Gold Coast Part 5

"I'm not sure. Why are you . . . sympathetic?"

"I'm not one of them them, as you can see. I work for them, but I don't think the way they do. It's like you're a white woman got mixed up with these people, I come along-I didn't take none of their oaths and s.h.i.t-so I can sympathize with your situation and maybe help you out."

"How?" Karen said. "Not tell if I go out with someone?"

"No, see, I'd still have to do my job. There's people watching me, too," Roland said. "But maybe I could ease up your situation some. Come around, talk to you. Maybe, put our minds to it, we could work something out."

"I'm not sure I follow you," Karen said, following every word, watching his eyes beneath the cool-cowboy curve of the brim and knowing exactly what he was talking about.

"I mean ease up your situation." Roland said. "I 'magine you might be getting a little tense and edgy sitting around here, your husband dead, no men you're close to. These d.i.n.ks you went out with evidently didn't turn you on any."

She was tense, all right, watching him gradually moving in. She said, cautiously, "How do you know that?"

"It's my business to know. See, me and you are much closer than you realize. We got a lot in common."

"We do?" Karen said.

"See, I been thinking," Roland said. "Why would a deceased husband want to cut off his wife's... activity, let's say, less he was good and sore on account of she was messing around while he was alive." Roland gave Karen a friendly wink. "Just wanting to have a little fun. What's wrong with that? It's the way we're made, we got to keep active or we dry up, can't even spit."

"That's quite an a.s.sumption," Karen said. "I mean that I was cheating on my husband."

"n.o.body's asking you to admit nothing you don't want to," Roland said. "It's between me and you and the bed. I mean the bedpost."

"Actually Frank had no reason-" Karen began, and stopped. Why was she trying to explain?

"It's none of my business either way," Roland said. "You don't have to confess nothing to me, lady, to be born again. That's the way I look at this setup, like a new beginning. Here you are stuck here, starting to dry up. Here I am full of notions going to waste, s.h.i.t, working for them guineas. It's like, I won't tell if you won't. You scratch mine and I'll scratch yours and we'll get something cooking here-see, once you give it some thought, realize how your dead husband and his buddy've got your knees tied together and there's nothing you can do about it less I help you. You follow me? I'm giving you your big chance, lady, and it's the only one you got."

"I said to her, 'Are you all right?' She didn't answer me," Marta said. "She went to the telephone and began to speak to Mr. Grossi."

"You could hear it?" Jesus Diaz, her brother, asked.

It was dark now. They were in the street in front of the house on Isla Bahia, standing by Jesus' car, Jesus holding the ca.s.sette tape she had given him.

"I could hear it because she was making her words very clear, not in a loud voice but with force, saying, 'I don't want to see him here again. Keep that animal away from here.' Then saying, 'Why didn't you tell me yourself? I have to learn it from someone like him.' Then listening to Mr. Grossi for a long time. Then saying again, 'Keep him away from here.' But she didn't tell him everything," Marta said.

"What didn't she tell him?"

"Your friend Roland said he wanted to help her in the situation, do something for her to relieve her being tense. But she didn't mention this to Mr. Grossi-I don't know why-only that she didn't want to see Roland again. Very disturbed, but cold in the way she said it, not screaming or shouting. I thought of the time she came home with her car smashed in front and Mister came home with his same car smashed in the side."

Jesus said, "All of that with Mr. Grossi is on this tape?"

"Yes, of course. Every phone conversation today."

"I give it to Roland, he'll hear it," Jesus said. "He'll know she told Mr. Grossi."

"Then don't give it to him," Marta said.

"You crazy?" Jesus said.

Roland heard about it the same evening, in Vivian Arzola's office. Vivian telling him he was lucky Ed Grossi had already gone home. Roland looking out the thirty-ninth floor window at all that night glitter over the Beach.

"Why?" Roland said.

"Because maybe this time he would have killed you he was so angry."

Roland said, "Lady, I'm the boy didn't testify in court against somebody, and went to Butler. You remember? I just got back back yesterday. He puts me on a job, I do it the way I see fit to. Does he want another boy? That's up to him. But don't start talking about him doing me harm. There's an old Cuban saying, you f.u.c.k with the bull, you get a horn in the a.s.s." yesterday. He puts me on a job, I do it the way I see fit to. Does he want another boy? That's up to him. But don't start talking about him doing me harm. There's an old Cuban saying, you f.u.c.k with the bull, you get a horn in the a.s.s."

"Where'd you get that suit?" Vivian said.

Roland grinned. "You like it?"

"It's the worst looking suit I ever saw."

"That's my sweet girl," Roland said, coming away from the window to put a leg up on the edge of Vivian's desk, "your old self again. What else he say?"

"He's going to tell you himself. Keep away from Mrs. DiCilia."

"But not taking me off it."

"Do what you're told. Nothing more."

"You listen in and hear her talking to him?"

"It's recorded here," Vivian said. "I can listen if I want. You try to lie to him, he'll play it for you."

"I got nothing to hide. I told her her old man set up the deal, that's all. So everybody understands each other. I asked her if there was anything I could do for her."

"I can hear you," Vivian said, "the way you'd say it. Did she scream for help?"

"She was nice about the whole thing. What I'm surprised at, she went and called Ed."

"Well, stay away from her, that's all."

"Sure, that's how he wants it. What I better have, though, are all the back tapes. You think I come to see you, it's the tapes I need most."

"Why?" Vivian said.

"You want me to do the job or not?"

Vivian, sitting at her desk, studied him, trying to catch a glimpse of how his mind was working.

"See, now the woman knows she's being watched, she's gonna be more careful," Roland said.

"Thanks to you."

"No, it's better this way, let her know where she stands. But I got to listen to the back tapes. See, get to recognize voices if any of 'em call again and don't use names. You understand?"

"I understand that," Vivian said, "but I think I better talk to Ed first. He'll be back in a few days."

"He went out of town?"

"He'll be back."

"Meanwhile," Roland said, "we're sitting here humping the dog, huh? What I could do is return 'em before he gets back. Otherwise, something happens, Ed sees the work wasn't done properly, he looks around for who's to blame and, like that, you're back in your overalls picking oranges."

Roland walked out with a cardboard box full of ca.s.sette tapes. f.u.c.king Cubans, he hadn't met one yet you couldn't hold their job over 'em like a club and get whatever you wanted.

IF PORPOISE WERE REALLY SO SMART, Maguire would think, how come they put up with all this s.h.i.t? Maguire would think, how come they put up with all this s.h.i.t?

The porpoise could ask Maguire the same question. Or Lolly the sea lion.

In the cement-block room off the show pool, Maguire and Lolly would look at each other. Maguire holding the mike to announce Brad Allen and the World-Famous Seascape Porpoise and Sea Lion Show. Lolly waiting to go on, the opening act. Maguire wondering if Lolly ever played with her beachball when no one was around. Lolly wondering-what? Looking at him with her sad eyes.

Maguire would announce the show, hearing his voice outside on the P.A. system as he looked through the crack in the door at the people in the grandstand.

"And now ...here's Brad!"

After the show Brad Allen would say to Maguire, "Look, how many times? You don't say, 'Here's Brad,' for Christ sake. You ever watch Johnny Carson, the way they do it? You say, 'And now . . . heeeeeeeeeeere's Brad!' "

"I don't know why, but I have trouble with that," Maguire would say.

Brad Allen was show director, star, working manager of: SEASCAPE PORPOISE SHOW.

SHARKS * SEA LIONS.

S.E. Seventeenth Street Causeway At Port Everglades TURN HERE!.

He would say to Maguire, "Are you stupid or something? I don't think it's that hard, do you?"

"No, it isn't," Maguire would say.

"I believe you're supposed to be experienced-"

"The thing is, down at Marathon we didn't have the same kind of show," Maguire would try to explain. "I mean it wasn't quite as, you know, showy."

"Down there, did you know the names of the dolphin?" Brad always got onto that. "Could you identify each one by name?"

"Yeah, I knew their names."

"Then how come you don't know them here?"

"I know them. There's Pepper, Dixie, Penny, Bonzai-"

"Robyn says yesterday you were trying to get Penny to do a tailwalk. Penny doesn't do the tail-walk, Pebbles does the tailwalk."

"I get those two mixed up."

"The other day you thought Bonnie was Yvonne. Bonnie's got the scar from the shark-"

"Right."

"-and Yvonne's at least two hundred pounds heavier, ten feet long, you can't tell them apart. Work on it, okay? Take Robyn over the tank with you and see if you can name them for her. Then come back to the show pool and do the same thing. Is that too much to ask?"

Or, Brad Allen would say: "The Flying Dolphin Show, you keep leaving out the Mopey d.i.c.k part."

"I forget."

"He lays up on the ledge on his side, doesn't move a muscle. Wait for the laughs. Then you say, 'And that's' pause 'why we call him Mopey Mopey d.i.c.k.' " d.i.c.k.' "

"I'll try to remember," Maguire would say.

Five months of it, January through May.

Brad Allen waiting for him when he first walked in, pale, a Wayne-County-Jail pallor, carrying his lined raincoat and suitcase, right off the Delta flight. Brad Allen glancing at a letter the Seascape Management Company had sent him, holding the sheet of paper like it was stained or smelled bad.

"It says you've had experience."

"A year at Marathon," Maguire had said, adding on five months.

"What've you been doing since?"

"Well, traveling and working mostly," Maguire had said. "Colorado, I worked for the Aspen Ski Corporation, also at the Paragon Ballroom. I worked at an airport, a zoo, a TV station. I was the weatherman. I tended bar different places. Let's see, I was an antique dealer. Yeah, and I worked a job at a country club."

"Well, this is no country club," Brad Allen had said. The serious tone, making it sound hard because he had to hire the guy. "How old are you?"

"Thirty," Maguire had said, subtracting six years-after walking in and seeing how young the help was. Like summer-camp counselors in their sneakers and white shorts, red T-shirts with a flying-porpoise decal and SEASCAPE lettered in white. (Brad Allen wore white shorts and a red-trimmed white T-shirt with the porpoise and SEASCAPE in red. He also wore a white jacket and red warmups and sometimes a red, white, and blue outfit.) "How long you been thirty?"

What was Brad Allen? Maybe thirty-two, thirty-three. The guy staring at Maguire, suspicious, wanting to catch him in a lie. For what?

"What difference does it make?" Maguire had said. "I'm an out-going person, I like to be with people, I don't mind working hard and"-laying on a little extra-"I'm always willing to learn if there's something I don't know."

It took him a few days to get used to the white shorts and the red T-shirt-thinking about what Andre Patterson would say if he saw the outfit; like, man, you real cute. Within two months Maguire was as brown as the rest of them, and his sneakers were beginning to show some character. He did believe he could pa.s.s for thirty. Why not? He felt younger than that. He was out in the sunshine. The work was clean, not too hard. He was eating a lot of fruit. Smoking a little gra.s.s now and then with Lesley. Not drinking too much. The pay was terrible, two-sixty a week, but he was getting by. Living in a one-room efficiency at an Old-Florida-looking stucco place called The Casa Loma, fifty bucks a week, next door to Lesley who lived in the manager's apartment with her Aunt Leona. What else? Air-conditioned, two blocks from the ocean- The people he worked with-R.D. Hooker, Chuck, Robyn and Lesley-reminded him of high school.

Hooker, a strong, curly-haired Florida boy, twenty-three years old. A clean liver, dedicated. Hooker would go down into the eighteen-foot tank, Neptune's Realm, with a face mask and air hose and play with the porpoise even when he didn't have to, between between shows. One time Hooker said to Chuck, the custodian-trainee, "I don't know what's wrong with Bonnie today. First she won't let me touch her, then she b.u.t.ts me. Then she comes up and starts yanking on my G.o.ddarn air hose like to pull it out of my mouth. Knowing what she was doing." shows. One time Hooker said to Chuck, the custodian-trainee, "I don't know what's wrong with Bonnie today. First she won't let me touch her, then she b.u.t.ts me. Then she comes up and starts yanking on my G.o.ddarn air hose like to pull it out of my mouth. Knowing what she was doing."

Chuck listened to every word and said, "Yeah? How come she was doing that?"

Maguire said, "It sounds like she's getting her period."

Hooker said, "What's it got to do with her acting nasty?"

Maguire would listen to them talk, amazed, n.o.body putting anybody on or down. Maguire said, "R.D., you ever talk to them? I mean understand them?"

"Sometimes," Hooker said. "Like I'm getting so I can understand Penny when I ask her a question?"

"No s.h.i.t," Maguire said. "What do you ask her?"