Free The Quick Red Fox by John D. MacDonald

hands of her. He said he would make a couple of calls and phone me back. He did, and said she is in Florida, at some sort of voluntary alcoholic retreat down at Bastion Key. It’s called Hope Island. Do you know about it?”
    “I took them a customer once. I took her back there three times, but it didn’t stick. The same guy may still run it.”
    “A Mr. Burley? I looked it up.”
    “That’s the one. He gave it a good try with my friend. But she borrowed a car, finally, and drove it into a cypress swamp at about a hundred miles an hour.”
    “I wondered if … as long as she’s so nearby …”
    “Right. We’ll go down there tomorrow. Cancel us out on the flight north, and don’t set it up again until after we’ve seen her.”
    “You have a car?”
    “In a manner of speaking. After you left yesterday I was wondering what you think of all this.”
    “I thought I made that clear.”
    “I mean what do you think of it as a woman.”
    “Is that pertinent?”
    “Perhaps. It might help me in talking to the Abbott girl.”
    She thought for a moment. It was a long strong face, flat planes in the cheeks, very dark and vivid and lovely eyes, a prominent and forceful nose, broad firm mouth.
    “I would say this, I guess. Lee isn’t a suggestible child, you know. She’s had four marriages. And other relationships, some of them not particularly wholesome. But she’s always been pretty cautious. She is very frankly and happily promiscuous, but the situation in those pictures I would say is not her naturalstyle. She was lulled into it somehow, and damned uncomfortable about it later on, and still is. I wouldn’t know how those other females reacted to it. But I don’t think it is accurate to think of Lee as just another woman getting involved in something messy.”
    “What do you mean?”
    “She is a property, Trav. She has few personal rights and privileges. She’s just worth too much money to too many people. They can’t afford a blemish on her. I’ve gotten used to thinking that way about her. So when I look at those pictures, I see them in terms of risk. Like watching a clown juggle priceless glassware. Those men were aware of it, of course. The unattainable goddess suddenly right there within reach, tired and drunk and sweaty and willing. They talk, you know. It spreads like ripples. It has had a lot of time. Little hints and rumors are coming back home to roost. She’s scared of that, too. She’ll be all right until one picture doesn’t pay off. Then there could be some reluctance. Why take a chance?”
    “How will this picture do, this
Winds of Chance
?”
    “Very well, I think. It’s the kind of part she always does well. Coffee?”
    “Thanks.”
    After she poured it she hesitated by the table, empty pot in hand. “You didn’t say anything about how you’d like me to dress, Trav. I thought.… I imagine women have stayed here with you. I’d be less conspicuous if I … stayed with resort clothes.”
    “You do fine. Use your own judgment.”

Five
    On the way down to Bastion Key, Dana was delighted with my stately and ancient pickup truck. It is painted a hideous electric blue and called Miss Agnes by all who know her. It is one of the largest of the old Rolls breed, and some owner of long ago, perhaps after bashing her up, did a backyard job of converting her into a pickup truck. She is high and solid. It takes a long time to move her up through the gears, but when you have a chance to get her up to eighty, she will settle into it all day long in a rushing ghastly silence. She eats gas, but holds a little over forty gallons at a time.
    I liked Dana’s delight. It reminded me of the way she reacted to Skeeter’s mouse. I knew I had to watch it, or I would be trapped into the hopeless project of trying to find ways to delight her, to bring out that little spark so deeply buried.
    At Bastion Key you turn right off the highway beyond the town and follow a shell road out to a little short