by Dave Barry
The chanting group had flowed through the hotel lobby, getting stares from other hotel guests, then out the back and down to the beach. At the moment, Stan was sitting cross-legged in the sand, forming a triangle with Wendell and Marty. All three were now barefoot.
Mike Clark had been standing with Tina, who seemed to Mike to be the only other sane person there. But Tina had just left, saying she wanted to get a good night’s sleep before her wedding day. So now Mike stood alone, a few feet away from where Wendell, Stan and Marty were sitting. Mike felt awkward, not wanting to be too far from his prized guest Wendell but definitely not part of whatever the hell was going on. Mike was hating the way Wendell was hitting it off with these two losers.
A few yards down the beach, Banzan Dazu and the chanters—who had been joined, to Mike’s alarm, by his wife, Marcia—were lying on their backs in the sand, staring at the stars. Also on the beach, but keeping a discreet distance from the wedding party, were the Clark bodyguards, Castronovo and Brewer.
The Stan’s Pizza deal was done. Wendell had just made a phone call to somebody in New York, who had made a phone call to somebody in Miami; at that very moment, the money was on its way, to be delivered by courier to the beach behind the Ritz, in cash, in a briefcase. Stan had wanted it that way because he’d seen it in the movies so many times, the scene where the guy opens the briefcase and sees all the cash. In fact the bulk of the negotiations for the sale of Stan’s Pizza had consisted of Stan and Marty hammering out exactly what kind of briefcase it would be while Wendell stared at his feet.
“I don’t want one of those soft-side things,” Stan had said.
“You mean like a messenger bag?” Marty had said.
“Right. Not that. There’s no lid on those.”
“Exactly. There’s just a flap.”
“Right. I don’t want a flap.”
“Right. You don’t want to unflap the money, with the briefcase vertical. You want the briefcase to be horizontal. You lay it down, unlatch it, and you lift the lid, and there’s your money, all lined up.”
“Exactly. Horizontal. With latches.”
“And it needs to be a hard lid.”
“Right. The whole briefcase has to be hard.”
Marty, having reached what he felt was a critical point in the negotiations, turned to his client and said, “Is that good with you, Wendell? A hard briefcase?”
Wendell was staring at his bare toes, half buried in the sand.
“What?” he said.
“Stan wants it to be a hard briefcase, with latches. No flap.”
“No flap?” said Wendell.
“Correct.”
Wendell, a man who had once personally caused the Dow-Jones industrial average to drop 247 points, stared at his toes a few seconds more and said, “Rocks are really hard.”
Marty and Stan nodded.
“But when you think about it,” said Wendell, “what is sand?”
Marty and Stan thought about it, but had no answer.
“Sand is tiny rocks,” said Wendell.
“Jesus Christ,” said Marty. “That’s true.”
“And sand is really soft,” said Wendell.
“He’s right,” said Marty.
Stan, not about to screw up his retirement, nodded in agreement.
“So, Wendell,” said Marty, getting back to the issue at hand. “About the briefcase.”
Wendell looked at him.
“Is hard good with you?” said Marty. “Instead of soft?”
Wendell stared at him for several seconds. “That’s exactly my point,” he said. “Hard and soft are the same thing.”
Marty chose to interpret this as a yes. He stuck his hand out to Stan and said, “Do we have a deal?”
“Hell yes,” said Stan.
At that point Wendell—who, despite being high as a weather satellite, still possessed an innate ability to get things done when a deal was on the line—had made the call to New York. Now they were just waiting for the cash. At least Stan was. Wendell Corliss, legendary financial visionary, was moving on.
“I like the name,” he was saying. “Stan’s Pizza.”
“Legally,” said Stan, “it’s Stan’s Pizza of Key Biscayne.”
Wendell nodded. “What would you think of this,” he said. “Stan’s Transglobal Pizza of Key Biscayne.”
“Transglobal?” said Stan.
“Transglobal,” said Wendell.
“The thing is,” said Stan, “it’s pretty much a Key Biscayne operation. Every now and then, somebody picks up a pie, takes it back over to Miami. Maybe even once or twice Broward. But I don’t think we get farther than Fort Lauderdale.”
“Yeah,” said Marty. “You don’t usually think of pizza as being global, let alone transglobal.”
Wendell looked at Marty. “Maybe that’s the problem,” he said.
“Whoa,” said Marty.
Mike Clark, standing nearby, listening in, was going crazy. What the hell was Corliss up to? It has to be something. Corliss was one of the financial world’s most brilliant strategists. He did not do things for no reason. He was seeing something here that Mike was not seeing. What was it?
Mike edged closer to the trio in the sand, cleared his throat.
“Wendell,” he said.
Wendell looked up. “Yes?”
“Um, you remember, back in the restaurant, you mentioned the possibility of my participating in this?”
“Yes,” said Wendell.
Several seconds passed awkwardly.
“You mentioned twenty-five percent,” said Mike.
“Yes.”
More awkward seconds.
“I was just wondering,” said Mike, “if that option is still open.”
Wendell looked at Stan, then Marty, then back up at Mike.
“I don’t think so, Mike,” he said. “I think we’re good.”
Mike couldn’t believe it. He, Mike Clark, whose name regularly appeared in Fortune magazine, who had been to the White House four times and once golfed with the president, was being turned down for a twenty-five percent interest in a pizza joint.
What the hell was happening?
Furious and frustrated, Mike spun and stalked away from the trio. He walked over to Marcia, who was still with the chanters, lying on her back in the sand between Greta Corliss and Banzan Dazu, all of them gazing upward, watching as a large cloud, which had been directly overhead, drifted away, revealing a night sky dense with stars.
“Shining star, come into view,” said Dazu. “Shine its watchful light on you.”
“Oh my God,” said Marcia. “That’s beautiful.”
“Thank you,” said Dazu modestly. He had good reason to be modest, as the lines he was taking credit for were lyrics from Earth, Wind & Fire’s funktastic 1975 hit “Shining Star,” which Dazu had promoted in the Philadelphia market back when his name was Norman Cochran.
Mike leaned over Marcia and said, “I’m going back to the room.”
“OK,” said Marcia.
“So let’s go.”
“I’m staying here.”
“You’re not coming?”
“Could you move?” said Marcia. “You’re blocking the stars.”
“You’re a shining star,” said Dazu. “No matter who you are.”
“Oh my God,” said Marcia.
“I don’t believe this,” said Mike, straightening up. He turned and started trudging up the beach toward the hotel, Castronovo and Brewer following. Behind him, Mike could hear Wendell and his two new friends laughing.
Mike reached the wooden walkway leading up to the hotel lawn. Three men were coming down. The ones in front and back were large, the one in the middle was carrying an attaché case—hard-sided, with latches.
Mike watched the men pass, then started up the walkway. A minute later, as he was crossing the back lawn, he heard a joyous whoop from the beach, the sound of a man who had just opened a lid and found a glorious, father-in-law-free future.
22
Tina had gotten as far as the bar in the hotel lobby. She’d intended to go to her room but decided she’d have a glass of wine to help her sleep.
She found an empty table and sat down. A waiter appeared immediately, as waiters always did when Tina entered an establishment. She looked at the wine list and selected a glass of the most expensive sauvignon blanc. The waiter bustled off.
Tina glanced around and saw men at the bar noticing her, as men always did. She knew from experience that eventually several of them would offer to buy her a drink and she would have to rebuff their advances. This did not concern her. She was an excellent rebuffer. And although she would never admit it to anyone, she took pleasure in the power that her looks gave her over men.
Her wine came; she sipped it, enjoying the temporary solitude, thinking about the next day, her wedding day, mentally running down her checklist. All was going well, she decided. The rehearsal dinner had ended a bit weirdly—her mom was not the kind of person to lie on the beach in dress clothes—but Tina had decided the strange behavior could be explained by the wine. Aside from that, everything appeared to be going smoothly, now that Seth had agreed to deal with the ridiculous situation with the people in his room.
She frowned, thinking of her confrontation with Seth. She’d been troubled by his reaction when she told him the Haitians had to go—the way he brought up the time she got arrested on the way to the Giants game, throwing that in her face. As if he was saying she didn’t care about the Haitians. Of course she cared about the Haitians. She was infinitely more aware of the plight of undocumented immigrants than Seth could ever hope to be. She had marched in rallies, for God’s sake. But there was a time and a place, and this was neither. This was her wedding. And instead of understanding that, Seth had challenged her, almost lectured her. That bothered Tina. That was a side of Seth she hadn’t seen. She would have to keep an eye on that.
The waiter approached and said, “The gentleman at the bar would like to buy you a drink.”
Tina glanced toward the bar and saw him smiling at her—good-looking, in a Latin way, but not her type. She gave him the barest of smiles, a smile that said I understand, but: In your dreams. “Please tell the gentleman thank you but no.”
“Of course,” said the waiter, backing away.
Tina went back to thinking about Seth. She sincerely believed he was the right choice for her. He was good-looking and funny, a nice guy, a thoughtful and sensitive lover. He wasn’t well educated, but he was smart enough. And unlike the many highly educated guys who had pursued her—and who would have made her parents much happier—Seth was not obsessed with succeeding.
This suited Tina perfectly. She had dated enough high-achieving, self-worshipping Law Review assholes to know she did not want to be in a relationship with an ambitious man. She had more than enough ambition for two, with a detailed plan mapped out in her mind for a career as a humanitarian and leader of causes. She would be the achiever in her relationship. Seth’s role would be as supporter, sounding board, confidant. Some day, at a banquet honoring her for some prestigious award—she had pictured this in her mind more than once—she would dance with Seth, the two of them on the floor looking great, everybody else watching, and the song playing would be “Wind Beneath My Wings,” and she would kiss him, and everyone would agree that they were a terrific couple, perfect for each other. She would make a gracious speech about how she could never have done it without him. Everybody would cry.
Tina believed that Seth, on some level, shared her vision for their future; that he understood and accepted his subordinate role as the price he willingly paid for a prize so many other men wanted, namely, her. She was also confident that, once they were married, he would swallow his pride and leave his stupid tweeting job for some position set up by her father. In time they would have children—beautiful, smart, exceptional children—and Seth would be busy with his duties as father. He would be a good father. He would be deeply involved with his family, and as a couple they would make new friends. Seth would drift apart from Marty and Kevin and Big Steve, who were entertaining enough in their way, but losers, not suitable for the long term.
The waiter, looking apologetic, approached again. “I’m sorry to bother you,” he said, “but there’s another gentleman at the bar who would like to buy you a drink.”
Tina glanced over and saw another smiling man, even handsomer than the first, raising a glass hopefully, looking at Tina the way men did, letting her know she could get them to do anything she wanted them to do, anything.
“Tell him no thank you,” said Tina, turning away. She took a last sip of wine, signed the check and rose to leave.
She had reached the doorway when she saw Seth on the far side of the lobby, emerging from the hallway that led to the elevators.
He was with a woman. It was the same woman she’d seen him with the night before when he’d also been with that hideous man with the snake. But the snake man wasn’t here now, just this woman. She was still wearing the tight, short, low-cut dress she’d been wearing the night before. She was pretty enough—Tina wouldn’t say beautiful—and she seemed to be in decent shape, although a bit too meaty for Tina’s sensibilities.
As Tina watched, Seth and the woman went out the front door. Tina took a few steps into the lobby so she could see through the doorway. Seth and the woman stood by the driveway, waiting, for about a minute. A pimped-out black Cadillac Escalade pulled up, bass thumping. Seth and the woman got in, Seth driving. The Escalade pulled away.
Tina, in shock, stood utterly still, trying to come up with an explanation. No good one came to mind. She found it almost impossible to believe that Seth would be cheating on her—on her—on the night before their wedding, especially with a cheap-looking woman like that. But why would he have left the hotel with her? Where would they be going?
She took her phone out of her purse and dialed Seth’s number. She got voice mail. She hung up and thought some more about what she’d seen. She still had no explanation, at least no acceptable one. The more she thought about it, the unhappier she got.
Maybe it had something to do with the Haitians. Tina turned that over in her mind. Seth had promised he’d get them out of his suite. She assumed he’d done so, but now, suddenly, she wanted to know for sure.
Walking quickly, she crossed the lobby, went to the elevators, rode up to Seth’s floor. She marched down the hallway to his suite door and pressed the doorbell button.
Thirty seconds later, the door was opened by LaDawne.
“Can I help you?” she said in an unhelpful tone.
Tina looked past LaDawne’s massive form. She saw Wesley on the sofa with Stephane next to him. Laurette walked into the room, carrying the baby.
“What are you people doing here?” said Tina.
“You people?” said LaDawne.
“Yes. What are you doing in this room?”
“Who the hell are you?”
“I’m the fiancée of the person who’s the registered guest in this room. And you people have no business being here.”
“Well, then, maybe you need to talk to your fiancé,” said LaDawne. “Because he knows we people are here and he said it’s fine with him.”
“I don’t believe you,” said Tina.
LaDawne stepped closer. “Are you calling me a liar?”
Tina did not back up. “I guess I am.”
“Then I’m calling you a skinny-ass bitch,” said LaDawne, slamming the door.
Tina stared at the door for several seconds, her eyes suddenly burning, her brain not believing this was happening. People simply did not, ever, slam a door in the face of Tina Clark. She turned and ran back down the hallway to the elevators. She punched the down button furiously, over and over, until an elevator came. She rode it down to the lobby, tears streaming down her face.
The doors opened. Standing there, waiting for the elevator, was Mike Clark. Behind him loomed Castronovo and Brewer.
Mike looked at Tina�
��s anguished face, held out his arms as she stumbled toward him.
“Baby,” he said, his voice a mixture of concern and fury. “Tell Daddy what’s wrong.”
23
It took a lot of experimentation, but Seth and Cyndi had finally managed to subdue both the video and audio systems in Wesley’s Escalade. They now rode in welcome silence, the windows down, letting the cool and salty night sea air flow through the car.
“I really appreciate you going with me to do this,” said Seth. “After we get the suitcase, I can drop you off at your house, if you want.”
“No, I’ll come back, if that’s OK,” said Cyndi. “At this point I really want to see they’re OK. I feel kind of, like, responsible for them, you know?”
“Yeah,” said Seth.
“It was really nice what you did, letting them stay.”
Seth nodded. “I just hope Tina feels the same way.”
“I’m sure she will.”
“The thing is, I told her I’d tell them to leave. She’s really not happy, me having all these people around, the distraction. But when I saw Laurette walking out the door, with those two kids, me sitting in that big suite . . .”
“I know. You did the right thing. And Tina will understand. I know she has to be a good person or you wouldn’t be marrying her.”
“Yeah.”
They rode for a while in silence, which was broken by Cyndi.
“This whole thing is making me think,” she said.
“About . . .”
“About me. What I’m doing with my life. Like, I’m almost embarrassed about how you met me.”
Seth frowned, trying to remember. It seemed like decades ago. He smiled when it came to him. “At the Clevelander,” he said. “The Miss Hot Amateur Bod contest!”
Cyndi put her face in her hands. “I can’t believe I did that. And I didn’t even win.”
“Hey,” he said, “I’d have given you first place.”
Cyndi blushed. “Thanks, but that was stupid. I’m too old to be out there getting drunk and acting like that. I think maybe it’s because of what happened with my marriage, my husband cheating on me . . . Like, I have to prove it wasn’t my fault, that I can still look good.”