Gold Coast

by Elmore Leonard

  “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.

  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.”

  25

  * * *

  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 ho
use 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.

  * * *

  It took Maguire nearly ten minutes of looking through every drawer, the closet, and the bed to convince himself the gun, the one Jesus knew was in the room, wasn’t.

  Andre Patterson would look at him and shake his head, Man, the people you associate with. Say to Andre, But look. What do they have to do? Practically nothing. Andre would say, That’s exactly what they doing. Nothing. Where they at?

  They’ll be here.

  In the meantime, run upstairs and get the gun. Before Karen comes home. Wherever Karen went.

  Maguire turned off the lamp, felt his way out to the front hall and moved up the stairway. Gretchen had gone off somewhere.

  When Roland saw the house dark it made him wonder for a moment. How come? Then accepted it as he crossed the yard toward the house. They went to get Vivian, that’s why. Both of them.

  But at the French doors, about to put the rubber-padded butt of the shotgun through the glass, seeing it busted already, he said, No, they didn’t.

  Somebody was home, and he bet he knew who it was, too. Somebody besides little Gretchen panting, trying to climb his leg. Roland sat down in the Louis XVI chair to pull off his cowboy boots, whispering, “You like to smell my feet, do you, huh? Come on up here you little thing. I don’t like to do this, Gretchie, no I don’t, but I got to.” He put his hand over Gretchen’s muzzle, clamping it over her nose and mouth and held the squirming furry body until it shuddered and became limp.

  Roland went through the hall to the living room, looked in, came back past the stairway and paused. Was that a sound up there? Like a drawer being shut? Roland went through the back hall to Marta’s room—no Cubans hiding under the bed—came out and turned into the kitchen. There was a soft orange glow on the telephone to show where it hung on the wall. Roland got an idea. He’d memorized Frank DiCilia’s private number once. Now, if he could remember it—

  Maguire closed the top drawer. He opened, looked through and closed every drawer in the dresser. He looked in the drawers of the two nightstand tables. He looked under the pillows and the mattress. Shit. Andre Patterson would say, Get your ass out, boy.

  No, be cool. Where would she put it?

  He went back to the dresser and got the key to the next room out of the drawer. It was possible—she’d decided to put the gun back with Frank’s stuff, his papers, his money. Maguire unlocked the door and went in. No light showed in the window; the draperies were closed. He turned on the desk lamp. Straightening then, his eyes went to the photographs on the wall, the shots of Karen.

  The telephone rang.

  Maguire jumped and Andre Patterson, watching, would say, See?

  The telephone rang.

  Maguire went over to it sitting on the desk and looked at the number in the center of the dial. Not Karen’s number, a private line.

  The telephone rang.

  He’d wait for it to stop. And then thought, What if it’s Karen? If she knew, somehow, he was in the house—

  The telephone rang.

  —Didn’t want him to answer on her phone and have it recorded, so—no, both lines would be tapped. That wasn’t it.

  The telephone rang.

  But it still could be Karen. Or Marta. It could be anybody. It could be Marta with Jesus, knowing he’d be looking for the gun. No—why this phone?

  The telephone rang.

  It would stop.

  The telephone rang.

  The telephone rang.

  Shit, Maguire said and picked it up.

  “How you doing?” Roland’s voice said. “You coming down or you want me to come up?”

  * * *

  “So this parrot went to take a piss, see, and drowned in the toilet. How you doing?” Roland said, coming out of the dark bedroom into lamplight, the pump-action shotgun leading.

  “In the commode was the word,” Maguire said, sitting in the swivel chair behind the desk, trying to look calm. Where the hell else was there to go?

  “I think it sounds better toilet. Where’s Vivian at?”

  “I don’t know any Vivian. Vivian who?”

  “Shit,” Roland said, “we gonna have a question-answer period or we gonna get to it?”

  “I got nothing to tell you,” Maguire said.

  “Then you might as well be dead, huh?” Roland put the shotgun on him.

  “Unless you want to try a few questions and see where they lead,” Maguire said.

  “I got one,” Roland said, “only one. Where’s Vivian?”

  “I can’t do it like that, have it on my conscience.”

  “How can you do it?”

  “I don’t see a way yet.”

  “Then die looking, you dumb shit. It’s up to you.”

  “You want to go for two counts, is that it?”

  “Two?” Roland said. “If I notched my gunbutt you’d get splinters running your hand on it, you dink. I don’t care about numbers. You’re just another one.”

  “But it’s money what it’s all about. Right?”

  “What do you make, two bucks an hour? Want to give me about a hunnert?”

  “I don’t have it, no. But I know where I could get some.” Maguire looked up at the photos on the wall.

  Roland glanced over and back to Maguire, then turned to look at the display of photos again.

  “What’s this all
about, you know? Puts up pitchers of herself.” Roland stepped closer. “And somebody else there, huh? I thought they was all her when I first seen ’em.”

  “I think she comes up here and plays pretend,” Maguire said. “Get her mind off things.”

  “Pretend what?”

  “The mystery lady, I think. Like that other one.”

  “Who’s she?”

  “I forgot her name.” Maguire heard the car then.

  Roland heard it, too. He came around with the shotgun. “She bringing Vivian?”

  “Or cops. You gonna wait and see?”

  “Stay put,” Roland said. He stepped into the bedroom.

  Maguire heard a door, downstairs, open and close. He couldn’t see Roland now. But heard his voice from the upstairs hall. “Come on up, join the party.”

  He could go out the window—if it opened and there was no screen to fool with. He didn’t owe Karen anything. It was the other way around, all the time he’d put in. She owed him more than she’d ever know.

  But he remained in the swivel chair. Probably wouldn’t make it out the window anyway—Roland moved for a big man. So what could he do? Nothing. The hell with Andre Patterson there watching, shaking his head.

  Karen was coming in, seeing him at the desk. Christ, Karen shaking her head, too. Roland came in behind her saying, “I hope we can get this cleared up, what’s going on.”

  Karen took a cigarette out of a pack in her straw handbag and laid the bag on the desk.

  “You have a light?”

  “I used to chew, but I never smoked,” Roland said. “It’s bad for you.”

  Karen took a lighter from the bag and snapped it several times. “I went to Miami for dinner. Alone.” She dropped the lighter on the desk and raised her hip to sit against the corner, picking up the handbag and resting it on her lap now as she felt inside.

  “You got a match?” Roland said to Maguire.

  “I don’t smoke.”

  “That’s smart,” Roland said. He looked at Karen. “I believe you. It’s this dink here causing all the commotion. See, he was gonna bring Vivian here—the way I figure it—and try and get a lot of money out of you to help her get away.” He stopped. “You know why?”