He set the bottle on the edge of the sink. She stared at it, her mouth quivering. An inch of the clear liquor remained.
He felt himself grinning. There was a dazzle in the air. A feast of energy in his veins. The floodgates of adrenaline were thrown open and he was gaining altitude with every passing second.
“Got to run, Mommie, dearest. Got a plane to catch. Anything comes up and you need to reach me, I’ll be at the beach consorting with all the pretty people in their pretty houses. On the fine and sandy shores of Seaside, Florida.”
TWENTY-ONE
A car alarm woke her, its siren blaring for several seconds, then abruptly clicking off with a double chirp.
Alexandra sat upright, blinked her eyes, tried to place the white walls, the lithograph of flamingos. It took several moments for the events of the last few days to emerge from the fog, seep back into her mind, arrange themselves in an orderly narration. The Brinks crash, the grim scene in Stan’s hospital room, Gabriella’s riddled body, the numb and endless drive from Miami to North Florida.
She squinted at the bedside clock. Five-forty-eight. A seven-hour nap that had given her no rest. Her muscles were sore, a leaden tonnage filled her limbs. It was as though she’d spent the long afternoon trying to claw herself out of the dark vaults of dream.
She yawned and stretched, then swiveled her legs over the side of the bed, her toes nudging something on the floor, cold and metallic. She bent forward, looked down, and saw it. The silver serving ladle.
Bolting to her feet, she rushed into the living room. She was naked and still half-muddled from sleep, but waking fast now.
Lawton wasn’t in the kitchen or his bedroom. He wasn’t in the bathroom.
She called his name three times before she saw the front door standing ajar, the street beyond glowing amber with late-afternoon sunlight.
Her shorts and blouse were in the washer, soaked and wrinkled. She struggled into them, slipped on her running shoes, and marched out the front door. Surrendering to panic wasn’t going to help. She needed to focus, stay calm, do a precise reconnaissance of the area. With probably less than an hour of daylight left, she couldn’t afford to make wild miscalculations.
But surely he couldn’t have gone far. From what she could tell, there was really nowhere to go in that small insulated community, three hundred houses backed by impenetrable scrubland on one side, the Gulf on the other.
For a moment, she halted on the red bricks of East Ruskin and looked out to the narrow highway and back into the depths of the town. She chose the beach. It’s where she would have headed first. Maybe some of the same memories were calling Lawton down to the sugary sands. Perhaps the old man was remembering those long walks that he and Grace had taken together, leaving Alexandra to labor unmolested on her sand castle.
Her shorts and blouse flapped cold against her skin, clammy and ponderous. On the stairway down to the beach, she passed a troop of sunburned tourists clomping up, the men in gaudy golf clothes with their tinkling old-fashioned glasses, the women wearing long dresses and too much jewelry and carrying goblets of wine. As Alex hurried down, their laughter and conversation abruptly ended, the entire group stepping aside in unison, as if making way for an untouchable.
When she hit the deep shifting sand of the beach, her Nikes squeaked like boots in new snow. Up and down the beach, the last of the sun worshipers were shaking out their towels, folding up beach chairs, heading up the stairways.
To the east along the high dunes were dozens of sprawling bungalows anchored uneasily to the sand, and a mile or two beyond them began the dreary condos and motels. Off in the other direction was the two- or three-mile stretch of Seaside’s beach and the high grassy dunes that eighteen years ago had served as shelter for her sand castle.
She headed that way, striding fast down the hard-packed path near the water. She passed a couple of bikinied high school girls ankle-deep in the surf, skimming a Frisbee back and forth above the shallow waves.
Beyond them, a band of eight-year-olds played twilight tag, flopping and diving into the silvery Gulf. Up on the beach, some older folks were propped up in their lounge chairs, occupied with their magazines or icy drinks.
It took her almost half an hour to reach the last few hundred yards of beach. By then, the sunbathers had dwindled to zero, and the sands ahead of her were deserted, only a young couple jogging toward her with their black Lab loping at their side. The last of the daylight was fading—red ridges and golden welts ripened against the sheer blue canvas to the west.
Alex turned and started back.
Dread was radiating through her gut, a fidgety beat in her pulse. She fought it, tried to convince herself of a dozen harmless explanations. That he’d simply wandered into the picturesque town itself, perhaps for a shopping spree at the local market, or he was sitting at the outdoor bar sipping a beer and chatting with some local raconteur. Or she’d find him sitting in the living room at the Chattaway when she returned, watching television and ready for his happy-hour beer.
She broke into an easy trot on the return trip, staying on the damp sand, glancing out at the oily sunset sheen that coated the water. Her clothes were nearly dry, but she was shivering more now than a half hour ago. She pushed faster through the gathering dark and was almost back to the stairs when she saw the large misshapen silhouette stumbling out of the surf fifty yards ahead.
She blinked, wiped her eyes, jogged faster till the man came into view.
And she stopped abruptly, panting.
“Dad?”
She stepped forward and through the dusky light saw her father cradled in the arms of a tall young man. Lawton Collins’s hair was wet and straggling, head sagging back against the man’s slick chest. Lawton wore a pair of red boxer shorts that were drenched and pulled up high over his small potbelly. His eyes were open; a confused smile played on his lips.
“He’s okay,” the man said. “He just swam out a little too far. Got tired.”
“My God,” Alex said. “Dad, are you sure you’re all right?”
Sheepishly, Lawton nodded that he was, and he spit a shot of water into the sand. Then he turned his head, stared up at the man cradling him.
“Do I know you, kid?”
Alex stepped closer and looked at her father’s savior. His khaki shorts and white T-shirt were soaked. His dark eyes glittered with diamond light and a familiar smile spread across his lips. Her heart skipped and a giddy swirl of air filled her lungs. For a long moment, she couldn’t put a name to his face. So out of context, so many miles from the world they shared.
“Jason?” she said. “Jason Patterson.”
“In the flesh.”
“What the hell!”
He shook his head and smiled awkwardly, as if this wasn’t working out as neatly as he’d planned.
“I decided I needed a vacation,” he said. “You spoke so highly of this place, I thought I’d check it out.”
“Bullshit.”
“It’s pretty,” he said. “A little synthetic, but pleasant to the eye.”
“Jason, what the hell are you doing here?”
“Well, I was walking the beach and I saw him flailing around offshore. I didn’t know he was your father. It was just a coincidence. A lucky accident.”
“Stan robbed an armored truck,” Lawton said. “That’s why we came to this place. And because of Darnel Flint.”
“Darnel Flint?”
“We got the armored truck money back at the cottage. You want to look at it?”
“Money?” Jason said, peering at her. “Alex, what’s going on?”
She stared out at the opaque waters flickering with the last seconds of daylight.
“It’s a long story,” she said. “Too long.”
“I have time,” Jason said as he set Lawton back on his feet. “All the time in the world.”
Jason was smiling absently. The breeze tossed his dark black hair. He raised a hand to settle it back in place. And Alexandra knew she was s
taring at him, at his arms and the coppery flesh visible at his throat. More aware of his physical presence than she’d been before. Those Iroquois cheekbones, eyes as dark and glittery as fossilized coal, his languid smile.
“You two know each other, do you?”
“Oh, yes,” Jason said. “We’ve been sparring for years.”
He turned his eyes to hers and his smile deepened.
“I’m hungry,” Lawton said. “Is it time for supper yet?”
Alex pulled her gaze away from Jason, looked at her father. Then she sighed and looped her arm through his.
“You’re always hungry, Dad.”
“I could eat a hearse,” Lawton said. “Hell, I could wolf down two hearses. How about you, son? You hungry? Care to join us?”
Jason bent down and pried his tennis shoes off and poured out a trickle of sandy water.
“I’m famished,” he said, smiling up at Alex. “Faint with hunger.”
She shook her head.
“Come on, Dad. Let’s dry you off.”
“How about me? Or do I have to stay wet?”
Twenty feet behind him, a gull dropped from the dusky sky and splashed into the Gulf, violet ripples spreading toward shore.
“Sure, Jason, you come, too. I want to hear your story. And this better be good.”
TWENTY-TWO
A my likes you,” Emma said. “She’s crazy about you, Jen.”
“How can you tell?”
With her chin tucked against her throat, Jennifer watched the roach climb up the front of her white silk blouse.
“If you’d stop cringing, she’d like you even better. She can sense when someone’s afraid of her.”
Norman said, “We need gas.”
“So pull off and get it,” said Emma. “You have to ask my permission every goddamn time? Good grief, Norman, be bold, take an exit ramp without clearing it with me for once, would you?”
Emma gave Jennifer an exasperated frown.
“Men,” she said.
“Men,” Jennifer replied.
Emma was riding shotgun, with Jennifer wedged in the middle, straddling the transmission hump of the pool-service truck. It was dusk. Sparse traffic on I-10, two hours west of Tallahassee, maybe half an hour, forty-five minutes from their destination, Seaside, Florida.
Six hundred miles should’ve taken them twelve hours max, but it was turning into half again that much. Somewhere outside of Fort Myers, the goddamn pool truck had developed a carburetor problem, the engine sputtering whenever Norman tried to push it past fifty. They’d had to decide whether to stop and try to have it fixed or forge on. They forged.
No air-conditioning, hot as hell, even with the windows wide open. Emma was soaked with sweat. Driving since midnight the night before, all through the day Saturday, six hundred miles at no more than forty-eight miles an hour. Eighteen hours after they’d left Miami, they were still in Florida.
“We should’ve flown,” Norman said.
“Oh, yeah,” said Emma. “I could picture us trying to check the Heckler & Koch, the Mac-ten on a commercial flight. We’d be on our way to Leavenworth right now.”
“Or stolen a car.”
“Right, and get stopped by the Highway Patrol ten miles down the road.”
“Could you put the roach away, please, Emma?”
Jennifer moaned and wriggled in her seat.
“Stop cringing, goddamn it. You’ll scare her.”
Amy stepped across from Jennifer’s collar to her long, skinny neck. Emma held on to her green thread leash. Overhead, the interior light was on so that she could keep track of the roach. Soon as the sun went down, you had to be on full alert with roaches, since that was their normal time to roam. Feeding and mating.
“It’s just so yucky,” Jennifer said.
“Yucky is a state of mind,” said Emma. “Think of it as a tickle. Your boyfriend blowing on your neck, whispering his fingertips across your skin. Your boyfriend does that, doesn’t he? Tickles you, caresses your tender places?”
“Not really. He’s kind of rough.”
“Rough and quick?”
“Yeah,” Jennifer said. “Rough, quick, plus he snores.”
“Men,” Emma said.
“Yeah, men.”
“Women are from Venus,” Emma said. “Men are from Penis.”
Jennifer laughed.
A minute went by, everyone listening to the rumble of the truck. Until Emma said, “We need another road game.”
“I’m sick of road games,” said Jennifer.
“How about Dream Job?”
“Oh, all right,” said Jennifer. “What are the rules this time?”
“No rules. Everybody comes up with their dream job. You know, like a fantasy thing. You describe what it is, how it would be to have it, what you’d do all day. Like that.”
“Let me think,” Jennifer said.
Emma said, “I know what Norman’s dream job is. Norman would be one of those guards outside Buckingham Palace. One of those guys with the chin straps who never moves, never says anything. You can jump around, spit right in his face, he just holds still and stares out into space. That’s Norman’s dream job. Never has to think for himself. Takes orders about everything. Like a drone. A soldier ant. He’s just there to serve the queen.”
“I know mine,” Jennifer said. “I’d run the phones and the PA announcements for the biggest Lexus dealer in the world out in Dallas, Texas. All those good-looking salesmen walking around on the lot, waiting for me to call their names. My voice would carry for miles. And all the oilmen and wealthy ranchers who come shopping every day, they’d hear my voice booming out of the sky like God’s. A sexy female God.”
Norman looked over, then back at the road.
“That’s a dream job?” Emma said. “Hell, Jen, that’s just the same job you got now, only more so.”
Jennifer pouted for a second, then said, “Well, okay, I didn’t want to say it because I know you’ll make fun, but my real dream job would be to have kids and a husband and live in a big house with lots of windows for all the sunshine and have a maid to clean every day, and my kids would be beautiful and smart and never get on my nerves and my husband would want to have sex every night and he’d be devoted to me and proud of what a good mother I was and what a good wife. I’d drive them to soccer and go grocery shopping, fix these great dinners, and we’d take vacations to the mountains or the lake. And I’d have a garden with flowers and cucumbers.”
“Jesus,” Emma said.
“I knew you’d make fun.”
“That’s your dream? You could have anything in the whole world and you choose to be a housewife? Fuck, Jennifer. That’s dull. Cucumbers, for Christ sakes. Did you hear that, Norman? The girl wants to raise cucumbers.”
“I heard.”
“Well, you don’t like any of my dream jobs, then let’s hear yours, Emma. Go on, tell me, so I can pooh-pooh your dream, too.”
“A roach wrangler,” Emma said.
“A what?”
“For the movies—they’re always looking for people who know how to handle roaches.”
“They are?”
“Sure they are. Haven’t you ever seen it? In some scary movie, a roach comes crawling out of the wall and walks up the side of the bed and up the sheets and covers, and the camera’s following it very carefully as it climbs the blanket and starts walking up the hand of someone in the bed, and then up the wrist and the arm, higher and higher, until the roach is right there at the girl’s face and we don’t know what we’re going to see—maybe the girl is sleeping; maybe they’re making love or watching the roach coming closer and closer—until finally, bang, the camera tilts, and we see a knife sticking out of the girl’s forehead.”
“Gross.”
“Sure it’s gross. That’s Hollywood, Jennifer. And they pay very big bucks for somebody who can make that roach go in exactly the right places, make that long trip up the person’s arm. Very large salaries are out there waiting fo
r people with my abilities. I’d take that money, and I’d buy a big mansion in Bel Air or Beverly Hills, one of those places where all the stars live. And I’d take my Great Dane out for a walk every morning.”
Norman slowed for a cluster of gas stations coming up on the right.
“Exxon or Shell?” he asked.
“Norman,” Emma said, “why don’t you dip into your vast reservoir of testosterone and make your own determination about what kind of gas to buy? You think you’re up to that?”
“I’ll try,” he said.
“Men are from Penis,” Jennifer said, and chuckled.
“Norman’s an enigma. He’s from a planet all his own. You know what an enigma is, Jen?”
“I think so.”
“It’s like the Sphinx,” Emma said. “It’s big and it’s ugly and it just sits there and doesn’t do anything.”
“Like Norman.”
“That’s right, just like Norman.”
The roach prowled through the peach fuzz on Jennifer’s cheek and she closed her eyes and leaned her head against the back of the seat.
“Is she tickling you, Jennifer? Is Amy stroking your sensitive skin?”
“Yes,” Jennifer said. “Yes, she is.”
“Good. Now you’re starting to see one of the many fine qualities of Periplaneta americana. So just relax. Relax and enjoy.”
“I don’t believe it,” Jennifer said. “Even a damn cockroach is better than Stan Rafferty.”
“He wasn’t any good, was he? He was a lousy lover.”
Norman looked over at her and shook his head.
With her eyes closed, Jennifer said, “He made me do things. Things I didn’t like.”
“What things, Jen?”
“Hey,” Norman said. “Cut it out.”
Emma gave Norman a cold stare. Leave us girls alone.
“What things, Jen?”
“He tied me up some times, you know, lashed me to the bed frame and used objects on me.”
“Objects?”
“Fruit mainly. He was big on bananas, and he tried pears once or twice. Even grapes.”
“The asshole.”
“Yeah,” Jennifer said. “He did that, too.”
Emma chuckled.
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