Elmore Leonard - Gold Coast

Beautiful? Karen raised her brows to show a little surprise. She said, “Well, thank you. I think I’ll come back more often.”

Vivian left them, and Grossi said, “What do you need? Anything at all.”

Karen settled back. “Why don’t you want me to go away? Do I have to have permission?”

“No, of course not. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m suggesting why don’t you take it easy. Anywhere you go now it’s hot. Stay here by the ocean. But keep in touch. Let me know what you’re doing and if I can help in any way.”

“I’ll tell you right now what I’m doing,” Karen said. “Nothing. I see someone two or three times-like Howard Shaw, do you know him? He’s an investment consultant, belongs to Palm Bay, recently divorced-”

Grossi was shaking his head. “Karen, you’ve only been a widow, what, a few months. What’s the rush?”

“Almost six months,” Karen said, “half a year. I’ve gone out to dinner a few times-Ed, I’m not jumping in bed with anybody. I’ve been out with three different men that I like, I mean as friends. We have a good time, we seem to get along. They say they’ll call tomorrow or in a couple of days, then nothing, not a word.”

“I don’t know,” Grossi said. “Give it time.”

“Give what time?”

“Relax, don’t worry about it.”

Karen waited, staring at him. “Ed, what’s going on?”

“You mean, what’s going on? They’re businessmen, they’re busy. Maybe they’re out of town.”

“They’re not out of town. I’ve seen them.”

“Well, their wives found out. I don’t know.”

“They’re not married.” Karen waited again. “Is it because I was married to Frank DiCilia?”

“Some people,” Grossi said and shrugged. “Who knows.”

“I’ve thought about that,” Karen said. “But they knew it, every one of them. I mean I didn’t tell them and then they stopped calling. They knew I was Mrs. Frank DiCilia. It’s my name. It didn’t seem to bother them.”

“Well, you don’t know,” Grossi said. “A guy’s a lightweight, sooner or later it shows. He gets nervous, starts to look around; he thinks, Jesus Christ, maybe I’m over my head. You understand? Just the idea, going out with Mrs. Frank DiCilia.”

Karen didn’t say anything.

“If I were you I wouldn’t worry about it,” Grossi said. “You got everything. What do you need some lightweight for? Right?”

Roland Crowe stepped over from the reception desk to hold the door open for Karen. She said, “Thank you,” and Roland said, “Hey, don’t mention it.” He stood hip-cocked in his tight pants and two-hundred dollar cowboy boots watching her ass and slim brown legs move down the hall. When he turned, letting the door close, all the guys in the Dorado lobby were looking at him. Roland winked at nobody in particular. Bunch of dinks, waiting around for the grass to grow.

He went back to the desk to pick up fooling around with the little receptionist, but she told him he could go in now. Roland gave her a wink, too. She wasn’t bad looking for a Cuban. That DiCilia woman wasn’t bad looking either. He remembered her face.

In Grossi’s office, Roland Crowe said, “Wasn’t that Frank’s woman just went out?”

Grossi was putting a sheet of paper in his middle desk drawer. He took out another single sheet that bore a name and a street address written in ink and locked the drawer.

“Was that who?”

“Frank’s old lady.”

“Her name’s Mrs. DiCilia,” Grossi said.

Shit. Little guinea trying to sound like a hardtimer, bit off words barely moving his mouth, more like he had a turd or something in there. Roland felt sociable-back in Miami after six months at Lake Butler State Prison, busting his ass chopping weeds, eating that slop chow-he felt too good to act mean, though he visualized picking the little guinea up by his blue suit and throwing him through the window-grinning then-hearing his guinea scream going down thirty-nine floors to Biscayne Boulevard.

“I met her one time about, I don’t know, a year ago,” Roland Crowe said, “I took something out to their house. Frank introduced us, but she don’t remember me.”

“Here,” Grossi said, handing the sheet to Roland who frowned looking at the name.

“Arnold… Rapp? What kinda name’s that?”

Grossi’s expression remained patient, solemn. “Address’s up in Hallandale.”

“Hiding out, Jesus Christ, in Hallandale,” Roland said. “This dink know what he’s doing or’s he one of them college boys?”

“Arnold tells us the Coast Guard impounded the boat, turned nine tons of grass over to Customs. We see in the paper, yes, there was a boat, Cuban crew, pulled into Boca Chica two days ago.”

“But was it Arnold’s?” Roland said. “What’d you bank him for?”

“Five hundred forty grand, two and a half to one.”

“Well,” Roland said, “if he’s telling a story he must’ve smoked a ton of it to get the nerve, huh?”

“Ask him,” Grossi said. “The other matter, Mrs. DiCilia, Vivian’ll tell you.” He reached over to punch a key on the intercom box. “Vivian, Roland’s coming out.”

Like that, their business over with. There was no, “How was Lake Butler?” or “Thank you, Roland,” for keeping his mouth shut, standing up to that asshole judge and drawing a year and day reduced to six months for contempt of court, having to live up there with all them niggers and Cubans.

Roland said to Ed Grossi, “Oh, how’d I make it up at Butler? Well, just fine, Ed. I kept my hands on my private parts, broke a boy’s arm tried to cop my joint and came out a two hundred and five pound virgin. I lost some weight on that special diet of grits and hog shit they got.”

Ed Grossi said, “Vivian’s waiting for you.”

“He’s going to take so much and then fire you, you know it?” Vivian said.

Roland Crowe gave her a nice grin going over to the glass-top table where she was sitting, a place to talk away from her desk. Roland liked the setup, the glass, looking down through it at Vivian’s crossed legs, the thin beige material tight over her thigh. He said, “You know what I kept dreaming about and seeing in my mind all the time I was at Butler? Cuban pussy. Man, all that black hair-”

Vivian said, “I know one Cuban cocha you never going to see. Sit down, Roland. Be nice.”

He put his hand on his fly as if to unzip his pants. “Come on, you show me yours and I’ll show you something you never seen down on Sou’west Eighta Street.”

“Sou-wa-SAY-da,” Vivian said. “Dumb shit, you never get it right. Come out of the swamp, what, twenty years ago, you still don’t know nothing.”

“I know I can make you happy,” Roland said, having fun, sitting down now and laying his solid forearms on the glass. The cuffs of his flowered shirt were turned back once to show his two-thousand dollar wristwatch and gold ID bracelet. “See, I got to find a new place. I thought I’d move in with you while I was looking.”

“That’s what I need in my life, a convict,” Vivian said. She was straight with Roland but very careful and alert, as though he might slam a fist down on the glass table, and she would have to get out of there fast. She said, “You ready to listen, quit the bullshit?”

What he’d like to do was reach over and take off Vivian’s big round glasses and pull her hair loose, but he said, “Sure. Tell me about it.” Roland felt really good and could be obliging for awhile.

“Mrs. Frank DiCilia, One Isla Bahía, Harbor Beach, Lauderdale.”

“I been to the house.”

“There’s a tap on the phone line that goes into Marta’s room from outside-”

“Wait a minute. Who’s Marta?”