Gold Coast (9 page)

LUNCH AT PALM BAY.
Ed Grossi used a Rye Krisp and a spoon on his bowl of cottage cheese. Karen listened, sipping her Bloody Mary, picking at her shrimp salad, every once in awhile shaking her head. Unbelievable. Having to threaten, almost hit him with something to get him to talk about it.

“You serve me with some kind of cease and desist order. From doing what? Karen, this is a very personal matter. You want to get something like this in the papers?”

“If I have to. Ed, this is my life we’re talking about.”

Almost to himself: “People wouldn’t understand it.”

“Of course they wouldn’t. It’s something out of the Middle Ages.” Karen leaned closer, staring at the quiet little man across the table. “He told you this in the hospital? Was he lucid? How do you know he was even in his right mind?”

“It was before that,” Grossi said, “in my office. Before a witness.”

“Who, Roland?”

“No, not Roland. I said to Frank, you’re kidding. He said no, very serious. I know his voice, his tone. Nobody goes near her. I asked him why. He said I didn’t have to know that. Then Vivian came in, took some dictation. She witnessed my saying yes to him, it would be done.”

“Vivian, your secretary?”

“She’s more my assistant.”

“And Roland?”

“Somebody to carry it out, do the work.”

“You trust Roland?”

“He does what he’s told and keeps his mouth shut,” Grossi said.

You don’t know him, Karen thought, but held back from saying it. “Who else knows about it?”

“Well, Jimmy Capotorto. I told him a little, but not everything.”

Karen frowned. “Who?”

“Capotorto. Frank knew him. He’s been with Dorado for years; one of the associates.”

“Who else?” Karen said.

“That’s all.” Grossi paused. “But there are some stipulations I didn’t mention the other day that I didn’t want to get into all at once.”

“Like what?” Karen said.

“Well, if you move, the payments stop. You have to live in Frank’s house.”

“Frank’s house,” Karen said. “And if I marry again—I asked you that the other day, you said you weren’t sure.”

“For some reason it’s not a stipulation. I guess Frank assumed we’d see nobody got close to you.”

“But there’s nothing in the agreement that says I can’t take the entire amount.”

“Not in writing, no, but in the spirit of it, you might say.”

“Sign the bonds over to me and let’s forget the whole thing,” Karen said.

Grossi said nothing, looking at Karen, then at his cottage cheese, touching it tentatively with his spoon.

“Do you know why he did it?” Karen said. “Because he was having an affair and I found out about it. With a real estate woman.” A hint of amazement in her tone. “I told him—I wasn’t even serious, I was mad—I told him if he was going to fool around, I would too.”

“Well, he took it at face value and here we are.” Grossi seemed hesitant, working something out in his mind as they sat at his regular table in the corner of the grill room. He said, “Karen, I’ll tell you, something like this, I agree, it sounds like we’re back in the old country.”

“But we’re not,” Karen said; firm, knowing how far she was willing to go. “Ed, you’re aware of the people in here, how they keep looking at us?”

“You get used to it.”

“I go to the john I get looks, I hear my name, Mrs. Frank DiCilia, yes, that’s her, people talking about me, not going to much trouble to hide it.”

“Sure, you’re like a movie star.”

“All right, what if I stood up right now and made a speech,” Karen said. “Tapped my glass with a spoon—‘May I have your attention, please? I want to tell you something you’re not going to believe, but it’s the honest-to-God truth, every word.’ ”

“Karen, come on.”

“Come on where? Goddamn it, I’m not going to play your game. I’m not in the fucking Mafia or whatever you don’t call it. What do you expect me to do?”

“Keep it down a little, all right? I understand how you feel.”

“Like hell you do.”

“Yes, I do.” Grossi nodding patiently. “Listen to me a minute. I acknowledge his wish, I’m thinking, Jesus Christ, nobody ever wanted something like this before. I try to remember. Maybe a long time ago, I don’t know.”

“But it doesn’t matter, because you do whatever
he says.” Karen holding on, refusing to let go. “He tells you to kill somebody—what’s the difference?”

“Karen”—the tired voice—“what is that? You think it’s a big thing? Maybe sometimes it is, but there’s a reason for everything. The man has a reason, I don’t have to ask him why.”

She leaned close to the table. “I told you why. Because he has this thing in his head about paying back.”

“Listen to me and let me finish,” Grossi said. “Even when I don’t want anything to do with it, I have to satisfy my conscience I’ve done something, I’ve acknowledged, I’ve gone through the motions. You understand? Then I say to myself, okay, that’s all you can do. You can’t watch her the rest of your life. I say to myself, did he mean that long? Forever? I answer no, of course not. I get a heart attack, cancer, I’m gone. Who continues the agreement? Jimmy Capotorto? Well, if I tell him to, but what does he care? He’s got enough to think about. So how can it be forever? I say, Frank wanted to teach her a lesson. All right, there’s the lesson. Did she learn it? I don’t know. Like a teacher—did the student learn it? What can the teacher do? So, I say, it’s up to her, she knows what’s going on. She knows his wish, stay away from men even after his death. Does she want to honor his wish? I say to myself, not to you, not to
anybody else, only to myself. Maybe it should be up to her now. Something between her and her husband.”

There was a silence.

“You have more to do than keep watch on me,” Karen said.

Grossi nodded.

“Assign the bonds over and let’s stop all this.”

“I have to think about it a little more.”

“But you will keep Roland away from me.”

“Don’t worry about Roland.”

She sat quietly, aware of sounds, voices around her. She waited, wanting to be sure. Ed Grossi touched the cottage cheese again with his spoon, then put the spoon down and picked up his napkin.

“I won’t have to go to court then,” Karen said.

“No, you won’t have to go to court, if you give me time, let me be sure in my mind it’s all right.”

“Thank you,” Karen said.

Maguire’s body, arms raised, a piece of fish in each hand, formed a Y. He stood on the footrung of an aluminum pole that dug into his groin, the pole extending from a platform on a slight angle, so that Maguire’s fish-offerings were held some fifteen feet above the surface of the Flying Dolphin Show tank.

He said to the mothers and fathers and children lining the cement rail, “Okay . . . now this double
hand-feeding can be a little tricky, considering the height”—looking up—“
and
the wind conditions today. The dolphins could collide in midair, with a combined weight of”—serious, almost grim—“nine hundred pounds. And you know who’s gonna be under them if they do. Yours truly, standing up here trying to look cool. Okay . . . here they come. Bonnie on my right, Pebbles on my left—”

Or was it the other way around?

The pair of dolphin rose glistening wet-gray in the sunlight, took the fish from his hands and peeled off, arching back into the water.

“And they got it! How about that, fifteen feet in the air. Wasn’t that great? Let’s hear it for Bonnie
and
. . . Peb-bles.”

Applause, as Maguire stepped down off the pole to the platform. He got three hunks of cod from his fishbucket, quickly threw two of them out to Bonnie and Pebbles, and waited for Mopey Dick.

Come on—

Mopey’s head rose from the water, below the platform. A wet raspberries sound came from Mopey’s blowhole.

“What? You didn’t like the double jump, Mopey?”

Rattles and clicks and whines from the blowhole. The kids watching, looking over the rail, loved it.

“You say you can jump higher?”

More rattles and clicks.

“Well, let’s just see about that.” Maguire sidearmed Mopey the piece of fish he was holding, stooped to the bucket and selected a long tailpiece. “You think you’re so good, let’s see you come up
six
teen feet and take the fish out of my mouth. Okay, Mopey? Everybody want to see him try it?”

Of course. The kids yelling, “Yeaaaaaaa—” as Maguire, with a piece of dead fish hanging from his mouth, adjusted the pole, raising it a foot, thinking, Jesus Christ—

Karen came out of the round white building, Neptune’s Realm, down from the Flying Dolphin Show. She waited on the walk, looking around, as the moms and dads with their cameras and kids moved on to the Shark Lagoon.

There he was. Across the lawn, walking with a girl brushing her hair. Both wearing the white shorts and red T-shirts. He must have come out another exit. Karen watched them go through the fence enclosing the shark pool. Maguire mounted the structure that was like a diving platform, playing out a mike cord behind him. The girl remained below: cute little thing with a lot of Farrah Fawcett hair. Karen wondered how old the girl was. Not much more than twenty. She noticed Maguire was quite tan, healthy looking; different than the man she remembered sitting in the dark. She approached the crowd that rimmed part of the cement
lagoon. There was an island in the middle, a palm tree and several sleepy pelicans. Sharks moved through the murky water like brown shadows.

He looked younger in his white shorts. Good legs. His voice was different, coming out of the P.A. system. It sounded like a recording.

“Nurse sharks do not have a reputation as maneaters, but like all sharks they’re very unpredictable. They might not eat for three months, then go into a feeding frenzy at any time. What Lesley is doing is jiggling that ladyfish on the end of the line to simulate a dying fish, which gives out low-frequency sound waves that can be detected by a shark as far as . . . nine . . . hundred . . . yards away. There’s a shark coming in from the left . . . Look at that.”

Karen watched Maguire, then let her gaze move over the crowd, pausing on some of the men. Which one would you pick as an armed robber? Maguire would be about the last one.

“Well, this time for bait we’re going to use . . . Lesley. Yes, Lesley is going down
in
to the lagoon in an attempt to hand-feed a shark with her bare hand . . . using no glove or shark repellant of any kind or . . . feed a barehand
to
a shark if she isn’t careful.”

The girl’s face raised, giving Maguire a deadpan look. Karen saw it. For some reason she thought of
Ed Grossi, Ed eating his cottage cheese with a spoon—an hour ago at Palm Bay.

Then coming over the S.E. 17th Street Causeway and seeing the sign, seascape. Why not? She felt like doing something. She felt thoroughly herself, almost relaxed, for the first time in a week. And probably the only woman here in a dress. Beige linen, gold chain and bracelet. She should have gone home first and changed—remembering him saying, “Practically around the corner,” and telling him she had never been here.

He was saying to his audience, “We’re not having a whole lot of luck getting the sharks into the feeding area. As I mentioned they can go as long as three months without feeding. There’s one . . . no, changed his mind. Well . . . let’s give Lesley a big hand for getting down in the shark lagoon”—pause—“she may need one some day.”

“You sounded a lot different,” Karen said.

“I know,” Maguire said. “I hear my voice on the P.A., I think it’s somebody else. You want a Coke or something?”

“Don’t you have to work?”

“The main event’s on next. Go over there—see the yellow and white awning? I’ll meet you there in a couple of minutes. He seemed glad to see her, but hesitant, almost shy.

Karen got two Cokes and sat down at a picnic table away from the cement walk and the refreshment counter behind the grandstand. She heard, over the P.A. system, “Good afternoon ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls. Welcome to Brad Allen’s World-Famous Seascape Porpoise and Sea-Lion Show.” Pause. “And now, heeeeeeeeere’s Brad!”

Karen said, “Was that you?” as Maguire sat down across from her.

“I’m afraid so.”

“You always do it the same way?”

“Well—no, not always.”

“The other night, I couldn’t imagine you working here.”

“No—”

“I wasn’t inferring anything by that.”

“No, I understand. I’m a little out of place, but nobody’s caught on yet.”

“Maybe I know you better than most people,” Karen said. “Do you like doing this?”

“It’s all right. It beats tending bar.”

“Why don’t you quit?”

“I’m thinking about it.”

“Did you—” Karen paused. “Well, it’s none of my business. I wondered if you sent your friends their share.”

“Yeah, their wives. I sent ’em money orders. They can use it.”

On the P.A. system in the background, Brad
Allen was introducing Pepper, Dixie, and Bonzai to the audience.

“I still don’t know the difference between a porpoise and a dolphin,” Karen said. “You never told me, did you?”

“No, I guess we got into other things.” Looking away from her and then back, hesitantly.

He’d been doing that since she approached him. Natural, but just a little shy. She liked it and smiled when he said, “You didn’t have to get all dressed up to come here.”

“I was having lunch with a friend. Then coming over the causeway I saw the sign and thought, Does he really work there or not?”

“See? I wouldn’t lie to you.”

“I love your routine. Do you ever vary it?”

“Only when I forget lines. Or leave something out.”

Brad Allen was telling his audience that Lolly the sea lion was now going to balance the ball and
walk
on her front flippers. “Heeeeey, look at that!”

“I don’t think you’re going to last here,” Karen said. “I mean I wouldn’t think you’d be able to take it as a steady diet.”

“No—” He smiled, shaking his head. “You’re right.”

“What will you do then?”

“I don’t know. Go down to Key West, see if it’s changed any.”

“Not back to Detroit?”