THE SUNDOWNER
Asa Bidwell, an aging con-man with a heart problem, seeks lodging at a run-down motel in Trader's Point, Florida, an out-of-the-way hamlet located only a few miles from Fort Myers. It's there that he meets Charles Lewis, a part-time clerk who supplies him with particulars relative to the town.
While they are talking, local official Leonard Carmichael and a few friends arrive to occupy one of the rooms for their weekly poker game. Bidwell wrangles an invitation to the game and during an all-night session, wins heavily. Carmichael, who during the evening angrily accuses Bidwell of cheating, covers his losses on a check written on insufficient funds.
Bidwell learns from Lewis that Carmichael is the irresponsible younger brother of Edna Prescott, the wealthy widow of a business entrepreneur. Taking advantage of the unpaid gambling debt, Bidwell calls on Edna Prescott at her mansion and passes himself off as a well-to-do grain broker from Chicago. He promptly determaines that she is lonely and susceptible to sympathetic male companionship. From this juncture he turns on the charm and ultimately ends a lengthy visit with her promise to accompany him to a local music festival.
Their relasionship grows rapidly and all semms well until Bidwell meets Edna's mentally-challenged son Walter Prescott. Immediately he realizes that Walter represents a serious barrier to his plan to marry the widow and her fortune. So he initiates a subtle campaign to have Walter consigned to a nearby sanitorium. But his efforts meet with grudging resistance until Carmichael, drivng while intoxicated, dies in an auto accident. Now, Edna Prescott finds herself even more dependant on Bidwell for emotional stability.
The couple weds and plans a European honeymoon. Only at the last moment the plan to commit Walter to the sanitorium goes awry, and the result is a crisis which serves to produce a profound change in the lives of all the principles involved.