Elmore Leonard - Gold Coast

Maguire watched her walk to the table to get something out of a straw bag. The slim brown body. Effortless moves. The quiet tone. He’d bet she drove a car fast and without effort; he saw the two of them, briefly, in the white Alpha Romeo heading for southern Spain.

He said, “I’ve been thinking the same thing. Like you know something you’re not telling.”

“What’s Karen DiCilia’s secret,” Karen said. “Read the latest speculation in next month’s Goldcoaster . Though this one’s going to be on Karen Hill.”

“Who’s she?” Maguire said.

“Who knows,” Karen said.

“You going out tonight?”

“Like where?”

He wanted to say to her, It won’t be long; hang on. But said, “I’ll see you later then, okay?”

“Fine. Anytime.”

He left Karen in her backyard world putting on sunglasses, lighting a cigarette. Maguire walked up S.E. Seventeenth toward the beach, where he’d left the Mercedes. He wondered if she did know something she wasn’t telling. He wondered about the photos of her in the locked room. When this was over he’d ask her about them.

Was she lighting a cigarette when he left?

He wondered when she had started smoking. Maybe he hadn’t been paying attention lately, looking but overlooking, missing something.

Karen had a glass of distilled water from the refrigerator. She left Marta in the kitchen cleaning vegetables for dinner. Moving along the back hall, Karen paused, looked around, stepped into Marta’s room and quietly closed the door. The cassette recorder was still beneath the bed, with a box of cassette cartridges. Karen brought them out, hunching down on her elbows and knees. She changed the setting from “Record” to “Rewind,” stopped it, pushed the “Play” button and within a few moments heard Maguire’s voice.

“Vivian? Hi, it’s all set. We’ll pick you up at eleven-thirty and bring you right here. Then first thing in the morning we go to Miami.”

Vivian’s voice said, “I’m so afraid he’s going to find me. I can’t eat, I can’t sleep. God, I can’t think .”

Maguire’s voice said, “Tomorrow it’ll be over. The Miami Police’ll pick him up, you identify him, that’s it.”

Vivian’s voice said, “I’ll be so glad when it’s over.”

Maguire’s voice said, “Eleven-thirty, Vivian. See you then.”

Karen played the tape back and listened to it again, twice.

She was surprised, puzzled.

Then annoyed.

Karen ejected the tape cartridge. Holding it in her hand, she got a blank cartridge from the box, snapped the new one in position and pushed the recorder and the box back under Marta’s bed.

KAREN BATHED AND DRESSED.She had a martini in the living room while she watched the news. At a quarter to seven she went into the kitchen carrying a handbag and the keys to Frank’s Seville, in the garage.

Marta looked at her, surprised. “I was going to ask if you’re ready for dinner.”

“I’m sorry, I thought I told you,” Karen said, “I’m having dinner out.” She looked at the salad greens drying on the counter. “You haven’t started anything yet, have you?”

“No-” She seemed to want to say more.

“What’s the matter?”

“I don’t want to be alone,” Marta said, “if Roland comes.”

“I thought your brother picks up the tape.”

“Remember, I tole you he doesn’t do it anymore.”

“Well, it’s up to you,” Karen said. “But if you don’t want to open the door when he comes, then don’t.”

“That wouldn’t stop him.”

“Maybe not. It seems funny, though, to be offering you advice,” Karen said. “I tried to help you before. You had a chance to have him arrested and you didn’t.”

“Of course. For the same reason I don’t want to be alone with him. I’m scared, I don’t know what to do.”

“And I don’t know what to tell you,” Karen said. “You’re afraid to let him in and you’re afraid not to.”

“I wish things would be the same, the way it used to be,” Marta said.

“Wouldn’t it be nice,” Karen said. “So, are you going to give him the tape?”

“I guess so.”

Karen jiggled her keys, getting the one for the Seville ready. She said, “Well, I have to go,” but remained by the kitchen table, looking at Marta. “I think what I would do, I’d leave the tape for him outside the door and get away from here for awhile. Maybe a few days. You know? Instead of putting yourself in the middle of something that really doesn’t concern you.”

“Leave here?”

“Why not? What’s anyone done for you lately?”

Just in time.

Roland wheeled his Coupe de Ville into the drive as Marta was backing out, saw her brakelights flash and, before she knew it, was pressed against her rear bumper.

Out of the car Roland said, “Hey, don’t leave on my account. Where we going?” He looked toward the open garage doors and at the house, up at the second-floor windows, as though he might catch someone watching him.

Roland picked up the envelope with his name on it-ROLAND, in big blue letters-from the steps and moved aside to let Marta unlock the door.

“There’s nobody home,” she said.

“Don’t look like it,” Roland said. “I ain’t gonna play house with you today, sugar, I want to use your telephone.” He dialed the one in the kitchen, waited, said, “Son of a bitch,” and hung up. “Where’s Karen at?”

“She went out to dinner.”

“Who with?”

“Nobody. Alone.”

“ ‘Less she’s meeting him, huh? Let’s go in your bedroom and listen to this one,” Roland said, holding up the envelope. “Many calls today?”

“Only a few,” Marta said.

Minutes later, in Marta’s room, after playing the tape and hearing nothing, Roland said, “I’d say that’s less than a few. Or else this here’s the wrong one.”

“I took it out of the machine,” Marta said.

“And I know you wouldn’t lie to me,” Roland said, straightening up from the recorder on the chair, standing close to Marta, the bed behind her. “Would you?”

“I have no reason to lie,” she said.

“You got a nice body, you know it?”

Marta stood rigid, her head turned away from his chest.

“But I don’t have time just now to make you happy. Your tough luck,” Roland said, going into the kitchen. He picked up the wall phone and dialed again.

This time he said, “You dink, where you been?”

Lionel’s voice said, “I was in the toilet a minute.”

“Drinking beer-how many you have?”

“I’m sitting here, I have to do something,” Lionel’s voice said, the sound of a salsa beat behind him.

“Hang on a sec.” Roland looked at Marta. “Go on out in the living room.” He waited until she was in the hall before saying to Lionel, “Get in your boat and bring it up to Bahía Mar.”

Lionel’s voice said, “Man, it’s gonna be dark soon.”

“I hope so,” Roland said. “I’ll meet you there by the gas pumps in about a hour.” He started to hang up, then said, “Hey, Jesus say his sister told him or what?”

“No, he didn’t say anything about his sister,” Lionel’s voice said. “He say it was Vivian.”

Roland held the phone away from him, away from the Caribbean jukebox music behind Lionel. Sure as hell-the sound of a car starting up outside, revving up, then banging something and a terrible sound of metal scraping metal.

“Shit,” Roland said. “You be there.” He banged the phone into its cradle and ran out of the kitchen to the side door.

Marta had her car turned around on the lawn; she cut across the drive and was screeching away, leaving the front left fender of Roland’s Coupe de Ville all torn to hell.