Part 17 (1/2)
He saw freighters on the horizon, sometimes even insh.o.r.e. They moved placidly on the blue skin of the Atlantic. He liked the way they coasted along: serene, dogged, yet quiet. Must be pretty out there.
Work on boats. Build boats. Do something with these hands... . He spread his fingers, gazing down at the wide palms, the thick veined wrists. Where am I gonna learn to do that? Go down to Lauderdale where they got boatyards. Find Pauline somewhere. I could be a daddy for all I know. And I be a good one-don't slap my kid around, don't laugh at him all the time, call him ”useless moron” and ”r.e.t.a.r.d.” Teach him what I know, soon's I can learn it myself.
He told his friend William only part of what was on his mind. He didn't want William to laugh at him. William was working from eight to five as a porter at the Greyhound terminal. ”Hey, I go to Lauderdale with you,” William said.
”With what, man? You got no money.”
”Neither have you. We do a little night work, man.”
Darryl scuffed his shoes on the pavement where they stood outside a Kentucky Fried Chicken. ”Shorty Bigshoes told me the cops know me too good.”
”Coupla scores down by the beach, we outa here. We on our way to Lauderdale.”
”I don't want to hurt no one, man.”
William shook his head energetically. ”Main thing is, take what you want, get away. You in bad luck with a dude who say, 'I ain't giving up nothing,' but you can change his tune easy. Ain't got to kill him, just smack him with the gun or shoot him in the foot. He give it right up. I know this other dude done his score one time, then broke this bottle and stabbed this other dude's eyes out. One thing for sure, he say, that dude don't be looking at no photographs or no lineup down at no poh-lice station.”
Darryl said in disgust, ”William, you talking like all them dudes over at Raiford who be doing quarters back-to-back. I don't want to smack no one in the head, and I don't want to shoot no one in the foot, and sure as G.o.d made chicken I ain't fixing to stab no dude's eyes out.”
”What you want to do in Lauderdale after you find this fox Pauline?”
”Get a job. Learn something. Don't know what yet.” He knew it would be uncool to say he thought of becoming a s.h.i.+p's carpenter.
”This place where you picking up all that dogs.h.i.+t... they wealthy folks, right?”
”Wealthy don't cut it, man.” He described the grounds and what he had glimpsed of the interior of the Zide house. ”They rich.”
”You know where things at?”
”What things?”
”Whatever they got we can sell, man.”
Darryl mulled that over. He wanted to leave Jacksonville. ”I been away. You know a dude buys TVs, paintings, and s.h.i.+t?”
”Course I know a dude, and I got wheels, and I know where we can pick us up a couple nice guns. Use 'em one day, give 'em back the next, cost twenty bucks apiece rent money. You know how to get in there at night? That fancy house?”
Darryl said, ”I look around. I think about it, figure it out.”
He figured it out. But he didn't want to hurt Paco, he told William. He liked old Paco; they were buddies. Paco had been trained not to take food from anyone he didn't know, but he knew Darryl. William promised to get some pills that would put Paco to sleep for six or seven hours. He'd wake up good as new.
Rich folks were having a fancy party in a few days, Darryl said, and pretty sure they'd do some drinking. Be over by midnight, they'd be happy to hit the pillows, sleep good.
”What they like?” William asked.
”Who?”
”White folks you work for.”
”I don't hardly know 'em. She a foxy old b.i.t.c.h-got a boyfriend come over one afternoon when her old man out of town. She feeling him up by the side of the pool. Next thing you know, they jump in the pool together and start fooling around. Pool so big you could get lost in it.”
”Shee-eet,” William said, puckering his lips, shaking his narrow head.
”She come out on the lawn once and ast me how I like my job. I say, 'Jus' fine, ma'am.' She give me this big smile, like she done her good deed that day. Don't see much of her old man, and when he there, they always fights.”
”Only them two?”
”I told you, the son live there too. Got his own part of the house. His daddy always yelling at him, and he yell back. He got this squeaky voice. He be a girl at the joint, they rent him out good.”
”What these other dogs do? They bark?”
”Myra and Mickey so dumb they lick the hand of the devil.”
”You tell me the other day there's a guard?”
”Terence too far away, down by the road.”
”We home free, man.”
At four o'clock on the day of the musicale, the groundskeeping staff was given two bottles of chilled Moet &c Chandon and two trays of smoked salmon and chopped chicken liver canapes. Under a yellow-and-white-striped awning, Darryl drank two gla.s.ses of the champagne-a new experience-and left the Zide estate just as the twenty-person catering crew was finis.h.i.+ng their setup for the concert and buffet. Usually at 6:00 P.M., or whenever the day's load of dogs.h.i.+t was disposed of, he took the northbound bus on A1A and then transferred to the westbound on Beach Boulevard. But today William was waiting for him outside the gates in his rattly blue Ford pickup.
They drove south through the scrub forest, past the Methodist church and the Florida National Bank. ”Where we headed?” Darryl asked.
”Got eight hours to kill, man.”
They went to a bar for a while, drank Michelob on tap, became bored. ”Better sober up, man,” Darryl said. They drove west to a mall with a triple movie theater, took a cold six-pack of Bud in with them and saw The Buddy Holly Story and then a revival of The Guns of Navarone. That excited them. Each in his secret thoughts pictured himself as Gregory Peck and David Niven going in to destroy the giant German guns. But it was still only midnight. Still time to kill. William bought two more six-packs in a Lil' Champ down in Ponte Vedra, and they pulled the truck into a parking lot at the public beach and sat there in the darkness, popping the cans. An owl hooted in the forest. Darryl climbed out to take a leak against a sign that said: Warning, no dumping or littering, St. Johns County. Misdemeanor, punishable by fine $500 and/or 60 days in jail or both.
At least two dozen crushed beer cans and six-pack cartons were scattered in the sand at the base of the sign. With a powerful stream of urine Darryl sank nine or ten of the cans. They were the German battles.h.i.+ps and submarines; he was a strafing dive-bomber. He went back to the truck to pop another Bud.
Close to 2 A.M., William said, ”Hey, man, we gotta go. We late.”
They reached the area of the Zide estate, pa.s.sed the black gates. ”Where we gonna park?” William asked.
”Got to be a public beach nearby.”
”You don't know where the beach is?”
”Sure I know. You doing fine, you heading right.”
But Darryl didn't know where the public beach was. They parked half a mile away, in a clump of sawgra.s.s off the road. The moon had already set, but the night was thick with stars. Darryl stuffed a pair of wire cutters into his belt and a flashlight into the back pocket of his Levi's. William had only been able to find one pistol, a Colt Python. He carried it, and a plastic supermarket bag with some beef liver in it. The liver had already begun to smell, and the plastic was leaking blood. They shouldered their way through the brush, to the dunes, and then onto the beach.
After fifteen minutes of slogging in the darkness through soft sand, they reached the edge of the Zide estate. A disturbed seagull gave a raucous cry.
William said, ”What kinda TVs you say they got there?”
”Got a big screen Advent, got a RCA console, and s.h.i.+t, must have two, three more nineteen-inch babies upstairs somewhere.”