“But you like Palm Beach.”
“It’s clean,” Kyle said.
“See, I don’t have a goal ’cause I don’t seem to know what I want. Money, yeah, you have to have money. But I wouldn’t want to be Barry, I wouldn’t trade with him, live the way he does . . . You think I’m looking for action?” He seemed intent, wanting an answer.
“No, I said you like the action. You seem to.”
“Maybe I do, to a certain extent. People race cars two hundred miles an hour, climb mountains . . . I tend to get in the way of people who carry firearms. Or I put myself in the way.”
Kyle hesitated, staring. “I hate to ask, but, . . . it’s happened before?”
“As a matter of fact, twice.”
“People have tried to kill you?”
“Well, two guys tried to mug me one time. One had a gun, the other a knife . . .”
“Yeah?”
“I shot ’em. I didn’t feel I had a choice. The other time, two guys that Frank and I were doing business with set us up. We had a meeting, it was suppose to be a payoff; but they came out with guns instead of money, so . . . I shot ’em. I’ve shot four people. I’m not the least bit prejudiced, I don’t know if you happen to know that, but I’m not. But I’ve shot four people and all four happened to be colored guys. I mean it just happened that way. My closest friend in the can, outside of Frank, was a black guy. I get along great with Cornell Lewis, he’s black . . . It’s very strange.”
Kyle said, carefully, taking her time, “Is there anything else you’d like to tell me? About yourself?”
“I think we’re up to date now,” Stick said. “I told you about my daughter . . .”
“A little.”
“I hope you can get to meet her sometime.”
“I’d like to.”
“The only thing I haven’t told you about is the tornado I was in when I was nine years old, in Norman. That was the scaredest I’ve ever been in my life, see a house blow away, gone . . . It was before we moved to Detroit.”
She said, again carefully, “You accept what happens to you. You have the ability to detach yourself, look at things objectively.”
He frowned. “You mean after or during?”
“I’m trying to find out what moves you.”
“I thought I told you—being with you. But you don’t believe me.”
“You want to sleep with me, that’s all.”
He stared at her face in shadowed light, wanting to touch her.
“You’re smarter than that,” Stick said. “I know you’re smarter than I am, that doesn’t bother me. If I were the money whiz and you were, say, a bartender, you’d still be smarter only it wouldn’t be as obvious. It doesn’t matter who’s what, we can talk without beating around. I could tell you I’m in love with you and you can be glad to hear it or you can clutch up and want to run, but there it is . . . What do you think?”
She hesitated. “Are you being romantic now?”
“I’m trying to tell you how I feel without exposing myself. You know what I mean.”
“Playing it safe.”
“I guess. I don’t know.” She said, “I have a feeling you don’t see us walking off into the sunset.”
“In a way, that’s what I do see,” Stick said. “They kiss and it says The End. What happens after that is the part that’s kind of hazy. Me coming home with cement dust all over my work clothes and pulling my pickup into the garage next to your Porsche.”
She said, “Why not sell investments? I know you have the talent and I could help you get started.”
“Well, it’d be better than you learning a building trade. And I would appreciate your help and pay attention. But I’d also be a little, well, uneasy.”
“Why?”
“I’d be afraid—don’t laugh, but I’d be afraid you’d try to make me over, into somebody else.”
She didn’t laugh; she was surprised. “Why would I do that?”
“I don’t mean intentionally, I don’t think you’d be aware of it. I think it’s an instinct girls have, some girls, anyway. Like wanting to have a horse when they’re around twelve. Young girls write to guys doing time; they think they can bring out the good person that’s inside this mean, miserable son of a bitch that hates everybody. Or I’d start wearing suits and change on my own, become somebody else. You’d look at me and think, who’s this guy? What happened to that nice, simple boy from Norman?”
She smiled a little as he did. “The nice, simple boy from Norman. That’s how you see yourself? Come on, tell me the truth.”
Stick shrugged. “Raised on an oil lease.”
Looking right at him she said, “You know what you are, Ernest? You’re a snob. You love the idea of living by your wits. Why would a slick guy like you want to work and lose your independence? Isn’t that about it?”
He smiled again to see if she’d smile back. She did, staring at him with a glow in her eyes he would accept as mild admiration. They were having fun. He said, “You think I’m slick, huh?”
“You think you are.”
“Uh-unh, I look in the mirror I see what’s there, nothing else. But I learned in prison I can get along with myself and have a pretty good time without breaking my neck, or joining a club where you have to listen to Alley Cat . . . Rich people sure have fun, don’t they?”
“You’d love to have money,” Kyle said. “Don’t tell me you wouldn’t.”
“Some. How ’bout you? How much you make a year?”
“Why?”
“Come on, how much?”
“I average better than a hundred thousand.”
“And you live in Palm Beach ’cause it’s clean.”
“Don’t oversimplify. I’m not tied to where I live or how I live. I can be as independent as you believe you are.”
“But you’re tired of helping people make money who don’t need it and I come along, I look like a worthy cause. Help the underprivileged.”
She raised her eyebrows and said, “That’s not bad, Ernest, you may be right,” and looked at him thoughtfully. “The deserving free spirit, just a regular guy, rehabilitated after a couple of trips to prison, and now . . . What’s your game, Ernest? Tell me what you have in mind.”
It surprised him. “You think I’ve been putting you on?”
“No, no, I think basically you’re a straight-shooter—within your own frame of values . . .”
“I’ve told you things I’ve never told anybody.”
She was nodding. “Yes, I know you have. Past things. But you haven’t told me your plan.”
“What plan?”
“How you’re going to get Chucky to pay the five thousand he owes.”
Stick let a silence fill in space between them, a pause while he smiled and admired those knowing eyes. When he felt time was up he said, “You got any ideas?”
They took a cab back. They walked through trees roundabout to the guest house and slipped inside while torches burned on the patio and faraway sounds drifted across the yard. Later, when they heard the door-chime and Barry’s voice call “Babe?” they held each other without moving. They heard him bump something on the patio and held their breath.
Much later Kyle opened the draperies covering the glass doors and they had the bay and the nighttime sky to themselves. They whispered.
“There’s nothing wrong with you, Ernie.”
“Thank you.”
“My polite lover.”
Still later they heard doors bang, faint voices in the adjoining wing of the guest house. “Mr. Firestone,” Kyle said. “It seems he’s not alone.” She left the bed and put on a light wrap.
“Hold a glass to the wall,” Stick said. “You can hear what they’re saying.”
Kyle left the bedroom. A lamp went on in the living room. Stick lay without moving, neck bent against the pillow. Kyle came back. She stood in the doorway with a folder in her hands, looking at a sheet of paper that was attached to it.
“What’s that?”
/>
“The revised prospectus.” She didn’t look up. “And the guest list for tomorrow. Barry must’ve dropped it through the mail slot.”
“I guess I’d better sneak off to my own room.” Stick rolled out of bed and began looking for his shorts. “I’m suppose to help serve tomorrow, if you can picture that.”
He heard her say, “You can’t . . .” On his hands and knees looking under the bed.
“I’ll try not to spill anything on you.”
“No—you can’t be here tomorrow.”
Her tone brought his head up to look at her across the rumpled bed. “Why not?”
Kyle held out the sheet of paper. “Chucky’s coming. Both of them, Chucky and his friend, Nestor Soto.”
19
LEO FIRESTONE TOLD BARRY HE was a genius setting the morning room up for the conference: the long tables pushed together covered in bright yellow—dynamic color—the directors’ chairs—very subtle—and right outside across the bay, Miami. “Where it’s all happening,” Firestone said with his glasses up on his bald head. “A cinema verité backdrop for the presentation. You weren’t so fucking rich, Bare, I’d hire you for my art director.”
As Stick and Cornell stood by Barry said, “It’s your baby, Leo, but I do feel some responsibility. If the deal’s got legs I don’t want to see it crash and burn on account of something I neglected to do. Now how about the bar? You want it?”
Firestone began nodding with enthusiasm. “Yes, absolutely. I think the tone, the ambience we want should be very relaxed. I’m not making a pitch, I’m presenting a creative venture to a group of highly successful, intelligent men. I want them to understand they can let their hair down, say anything they want.”
Stick watched him, fascinated. This was a Hollywood producer. This guy in the cowboy boots and tan cords, shirt hanging out: a strange, loose-fitting, ethnic-looking white shirt that some poor but clean peasant might wear, now on a fifty-year-old hipster. The guy’s hair, brown and gray, hung from the circular edge of his bald, freckled crown almost to his shoulders. Stick had the feeling the guy liked the way he looked: tan, slim, not tall but with enough confidence he could slouch and not worry about his shoulders rounding on him.
Barry gestured to Stick and Cornell, waiting. “So bring the bar up. Set it in the arch there, be out of the way.” He took Firestone down to the patio for coffee and Danish.
Kyle was at the umbrella table with Firestone’s assistant, a tall, good-looking girl with dark hair cut short and hardly any breasts, though the ones she had were right there poking at her thin tank top. She wore her sunglasses up on her head, too. Cornell said her name was Jane, twenty-one years old. “The kind of girl you drop her off anywhere, I mean in the world, she’ll find the man in charge and get next to him.”
Stick said, “That mean you like her or not?”
“Means I have great admiration for the lady. I watched her last night serving them drinks and before that driving the car—thanks a whole lot . . .”
“It was my day off, he could’ve driven. Why didn’t he pick ’em up?”
“Man was putting on his show. Called home twice, nobody answered. You and Kyle go someplace?”
“Went out to dinner.”
“You walk?”
“Got a cab.”
Cornell seemed to want to ask him more, but he said, “You watch this girl Jane. She still a baby, but that’s the kind can go all the way, be a big name out’n Hollywood . . . While me and you gonna go down there and carry up the bar, get sweaty. Man, it’s a bitch, ain’t it, knowing enough to slip by, but not enough to make the run that will set you free.”
“I don’t think that way,” Stick said.
Cornell said, “Yeah? Wait till I get you your white coat.”
While they were setting up the bar, stocking it with bottles and glasses, Mrs. Stam came out with a bag of Jelly Bellies. She nodded to them. Stick watched her to see if she’d glance over, give him some kind of look. He hadn’t seen her since they were both on the floor of this room early Sunday morning, a few feet from where she was pouring Jelly Bellies into a crystal jar. She was wearing a pale green sundress. Her legs from the knees down, Stick noticed, were straight but thick through the ankles; her instep seemed to puff out of her medium heels. When she was finished with the Jelly Bellies she asked them to come outside with her. Stick walked behind, watching Cornell talking to her, smiling and getting a smile back, watching her can roll from side to side. She wanted them to move the pots of begonias out of the drive, line them up along the edge of the grass overlooking the terrace. When they had finished she thanked them and walked away.
Stick said to Cornell, “You have any trouble talking to her?”
“Not too much.”
“She looks at you,” Stick said, “like she expects you to tell her something, but she never says anything.”
Cornell said, “You got to say what she wants to hear, my man, then she’ll talk to you.”
“Got to push the right button, uh?”
Cornell said, dreamy, wise, “Got to find out where her interests lie, what activities please her most.”
Telling the new man, the white boy.
“You could’ve fooled me,” Stick said. “I thought all she liked to do was get laid.”
He had on his white coat now over a white shirt with black tie and black pants. He believed he looked like a middle-aged busboy, a guy who had missed or blown whatever chances he’d had in life and was now on the way down. Which might not be bad. He certainly didn’t look like a threat to anyone. He was at the bar slicing limes when Kyle came over. She surprised him.
She said, “I don’t believe it.” But without sounding serious, concerned.
“I don’t either,” Stick said, “but Barry’d rather have me over here than spilling stuff on people.”
She said, “You know what I mean. You’re still here.”
“I think it’s safer than out there somewhere, looking over my shoulder. If they’re doing business with Barry they’re not going to mess up his house, or get him involved. At least I hope.”
“You might be right,” Kyle said. “What’re you going to say to Chucky?”
“Ask him what he wants to drink.”
“Maybe you could poison him.”
“Whatever anybody wants outside of whiskey and plain water they’re taking a chance. I got limes, olives, cherries—what else do I need?”
“Balls,” Kyle said. “But I guess you’ve got those, too.”
The paring knife slipped on the tough skin of the lime Stick was holding, nicking the tip of his thumb.
He said to her, “You’re making me nervous.”
* * *
By twelve-thirty the turnaround and upper end of the driveway resembled a Mercedes used car lot. There were six of them, the expensive BMW and two Cadillacs. Lionel Oliva and Avilanosa were the only drivers. They stood in the shade for a while, then wandered into the garage. When Cornell found them they were already inside the apartment, Lionel fooling with the TV set, Avilanosa looking around. Cornell said, “Oh.” He said, “I spilled cocktail sauce on my pants, have to make a quick change.” Lionel was tuning in a soap. “You all help yourself to beer and pop in the fridge, okay? But don’t go in the bedrooms, if you don’t mind, gents. Those are private quarters.” Lionel said okay, sitting back, watching the soap. Avilanosa, looking into Stick’s room from the hallway, didn’t say anything.
Most of them were dressed casually and could be going out to play golf; two older men wore business suits. They all seemed to know one another, standing in groups, talking in loud, confident voices. Stick, behind the bar, decided the Cuban-looking guy wearing sunglasses and a brown silk suit that glistened and looked metallic was Nestor Soto. The man’s expression never changed and he seemed to barely move his mouth as he spoke to Chucky. They stood apart from the others, Chucky waving the maids over to spear shrimp and hot meatballs from their trays. Stick saw Chucky glance over, chewing. Then Nestor was l
ooking, staring at him.
Cornell, with a round tray, appeared before Stick to block his view.
“Two bloodies, a mimosa, two vodka tonic . . .”
“Wait a minute. What’s a mimosa?”
“O.J. and champagne.”
“Orange juice?”
“You got it. Two vodka tonic, then I want a Campari and soda . . .”
“Jesus Christ.”
“That’s the red one, underneath. And a salty dog.”
“I quit,” Stick said.
“Be cool. Tell me something—what did you mean, all she like to do is get laid?”
“Who, Diane?”
“Who we talking about? She come on to you?”
“Not in so many words.” Not in any words. “No, I was kidding, I just think she’s a little weird.”
“She more like, formal about things . . . Listen, I make the salty dog. You make the bloodies, everybody will be happy.”
“What do you put in it, tomato juice, what else?”
“Oh, shit,” Cornell said.
After Cornell had moved off Stick saw Chucky looking over again. Chucky said something to Nestor Soto and started this way, coming around the conference table. But now Firestone’s assistant, the girl in the tank top, stepped up to the bar.
“I guess Perrier.”
Stick said, “Yes, ma’am,” and poured her one. “Lime?”
“No, that’s okay. It doesn’t help it much.”
“You don’t like it,” Stick said, “why do you drink it?”
She looked at him directly for the first time. Boyish from a distance this girl was a beauty up close, clean, precise features, perfect teeth. She said, “I thought all the cheeky help worked in L.A. Don’t tell me you’re an actor.”
“I’m a chauffeur.”
She looked at him for another moment, deadpan. “Well, you’re not a comic, if you feel that’s your gift.”
Chucky stepped up next to the girl, laying a dozen used toothpicks on the bar. He said, “Honey, let me talk to this boy a minute, okay? Take your wah-wah someplace else.”
The girl turned to Chucky with a pleasant expression, offering her hand. “Hi, I’m Jane, Mr. Firestone’s assistant. You’re Mr. Gorman, aren’t you?”