Miami Midnight

by Davis, Maggie;

  The box fan in the window whirred noisily, sucking in the moist night air from the bay. The bedsheets were sticky and burdensome. Finally, after tossing and turning for a good part of an hour, she threw the cover back and lay there with her old batiste nightgown pulled up to her hips, one arm thrown over her eyes.

  Time seemed interminable in the breathless dark. Gaby rolled over and looked at the luminous dial of the bedside clock. It was quarter to four.

  Groaning, she got up and crossed the Spanish tile floor that was delightfully cool to her bare feet, then closed the blinds so the light of the full moon wouldn’t fall across her bed. As she stretched out again she told herself, Stop thinking about poor old Jupiter.

  The restless exhaustion was like a fever. Sometimes it seemed her body would never adjust to being back home again, to Florida’s humid heat. But Italy had been almost as hot, she thought fretfully. What was the matter with her?

  Voodoo. Santería.

  She rolled over onto her stomach. The blood in her temples was throbbing. When she closed her eyes it was strong enough to make the whole darkened room vibrate. Like hearing one’s own heart thrumming and pumping, magnified a thousand times.

  Gaby knew in some curious way she’d fallen asleep. She was back in Florence, in her room in the pensione on the Via Strattore, above the street where the little Vespa motor scooters always woke her in the morning with their popping and thundering. Motorbike engines had that same pounding beat.

  She knew, after a while, that she was lying in someone’s arms and he was holding her tightly. His body was muscular and warm, his satiny skin irresistibly sensual, but his heart was beating so loudly that she tried to pull away from him. Every inch of her reacted to the feel of that desirous power, the hard pressure of him against her. There was such a desperation in him, a sense of need, that it frightened her. He wanted her. She knew that without being told.

  Whoever he was, he held her as though he would never let her go, so close, so desiring, she felt the warmth of his breath against her lips. That terrible desperation that she sensed in him grew, and with it her fear. No one could want, could need someone else as fatally as this! A smothering, breathless feeling of pure panic attacked her again.

  No, she cried out soundlessly as she struggled.

  Suddenly a strange roaring that seemed to come from a leaping ring of fire burst into the dream. The sound crashed through her, overriding the measured sound of her heartbeat, a skull-bursting scream. A dazzling flickering like lightning. The shriek of violently compressed air.

  It brought Gaby awake, bolt upright in bed, a barely stifled scream on her lips.

  She was home, she realized, shaking. In her own bedroom. She was wringing wet. Bright slivers of moonlight spilled through the blinds and across the sheets. What had she been doing dreaming of Florence, she wondered groggily, of motor scooters? Of someone who wanted her, with arms like steel bands that wouldn’t let her go? Of something that screamed like airplane jet engines?

  Then she listened. The hot dark night quivered faintly. It was not the wind, nor a window fan. Nor the refrigerator downstairs. But it was there, thrumming in the walls.

  She swung her feet over the edge of the bed and padded out into the hall, the gallery above the sala grande. She was following the strange beating, drumming sensation that seemed to hang in the sultry air.

  Down below, David was sleeping on the couch. She could make out the tumbled white sheets and the shape of his big body in the moonlight.

  Shivering, her arms wrapped around her, she tried to tell herself that she’d had a nightmare. But if she’d been dreaming, why did that mesmerizing half sound, half mental throbbing go on, now that she was awake?

  There was a scent, too, stronger here in the gallery. Burnt wood, green jungle. Sunshine. Hot, pungent cooked food.

  She saw David stir, open his eyes, and look straight up into the darkness. In one abrupt, catlike movement he slid from the couch and to his feet. He wore his jeans, his upper body gleaming bare and muscular. He slowly turned to gaze up at her as though he’d known where to look, perhaps even whom to look for, there in the middle of the night.

  Gaby stared down at him. There was a gleam, almost forbidding, in his shadowed eyes. She knew how she appeared to him at the gallery railing, in a ragged old nightgown, her hair drifting around her shoulders, bathed in the light of the bright full moon.

  The faint throbbing like jungle drums enveloped them. The scent grew stronger, evoking tropical islands and the sea. And hot, baking landscapes. With a thrill of fear Gaby knew that David heard it, smelled it, too.

  “David,” she whispered. The vast room echoed her words. “This has nothing to do with the Escuderos. It’s directed toward me, isn’t it?”

  He didn’t have to answer. She could see from his expression that she was right.

  Chapter 8

  The bumper sticker on the car ahead had a picture of the Stars and Stripes and read: WOULD THE LAST AMERICAN TO LEAVE MIAMI PLEASE BRING THE FLAG?

  Crissette swung the newspaper’s rental car onto Miami Beach’s thoroughfare, Collins Avenue. “I haven’t seen one of those stickers in a long time,” she said, “but I’m not surprised. Anti-latino feeling just doesn’t lie down and die in this town. It’s not only rednecks, either. The black community has a lot of problems with Hispanics, too.”

  Gaby stared out the window at the renovated hotels and apartment buildings of the Miami Beach National Historical District. It might seem presumptuous to declare “historic” the area that stretched north on Collins Avenue, an improbable vista of 1940’s lavender, pastel pink, lime green and baby blue. But the Beach had done it, and immortalized its garish art deco buildings. “Maybe there’s just too many Latin Americans,” she said thoughtfully, “for one city to absorb.”

  Crissette shook her head. “Hey, latinos work hard and believe in the American Dream—like all of us used to, once. And not,” she added, “like this cat we’re going to interview this morning, General Rodolfo Bachman, the South American politician-you-most-love-to-hate.” She shook her head again. “I’ll bet you the Times-Journal is going to get a bunch of hate mail just for interviewing him.”

  “His wife,” Gaby corrected her, staring through the windshield as a hotel in beige and magenta with chrome trim flashed by. “I’m going to interview Señora Bachman about her shopping trip and the clothes she bought here, not the general.”

  General Rodolfo Bachman was notorious for torture of political prisoners under his country’s past regimes. But he was admired, unfortunately, by a good number of right-wing U.S. congressmen. When the general stayed at the Fontainebleau Hilton Miami Beach, his party took up two hotel floors and included half a hundred aides, staffers, and bodyguards.

  Gaby looked at her wristwatch. “Crissette, we’re running awfully late.”

  The photographer promptly stepped down on the gas pedal. “Don’t worry, honey. This fascist pig is running on ‘Latin time.’ Ten o’clock sharp means ten-thirty or maybe eleven o’clock, depending on how long it takes everybody to eat breakfast and get dressed, do a couple of tangos, and watch the señora put on her jewelry.”

  Gaby’s interview with Señora Constanza Bachman had nothing to do with politics. The Times-Journal wanted a fashion story on Señora Bachman’s annual spending spree in Miami. Midsummer in the northern hemisphere was, in South America, the depths of winter. In July and August thousands of South Americans descended on Miami to enjoy the warm weather and shop for bargains in malls and department stores. Jack Carty had decided an interview with the general’s wife was well worth doing, if only to have on file. Just as it would have been worthwhile doing a story on Evita Perón in her heyday.

  “Good Lord,” Gaby cried suddenly, “what is that?”

  They were driving straight down Collins Avenue toward a gigantic marble Greco-Roman archway flanked by towering, vaguely Egyptian female statues that straddled the thoroughfare. Gaby couldn’t ever remember seeing anything like t
hat in Miami Beach.

  Through the four- or five-story gateway could be seen the curving white bulk of the Fontainebleau Hilton Miami Beach and its famous swimming pool. Built to resemble the Blue Grotto of Capri, it even boasted an outsize artificial waterfall. Over the Fontainebleau in a typically azure blue Miami Beach sky floated two white puffy clouds.

  Gaby gasped and clutched the dashboard with both hands as Crissette abruptly wheeled the rental car to the left. They passed the gigantic arch instead of going under it. The car doglegged a sharp right and drove up into the driveway of the real Fontainebleau Hilton and stopped.

  Crissette turned and grinned at her. “I didn’t think you’d seen the famous fool-the-eye mural. There’s no archway there. It’s a fake, painted on the side of the building.”

  It was, Gaby realized, a giant trick in Day-Glo colors just where Collins Avenue took a sudden left northward. It had looked exactly as though they were going to drive straight through. “Good heavens, how big is that thing, anyway?”

  “I don’t know, a couple of hundred feet maybe. It was Steve Muss, the hotel man’s, idea.” Crissette turned the car over to the Fontainebleau’s uniformed parking attendant and unloaded her cameras from the trunk. “Hotel developers are into a campaign to make the Beach look like fun again. Kitsch was always high art out here. This is sort of the big bang, a gigantic mural art out here. This is sort of the big bang, a gigantic mural on Collins Avenue.”

  Gaby followed Crissette through the Fontainebleau’s crowded reception area. The garden side of the hotel was still as she remembered it, but the old lobby was now a vast room with a bar and lounge that overlooked the famous Blue Grotto swimming pool, palm garden, and artificial waterfall—just as the gigantic trompe l’oeil mural on Collins Avenue depicted it. The place was packed with noisy, expensively dressed, vacationing Venezuelans, Chileans, Argentinians, and even a number of Portuguese-speaking Brazilians.

  “We go to the Dining Galleries,” Crissette said, and steered Gaby in the direction of the hotel’s premier restaurant.

  The interview had been set up for breakfast at the not unusual hour, for South Americans, of ten A.M. But Gaby hadn’t expected to find the general’s party had commandeered the entire restaurant. A pair of muscular bodyguards in military uniforms were at the oak doors.

  Crissette pushed Gaby ahead. “Estamos aquí,” she announced. “El Miami Times-Journal, dudes. Open the door!”

  The paramilitary guards looked over the black photographer in a lime silk jumpsuit and high heels, her camera bag slung over one shoulder, and registered monolithic impassiveness. “Identificación,” one uttered, not moving his lips. “Carnet.”

  Gaby fumbled in her pocketbook for her press pass, but Crissette demanded loudly, “Are you kidding, Jack? For a bunch of you cats in your country maybe, but no aquí!”

  With an imperious sweep of her arm Crissette reached between both men and grabbed the doorknob of the big oak doors. Fortunately, the doors opened inward.

  Over her shoulder she ordered, “Let’s move it out quick, Gabrielle.”

  Gaby scurried after her, holding her breath. But Crissette’s breezy authority had gotten them through. The guards only stared, open-mouthed.

  They paused at the top of the steps to the restaurant. The Dining Galleries’ decor was plum-colored velvet, with imitation Louis XV furniture and outsize crystal chandeliers. Each mauve damask-covered table was set for lunch, with massive two-foot-tall silver epergnes brimming with real fruit and tropical flowers. Life-size bronze statues of Greek and Roman gods and goddesses stood knee-deep in living greenery at points around the room.

  At a large table littered with the remains of an extensive breakfast, the whole Bachman family waited expectantly: General Rodolfo Bachman in a spectacular gold, red, and green dress uniform holding a croissant and a cup of coffee; and beside him a small, plump woman in a gorgeous Christian La Croix turquoise chiffon cocktail dress with silver sequins. Standing around the general and his wife were secretaries and aides. Beyond them were at least twenty uniformed bodyguards. At the center of this picturesque group were half a dozen well-dressed children, including a toddler playing with an empty silver creamer on the restaurant’s purple carpeting, and a surly-looking teenager wearing a T-shirt with a picture of a silver Rolls-Royce on the front. The Rolls’s headlights were red glass, battery operated, and blinked on and off, nonstop.

  “Jeez,” Crissette said under her breath.

  The Bachmans beamed at them happily. Crissette and Gaby stared back.

  This was supposed to be, Gaby reminded herself, only an interview on what clothes the general’s wife had bought this trip, but it looked like a state-of-the-union press conference. She felt her knees buckling with apprehension.

  Just then a totally unknown emotion seized her. Gaby was aware that she couldn’t go on like this any longer, being scared to death, immobilized by her own feelings of inadequacy. Crissette was looking at her with a concerned but impatient expression that said she might as well get her act together. Or quit.

  Gaby knew at some point she had to stop expecting the worst of herself. Right now dozens of dark, gleaming South American eyes were fixed on her, waiting.

  Conscious of Crissette watching, Gaby squared her shoulders.

  The interview, Jack Carty confirmed later, was just one of those things reporters encounter every once in a while. The general treated his wife’s fashion interview as though it were intended for world circulation. All that was missing were the television cameras. For the first time so far in her newspaper career, Gaby wasn’t hamstrung by self-consciousness. The Bachmans were so strange, at least by American standards, it probably didn’t matter how she wrote them up.

  An interpreter, a slender, nervous young woman who spoke perfect idiomatic English, introduced herself. While Crissette set up her tripod Gaby perched on the edge of a purple velvet chair with her notepad in her lap, smiling determinedly. It was the only thing to do. The entire group was beaming back at her.

  “Señora Bachman is very happy you want to interview her,” the interpreter said, leaning over Gaby’s shoulder. “Reporters usually only interview the general.”

  Gaby had to admit there was something very impressive about the Bachmans. The general might be a despotic military-political threat in his home country, but he was undeniably a big family man. When his youngest grabbed him around the knees and drooled on his impeccable trouser leg, the general picked up the baby and held him in his arms while he wiped the child’s face with a mauve napkin. The teenage son, leering at Gaby lasciviously, jumped to respectful attention when his father spoke to him. And little Señora Bachman, tightly squeezed into her elegant La Croix pouf, beamed on Gaby as though she were making a lifelong dream come true.

  “I’d like to start,” Gaby told the interpreter, “by asking Señora Bachman her favorite places to shop in Miami.”

  “Señora Bachman has been to Rive Gauche at Bal Harbour and Martha’s,” the interpreter said promptly. “Señora Bachman also goes up to Worth Avenue in Palm Beach at least once to shop.” Aides had started displaying boxes, packages, and shopping bags with expensive boutique labels.

  “Señora Bachman,” the interpreter went on, “is very discriminating. She likes Cardin and Dior.” The aides held up an evening gown and a sweater suit. “Also Lenox china and crystal.” A secretary dove for another box. “And also shoes from Gucci which is in—” The interpreter consulted a card. “The Trump Plaza of the Palm Beaches.”

  Speechless, Gaby wrote it all down. From time to time the plump little señora broke in to proudly tell the price of her acquisitions. If the señora was telling the truth, and Gaby had no doubt she was, the cost of her purchases sounded like the national budget.

  Gaby had counted at least eight offspring milling around, and she couldn’t help thinking the general’s wife probably deserved a hobby. “The señora’s wearing a Christian La Croix, isn’t she?” she asked.

  “Oh, yes,” the
interpreter said. “Señora Bachman prefers only the best, the most expensive, the most exclusive fashions. She shops with exquisite taste.” She raised her voice because the señora was interrupting, waving her hands and shaking her head violently.

  “Señora Bachman wants to say something,” Gaby pointed out.

  The señora spoke rapidly, while the interpreter put in a word or two. The general interrupted, obviously displeased. Everyone stopped smiling.

  Gaby watched in astonishment as the general launched into a lengthy complaint. He actually stamped up and down the restaurant, shouting. The bodyguards looked uneasy. The plump señora pursed her lips, her back straight, looking stubborn. The interpreter pleaded with them both.

  The señora, Gaby saw, was the winner. Everyone started smiling happily again.

  The interpreter sighed. “Señora Bachman wants you to know,” she said, “that above everything else...” She looked as though she could hardly bring herself to say it. “The señora’s biggest favorites are K Mart.” She made a little strangling sound. “And Toys-R-Us.”

  When Gaby arrived for lunch at the French restaurant at the top of the Brickell Banking Tower, Dodd was already at his table. He stood up to greet her, then froze, surprise clear in his eyes.

  “Am I late?” she asked breathlessly. “It looks like I’m going to spend my day in restaurants.” She slid into the chair the maître d’ held for her. “I’ve just come from the wackiest interview at the Fontainebleau, I still don’t believe it. All I can hope is those people don’t manage to overthrow the Argentinian government.”

  Dodd stared at her, napkin still clutched in his hands. Finally he signaled the waiter to bring them their menus and sat back down. “Gaby,” he managed, “what have you done to yourself? You look—you look so completely different.” His face showed a stunned admiration. “My God, you’re incredibly lovely.”

  Gaby, caught up in the hurry of the Bachman interview that morning, had almost forgotten. The restaurant on the twenty-fourth floor of the Brickell Tower was surrounded by two-way mirror glass. She had only to turn her head to see her reflection: her hair cut considerably shorter, barely shoulder length, sparked with coppery highlights from the rinse she’d let herself be talked into in the Mayfair Mall salon.