Elmore Leonard - Gold Coast

The Palm Bay waiter said to Karen, “The gentleman at the bar would like to join you for a drink, if he may.”

Karen looked from the booth she was in to a man with gray-styled hair and a paisley jacket. Half-turned from the bar he raised his drink to her.

“Does he know my name?” Karen said.

“Oh, yes. He said, ‘Ask Mrs. DiCilia.’ ”

“Tell him he’s mistaken,” Karen said.

The waiter smiled. “You don’t want a drink with him?”

“I said tell him he’s mistaken.”

“Very good,” the waiter said.

When the man with the gray-styled hair came over, Karen said, “I don’t know you. I don’t intend to. Would you go away, please?”

“If you’re alone, no harm in having a drink, a nice chat-”

“Beat it,” Karen said. She stared up at him until he mumbled, “Sorry,” and went back to the bar.

See? Nothing to it.

The look was important. Icy calm, unwavering; the tone quiet, somewhat bored. Maybe a little more work on the tone, keeping the voice low.

Maybe another one would come along. The rescuers-

The Maguires.

Maguire was going to stick his neck out all the way, showing off, and never be heard of again. The natural-born loser. She could try to prevent it, within reason; but if he insisted on playing the rescuer, then she’d have to let him. Karen Hill DiCilia was at the Palm Bay Club the night it happened. Or she was home, but it wasn’t exactly clear what had happened, Karen Hill’s part in it. Karen Hill seemed cooperative. Yes, she knew the deceased, was acquainted with him. But Karen Hill obviously knew more than she was telling.

The waiter came over and said, “If I may disturb you, please. The gentleman at the table by the window-?”

Karen looked over. “Does he know my name?”

Marta drove all the way to Jesus’ apartment on Alhambra, Coral Gables, and got in after she proved to the manager she was Jesus’ sister and not some girl who wanted to rip him off. God, all the things there were to go through and worry about-walking back and forth in Jesus’ living room, walking to the kitchen, walking to the front window, looking out at the street and the cars going by, some with their lights on already, the time passing so fast, rushing her and not giving her a chance to think. She got the phone number from her purse, the Casa Loma, and dialed, then had to wait as the phone rang at least twenty times. When the woman answered, Marta asked if she could please speak to her brother, the man visiting Mr. Maguire. Marta could hear sounds of voices talking and an audience laughing, applauding on the phone, having a good time, as she waited again.

When Jesus was on the phone she said, “I left there. I’m not going back.”

“Where are you?”

“I’m at your place, but I’m leaving here, too.”

“Did Roland come?”

“Did he come-he was gonna take my clothes off again and I ran out. I’m not going back.”

“Calm yourself,” Jesus said. “I can’t hear you very well, this TV playing.”

“I’m not going back there,” Marta said.

“You have to be in the house,” Jesus said. “You understand you have to be there.”

“What is it to me,” Marta said, “or you? It’s none of our business. What do we get out of it?”

“Listen, stay there,” Jesus said. “I’ll come soon as I can, and we’ll talk about it. All right?”

“I’m gonna have to go get her,” Jesus said to Maguire.

“Did he pick up the tape?”

“Yeah, but he tried something, so she ran out and went to my place. She’ll be all right.”

“You sure?”

“If I take Vivian’s car”-looking at Vivian on the bed with the newspaper on her lap, watching them-“I can go get Marta, talk to her first. See, then bring her to the house and meet you there. Take maybe an hour, a little more.”

“Did she put the gun in her room?”

“I didn’t ask her, but I know she did.”

Maguire didn’t like it. He said, “Call Marta back. Have her come here.”

“She won’t. I have to talk to her first. Then everything be all right.”

“You can’t drive up to the house in Vivian’s car.”

“No, we leave it at my place, take Marta’s. Roland comes, sees Marta’s car, he thinks oh, she’s back. Good.”

Maguire said to Vivian, “Is it okay with you?”

“What do I have to say about it? Nothing,” Vivian said. “All I want to know is he’s dead.”

“All right,” Maguire said to Jesus. “But you got to get back by nine-thirty quarter to ten, the latest.”

“Easy,” Jesus said. “Don’t worry.”

MAGUIRE’S PLAN WAS COMING APART.

An hour ago it had seemed close to foolproof. Drop in on Karen, sit around till about ten. Say he was tired or didn’t feel good and leave. Park up by the beach and walk back. Marta lets him in the side door. He and Jesus wait in Marta’s room for Roland to come. Let him enter the house. Say hi, how you doing? Marta screams (optional). Hit him.

But Marta was in Coral Gables, and Jesus had to talk to her and get her back.

And Karen wasn’t home. The house was dark, the three-car garage empty.

He could say to himself, No, it’s going to work. Don’t worry. Keep your eyes open. You see it’s not going to work or too chancy, bail out. You don’t have to be here.

But reassurances didn’t relieve the bad feeling, the doubt beginning to nag him.

Maguire drove the Mercedes into the garage, closed the door from the outside and walked around the house, past the empty patio to the French doors.

There was some definition to the shapes in the darkness: the hedges, the pool, the umbrella table, the yard misty in a pale wash of moonlight. There were specks of moving light on the Intercoastal, the deep darkness beyond the yard. There was the sound of crickets. And now Gretchen barking, inside the house. There was no reason to be as quiet as he might be. Maguire pulled the sleeve of his jacket down over his hand, held it in his fist, punched through the pane of glass next to the door latch and he was inside, Gretchen running up to him, barking.

Moving through the sitting room, his hand feeling the crown of the Louis XVI chair, he told Gretchen to be nice and wondered: If Karen knew she was coming home after dark, why didn’t she leave a light on?

Because Marta must’ve still been home.

Then why didn’t Marta tell them Karen had gone out? If she did, why didn’t Jesus mention it?

Because they had no practice in this kind of thing, that’s why, Maguire thought. And you better get your ass out of here.

But he moved from the front hall to the back hall to Marta’s room, pulled down the shades and turned on a lamp. Okay, Jesus had said yes, he knew Marta had gotten the gun from upstairs. But where would she hide it.

Roland said to Lionel, “Look, I ain’t gonna argue with you. Go on get drunk, sleep on the beach, I don’t give a shit where, and pick up the boat in the morning. Now hand the suitcase here and push me off, goddamn it.” Man, to get through to some people.

The eighteen-footer rumbled away from the dock behind the thin beam of its spotlight, passing the fantails of the motorcruisers and sailers tied up in their slips, heading out into the channel now, Roland keeping the revs low, bearing to starboard as he pictured the map of the Intercoastal, this little section of it. Finding his way through canals and watercourses, natural or manmade, wasn’t anything new. Across the Harborage and where it opened up at the river-hearing a cruiser honking at the drawbridge down there-head for the second point of land and the house sitting there. He figured about a five-minute ride. There were support stanchions along the seawall; he’d tie up to one of them. In the meantime-wedging a hip against the wheel and zipping open the canvas suitcase-he’d get his twelve-gauge put together.