“You don’t have to,” Elinor said between her teeth. “You can take it from me, there are no marks.”
Jake said evenly: “I take nobody’s word for anything in this game, Miss Majeski. Not with what I’ve got riding on it. Now pull up that jacket.”
Something in his voice made her do it, but furiously, and then, unbidden, she even more furiously tugged down the waistband of the pants so that golden tendrils of pubic hair curled over its elastic. The rounded underbelly showed no marks.
“Well?” she said, and drew her clothing into place.
“All right.” He started to turn away, but when she said, “Well, I’m glad something is all right,” he turned back again. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing.”
“Don’t hand me that. The way you said it, it meant something. And you’ve been putting on a prima donna act for the last hour. What’s it all about?”
Elinor said: “If you have to know, it’s about your getting so sore when you found out I had a kid. You wouldn’t have given me this job if you knew about the kid before, would you?”
“I didn’t have much choice, the way Sherry dumped you on me the last minute. But if I had a choice, no, I wouldn’t have given you the job. Kids are a distraction, even fourteen hundred miles away. Sick old mamas in the hospital are a distraction. A husband or boy friend is a distraction if he comes on strong. You can’t afford any distractions in this line of work. You have to concentrate on what you’re doing every second. One wrong word, one wrong blink of the eye, and I’ll be out at least ten thousand in cash without a goddam thing to show for it. If your kid gets a runny nose—”
“Believe me,” Elinor said, “if he does, you’d be the last one in the world I’d ever tell about it, Mr. Dekker.”
5
He woke early and pulled aside the curtain of the study window to look out on the sunlit expanse of Biscayne Bay. The lawn of every house in view ran down to the bay, and at the foot of each lawn was a small dock, most of which had one or two small boats moored to them. On the dock of the house next door, a man on hands and knees was working over what was probably the gear of the sailboat tied up there.
Jake stripped the bedding from the couch and stuffed it into the closet of the study. When he went into the bedroom Elinor was asleep, curled up tightly under the blankets, her head buried under her pillow. She was still asleep when he left the house, dressed in faded chinos, a Hawaiian shirt, and sandals.
A truck with an elevating platform mounted on it was parked beneath one of the palm trees bordering Circular Drive. High up on the platform, a man was hacking away at the foliage with what looked like a machete. “Heads up,” the man called, and three or four coconuts thudded down into the roadway, followed by lengths of palm frond. One of the coconuts rolled across the road, and Jake went over to pick it up.
He hefted it, and it was like a lead weight in his hand. The driver of the truck, watching this, said: “It’s ready to eat, if you know how to open it. Only trouble is, by the time you get it open you’re too tired to eat it.”
Jake walked over to the man. “That your job? Knocking them down before they come down by themselves on somebody’s head?”
“That’s the job.”
“Anybody ever get hit with them anyhow?”
“Not that I know of. A car sometimes. You hear about it maybe once a year. Some jerk parks under one of these trees overnight. Next morning he’s got a dent in the roof.”
Jake said: “Still and all, it could be a lot worse if he was driving when it happened. Scare him out of his wits. Might even make him lose control of the car.”
The driver shook his head. “It could, but I never heard of that happening to anybody. Are you the people moved into the de Burgo house?”
“I’m the people,” Jake said.
“Well, you’ve got four coconut palms of your own in the back there. We’ll take care of them during the week.”
“Thanks.”
“No thanks due,” the driver said. “You’re paying the Daystar Association ten bucks a tree for the service. Just don’t camp under any of those babies till we’re done with them.”
The trees were there to be counted when Jake made his way to the back of the house, along with a solitary royal palm on which a brilliantly colored woodpecker was hammering away. The lawn underfoot, a coarse, heavy-bladed grass, was flawlessly clipped and still sodden with the night’s wetness. Here and there around it were large beds of flowers at least as brilliantly colored as the woodpecker.
The man tending the gear of the sailboat at the dock next door was now stowing it aboard the boat. He stepped back on the dock as Jake came up. A big man whose features seemed too small for his face, he wore only Bermuda shorts. His hairless, soft-looking body was burned pink by the sun; his nose and lips were smeared with a white ointment.
When Jake introduced himself the man said: “Yes, I heard you were moving in. My name’s Webb. Milt Webb. Say, is it true you’re a writer?”
“That’s what my publisher tells me.”
“You look more like a pro linebacker to me.” Webb’s pursy little mouth twisted in a smile. “I’ll have to admit that’s a relief.”
Jake smiled in his turn. “What did you expect to have show up? Some kind of hippie?”
“You never know nowadays. Not that I was too much worried. McCloy’s careful about who he puts up for membership in the Association. It only means trouble all around if somebody who’s already moved in gets blackballed and has to pack out again. You’re on a lease now, aren’t you?”
“Six-month lease, cash in advance,” Jake said. “Money to be applied to the purchase price.”
“Figure on buying?”
“Yes, now that I’ve seen the place. This is the first look I had at it. I dealt through an agent.”
“I know. Well, now that we met I can tell you this much. You won’t have any trouble when you have to show up before the membership committee.”
“The sooner, the better,” Jake said.
Webb shook his head somberly. “It won’t be all that soon. The full committee has to be present, and there’s supposed to be five on it. There’s only four right now. We had a sudden death a little while back. Auto accident.”
“Too bad,” Jake said.
“You can say that again,” Webb assured him solemnly. “It really was a hell of a thing. One of the finest men you could ever hope to meet, no more than fifty-three, fifty-four, looked as fit as you do, and then—bingo!” He snapped his fingers sharply. “Walter Thoren. He was a big loss to us.”
“Thoren?” Jake said. “Oh, Jesus, and we barged in on them—”
“What?”
Jake said: “Last night. I couldn’t locate my place, so I pulled up there to ask about it. My wife and I must have been with them half an hour. They couldn’t have been nicer. If I knew about them being in mourning—”
“Oh. Well, they’re not in mourning like that any more. It happened a month ago. Not that Charlotte—Mrs. Thoren—wouldn’t put herself out for you no matter how she felt. A wonderful woman. And he was a wonderful man. One out of a million. What a wallop it was when I heard he was gone.”
“Nice kids, too,” Jake remarked. “Looked to me like they got a real old-fashioned bringing-up.”
Webb’s mouth briefly pouted as if he were trying to drive away a fly that had settled on his upper lip. “That’s what they got all right. But kids today—” He jerked a thumb at the boat. “Come on aboard, and I’ll set up some drinks. You got any prejudice against starting the day with a vodka and juice?”
“None that I can’t be talked out of,” Jake said.
Reclining on the gently heaving deck of the boat, vodka and grapefruit juice in hand, Webb said: “Seems like I need a drink any time the subject of today’s kids comes up. I had headaches with mine, too. Thank God, they’re both married and settled down now. Well, almost settled down.”
“You mean Mrs. Thoren can’t say tha
t yet.”
“Poor woman. No, she can’t. But it was Walter who was really taking the beating. Charlotte’s easygoing about things. Walter wasn’t. He had very tight standards. Tolerant, yes. But up to a point. You understand what I’m getting at?”
“I’m not so sure I do,” Jake said.
“There’s no mystery about it,” Webb said. He made a sweeping gesture in the direction of Miami Beach. “Jewsville. You know that, don’t you? Wall-to-wall Yid. And when one of your own kids waltzes in and announces she’s going to marry into them—”
“The son?” Jake said.
“No, the daughter. Joanna.”
“I see. There was a young fellow named Freeman with the family last night. Is he the one?”
Webb said: “He’s the one. Hal Freeman. The complication is that his father’s been family doctor for the Thorens and us and lot of others around here for years. Fine doctor, nice, level-headed guy who knows his place, enjoys a good Yid joke as much as anybody else—now how do you tell a man like that his son just isn’t wanted around here? Certainly not to be papa to your grandchildren. You can see the fix Walter was in.”
“Tough,” Jake said. “But how about the Thoren boy setting his sister straight? Kermit. Sometimes a girl will listen to her big brother when she won’t listen to anybody else.”
Webb snorted. “Let me put it to you this way, Jake. You don’t mind my calling you Jake, do you?”
“Hell, no, Milt.”
“Well, let me put it to you this way. As far as Kermit is concerned—and I’ve told it to him right to his face—the only project he seems to be interested in is proving he’s champion cocksman of the good old U.S.A. He’s worse than useless in a family trouble like this. Matter of fact, he’s the one brought young Freeman in the house to start with. They were kids together in school and buddies over in Miami U. and so on. I’ll admit this much. In my private opinion, the boy’s not too happy about this business himself. But once he knew his father was dead-set against it, why, naturally, he just had to shove it up the old man. He and Walter never did get along.”
“No communication,” Jake said.
“Yeah, that’s the word you writers use for it today, isn’t it?” Webb finished his drink and helped himself to another, freshening Jake’s drink as well. “Still, it wasn’t altogether Kermit’s fault. Not by a long shot. If ever a man enjoyed keeping his mouth tight shut, it was Walter. Ask him a question, you’d get an answer. Outside of that, whether it was with his kids or anybody else, he was Silent Joe himself.”
“Not so good,” Jake said.
“Maybe not.” Webb finished half his drink in one long gulp. “On the other hand, who can tell? When he did have something to say, it meant everybody sure as hell listened. Sort of a natural leader, that man, and without even trying. Ran the Membership Committee here, big wheel on the Civic Planning Association over on the Beach—”
“Planning for what?”
“Oh, to try to keep the whole Beach from being chewed up and swallowed by the real estate interests. The hotel and high-rise people. The Association was always trying to block those building code variances you can buy any time you want to stick up an apartment house in somebody’s front yard. And trying to keep the hotel owners from ruining the shoreline there any more than they have already. After all, they ruin the Beach, they’re knocking down our values right here. But it’s an unofficial association. It never carried enough weight to stop the big boys when they wanted to roll.”
Jake said: “All the same, they couldn’t have liked Thoren too much. Someone like that can make himself a real nuisance to the big boys.”
“Yeah, once in a long while maybe. Not that it ever bothered Walter. An absolutely fearless guy. Bert McCloy even talked to me once about what it could mean to have him run as an independent for mayor. But as I told Bert, you have to face the facts. When it comes to running Miami Beach, if you’re not one of the Chosen People—you know what I mean?”
“I know what you mean,” Jake said.
6
When he got back to the house Elinor, still in pajamas, was at the kitchen table with the pages of biographical material spread out before her.
“Eat yet?” Jake said.
“No, I was waiting for you like a good little wife should. I saw you from the back window talking to that man. Who is he?”
“Our next-door neighbor. Guy named Milt Webb. A live one.”
“What’s that mean?”
“He’s a heavy drinker with a chip on his shoulder. That kind talks a lot. Sometimes they say something worth listening to.”
“Did he?”
“Yes. He’s taking it hard because young Joanna Thoren intends to marry that Freeman boy you saw over there with her last night. Freeman’s Jewish.”
“Oh. But what makes that his business?”
“Well, aside from his affection for the Thorens, which he talks about too much to make convincing, what finally came through after three large doses of vodka and juice was that Joanna is likely to inherit half the property when her mama dies. Which means her Jewish husband could wind up living right here on Daystar Island Number Two next to the Webbs. And what can you legally do about it?”
“Oh, for chrissake,” Elinor said, “if that’s all people can find to worry about—”
“Not Milt. He’s also plenty worried about those Cubans who got away from Castro and landed in Miami across the bay there. He knows for a fact that they’re planning to take over Miami just the way the Jews took over Miami Beach. Poor Milt has a lot of things like that on his mind. No wonder he has to start off the day with a crockful of vodka.”
“He sounds like just another loudmouth lush to me,” Elinor said. “We’re not going to have to be real friendly with him, are we?”
“As friendly as we have to be. Now tell me something. What would you say the odds are on a guy like Walter Thoren committing suicide because his daughter told him she was going to marry a Jew?”
Elinor shrugged. “How can I even judge? I hardly know anything about him.”
“From what you do know about him.”
“Well, I can’t picture anybody committing suicide for that reason. Not unless he was totally kooky to start with. And you told me Thoren wasn’t.”
“No, he wasn’t. And the statistics on someone killing himself because his child was going to make an interreligious or interracial marriage are zero. Murder for that reason, yes. Suicide, no.”
Elinor said: “You mean there are even statistics for that?”
“There are statistics for almost everything. And you learn damn quick which ones are important when that’s how you pay the rent.” Jake pointed at the papers on the table. “How are you making out with my life story there? Did you get it down pat?”
“Yes. Want to try me out?”
“Not now. Breakfast first. And make the coffee double strength. The only way to keep Milt talking was to stay with him drink for drink on an empty stomach.”
Elinor went to the refrigerator. “It won’t be much of a breakfast. All we’ve got is the same as last night. Eggs and cheese.”
“Then make the same thing.”
She did. While she was at it she said: “First thing I’ll have to do this morning is go shopping. Maybe you’re hooked on cheese omelet, but I’m not. If you let me have the car—”
“No. You can’t use the car because your license would be a giveaway to your name and address in case of any trouble on the road. That reminds me. You’ll have to go through your pocketbook and give me everything that has your name and address on it. I’ll put them away for you until we’re done here. And we’ll go shopping this afternoon. There are more important things to do first.”
“Like what?”
Jake looked at his watch. “It’s almost ten now. At about eleven every morning, when it’s nice, the Thorens sit around for a while by their swimming pool. At eleven-thirty you’re going to take a walk along the bay and find them there.”
&nb
sp; “Suppose I don’t? I mean, find them there.”
“It’s a percentage play, and the odds say you will. The idea is to get talking with Mrs. Thoren. That’s where the marketing bit comes in handy. You’re new around here, you’ve come for any advice you can get about where to do your shopping. There’s nothing like asking advice from someone to get cozy with her. Then, with that and with the way you’ve already softened up Kermit, you should be able to wangle a lunch invitation from them. As a matter of fact, you damn well better.”
“Then what?”
Jake said: “Then it gets a little tricky. You have to let them know you’d love to eat lunch with them, but here I am all by myself sitting over a hot typewriter. Somehow or other, get them to include me in the invitation. Then you phone me, and I’ll come right over. Between us both, if we play our cards right, we should be able to get invited to hang around awhile there every day.”
“You really think so? I don’t see it. They are hardly what you would call a swinging crowd.”
“I know,” Jake said. “But they have a swimming pool and we don’t. Neither does Milt Webb. If the subject comes up, they don’t have to be real swinging to be hospitable about their pool.”
Elinor took her time appraising this, then shook her head in wonderment. “Talk about computers. Do you have every minute of the whole month figured out like that?”
“It would be nice if I could, wouldn’t it?”
“No, I think it would be kind of creepy. I don’t dig computers very much. Just people.”
“Then you can rest easy, because most of this script has to be made up as we go along. For that matter, we may not even be here a month. I could lick this case or be licked by it any day before then.” Jake saw the alarm in her face as she handed him his plate of omelet. “Don’t let that worry you. You get your money when it’s all over, no matter how it comes out.”
The Bind Page 3
