Miami Midnight

by Davis, Maggie;

  “No, not a story,” she interrupted quickly. “This is personal.”

  He fastened his bright blue gaze on her. “You’re really going to get married?”

  Good heavens, not Jack Carty, Gaby thought with a start. He really hadn’t been joking about lunch. She didn’t know what to do. The realization that he truly was interested in her took her off guard. Now she was the one who mumbled something inaudible in reply.

  His gaze lingered on her face. After a while he said, “The state of Florida has a commission on corporations, a sort of overseer committee. But the easiest way is to go to the Dade County Courthouse and start looking in the land books. All owners are listed in alphabetical order, and by tract number and name, as city and county building licensees.”

  Gaby’s eyes widened. “So if you were buying up some Palm Island property...”

  He nodded. “Your corporation would be there.”

  Chapter 14

  The engagement party for Gaby and Dodd at the exclusive Everglades Club in Palm Beach had to be canceled when Dodd’s mother fell into a sand trap on the golf course at the Bal Harbour links and broke her leg.

  “I’ve never seen anything like it,” Dodd fumed. They were having dinner at Regine’s, the chic international club at the top of the Grand Bay Hotel in Coconut Grove, one of Dodd’s favorite spots. It was the first time Gaby had ever seen him so out of sorts. He’d sent back two bottles of wine and the maître d’ had finally brought a vintage bottle of Moët & Chandon as a peace offering. “It’s just incredible to have so many damned things screw up at one time,” he went on. “First the engagement announcement, then the jeweler gets that damned yellowish diamond on your engagement ring by mistake, and now mother’s accident.”

  Gaby couldn’t understand it, either. “I saw the proofs on the announcement. I checked them myself on Thursday and everything was all right then. I don’t know what could have happened.”

  “What happened,” he said grimly, “is that the population of greater Miami has been informed that you’re engaged to marry someone named shrdlu qwertyiuop. On every goddamned line where my name was supposed to be.”

  Gaby’s lips quivered, but she held back her laughter. Dodd had found it anything but funny. “It’s a printer’s error,” she said soothingly. “They tell me it’s not supposed to happen in electronic typesetting, but every once in a while it does. I’m really sorry about your mother, Dodd,” she added. “I called her at the hospital today, and she seemed to be in good spirits.”

  He signaled for the waiter to refill his glass with the Moët. “That’s the goddamndest thing too,” he grumbled. “Mother’s not clumsy, but the thing took her by surprise. Damned dog came bolting out of a clump of palm trees on the sixth tee by the sand trap and nearly bowled her over. Mother lost her balance and went right down into the hole.”

  Gaby put down her fork and stared at him. “You didn’t say it was a dog. You just said she fell into a sand trap.”

  “Didn’t I?” he said absently. “Big black one. Mother said it looked like a Labrador. Now, Mouse,” he said, seeing the look on her face, “we’ve been having some crazy run of bad luck, that’s all. Don’t start making any sort of connection.”

  “I wasn’t making any sort of connection. I haven’t said a word!”

  “Well, I knew if I mentioned a Labrador, it would dredge up all that business at the house and upset you.” He reached across the table and took her hand in his. “C’mon, honey, you can’t grieve forever for an old dog that was, after all, in pretty bad shape. In another year or so you would have had to put Jupiter to sleep.”

  Gaby managed to smile. Actually, the postponement of the engagement party until Dodd’s mother could walk again was a relief. For some perverse reason she was glad for the delay, when before she couldn’t move things fast enough. And it was one less thing she had to do in the next few weeks. Jack had assigned her to cover all the top retail stores in the greater metropolitan area as shops and boutiques began featuring fall fashions. She had been traveling from one end of Miami to the other in late summer thundershowers and killing heat, trying to do it all. Jack’s reasoning was that in the past the Times-Journal hadn’t adequately covered what were, after all, lucrative advertisers with fashion features. Now that Gaby was getting better at what she was doing, he wanted her to hit each one.

  To add to it, just as she had grown to depend on the help and friendship of Crissette Washington, Crissette had been transferred to the paper’s metropolitan news desk. The photographer assigned to fashion now was Harry Holstead, a veteran of the police beat. His fashion shots, unfortunately, showed that Harry hadn’t quite mastered the switch. Jack’s scathing observation after seeing some of Harry’s shots of Burdine’s was that Harry had an unhappy talent for making a fashion show look a lot like a police lineup.

  Gaby studied Dodd as he cut into his veal marengo with a dissatisfied air. How times have changed, she couldn’t help thinking. These days Dodd never asked her about her job, just when she was getting much better at it. He seemed to have forgotten about it with the upsets of the past week, especially the mix-up with a flawed stone for her engagement diamond. He was convinced fate was conspiring against them.

  “Mother’s compound fracture is pretty painful,” he said. “I think she’d appreciate a visit, Mouse. She’s at Palm Beach-Mount Sinai.” He paused, then added as an afterthought, “Where your mother is.”

  “Of course.” Inwardly, she groaned. Both her mother and Dodd’s were in the hospital at the same time. The past week had been bizarre.

  Dinner was strained, and Gaby was tired. Dodd took her home early. Then, at the front door, she clung to him, impulsively, overcome with a need for his comfort and reassurance. Dodd Brickell was the only man she’d ever loved, needed to love. She suddenly wanted to hear that everything was going to be all right. She needed to hear that he loved her, too.

  He seemed relieved at her unexpected display of affection. “Of course I love you, Mouse.” He put his arms around her and lowered his head to kiss her. But at the last moment Gaby turned her head away.

  As though nothing had happened, Dodd took the key from her hand and unlocked the door for her. “Things will be better in a few weeks, honey,” he said evenly. “Just hang in there. God knows I’m looking forward to getting you out of this damned house.” As he held the door open he said almost pleadingly, “Gaby, darling...”

  She knew what was on his mind. “I’m tired, Dodd,” she murmured, “but it’s been a wonderful evening.”

  Gaby knew she was acting badly, but she didn’t want to be alone with Dodd, even for a few minutes’ sexy kissing. At dinner he’d again brought up the matter of her staying in the house, and she didn’t want to argue any more about it. Nor the other subject, getting Jeannette’s power of attorney so the house could be sold.

  “Have I told you,” she said brightly, “I think I’ve got somebody to live in the garage apartment?”

  He looked glum. “Not a long-term arrangement, I hope.”

  “No, only temporary.” Dodd followed her into the hall while she turned on the lights. A steamy sprinkling of rain had been falling all evening and the shoulders of his yacht club blazer were damp, his thick fair hair beaded with moisture. He had never, she thought, looked more ruggedly handsome. And she couldn’t miss the silent appeal in his eyes.

  “Darling,” he murmured. He tried to nuzzle her hair. “We’re engaged, remember?”

  Gaby was certain Dodd would never pressure her. He was too conservative to come right out and say they were alone in the house, and that he wanted to make love to her. “Dodd, I love you,” she said gently. “But it’s late.”

  “Yes, I know, darling.” His hand brushed her cheek. “Have I told you how beautiful you are?” His voice deepened with desire. “Oh, Mouse, I want you so much.”

  “Dodd, with my mother in the hospital, your mother in the hospital...”

  He stepped back, his face in shadows. “And your job.
Yes, I know.”

  “Well, it is a lot to cope with.” Just give me time, she pleaded silently. Give me time to forget someone else! God knows I’m trying.

  He turned his head away, his shoulders hunching slightly. “This house has a damned musty smell,” he said abruptly. “The roof still leaks, doesn’t it?”

  “Everything leaks. Including the plumbing. What does it smell like?”

  “I can’t tell.” He looked back at her. “It’s not important. Who did you say is renting the garage apartment?”

  “Just somebody.” She took his arm and steered him toward the door. “In return for the rent he’s going to keep the place tidy, do all the yard work.”

  Dodd stopped at the open door. “He?”

  “A friend of a friend who works on the newspaper.”

  He was frowning now. “Gaby, I told you I’d be willing to pay for someone to—”

  To silence him, Gaby threw her arms around him and lifted her face to be kissed. With a groan Dodd crushed her to him, his mouth covering hers hungrily.

  It was one of the few times they’d kissed in the past week, and Dodd’s mouth was warm and fervent, the kiss everything it should have been. Gaby felt a sudden pang of regret for the lovemaking he so obviously wanted to give her. She started to tell him to close the door and come back inside.

  “It’s not a smell,” he said, lifting his head. “It’s something else.” He sniffed the air, puzzled. “Like the night you had the prowlers.” He let her go and stepped back. “Damn, I need to check this house every time I bring you home. Stupid of me to forget that.”

  He walked away, leaving her standing there, his footsteps echoing in the silent house as he crossed the sun room. She heard the back door slam, then the crackling sounds of underbrush being pushed out of the way as Dodd made a circuit of the outside pathway. When he returned to the front door, he said he’d found nothing.

  “I thought it might have been a dead rat smelling up the place,” he said as he gave her a brief, warm kiss good-bye. “Put it down on the list of things to do. Get this place fumigated before you sell it.”

  “Am I going to sell it?” she asked softly.

  He groaned. “Mouse, darling, try to give it some thought, will you? There’s no other way out for you. Or your mother. Selling this old place will just manage to bail you out as it is.”

  He gave her a final peck on the cheek before he turned and went back to his car.

  A few days later, as they were trying on their Vizcaya ball costumes at Robarts Rentals, Crissette told Gaby that David Fothergill had a job. He was working for a commercial garbage collection company in the city of Hallandale, north of Miami.

  “Another job off the books,” Crissette said sarcastically. “He called me and told me and wanted to take me someplace to celebrate getting a job, some Jamaican cheap food dump over in Hialeah. I told him to get lost.”

  Crissette had selected an eighteenth-century Venetian cisisbeo’s outfit of satin coat, bicorne hat, and tight scarlet satin breeches. As a long-legged Venetian gigolo she looked exotically unisex.

  “In drag yet,” she muttered, turning to view her back. “The things I do for the Times-Journal.” She adjusted the tails of the satin coat. “I wish somebody’d take me to Regine’s. I understand it’s drop-dead terminal chic.”

  Gaby shrugged. “It’s okay. We were celebrating being engaged. And Dodd’s a member.”

  The fitting room was filled to overflowing with discarded costumes. Gaby pushed a pile of gondoliers’ striped shirts out of the way and tried to sit down on the one chair. The large hoop she was wearing under her skirts wouldn’t fold properly. She stood back up. “Crissette, you look sort of decadent,” she said.

  “Believe me, honey, I’m straight. But if I wear those flats with the pom-poms on the toes I’ll walk like you can’t tell. How’m I supposed to wear all this fancy Italian drag and manage a lot of camera equipment too?” she complained. She abruptly pulled Gaby around to the mirror. “Okay, kid, now it’s your turn.”

  They stood side by side, regarding themselves in the three-way glass. Gaby’s elaborate gown had originally been made for a principal player in a Coconut Grove Playhouse production of Twelfth Night. The actress had had unimpressive bust measurements, but an unusually tiny waist. The eighteenth-century court dress was made of blue watered silk with gold bead-crusted panniers in yellow moiré. The bodice was cut low and square so that Gaby’s breasts, pressed together, looked seductively full. The sleeves were tight and ended at the elbows, and the skirt was ankle-length—a blessing since she was going to have to do a lot of walking through the museum grounds.

  Gaby stared at her reflection, her lower lip caught between her teeth. She looked amazingly doll-like, she thought, fragile—and sexy, even with her tawny hair an untidy mess from trying on costumes. For the first time, viewing the beautiful gown, she could understand why the eighteenth century was considered such a libidinous era.

  Crissette was staring, too. “Hey, you’re one foxy lady, Gabrielle. You sure have changed from the scared-looking chick who came into the newsroom that first day.”

  Gaby was startled. The words struck a strange chord somewhere in the back of her mind that she wanted to forget. “I haven’t changed that much.”

  “I dunno. I think getting engaged has done a lot for you, girl.” The other woman’s luminous eyes surveyed her critically. “Before, you looked like somebody who’d never been loved up, if you know what I mean.” When she saw Gaby turning pink she said, “Aw, stop that, Gabrielle, nobody blushes anymore, it’s like, très gauche. You’ve really got it for this guy, haven’t you?”

  Gaby stared in the mirror, disconcerted. It wasn’t her, she thought. She wasn’t this sexy, ravishing creature. It was the costume, nothing more than that.

  “I’m not bugging you, sugar,” Crissette went on quickly. “Don’t get me wrong, I’m happy for you. If you like Dodd Brickell the Third, that’s fine with me.”

  Gaby frowned. “It’s going to be hot wearing all this,” she said, changing the subject. “This is no great creative assignment. There’s no fashion news in a costume ball, except who spent the most money on some ridiculous outfit.”

  Crissette shrugged. “A wig goes with that. A big white one with flowers and beads in it.”

  “Forget it,” Gaby said, turning away. “I’d die of heatstroke in a wig.”

  Crissette took off her bicorne hat and ran her fingers through her hair. “I hope you know what you’re doing,” she said abruptly, “giving David that apartment at your place.”

  Gaby didn’t look at her. “I need someone there at night. Really.”

  It was Crissette’s turn to frown. “Gabrielle, David’s not going to keep this job either. The feds know where all the unskilled jobs are in south Florida. They’ll make a sweep up in Hallandale and drag him right off that garbage truck, you wait and see.”

  Gaby had stepped out of her costume and was slipping her street dress over her head. “I hope not. David deserves a break. Tell me, why on earth do people from the islands keep coming to Miami if it’s so hard to get a job here?”

  “Because it isn’t,” Crissette said shortly. “You know why we got so many Haitians in south Florida? It isn’t just because they love the climate, honey. If Haitian illegals can just make it out to Belle Glade, they can get a job cutting sugar cane. You can’t get Americans to do a backbreaker job like that, but the Haitians are trained cane cutters. They know if they can just get some kind of boat into south Florida they can find work around Lake Okeechobee. There’s practically a whole town of Haitians living out there around the big sugar mills.” Crissette turned in front of the mirror, adjusting her jeans and expensive silk tank top from Rive Gauche. “Immigration doesn’t do anything to the sugar companies, only to the illegals when they find them. Same way with Mexican migrant workers.”

  “You don’t think David’s in any danger at my place, do you?” Gaby asked, alarmed.

  “Danger?
The feds might pick up David at your place. They might charge you with harboring an illegal alien. You ever think of that?”

  Gaby had always thought David was in the greatest danger on the job. She considered it for a long moment. “I’ll just have to take that chance,” she said quietly. “I really need him, Crissette. The grass is getting so high I have to fight my way to the front door.”

  The other woman didn’t smile. “That house is spooky, Gabrielle.”

  “Crissette, I’ve always lived there. It’s my home.”

  “Have it your way,” Crissette said. “Just don’t forget I warned you. I don’t know what it was like in the old days, but it’s spooky now.”

  Gaby remembered Crissette’s words as she parked her mother’s car in the driveway. “Spooky” was not a term she associated with her home, but she saw for the first time how it must look to outsiders—the Spanish-Moorish tower, the straggling bougainvillea that climbed the stucco facade, the overgrown hibiscus jungle that almost hid the front door. It had always been home, a safe place. It was strange to think of it any other way.

  An oncoming thunderstorm had laid siege to the outlying parts of Miami just before Gaby had left the newspaper offices. She was not surprised to find the lights were out all over Palm Island. The house was echoingly quiet as she let herself in. She opened a few windows, then went to the kitchen to make a sandwich from a package of bologna she managed to find in the darkened depths of the already-warm refrigerator. After eating by candlelight, she went upstairs to her bedroom.

  Thunderstorms and power failures were always expected in south Florida; Gaby’s bedside radio was equipped with batteries. The only way to live, she thought as she settled herself comfortably among the bed pillows, was to be able to afford a battery-operated TV as well. That was luxury. She turned the radio on and the sound of Julio Iglesias singing “Moonlight Lady” in Spanish filled the room.

  With a strangled sound Gaby grabbed the radio and switched it off.