Elmore Leonard - Gold Coast

“Keep the woman in the house where she belongs.”

“What?” Roland said.

“You’re not kidding, are you?” Like coming out of shock, beginning to see things clearly again.

Roland seemed surprised. “No, I’m not kidding.”

“Something you dreamed up.”

“It’s been going on, ain’t it?”

“Yes, but-what do you say to them? How do you let them know?”

“You mean the guys? We tell them you don’t want to see them no more.”

“And what do they say?”

“Nothing.”

“I mean don’t they want to know why?”

“I ‘magine they get the point pretty quick.”

“Do you threaten them?”

“Well, there’s different ways. You put the boy against the wall and tell him something, he sees you mean it.” Roland grinned. “I made a point with a boy today, didn’t believe at first I was serious.”

“What did you do?”

“Threw him in a swimming pool.”

“You don’t… beat them up or anything like that?”

“Whatever it takes,” Roland said. “That’s how Ed says handle it. See, he respects your husband’s wish here. But he don’t want to do it himself. Fact, all he wants to know it’s in somebody’s hands and being taken care of.”

“I’ll see Ed tomorrow,” Karen said.

“You sure you want to do that?”

“We’re going to quit playing games, I’m sure of that.”

“Well, as I see it, the one you’d have to talk to’d be Frank,” Roland said. “He’s the only one can call it off. Ed, he’s respecting the wish of his dead buddy. You know how them people are. He can’t change nothing, it’s the code, or some bullshit like that.” Roland was feeling more relaxed, into it now. He liked the way the woman was hanging on his words. “But you go to Ed, tell what you know, then he’s liable to take me off the job and put somebody else on ain’t as sympathetic. You follow me?”

“I’m not sure. Why are you… sympathetic?”

“I’m not one of them , as you can see. I work for them, but I don’t think the way they do. It’s like you’re a white woman got mixed up with these people, I come along-I didn’t take none of their oaths and shit-so I can sympathize with your situation and maybe help you out.”

“How?” Karen said. “Not tell if I go out with someone?”

“No, see, I’d still have to do my job. There’s people watching me, too,” Roland said. “But maybe I could ease up your situation some. Come around, talk to you. Maybe, put our minds to it, we could work something out.”

“I’m not sure I follow you,” Karen said, following every word, watching his eyes beneath the cool-cowboy curve of the brim and knowing exactly what he was talking about.

“I mean ease up your situation.” Roland said. “I ‘magine you might be getting a little tense and edgy sitting around here, your husband dead, no men you’re close to. These dinks you went out with evidently didn’t turn you on any.”

She was tense, all right, watching him gradually moving in. She said, cautiously, “How do you know that?”

“It’s my business to know. See, me and you are much closer than you realize. We got a lot in common.”

“We do?” Karen said.

“See, I been thinking,” Roland said. “Why would a deceased husband want to cut off his wife’s… activity, let’s say, less he was good and sore on account of she was messing around while he was alive.” Roland gave Karen a friendly wink. “Just wanting to have a little fun. What’s wrong with that? It’s the way we’re made, we got to keep active or we dry up, can’t even spit.”

“That’s quite an assumption,” Karen said. “I mean that I was cheating on my husband.”

“Nobody’s asking you to admit nothing you don’t want to,” Roland said. “It’s between me and you and the bed. I mean the bedpost.”

“Actually Frank had no reason-” Karen began, and stopped. Why was she trying to explain?

“It’s none of my business either way,” Roland said. “You don’t have to confess nothing to me, lady, to be born again. That’s the way I look at this setup, like a new beginning. Here you are stuck here, starting to dry up. Here I am full of notions going to waste, shit, working for them guineas. It’s like, I won’t tell if you won’t. You scratch mine and I’ll scratch yours and we’ll get something cooking here-see, once you give it some thought, realize how your dead husband and his buddy’ve got your knees tied together and there’s nothing you can do about it less I help you. You follow me? I’m giving you your big chance, lady, and it’s the only one you got.”

“I said to her, ‘Are you all right?’ She didn’t answer me,” Marta said. “She went to the telephone and began to speak to Mr. Grossi.”

“You could hear it?” Jesus Diaz, her brother, asked.

It was dark now. They were in the street in front of the house on Isla Bahía, standing by Jesus’ car, Jesus holding the cassette tape she had given him.

“I could hear it because she was making her words very clear, not in a loud voice but with force, saying, ‘I don’t want to see him here again. Keep that animal away from here.’ Then saying, ‘Why didn’t you tell me yourself? I have to learn it from someone like him.’ Then listening to Mr. Grossi for a long time. Then saying again, ‘Keep him away from here.’ But she didn’t tell him everything,” Marta said.

“What didn’t she tell him?”

“Your friend Roland said he wanted to help her in the situation, do something for her to relieve her being tense. But she didn’t mention this to Mr. Grossi-I don’t know why-only that she didn’t want to see Roland again. Very disturbed, but cold in the way she said it, not screaming or shouting. I thought of the time she came home with her car smashed in front and Mister came home with his same car smashed in the side.”

Jesus said, “All of that with Mr. Grossi is on this tape?”

“Yes, of course. Every phone conversation today.”

“I give it to Roland, he’ll hear it,” Jesus said. “He’ll know she told Mr. Grossi.”

“Then don’t give it to him,” Marta said.

“You crazy?” Jesus said.

Roland heard about it the same evening, in Vivian Arzola’s office. Vivian telling him he was lucky Ed Grossi had already gone home. Roland looking out the thirty-ninth floor window at all that night glitter over the Beach.

“Why?” Roland said.

“Because maybe this time he would have killed you he was so angry.”

Roland said, “Lady, I’m the boy didn’t testify in court against somebody, and went to Butler. You remember? I just got back yesterday. He puts me on a job, I do it the way I see fit to. Does he want another boy? That’s up to him. But don’t start talking about him doing me harm. There’s an old Cuban saying, you fuck with the bull, you get a horn in the ass.”

“Where’d you get that suit?” Vivian said.

Roland grinned. “You like it?”

“It’s the worst looking suit I ever saw.”

“That’s my sweet girl,” Roland said, coming away from the window to put a leg up on the edge of Vivian’s desk, “your old self again. What else he say?”

“He’s going to tell you himself. Keep away from Mrs. DiCilia.”

“But not taking me off it.”

“Do what you’re told. Nothing more.”

“You listen in and hear her talking to him?”

“It’s recorded here,” Vivian said. “I can listen if I want. You try to lie to him, he’ll play it for you.”

“I got nothing to hide. I told her her old man set up the deal, that’s all. So everybody understands each other. I asked her if there was anything I could do for her.”