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Bernard Squires' livelihood, and in all probability his very life, depended on his talent for assembling investment portfolios in which vast sums could plausibly disappear. Naturally he had a fondness for real estate developments. Not for a moment did Bernard envision for Simmons Wood a thriving, profitable retail shopping center. Grange was a perfectly ridiculous location for a major mall – one of the only municipalities in Florida to have shrunk (according to incredulous census takers) during the boom years of the eighties and nineties. And while its puny population was augmented by a modest flow of highway tourists, the demographics of the average Grange visitor could most diplomatically be typed, from a retailer's perspective, as "lowlow end." No major anchor stores or national chains would dream of locating there, as Bernard Squires well knew.
His plan, from the begi
Then: a run of bad luck. Shortages of labor and materials. Weather delays. Missed payments on construction loans. Contractors unexpectedly filing for bankruptcy. And as if that weren't enough, the leasing agent would dejectedly report that hardly anyone wanted space in the soon-to-be-completed Simmons Wood Mall. The project would sputter and die, and the site would become a ruin. Florida was full of them.
Whatever true sum was lost in the Simmons Wood venture would be doubled when it appeared as red ink on the books of the Central Midwest Brotherhood of Grouters, Spacklers and Drywallers International. That is how Bernard Squires hid the Tarbone family's skimming. If other union officials suspected skulduggery, they were wise enough not to make a peep. Besides, the pension fund made a profit, overall; Squires saw to that. Even the IRS auditors didn't challenge his numbers. Investing in real estate was a crapshoot, as everybody knew. Sometimes you won, sometimes you lost.
Once the write-off had outlived its usefulness, Bernard Squires would contrive to unload Simmons Wood on an insurance conglomerate or maybe the Japanese – somebody with enough capital to finish the stupid mall, or raze it and start over. For now, though, Bernard Squires was eager to lock up the deal.
It was Richard "The Icepick" Tarbone's desire to close on the Grange property as soon as possible. "And don't call me," he had told Squires, "until you got some good fucking news. Do whatever it takes, you understand?"
Bernard understood.
The visitation got off to a rocky start. Once again, Demencio's fiberglass Mado
"But we got a bus coming," Trish reminded him. "The mission bus from West Virginia."
"Aw, shit."
Every week Demencio changed the Mado
So Demencio hadn't been alarmed when his wife told him the Mado
Thus the Mado
"Got any ideas?" Trish asked.
"Quiet," said her husband. "Lemme think."
But it wasn't quiet. The sounds of crunching filled the room: JoLayne's cooters, enjoying breakfast.
Demencio's somber gaze settled on the aquarium. Instead of breaking the romaine into bite-sized pieces, he'd dropped the whole head of lettuce into the tank. The sight of it had pitched the baby turtles into a frenzy, and they were now chewing their way up the leafy slopes.
It was, Demencio had to admit, weirdly impressive. Forty-five marauding turtles. He got an idea. "You still got that Bible?" he asked his wife. "The illustrated one?"
"Somewhere, yeah."
"And I'll need some paint," he said, "like they sell for model airplanes at the hobby store."
"We only got two hours before the bus."
"Don't worry, this won't take long." Demencio walked over to the aquarium. He bent down and said: "OK, who wants to be a star?"
10
On the morning of November 28, with rain misting the mountains, Mary Andrea Finley Krome checked out of the Mona Pacifica Mineral Spa and Residential Treatment Center, on the island of Maui. She flew directly to Los Angeles, where the next day she auditioned for a network television commercial for a new home-pregnancy test. Later she flew on to Scottsdale to rejoin the road company for the Silence of the Lambsmusical, in which she starred as Clarice, the intrepid young FBI agent. Mary Andrea's itinerary was relayed by certain sources to Tom Krome's divorce lawyer, Dick Turnquist, who arranged for a process server to be waiting backstage at the di
Somehow Mary Andrea got word of the ambush. Midway through the finale, with the entire cast and chorus singing,
"Oh, Ha
...Mary Andrea collapsed, convincingly, in a spastic heap. The process server stood back as paramedics strapped the slack-tongued actress on a stretcher and carried her to an ambulance. By the time Dick Turnquist learned the details, Mary Andrea Finley Krome had miraculously regained consciousness, checked herself out of the Scottsdale hospital, rented a Thunderbird and disappeared into the desert.
Dick Turnquist delivered the bad news to Tom Krome via fax, which Krome retrieved at a Kinko's across the highway from the University of Miami campus. He didn't read it until he and JoLayne Lucks were parked under a streetlight on what she called the Big Stakeout.
After sca
JoLayne said: "I know what that woman wants."
"Me, too. She wants to be married forever."
"You're wrong, Tom. She'll go for a divorce. It has to be her idea, that's all."
"Thank you, Dr. Brothers." Krome didn't want to think about his future ex-wife because then he would no longer sleep like a puppy. Instead he would awake with marrow-splitting headaches and bleeding gums.