by Paul Levine
“Getting a little radical out here,” Lassiter said, coming up for air. “I have an idea.”
“I was hoping you did.”
With the wind howling like a betrayed lover, they water-started in unison, two sails whisked out of the water on cue, each sailor slipping into the foot straps and hooking harnesses to the booms, the storm a raucous symphony around them. Tricky now with the swells building and the wind rising to gusty crescendos then falling off to diminuendo lulls.
Lassiter luffed the sail and took a cautious approach. Once past the tip of the island, they headed west into the protected waters of the bay, the land mass of Key Biscayne taking some of the sting out of the wind. In a few minutes they were at Stiltsville, a collection of twenty wooden houses on stilts smack in the middle of the bay. After Hurricane Andrew, half the structures had splintered into driftwood. The ones that remained were sagging onto their pilings and needed a fresh coat of paint, if not a complete rebuild by structural engineers.
Reachable only by boat, the houses sat empty most of the time. Fifty years ago, you could shoot craps there. Now doctors, lawyers, and bankers owned the houses and used them mainly for weekend family outings with an occasional extracurricular session on a weekday afternoon for the married guys.
Lila Summers followed him to a white house with faded green shutters and a wooden deck. They tied their boards to one of the stilts and climbed weather-beaten steps to the front door. The house belonged to his law firm, and like many a grown man’s toys, was little used. Lassiter opened the combination lock, and with the squall raging and the cold rain chilling them, they hurried inside. The house was dark and stuffy, so they opened the shuttered windows on the leeward side to let in some air without the rain.
They found towels and a bottle of red wine. He dried her, and she dried him. They talked about the storm and about the race and about everything except the subject at hand: each other and the possibilities that awaited. After a moment, Lila explored the house, her bare feet leaving wet imprints on the floor. She padded through the large, open Florida room, a mounted sailfish dominating one wall, a nautical map another. She walked through the two bedrooms in the back, then rejoined Lassiter at the counter in the kitchen.
She drained her glass of wine and said, “I was still in high school when I met Keaka. I looked up to him. I still do. He’s the only man I’ve been with, and he’s been completely faithful to me.”
It was the beginning of intimacy, Lassiter knew, plus a medical background, so important these days.
“What about you?” she asked.
“I’ve never been with Keaka,” he said.
She ran her hand through his hair. “Are you one of those men who doesn’t talk?”
He talked. He talked about the women who had sailed through his life, Susan Corrigan, the sportswriter, Dr. Pamela Metcalf, the English psychiatrist, Lourdes Soto, the private investigator, and Gina Florio, now Gina de La Torre, the ex-Dolphin Doll who kept dancing in and out of his bedroom. Then, in the spirit of the times, he told her he had a blood test every six months at the county health department, and the only thing wrong came from eating too much red meat.
She gestured with her glass for more wine. Then the hand that held the glass circled his head and she pulled him toward her. They kissed softly. He cradled her face in his hands, and the kiss lasted, and with eyes closed he heard the small waves breaking against the pilings. Rain pinged off the metal roof. In the distance, thunder echoed. Wordlessly, Lila stepped out of her white suit and pulled the drawstring on Lassiter’s old surfer trunks. The squall had worked its way around the tip of Key Biscayne and the wind roared, and even with the shutters open, it was dim inside. In the Florida room, they lay on the floor on their towels and explored each other’s bodies, and Jake Lassiter imagined they were floating on a raft, for the wooden floor seemed to pitch with the waves, his equilibrium still at sea. They made love tentatively at first but then Lila arched her back and her breasts pressed against his chest and she tightened her strong legs around his buttocks and locked him tight into her.
Lila purred in his ear. He moved slowly, and she tugged at his shaggy sun-bleached hair, gripping hard until it hurt. Pulling back his head, she nibbled at his lower lip, then bit down hard enough to draw blood. He never winced, but bit her back, though gently. She sucked at his wounded lip, and their tongues danced, and they kissed harder and deeper until their teeth struck.
A flash of lightning reflected off the water and illuminated the room. Thunder rumbled, and the house seemed to vibrate.
With his eyes closed, Lassiter felt the tide surge toward a distant beach, heard water breaking against a rocky shore. He imagined a beach of red sand and a jungle of green vines. He thought of valleys carved in volcanic rock, pictured a thousand war canoes lit by torches on a black sea, and saw orange flames rising from molten lava. He felt the wet heat rising from both of them as their gears meshed, and they moved to the same silent music.
Later, they lay there together, bodies slicked with sweat and salt water. He looked at her but didn’t say a word.
“Jake, don’t blink those blue eyes at me,” Lila Summers said. “I know what you want to ask but won’t, so here it is. It was pleasurable, enjoyable. You’re a wonderful lover. The fact that it wasn’t a hydrogen bomb — that it’s never been — shouldn’t bother you. It doesn’t bother me.”
Lassiter was silent. “And don’t pout,” she said. “You’re a very special man, everything I thought you would be, strong but sensitive, and it was very nice, really.”
Very nice. Very nice is okay for Granny Lassiter’s pot roast, not this ethereal experience. At least it had been that for him. They were silent. The rain still pelted the roof, but lighter now. Lassiter walked to the window in a daze, his joy tinged with disappointment. A brown pelican sat on one of the wooden pilings, its pouch empty, scanning the shallow water. Small waves sloshed against the pilings, a sleepy sound.
Jake Lassiter looked at Lila, naked on the towel, and saw the last train leaving the station. There would be no more women like this — young and beautiful and unspoiled. She has never tasted defeat, he thought, and cannot imagine it. How long had it been since he figured he would never sit on the Supreme Court or stake his life on principle like an Atticus Finch? How long since he realized he would never be All-Pro, or All-Anything? It was creeping up on him and the train started moving now, and he would run for it and leap aboard and wherever it went, it didn’t matter.
“Li’a, Goddess of Desire, I want to say things to you that no one ever has. My head is full of music and poetry but it’s all jumbled up, and all I can think of is, Grow old along with me…”
“…The best is yet to be,” she said, and he raised his eyebrows and Lila laughed. “Don’t look so surprised. We studied poetry at Seabury Hall on Maui, but to tell the truth, I always found Robert Browning a bit sappy. I preferred Housman”:
Now you will not swell the rout
Of lads that wore their honors out,
Runners whom renown outran
And the name died before the man.
“But that’s a little melancholy, isn’t it?” Lassiter asked. “An athlete dying young.”
“Not melancholy at all, an athlete or warrior going out in a blaze of glory.”
Jake Lassiter shook his head, in the mood to talk of romance, not blazing death. “You didn’t happen to learn any poems about Li’a at your highfalutin school, did you?”
Me ‘oe ka ‘ano ‘i pau ‘ole… With you an unending desire.
“Perfect,” he said. “The rest?”
Here in the beating heart.
Do not thrust away the glimpse
Of our drenching in the misty rain.
“It’s beautiful,” Lassiter said. “Our drenching in the misty rain. What a sensual thought.”
“Maui is a very sensual place. It could be our place.”
She stood there, naked in front of the window, and Lassiter looked into the star bursts
of her eyes and wondered if a second mission could drop the hydrogen bomb. But soon, it would be dark, and windsurfers don’t have running lights. As he slipped into the cold, wet swim trunks, his desire waned. They locked up the house, untied the boards, and headed back to Key Biscayne.
The weather had calmed, and the wind was nearly too light now, the typical pattern after a series of squalls. Three gray gulls, shrieking stridently, kept them company as they sailed up the coast. A single osprey, the Florida fish hawk, soared above them and dived suddenly, snatching a fish with its talons. The fish struggled for a moment, but the piercing claws would not release, and bird and prey disappeared toward land.
The beach was deserted in front of the hotel and they carried their equipment up the beach. As they neared the raised pool deck, Lassiter stopped suddenly and said, “How can Maui be our place?”
She looked puzzled.
“Keaka,” he said. “What about Keaka?”
“What do you mean?” she asked, innocent as a child bride.
“Where’s Keaka while you and I are riding horses in the mountains, windsurfing on unspoiled waters?”
“Does it matter?”
“Do you love him?”
“Love,” she said, pursing her lips and cocking her head as if trying out a new word. “Oh, Jake, you are a romantic, aren’t you? Look, I love what Keaka is. I love his strength and his pride and his independence. He’s free, and not many of us are.”
I’m not, Jake Lassiter thought. I’m tied to a clock and time sheets and to bloodsucking clients. “How could I be free?” he asked, not liking the sound of his own voice.
“By doing what you enjoy most.”
He laughed. “I’m too slow to cover the flanker over the middle. All I can do is put facts together, examine witnesses, argue the law, write briefs — all useless skills except to sell your life by the hour, lease each heartbeat to corporations and robber barons.”
“Jake, there’s something for you in the islands. There’s…”
“ Lila, there you are!”
Keaka carried a board under each arm, biceps pumped from hard sailing, looking powerful and dangerous. “You left your rig on the beach, you know what the blowing sand does to the sail.”
“Lots more sails where that came from,” Lila said.
Without acknowledging Lassiter’s presence, Keaka looked hard at Lila. “I know you’re tired,” he said, “but it’s our last race. After this, I’ve got other plans.”
“I know, I know.”
“Let’s get cleaned up now,” Keaka said. “I have to meet somebody on business.”
“Not the same business as the other night, I hope,” Lila said.
“No, even easier, and more profitable.”
Jake Lassiter wondered if he’d suddenly become invisible. Finally Lila turned to him and said apologetically, ” ‘Night, Jake. See you tomorrow. Thanks for filling me in about the location of the reef. Jake was very helpful, Keaka.”
“I’m sure he was,” Keaka Kealia said, shooting Lassiter the sideways look of a Doberman pinscher. “Say, lawyer…”
“Yeah.”
“You got a bruise on your lip. You bump into something?” I “Grabbed the boom with my face.”
“That’s what I thought. Got to be careful when you’re out ‘ of your element. Got to be real cautious or you can get hurt.”
Keaka smiled a malevolent grin, then hauled his rig back toward the hotel garage, Lila following behind. Alone now, a pair of images drifted through Lassiter’s mind — that first night outside the hotel, Lila’s hair flying, back arched against the wind, and now, her kisses still lingering on his lips.
It was after six o’clock when Lassiter found a pay phone to check with Cindy at the office. “Where you been?” Cindy shouted at him. “I waited so long for you, I’m missing happy hour at the Crazy Horse. Jeez, what a day, all hell’s broken loose since you beat the crap out of Thad Whitney.”
“Cindy, I didn’t beat the crap out of him. We just bumped into each other.”
“The way I hear it, you sucker-punched him, then trashed his china cabinet. Your partners are really pissed. The MP’s been reading the office manual all day. They’re gonna court-martial you or something, conduct unbecoming a partner. Maybe they’ll forgive you if you apologize to Thad.”
“I will… the same day the pope marries Madonna. What else?”
Cindy paused, and Lassiter imagined her running a finger through a permed curl, deep in thought. “Jake, don’t get in over your head. I don’t mean to be lecturing you since you’re my boss and you’re God knows how much older than I am. And you’re a real together guy, except
… except what you don’t know about women could fill Biscayne Bay and flood Miami Beach. So don’t go off the deep end, okay?”
“Hey, Cindy.”
“Yeah?”
“Throw me a life preserver.”
CHAPTER 19
The Partners
Harry Marlin hoped she knew what she was doing. Christ, who was this guy anyway? You don’t just call somebody you don’t even know and say, how*bout taking some hot goods to the Bahamas for me. But that’s what Violet did, called a stranger at a hotel.
The Bahamas. Still got Bahamas on the brain. Now we got another partner, if he goes along with it. She sees the guy once and all she remembers, he’s the color of cordovan loafers, he’s sailing to the Bahamas, and his wang’s like a loaf of bread stuck in his shorts. Meets a guy on the beach, guy that knows the old man’s lawyer, for Christ’s sake, and brings him in on the deal. Said she had a feeling about the guy. Bet she did, too.
How the hell would Harry recognize the son of a bitch, he wasn’t gonna stare at the crotch of a guy walking into the bar, particularly the Organ Grinder, a topless joint on Collins Avenue just a block off the ocean.
Harry used to hang out there, knew the turf and felt at home. He could have gone to see the guy, but let the son of a bitch take a cab from his fancy-pants hotel. Probably wouldn’t even come. Told Violet he’d be there at eight, had to be back early because of the race tomorrow. Needed his sleep, friggin’ Boy Scout.
The Organ Grinder was nearly empty. Two guys, truck drivers maybe, sat around the three-sided bar that framed a small stage. They watched a hopelessly bored stripper, down to a red G-string, titless babe with short black hair, skinny with a soft ass, wrinkled and white like two scoops of cottage cheese. This place couldn’t attract your prime-grade talent, Harry thought, not for dollar tips in the garter belt.
“… I’m not perfect, but I’m perfect for you-ou…”
Music so loud your ears hurt, whatshername singing, Grace Jones, built like a licorice stick, hair cut like a Marine, a wild look like she’d bite it off she had half a chance.
The skinny stripper unhooked the G-string, wrapped it around a metal pole on the stage, rehooked it on the other side, and strung her legs around the pole, humping it to the music. Not bad, mushy ass and all, not bad and Harry felt a stirring.
Where was the guy anyway? Goddamn noise giving him a headache. Ever since Buddy Holly died, music’d been shit. Tried to hum it, “All my love, all my kissin’, you don’t know what you been missin’.” But the tune in his head couldn’t compete with the blasting tape that told him he was “addicted to love.”
When the music stopped, so did the stripper, boom, as if the factory whistle blew and the assembly line crashed, you weren’t gonna get one extra bump outta that bitch. Then she stretched out a leg and with her high-heel sequined shoe, she flicked off the light switch that illuminated the stage a whorey red.
Another girl would be out in a minute, but Harry wasn’t in the mood. It was eight-thirty and he would wait another five minutes, then fuck it. Harry went to the rest room in the back hauling a tote bag. He took a leak, studied the graffiti, felt for a forgotten quarter in the condom machine change slot, then came back out. In the rear of the joint, near the tables for private dances — ten-dollar minimum — was an aquarium. Funny, a bu
nch of fish in a place like this, but there it was. Harry walked over, aimlessly, looking at the fish, killing time.
Harry could tell from the way light reflected off the tank that someone had opened the front door, but he didn’t turn around. He was watching the tank, and as he did, a cream-colored lionfish sneaked up behind a blue-and-yellow angelfish, tailing it like a cop on surveillance. The angelfish would wiggle right, the lionfish would wiggle right, flaring its large gills, the mane of a lion. They swam inside a little cavern, out again, up and down, and finally, the lionfish grew tired of the game. It came from behind the angelfish and swallowed it whole, just swallowed it, no bites, no struggle. One second there were two fish, then there was one.
At about the same time that the Miami Beach fish population decreased by one, Harry saw a reflection in the glass tank, a man behind him, strong guy, the silhouette of sinewy muscles bulging from each side of his neck. Harry felt a shiver, then turned around to see the unsmiling face of Keaka Kealia.
They shook hands, Harry’s knuckles ricocheting off each other like billiard balls on a clean break.
Harry massaged his right hand with his left and said, “A guy walks into a bar with an alligator and asks the bartender if they serve lawyers…
Keaka was studying the smaller man as if he were a moderately interesting chimpanzee at the zoo.
“‘Sure,’ the bartender says. ‘Good,’ the guys says. ‘Give me a beer and my gator a lawyer!’”
Keaka didn’t smile.
“It’s a joke,” Harry said. “But I’m worried about the lawyer.”
“Lassiter?”
“Yeah. He’ll be there, won’t he?”
“In the lead boat, nothing to worry about.”
They talked about the coupons, Harry lifting the canvas tote bag with two hands. Keaka said, sure he could get them to Bimini if they fit into a backpack. The added weight, no problem, he was the best in the world. Customs? No problem. Customs doesn’t check guys coming over on a sanctioned, nationally televised windsurfing race.