Green Ice

by Gerald A. Browne

  Diamond-shaped, about six feet across, with a whipping tail. A manta ray.

  Mysterious creature. The way it looked, it had to be unfriendly. There were dozens of them. Interesting to watch. Every once in a while one would turn belly up, causing a flash of white. And also, every once in a while Wiley caught glimpses of sharks. Big ones. They hadn’t been there at first. Had they come because they sensed his presence? He removed the apple from his pocket, shined it on the leg of his white duck trousers before taking a bite.

  It was mealy. He tossed it into the ocean, half-expecting the mantas and sharks to fight over it. They ignored it. Evidently not vegetarians.

  The sun felt beneficial, untightening his back and shoulders. He could see up the coast from there, quite a way. The beach reduced by distance to a white thread. Somewhere along there they’d swum yesterday. Probably Lillian got satisfaction from causing impact, he thought. The hit-and-run type. Lucky for him, it had been only a scrape, no damage suffered. She’d drawn the line, and he’d respected it. Dumb him.

  He took his time walking back.

  The pool area was getting crowded now. Cushions being plumped, chaises adjusted, towels spread, lotions applied. Waiters were serving coffee and croissants. Wiley sat at a table on the perimeter, in the shade, and faced away from the pool to escape the glare that had given him a headache. He assumed he could have breakfast there.

  His name was called.

  Mrs. Gimble was sitting up on a chaise about fifteen places from him. Wiley didn’t recognize her immediately because she was stripped to a bikini. She beckoned him to her. He waved, smiled, was going to let that suffice but then decided better not alienate her.

  “Mr. Wiley. What a delightful surprise.”

  He took her extended hand, anticipating a shake, but she drew him down to her for face kisses left and right. This transferred some sweet-smelling oil to his cheeks. He glanced around for Mr. Gimble, saw him a dozen places away, soaking up sun and the surrounding scenery.

  “So, you decided to wander here,” Mrs. Gimble beamed. “I hoped you would.”

  “A friend from Mexico City dragged me along.”

  “Oh?” She was visibly disappointed.

  “An old school chum.”

  As soon as he said that, he wondered why. Was he really going to become a social opportunist? It had been merely a self-humoring notion yesterday. In the back of his mind (or was it the front now?) was the idea of using Mrs. Gimble to make some suitable acquaintances. He sat on the adjacent cushioned lounger. A waiter placed a tray on the nearby low table.

  “Another cup and more coffee,” Mrs. Gimble told the waiter, the tone of her voice altered for the waiter, close to a command.

  Wiley thought how he’d hate being ordered around by her. Or by anyone, for that matter. “I was about to have breakfast,” he said.

  “I’ll butter you a croissant.”

  She did so without waiting for him to say he wanted it. She also spread on a lot of raspberry jam, like an additional reward. He accepted it. For herself she poured coffee and laced it with a tumbler of cognac.

  “I enjoy getting up in the morning,” she said. “Join me?”

  Why not? It wasn’t his usual behavior, but he would have to go through plenty of changes. “I’ll have something cold.”

  “Fruity?”

  “Not this season.”

  She laughed rather automatically.

  If being smartass glib was a prerequisite, it was going to be tough, he thought.

  “Have a Coco-loco,” she suggested.

  “What’s that?”

  She ordered it.

  A young girl passed close by, wearing only a bikini bottom. A slim, haughty creature about eighteen. She had a tiny gold loop hung from just below her left nipple.

  Mrs. Gimble saw him notice. “They were doing that in St. Tropez a few summers ago, having their breasts pierced.”

  It looked painful to Wiley.

  “That’s the intention,” Mrs. Gimble said. “Seems everything’s getting more and more flavored with S and M.”

  His Coco-loco came. Gin, vodka and rum over shaved ice, served in a fresh coconut with a pair of straws sticking up like an antenna. Wiley took a long sip, managed to conceal a grimace.

  “Have you ever done any acting?” Mrs. Gimble wanted to know.

  “Why do you ask?”

  “You have a most attractive squint, as though you were searching for something in the distance or scrutinizing everything, everyone around you. Most film stars have it, that same squinty intensity.”

  He was about to explain that this morning he’d accidentally broken both his pairs of sunglasses, but at that moment someone opened his eyes.

  The man with the Herculean head, the one who had been with Lillian last night, was making his way through the sunbathers, stopping to speak and shake or kiss hands. There was an outgoing, robust quality about him. He seemed to know almost everyone. He had on only a pair of white sharkskin shorts, revealing how extremely hirsute he was, even across his shoulders and back. He came to Mrs. Gimble and Wiley.

  “I assume you’ve met our host?” Mrs. Gimble said.

  “Briefly,” Wiley said. He shook hands with Meno Argenti.

  “I don’t recall,” Argenti said. “Usually I’m excellent at remembering people, make a point of it.”

  “I’m Joseph Wiley.” Said as though it should mean something.

  “Oh, yes,” Argenti said, faking it. “I beg your pardon. Enjoy yourselves.” He went on a short way to greet a swarthy-complexioned bald man, who was with a pair of shapely young girls. Argenti called the man General. He flattered the girls, and they reacted as though they’d received gifts. They opened a leather case and began setting up a game of some sort. Argenti joined them. The moment he sat, a drink was at hand. The waiter had been following him around with it, just in case.

  So that was Lillian’s benefactor, Wiley thought. The big man, top man. Well, good for her.

  Mrs. Gimble was on the subject of young women, girls, admitting what they offered but emphasizing how importunate they were, unappreciative and eventually, when one got right down to it, disappointing.

  Wiley grunted agreeably, while actually paying attention to Argenti, guessing his age was at least fifty. Argenti and the General were talking about going fishing for marlin. Argenti was patronizing the General to some extent. He offered the use of his yacht. The General accepted. The two girls were overjoyed. The General pinched one of the girls on the inside of her thigh as high up as possible. The other one reached across for a cigarette and intentionally elbowed the General’s groin. He too had an accent, but not Italian. Spanish was Wiley’s guess, confirmed when he heard the man’s last name: Botero. Wiley also heard mention of Lillian. He got only a fragment of it, something to do with that evening.

  “My husband suffers from angina,” Mrs. Gimble was saying. “Whenever things get too active, he gets pains in his chest.”

  “Looks healthy enough to me.”

  “He is really. I allow him the excuse.” She did a know-what-I-mean glance. “He’s playing cards or whatever with someone tonight, and I’m seeing a friend from Dallas. Perhaps you know her. Hendy?”

  “Who?”

  “Sarah Jean Hendricks. Why not have dinner with us?” As though it had just occurred to her.

  “Don’t mind if I do.”

  “I won’t,” she promised wryly.

  At that moment Wiley caught sight of Lillian, on the opposite side of the pool. He watched her cross over via the suspended rope bridge. She had on a pale blue full-length overdress of crepe de chine, unbuttoned three down from the neck and seven up to the crotch. A matching visored scarf bound round and tied at the nape of her neck; a woven net bag slung over her shoulder. She said hellos and distributed some smiles along the way but didn’t pause. It seemed to Wiley she was headed straight for him, coming to him. She stopped when she reached Argenti, who stood to greet her, kissed her a bit lingeringly on each chee
k, cooed some compliments Italian-style and made sure he attracted attention. Wiley couldn’t really blame Argenti for it. She was a beauty to be proud of.

  “Oh, you’re playing that silly game,” she said.

  “We’ve just begun,” General Botero said. “You can catch up.”

  “No, thanks. It’s even more boring than backgammon.”

  They were playing Petropolis, a wealthier version of Monopoly that involved joint ventures, conglomerates and just about every other aspect of international high finance. The Go point was, appropriately, the Geneva airport. The play money was in denominations of one thousand to one million. Instead of houses or hotels, a player tried to accumulate oil wells.

  Lillian would settle for some sun. She removed her overdress. Her bathing suit was a white maillot, slick as a second skin, a stretchy material, opaque but so close to nothing it could be bunched up and concealed in a fist. She lay front down on a lounger, hands beneath her chin.

  Wiley was right in her line of sight, no more than ten feet from her. She seemed to be gazing at him. She was. She smiled and said, “You’re burning.”

  “I’ve been out since around nine.”

  Argenti glanced over to see whom she was talking to. If he was concerned, he didn’t show it.

  “Don’t try for so much the first day,” Lillian advised. Her eyes discreetly indicated Mrs. Gimble.

  That lady gulped her laced coffee and acted detached.

  “Maybe I already have,” Wiley said.

  “I doubt that.” Lillian got up, picked up her overdress and told him, “Anyway, how about a drink in the shade?”

  He followed her to a table beneath a nearby thatch-roofed area. From where they were seated, Wiley could see Argenti in the background. And Mrs. Gimble. He’d been unintentionally rude to her, had forgotten his manners in his susceptibility to Lillian. He couldn’t remember saying good-bye, vaguely remembered Mrs. Gimble saying “A bientôt.” Oh, well, he’d make it up to her somehow. As for Argenti … he was on Argenti’s territory.

  “He might be jealous,” Wiley said.

  “So?”

  “I don’t want to spoil what you’ve got going.”

  “You won’t.”

  “Sure?”

  “Positive.”

  A waiter came. Lillian ordered a plain Perrier with a squeeze of lime. Wiley started to order tequila on the rocks, which had just come to mind because it would sound good. Instead he told her, “I really don’t want a drink. All I’ve had to eat so far today is one bite of a bad apple.”

  “Poor soul. Do you have Montezuma’s revenge? Intestinal infection?”

  “No.”

  “Then let’s get you something.”

  She held out her hand for him to take, and they went from the pool area to an open-air restaurant situated on a ledge among the white bungalows. She had a fresh fruit salad topped with crème fraîche, while he had grilled lobster and a beer.

  “I’m vegetarian,” she said.

  If that was true, she was certainly a recommendation for it, he thought.

  “How’s the hunting?” she asked.

  “I’m not doing nearly as well as you.”

  “See that one?” She indicated a severe-looking middle-aged woman with thin lips and a sharp chin. “They say she collects Monets and men.”

  “And the Monets last.”

  “You’ve worked Cap Ferrat, of course, and Nice.”

  “Neither.”

  “How about Deauville?”

  He evaded the question with: “You’ve known Argenti before.”

  “Obviously.”

  “See him often?”

  “Here and there, off and on.”

  “What does he do besides own this place?”

  “Owns other things, a financier. He lives in Bogotá.” She looked off and up, wasn’t interested in the topic. “Want to play with me this afternoon?”

  “Play what?” Not that it mattered.

  She didn’t tell him. She showed him. In high spirits, she led him up over the hill to the golf course.

  He told her, “I don’t golf.”

  “What a sin.” She ran ahead and then turned and walked backward. “Do you know what a snooger is?”

  “A what?”

  “I thought not.” She laughed.

  Wiley couldn’t remember ever having heard a prettier sound. He caught up to her, put an arm around. Side against side they went across a fairway and on through some rough. She stopped them at a level spot where the ground was practically bare, composed of a pale clay packed by weather and baked by sun. Only a few scrubby plants grew there. She pulled them out by their roots, telling Wiley to help. They cleared an area about fifteen feet square. She kneeled, put her face close to the ground, examined the surface, from one angle and then another. Like a golfer studying a green. Then she used her feet to tamp where they’d pulled the plants up, making it level. Wiley did the same without being told. He felt foolish. He asked what the hell they were doing, but she was intent on digging into her net bag for something.

  Two nails and some string.

  Ordinary three-inch carpentry nails and regular wrapping string.

  “Five feet … anyway, just about,” she said, referring to the length of the string. “I measured it from my toes to my nose.”

  The nails were knotted to the string, one on each end. In the center of the cleared area she pressed one of the nails into the ground. Wiley was to make sure it stayed in place. She stretched the string taut and, using the other nail, moved with it to make a line on the ground all the way round. A near-perfect circle, ten feet in diameter. At the center she marked a cross. “Now what shall we play for?” she asked.

  “Play what for?”

  “You still don’t know?”

  He had to admit he didn’t.

  “This is going to be murder.” She grinned her lopsided grin. “But when it comes to competition, I’m without conscience.”

  From her net bag she brought out a leather drawstring pouch, the same one she’d had tied to her belt yesterday. She opened it. He recognized the clicking sound of its contents a split second before she poured them out.

  Marbles.

  Aggies, alleys, migs, immies and glassies, including just about every color in swirls and patches, veins and ribbons, slivers and bubbles, some milky opaque, others watery clear.

  Wiley didn’t try to conceal his delight. He got right into it, held several of the marbles in his hand, felt their shape and weight, reexperiencing.

  Lillian was anxious to get started. Again she wanted to know what the stakes would be.

  Wiley suggested a dollar a marble.

  “Not money. Let’s play for something important.”

  “How about for the fun of it?”

  “That’s okay, but I’d like to make it a little more exciting. For instance, we could play for time.”

  “Meaning what?”

  “Loser has to do whatever the winner wants for a certain length of time.”

  “Sounds like slavery.”

  “Just temporary.”

  “Is that what you normally play for?”

  “Not since I was ten.”

  He believed her.

  “Or what we could do,” she said, “is play for something more precise.”

  “Such as?”

  “Kisses.” She read his eyes and added, “Above-the-waist kisses.”

  She could have limited it to above the neck, he thought. Better start play before she made any less rewarding suggestions.

  She placed thirteen marbles in the center of the ring.

  “You can use my best shooter,” she said, as though that was a supreme gesture. She tossed him a black-and-white aggie about twice as large as the other marbles. “I paid a kid from the Bronx fifty dollars for it. Chip it, and I’ll chip you.”

  According to the rules, they would shoot from outside the ring to try to knock any of the thirteen marbles (“hoodles”) out beyond the perimeter. The fi
rst player to knock seven hoodies out was the winner.

  “No cunny thumbs,” she said.

  “No cunny thumbs.”

  “From you that sounds dirty.” It meant, when making a shot, at least one knuckle had to be resting on the ground.

  She hunkered down, one knee in the dirt. She placed her shooter against the ball of her first finger, thumb behind, took quick aim, and flicked it.

  Excellent form.

  Her shooter skimmed fast across the hard clay surface. Collided with a crack, knocking one of the hoodles out of the ring.

  “Nice shot.”

  She took the compliment, shot again. She knocked four out before missing.

  Wiley’s turn.

  She watched him closely, and he felt that in her eyes this might be a test for him. He knocked a hoodles out on his first try. It had looked good, easy, but he knew it was mostly luck. He was about to let go his second shot when she told him, “No hunching.”

  “I wasn’t.”

  “Just reminding.”

  Hunching was moving the hand forward over the edge of the ring. Being extra careful not to do it now hurt Wiley’s concentration. He shot and missed, way off.

  She hunkered down again, both knees in the dirt, and with admirable accuracy proceeded to knock out three more hoodles, winning that game.

  She was six ahead.

  Did she want to collect now?

  She said she could wait.

  They played most of the afternoon. After the first four or five games the competition lost some of its edge, at least enough so that they talked of other things.

  “What were you originally?” she asked. “Nearly everyone was something else originally.”

  “I was into electronics.”

  She seemed interested. “You got out because you weren’t good at it.”

  “No.”

  “Why then?”

  He told her about it, briefly, the high and low points of MIT, Humes, Special Dynamics, Litting. For him it was like touching on old scarred-over wounds, didn’t hurt.

  “What were you originally?” he asked.