Gold Coast

25

MAGUIRE’S PLAN WAS COMING APART.

An hour ago it had seemed close to foolproof. Drop in on Karen, sit around till about ten. Say he was tired or didn’t feel good and leave. Park up by the beach and walk back. Marta lets him in the side door. He and Jesus wait in Marta’s room for Roland to come. Let him enter the house. Say hi, how you doing? Marta screams (optional). Hit him.

But Marta was in Coral Gables, and Jesus had to talk to her and get her back.

And Karen wasn’t home. The house was dark, the three-car garage empty.

He could say to himself, No, it’s going to work. Don’t worry. Keep your eyes open. You see it’s not going to work or too chancy, bail out. You don’t have to be here.

But reassurances didn’t relieve the bad feeling, the doubt begi

Maguire drove the Mercedes into the garage, closed the door from the outside and walked around the house, past the empty patio to the French doors.

There was some definition to the shapes in the darkness: the hedges, the pool, the umbrella table, the yard misty in a pale wash of moonlight. There were specks of moving light on the Intercoastal, the deep darkness beyond the yard. There was the sound of crickets. And now Gretchen barking, inside the house. There was no reason to be as quiet as he might be. Maguire pulled the sleeve of his jacket down over his hand, held it in his fist, punched through the pane of glass next to the door latch and he was inside, Gretchen ru

Moving through the sitting room, his hand feeling the crown of the Louis XVI chair, he told Gretchen to be nice and wondered: If Karen knew she was coming home after dark, why didn’t she leave a light on?

Because Marta must’ve still been home.

Then why didn’t Marta tell them Karen had gone out? If she did, why didn’t Jesus mention it?

Because they had no practice in this kind of thing, that’s why, Maguire thought. And you better get your ass out of here.

But he moved from the front hall to the back hall to Marta’s room, pulled down the shades and turned on a lamp. Okay, Jesus had said yes, he knew Marta had gotten the gun from upstairs. But where would she hide it.

Roland said to Lionel, “Look, I ain’t go

The eighteen-footer rumbled away from the dock behind the thin beam of its spotlight, passing the fantails of the motorcruisers and sailers tied up in their slips, heading out into the cha

It took Maguire nearly ten minutes of looking through every drawer, the closet, and the bed to convince himself the gun, the one Jesus knew was in the room, wasn’t.

Andre Patterson would look at him and shake his head, Man, the people you associate with. Say to Andre, But look. What do they have to do? Practically nothing. Andre would say, That’s exactly what they doing. Nothing. Where they at?

They’ll be here.

In the meantime, run upstairs and get the gun. Before Karen comes home. Wherever Karen went.

Maguire turned off the lamp, felt his way out to the front hall and moved up the stairway. Gretchen had gone off somewhere.

When Roland saw the house dark it made him wonder for a moment. How come? Then accepted it as he crossed the yard toward the house. They went to get Vivian, that’s why. Both of them.

But at the French doors, about to put the rubber-padded butt of the shotgun through the glass, seeing it busted already, he said, No, they didn’t.

Somebody was home, and he bet he knew who it was, too. Somebody besides little Gretchen panting, trying to climb his leg. Roland sat down in the Louis XVI chair to pull off his cowboy boots, whispering, “You like to smell my feet, do you, huh? Come on up here you little thing. I don’t like to do this, Gretchie, no I don’t, but I got to.” He put his hand over Gretchen’s muzzle, clamping it over her nose and mouth and held the squirming furry body until it shuddered and became limp.

Roland went through the hall to the living room, looked in, came back past the stairway and paused. Was that a sound up there? Like a drawer being shut? Roland went through the back hall to Marta’s room-no Cubans hiding under the bed-came out and turned into the kitchen. There was a soft orange glow on the telephone to show where it hung on the wall. Roland got an idea. He’d memorized Frank DiCilia’s private number once. Now, if he could remember it-

Maguire closed the top drawer. He opened, looked through and closed every drawer in the dresser. He looked in the drawers of the two nightstand tables. He looked under the pillows and the mattress. Shit. Andre Patterson would say, Get your ass out, boy.

No, be cool. Where would she put it?

He went back to the dresser and got the key to the next room out of the drawer. It was possible-she’d decided to put the gun back with Frank’s stuff, his papers, his money. Maguire unlocked the door and went in. No light showed in the window; the draperies were closed. He turned on the desk lamp. Straightening then, his eyes went to the photographs on the wall, the shots of Karen.

The telephone rang.

Maguire jumped and Andre Patterson, watching, would say, See?

The telephone rang.

Maguire went over to it sitting on the desk and looked at the number in the center of the dial. Not Karen’s number, a private line.

The telephone rang.

He’d wait for it to stop. And then thought, What if it’s Karen? If she knew, somehow, he was in the house-

The telephone rang.

– Didn’t want him to answer on her phone and have it recorded, so-no, both lines would be tapped. That wasn’t it.

The telephone rang.

But it still could be Karen. Or Marta. It could be anybody. It could be Marta with Jesus, knowing he’d be looking for the gun. No-why this phone?

The telephone rang.

It would stop.

The telephone rang.

The telephone rang.

Shit, Maguire said and picked it up.

“How you doing?” Roland’s voice said. “You coming down or you want me to come up?”

“So this parrot went to take a piss, see, and drowned in the toilet. How you doing?” Roland said, coming out of the dark bedroom into lamplight, the pump-action shotgun leading.

“In the commode was the word,” Maguire said, sitting in the swivel chair behind the desk, trying to look calm. Where the hell else was there to go?

“I think it sounds better toilet. Where’s Vivian at?”

“I don’t know any Vivian. Vivian who?”

“Shit,” Roland said, “we go

“I got nothing to tell you,” Maguire said.

“Then you might as well be dead, huh?” Roland put the shotgun on him.

“Unless you want to try a few questions and see where they lead,” Maguire said.