"Gold Coast" - читать интересную книгу автора (Leonard Elmore)

20

LESLEY WAS SAYING INTO THE MIKE, “That little hole there on top of Misty and Gippy’s head is called their blowhole. It’s just like your nose. If they get water in there they could catch pneumonia, pleurisy, or even drown. So please don’t splash them. ‘Sides if you do, they’re gonna splash everybody back.” Pause. “And no one has ever won a water fight with a dolphin.”

Lesley, Karen decided-walking away from the Porpoise Play Pool-was cute but a little tacky. Probably not too bright, either.

She looked in at the grandstand show pool again, walked around to the refreshment stand and there he was. At a picnic table having coffee.

“Why aren’t you working today?”

Maguire looked up. “I’m trying to get fired.”

“I think I asked you once before, why don’t you quit?”

“Pretty soon.”

Karen said, “I’m sorry about yesterday.”

“Yeah, I could see, the way you were standing there watching.”

“What did you expect me to do, hit him?” Karen sat down at the picnic table. Maguire, stirring his coffee with a plastic stick, didn’t look up. Karen watched him. “I just found out something you wouldn’t tell me. ‘These are Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins. The porpoise is a much smaller animal, nervous and high strung, practically untrainable.’ ” Karen said, giving it a little of Lesley’s southern Ohio accent. “ ‘But we call ’em porpoise so you won’t get ’em mixed up with the dolphin fish you see on menus in some of Florida’s finest restaurants. Don’t worry though’-you all-‘when you order it, you are not eating Flipper.’ You think I could get a job here.”

“Talk to Brad. Tell him you need the money.”

“Are we a little pouty today? I thought you handled it pretty well, considering everything. At least you stood up to him.”

“I did, huh?”

Karen picked up his coffee and sipped it. “Too much sugar.” She put it down again. “I brought the car for you-if you can drive me back.”

“What else can I do for you?”

Karen studied him, waiting for him to look at her. “Why’re you taking it out on me? There wasn’t anything I could do.”

“I got the feeling you didn’t much care,” Maguire said, “one way or the other.”

“Would it’ve helped if I’d screamed, kicked him in the shins?”

“It might’ve.”

“The police were already there once, and did nothing.”

“For what? You called them?” Maguire looked up, interested.

“Roland was making a point. That he could hit close to home and the police wouldn’t do anything about it. He pretended he was going to rape Marta, and I got excited and called the cops.”

“You got excited?” Maguire said.

“I was afraid he was going to hurt her. I didn’t know it was an act.”

“Then when you realized it,” Maguire said, “you were Cool Karen again?”

“What’re you trying to say?” She put on a little frown, but it didn’t indicate much concern.

“You’ve got this guy hanging on you,” Maguire said, “but you don’t seem too worried anymore. Like, so what? What’s the big deal? I don’t know if you’ve given up or you don’t care.”

“Guess what he wants?” Karen said. “He finally said it. Everything, including me.”

“See? That’s what I’m talking about. You think it’s funny or what?”

“He said I’ll reach the point where I’ll want to give him everything, because he’ll be my only chance.”

“You believe that?”

“Well-he’s got more confidence than anyone I’ve ever met.”

“He’s got more bullshit, and that’s what he’s giving you. He’s gonna look for the opening, set you up and take whatever he can. And if you’re laying there with your head broken, that’s tough shit.”

“He likes me.”

“He may, but that’s got nothing to do with it.”

“But you see, his self-confidence, that’s the flaw,” Karen said, leaning closer over the table. “What does he base it on? Not much. There’s considerably less to Mr. Roland Crowe than he realizes. Watching you two yesterday-you know what it was like? Two little boys showing off in front of a girl. Arguing about the parrot-I couldn’t believe it.”

“You didn’t get it.”

“No, I assumed you were putting him on, but he was serious. I’d look at Roland. This is the one who’s giving me trouble? I thought of something Ed Grossi told me once, about being concerned with people who turn out to be lightweights.”

“Ed Grossi,” Maguire said. “He told you that, huh? You want some more advice?”

“What?”

“Forget Ed Grossi’s advice. Talk to Vivian Arzola.”

Roland said to Lionel Oliva, “How can you live in this dump? Goddamn place ain’t any bigger’n a horse trailer.”

“We manage.”

“Get her out of here.”

Lionel turned to the woman cooking something for him on the tiny stove. She edged past them without looking at Roland and stepped out of the trailer. Roland bent down to watch her through the window-big Cuban ass sliding from side to side as she walked out of Tall Pines toward S.W. Eighth Street.

“You want the boat?” Lionel Oliva said. “Take somebody out?”

“Not just yet.” Roland straightened up, making a face as he looked at Lionel. “You drink too much, you know it?”

“I like to drink sometime, sure.”

“You like to live in this stink?”

“I don’t smell nothin’.”

“Jesus, look at the place. You work for me, you’re gonna have to clean yourself up.”

“I work for you now?”

“I want you to see if you can find Vivian Arzola. Her and you both used to pick oranges, didn’t you?”

“Man, a long time ago.”

“Well, go look up some of your old buddies still around. See if anybody’s seen her lately.”

“How come I work for you now,” Lionel Oliva said, “you don’t get Jesus?”

“He went to Cuba, you dink. You were sitting there when he told me.”

“No, he never went to Cuba. I see him talking to a guy in Centro Vasco yesterday.”

“You see him again, tell him to call me,” Roland said. “Tell him I don’t hear from him and run into him on the street, I’ll bust his little bow legs and wrap ’em around his dink head.”

Roland got out of that smelly house trailer. He’d look around some for Vivian; stop in and see Karen, make her day a little brighter. First, though, he was going to go home and pick up a firearm to carry on him or keep in the car. There was too much going on now not to be ready for what you might least expect.

Vivian Arzola said to Jesus, when he returned in the morning, “I have to think about it.”

“Think about what? She wants to help you.”

“How? All I do is endanger myself telling somebody else.”

“Trust her,” Jesus said.

“All right, but only Mrs. DiCilia. If she brings police, I don’t know anything.”

“Her and one other, a friend that’s helping her. This is his idea, but I can’t tell you anything else.”

“You can’t tell me, I’m supposed to tell him everything. All right, the two of them. And you,” Vivian said. “Any more, I have to rent chairs. You see what they do to this place? Sneak out before the first of the month, leave all this crap. Look at the condition, the dirt. Five years I’ve owned this place, I’ve never made any money.”

“What time?” Jesus said.

“Late, after it’s dark. I don’t know, nine o’clock. You drop them off-what kind of car?”

“I don’t know yet.”

“Forget the whole thing,” Vivian said.

“Wait, let me think. Gray Mercedes-Benz.”

“You drop them off. I don’t want the car in front.”

“What else?”

“Tell them I’m not going to the police. If that’s what they want, they’re wasting their time. No police in this. I see a policeman, I don’t know anything you’re talking about.”

“If you say it. Anything else?”

“A gun,” Vivian said.

“What kind?”

“What kind, one that shoots. I don’t care what kind. A big one.”

“Take it easy,” Jesus said. “You got nothing to worry about.”