Gold Coast

by Elmore Leonard

  “You say you can jump higher?”

  More rattles and clicks.

  “Well, let’s just see about that.” Maguire sidearmed Mopey the piece of fish he was holding, stooped to the bucket and selected a long tailpiece. “You think you’re so good, let’s see you come up sixteen feet and take the fish out of my mouth. Okay, Mopey? Everybody want to see him try it?”

  Of course. The kids yelling, “Yeaaaaaaa—” as Maguire, with a piece of dead fish hanging from his mouth, adjusted the pole, raising it a foot, thinking, Jesus Christ—

  Karen came out of the round white building, Neptune’s Realm, down from the Flying Dolphin Show. She waited on the walk, looking around, as the moms and dads with their cameras and kids moved on to the Shark Lagoon.

  There he was. Across the lawn, walking with a girl brushing her hair. Both wearing the white shorts and red T-shirts. He must have come out another exit. Karen watched them go through the fence enclosing the shark pool. Maguire mounted the structure that was like a diving platform, playing out a mike cord behind him. The girl remained below: cute little thing with a lot of Farrah Fawcett hair. Karen wondered how old the girl was. Not much more than twenty. She noticed Maguire was quite tan, healthy looking; different than the man she remembered sitting in the dark. She approached the crowd that rimmed part of the cement lagoon. There was an island in the middle, a palm tree and several sleepy pelicans. Sharks moved through the murky water like brown shadows.

  He looked younger in his white shorts. Good legs. His voice was different, coming out of the P.A. system. It sounded like a recording.

  “Nurse sharks do not have a reputation as maneaters, but like all sharks they’re very unpredictable. They might not eat for three months, then go into a feeding frenzy at any time. What Lesley is doing is jiggling that ladyfish on the end of the line to simulate a dying fish, which gives out low-frequency sound waves that can be detected by a shark as far as . . . nine . . . hundred . . . yards away. There’s a shark coming in from the left . . . Look at that.”

  Karen watched Maguire, then let her gaze move over the crowd, pausing on some of the men. Which one would you pick as an armed robber? Maguire would be about the last one.

  “Well, this time for bait we’re going to use . . . Lesley. Yes, Lesley is going down into the lagoon in an attempt to hand-feed a shark with her bare hand . . . using no glove or shark repellant of any kind or . . . feed a barehand to a shark if she isn’t careful.”

  The girl’s face raised, giving Maguire a deadpan look. Karen saw it. For some reason she thought of Ed Grossi, Ed eating his cottage cheese with a spoon—an hour ago at Palm Bay.

  Then coming over the S.E. 17th Street Causeway and seeing the sign, seascape. Why not? She felt like doing something. She felt thoroughly herself, almost relaxed, for the first time in a week. And probably the only woman here in a dress. Beige linen, gold chain and bracelet. She should have gone home first and changed—remembering him saying, “Practically around the corner,” and telling him she had never been here.

  He was saying to his audience, “We’re not having a whole lot of luck getting the sharks into the feeding area. As I mentioned they can go as long as three months without feeding. There’s one . . . no, changed his mind. Well . . . let’s give Lesley a big hand for getting down in the shark lagoon”—pause—“she may need one some day.”

  “You sounded a lot different,” Karen said.

  “I know,” Maguire said. “I hear my voice on the P.A., I think it’s somebody else. You want a Coke or something?”

  “Don’t you have to work?”

  “The main event’s on next. Go over there—see the yellow and white awning? I’ll meet you there in a couple of minutes. He seemed glad to see her, but hesitant, almost shy.

  Karen got two Cokes and sat down at a picnic table away from the cement walk and the refreshment counter behind the grandstand. She heard, over the P.A. system, “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Welcome to Brad Allen’s World-Famous Seascape Porpoise and Sea-Lion Show.” Pause. “And now, heeeeeeeeere’s Brad!”

  Karen said, “Was that you?” as Maguire sat down across from her.

  “I’m afraid so.”

  “You always do it the same way?”

  “Well—no, not always.”

  “The other night, I couldn’t imagine you working here.”

  “No—”

  “I wasn’t inferring anything by that.”

  “No, I understand. I’m a little out of place, but nobody’s caught on yet.”

  “Maybe I know you better than most people,” Karen said. “Do you like doing this?”

  “It’s all right. It beats tending bar.”

  “Why don’t you quit?”

  “I’m thinking about it.”

  “Did you—” Karen paused. “Well, it’s none of my business. I wondered if you sent your friends their share.”

  “Yeah, their wives. I sent ’em money orders. They can use it.”

  On the P.A. system in the background, Brad Allen was introducing Pepper, Dixie, and Bonzai to the audience.

  “I still don’t know the difference between a porpoise and a dolphin,” Karen said. “You never told me, did you?”

  “No, I guess we got into other things.” Looking away from her and then back, hesitantly.

  He’d been doing that since she approached him. Natural, but just a little shy. She liked it and smiled when he said, “You didn’t have to get all dressed up to come here.”

  “I was having lunch with a friend. Then coming over the causeway I saw the sign and thought, Does he really work there or not?”

  “See? I wouldn’t lie to you.”

  “I love your routine. Do you ever vary it?”

  “Only when I forget lines. Or leave something out.”

  Brad Allen was telling his audience that Lolly the sea lion was now going to balance the ball and walk on her front flippers. “Heeeeey, look at that!”

  “I don’t think you’re going to last here,” Karen said. “I mean I wouldn’t think you’d be able to take it as a steady diet.”

  “No—” He smiled, shaking his head. “You’re right.”

  “What will you do then?”

  “I don’t know. Go down to Key West, see if it’s changed any.”

  “Not back to Detroit?”

  “I doubt it.”

  “We haven’t discussed Detroit yet,” Karen said. “Have we?”

  “What’s to discuss? Have you ever been to Belle Isle? Greenfield Village?”

  “How about where you went to school.” No—she shouldn’t have said that. Then, what year, getting into ages. He was younger than she was. A few years, anyway.

  “I went to De LaSalle,” Maguire said. “By the City Airport.”

  She had meant college; he was referring to a high school. “I know where it is,” Karen said. “I lived on the east side.”

  “Where’d you go?”

  “Dominican.”

  “You’re a Catholic?” He seemed surprised.

  “Sort of. Not the kind I used to be.”

  “Yeah, I’ve fallen off myself. It’s funny, isn’t it?”

  “What is?”

  “I mean I’d never of thought of you as a Catholic. Even with your name.”

  “Or with yours,” Karen said. “The thing that messes up yours is the Calvin.”

  He was looking directly at her now.

  “How old are you?”

  Without a pause Karen said, “Thirty-eight. How old are you?”

  “Thirty-six.”

  “You don’t look it.”

  “You don’t either,” Maguire said.

  She should have told him thirty-six.

  He said, “I told them I was thirty when I came to work here; everybody looked so young. I almost—just now I almost said I was thirty-two. Why would I do that?”

  “Well, no one wants to get old.”

  “But thirty-six, thirty-eight, that’s not old. I figu
re it’s about the best age there is.”

  “It’s all right,” Karen said, thinking, Thirty-eight; what year was I born? “I don’t give it much thought one way or the other. You’re as old as you feel.”

  “Right,” Maguire said. “Usually I feel about eighteen.”

  “I like twenty-five,” Karen said. “I wouldn’t mind being twenty-five again. Do it right this time.”

  “What would you do different?”

  “Lots of things. I’d travel first, before I settled down anywhere.”

  “Why don’t you do it now?”

  “I may.”

  “I’ve traveled,” Maguire said, “but mostly between here and Colorado. I’ve been to Mexico. Next—in fact, I was gonna get a passport.” He paused. “Then something came up.”

  “Where were you going?”

  “Spain. The South of France, around in there. Get a car and drive, like Madrid to Rome. That sounds pretty good.”

  “I’ve always wanted to go to Madrid,” Karen said. “Málaga—”

  “You’ve never been over there?”

  “We used to go to the Greenbriar. Or SAE conventions.”

  “Frank DiCilia did?”

  “The other Frank, the first one. The second one, I couldn’t get him out of Florida.”

  “Except go to Detroit now and then,” Maguire said, “if I recall you saying.”

  “Eastern nine-five-two, Miami to Detroit, the dinner flight. Nine-five-three back again.”

  “Well, what do you sit around in that big house for, if you’ve got the urge and you can go anywhere you want?”

  “Right,” Karen said. “It’s dumb, isn’t it?”

  “You want to have dinner with me tonight?” Maguire said. “Anywhere you want. I just came into some money.”

  Three times Roland dropped the wrought-iron knocker against the front door. When Marta appeared, he pushed the door all the way open and walked in past her.

  “Missus isn’t here.”

  Roland walked through the sitting room to the French doors and looked out on the patio.

  “Where she at?”

  “Missus isn’t here.”

  Roland came back to the front hall and crossed to look into the living room, narrowing his eyes at the size of it—the white plaster walls and beamed cathedral ceiling—as if to make the room smaller and spot her hiding someplace.

  “Where is she?”

  As he moved toward the stairway, Marta said, “Let me see, please, if she is upstairs.”

  Roland said, “You stay here, honey. You call anybody on the phone I’ll know about it, won’t I?” He reached down as Gretchen came running across the polished floor to him. “Hey, Gretchie, how you doin’ huh? How you doin’, girl? You gettin’ much?”

  Karen was thinking, Thirty-eight from seventy-nine . . . forty-one.

  Lying on the king-size bed in her robe, on top of the spread, ankles crossed, resting before her bath.

  She would have been a war baby instead of a Depression baby. Forty-one and seventeen . . . fifty-eight. Graduated from high school in ’58. From Michigan in ’62. It wasn’t going to work. Unless she was married to Frank—thinking of the first Frank—say, eleven years. That would make Julie—married, living in L.A.—about fifteen.

  So don’t mention Julie. Except what if he says—

  She had already told him.

  The other night, listing the two Franks, yes, and a daughter—my daughter the actress. Shit. She had already mentioned Julie.

  All right. She could have been married at Ann Arbor, still in school. Say, freshman year. If Julie was born in ’60, she’d be nineteen now.

  Better stay away from it. Change the subject if he brings up Julie.

  Somebody was coming upstairs. Marta?

  Avoid talking about age or tell him the truth. What difference did it make? She wasn’t even sure why she was going out with him. She liked him; he was different; relaxed, low-key but very aware. She liked him—it was strange—quite a lot. Right from the beginning. But how did you make room for someone like Maguire? How did you explain him? Walking into the Palm Bay Club—

  “Hey, look-it her waiting for me!”

  Roland was in the room. She saw his hat, the color of his suit. She saw him coming, arms raised, diving at her! Karen screamed. She rolled, reaching for the edge of the bed, and Roland landed next to her with the sound of the frame cracking, ripping away from the oak headboard, collapsing, the king-size boxspring and mattress dropping abruptly within the frame, to the floor.

  Roland, on his elbows, close to her, hat low over his eyes, grinned at her.

  “How you doin’?”

  Karen screamed. “Marta!”

  She tried to roll off the edge, but he caught her and held her to the bed beneath one arm across her stomach.

  “Take off my hat for me.”

  “Get out of here!” And screamed again, “Marta!”

  “I told her we wouldn’t need anything.”

  Roland took his hat by the brim and sailed it away from the bed. His arm came down again to grab her as she tried to twist away, free herself, and now he lowered his face to her, nuzzling it against her neck, working aside the collar of the robe. “I ain’t gonna hurt you. This hurt?” His voice softly muffled. “Feels kinda good, don’t it.” His face moving lower as he pulled her toward him to lie on her back, his face nuzzling into the robe.

  Karen held herself rigid, staring at the ceiling, feeling his mouth on her, his face moving side to side, opening her robe. She could hear Gretchen in the room, license and ID tags jingling on her collar.

  “We don’t have nothing on under there, do we? Mmmmmm, you sure smell nice.” He looked up then, turning his cheek to her. “Here, smell mine. Called Manpower. Little girl in the store said, ‘For the man who knows what he wants.’ You like it?”

  Karen turned her face away, the perfumed astringent scent almost making her gag. Thinking, Don’t move. Don’t fight. Breathe. His face moved lower, and she was staring at the ceiling again, feeling his mouth, feeling her heart beating beneath his mouth.

  “Don’t that feel goooood? Yeaaaah, feels good have somebody holding you again, don’t it? Been a long, long time.” His mouth moving over her, voice drowsy, soft.

  Thinking, Six months. Seven months. Thinking, There’s nothing you can do. Close your eyes. It could be—his mouth moving—it could be anyone. It could be someone else. But her eyes remained open.

  Anyone else, for God’s sake. But it wasn’t going to be this one!

  Karen rolled into him, jabbed against him as hard as she could and abruptly rolled the other way, reached the edge of the bed with her knee and one hand before he caught her again and she could feel the bulk of him, his weight, against her back.

  “Where you goin’, sugar?”

  “I’m getting up.”

  “What for? You got to make we-we?”

  “I’m going to call Ed Grossi.”

  “Hey, shit, you don’t want to bother Ed. This here’s between you and me. You feel it?” He pushed against her. “That’s what’s between us, if you wondered I had something in my pocket. You want me to tell you what it is?”

  Karen didn’t answer.

  “It’s my Louisville Slugger.”

  “You know I’m going to tell Ed,” Karen said, seeing Gretchen now, white whiskers and sad eyes looking up at her, only a few feet away. “You must be out of your mind.”

  “With love,” Roland said. “Listen, come on. I wouldn’t hurt you for the world.”

  “I saw Ed today.”

  “You had a nice lunch, did you?”

  Karen hesitated. How would he know that? She almost asked him; but it had nothing to do with right now, with Roland pressing against her.

  She said, “I think you’d better talk to Ed as soon as you can. You’re going to be in a lot of trouble.”

  “I don’t mind trouble. Shit, I like a little trouble. Keeps you thinking.”

  She wanted to jab her el
bow into him as hard as she could, but she held on, keeping an even tone as she said, “Talk to him. He’s agreed, I’m not going to be watched any more. The whole arrangement—it’s over with.”

  Roland lay heavily against her, silent for a moment. “No shit, Ed’s calling it off?”

  “Talk to him, will you please?”

  “You cry on his shoulder or kick him in the nuts? Either way, I believe, might work.”

  “Call him. The phone’s right behind you.”

  There was a silence again.

  “But did he check with Frank? What’s Frank say about it?”

  “Let me up, all right?”

  Roland took his time. As he rolled away from her, Karen was off the bed, pulling her robe together, moving across the room.

  “Hold it there, sweet potato. Don’t go running off. I want to tell you something.”

  “And I want you to leave. Right now.”

  Roland got up slowly. “Messed up your bed, didn’t I?”

  “Don’t worry about the bed. Just leave.”

  “I can probably fix it for you.”

  “Please, I’m asking you—”

  Roland picked up his hat. He walked over to the wall of mirrors that enclosed Karen’s closet. “See, what Ed says, like half the time don’t mean diddly-shit. Ed’s getting old, little guinea brain becoming shriveled up from all that red wine.”

  “Please. Talk to him yourself, all right?”

  “See, but it ain’t up to Ed. What Frank DiCilia wants, it’s still like hanging out there in the air somewheres. Frank didn’t say okay, never mind. Just Ed said it. But Ed, his thinking’s all fucked up, ain’t it? So that means I have to take over.” Looking at himself in the floor-to-ceiling mirror, setting his Ox Bow straw just right, little lower in front. “And see nobody gets close to you.” Looking at Karen in the mirror now, Karen by the foot of the bed. “You follow me? Nothing’s changed. You start seeing somebody, the fella’s likely to get one of his bones broke, and he won’t even know what for.”

  Karen said, “You know I’m going to call Ed.”

  Roland shrugged. “And he’ll shake his little guinea finger at me. But you know I’ll still be comin’ around, won’t I? And long as I do, I’m your big chance.”

  Roland winked at her in the mirror.