Free A Flash of Green by John D. MacDonald Page B

outdoor table. The double doors of the workshop were open, and the inside lights were on. He saw a couple inside the workshop, dancing to slow music, disappear and reappear. A big tanned girl in a white swimsuit made a lazy backstroke the length of the pool, her arms lifting, turning slowly. A Negro in a white shirt and dark trousers came from the workshop carrying a tall drink on a small tray. He bent over and placed the drink at the edge of the pool and said something to the girl. As he walked away, she rolled over out of her backstroke position and swam at an angle toward the drink.
    Jimmy Wing walked to the screen door and pushed it open. As was almost always the case, there were fewer people around than the number of cars would lead you to believe. It always seemed to him there must be some place on the property he had never been told about, some activity he could not share—but he knew this was not true.
    The girl on the far side of the pool turned and stared at him. He did not know her. She had a young, blunt, sensual face, and the hair water-pasted to her head looked like a smooth silver cap.
    “Now, there he is!” Elmo said, his voice lazy and welcoming.
    Jimmy walked to the table where the three of them sat. He pulled a chair over from the other table and said, “Evening, Elmo, Leroy, Buck.”
    Leroy Shannard, the lawyer, was in his late forties, a long, limber, indolent man, with the deep tan of golf course and offshore fishing. He had white hair cropped so short the tanned skull showed through the stubble. He had a harsh predatory face, so muted by his lethargic manner he looked like a sleepy eagle. Most of his practice was in real estate work and estate work. He was in partnership with Gil Stopely, a fat, bustling, humorless younger man who was a very keen tax attorney. Shannard was descended from one of the earliest settlers of Palm County. He lived with his mother in an old bay-front house three blocks from the center of the city. He had the reputation of being one of the most tireless and successful seducers of restless wives in all of south Florida, but he gave mild denial to any such accusation. It was said that his caution was in part responsible for his success.
    Buck Flake was considerably more obvious. He was a relative newcomer to the area. He had been about twenty-five when he had come down from New Jersey ten years previously with some money he was supposed to have made in the scrap business. He had gone into some dangerous land speculation, saved his own skin with some tricky maneuvering, and finally traded himself into the huge tract which he had developed into Palm Highlands. He was loud, crude, huge and muscular, but now the muscles were softening rapidly as the belly expanded. His jaw was so wide and the space between his temples so narrow, he had an odd pinheadlook. A good portion of his success had been gained at the expense of some of the unwary ones who had assumed Buck Flake was as stupid as he looked and acted.
    With an awesome celerity, Major appeared at Jimmy’s side and placed a drink on the table in front of him, saying, to himself, “Kitchen whiskey and one cube for Mr. Wing.”
    “Thank you, Major.” Major and Ardelia, his wife, worked full-time for the Bliss family. Their grown children helped out. The whole Major Thatcher family lived on a back acre Elmo had deeded them, in a frame house Elmo had bought when it was in the way of a new county highway, and had moved onto the land.
    The girl was swimming again. Elmo gestured toward her and said, “Leroy here was just now telling Buck what a damn fool he is, but Buck won’t listen to advice from a real expert.”
    “What’s all this about advice?” Buck demanded, obviously annoyed. “Why should I have advice? I told you the score. She works for me in the office. She’s been working for me a couple of weeks.”
    “Listen to the protestations of utter innocence,” Shannard murmured. “That poor confused child bears the