Elmore Leonard - Gold Coast

Maguire showered and had another rum and lemon while he put on his good clothes. Pale beige slacks, dark-blue sportshirt and a skimpy dacron sportcoat, faded light-blue, he’d got at Burdine’s for forty-five bucks. He loved the sportcoat because, for some reason, it made him think of Old Florida and made him feel like a native. (A Maguire dictum: wherever you are, fit in, look like you belong. In Colorado wear a sheepskin coat and lace-up boots.) He got the Detroit Free Press clipping out of the top drawer, from under his sweat socks, and slipped it into the inside coat pocket. He then went next door and asked Lesley’s aunt if he could use the phone; he’d be sure to get the charges and pay for it.

He said to Lesley, “You want to turn that down a little?”

Lesley said, “Who’re you calling, your hot date?”

“I don’t have a hot date.”

“I thought you were going out.”

“Turn the music down, okay?”

Maguire gave the operator the Detroit number and waited. He felt nervous. He wished Lesley would quit watching him.

“Aren’t you gonna clean up?”

“You want me to leave, say so.”

“I get back, I’ll take you out to dinner.”

In the phone, Andre Patterson’s wife said, “Hello?”

“Okay?” Maguire said to Lesley. “Go on, get cleaned up.” Then into the phone:

“Hi, this is Cal Maguire. How you doing?” He had to listen while Andre’s wife told him she was piss-poor, if he really wanted to know about it, having trouble getting her ADC checks, had her phone disconnected for a while. Maguire said yeah, he’d been trying to get hold of her, calling information. He said, “Listen, you know the deal at the club?… The country club, Andre and I and Grover. I asked you the man’s name? Remember?… No, I’ve got it. What I was wondering, you know, Andre said the man was paying them back for something? At the club, something happened there to the man. I wondered if Andre ever spoke to you about it… If he mentioned to you what it was happened out there. Like maybe the man’s wife was involved, you know, maybe she was insulted or something and that’s what got the man upset.” Christ, upset-willing to pay them forty-five hundred to go out there and hit the place. “Uh-huh, yeah, that’s right… But he never said anything about the man’s wife, huh?… No, I was just wondering. Hey, well listen, tell Andre I’m gonna write to him, okay?… Fine, I’ll be talking to you.” Shit.

“Very mysterious,” Lesley said, holding a beach towel wrapped around her. “Who’s Andre?”

“Friend of mine.”

“What’d somebody get upset about?”

Maguire said, “I know it’s your aunt’s phone and you’re letting me use you car and all, but how about if you keep your nose out of my personal business, okay?”

“Yeah,” Lesley said, “well, how about if you keep your ass out of my car, you want to get snotty about it.”

“You’re a beauty,” Maguire said. “You got the maturity of about a five-year-old.”

“Keep thinking it,” Lesley said, “walking to work every day.” She turned, letting the towel come open, giving him a flash as she went into the bedroom.

There you are, Maguire thought, walking up the street toward A1A. The kind of question you’d climb all the way up the mountain to ask the old man sitting there in his loincloth.

In the light of eternity, is it better to sell out and ride or stand up and walk?

And the old man would look at him with his calm, level gaze and say-

He’d say-

Maguire was still trying to think of an answer, standing on the oceanfront corner, when the girl visiting from Mitchell, Indiana, picked him up, said, “Heck, it’s nothing,” and went out of her way to drop him off at Harbor Beach Parkway.

AN APPRAISER FRIEND OF MAGUIRE’S,a guy who bought and sold pretty much out of his backdoor, once said to him, “You walk out with a color TV, you realize the mirror hanging on the wall there, gilded walnut, might be a George II? Early eighteenth century, man, worth at least three grand.” Maguire went to the library, looked through art books, made notes and lifted a copy of Kovel’s Complete Antiques Price List from the reference shelf. In his work-during the short periods he was into B and E, usually to pick up some traveling money-he’d come across a few antiques and art objects of value.

But nothing like the display in Mrs. DiCilia’s sitting room. He was looking at a Queen Anne desk-four drawers, stubby little pedestal legs, worth at least four grand-when the maid came in again, a dog following her, and told him to please be seated, Missus would come to him very soon. A sharp-looking Cuban girl, nice accent. Maguire said thank you and then, as the maid was leaving, “How you doing?”

Marta stopped. She said, “Yes?”

“How’s it going? You like it here?” Always friendly to the help. “I think it’d be a nice place to work.”

Marta, still surprised: “Yes, it is.”

“But I wouldn’t want to have to dust all this,” Maguire said.

The maid left, but the little gray and white dog remained, watching Maguire apprehensively, ready to bark or run.

“Relax,” Maguire said to the dog and continued looking around the sitting room.

Bird cage table, not bad. Worth about seven and a half.

Pair of slipseat Chippendale chairs in walnut. Now we’re getting there. Seventy-five hundred, maybe eight grand.

Hummel figurines, if you liked Hummel. Fifty bucks each. A couple that might go as high as a hundred and a quarter.

Plates-very impressive. Stevenson, Enoch Wood’s shell-border pattern. Six, seven thousand bucks worth of plates on one shelf.

And yes , Peachblow vases, the real thing. Creamy red-rose and yellow. Jesus, with the gargoyle stand. Name your price.

A picture of Pope Pius XII. The Last Supper. And some real paintings, old forests and misty green mountains, a signed Durand, an Alvan Fisher, nineteenth-century Hudson River school. A few others he didn’t recognize-sitting down now as he studied the painting-

And jumping up quickly to look at the chair-Jesus, feeling the turnings of the arms. Louis XVI bergère, in walnut. Pretty sure it was a real one.

He sat in the chair again, carefully, and began thinking about the woman who lived here and owned this collection. Before, he had pictured a dumpy sixty-year-old Italian woman in the kitchen, rolling dough, making tomato paste, a woman with an accent. He’d lay it out to her: Your husband owes us money. She’d pay or she wouldn’t, and he could forget about it.

But if she knew antiques-maybe he could fake it a little, establish some kind of rapport, trust… confidence?

The dog came over and began sniffing.

“That’s fish,” Maguire said. He didn’t stoop to pet the dog or say anything else.

Karen, in the doorway, saw this much. And the color of his pants and shirt beneath the jacket, making her hesitate a moment.

“Mr. Maguire?”

He looked up to see a slim, good-looking woman in beige slacks, a dark-blue shirt with white buttons, hand extended.

Maguire rose, giving her a pleasant smile, shaking his head a little. They shook hands politely and he said, seriously then, “You know something?”

Karen expected him to say, I’ve heard a lot about you, Mrs. DiCilia. Something along that line.

But he didn’t. He said, “We’ve got matching outfits on. Tan and blue.”

Karen said, “You suppose it means something?” Playing it as straight as he was.

“I don’t know about you,” Maguire said, “but I got all dressed up. This particular outfit is from Burdine’s, up on Federal Highway.”