Part 16 (1/2)
”I'll tell the weight lifters he's a movie star.”
”You really going to put him in with them?”
He stared bleakly at me. ”How much choice did that kid in there have? How much choice did the girls on the boat have? You always do fine up to a point, McGee, and then you get a little bit mushy at the edges.”
Twenty.
ON FRIDAY, the first day of February, it took such a long time to get out of bed I decided Miami Beach could wait one more day. My worst knee kept threatening to give way. My right elbow was agony. There were big dark bruises on both arms and shoulders. I could not recall how I got the painful lump on the back of my head.
This was no morning for a shower. I lowered myself, inch by inch, into the imperial bathtub, into water as hot as I could stand it. I soaked there for a long time, and after drying off on the biggest towel I own, I took a pair of aspirin and dug into the Ace bandage box and found the one that works well on the knee, and used a strip bandage for the right elbow.
I checked the morning and found we had gone back to chill, so I put on an old sky-blue wool s.h.i.+rt, stretch denims, wool socks and the gray running shoes. I looked at myself in the mirror and said aloud, ”Tell me the truth, old buddy. Are you getting too old for this kind of boyish s.h.i.+t? Have you lost a lot more than a half step getting to second?”
Self-delusion is one of the essentials of life. I told myself that my bruises and abrasions were not the result of a fading physique, but rather the result of a mental lapse. I had underestimated young Marino. And that gave him an edge he didn't deserve. I wondered if he had enjoyed a restful night.
When I stepped out onto the fantail I found another pipe-cleaner cat on the mat looking up at me. With quick and unexpected anger, I stomped it flat. Then I sighed and picked it up, bent it back into shape, took it back in and stood it in formation on the shelf with the earlier arrivals.
I went to the hotel alone and for breakfast I had USA Today, double fresh orange juice, three eggs scrambled with cheese and onion, crisp bacon, home fries, whole-wheat toast and two pots of coffee. The exercise improved the right elbow.
When I went back aboard my home I went up onto the sun deck and came upon the seventh cat, a purple one, staring at me from the flat place atop the instrument panel. I sat in the pilot seat, the cool wind on my face, and looked at the fool thing. Somebody was going to elaborate trouble to have a tiny bit of fun. If they were sending a message, they had forgotten to include the code. Maybe somewhere in the world there was some other McGee who'd find the pipecleaner cats comprehensible and delicious and hilarious.
On Sat.u.r.day morning when I approached my blue truck at nine to head for Miami, I found a brown pipe-cleaner cat on the winds.h.i.+eld with one paw under the wiper so it could stare in at me. I put it in the ashtray.
At the Contessa, I browsed the newsstand paperbacks until the girl was free. She had half gla.s.ses, no makeup, straight mouse-colored hair. ”Sir?”
”I want to talk to Lopez.”
”Lopez? I don't know any Lopez.”
”Aren't you Alice?”
”Yes. Yes, my name is Alice.”
”The Capataz said to tell you I want to talk to Lopez.”
Her eyes changed. ”Just a moment, sir.” She helped a new customer who'd come in, took his money for a racing form. She came back to me. ”Go out to the pool bar and wait.”
”How long?”
”Just wait. That's all I know.”
After an hour I went back to the newsstand and she told me to go back and keep on waiting. It was past noon when a man sat down beside me. He sighed as he climbed onto the padded stool. He was short and fat and he sounded as if he had emphysema. Each inhalation had a throaty little snore at the end of it. He wore a Palm Beach suit and a white straw hat. His nose and cheeks were tinted purple by tiny broken veins.
”What I got to tell you, friend, no choice in the matter. I got to tell you right now there's absolutely no way Cappy can make a deal.”
”I think he knows that.”
”What he should do, he should get out of town.”
”That's what he's done.”
”He could stay like a year someplace and keep his head down, then put out some feelers. Stick his big toe in the water.”
”That's the way he has it figured out.”
After a thoughtful silence the man swiveled his head on his quarter inch of heavy neck and stared at me. ”Then what the f.u.c.k you want with me?”
”Before Cappy left he said you might want to make an offer for young Ruffi.”
”Shus.h.!.+” he said. ”Jesus Christ, hush your mouth.” He looked around. ”Let's move over to that farthest-away table.”
It was in the shade of tall, broad-leafed plantings elephant ears, rubber plants, a juvenile banyan, a white iron table with a gla.s.s top, four iron chairs. In spite of the chill in the air, the pool people were warm and happy. The pool Cubans had laced the canvas wind s.h.i.+elds in place. Executive types who had recently acquired a tan were parading around in a distinctive way. You can always pick them out. They have to hold their bellies in. To do this properly, they have to tense their muscles and square their shoulders. This makes them hold their arms out from their sides, slightly bent. They cannot swing the arms naturally, and so they walk slowly. If they were turkeys, the tail feathers would be spread. The young girls look beyond them and through them and never see them at all. Sad world.
Lopez put his drink down, took off his hat and wiped his brow with a dingy handkerchief. ”With Cappy, people know he was a hired hand, all right? So when the blood cools down it can come back to live and let live. But young Marino, he went against everything. No cla.s.s at all. Who are you?”
”McGee.”
He tilted his head. ”Like they were trying to set you up for the Reyes girl?”
”Like that. Yes.”
”It was you found out Ruffi did it?”
”I didn't find out. But I pa.s.sed the news along.”
”And you started up a feud that got a h.e.l.l of a lot of good men killed.”
”Instead of standing and saluting and letting them kill me like they killed an innocent friend of mine, Billy Ingraham.”
”That was sloppy and dumb, that Ingraham thing.”
”And all you people are good G.o.d-fearing, law abiding businessmen.”
”You've got no call to get smart-a.s.s, McGee.”
”I know that. I know that. I just want to sell him.”
”Alive or dead?”
”Alive.”
”Where?”
”Where he'll stay for a while. One hundred thousand.”
”For that little punk kid?”