Gold Coast

“Why?”

“You were supposed to stay after and work with Bubbles.”

It sounded like she was talking about school.

“I forgot,” Maguire said. He’d left without looking back, not wanting to see the two Cubans again.

“Brad saw you take off in the car. He goes, ‘Jesus Christ, where’d he get that, steal it?’ ”

That was how she did it, indirectly. Maguire worked his way through another pizza wedge, not giving her any help.

“Brad goes, ‘He didn’t have it yesterday. He must’ve got it last night.’ ”

Maguire drank some of the cold beer: really good with the salty anchovy taste.

“ ‘Somebody must’ve loaned it to him.’ Then he goes, ‘But who would he know that owns a fucking Mercedes?’ ”

“I bet you said that, not Brad,” Maguire said.

“I might’ve. Somebody said it.”

“It’s a friend of mine’s,” Maguire said. “I’m using it while he’s out of town.”

“Well, let’s go someplace in it.”

“I’m not allowed to take passengers. He’s afraid it’ll get messed up.”

“You big shit, you’re just saying that.”

“It’s the truth.”

“Who’s is it?”

“Guy by the name of Andre Patterson.”

“The one you were talking to on the phone?”

Talking about on the phone to Andre’s wife, but it didn’t matter. “Right. He went on a vacation.” Christ, 20 to life. He should write to Andre, tell him how things were going. He wanted to read the newspaper story again and look at the picture of Karen on the seawall.

“How would he know the difference?” Lesley said. “I mean just me, not a lot of people.”

“Maybe,” Maguire said. “You want some more?”

“No… I feel like-” She gave him a sly look. “You know how I feel?”

“How?”

“Horny. Isn’t that fu

“Your feet are dirty,” Maguire said.

“My feet?”

“Actually I’m awful tired. You mind?”

“Jesus Christ,” Lesley said, getting up. “You have a headache, too?”

“No, but I don’t feel too good. I think maybe the pizza.” He said, “Why don’t you catch me some other time, okay?”

“Why don’t you catch this,” Lesley said, giving him the finger and slammed the jalousie door, rattling the frosted-glass louvers.

There were times, yes, when he didn’t mind dirty feet. Or, there had been times. But going from one to the other, from the woman to the girl, he couldn’t imagine ever having to try and compare them. Hearing Lesley’s voice, “Brad’s really pissed at you.” Serious. A crisis because he’d forgotten to stay after closing to work with the young dolphin. “Brad goes, ‘What’d he do, steal it?’ ” Brad and Lesley, the whole setup, like a summer camp. Then hearing Karen’s voice:

“What do you think I’m worth?”

Karen’s voice:

“I’ll tell you right now what I want.”

Not putting it on, trying to act sultry, but straight. Looking at him without the sunglasses. “I’ll tell you right now what I want.”

She wanted it, too. She had said the first time, “I could hardly wait.” This time was like the first time multiplied, more of it, more free and easy with each other, fooling with each other in that big broken-down bed, then getting into it, picking it up, begi

“They got a number of things wrong,” Karen said, “including the way it was written.”

“All the questions. It was like a quiz.” Kissing her shoulder, her, neck, feeling it moist. “I don’t care how old you are… we are. What difference does it make?”

“None that I can think of,” Karen said.

Her tone was all right, but what did it mean? None, because the way they felt, it didn’t matter? Or none, because nothing was going to come of this anyway?

“I’m almost forty,” Maguire said. “It’s just another number. Forty, that’s all.”

“Then why are you talking about it?” Karen said.

They went downstairs and sat in the living room, with drinks Karen made at the built-in marble bar. Maguire checked the room for hidden mikes planted behind figurines and paintings or in the white sofa and easy chairs. They talked about Roland, what he might ask for, wondering if they could get him to ask for it over the phone, make an extortion demand and hook him with his own device. Which wasn’t likely. Sometime, Karen said, she’d like him to look at the antiques and art objects and tell her what they were worth. Maguire was ready to do it now, but they went outside instead, all the way out to the seawall. They stood looking at tinted points of light in the homes across the cha

He liked skirts. He liked the idea of lifting up a skirt, something from his boyhood, something you did with girls. She moved against him when he began to kiss her. She let herself be lowered to the grass where he began to bring her skirt up to her hips and put his hand under it.

Gretchen came out and hopped around them, sniffing their legs. Maguire told the dog to get the hell out of there.

Sitting on the patio, another drink; were they going to go out to eat or not? It was strange the way she brought up the question of the dog, surprising him, asking him why he wasn’t nice to Gretchen.

He said, “What do you mean I’m not nice to her? What do you say to a dog that’s not nice?”

She said, “You ignore her. Until tonight you only said one word to her, the first time you came here, you told her to relax.”

“Well, that was nice,” Maguire said. “What do I want to talk to a dog for? I talk to dolphins all day, and I don’t ordinarily, you’re right, talk to animals at all. I don’t have that much to say to them.”

She said, “You know who’s nice to Gretchen?”

He said, “I’ll talk to the dog when I have time. I’ll be very happy to.”

“Roland,” Karen said. “He can’t keep his hands off her.”

Maguire said, “Well, I’d keep an eye on him if I were you.”

He said that, and they were friends again. The strange part was feeling a little tension between them over the dog. Or else he imagined it.

No, the dog wasn’t a problem. What mattered was, they always got back to Roland.