Ричард Старк - Flashfire [= Parker]

She drove well, but didn’t give it much attention; mostly, she talked. She talked about the neighborhoods they were going through, about the history of Palm Beach, the famous people connected with the place, who mostly weren’t famous to Parker, and the “style” of the “community.” Style and community were apparently big words around here, but both words, when they were distilled, came down to money.

But not just any money, not for those who wanted to “belong” — another big word that also meant money. Inherited money was best, which almost went without saying, though Leslie did say it, indirectly, more than once. Married money was okay, second best, which was why people here didn’t inquire too much into new spouses’ pasts. Earned money was barely acceptable, and then only if it acknowledged its inferiority, and absolutely only if it wasn’t being earned anymore.

“Donald Trump never fit in here,” Leslie said, having pointed out Mar-a-Lago, which for many years had belonged to Mrs. Merriweather Post, who definitively did fit in here, and which after her death had been for years a white elephant on the market — nobody’s inherited money, no matter how much of it there was, could afford the upkeep of the huge sprawling place — until Trump had grabbed it up, expecting it to be his entrée to Palm Beach, misunderstanding the place, believing Palm Beach was about real estate, like New York, never getting it that Palm Beach was about money you hadn’t earned.

“I should be pleased Mr. Trump took over Mar-a-Lago,” Leslie said, “I think we should all be pleased, because we certainly didn’t want it to turn into Miss Havisham’s wedding cake out there, but to be honest with you, I think a place must be just a little déclassé if Donald Trump has even heard of it.”

Parker let all this wash over him, responding from time to time with his Daniel Parmitt imitation, looking out the windshield at the bright sunny day, looking at the big blocky mansions of the unemployed rich. Neo-Regency style in architecture, when it was pointed out to him, seemed mostly inspired by the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier: molded plaster wreaths on the outside walls, marching balustrades, outsize Grecian urns dotted around like game pieces.

But although Daniel Parmitt was supposedly looking at all this with the eye of someone who just might want to buy into it, into the whole thing, the property, the community , the style , in which case Leslie would be the real estate agent, the mentor, and the guide, what Parker was looking for was something else. What he wanted was the house Melander had bought, partly with Parker’s money.

And there it was.

They’d traveled south, out of the commercial part of town, through between-the-clubs, where the big houses were mostly hidden behind tall hedges of ficus and, less successfully, sea grape. They’d driven on south beyond the Bath and Tennis Club, driving over the tunnels that let the ocean-facing residents swim in the lake, then past Mar-a-Lago, and past one of the very few public beaches on the island, Phipps Ocean Park, and then more big houses, and in the driveway of one of them, just barely visible past towering sea grape and a closed wrought-iron gate, squatted a Dumpster.

“Work being done there,” he said.

“Oh, there’s always renovation, here and there,” she told him. “There’s a more than adequate workforce over in West Palm, and people add things to their houses constantly. Lately, people have been putting lots of lights outside, to light up the ocean, so they can have their view all night long.”

“And no burglars,” Parker said.

Leslie laughed, dismissing that. “Oh, no, there aren’t any burglars,” she said. “Not here.”

“The paper says there’s burglars.”

She was still dismissive. “Oh, every once in a while, some idiots come up from Miami, but they never last long, and they always get caught. And the city keeps wanting to put some sort of control on the bridges, to get identification on everybody who comes to the island. There’s some sort of civil rights problem with the idea, but I really believe they’ll figure out how to do it someday. And you know, just here in Palm Beach, we have a sixty-seven-man police force.”

Parker had been seeing patrol cars in motion every minute or two since they’d started to drive. “A lot of cops,” he said.

“ More than enough,” she assured him. “Crime is not the problem here.” Then she giggled and said, “Liver transplants are more the problem than crime in Palm Beach.”

“I suppose so,” Parker said. “But that place back there got me to thinking. The bank might like it if I found a fixer-upper.”

Surprised, she said, “Really?”

“Well, they always talk about value-added, you know,” he explained. “God knows I don’t want to work , I wouldn’t even oversee the job, but my man at the bank does like it if I put my money somewhere that it grows itself.”

“Oh, I see what you mean. You’d put money into that kind of house, but then when you were finished it would be worth more than you put in.”

“That’s what they like,” Parker said.

“Well, we don’t get that sort of thing very much, not around here,” she said. “People tend to take care of their places in Palm Beach.”

“Oh. That one back there just looked — I suppose they were just renovating.”

“No, you have a very good eye,” she told him. “That place was a wreck. A very sad history. They’d had a fire, and I don’t know, it had just been left alone too long.”

“But somebody got there before me.”

“I believe,” she said, remembering, pleased by the memory, “I believe he’s also a Texan, like yourself.”

Melander and his little Mexicans. “Lucky him,” Parker said.

“There’s nothing else like that around right now.”

“Just a thought,” he said.

“You know,” she said, “I might still have the sheet on that. I didn’t sell it, but — let me pull in at Monegasque.”

That was a restaurant, not far ahead, a rare spot on this road where it was possible to pull off to the side. Leslie stopped in front of the place, ignored the valet parkers watching her, and grabbed the stack of house-description sheets from the back seat. She riffled through them and pulled one. “Here it is. You can see the trouble you missed. I don’t think fixer-uppers are worth the trouble, frankly.”

Here it was. Color photo, taken from an angle to minimize the neglect. Floor plan. Entrances. Description of alarms.

“I’ll keep this, if it’s okay with you,” Parker said.

“Go ahead,” she said. “I don’t need it. That house is sold.”

A mile or so south of Melander’s house, the private estates began to give way to the hotels: Four Seasons, Hilton, Howard Johnson, all tending down toward the condos. Parker left the Jaguar, top up, in a parking area of the Four Seasons a little after midnight, made his way out to the beach, and walked north. Far ahead, he could see lights along the shore, probably for the nighttime views of the sea Leslie had talked about, but along here the land and sea were both dark, the estates as private and closed away on this side as on the roadside.

There was no moon, but starshine bounding from the sea outlined everything in shadowed silver. Walls and gates marked the properties, with more of those big urns looming at the corners. Almost all the houses tucked far back in there showed interior lights, but they were far away, screened, indirect; only twice did he see doors open to terrace or lawn, lights and sound spilling seaward, small parties in progress. Both times, he kept his head down so his pale face wouldn’t show, and moved closer to the shush of the waves, out of reach of the lights.