“Well, this is it,” Gary said. When he went to shake Samuel’s hand, Samuel hugged him.
“Whoa, Bud, it’s not like I’m leaving forever.” He stepped back, but not quickly. “I’ll write. And visit when on leave!”
“I want you to have this,” Samuel handed him the shamrock keychain.
“That’s yours, Buddy Boy, I don’t need it.”
“I know. I do. It’s on loan until you get back.”
“OK, deal.” He put his arm on Samuel’s shoulder. “Remember this,” Gary’s voice becoming serious, Samuel prepared to hear some profound advice. “Never pass up a lay.”
When on the train, he saluted Samuel from the widow.
A slowly increasing clank of metal rolling over metal, silver motion not only through space, but time, the train left Miami, leaving behind forever past months or what had happened just a few seconds ago. Even when he could no longer see the train’s end, Samuel continued to stand on the platform above vacant tracks, the only one left in this station emptied of sound.
When opening the door to his apartment, he heard the phone ring.
“Hello,” he said, hoping it might be Kate.
“Got anything yet, boychik?” Mr. Smith asked.
“I’m working on it.”
“Time to get it done. Baxter is shitting bricks. He’s afraid of what the cops found out. Your dad has a lawyer working for him, Elmo Stavros. Top notch criminal attorney. Big brain. He’s moving into Eldridge’s office and bringing along some business lawyers. The new firm will represent RHB Enterprises. Baxter has agreed to it. They’re going to rip out all that travel agency bullshit and expand the offices. Pisses me off that Eldridge stuck you in a fucking conference room. You’re going to have an office, a big one.
Baxter’s tricky. We got the goods on him, but it’s always better if you have an ace up your sleeve, know what I mean?”
“Yes, Mr. Smith.”
“You’re a good boy. Your dad is proud of you. Get some sun.”
The phone clicked.
Samuel drove to the end of Key Biscayne and sitting on a rock in the national park, watched the sunset. Surrounded by yellow clouds, the sun, shining bright-white low on the horizon, shot three pink and orange rays into the blackening ocean while a burst from the dying light streaked lavender across the faded blue sky.
Samuel wondered what his father and van Gogh would see.
A few minutes later the world turned orange, just as the sky had in Key West. But here the forests of mango trees reversed their age, the leaves mature green becoming the orange pink of their youth.
Samuel knew he would never again be young. Miami had changed him forever.
When the sky and ocean merged into blackness, he heard his grayness in the waves of the tidal creek tell him to leave. He could go, put one foot in front of the other, continue on in life—
But not Mr. Eldridge. Time would pass for others while he remained a part of the past; his nonexistence eternal, painless, and also, sadly, without sunsets.
At the office building, Samuel got in using the key Mr. Smith had given him. It also opened the embossed RHB penthouse doors. He walked slowly down the hall toward Baxter’s private space.
The door there slightly ajar, Samuel heard moaning. He looked in.
A white, pimply ass expressed itself between the legs of a woman whose breasts pointed up. He recognized their torpedo shape. Samuel left quietly while wondering why Mr. Baxter, a married man with young children, would do something that would destroy his family.
At home, he turned on Owen Marshall: Counselor at Law, switched the episode off when reading its title, I Promised You a Father.
Two days later, early in the morning, Mr. Smith again called.
“Stavros will be in today. He wants to see you at 9. Can you make it?’
“I’ll be there,” Samuel said.
“Good. Tell him what you found out.”
“Nothing,” Samuel said. “I’m not really much of a detective.”
“I know. Don’t worry about it. We’ve got someone on the inside. All she cares about is money.”
When he arrived at the office, Crystal, in her low cut dress, gave him an extra wide smile.
“Vera!” Samuel said when seeing the woman still at her desk.
“Surprised?”
“I’m happy!”
“They want to keep me around. Smart. Where else are they going to find someone with my experience who is so pleasant?” She coughed, reached for a cigarette. “Don’t trip over yourself. They’re building a new palace.”
When Samuel entered Eldridge’s old office, Elmo Stavros nodded at the workmen who immediately left.
“Hello, Samuel, I’m very pleased to meet you.” His wavy, salt and pepper hair slicked back, his walrus shaped mustache as white as his suit, he put his gold-headed walking stick under one arm and shook Samuel’s hand, Stavros’s hands small for such a large man. “I wish I could offer you a seat, but the new furniture isn’t in yet. Do you like the teak?” He pointed to the new wainscoting.
“Very nice,” Samuel said.
“The wallpaper rolls over there are gold flecked. That’s going to be our theme, Samuel. RHB Enterprise’s casino row on the new Gold Coast! And that’s just the beginning. Miami’s going to have a building boom. Banks will have so much money getting a construction loan will be easy. We’ll take a piece of the building action and a piece of where the money comes from. Cocaine.”
His deep-set eyes suddenly turned cold.
“You’re never to touch the stuff. No drugs. Period.” He again looked almost jolly. “We’ll represent the dealers. You are going to make lots of money and at the same time learn the law. I’ve got top-notch attorneys working for me. They’ll train you. In a few days your office will be ready. You look like your father. He’s a great man.” Stavros pinched Samuel’s cheek. “I bought you membership to the Coral Gables Country Club. There’s a set of golf clubs in your trunk. Here’s the car key.”
“I have one,” Samuel said, not understanding.
“The Pinto’s gone. You father’s returned it to the salesman. The jerk needed a new family car. Apparently the gas tank explodes when hit from behind. This key is for the corvette in the parking lot.”
“Is it red?”
“That’s right. How did you know?”
“I didn’t. But that’s the color my friend Gary likes.”
“Is he a lawyer?”
“No. A Marine.”
Stavros laughed unpleasantly.
“I hope your other friends aren’t schmucks.”
“I don’t have other friends,” Samuel said.
“Good! Who needs them where you have us! The family! Here’s some cash.” He handed Samuel two one hundred dollar bills. “Go out and have some fun.”
Samuel drove around Miami, top up, eyes straight ahead as he ignored the drivers beside him who, revving their car’s engine, wanted to race a shiny corvette. Burning rubber, the Cobras, souped-up Javelins, and Pontiacs squealed ahead, Samuel starting slowly from each green light, always staying five miles under the speed limit.
An hour later, he parked at Gables Court and sat by the pool.
“That your car?” the manager asked, walking over. “Daddy buy it for you?”
“He did,” Samuel answered. “Just what I wanted.”
“Must be nice being rich.”
“Is it?”
“Don’t be a putz, Baas. You know what I mean. If you have a fat wallet your troubles are over. Maybe you don’t know. Everyth
ing’s been handed to you. No one gave me and Rosalyn squat. Let me ask you this. Do you like your job?”
“I meet interesting people,” Samuel answered.
“Yeah? Well, the way I see it, the only good boss is a dead one. Want to be daddy’s little boy forever?”
“I never was…”
“Cut the crap! I’m serious. Rosalyn has a business idea that’s going to have us raking in the dough. You interested in hearing about it, or am I wasting my time? I don’t need you. Any lawyer would jump at the chance to get in on this.”
“Thank you, Mr. Lipman, for the opportunity. I’m sure Rosalyn has thought everything out carefully. I also get some of my best ideas in bed.”
The manager squinted while trying to understand, but his unaccustomed attempt at discernment ended quickly when the beeper went off.
“So, are you coming?” he asked.
“Wouldn’t miss it,” Samuel answered.
“A Corvette’s OK, but it’s not a Bonneville,” Lipman remarked as they passed his clean and polished car.
When inside the office, Samuel heard crying.
“Goddamn baby,” the manager cursed under his breath.
“Hello, Samuel,” Rosalyn greeted him from her stretched out position on the bed, her head elevated by pillows, the baby wedged against her muumuu-covered, large breast. “This is my daughter, Sarah. She looks like one of my dolls. Isn’t she beautiful?”
“Yes,” Samuel answered, amazed by the baby’s large eyes, little fingers, and toes.
“Use your gloves,” Rosalyn told her husband. ”I don’t want that thumb touching her. She has nice skin, like mine used to be before this marriage took away my youth and looks.”
Lipman snapped on latex.
“Now feed her. I know how it feels to be hungry.” She handed the baby to him. Holding Sarah at a distance, Lipman carried her into the kitchen.
“I meant to thank you,” Rosalyn said to Samuel, her attempt at playfulness using glitter and blue eye shadow negated by the dark shrewdness in her eyes. “The ad you mailed to the Value News for me worked perfectly. It was one line with my phone number at the end. ‘Loving couple wants to adopt white baby.’ A girl called. She had just given birth at home. Harry picked the baby up. If you go through an agency, like we tried to do before, they use age and health to cheat couples out of having a family. But this is a private adoption. The girl wanted us to be the baby’s parents. There was nothing the Department of Social Services could do about that. Sarah is mine.”
“I’m happy for you,” Samuel said. “You can take the dolls off the shelves.”
“Why would I?” Rosalyn’s eyes showing she didn’t want an answer. “So, Samuel, here’s what happened next. I started getting calls from pregnant girls and couples who wanted to know if I had any luck with the ad. I’ve kept a list of the phone numbers. I can match the girls to the clients.”
“Clients?”
“That’s right, Baas,” Lipman said, holding the sleeping baby. “That’s how we’re going to get rich!”
“You burped and changed her?” Rosalyn asked.
“Yes,” he answered. “I never forget.”
“Let me have her—careful…”
Lipman leaned over. She again put Sarah at her breast.
“I have to tell him how to do everything. He isn’t normal.”
“I’m smart,” Lipman whined.
“My idea is this,” Rosalyn said. “We charge those who want to adopt a listing fee. You’ll be our attorney and set everything up. I’ll give you a cut of the income plus you’ll get to keep your fee for handling the adoptions. How does that sound?”
“You have babies for all these couples?”
“Of course not,” Rosalyn said. “What difference does that make? To stay in business you have to make money. And like all businesses, you can’t please everyone. Some will get babies, some won’t. Know our real service? We offer hope.”
“Until there isn’t any,” Samuel said.
“You sound like a pussy,” Lipman’s emphasis on the word causing him to spit.
“What would you like to lose, Mr. Lipman?” Samuel asked him.
“The chance to make money!” he answered and grinned.
“Think about it,” Rosalyn said. “I know we can be very successful together. You and I have the brains.”
Samuel looked at the sleeping baby. He wanted to carry Sarah home.
Two months passed, the air layers of chill and warm air, the sun always bright.
His large, new office had three windows, a mahogany desk, leather chairs and on the walls, framed reproductions of van Gogh paintings. The older attorneys in the firm called him sir. After Samuel won a personal injury case, Judge Kowalski phoned to tell him he’d done a good job.
When not in Stavros’s office, Crystal still crossed her long legs at the receptionist’s desk, her cleavage decorated with new, expensive jewelry.
Vera worked in a back office.
“I like it here,” she told Samuel, the small room filled with cigarette smoke. “I don’t have to see anyone.”
After work, Samuel stayed at home, but on the weekends went to the movies or walked along the beach. Thanksgiving he ate a turkey sandwich while watching the Lawrence Welk show. Christmas Eve, in the field outside the brightly lit Baptist Church, he stood and listened to the faint hymns in the distance as his Swanson Beans and Franks TV dinner cooked in its aluminum tray.
Samuel avoided thinking about Kate. He never looked toward her apartment.
But one night, she called.
“Can you come over?” she asked, her voice slurred. “I’m not feeling well.”
He didn’t answer.
“Samuel…please…”
“No,” and he hung up the phone. He had rebuilt his life without her, gone on to exist in a gray world, but one of renewed values. The poison had left him; he existed without love or anger, alive as he had always been before sex and beer. No highs, no lows, a constant plane devoid of happiness or pain.
She means nothing to me.
In the dark, he walked toward her.
The door unlocked, Samuel stepped into shadow.
“Kate?”
“In here,” she said.
The bedroom. The bed. He didn’t want to touch her. That part of his life had ended. He had once again returned to the god of values where marriage consecrated flesh.
Turn around…leave…
Samuel stood above her.
“Hold me,” she said, her eyes, usually direct, now heavy lidded. In the shadowy light, their half-open appearance looked childlike, as if she had stayed up past her bedtime. Her goofy smile changed as he undressed her.
Samuel didn’t make love. He knew that. And it wasn’t lust.
Anger drove him.
Finished, he got dressed and left, locking the door behind him.
In the morning the phone rang, waking him from a restful sleep.
“I can’t believe you did that,” Kate said quietly.
“Kate?” Samuel rubbed his eyes. “You called…”
“For company. That wasn’t like you.”
“I know, it was like you,” he said, suddenly fully awake.
“I was drunk.”
“You didn’t seem to mind it.”
“I was drunk,” she repeated.
“How am I supposed to know that makes a difference? You were in bed, waiting for me. What did you expect?”
“More from you. I’m not angry, just d
isappointed.”
“Well, me too. Break up with Peter? Is that why you got blitzed?” Samuel hoping it was true.
“No, we’re together. Sorry…Don’t worry, Samuel. You and I are still friends. I’ll talk to you later.”
Samuel sat on the one seat couch and knew he had sinned. Only marriage protected the flesh against mistakes. Only the god of values offered redemption.
While standing outside his door, he saw couples arrive at the managers’ office, go inside uncertain, and when leaving look hopeful, the deep longing in their eyes unchanged. Samuel hadn’t spoken to the Lipmans since Rosalyn’s offer to him. Back inside his apartment, he called Mr. Smith.
“You want me to take care of it, just like the Pinto?”
“Yes sir,” Samuel said.
“This other thing’s a bit more complicated, but I know a few people on the force. I’ll get in touch with them. I want to tell you something.”
“Yes…”
“You’re beginning to think just like your father.”
“Where’s my car!” Lipman screamed. “What happened to it!”
Samuel watched the manager running around the vacant space where the Bonneville had been parked, his arms outstretched, hands waving as if to conjure the car back into existence. “My car! My car! Where is it?”
Rosalyn continued to beep him.
Pointing at Lipman, Benny and Wolfman laughed, then tried twisting each other’s nipples.
A month later, after hearing evidence presented by an undercover police team, the man and woman posing as adoptive parents, a judge issued an arrest warrant. Lights flashing, police cars sped into the parking lot of Gables Court, followed by a Department of Social Service van. The woman from DSS took Sarah with her. The police handcuffed Lipman and carried Rosalyn out on a stretcher, her hand clutching her beeper.
Kate knocked on Samuel’s door.
“Can we go for a walk?” she asked.
Nervous, wishing she would leave, or hug and love him, he nodded. The day overcast and cool, they walked together, neither speaking. With little makeup on, in her poncho and loose fitting pants, Kate looked like she had planned to spend the day alone.
Gables Court Page 13