Gold Coast Part 6

"Oh, feeding her I might say, 'You like that, huh? Isn't that good?' "

"And what does she say?"

"She goes like-" Hooker did something with the inside of his mouth and made a clickity-click, kitty-cat, Donald Duck sound.

"Oh," Maguire said.

Hooker came on his day off and worked with the two young dolphins in the training tank, hunkered down on the boards for hours, talking to them gently and showing them his hands. Dedicated.

Chuck was on his way to becoming dedicated. He personally wrote two hundred post cards to Star-Kist Tuna, b.u.mble Bee, VanCamp, Ralston Purina, and H.J. Heinz, telling them to quit murdering dolphin or he would never eat their products again.

Robyn was dedicated, though didn't appear to be. She was a serious girl and didn't smile much or seem to be listening when you said something to her. Unless it was Brad Allen who said it. Brad Allen could tell Robyn to dive down to the bottom of the show pool with Dixie, shoot up over the twelve-foot bar and do a tailwalk across the pool, and Robyn would try it. When Brad Allen told her she was doing a good job, Robyn became squirmy and maybe wet her white shorts a little. Nice tight shorts- Though not as tight or short as Lesley's. Lesley's showed a little cheek. She never pulled at them though, the way Robyn did when she got squirmy. What Lesley got was pouty. She'd put on her hurt look and say, "It's not my turn to feed the sharks, it's hers. If you think I'm going in there every day you're out of your f.u.c.king mind." Lesley was dedicated, but not to nurse sharks. She didn't think it was funny when she was standing hip deep in the pool trying to feed a hunk of bluerunner to a shark, and Maguire, on the platform above, would say to the crowd, "Let's give Lesley a nice hand"- pause-"she may need one some day."

Lesley had a pile of wavy brown hair she combed several times an hour. One night, during Maguire's fourth month, Lesley said to him, "I think I'm falling in love with you." She looked so good lying there in the dim light with her hair and her white b.r.e.a.s.t.s exposed, Maguire almost said he loved her, too. But he didn't.

Brad Allen was very very dedicated. Brad Allen was also serious and tiresome. He made Maguire tired. Maguire wondered why Brad Allen didn't get tired of being Brad Allen. Once, Maguire took a couple of puffs on a joint before announcing the show and said, over the P.A. system, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Brad," holding the "here's" almost as long as he could. And after the show Brad Allen said to him, "Now that's a little better." dedicated. Brad Allen was also serious and tiresome. He made Maguire tired. Maguire wondered why Brad Allen didn't get tired of being Brad Allen. Once, Maguire took a couple of puffs on a joint before announcing the show and said, over the P.A. system, "Heeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeere's Brad," holding the "here's" almost as long as he could. And after the show Brad Allen said to him, "Now that's a little better."

Seascape, the layout, reminded Maguire of a small tropical World's Fair; round white buildings, striped awnings, and blue and yellow pennants among shrubs and royal palms.

There was Neptune's Realm you could walk into and look through windows to watch the porpoise and sea creatures glide past, underwater. Topside they put on the Flying Dolphin Show.

There was Shark Lagoon, a pool full of brown nurse sharks and a few giant sea turtles.

There was the Porpoise Petting Pool, where you could touch Misty and Gippy's hard-boiled-egg skin and feed them minnows, three-for-a-quarter.

At the Grandstand Arena Brad Allen put on the main event, the World-Famous Seascape Porpoise and Sea Lion Show: "where these super-smart mammals perform their aquatic acrobatics."

Back in the Alligator Pit a Seminole Indian used to wrestle twelve-foot gators, but the Seminole quit and went to Disney World, and R.D. Hooker only tried it a couple of times; so the alligators and a crocodile were there if you wanted to look at them.

Yellow- and white-striped awnings covered the refreshment stand and gift shop. A fifty-cent Sky Ride in two-seater gondolas gave you a low aerial view of the grounds, the tanks and pools of blue water, the white cement walks and buildings among the imported palm trees: a clean, manicured world just off the S.E. 17th Street Causeway.

"If you don't like it, why don't you quit?" Lesley said, getting a little pouty.

"I didn't say I didn't like it, I said it wasn't real real," Maguire said, Maguire driving Lesley's yellow Honda, heading home to the Casa Loma. "It's like a refuge. Nothing can happen to you there, you're safe. But it's got nothing to do with reality. It's like you're given security, but in exchange for it you have to give up yourself. You have to become somebody else.

Lesley said, "Jesus, what's safe about getting down in the water, feeding those f.u.c.king sharks? I've done it every day this week, you know it? Robyn's off probably giving Brad some head."

Maguire said, "Come on, the sharks feed all night. You jiggle a piece of fish, it's for the tourists. I'm not talking about that kind of being safe. I mean here here, you live in a little world that's got nothing to do with the real world. You're sheltered-"

"I'm sheltered?" sheltered?"

"We are, working there. What's a really big problem? Misty eats some popcorn, gets constipated. Pebbles is grouchy, won't imitate the Beatles. Everybody's going, 'Christ, what's the matter with Pebbles?' Spend are, working there. What's a really big problem? Misty eats some popcorn, gets constipated. Pebbles is grouchy, won't imitate the Beatles. Everybody's going, 'Christ, what's the matter with Pebbles?' Spend months months, maybe a year training a dolphin to jump through a hoop, come up seventeen feet in the air and ring the school bell."

Lesley said, "Yeah?" She still didn't get it.

"They're doing something that dolphins don't normally do, right?"

Lesley thought a moment. "Yeah-but they jump. Out in the wild they jump all the time."

"They shoot baskets? They bowl out there?"

"It's to show how intelligent they are," Lesley said, "how they can be trained."

"Here's the point," Maguire said, wis.h.i.+ng the Honda was air-conditioned, wis.h.i.+ng the lady in front of him would turn, for Christ sake, if she was going to turn, turn turn. "They don't normally, the dolphin, they don't pretend they're playing baseball out in the ocean or jump up and take a piece of fish out of somebody's mouth, right?"

"If you don't like it," Lesley said, "what do you do it for?"

Jesus, Maguire thought. He said, "Just follow the point I want to make, okay? I'm not saying I don't like it. I'm only saying it's like playing make-believe. The dolphin wouldn't be here, they wouldn't be doing the tricks if we didn't teach them. You see what I mean? They'd be out there doing something else, we'd be doing something else. But no, we made this up. The dolphins and us, we're playing with ourselves. We're going through the motions of something that doesn't have anything to do with reality."

"So?"

Oh, Christ. "So-if they're not real dolphins doing all that kind of s.h.i.+t, what're we? Reciting the canned humor, throwing them pieces of codfish- what're we?"

"I was a waitress, a place on Las Olas," Lesley said. "That was real, real s.h.i.+t. You like to ask me what I'd rather do?"

"I'd like to borrow your car this evening," Maguire said. "What're the chances?"

He poured himself a white rum with a splash of lemon concentrate, left the venetian blinds half closed and sat for awhile, the room looking old and worn-out in the dimness. Fifty bucks a week including black and white TV, it was still a bargain. He could hear the hi-fi going next-door, Lesley boogying around the apartment to the Bee-Gees, ignoring her aunt, who was a little deaf. A nice woman, Maguire would sit and talk to her sometimes, listen to episodes from her past life in Cincinnati, Ohio, until he'd tell her he had to go to bed, wake up early. Lesley never sat and listened even for a minute. Lesley would roll her eyes when she saw an episode coming and get out of there. Lesley had no feelings for others; but she sure had a nice firm healthy little body.

Maguire showered and had another rum and lemon while he put on his good clothes. Pale beige slacks, dark-blue sports.h.i.+rt and a skimpy dacron sportcoat, faded light-blue, he'd got at Burdine's for forty-five bucks. He loved the sportcoat because, for some reason, it made him think of Old Florida and made him feel like a native. (A Maguire dictum: wherever you are, fit in, look like you belong. In Colorado wear a sheepskin coat and lace-up boots.) He got the Detroit Free Press Detroit Free Press clipping out of the top drawer, from under his sweat socks, and slipped it into the inside coat pocket. He then went next door and asked Lesley's aunt if he could use the phone; he'd be sure to get the charges and pay for it. clipping out of the top drawer, from under his sweat socks, and slipped it into the inside coat pocket. He then went next door and asked Lesley's aunt if he could use the phone; he'd be sure to get the charges and pay for it.

He said to Lesley, "You want to turn that down a little?"

Lesley said, "Who're you calling, your hot date?"

"I don't have a hot date."

"I thought you were going out."

"Turn the music down, okay?"

Maguire gave the operator the Detroit number and waited. He felt nervous. He wished Lesley would quit watching him.

"Aren't you gonna clean up?"

"You want me to leave, say so."

"I get back, I'll take you out to dinner."

In the phone, Andre Patterson's wife said, "h.e.l.lo?"

"Okay?" Maguire said to Lesley. "Go on, get cleaned up." Then into the phone: "Hi, this is Cal Maguire. How you doing?" He had to listen while Andre's wife told him she was p.i.s.s-poor, if he really wanted to know about it, having trouble getting her ADC checks, had her phone disconnected for a while. Maguire said yeah, he'd been trying to get hold of her, calling information. He said, "Listen, you know the deal at the club? . . . The country club, Andre and I and Grover. I asked you the man's name? Remember? . . . No, I've got it. What I was wondering, you know, Andre said the man was paying them back for something? At the club, something happened there to the man. I wondered if Andre ever spoke to you about it ...If he mentioned to you what it was happened out there. Like maybe the man's wife was involved, you know, maybe she was insulted or something and that's what got the man upset." Christ, upset- willing to pay them forty-five hundred to go out there and hit the place. "Uh-huh, yeah, that's right . . . But he never said anything about the man's wife, huh? ...No, I was just wondering. Hey, well listen, tell Andre I'm gonna write to him, okay? ...Fine, I'll be talking to you." s.h.i.+t.

"Very mysterious," Lesley said, holding a beach towel wrapped around her. "Who's Andre?"

"Friend of mine."

"What'd somebody get upset about?"

Maguire said, "I know it's your aunt's phone and you're letting me use you car and all, but how about if you keep your nose out of my personal business, okay?"

"Yeah," Lesley said, "well, how about if you keep your a.s.s out of my car, you want to get snotty about it."

"You're a beauty," Maguire said. "You got the maturity of about a five-year-old."

"Keep thinking it," Lesley said, "walking to work every day." She turned, letting the towel come open, giving him a flash as she went into the bedroom.

There you are, Maguire thought, walking up the street toward A1A. The kind of question you'd climb all the way up the mountain to ask the old man sitting there in his loincloth.

In the light of eternity, is it better to sell out and ride or stand up and walk?

And the old man would look at him with his calm, level gaze and say- He'd say- Maguire was still trying to think of an answer, standing on the oceanfront corner, when the girl visiting from Mitch.e.l.l, Indiana, picked him up, said, "Heck, it's nothing," and went out of her way to drop him off at Harbor Beach Parkway.

AN APPRAISER FRIEND OF MAGUIRE'S, a guy who bought and sold pretty much out of his backdoor, once said to him, "You walk out with a color TV, you realize the mirror hanging on the wall there, gilded walnut, might be a George II? Early eighteenth century, man, worth at least three grand." Maguire went to the library, looked through art books, made notes and lifted a copy of a guy who bought and sold pretty much out of his backdoor, once said to him, "You walk out with a color TV, you realize the mirror hanging on the wall there, gilded walnut, might be a George II? Early eighteenth century, man, worth at least three grand." Maguire went to the library, looked through art books, made notes and lifted a copy of Kovel's Complete Antiques Price List Kovel's Complete Antiques Price List from the reference shelf. In his work-during the short periods he was into B and E, usually to pick up some traveling money-he'd come across a few antiques and art objects of value. from the reference shelf. In his work-during the short periods he was into B and E, usually to pick up some traveling money-he'd come across a few antiques and art objects of value.

But nothing like the display in Mrs. DiCilia's sitting room. He was looking at a Queen Anne desk- four drawers, stubby little pedestal legs, worth at least four grand-when the maid came in again, a dog following her, and told him to please be seated, Missus would come to him very soon. A sharp-looking Cuban girl, nice accent. Maguire said thank you and then, as the maid was leaving, "How you doing?"

Marta stopped. She said, "Yes?"

"How's it going? You like it here?" Always friendly to the help. "I think it'd be a nice place to work."

Marta, still surprised: "Yes, it is."

"But I wouldn't want to have to dust all this," Maguire said.

The maid left, but the little gray and white dog remained, watching Maguire apprehensively, ready to bark or run.

"Relax," Maguire said to the dog and continued looking around the sitting room.

Bird cage table, not bad. Worth about seven and a half.

Pair of slipseat Chippendale chairs in walnut. Now we're getting there. Seventy-five hundred, maybe eight grand.

Hummel figurines, if you liked Hummel. Fifty bucks each. A couple that might go as high as a hundred and a quarter.

Plates-very impressive. Stevenson, Enoch Wood's sh.e.l.l-border pattern. Six, seven thousand bucks worth of plates on one shelf.

And yes yes, Peachblow vases, the real thing. Creamy red-rose and yellow. Jesus, with the gargoyle stand. Name your price.

A picture of Pope Pius XII. The Last Supper. And some real paintings, old forests and misty green mountains, a signed Durand, an Alvan Fisher, nineteenth-century Hudson River school. A few others he didn't recognize-sitting down now as he studied the painting- And jumping up quickly to look at the chair- Jesus, feeling the turnings of the arms. Louis XVI bergere, in walnut. Pretty sure it was a real one.

He sat in the chair again, carefully, and began thinking about the woman who lived here and owned this collection. Before, he had pictured a dumpy sixty-year-old Italian woman in the kitchen, rolling dough, making tomato paste, a woman with an accent. He'd lay it out to her: Your husband owes us money. She'd pay or she wouldn't, and he could forget about it.

But if she knew antiques-maybe he could fake it a little, establish some kind of rapport, trust . . . confidence?

The dog came over and began sniffing.

"That's fish," Maguire said. He didn't stoop to pet the dog or say anything else.

Karen, in the doorway, saw this much. And the color of his pants and s.h.i.+rt beneath the jacket, making her hesitate a moment.

"Mr. Maguire?"

He looked up to see a slim, good-looking woman in beige slacks, a dark-blue s.h.i.+rt with white b.u.t.tons, hand extended.

Maguire rose, giving her a pleasant smile, shaking his head a little. They shook hands politely and he said, seriously then, "You know something?"

Karen expected him to say, I've heard a lot about you, Mrs. DiCilia. Something along that line.

But he didn't. He said, "We've got matching outfits on. Tan and blue."

Karen said, "You suppose it means something?" Playing it as straight as he was.

"I don't know about you," Maguire said, "but I got all dressed up. This particular outfit is from Burdine's, up on Federal Highway."

"I've heard of Burdine's," Karen said, "but I'm not sure I've heard of you. You were a friend of my husband's?"

"Well, we weren't exactly close. I worked for him once."

Karen said, "And you want to know if I'm all right? If I need anything? What else? Are you with Roland or on your own?"

"I don't know anybody named Roland," Maguire said.

"So you're an independent. All right," Karen said, "let's go out on the patio. That's where we hold the squeeze sessions."

"The what?"

"Come on, I'm anxious to hear your pitch." She walked past him to the French doors.

It had felt like a good start. But now, she wasn't being cool, she was ice-cold, a.s.suming way too much. Maguire hesitated. He said, "You've got some very nice pieces here. The bergere, is it authentic Louis Seize?"

Now Karen paused at the doors to look back and seemed to study him a moment.

"The what?"

Maguire grinned. Was she kidding? She waited, looking at him, and he wasn't sure.

"The chair. If it's real, it belongs in a museum."

"It is is in a museum," Karen said. She turned and walked through the doors. in a museum," Karen said. She turned and walked through the doors.

Putting him on, Maguire decided. Not wanting to sound agreeable or give him anything. He followed her out to the patio, where a torch was burning and swimming pool lights reflected in the clear water, Maguire looking around, thinking, So this is what it's like. Sit out here at night, watch the running lights, the power-boats going by on the Intercoastal.

Ring for the maid, get her with some mysterious signal, because there she was. Maguire said rum would be fine, surprised, wondering why Mrs. Di-Cilia was being sociable, hearing her ask for a martini with ice. Put that down: not "on the rocks" but "with ice." Yes, very nice; sit out here on the patio of your Spanish-Moorish million-dollar home that was full of antiques and art objects and-what?

He was going to say he was sorry for coming so late, or early-one or the other-and hoped he wasn't inconveniencing her. But why? Why suck around?

He said, "Besides all this, what's it like to be rich?"