Gold Coast

Shit. He was tired of looking at the empty green water in the windows, waiting for a swimmer to appear, a girl. Tired of looking around, pretending to look at nothing. He didn’t like to drink this much. But what was he supposed to do, sitting at a bar? What else would he be here for? While they sat over there drinking. Nine-thirty, they hadn’t eaten di

Ten-fifteen, still not eating. Not touching their drinks either. Now only a small amount remaining in the sixth Tom Collins, the fucking bartender who looked like Tommy Laglesia pretending not to be looking at him. Come over and say something, Jesus was thinking; tired, ready to go to sleep on the bar.

Almost ten-thirty. They were leaving. They must have already paid the girl without him seeing it. They were getting up, leaving!

The fucking bartender was down at the other end. Of course, talking to someone who wouldn’t stop talking. Jesus Diaz stood up on the rung of the barstool.

“Hey!”

The bartender came to him and this time he said, “Like another?”

“Shit no,” Jesus Diaz said. “I want to get out of this fucking place.”

“We’ve got to eat something,” Karen said. “Three martinis-you know what that does to me?”

“Four,” Maguire said. “It makes you feel good.”

They stood on the patio making up their minds, sit down or go back in. There was a breeze off the cha

“No worries,” Karen said. “No, you still have them, but they don’t seem as real. Maybe that’s the answer. Stay in the bag and forget about it. Whenever he comes over, Marta can tell him Missus has passed out. So-do you feel like a drink?”

“Not right now.”

“Something to eat then? Why didn’t we eat?”

“Lost interest, I guess. I’m still not hungry.”

Maguire was looking toward the house, at the dark archway and the French doors. A lamp was on in the sitting room. He could see the back of the Louis XVI bergère. The windows of the living room were dark; the upstairs windows dark, except for one. He could feel her next to him. She was wearing a dark buttoned-up sweater now, over the dress he thought of as a long shirt, open at the neck, letting him see the begi

“That’s one way,” he said. “Get stoned. But the other way, going to the cops-I’m not prejudiced, I just don’t see it’ll do any good. Unless he’s awful dumb.”

“He acts dumb,” Karen said, “but I’m not sure. He’s so confident.”

“I doubt the cops’d put him under surveillance. They’ll tell you they’ll serve him with a peace bond and that should do it. Like a warning, stay away from her. But it doesn’t mean anything because how’re they go

“No.”

“So it’s not extortion. How do you know he wants money?”

“What else is there?”

“I don’t know,” Maguire said, “but I think he’s interested in you more than the money. Or you and the money.”

“You’re kidding.”

“Why not? What does he do? He worked for your husband?”

“He works for Ed Grossi, but I doubt if he will much longer.”

“Why not?”

“Why? After what he did?”

“He jumped on your bed,” Maguire said. “You can say he had rape in his eyes, but in the light of what he does for Ed Grossi-we don’t know but it might be very heavy work, a key job-then all he did was jump on your bed. Ed Grossi says, ‘Don’t worry, I’ll talk to him.’ And he says to Roland, ‘Quit jumping on the lady’s bed, asshole,’ and that’s it.”

“Ed’s a friend of mine,” Karen said.

“That’s nice,” Maguire said, “but in his business you’re a friend when he’s got time or if it isn’t too much trouble; unless you’re in the business with him and you’ve taken the oath or whatever they do-even then, I don’t know.”

Karen thought about it, walking slowly in the darkness, holding her arms now, inside herself.

“What if I told Ed, I insist I be there when he speaks to Roland?”

“Fine,” Maguire said. “Then they put on this show. Take that, and that. Ed chews him out and Roland stands there cracking his knuckles. Even if Ed’s serious, he wants the guy to stay away from you, how important is the guy to Ed? Or how much control does he have over him? That’s the question.”

They stopped near the seawall, looking out at the lights of the homes across the cha

“Are you cold?”

“Hold me,” Karen said. “Will you?”

He put his arms around her, and she pressed in against him. She felt small. He thought she would fit the way Lesley did and feel much the same as Lesley, but she was smaller, more delicate; she felt good against him. He wanted to hold her very close without hurting her. He became aware of something else-though maybe it was only in his mind-that this was a woman and Lesley was a girl. Was there a difference? He raised her face with his hand and kissed her. She put her head against his cheek, then raised her face, their eyes holding for a moment, almost smiling, and they began to kiss again, their mouths fitting together and then moving, taking parts of each other’s mouths, no Lesley comparison now, Lesley gone, the woman taking over alone, the woman eager, he could feel it, but holding back a little, patient. There was a difference.

He said, “Why don’t you show me the bed.”

She said, “All right-”

“Do you know what I thought about? The maid catching us. Why? It’s my house, I can do anything I want.”

“Afraid she’ll go down to Southwest Eighth Street, tell everybody.”

They lay close, legs touching, the sheet pulled up now.

“But only for a minute,” Karen said.

“What?”

“That I worried about the maid. By the time we got to the stairs I couldn’t wait.”

“I couldn’t wait to see you,” Maguire said. His hand moved over her thigh to her patch of hair and rested there gently. “To look at your face and look at you here”-his hand moving, stroking her-“and see both of you. I tried to imagine, before, what it would look like.”

“Really? You do that?”

“No, not all the time. Most girls, I look at them and I’m not interested in what it looks like. I know, for some reason and, well, it’s just there. It’s okay but it’s not that important. But every once in awhile I look at a particular girl, a woman, and I don’t know what hers looks like, because it’s a very special one, it’s hers, it’s part of her and-I can’t explain it. But that particular person I know I can feel very close to.”

“And I’m one of those?”

“There aren’t that many. Just once in awhile I see a girl, a woman-”

“You’re having trouble putting me in an age group,” Karen said. “It’s okay, girl, woman. Which do you want me to be?”

“No, see, I like the word girl. Giiirl, it’s a good word. Woman, I think of a cleaning woman.”

“And you like girls.”

“Yeah, but I’m not preoccupied, if that’s what you mean.”

“What about the shark girl? Let’s give her a hand because she may need one someday?”