“The telephone rings, the voltage on the line automatically turns on the cassette, and the phone conversation is recorded on a cartridge tape. Marta gives the tape to her brother or Roland and they know who you talk to, where you’re going—I guess they learn all they need to know.”
Karen didn’t say anything. She stared at the recorder, her words in there, the sound of her voice contained within the flat cartridge, with its window and two round holes. Telling what?
“You want to give Roland a message?” Maguire flicked a switch on and off.
Still she didn’t say anything.
“Get rid of Marta,” Maguire said.
“Or keep her. Let them listen,” Karen said. “Which is better, if Roland finds out we know about it or if he doesn’t?”
“That went through my mind,” Maguire said. “I let it go.”
Karen looked up from the recorder. “It might be to our advantage.”
“We talk,” Maguire said. “I phoned—that’s how they knew we were meeting the other night.”
“But what do they learn, really? We could use some kind of code.”
She was serious, taking off her sunglasses now, her eyes quietly alive.
“The question is, what did Roland hear before,” Maguire said. “Something he might’ve learned that turned him on, you might say, to go independent.”
“What do you mean, turned him on?”
“Like money,” Maguire said. He hesitated, then took a chance. “Maybe he heard you tell somebody you keep money in the house.” She was staring at him now, and he looked down at the recorder again, fingering the different switches. “It’s just a thought. Or he heard you talking to your accountant, your banker, somebody like that. It’d be a way of finding out what you’re worth.”
“Maybe he’s not the only one who’s interested,” Karen said.
“No, your maid, her brother—”
“What do you think I’m worth?” Karen said.
“I don’t know, three million, thirty million,” Maguire said. “You get into those figures, I don’t see much difference. But how does he get his hands on it unless it’s sitting there. You’re not gonna write him a check.”
“He hasn’t asked for anything.”
“No, but he’s leading up to something. We’re pretty sure of that.”
“You haven’t asked for anything either,” Karen said.
“What am I, the help? You hiring me?”
“That’s not an answer,” Karen said.
“Why don’t I go home and get dressed,” Maguire said. “We’ll go out, have dinner, hold hands, look at each other. You can tell me what you want, and I’ll tell you what I want. How’s that sound?”
“I’ll tell you right now what I want,” Karen said.
Maguire picked up a pizza on the way home (Were they ever going to go out and have dinner together?), took off his shirt, put a cold beer on the table, and began eating, starving.
There were three rattling knocks on the front-door jalousie. Lesley came in still wearing her white shorts, no shoes, and a striped tanktop. She said, “I just got in, too; I was out all evening. Hey, can I have a piece?”
“Help yourself.”
“What kind is it?”
“Pepperoni, onions, cheese, a few other things.”
“Yuk, anchovies.”
Like they were worms. Lesley being sensitive, delicate. He wondered when she’d ask about the car, the silver-gray Mercedes 450 SEL parked in front. She took dainty bites, holding an open palm beneath the wedge, bending over the table to give him a shot of her breasts hanging free in the tanktop.
“You still have Sunday’s paper?”
“How should I know?”
“Aunt Leona keeps newspapers, doesn’t she? Gives them to some charity drive?”
“She sells them. She’s so goddamn money-hungry. Where you going?”
“I’ll be right back.”
Maguire went in through the manager’s apartment, past Leona asleep in her Barcalounger, with a TV movie on, to the utility room off the kitchen. There were several weeks of newspapers stacked against the wall. He began looking through the first pile and there it was, last Sunday’s edition of the Herald, finding it right away. Sometimes that happened. He pulled out the “Living Today” section, glancing at Karen and Frank DiCilia, then took the sports section, too, and slipped “Living Today” in behind the sports pages.
Lesley was sitting now, her chair turned away from the table, one foot on the seat, a tan expanse of inner thigh facing him. A lot of flesh there.
“Why’re you so interested in the paper?”
“There’s a story on the Tigers I missed.”
“I think baseball’s boring. Nothing ever happens.”
Maguire was eating. He didn’t care what Lesley thought. He wondered, though, how she’d get around to the car.
She said, “Brad’s really pissed at you, you know it?”
“Why?”
“You were supposed to stay after and work with Bubbles.”
It sounded like she was talking about school.
“I forgot,” Maguire said. He’d left without looking back, not wanting to see the two Cubans again.
“Brad saw you take off in the car. He goes, ‘Jesus Christ, where’d he get that, steal it?’ ”
That was how she did it, indirectly. Maguire worked his way through another pizza wedge, not giving her any help.
“Brad goes, ‘He didn’t have it yesterday. He must’ve got it last night.’ ”
Maguire drank some of the cold beer: really good with the salty anchovy taste.
“ ‘Somebody must’ve loaned it to him.’ Then he goes, ‘But who would he know that owns a fucking Mercedes?’ ”
“I bet you said that, not Brad,” Maguire said.
“I might’ve. Somebody said it.”
“It’s a friend of mine’s,” Maguire said. “I’m using it while he’s out of town.”
“Well, let’s go someplace in it.”
“I’m not allowed to take passengers. He’s afraid it’ll get messed up.”
“You big shit, you’re just saying that.”
“It’s the truth.”
“Who’s is it?”
“Guy by the name of Andre Patterson.”
“The one you were talking to on the phone?”
Talking about on the phone to Andre’s wife, but it didn’t matter. “Right. He went on a vacation.” Christ, 20 to life. He should write to Andre, tell him how things were going. He wanted to read the newspaper story again and look at the picture of Karen on the seawall.
“How would he know the difference?” Lesley said. “I mean just me, not a lot of people.”
“Maybe,” Maguire said. “You want some more?”
“No . . . I feel like—” She gave him a sly look. “You know how I feel?”
“How?”
“Horny. Isn’t that funny? I don’t know why.” She looked over at the bed. “You want to lie down, see what happens?”
“Your feet are dirty,” Maguire said.
“My feet?”
“Actually I’m awful tired. You mind?”
“Jesus Christ,” Lesley said, getting up. “You have a headache, too?”
“No, but I don’t feel too good. I think maybe the pizza.” He said, “Why don’t you catch me some other time, okay?”
“Why don’t you catch this,” Lesley said, giving him the finger and slammed the jalousie door, rattling the frosted-glass louvers.
There were times, yes, when he didn’t mind dirty feet. Or, there had been times. But going from one to the other, from the woman to the girl, he couldn’t imagine ever having to try and compare them. Hearing Lesley’s voice, “Brad’s really pissed at you.” Serious. A crisis because he’d forgotten to stay after closing to work with the young dolphin. “Brad goes, ‘What’d he do, steal it?’ ” Brad and Lesley, the whole setup, like a summer camp. Then hearing Karen’s voice:
“What do you thi
nk I’m worth?”
Karen’s voice:
“I’ll tell you right now what I want.”
Not putting it on, trying to act sultry, but straight. Looking at him without the sunglasses. “I’ll tell you right now what I want.”
She wanted it, too. She had said the first time, “I could hardly wait.” This time was like the first time multiplied, more of it, more free and easy with each other, fooling with each other in that big broken-down bed, then getting into it, picking it up, beginning to race, feeling the rush. It was as different as day and night, the girl and the woman. The girl okay, very good in fact, but predictable: the same person all the way, making little put-on sounds—“Oh, oh, oh, don’t stop now, God, don’t ever stop”—she must’ve read somewhere and decided that was how you made the guy feel good. The woman, the forty-four-year-old woman didn’t fake anything. She watched him with a soft, slightly smiling look that was natural. She moved her hands all over him, everywhere, which the girl never did—as though the girl was supposed to get it and not give unless she gave as a special favor; the girl very open and, quote, together, saying, “You want to fuck?” if she felt like it; except that it had no bearing on how she was in bed—the girl not aware of the two of them the way the forty-four-year-old woman was. The woman in the photograph. The lady in the million dollar home. The lady. That was the key maybe. The lady, with a poise and quiet tone, easing out of the role as they moved over and around each other on the bed, not being tricky about it but natural, touching, entering the special place of the slim, good-looking lady, moving in and owning the place for awhile, right there tight in the place, and the lady trying to keep him, hold onto him there. Yes, there. Now that was different. That was being as close to someone as you could get without completely disappearing into the person, gone. Man. To look forward to that for another—how many years? Wondering if it was a consideration, a possibility. Maybe not. But at least feeling close enough to be able to say, “They got your age wrong in the paper.” Smiling.
“They got a number of things wrong,” Karen said, “including the way it was written.”
“All the questions. It was like a quiz.” Kissing her shoulder, her, neck, feeling it moist. “I don’t care how old you are . . . we are. What difference does it make?”
“None that I can think of,” Karen said.
Her tone was all right, but what did it mean? None, because the way they felt, it didn’t matter? Or none, because nothing was going to come of this anyway?
“I’m almost forty,” Maguire said. “It’s just another number. Forty, that’s all.”
“Then why are you talking about it?” Karen said.
They went downstairs and sat in the living room, with drinks Karen made at the built-in marble bar. Maguire checked the room for hidden mikes planted behind figurines and paintings or in the white sofa and easy chairs. They talked about Roland, what he might ask for, wondering if they could get him to ask for it over the phone, make an extortion demand and hook him with his own device. Which wasn’t likely. Sometime, Karen said, she’d like him to look at the antiques and art objects and tell her what they were worth. Maguire was ready to do it now, but they went outside instead, all the way out to the seawall. They stood looking at tinted points of light in the homes across the channel, at cold reflections in the water. He thought of the photo again that had been taken here, Karen standing with hands on hips, legs somewhat apart, sunhat and sunglasses—the slim, good-looking woman who was close to him, in a skirt now, barefoot.
He liked skirts. He liked the idea of lifting up a skirt, something from his boyhood, something you did with girls. She moved against him when he began to kiss her. She let herself be lowered to the grass where he began to bring her skirt up to her hips and put his hand under it.
Gretchen came out and hopped around them, sniffing their legs. Maguire told the dog to get the hell out of there.
Sitting on the patio, another drink; were they going to go out to eat or not? It was strange the way she brought up the question of the dog, surprising him, asking him why he wasn’t nice to Gretchen.
He said, “What do you mean I’m not nice to her? What do you say to a dog that’s not nice?”
She said, “You ignore her. Until tonight you only said one word to her, the first time you came here, you told her to relax.”
“Well, that was nice,” Maguire said. “What do I want to talk to a dog for? I talk to dolphins all day, and I don’t ordinarily, you’re right, talk to animals at all. I don’t have that much to say to them.”
She said, “You know who’s nice to Gretchen?”
He said, “I’ll talk to the dog when I have time. I’ll be very happy to.”
“Roland,” Karen said. “He can’t keep his hands off her.”
Maguire said, “Well, I’d keep an eye on him if I were you.”
He said that, and they were friends again. The strange part was feeling a little tension between them over the dog. Or else he imagined it.
No, the dog wasn’t a problem. What mattered was, they always got back to Roland.
He said to her, “I guess I’m gonna have to meet him, aren’t I?” A few moments later he said, “I don’t see you having conversations with the dog.”
13
* * *
THE REASON ROLAND SERVED the six months at Lake Butler:
Dade County Criminal Division had charged Jimmy Capotorto with three counts second degree and one count first degree murder: the victims being the three employees who died in the Coral Gables Discount Mart fire and the star witness who died of gunshot wounds in the parking lot of the VA Hospital. Dade County knew, circumstantially, Coral Gables Discount had borrowed shylock money from Jimmy Cap. They had the written testimony of the star witness, the former Coral Gables Discount owner, that described how Jimmy Cap had taken over management of the company and had decided to liquidate. They lost their star witness in the VA Hospital parking lot, on Eighteenth Street Road. But they now had a second star witness who described Jimmy Cap and revealed the license number of his two-tone red and white Sedan d’Ville pulling out of the lot moments following the sound of several gunshots; this within two blocks of the Dade County Public Safety Department offices. Jimmy Cap’s lawyer pointed out that the first star witness was a drug addict and had gone to the VA Hospital parking lot to purchase stolen morphine to relieve his tensions. The second star witness, however, was a one-legged ex-Marine who had come out of the hospital after visiting one of his buddies. He said on the witness stand, pointing to Jimmy Capotorto, “Yes sir, that’s him.”
Jimmy Cap’s lawyer put Roland Crowe on the stand, and Roland said Jimmy Cap had spent the evening with him visiting a Cuban lady out on Beaver Road off the Tamiami Trail. The Cuban lady was waiting to go on next if they needed her.
The state’s prosecutor hammered away at Roland’s credibility, bringing out the fact Roland himself had served eight years in Raiford for second degree murder—objected to and sustained, but there it was—then asked Roland if he had spoken to their witness, the ex-Marine, out in the hall. Roland said, “No sir.” The prosecutor said hadn’t he, Roland, said to the ex-Marine, “You only got one leg now. How’d you like to keep talking and go for none?” Roland said if the Marine had said that, then the Marine was a fucking liar. The judge warned Roland his language would not be tolerated. The prosecutor kept at Roland, trying to hook him. But Roland remained cool. He said to the state’s prosecutor, “What you say, sir, is your opinion. The only thing is, opinions’re like assholes, everybody’s got one.”
Roland was sentenced to a year and a day for contempt, reduced to six months following an appeal. But he had stared long enough at that one-legged Marine, who finally said maybe he’d been mistaken about his testimony.
Jimmy Cap talked about it all the time, describing Roland on the witness stand, even describing Roland to Roland himself, the way the gator had fucked their minds around with his you-all bullshit and had actually distracted them from the
reason they were in court. Jimmy Cap, at one point, had said to Roland, “Hey, I owe you six months.”
When Roland came to see Jimmy Cap, at his office in the Dorado Management suite, Jimmy Cap said, “Buddy”—meaning it—“what can I do for you?”
“I was supposed to see Ed,” Roland said, “but I guess he’s out of town.”
“So talk to Vivian.”
“Vivian’s out too.”
“Is it important?”
“He’ll chew my ass cuz I can’t find him.”
“When they’re both away,” Jimmy Cap said, “they’re shacked up at Vivian’s for a couple of days. Ed tells Clara he’s gone to Pittsburgh or some fucking place, they’re up in Keystone.”
“Yeah?” Roland grinned, tilted up his Ox Bow and sat down. “That reminds me. The company manages a condo up in Boca, don’t it?”
“Oceana,” Jimmy Cap said.
“And Frank DiCilia had a place there he used, if I ain’t mistaken?”
“That’s right.”
“But I don’t imagine anybody’s using it much no more. I know the lady ain’t cuz I’m the one watching her. You know about that?”
“Jesus,” Jimmy Cap said, “that’s a weird setup. Ed told me something about it, I said, Jesus Christ, we back in the fucking Sicilian Mountains or Miami, Florida? We got better things to do. She’s not a bad-looking broad either, you know it?”
“Look but don’t touch,” Roland said. “I got one firmer and younger up in Boca just dying for it. But this problem, see, she’s a waitress at a place up there? And she’s married. She can get out of the house only maybe a couple hours in the evening; but I don’t have no place to take her up there. You follow me? I mean a nice place, to impress her a little bit.”
Jimmy Cap said, “So you’re thinking of Frank’s apartment.”
“If it’s sitting there going to waste,” Roland said. “I remember I took a piss in there once, it had this great big bathtub you walked up some steps to get in.”
“Clean the little waitress up first,” Jimmy Cap said. “Sure, I’ll get you a key anytime you want.”
“Now’d be fine,” Roland said. He waited a moment. “Oh, hey, you got Vivian’s private number up there in Keystone?”