The Second Letter

by Robert Lane

  I got dumped in favor of a directionally challenged insurance agent. It was not a good day for my libido.

  I settled next to Morgan in my screened porch.

  “Have you ever gotten up and approached the day quietly?” he asked. Morgan’s ideal morning was posturing himself cross-legged at the end of his pier commencing a half hour before sunrise and lasting forty-five minutes. I joined him once, but it just wasn’t right. I never did it again.

  We were sitting on my porch as a great blue heron stalked the grassy waters in front of my wall. A great white egret landed too close, and despite their shared ancestry, the heron emitted its primitive guttural call warning its distant cousin to stay clear. It was low tide and the sea grass was laid down like wet noodles.

  “You mean?” I asked.

  “Not burn a thousand calories before breakfast.”

  “I’ve had days like that, but I don’t see the point.”

  “I suppose not. What do you think when you hit it?”

  “You assume too much.”

  “I assume nothing.”

  “You’d be disappointed. Most of the time, I’m just trying to knock that shit-ass grin off the bag.”

  “And how’s that coming?”

  “Not real well, actually.” At that moment the heron jabbed at the water and came up with a small fish. “Good morning for the bird.”

  “Bad morning for the fish,” he said. It was our usual commentary when we witnessed life exchanging life in the sea—God’s refrigerator for the world. I conducted my usual scan of the paper for sunrise, sunset, and tide schedules.

  “I’m going to the hardware store today, pick you up anything?” Morgan asked.

  “Toilets, doors, hinges, windows, light fixtures, and sympathy for slow people in check-out lanes that are the root of the world’s problems, except for the assholes who wait until after they receive the total from the cashier to start writing out their check—they deserve a slow, tortuous death along with drivers who do only the speed limit in the left interstate lane.”

  “I was thinking more like light bulbs.”

  “I’m good.”

  He left out the side door and walked across the lawn in front of the water and up to his house. A fifty-foot white cruiser with dark tinted windows came by and threw its wake up on my low-tide beach, and the great blue heron was airborne just before the tsunami hit.

  Kathleen called a few hours later.

  “Pleasure palace. May I have your customer loyalty number please?” I said when I saw it was her.

  “You can have my number, but loyalty is a separate package,” she said.

  “What can I do to secure your loyalty?”

  “You assume loyalty can be secured?”

  “Someone told me this morning that they assume nothing.”

  “Mornings with Morgan?”

  “I think I read that.”

  “And what did you learn?” she asked.

  “That if you’re a fish stay well under the surface of the water.”

  “And what else?”

  “Try as I might, I can’t kill myself by running.”

  “My, our Johnny’s having a good day in the classroom.”

  “It’s Jake, remember? Why don’t you come over and we’ll have recess together?”

  “Why don’t you pick me up at seven? Sophia invited us over to their house for dinner. She said Raydel was eager to meet you again. It’s OK, isn’t it, seeing Escobar socially again? I told her I’d get back to her after I talked with you.”

  “Recess. Are there sweeter words to a schoolboy’s ears?”

  “Shall I tell her we’ll be there?”

  I thought of my conversation with Kittredge. It appeared everything was proceeding according to plan.

  “Tell her we shall be delighted.”

  “You sure it doesn’t complicate your plan?” she asked again.

  “My plan is to hear your voice, feel your touch, and lick the ocean’s salt off your skin as we walk the solitary beaches of the world.”

  “Oh dear. You serve that up at ten thirty in the morning?”

  “You have no idea.”

  “Oh, but I do,” she said with sincerity, and I realized I wasn’t the only one with volcanic passions.

  “Seven?”

  “Yes, and Jake?”

  “Yes, ma’am?”

  “Be here at six.”

  She disconnected.

  Zip-a-dee-doo-dah.

  I was at her house at 5:30 and let myself in.

  “I’m here for recess,” I announced.

  “Time already?” She stood in her kitchen surrounded with the plastic remnants of a grocery store trip.

  “I never was good at that whole time thing.”

  “Let me guess, you’re going to tell me what you’re good at.”

  “Show. Never tell.”

  My oh my, what a wonderful day.

  Afterward, as cartoon bluebirds flirted around the sky, I poured the remains of a bottle of chardonnay into two glasses. She kept hers in the bedroom. I sliced several pieces of hard Parmesan cheese from a block I found in the top tray of her refrigerator, wolfed down a handful of stale salted cashews halves, and ventured into the air so thick that it nearly pushed me back inside. I sat in the partial shade of her covered porch and angled the poolside umbrella to block the fierce, retiring Florida sun that ate up shadows in its quest to catch me. I like Florida in the summer. I like predictable mornings. I like an atmosphere that assaults my senses and is a mixture of salt water and air and creates its own seductive element that is neither liquid nor gas. An atmosphere so dense that it lowers my average miles-per-gallon when my angry V-8 eats it up. If it weren’t for the unrelenting hot and muggy summer days, there’d be another ten million people in the state. If God’s gifts to the world are the seas, his gift to Florida is summer.

  Kathleen joined me without comment, and her essence made the air around me different. Out on the Gulf, heavy air convulsed into a thunderstorm. In the summer, the heat relentlessly rose until it was released by the ecstasy of lightning followed by shuddering thunder and the torrential relief of rain. The earth masturbating daily like an oversexed seventeen-year-old schoolboy. Reload and fire. Reload and fire. The sound traversed the open water like cannons from a distant war.

  “I hope it stays out there. Sophia mentioned eating outside this evening,” she said.

  “It’s moving away, about ten miles off the coast now. We’ll be fine.”

  “How can you tell it’s ten miles? I can’t tell two miles from ten looking over the water.”

  “Take the seconds between the lightning and the thunder and divide by five. It’s a rough estimate of the miles.”

  “I see.” Her interest had waned, but I plowed ahead.

  “The formulas are crude calculates of the massive disparity in the speed. The sound of thunder moves at 768 miles per hour, although temperature and humidity will affect that. One mile in five seconds. Light scoots along at 186,282 miles per second. It just hauls ass compared to sound.”

  “Speed’s not everything,” she said, apparently finding something in the subject that brought her back. “The thunder might be slow, but what it lacks in zip it makes up with punch. You can feel it rolling the earth and rattling the windows.”

  She took my last cut of cheese. Really? I wish she hadn’t done that. No matter how much I slice, it is never enough.

  “I’ll concede the feeling, but it’s misleading. The thunder is the sound of lightning, the rapid expansion of the air surrounding the bolt causing a sonic shock wave. Once the bolt strikes the damage is done, the die is cast. Thunder is a mere messenger, the god Thor, letting us know the heavens have unleashed a 54,000-Fahrenheit-degree bolt of electricity.”

  “Named ‘Thursday’ after him, I believe,” Kathleen said.

  “Your beliefs are right.”

  “You didn’t really say ‘rough estimate,’ did you?”

  “I did. In the future I’l
l stick to smooth estimates.”

  “But not in the past?”

  “Just testing you. Are we done with English?” I asked.

  “Are we done with science?”

  “We were never discussing science.”

  Kathleen said, “No. I suppose we weren’t. You could have just said, ‘Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it is lightning that does the work.’”

  “You knew all along,” I said with deference.

  “I did. But you were rolling.”

  “The quote?” I asked.

  “Twain.”

  “We haven’t spent much time with him.”

  “Nor he with us.”

  “His loss. You know, Clemens was a great fisherman.”

  “You don’t say.” She had only taken a bite out of the cheese and waved the remainder in her hand like a cruel tease. Typical broad—totally oblivious to her power.

  I paused a second, for it was one of my favorites, and then said, “When you fish for love, bait with your heart, not your brain.”

  She hummed and closed the note with a sip of chardonnay. I thought about what I had just said. Was I over thinking Twain’s guidance? Sometimes my brain wanted one life while my heart yearned for another. But I run from heavy thoughts like an antelope being chased by a lioness with hungry cubs.

  “I like your dress,” I said. It was September red, faded by the summer sun. “You’ve worn it before, haven’t you?”

  “No. It’s actually new. This is its inaugural voyage.”

  Where had I seen the color? The portrait of Dorothy Harrison. Why, of all things, did my mind hold onto that?

  I informed her on the way to Escobar’s that with a little cooperation from him, I would emerge victorious with the letter. We were a fashionable fifteen minutes late when the tires of her bronze Lexus convertible came to a stop on Escobar’s driveway. Sophia spilled from the front door like the house couldn’t contain her any longer and hugged Kathleen as if the Lexus had delivered life itself.

  We followed her into the foyer where she informed me that Raydel was partaking of a drink by the pool. She asked me what would please me. I said realistic public pension assumptions would be nice. Kathleen gave me that look and I told Sophia that I would greet Escobar first and get a libation with him.

  He sat on a high stool at his varnished bar. He stood as I approached and we shook hands.

  “Mr. Travis,” he said, punctuating the syllables.

  “Mr. Escobar,” I punctuated back.

  He walked around behind the bar. “What would you like?”

  “A beer would be swell.”

  “Preference?”

  “Cold.”

  He opened the full-size refrigerator and slid a La Tropical down the bar to me. “I thought Castro shut these guys down right after the revolution,” I said, and then took a thankful drink from the green bottle. Great Jehovah above, do I ever love mornings and early evenings. What are you supposed to do with the rest of the day?

  “Some guy in Miami got the rights. Supposedly as good as the original,” Escobar said.

  “Where’s your ponytailed friend?”

  “His name is Elvis.”

  “Not Boo-Boo?”

  “Pardon me?”

  “Nothing. After Graceland’s son?”

  “Ask him yourself one day.”

  “I might do that.”

  “You’ve caused me considerable difficulties, Mr. Travis.”

  “How is that?”

  “I think we both know. I understand you paid Kittredge an unsolicited visit.”

  Plan A rounding third and making for the plate. Fans heading for the exit to beat the traffic.

  “We conducted a brief conversation,” I said.

  “I still like my original plan.”

  “Which was?”

  “I hand over the letter and a seven-million-dollar debt goes away. You seem to be a resourceful fellow, why don’t you make that happen?”

  “I’m just here to see you throw some baby backs on the grill.”

  “Is it your job to be so annoying?”

  “My job is to retrieve the letter. Annoyance is a pro bono sidebar.”

  “Can you make it happen? It would be well worth your effort.”

  “I have no negotiating rights.”

  I didn’t care about his IRS dispute, but I wanted to know the contents of the letter. I wanted to discover what Dorothy Harrison and her CIA man were up to. The lady in the portrait mesmerized me, and for some reason I felt I was working for her just as much as I was for the colonel. It was a bullshit thought, but those are the ones you can’t ignore. I realized that neither Garrett nor Mary Evelyn had gotten back to me on Jim Harrison’s known associates and logged a mental note to bring it up again.

  “And if I decide to keep the letter?” Escobar asked.

  “My job is to retrieve the letter by whatever means I may wish to employ.”

  “You’re not threatening me, are you?”

  “Absolutely.”

  Escobar walked over to a wood table under an expansive red umbrella. The table held a tray of veggies and fresh fruit. Golf ball-sized strawberries crowded the center of the tray, which was a real shame as I’m allergic to them. Strawberries, not golf balls. He took a seat and torched a cigar. Reposed and confident. Like a silent lightning strike with thunder that came much later. I claimed a seat across from him.

  “Lisa gives her best, by the way.”

  “Lisa?”

  “Incredible dimples. Said you need to pay more attention to her or she’s going to become real close to your wife.”

  “You certainly get around. Shall I invite Sophia out here and you can tell her about Lisa? You think that scares me?”

  “I think Walter Mendis scares you, and if he doesn’t, you’re one dumb fucking Cuban.”

  It was a strong uppercut. It staggered the big bear. He blinked out of rhythm.

  “I think I can handle Mendis,” he said just before his silence revealed his discomfort.

  I leaned across the table. “If you’ve got to think about it, you can’t. Don’t try it, Raydel. He plays a different game than you. You can’t win this. Give me the letter and save your life.”

  He let out a nervous laugh. Addressing him by his first name and unexpectedly getting all serious and touchy with him was a good follow-up to the uppercut.

  “Why do you presume to know what’s best for me?” he asked.

  “I haven’t a clue what’s best for you. But I got a good idea what’s bad for you. You’re a strip club owner who caught a break. You let it go to your head like a lot of people—lucky to make money and dumb enough to spend it. Mendis is a different breed. He’ll take both you and Kittredge down and come clean through as if nothing happened. Guys like him do that for a living.”

  “I’ve been working with him for years. I know him a lot better than you do.”

  “Say it over and over and over. It’s weak and you know it.” I got up as I saw Kathleen and Sophia approach. “Say it like you mean it and you just might convince yourself. I’m not your enemy. You need a mirror for that.” I spilled it quickly to get it out before the ladies arrived.

  They were upon us like an incoming tide, bringing smiles and perfumes on a warm night. Kathleen held my eye for a second and then closed the moment with the slightest of smiles. That corner of her mouth, again. Those lines. They just launched me. Extreme passion. The dick-faced army shrink forgot the key word.

  Instant extreme passion.

  My emotions and obsessions, balanced on a fault line, are always a hair trigger away from exploding upon the world. Here’s all of me, you sons of bitches.

  “Dinner or another cocktail, Jake? What is your pleasure?” Sophia asked.

  I’d like to rip off Kathleen’s clothes, lay her softly on the edge of the pool so her hair floats in the water, and bury my face deep between her legs until she screams for Almighty God. Anybody got an issue with that?

  And I ha
d already blown my pipes. Made a deposit. Docked the boat.

  “Dinner would be dandy,” I said. Then, to help my thoughts move along, I added, “I was just regaling your husband with how much I admire the property and what a wonderful life he has created here.” She smiled from a happier place than where she really was. I suddenly felt sorry for her.

  Sophia put her arm around her Escobar. “It is a gorgeous spot, and it looks like we’re going to be lucky,” she said, giving the sky a glance.

  “Luck has a hand in everything.” I turned to Raydel. “But your husband has made astute, and correct, decisions. He treats luck with the disdain it deserves. That’s what we were discussing, wasn’t it? Making astute decisions.”

  Escobar’s eye held mine with a dull indifference. “That is correct. And no one is more qualified than the man who operates his business. But enough shop talk, let’s enjoy dinner as the two luckiest men on the west coast of Florida.”

  “I’ll second that.”

  We raised our drinks to the women in our lives. In the distance was a flash of lightning, but I never heard the thunder. We headed over to the dinner table, but not before I glanced longingly back at the edge of the pool, thinking that Kathleen never knew what might have been.

  After dinner, Olivia, who Sophia had introduced us to earlier and I recognized from the fund-raiser, cleared the table of the dessert dishes that held the remnants of key lime tart with a raspberry drizzle.

  “Thank you so much for having us over,” Kathleen said. “It was all so very good.”

  “I was afraid we’d have to eat inside,” Sophia said. “I much prefer the outside.”

  “As do we. We rarely eat inside,” Kathleen said.

  I asked Escobar, “How many outdoor speakers do you have?” It was the second time I’d heard her refer to us as “we” and wondered why it stuck in me.

  “I have eight surrounding the pool area.”

  “Who does this song?” Sophia asked. “I’ve heard you play it before.”

  Escobar said, “Brooklyn Bridge. ‘The Worst That Could Happen.’”

  “Are they still around?” Sophia asked.

  “I think so. Johnny Maestro is the singer. Johnny Mastrangelo. Another great New York Italian voice.”