Seven Lies South by William P. McGivern

Book Details

Seven Lies South (1960) – An American expat gets unwittingly drawn into a plot to hide an ex-Nazi’s corruption and dirty secrets. An ex-Nazi officer, a British grifter and a Canadian gold digger each want to use a broken American pilot to further their individual grafts.

After World War II and after the Korean War, an American, an ex-bomber pilot, washes up in the South of Spain. After two years of idling and drinking he is swept up into the plots and plans of several very unscrupulous grifters who want to use him as a patsy for their own ends. Whatever little faith in humanity he has left is about to be crushed in their grasp.

William Peter McGivern (1918-1982) was an American novelist and television scriptwriter. He published more than 20 novels, mostly mysteries and crime thrillers. While mostly known as a crime novelist, McGivern also wrote a large number of science fiction stories for magazines like Amazing Stories and Fantastic Adventures during the 1940s and 1950s.

McGivern moved to Los Angeles in the early 1960s to write for television and film. His credits include the TV series Ben Casey, Adam-12, and Kojak. In 1980 he was elected President of the Mystery Writers of America.

Files:

1. McGivern-SevenLiesSouth.epub

Excerpt: Seven Lies South

1 …

THE MATCH was even after the seventeenth hole and the Englishman smiled widely and said, “A bit of luck, wasn’t it?” He had won the hole with a long curling putt, and as they walked toward the eighteenth tee he patted Mike Beecher on the shoulder in a gesture which suggested both condolence and conciliation. “I hadn’t counted on your tightening up, old man. Quite frankly, I thought I was done for.”

“I just hooked the iron into the trap,” Mike Beecher said. “I can do that under any and all circumstances.”

“You rushed it a bit, actually. Nerves, I expect. It’s the whole thing in this game.” They stopped on the tee and the caddies gave them their drivers. The caddies were Spanish boys, brown and grave, sixteen or seventeen years old, and the tops of their heads barely came even with the clubs sticking up from the bags.

“Now what’s the drill here?” the Englishman asked. “Where’ve they hidden the bloody green?”

The eighteenth hole of the golf course near the coastal city of Malaga was a dog-leg right, and the green was blocked from view by a stand of fir trees half-way down the fairway. It was an uncomplicated par four.

Mike Beecher explained this and moved to the back of the tee with the caddies. But the Englishman hesitated, staring at the line of fir trees which hid the green from sight. “The long way home, isn’t it?” he said with teeth flashing in his wide and rather childish smile. “It’s tempting, you know.”

Beecher understood what he meant; a drive over the trees would nearly carry the green. But it was a risky shot, a gamble an experienced golfer wouldn’t take unless a match depended on it.

“Yes, it’s tempting,” Beecher said. “The line is straight over the tallest tree.”

The Englishman deliberated an instant longer, then sighed and teed-up his ball. “I’m afraid I’m going to play it safely.” With a compact swing he split the middle of the fairway with a straight, safe drive, and Mike Beecher knew that for all practical purposes the match was decided and that he was going to lose it.

As he prepared to drive, he wondered a bit irritably why he was convinced he would lose. He was a connoisseur of his own failures, of course. That was part of it. He could predict defeat as other men predicted the weather, sensing signs and portents that were too subtle for conscious examination. To want something very much was usually an indication he wouldn’t get it. But he didn’t know why this was true. Why in hell do I want to win this match? he wondered. There was nothing at stake but a round of drinks. He had met the Englishman in the village of Mirimar a few days ago, and they had chatted about golf, among other things. Beecher had lived in Spain for two years, the Englishman was there on a month’s holiday. They had arranged a match, and since the Englishman had no car Beecher had picked him up at his pension, the Lorita, which was in the second category and inexpensive even by Spanish standards. The Englishman’s name was James Lynch. “It’s Irish, actually, I wouldn’t wonder,” he had said, with the bright youthful smile. “One of the wild geese who settled in England, contrary to all plans, I dare say. Jimmy will do nicely, however.”

But Mike Beecher called him Lynch. They were roughly the same age, in their late thirties, and he found Lynch’s preference for the diminutive of his Christian name a bit silly.

He admired Lynch but he didn’t particularly like him, and he wondered if this was why he had wanted to win the match. Lynch was perfect of a certain class of Englishman Beecher had met, and for this he admired him: he was tall and ruddy, with great bony arms and legs, and the tough, well-conditioned body of a cavalryman. He wore khaki shorts and Clark’s desert boots, and on his head, rather incredibly, a tiny blue-and-white knitted skullcap which Beecher knew was Moroccan. This outfit, with the brilliant cap as exclamation point, was silly but rather touching, and so was Lynch’s youthful exuberance, his great wide smiles, and the flow of “Good shot, there!” and, “I say, well done!” with which he marked Beecher’s progress around the course. His manner was engaging, and he was quite handsome, with thick fair hair, and eyes that were blue and clear as a baby’s against his deeply tanned skin. He had obviously been in service during World War II. His speech was interlarded with military slang: “drill” and “gen” and “Boffins” and “pranged” and “whacko” were all securely embedded in his vocabulary. Beecher had met his type before in Spain, oddly wistful Englishmen approaching their middle years, but savoring the last sweetness of their wartime youth like children sucking cautiously on a lozenge, determined to make it last until a given hour, perhaps even until sundown. And for these things Beecher admired him; the silly Moroccan skullcap, the desert boots, the boyish enthusiasm, the outdated expletives and exhortations—these were not the trappings of a role to be assumed or put aside at will, but the touching and honest portrait the man’s past had drawn of him.

As for why he didn’t like the man he wasn’t so sure. His confidence was part of it. It wasn’t leavened with grace. Lynch had expected the locker-room attendant to be at his side when he removed his jacket. If the man hadn’t been there the jacket would have dropped to the floor. But Antonio was at his side, with a quick smile and a murmured courtesy, and Lynch had sat down to change his shoes without so much as glancing at him. He approved of Spaniards. He told Beecher as much. “They’ve been well-trained,” he had said, and added, “Jolly well too, I’m pleased to see.” But he didn’t respect them except as examples of sound discipline. His respect, Beecher felt, would go to their trainers.

Also, Lynch owned a shattering directness which was saved from rudeness only by his quick smiles and pleasant manner. “I dare say you don’t play golf regularly back in the States,” he had said at one point in the match. “It’s frightfully expensive there, isn’t it? Do you belong to a club?”

Beecher admitted he didn’t. And again, Lynch had commented with a grin on Beecher’s drinking. “I saw you sipping a brandy one morning, and I thought to meself, now there’s a lucky chap. Enjoying the sun and cheap brandy without a care in the world, while the rest of us are out grubbing for a living. How long did you say you’ve been here?”

“Two years,” Beecher had said, almost curtly. He was short of money, and was drinking too much out of idleness and boredom. Lynch’s inferences were therefore accurate but irritating.

Beecher put everything from his mind and prepared to hit his drive. He decided to ignore the feeling that he was going to lose. It wasn’t over yet. There were three ways to play this hole. Straight and safe was one. Over the trees to the green was two. The third required a deliberate slice, a fading shot which would land close to the tree line and turn the corner with the natural slope of the fairway. Played well, this shot would roll down to within eighty or ninety yards of the pin. From there he would have a sure par, and a good chance at a birdie. Lynch still needed another big iron to reach the green in two, and had no serious hope of getting down under par.

Beecher hit his drive solidly; it had the height and distance, but the fade was accented by a vagrant wind and the ball came down very close to the tree line. It might be in the rough. Beecher glanced at his caddy, Salvador, who shrugged and made a quick little gesture, as if he were balancing a grain of buckshot on the back of his wrist.

Beecher gave him his driver and caught up with the Englishman, who was starting vigorously down the fairway.

The Mediterranean spread before them, vast and rosy in the glow of the late afternoon sun. A golden pathway stretched out to the horizon. The fairway was bordered with banks of blood-red carnations which mingled pleasingly with the delicate pink of oleander blossoms. Through the green fir trees he could see the white gleam of the white house, and he thought of a shower and a cold drink. The air was cool now, drying the perspiration on his forehead.

He made a guess at why he had been so sure he was going to lose. The Englishman had played it safe, confident that he would need nothing better than a par to win. He was taking a chance on Beecher’s game going bad; not betting on his own skill at all. There was a caution in this decision which wasn’t consistent with his manner and personality, Beecher thought; the rake-hell Commando, the man who talked of “sticky wickets” when bombs fell around him, might logically be expected to play a more reckless game of golf.

Lynch’s ball had rolled to a good lie, and now sat up invitingly on a rare patch of good turf. The green was wide open. Lynch hit a four-iron that was short of the apron, another careful shot which left him with a good if not certain chance for the par.

“Nice shot,” Beecher said automatically.

“It was a bit fat, actually,” Lynch said. “Still, I won’t take it back.” He sounded complacent. “Now let’s see where you’ve got to.”

“They walked across the fairway to the stand of trees, with Beecher’s caddy ranging ahead of him like a bird dog. Beecher went into the shade of the trees and poked around in the tall grass. He had got over the habit of looking where he hoped the ball would be; golf had added to his normal pessimism in some ways. It was cool in the grove of trees and he accepted this, and the lovely tones of the evening, as compensation for having lost the match. Then, surprisingly, he saw his ball lying in the fairway a few inches from the rough. He smiled. The lie was good, and he was only about a hundred yards from the green; his finesse had worked.

Lynch was standing near the ball with his hands on his hips, and both caddies had gone into the trees a dozen or so yards beyond Beecher. Beecher opened his mouth to yell to Salvador, but at the same instant Lynch took a step forward and put his foot firmly on the ball. He allowed his weight to rest on it for a deliberate instant, then walked on toward the caddies. “I don’t think it got down this far,” he called to them in English.

Beecher stared after him in silence. The Englishman seemed an ungainly, preposterous figure in the dappled light of the grove, with the bright skullcap gleaming on his fair head, and his storklike legs driving him on in great, greedy strides. He continued to harangue the caddies in English. “Now see here!” he cried, staring down at them from his great height. “The bloody ball is back that way.” He waved his bony arm in Beecher’s direction. “Do you understand? No es here! Look alive now. I say, Beecher, you speak the lingo. Tell the little beggars they’re miles off course, will you?”

“Never mind, I’ve got it,” Beecher said, and walked back to the fairway.

“Good show!”

Beecher looked at his ball with a frown gathering on his forehead. It was buried so deeply that only a fleck of white showed above the earth. Had Lynch done it on purpose? Or was it just an accident?

“I say, that’s a pity,” Lynch said, when he joined him on the fairway. “Plugged itself bloody well out of sight, didn’t it? Curious. Must have fell like a bomb.”

“Yes, it is curious.” Beecher looked steadily at Lynch, but the Englishman’s face was guileless as a sleeping infant’s.

Excerpt From: William P. McGivern. “Seven Lies South.”