Gold Coast

14

MARTA’S BROTHER, JESUS, came for the cassette tape a little after seven o’clock, while Mrs. DiCilia was upstairs. He said this was the last time. No more.

Marta asked him if he had been drinking. He said yes, with Lionel Oliva. He said, Why are we doing this? It wasn’t a question. Why should we make life difficult for the woman? What has she done to us? Why should we want to deceive her? Still not asking questions. Marta listened. No more, Jesus said. You’re drunk, Marta said. Jesus said, How does that change it? No more. Doing this for Roland. How can a man work for Roland and live with himself? Still not a question. Marta said, All I do is hand you this. Nothing more. Jesus said, No more! You feel the same way I feel. (Which was true.) So no more. I’m leaving. Marta said, But if I leave-Jesus said, I leave to be away from Roland. You don’t have to leave. Talk to the woman. Help her for a change. Marta said, Where are you going? Cuba, Jesus said. Then why give him this one? Marta said. Because when I go to see him and give it to him, Jesus said, I may have the nerve to shoot him. Or I may not. But I think I’m going to Cuba.

Then the one named Maguire came in Mrs. DiCilia’s car at five minutes to eight.

Marta thought Mrs. DiCilia was going out with him, but they spoke outside for a few minutes and then the one named Maguire drove away. Mrs. DiCilia returned to the house and went up to the room that had been Mr. DiCilia’s office, next to the master bedroom. Mrs. DiCilia had gone to the public library today-she had told Marta-for several hours, then had returned to spend most of the day in the room.

Marta remained in her own room for nearly an hour, telling herself it wasn’t wrong to record Mrs. DiCilia’s telephone calls; it was for the woman’s protection-which is what they had told her-to keep bad men away from her. But if the men who were supposed to be protecting her were worse than the ones they were keeping away- If she knew this- Yes, then she could say to Mrs. DiCilia she had just found it out or realized it. Not confessing, but revealing a discovery. There was a great difference. For then Mrs. DiCilia would trust her and have no reason to fire her. Marta wanted to help Mrs. DiCilia. But she first wanted to keep her job.

She went upstairs to the office-room, where Mrs. DiCilia sat at the desk holding the telephone and a pair of scissors.

There was something different about the room. The white walls were bare. The framed photographs of Mr. DiCilia and other men-Mr. DiCilia shaking hands with them or standing smiling with them-were gone. They had been taken down.

Marta waited.

Mrs. DiCilia was speaking to someone named Clara, saying all right, she’d phone him the day after tomorrow, then.

There were newspapers and pieces cut from newspapers covering the surface of the desk, pictures out of the paper, pictures out of magazines, that seemed to be of Mrs. DiCilia.

Mrs. DiCilia was asking if Clara had the phone number of Vivian Arzola.

Marta, looking at the pictures on the desk and thinking, It’s being recorded. The telephone. Roland will come for the tape and-what would she tell him?

There were small snapshots in black and white on the desk, and newspaper pictures of another woman, not Mrs. DiCilia, that had been machine-copied and looked marked and faded.

Mrs. DiCilia was saying all right, she’d try to call Vivian at the office again, and thanked the one named Clara.

Mrs. DiCilia hung up the telephone, looking at Marta. “Yes?”

“I have something I want to tell you please,” Marta said.

“Where’s a cowboy get a hat like that?”

Roland turned his head to look at Maguire on the bar stool next to him. He said, “Right in downtown Miami. There’s a store there sells range clothes.”

“Like western attire,” Maguire said. “I believe if I’m not mistaken it’s the Ox Bow model.” As advertised in the window of Bill Bullock’s in Aspen.

“You’re right,” Roland said, touching the curved brim and looking at Maguire again, a man who knew hats.

“But you didn’t get that suit there,” Maguire said.

“No, the suit was made for me over in the Republic of China,” Roland said.

Maguire shook his head. “No shit.”

“Yeah, over in Taiwan. It cost you some money, but if you’re willing to pay-”

“I know what you mean.”

“-then you got yourself a suit of clothes.” Roland’s chin rested on his shoulder, looking at Maguire. “I bet I know where you’re from. Out west.”

“How’d you know?” Maguire said, giving it just a little down-home accent.

“I can tell. Where you think I’m from?”

“Well, I was go

Roland straightened around, looking down the bar at the display of bottles and the portholes full of illuminated water. “Bartender, give us a couple more here, if you will please.” Then to Maguire, “What’re you drinking?”

“Rum,” Maguire said.

“One Caribbean piss,” Roland said to the bartender, “one Wild Turkey. Las Vegas, huh? Shit no, I’m from right here in Florida.”

“Lemme see,” Maguire said, “you a cattle rancher? Those brahmans with the humps?”

“Naw, I was in cement, land development. Before that I was a hunting-fishing guide over in Big Cypress. Take these dinks out don’t know shit, one end of a air boat from the other.”

“Over by Miccosukee I bet,” Maguire said.

“Near, but more west, by Turner River.”

“I drove through there one time,” Maguire said, “I stopped at this place on the Tamiami for a cup of coffee?”

“Yeah.”

“Little restaurant out there all by itself. This woman about thirty-five, nice looking, serves me the coffee and then she sits down in a chair right in the middle of the floor, I’m sitting at the counter?”

“Yeah.”

“She says, ‘I love animals. It tears me up when one gets run over by a car.’ She says, ‘I love cowbirds the most. They have the prettiest eyes.’ With this dreamy look on her face, sitting out in the middle of the floor. She says, ‘Their little heads go back and forth like this’-she shows me how they go-‘pecking away; they’ll peck at a great big horsefly.’ ”

“That’s right,” Roland said, “they will.”

“She’s sitting there-I said to her, ‘You all by yourself?’ She says, ‘Yes, I am.’ I said, ‘You live here?’ She says, ‘Yes, I do.’ I said, ‘You want to go back to the bedroom?’ She says, ‘I don’t care.’ ”

Roland hit the edge of the bar with his big hand. “Yeah, shit, I know where that’s at.”

“We go back there,” Maguire said, “she never says a word all the time we’re doing it. We get dressed, come back out, she pours me another cup of coffee and sits down in that same chair again in the middle of the floor?”

“Yeah.”

“Hasn’t said a word in about twenty minutes now.”

“I know.”

“She says, ‘We found a little parrot was hit by a car once. We nursed it, we got it well again and kept it in the bathroom so it’d be warm. But it drowned in the commode.’ ”

Roland, shaking his head, said, “Je-sus, I know her and about a hu

“It ain’t the Gold Coast,” Maguire said, “nor afford you the opportunities, does it?”

“Make thirty-five hundred a year in the swamp you’re big stuff. Over here you turn that up every week or so and sleep in on Saturday.”

“I guess if you know what you’re doing,” Maguire said.

“And got hair on your balls,” Roland said. “Right now I’m lining up a deal-when it comes off I’m go