Gold Coast

2

IN MAY, five months a widow-exactly a year from the time of the double-standard disagreement, the argument with Frank, the ultimatum-Karen was seated in Ed Grossi’s private office on the thirty-ninth floor of the Biscayne Tower.

The sign on the double-door entrance to the suite said DORADO MANAGEMENT CORPORATION.

Karen could ask Ed Grossi what Dorado Management managed and he would tell her, oh, apartment buildings, condominiums; that much would probably be true. She could ask him who all the men were, waiting in the lobby, and Grossi would say, oh, suppliers, job applicants, you know. His tone patient. Ask anything. What do you want to know?

But if she were to probe, keep asking questions, she knew from experience the explanation that began simply would become complicated, involved, the words never describing a clear picture.

They sat with glossy-black ceramic coffee mugs on his clean desk, and Karen listened as Grossi said, “Well, it looks like you’re worth approximately four million.”

Karen said, “Really?” Noncommittal. She had thought it might be much more.

“There was a tax lien that had to be straightened out, some business interests of Frank’s sold-I won’t go into all that unless you want me to.”

Four million.

She still had nearly two hundred thousand of her own in stocks and savings, plus the thirty-five thousand cash-in one hundred dollar bills-she had found in Frank’s file cabinet.

“Do I get it in a lump sum?”

Ed Grossi seemed alone and far away on the other side of the clean desk, the Miami Beach skyline behind him, through a wall of glass. Mild Ed Grossi sitting on top of it all. He wore black, heavy-framed glasses and was holding them in a way to see through the bifocal area clearly, looking down at a single sheet of paper on his desk.

“According to the way Frank set it up, the money’s held in trust.”

“Oh,” Karen said, and waited for the complicated explanation.

“In Miami General Revenue bonds, four million at six percent, two hundred and forty thousand a year. How’s that sound?”

“Do I pay tax on it?”

“No, they’re municipal bonds, the earnings are tax-free. Two-forty or, the way it’s set up, twenty thousand a month as long as you live.”

Karen waited. There was a catch, she felt sure, certain stipulations. “What if I want to take the entire two hundred and forty thousand, all at once?”

“And do what?”

“I don’t know. I’m saying what if. Are the bonds in my name?”

“No, Dorado Management. You remember the lawyer explaining it? Frank appointed Dorado administrator of his estate.”

“I thought he appointed you,” Karen said.

“No, the corporation. Answer your question, yes, you can take the entire two hundred forty thousand for a given year in one payment but, for your own protection, it would have to be approved by Dorado Management.”

“By you,” she said again, insisting.

“Karen, I could cross Flagler Avenue and get hit by a car. The corporation is still the administrator of Frank’s estate. You follow me? Like as a service to you.”

“Then I can’t just cash in the bonds if I want and take the four million.”

“Why would you want to?” Quietly, with an almost weary sound. “Put it in what? Some hotshot comes along with a scheme-that’s why Frank set it up like this. Dorado administrates the capital, does your paperwork, you don’t have to worry about it.”

“What about when I die?”

“It stops. Your heirs are yours, not Frank’s. But, in the meantime you get this money working for you, you’ll have quite a sizable estate.”

“What if I marry again?”

Ed Grossi hesitated. She saw him, for part of a moment, unprepared.

“I think it stops.”

“You’re not sure?”

“I don’t recall. Maybe Dorado Management has to approve. I don’t mean it like that, like you have to get permission. I mean in that case we’d have to assign the bonds to you, if there’s no stipulation against it.”

“Why would there be?”

“I’m not saying there is. I just don’t recall all the details, how it’s set up. Why?”

“Why what?”

“I mean are you interested in somebody?”

“No. Not at the moment. I’ve barely seen anyone,” Karen said, with a little edge now in her tone. “I just want to know what my rights are, what I’m allowed to do and what I’m not.”

“It was Frank’s money, Karen.”

“And I earned a share”-still with the edge-“wife subject to the husband, faithfully living up to my end-if you want to make it sound like a legal contract.”

“Hey, Karen-come on.”

She didn’t say anything, but continued to look at him.

“He’s dead, Karen. You want him to come back and apologize? The man left you a house, couple of other places, quarter a million a year tax-free- What do you want?”

“I don’t know. I feel… tied down. Maybe I should get away for a few months.”

Ed Grossi hesitated again, forming the right words or a relaxed tone. He said, “You don’t have to run off, do you? Get involved in something here, some kind of club activity. Spend your money, enjoy it.”

“You sound like Frank.”

“That’s very possible,” Grossi said. “Frank and I were together a long time. He says something, this is his wish, then it’s my wish, too. You understand what I mean?”

Karen was watching him, not sure, hoping he would say more and reveal something of himself.

“I don’t have to agree with Frank entirely about something,” Grossi said. “But he let me know this is the way he wants it, okay, it’s the way it’s gonna be. What I feel-well, it’s got nothing to do with it, it was his business.”

Karen waited.

“What’re you trying to say?”

“Nothing. I’m repeating myself.” Serious, then making an effort to smile as he pressed a button on his intercom. “What else can I do for you, Karen?”

Almost telling her something, how he felt. Then aware of it and backing off.

There had been no interruptions, no phone calls, until Grossi’s secretary came in and asked if they’d like more coffee. Karen said thanks, no, and picked up her handbag from the floor. The secretary said, “Roland is here.”

“Tell him to wait,” Grossi said. He took Karen by surprise then. He said, “Vivian, you know Mrs. DiCilia? Karen, this is Vivian Arzola.”

The secretary extended her hand to Karen and smiled. “I’m very pleased to meet you, Mrs. DiCilia. I’ve heard so much about you.”

Like what? Karen wondered, still surprised; and yet she knew the girl meant it.

A very attractive Cuban girl about thirty, neatly tailored, hair pulled back in a bun, large round glasses, a beige pants suit Karen decided was a Calvin Klein or a Dalby. Vivian seemed to linger. She said, “You are much more beautiful than your picture.”

Beautiful? Karen raised her brows to show a little surprise. She said, “Well, thank you. I think I’ll come back more often.”

Vivian left them, and Grossi said, “What do you need? Anything at all.”

Karen settled back. “Why don’t you want me to go away? Do I have to have permission?”

“No, of course not. I didn’t mean it that way. I’m suggesting why don’t you take it easy. Anywhere you go now it’s hot. Stay here by the ocean. But keep in touch. Let me know what you’re doing and if I can help in any way.”

“I’ll tell you right now what I’m doing,” Karen said. “Nothing. I see someone two or three times-like Howard Shaw, do you know him? He’s an investment consultant, belongs to Palm Bay, recently divorced-”

Grossi was shaking his head. “Karen, you’ve only been a widow, what, a few months. What’s the rush?”

“Almost six months,” Karen said, “half a year. I’ve gone out to dinner a few times-Ed, I’m not jumping in bed with anybody. I’ve been out with three different men that I like, I mean as friends. We have a good time, we seem to get along. They say they’ll call tomorrow or in a couple of days, then nothing, not a word.”

“I don’t know,” Grossi said. “Give it time.”

“Give what time?”

“Relax, don’t worry about it.”

Karen waited, staring at him. “Ed, what’s going on?”

“You mean, what’s going on? They’re businessmen, they’re busy. Maybe they’re out of town.”

“They’re not out of town. I’ve seen them.”

“Well, their wives found out. I don’t know.”

“They’re not married.” Karen waited again. “Is it because I was married to Frank DiCilia?”

“Some people,” Grossi said and shrugged. “Who knows.”

“I’ve thought about that,” Karen said. “But they knew it, every one of them. I mean I didn’t tell them and then they stopped calling. They knew I was Mrs. Frank DiCilia. It’s my name. It didn’t seem to bother them.”

“Well, you don’t know,” Grossi said. “A guy’s a lightweight, sooner or later it shows. He gets nervous, starts to look around; he thinks, Jesus Christ, maybe I’m over my head. You understand? Just the idea, going out with Mrs. Frank DiCilia.”

Karen didn’t say anything.

“If I were you I wouldn’t worry about it,” Grossi said. “You got everything. What do you need some lightweight for? Right?”

Roland Crowe stepped over from the reception desk to hold the door open for Karen. She said, “Thank you,” and Roland said, “Hey, don’t mention it.” He stood hip-cocked in his tight pants and two-hundred dollar cowboy boots watching her ass and slim brown legs move down the hall. When he turned, letting the door close, all the guys in the Dorado lobby were looking at him. Roland winked at nobody in particular. Bunch of dinks, waiting around for the grass to grow.

He went back to the desk to pick up fooling around with the little receptionist, but she told him he could go in now. Roland gave her a wink, too. She wasn’t bad looking for a Cuban. That DiCilia woman wasn’t bad looking either. He remembered her face.

In Grossi’s office, Roland Crowe said, “Wasn’t that Frank’s woman just went out?”

Grossi was putting a sheet of paper in his middle desk drawer. He took out another single sheet that bore a name and a street address written in ink and locked the drawer.

“Was that who?”

“Frank’s old lady.”

“Her name’s Mrs. DiCilia,” Grossi said.

Shit. Little guinea trying to sound like a hardtimer, bit off words barely moving his mouth, more like he had a turd or something in there. Roland felt sociable-back in Miami after six months at Lake Butler State Prison, busting his ass chopping weeds, eating that slop chow-he felt too good to act mean, though he visualized picking the little guinea up by his blue suit and throwing him through the window-grinning then-hearing his guinea scream going down thirty-nine floors to Biscayne Boulevard.

“I met her one time about, I don’t know, a year ago,” Roland Crowe said, “I took something out to their house. Frank introduced us, but she don’t remember me.”

“Here,” Grossi said, handing the sheet to Roland who frowned looking at the name.

“Arnold… Rapp? What kinda name’s that?”

Grossi’s expression remained patient, solemn. “Address’s up in Hallandale.”

“Hiding out, Jesus Christ, in Hallandale,” Roland said. “This dink know what he’s doing or’s he one of them college boys?”

“Arnold tells us the Coast Guard impounded the boat, turned nine tons of grass over to Customs. We see in the paper, yes, there was a boat, Cuban crew, pulled into Boca Chica two days ago.”

“But was it Arnold’s?” Roland said. “What’d you bank him for?”

“Five hundred forty grand, two and a half to one.”

“Well,” Roland said, “if he’s telling a story he must’ve smoked a ton of it to get the nerve, huh?”

“Ask him,” Grossi said. “The other matter, Mrs. DiCilia, Vivian’ll tell you.” He reached over to punch a key on the intercom box. “Vivian, Roland’s coming out.”

Like that, their business over with. There was no, “How was Lake Butler?” or “Thank you, Roland,” for keeping his mouth shut, standing up to that asshole judge and drawing a year and day reduced to six months for contempt of court, having to live up there with all them niggers and Cubans.

Roland said to Ed Grossi, “Oh, how’d I make it up at Butler? Well, just fine, Ed. I kept my hands on my private parts, broke a boy’s arm tried to cop my joint and came out a two hundred and five pound virgin. I lost some weight on that special diet of grits and hog shit they got.”

Ed Grossi said, “Vivian’s waiting for you.”

“He’s going to take so much and then fire you, you know it?” Vivian said.

Roland Crowe gave her a nice grin going over to the glass-top table where she was sitting, a place to talk away from her desk. Roland liked the setup, the glass, looking down through it at Vivian’s crossed legs, the thin beige material tight over her thigh. He said, “You know what I kept dreaming about and seeing in my mind all the time I was at Butler? Cuban pussy. Man, all that black hair-”

Vivian said, “I know one Cuban cocha you never going to see. Sit down, Roland. Be nice.”

He put his hand on his fly as if to unzip his pants. “Come on, you show me yours and I’ll show you something you never seen down on Sou’west Eighta Street.”

“Sou-wa-SAY-da,” Vivian said. “Dumb shit, you never get it right. Come out of the swamp, what, twenty years ago, you still don’t know nothing.”

“I know I can make you happy,” Roland said, having fun, sitting down now and laying his solid forearms on the glass. The cuffs of his flowered shirt were turned back once to show his two-thousand dollar wristwatch and gold ID bracelet. “See, I got to find a new place. I thought I’d move in with you while I was looking.”

“That’s what I need in my life, a convict,” Vivian said. She was straight with Roland but very careful and alert, as though he might slam a fist down on the glass table, and she would have to get out of there fast. She said, “You ready to listen, quit the bullshit?”

What he’d like to do was reach over and take off Vivian’s big round glasses and pull her hair loose, but he said, “Sure. Tell me about it.” Roland felt really good and could be obliging for awhile.

“Mrs. Frank DiCilia, One Isla Bahía, Harbor Beach, Lauderdale.”

“I been to the house.”

“There’s a tap on the phone line that goes into Marta’s room from outside-”

“Wait a minute. Who’s Marta?”

“Marta Diaz, the maid. Sister of Jesus.” Vivian pronounced the name Hay-soos.

Roland said, “Sweet Jesus working on this?” and pronounced it Jesus. “I never knew he had a sister. I never knew what he had. He don’t talk hardly at all.”

Vivian said, “Listen, all right? The recorder is in Marta’s room. Every night she takes the cassette out and gives it to Jesus.”

“Then what?”

“Then-he was bringing it here, but now he gives it to you and you listen to it. You write down the names of men she talks to. If it looks like she’s got something going with one of them, you find out about him, go see him, tell him Mrs. DiCilia would like to be left alone. You understand? You don’t hit anyone unless you ask us first.”

“For how long?”

Vivian shrugged. “Long as she lives, I don’t know. She’s not to see anyone in a serious way that she might go to bed with.”

Roland squinted, like he was looking into sunglare. “Grossi want her for himself?”

“It’s not his idea, it’s the husband’s.”

“The man’s dead.” Still squinting.

“Is that right? But people still do what he wants,” Vivian said. “He wants his wife to remain pure, true to him even after death, and we see to it.”

“That’s a good looking woman,” Roland said.

“Yes, very stylish.”

“And she’s not getting anything? Jesus, she must be dying.”

“Everyone isn’t a sex maniac,” Vivian said.

“You don’t have to be wild with the notion to want some poon.” Roland saw the poor woman alone in her house at night, looking out the window. “Maybe she has some boy sneak in, give her a jump.”

Vivian shook her head. “Marta says no one stays, they don’t go in the bedroom.”

Roland was thinking, You don’t have to do it in the bedroom. Shit, he’d done it in a car trunk, in sand, weeds, an air boat in the middle of Big Cyprus Swamp, one time right on the Seventy-ninth Street Causeway like she was sitting on the railing… on floors-all kinds of floors, carpet, linoleum-on a table- He’d never done it on a glass table though.

Roland wanted to get it straight in his mind. “This is Frank’s idea not Ed’s.”

“Like he left it in his will to Ed,” Vivian said. “Watch her so she doesn’t fool around with anyone, ever.”

“Jesus-” It was a hard proposition to understand, cutting the poor woman off like that. But then these guineas did all kinds of things that didn’t make sense. Serious little buggers with their old-timey ideas about honor, the omerta-no talking, man, keep your mouth shut-all that brotherhood bullshit.

Roland said, “It seems to me, an easier way-why don’t Ed tell her, no fooling around. Here’s what Frank wants, dead or not, and that’s the way it’s gonna be.”

“Why do you ask questions?” Vivian said. “Ed doesn’t like the idea but he’s doing it, uh? For his friend.”

“But he doesn’t want her to know.”

“He doesn’t want to be involved,” Vivian said. “The woman’s also a friend. He wants her to be happy, but he has to do this to her. So he gives it to you because he gave his word to Frank. But he doesn’t want to be involved in it personally. You understand now? God.”

“Who knows about the setup?”

“The three of us. See, he doesn’t even want to hear himself tell you about it. I have to tell you.”

“What about Jesus? He knows.”

“No, he thinks the woman is being protected.”

Roland liked that idea. He thought about it some more and said, “What’d Frank leave her?”

“None of your business.”

“I bet a big shit-pile of money,” Roland said. “And I bet that’s part of the deal. She starts putting out, she gets cut off, huh?”

“Pick up the tapes and listen to them,” Vivian said. “That’s all you got to do.” She rose from the table to walk over to her desk. It was not clean like Ed Grossi’s, it was a working desk with papers and file folders on it. Vivian picked up an envelope that was thick and sealed closed, no writing on it.

“Protect her,” Roland was saying, nodding, accepting the idea. “Keep all these dinks away from her who want to get in her little panties. All right, I guess I can do that.”

Vivian came back with the envelope and handed it to him, saying, “Roland”-reading his mind, which wasn’t difficult-“while you’re protecting her little panties, don’t try to get in them yourself. I told you, she’s a very good friend of Ed’s.”

“We’re all friends,” Roland said, ripping open the envelope, “that’s why we get along so good.” He looked at the money, counting through it quickly, then at Vivian. “I don’t get any extra? Shit, I just did six months at Butler, hard time, lady, and I pick up my paycheck as usual, huh?”

“Join a union,” Vivian said. “What’re you complaining to me for? You got eighteen thousand dollars there, back pay for your six months.”

“The way I see it, chopping weeds at Butler is worth more than that,” Roland said. “Way more.”