Elmore Leonard - Gold Coast

ARNOLD CAME FROM THE BEDROOOMcarrying a yellow canvas bag that had a zippered flap on the side for a tennis racket. Roland was on the balcony looking over the rail, holding onto his cowboy hat due to the wind off the ocean. Arnold stared at Roland’s back, at the bright-blue material pulled tight across the shoulders.

Roland turned. As he saw Arnold watching him, he said, “How’s Barry?”

Arnold walked over to the coffee table and dropped the bag. “Fifty-four thousand,” Arnold said.

Roland came in from the balcony. “I asked you how’s Barry.”

“He’s in traction. He’ll be in traction six months. Also his kidney and his spleen’s fucked up.”

“Tell him if he’s gonna dive, he should do it in the deep end,” Roland said. He moved past Arnold to the canvas bag and picked it up. “Wouldn’t think paper’d be this heavy, would you?”

“You gonna look at it?”

“I know what it looks like,” Roland said. “You’re doing good, Arnie. Keep it up.”

“You know I’m gonna pay you, right?”

“Sure, I do.”

“Well, how about-you know, since this isn’t strictly speaking a shylock deal-we make a different kind of arrangement.”

“Like what, Arnie?”

“See, the way it is, I keep paying the vig, how’m I ever gonna get to the principle?”

“Beats the shit out of me,” Roland said.

“You know what I mean? I didn’t borrow the money. I’m only paying the man back his investment.”

“Yeah? What’s the difference?”

“It’s diff erent. You got guys borrow money from you, they know going in what the vig is. But this was a business deal.”

“They’re all business deals,” Roland said, “but vig’s vig and the amount owed’s something else. Didn’t they teach you that at school, Arnie?”

“I tried to explain it to Ed-”

“I know you did. And he told you to talk to me,” Roland said. “It’s the same way, a man, a guy owns one of the biggest hotels on the strip, he borrows money, he pays the vig. Every week. He’s got a problem, he comes to me with it. Man with a restaurant right here in Hallandale, shit, half a dozen appliance stores over on federal highway, picture show, bunch of motels-they all pay the vig, Arnie. They understand it’s the way you do business.”

“Right, shylock business, I understand that.” Arnold moving around, bit his lip. “But this is diff erent.”

“And I ask you how-so?”

“I didn’t borrow the money, Ed in vested it.”

“But you lost it, so you have to pay it back.”

“I didn’t lose it-”

Roland had his palm up, facing Arnold. “We ought to agree on something here.”

“Okay, I lost it.”

“Now then,” Roland said, “when you come to paying back, what’s the difference? Paying back is paying back, whether it’s money you lost or money you borrowed. See, your losing it-we give you money, we don’t ask you what you’re gonna do with it, like the bank. You can flush it down the toilet if you want. Long as you pay it back.”

“Okay,” Arnold said, “I owe you five hundred and forty grand. I can pay you back in time, you know that. But I can’t if I keep paying the fucking vig. Look, ten weeks from now, fifty-four thousand a week, man, where the fuck am I? I will’ve paid out five hundred forty grand, right? And I’m still not into the fucking principle. I’m never into it. You know what I got to do? I mean to get what I’m paying you.”

“I don’t know,” Roland said, “ask your mommy for it?”

“I got to deal in hard shit, man, and that’s a totally different business. Get into that Mexican brown, nobody even likes it, I got to keep a line coming through here and beg, im plore, dealers to take the shit. That’s what I’m into now, myself, that’s all.”

“Your little friends,” Roland said, “where’d they go?”

“Who knows. Fuck ’em. I said to Ed, okay, then back me again on the Colombian thing. Three times, three loads, you take my cut as well as your own, I’m paid off.”

“And he said?”

“Shit, you know what he said.”

Roland buttoned his suitcoat and switched the canvas bag from his right hand to his left, ready to go.

He said, “It’s hard out here in the world of commerce, ain’t it, Arnie?”

But rewarding to those who put their nose to the grindstone and their ear to a box-full of cassette tapes, the way Roland did for twenty-four hours and fourteen minutes spread over three days, listening to something like one hundred forty-six different cassettes.

And ninety-nine percent nothing. Somebody called the weather every day. The lady called her hairdresser once a week, this queer who scolded her and acted impatient. (What’d she take that kind of shit for?) She talked to some people in Detroit a few times; nothing. She talked to her daughter Julie in Los Angeles; listened to her daughter bitch about work and her husband fooling around, the daughter talking away, never asking how her mother was doing. (“Hang up,” Roland would say to himself. “Whyn’t you hang up?”) There were calls to Marta, short conversations in Spanish. Then a woman calling from the Miami Herald a couple of times, wanting to interview her, take some pictures of Mrs. DiCilia at home, Mrs. DiCilia saying not now, some other time.

Then the dinks started calling about the middle of February. Dinks asking her to go out. Dinks calling again and saying what a fun time they had. “Hey, that was a ball, wasn’t it? Delightful.” Laughing like girls. One dink giving her his golf scores for the week. This other dink boring the shit out of her (and Roland) with all these stock market reports. Another one, the only thing he talked about was his Donzi cigarette boat and off-shore racing, Miami-Bimini, Miami-Key West, how big the waves were, implying what a fucking hero he was out there at the helm. (Roland said to the voice on the tape, “You dink, I’d blow your ass off with a Seminole air boat. Put you smack on the trailer.”) From the sound of them, it couldn’t have been too hard to scare them off. The lady didn’t know how lucky she was, saved from listening to them dinks.

Then the woman from the Miami Herald again wanting to interview her; DiCilia saying all right. Then a call from some Palm Beach magazine, the Gold Coaster, something like that, and Mrs. DiCilia agreeing to talk to them.

Then more conversations with Ed Grossi in May. (Roland would sit up and pay attention to these.) Then Ed inviting her to his office.

There, that was up to where Roland took over the tape concession and started getting them directly from Marta or Jesus Diaz. Nothing interesting yet, not the kind of information he was listening for.

Then the one, her call to Ed chewing him out. “I never want to see that man here again.” Not loud, but a good bite in her tone. “Keep that animal away from here.” ( An imal? Hey now.) Then saying, “Why didn’t you tell me yourself? Why did I have to hear it from him? Keep him away from this house. You understand?” (Roland saying, “Hey, take it easy, Karen.”)

He listened to the end. Then played it back and listened again. No sir, nothing about his proposition. Not a word. Blowing off steam, but not telling the whole story, was she? Keeping a possibility open. Roland grinned.

The next few tapes, nothing of interest. One he thought at first was going to be good.

The woman talking to the operator, asking for the number of Goodman and Stern in Detroit, telling the operator it was a law office. (Uh-oh.) Then talking to a guy named Nate. Nate telling her it had been too long and how sorry he was he couldn’t make Frank’s funeral and was there anything he could do for her. Then Karen asking him if the name Maguire and Deep Run meant anything to him. Long pause. The guy, Nate, saying yes, he believed they handled it. Why? Karen saying it wasn’t important but she’d like some information about Maguire if they had it on file. She had met him, she said, and something about Maguire wanting a job recommendation. This guy Nate saying, after another pause, well, he’d have somebody named Marshall something put a report together and send it to her. But he’d advise her to use discretion and touch base with someone at Dorado, someone close by. And how was everything else down in the land of sunshine?