Frank Baither, on a Saturday night, got stumbling drunk and held up a gas station right here in town. Went lurching off, spilling the cash out of the till. Got grabbed and put in a cell. Didn't make bail. Pleaded guilty, and got hit by the circuit court judge with five for armed robbery. Got transported off to Raiford. Did three and a half at Raiford before they let him out twelve days ago."
"So?"
"Item. The blood test on the stumbling drunk, taken under protest, showed that he could have had two small beers, maybe three. Item. Discreet investigation showed he had enough in his Page 21
special account so that he could have made bail during the three months he had to wait here for trial, but he didn't. Item. For a man so involved with the outdoors, the swamps and the glades, Frank made a happy adjustment to this place and also to Raiford. Item. When Hyzer went out and checked Frank Baither's place after arrest, he found that Frank had done all those little chores a man living alone will do when he expects to be away for a long long time. Put up the shutters and drained the pipes, disconnected the pumps and greased them. Drained the aerator."
"Okay. He wanted to be tucked away."
"Hyzer reasoned that if somebody was out to kill Frank Baither, Baither would have ambushed them rather than hide in jail. Hyzer checked out the big scores made anywhere in the country just before Baither set himself up for a felony conviction. He kept coming back to the money truck in Miami. Baither was medium height with a bull neck and very broad thick shoulders. As a kid he had worked for his uncle who operated a little yard, making cement block, and he had carried enough tons of mix and tons of finished block to give him that muscular overdevelopment.
Hyzer reasoned that Frank Baither had somehow tricked his partners, eased out with the track money, hid it well, then set himself up for free room and board for a long time, counting on the odds that the partners on the outside would not last long enough to be waiting when he got out.
The hard-case operators have very few productive years, Trav. Then they are tucked away, underground or behind the walls. Frank had about two weeks between the money-truck job and landIng in the Cypress County jail, assuming he was involved. Hyzer wanted more to go on. He arranged to get word from Raiford on Frank's activities in prison. By the end of the first year he learned that Frank had cultivated a few Latin Americans there. He was diligently studying Spanish. And it looked as If he would become reasonably fluent. The parts fitted together. Get out, pick up the money, and go. And live like a Greek shipowner for the rest of his life, with enough Spanish to learn who to bribe, and enough money to guarantee immunity."
"He told you a lot, Lennie."
"Some of it he told me, some of it he hinted at, and some of it is what I came up with to fill in the blanks. That sheriff went over every inch of the Baither place, and came up empty every time.
Now here is another part. Somebody gave Frank a good rap on the head and taped him to a chair, and wound his head with tape, leaving a hole over one ear, and a hole over the mouth.
Then they worked on him. They spoiled him. He had to know he was done, and so with nothing left to save except a little more agony, he talked. Then they shoved a rusty ice pick into his heart."
"Assumption?"
"A finality about it. End of interview. From the look of the rest of him, they would have kept going until he died of the special attentions."
"So Hyzer," I said wearily, "buys the idiot idea that we teamed with Frank Baither and took the money truck and we kept track of him, knew when he got out of Baiford, and set up this complicated cover story, got to him, tortured him and killed him, left an incriminating
"So?"
"Item. The blood test on the stumbling drunk, taken under protest, showed that he could have had two small beers, maybe three. Item. Discreet investigation showed he had enough in his Page 21
special account so that he could have made bail during the three months he had to wait here for trial, but he didn't. Item. For a man so involved with the outdoors, the swamps and the glades, Frank made a happy adjustment to this place and also to Raiford. Item. When Hyzer went out and checked Frank Baither's place after arrest, he found that Frank had done all those little chores a man living alone will do when he expects to be away for a long long time. Put up the shutters and drained the pipes, disconnected the pumps and greased them. Drained the aerator."
"Okay. He wanted to be tucked away."
"Hyzer reasoned that if somebody was out to kill Frank Baither, Baither would have ambushed them rather than hide in jail. Hyzer checked out the big scores made anywhere in the country just before Baither set himself up for a felony conviction. He kept coming back to the money truck in Miami. Baither was medium height with a bull neck and very broad thick shoulders. As a kid he had worked for his uncle who operated a little yard, making cement block, and he had carried enough tons of mix and tons of finished block to give him that muscular overdevelopment.
Hyzer reasoned that Frank Baither had somehow tricked his partners, eased out with the track money, hid it well, then set himself up for free room and board for a long time, counting on the odds that the partners on the outside would not last long enough to be waiting when he got out.
The hard-case operators have very few productive years, Trav. Then they are tucked away, underground or behind the walls. Frank had about two weeks between the money-truck job and landIng in the Cypress County jail, assuming he was involved. Hyzer wanted more to go on. He arranged to get word from Raiford on Frank's activities in prison. By the end of the first year he learned that Frank had cultivated a few Latin Americans there. He was diligently studying Spanish. And it looked as If he would become reasonably fluent. The parts fitted together. Get out, pick up the money, and go. And live like a Greek shipowner for the rest of his life, with enough Spanish to learn who to bribe, and enough money to guarantee immunity."
"He told you a lot, Lennie."
"Some of it he told me, some of it he hinted at, and some of it is what I came up with to fill in the blanks. That sheriff went over every inch of the Baither place, and came up empty every time.
Now here is another part. Somebody gave Frank a good rap on the head and taped him to a chair, and wound his head with tape, leaving a hole over one ear, and a hole over the mouth.
Then they worked on him. They spoiled him. He had to know he was done, and so with nothing left to save except a little more agony, he talked. Then they shoved a rusty ice pick into his heart."
"Assumption?"
"A finality about it. End of interview. From the look of the rest of him, they would have kept going until he died of the special attentions."
"So Hyzer," I said wearily, "buys the idiot idea that we teamed with Frank Baither and took the money truck and we kept track of him, knew when he got out of Baiford, and set up this complicated cover story, got to him, tortured him and killed him, left an incriminating
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