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* * *
MAGUIRE LOOKED UP THE NUMBER, then had to go over to the TV set to turn down the volume. “Okay? Just for a minute.” Aunt Leona sat watching Barbara Walters talking to Anwar Sadat; she didn’t say anything.
It was ten to seven.
“Hi. It looks like I’m gonna be a little late. This girl lives next door said I could use her car; but she went somewhere. She isn’t back yet.”
“That’s all right,” Karen said. “Listen, why don’t we make it some other time then?”
“The car’s not that important,” Maguire said. “I wanted to pick you up, but if I can’t—we can meet somewhere, can’t we?’
There was a pause.
“I guess we could.”
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. I was trying to think of a place.”
“You sound different,” Maguire said.
“Where do you want to meet?”
What was it? She sounded tired.
“If I don’t call you back by . . . seven-thirty, how about if we meet at the Yankee Clipper? Is that all right?”
“Fine.”
“You don’t sound very enthusiastic about it.”
“Really, that’s fine. I’ll see you there.”
“About eight, if I don’t call—”
She had hung up.
Jesus Diaz wore a clean yellow sportshirt and his white poplin jacket to go to 1 Isla Bahía. At twenty after seven he rang the bell at the side door. Marta let her brother in without a word, left him to wait in the kitchen several minutes, returned and handed him the day’s cassette tape.
“What’s the matter?” Jesus said.
“Your friend Roland, what else.”
“He’s not my friend.”
“The pimp, he came today and attempted to rape her.”
“How do you know?”
“I heard it, how do I know. He broke the bed. Two hundred years old, he broke it jumping on her.”
“Maybe she wanted him to,” Jesus said.
“Go,” Marta said. “Get out of here.”
* * *
Roland was on the balcony of his eight hundred-dollar-a-month Miami Shores apartment that had a view down the street to the ocean, drinking beer with his boots off, feet in blue silk socks propped on the railing. He let Jesus Diaz in, took Ralph Stanley and the Clinch Mountain Boys off the hi-fi and plugged in his tape player-recorder.
“Lemme have it.”
They listened to a woman’s voice say, “Dorado Management . . . No, I’m sorry, Mr. Grossi has left for the day.”
Jesus saw Roland wink at him; he didn’t know why.
Another woman’s voice said, “Hello?” . . . “Clara, is Ed there? It’s Karen.”
No, Ed had gone to some kind of business meeting. Roland thought they might talk awhile, but Karen asked her to have Ed call and that was it.
Then the next voice, a man’s, said, “Hi. It looks like I’m gonna be a little late.”
Roland listened and played it again. He said, “Son of a bitch.” Looked at his watch and then at Jesus Diaz. “Yankee Clipper. Go see who he is.”
“It’s only the first time. Maybe it’s nothing,” Jesus said.
“How you know it’s the first time?”
“I don’t know his name. Like the other ones on the phone.”
“Follow him then. See where he lives, look it up in the city directory.”
“Maybe he rents a place.”
“Jesus Christ,” Roland said, “then find out where he works. You understand what I mean? Follow the dink till you find out about him. Let me know tomorrow, and I’ll tell you what to do.”
Jesus Diaz wanted to ask something about Mrs. DiCilia, but he didn’t know how to say it. So he left to go to the Yankee Clipper.
They sat next to each other at a banquette table facing the bar and the portholes back of it that presented an illuminated, underwater view of the hotel swimming pool.
Karen said, “I just realized why you come here.”
“I’ve never been here before.”
“The windows, like in the dolphin tank.”
“You’re changing the subject again.”
“No—I just noticed it.”
“I’m not dumb—” Maguire stopped, reconsidering. “I mean I’m not that dumb. This afternoon you’re very relaxed, you talk, you’re interested. I call you—since then you’re like a different person. More like at your house the other night. No, different. You’re quieter. But tense like you were then, something on your mind.”
“Okay, I have something on my mind,” Karen said. Sitting next to him, she could look at the bar, the portholes, the people in the room, without obviously avoiding his eyes. Or she could look down at her menu open against the table, resting on her lap. “That happens, doesn’t it? A minor problem comes up, something you have to work out.”
“I don’t think it’s minor,” Maguire said.
“There’s a man at the bar, the one in the white jacket. I think I know him,” Karen said, “but I can’t remember where.”
Maguire raised his hand to the waitress, impatient, trying to appear calm, glancing at the guy sitting sideways to the bar—him?—then looking up as the waitress came over. “Two more please, same way.”
“That was two Beefeater on the rocks?”
The waitress checked their glasses, leaving Karen’s.
“Beefeater and a white rum martini.”
The waitress turned away and he said to Karen, “Look, I don’t care about the guy at the bar—”
“I know who he is,” Karen said. “Marta’s brother.”
“Okay,” Maguire said. “I don’t care about Marta’s brother. I don’t want to look at the menu yet, I just want to know what’s the matter. Even if it’s none of my business. The other night you hint around like you want to tell me something. You show me a gun, you want to know how to use it. I’ll admit something to you. I purposely didn’t ask you the other night, because how do I know what I’m walking into? I’ll tell you something else. I’ve been arrested nine times and not one conviction. I mean not even a suspended. All kinds of sheets on me, but no convictions. The last time, I promised—I even prayed, which I hadn’t done in, what, twenty years. Get me out of this one and I’ll never . . . get in trouble again. I’ll dedicate myself to clean living and not even talk to anybody who’s been in that other life. So the other night—you don’t mind my saying, with your husband’s associations and all, here’s Frank DiCilia’s wife wants to know how to use a gun. She must have all the protection she needs, her husband’s friends still around—what does she want a gun for? See, that’s where I was the other night. But now I’m asking you what the problem is. I don’t know why, maybe this afternoon did something. You came to see me, you were very warm and open. That’s another thing. I feel something with you. I feel close, and I want to help you if I can.”
“You were different this afternoon,” Karen said. “You seemed almost shy.”
“I don’t know, maybe I was a little self-conscious in my camp outfit, you seeing me there. But now I’ve got my outfit on I feel good in. See, I’m me in this outfit. Tan and blue, it doesn’t matter that it’s cheap or what anybody thinks of it, I feel good in it, I feel like the original me before I ever screwed up or wasted time. Does that make sense? I don’t know—”
“I should’ve worn mine.” Karen was looking at him now, smiling. “You were funny this afternoon, with your carnival voice.”
“And now I’m frustrated,” Maguire said. “I want to know what’s going on.”
The martini made her feel warm, protected. Still looking at him she said, “You have blue eyes,” a little surprised.
“See?” Maguire said. “We’re both from the east side of Detroit, we’re both sort of Catholic and have blue eyes. What else do you need?”
“There’s a man,” Karen said, and paused. “I think he’s going to ask me for money. Quite a lot of money. And if I don�
��t give it to him, I think he’s going to kill me.” Still looking at him. “You tell me what else I need.”
“Me,” Maguire said.
Jesus Diaz ordered another Tom Collins, his fifth one, the bartender giving him the nothing-look again, not saying “Here you are,” or “Thank you, sir,” or anything, not saying a word. The bartender looked like a guy named Tommy Laglesia he had fought at the Convention Center ten years ago and lost in the fifth on a TKO. If the bartender did thank him or say something like that, the bartender had better be careful of his tone. Jesus would take the man by the hair, pull his face down hard against the bar and say, “You welcome.”
Shit. He was tired of looking at the empty green water in the windows, waiting for a swimmer to appear, a girl. Tired of looking around, pretending to look at nothing. He didn’t like to drink this much. But what was he supposed to do, sitting at a bar? What else would he be here for? While they sat over there drinking. Nine-thirty, they hadn’t eaten dinner yet, Jesus Diaz thinking, I’m going to be drunk. We are all going to be drunk. The two drinking and talking close together, looking at each other, talking very seriously, the woman talking most of the time, the man in tan and blue smoking cigarettes, talking a little, touching the woman’s hand, leaving his hand on hers. Like lovers. Man, he was fast if they were lovers. Jesus Diaz had never seen him before. Maybe he was an old lover from before, a lover from when she was married to DiCilia, yes, someone younger than the old man. Young lover but old friend. That’s what he must be.
Ten-fifteen, still not eating. Not touching their drinks either. Now only a small amount remaining in the sixth Tom Collins, the fucking bartender who looked like Tommy Laglesia pretending not to be looking at him. Come over and say something, Jesus was thinking; tired, ready to go to sleep on the bar.
Almost ten-thirty. They were leaving. They must have already paid the girl without him seeing it. They were getting up, leaving!
The fucking bartender was down at the other end. Of course, talking to someone who wouldn’t stop talking. Jesus Diaz stood up on the rung of the barstool.
“Hey!”
The bartender came to him and this time he said, “Like another?”
“Shit no,” Jesus Diaz said. “I want to get out of this fucking place.”
“We’ve got to eat something,” Karen said. “Three martinis—you know what that does to me?”
“Four,” Maguire said. “It makes you feel good.”
They stood on the patio making up their minds, sit down or go back in. There was a breeze off the channel, the feeling of the ocean close by.
“No worries,” Karen said. “No, you still have them, but they don’t seem as real. Maybe that’s the answer. Stay in the bag and forget about it. Whenever he comes over, Marta can tell him Missus has passed out. So—do you feel like a drink?”
“Not right now.”
“Something to eat then? Why didn’t we eat?”
“Lost interest, I guess. I’m still not hungry.”
Maguire was looking toward the house, at the dark archway and the French doors. A lamp was on in the sitting room. He could see the back of the Louis XVI bergère. The windows of the living room were dark; the upstairs windows dark, except for one. He could feel her next to him. She was wearing a dark buttoned-up sweater now, over the dress he thought of as a long shirt, open at the neck, letting him see the beginning soft-curve of her breast when they were sitting at the table. He took her arm, and they began to walk out on the lawn toward the seawall.
“That’s one way,” he said. “Get stoned. But the other way, going to the cops—I’m not prejudiced, I just don’t see it’ll do any good. Unless he’s awful dumb.”
“He acts dumb,” Karen said, “but I’m not sure. He’s so confident.”
“I doubt the cops’d put him under surveillance. They’ll tell you they’ll serve him with a peace bond and that should do it. Like a warning, stay away from her. But it doesn’t mean anything because how’re they gonna enforce it? He comes here. You call the cops. They come and he’s gone. They pick him up, he says, ‘Who, me? I never threatened the lady.’ They shake their finger at him, ‘Stay away from her.’ That’s about all they can do. But the way it is, he hasn’t asked for anything yet.”
“No.”
“So it’s not extortion. How do you know he wants money?”
“What else is there?”
“I don’t know,” Maguire said, “but I think he’s interested in you more than the money. Or you and the money.”
“You’re kidding.”
“Why not? What does he do? He worked for your husband?”
“He works for Ed Grossi, but I doubt if he will much longer.”
“Why not?”
“Why? After what he did?”
“He jumped on your bed,” Maguire said. “You can say he had rape in his eyes, but in the light of what he does for Ed Grossi—we don’t know but it might be very heavy work, a key job—then all he did was jump on your bed. Ed Grossi says, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him.’ And he says to Roland, ‘Quit jumping on the lady’s bed, asshole,’ and that’s it.”
“Ed’s a friend of mine,” Karen said.
“That’s nice,” Maguire said, “but in his business you’re a friend when he’s got time or if it isn’t too much trouble; unless you’re in the business with him and you’ve taken the oath or whatever they do—even then, I don’t know.”
Karen thought about it, walking slowly in the darkness, holding her arms now, inside herself.
“What if I told Ed, I insist I be there when he speaks to Roland?”
“Fine,” Maguire said. “Then they put on this show. Take that, and that. Ed chews him out and Roland stands there cracking his knuckles. Even if Ed’s serious, he wants the guy to stay away from you, how important is the guy to Ed? Or how much control does he have over him? That’s the question.”
They stopped near the seawall, looking out at the lights of the homes across the channel.
“Are you cold?”
“Hold me,” Karen said. “Will you?”
He put his arms around her, and she pressed in against him. She felt small. He thought she would fit the way Lesley did and feel much the same as Lesley, but she was smaller, more delicate; she felt good against him. He wanted to hold her very close without hurting her. He became aware of something else—though maybe it was only in his mind—that this was a woman and Lesley was a girl. Was there a difference? He raised her face with his hand and kissed her. She put her head against his cheek, then raised her face, their eyes holding for a moment, almost smiling, and they began to kiss again, their mouths fitting together and then moving, taking parts of each other’s mouths, no Lesley comparison now, Lesley gone, the woman taking over alone, the woman eager, he could feel it, but holding back a little, patient. There was a difference.
He said, “Why don’t you show me the bed.”
She said, “All right—”
“Do you know what I thought about? The maid catching us. Why? It’s my house, I can do anything I want.”
“Afraid she’ll go down to Southwest Eighth Street, tell everybody.”
They lay close, legs touching, the sheet pulled up now.
“But only for a minute,” Karen said.
“What?”
“That I worried about the maid. By the time we got to the stairs I couldn’t wait.”
“I couldn’t wait to see you,” Maguire said. His hand moved over her thigh to her patch of hair and rested there gently. “To look at your face and look at you here”—his hand moving, stroking her—“and see both of you. I tried to imagine, before, what it would look like.”
“Really? You do that?”
“No, not all the time. Most girls, I look at them and I’m not interested in what it looks like. I know, for some reason and, well, it’s just there. It’s okay but it’s not that important. But every once in awhile I look at a particular girl, a woman, and I don’t know what hers looks like, because
it’s a very special one, it’s hers, it’s part of her and—I can’t explain it. But that particular person I know I can feel very close to.”
“And I’m one of those?”
“There aren’t that many. Just once in awhile I see a girl, a woman—”
“You’re having trouble putting me in an age group,” Karen said. “It’s okay, girl, woman. Which do you want me to be?”
“No, see, I like the word girl. Giiirl, it’s a good word. Woman, I think of a cleaning woman.”
“And you like girls.”
“Yeah, but I’m not preoccupied, if that’s what you mean.”
“What about the shark girl? Let’s give her a hand because she may need one someday?”
“Oh. Lesley.” That was one thing about girls, women, he’d never understand. How they could read your mind. “Lesley’s”—what was she?—“sort of spoiled. She pouts, puts on this act if she doesn’t get her way. Or, she’s arrogant, very dramatic, and you have to wait around for her to come back to earth.”
“Do you go out with her?”
“Well, I have. She’s the one who lives next door. In fact it’s her aunt’s place, the Casa Loma. She got me the apartment. It’s an efficiency really.”
“Oh,” Karen said.
“That’s all. I ride to work with her.”
“She’s a cute girl.”
“I guess so. If you like that type.”
“Do you picture her pubic hair?”
Jesus Christ—
“No. She’s not the type I picture. She’s more what they’re turning out today. Not a lot of individuality, but a lot of hair and a cute ass. If that turns you on, fine.”
“Does she turn you on?”
“Lesley? I ride to work with her, ride home. We talk once in awhile.”
“But does she turn you on?”
“The only reason you pick her, you happened to’ve seen me with her.”
“Are there many others?”
“No, what I mean, it’s like if I picked out Roland because we were talking about him and I ask you, when he jumped in bed with you, did it turn you on?”
“He jumped on the bed.”
“Yeah, but did it?”
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