A week later he started to rebuy at twenty points lower. Anyway he’d have the cash to refinance his loans and go in with Cassidy on the options. When he told Cassidy he was ready to go in with him they went out on the boat to talk things over. A colored boy made them mintjuleps. They sat in the stern with their rods and big straw hats to keep the sun out of their eyes and the juleps on a table behind them. When they got to the edge of the blue water they began to troll for sailfish.
It was a day of blue sky with big soft pinkishwhite clouds lavender underneath drifting in the sun. There was enough wind blowing against the current out in the Gulf Stream to make sharp choppy waves green where they broke and blue and purple in the trough. They followed the long streaks of mustardcolored weed but they didn’t see any sailfish. Cassidy caught a dolphin and Charley lost one. The boat pitched so that Charley had to keep working on the juleps to keep his stomach straight.
Most of the morning they cruised back and forth in front of the mouth of the Miami River. Beyond the steep dark waves they could see the still sunny brown water of the bay and against the horizon the new buildings sparkling white among a red web of girder construction. “Buildin’, that’s what I like to see,” said Homer Cassidy, waving a veined hand that had a big old gold sealring on it towards the city. “And it’s just beginnin’… Why, boy, I kin remember when Miamah was the jumpin’ off place, a little collection of brokendown shacks between the railroad and the river, and I tell you the mosquitoes were fierce. There were a few crackers down here growin’ early tomatoes and layin’ abed half the time with chills and fever… and now look at it… an’ up in New York they try to tell you the boom ain’t sound.” Charley nodded without speaking. He was having a tussle with a fish on his line. His face was getting red and his hand was cramped from reeling. “Nothin’ but a small bonito,” said Cassidy. “… The way they try to tell you the fishin’ ain’t any good… that’s all propaganda for the West Coast… Boy, I must admit that I saw it comin’ years ago when I was workin’ with old Flagler. There was a man with vision… I went down with him on the first train that went over the overseas extension into Key West… I was one of the attorneys for the road at the time. Schoolchildren threw roses under his feet all the way from his private car to the carriage… We had nearly a thousand men carried away in hurricanes before the line was completed… and now the new Miamah… an’ Miamah Beach, what do you think of Miamah Beach? It’s Flagler’s dream come true.”
“Well, what I’d like to do,” Charley began and stopped to take a big swig of the new julep the colored boy had just handed him. He was beginning to feel wonderful now that the little touch of seasickness had gone. Cassidy’s fishing guide had taken Charley’s rod up forward to put a new hook on it, so Charley was sitting there in the stern of the motorboat feeling the sun eat into his back and little flecks of salt spray drying on his face with nothing to do but sip the julep, with nothing to worry about. “Cassidy, this sure is the life… why can’t a guy do what he wants to with his life? I was just goin’ to say what I want to do is get out of this whole racket… investments, all that crap… I’d like to get out with a small pile and get a house and settle down to monkeyin’ around with motors and designin’ planes and stuff like that… I always thought if I could pull out with enough jack I’d like to build me a windtunnel all my own… you know that’s what they test out model planes in.” “Of course,” said Cassidy, “it’s aviation that’s goin’ to make Miami… Think of it, eighteen, fourteen, ten hours from New York… I don’t need to tell you… and you and me and the Senator… we’re right in among the foundin’ fathers with that airport… Well, boy, I’ve waited all ma life to make a real killin’. All ma life I been servin’ others… on the bench, railroad lawyer, all that sort of thing… Seems to me about time to make a pile of ma own.”
“Suppose they pick some other place, then we’ll be holdin’ the bag. After all it’s happened before,” said Charley.
“Boy, they can’t do it. You know yourself that that’s the ideal location and then… I oughtn’t to be tellin’ you this but you’ll find it out soon anyway… well, you know our Washington friend, well, he’s one of the forwardestlooking men in this country… That money I put up don’t come out of Homer Cassidy’s account because Homer Cassidy’s broke. That’s what’s worryin’ me right this minute. I’m merely his agent. And in all the years I’ve been associated with Senator Planet upon ma soul and body I’ve never seen him put up a cent unless it was a sure thing.”
Charley began to grin. “Well, the old sonofabitch.” Cassidy laughed. “You know the one about a nod’s as good as a wink to a blind mule. How about a nice Virginia ham sandwich?”
They had another drink with the sandwiches. Charley got to feeling like talking. It was a swell day. Cassidy was a prince. He was having a swell time. “Funny,” Charley said, “when I first saw Miami it was from out at sea like this. I never would have thought I’d be down here shovelin’ in the dough… There weren’t all those tall buildin’s then either. I was goin’ up to New York on a coastin’ boat. I was just a kid and I’d been down to New Orleans for the Mardi Gras and I tell you I was broke. I got on the boat to come up to New York and got to pallin’ with a Florida cracker… he was a funny guy… We went upto New York together. He said the thing to do was get over an’ see the war, so him and me like a pair of damn fools we enlisted in one of those volunteer ambulance services. After that I switched to aviation. That’s how I got started in my line of business. Miami didn’t mean a thing to me then.”
“Well, Flagler gave me ma start,” said Cassidy. “And I’m not ashamed to admit it… buyin’ up rightofway for the Florida East Coast… Flagler started me and he started Miamah.”
That night when they got in sunburned and a little drunk from the day on the Gulf Stream they tucked all the options away in the safe in Judge Cassidy’s office and went over to the Palms to relax from business cares. Margo wore her silver dress and she certainly looked stunning. There was a thin dark Irishlooking girl there named Eileen who seemed to know Cassidy from way back. The four of them had dinner together, Cassidy got good and tight and opened his mouth wide as a grouper’s talking about the big airport and saying how he was going to let the girls in on some lots on the deal. Charley was drunk, but he wasn’t too drunk to know Cassidy ought to keep his trap shut. When he danced with Eileen he talked earnestly in her ear telling her she ought to make the boyfriend keep his trap shut until the thing was made public from the proper quarters. Margo saw them with their heads together and acted the jealous bitch and started making over Cassidy to beat the cars. When Charley got her to dance with him she played dumb and wouldn’t answer when he spoke to her.
He left her at the table and went over to have some drinks at the bar. There he got into an argument with a skinny guy who looked like a cracker. Eddy Palermo, with an oily smile on his face the shape and color of an olive, ran over and got between them. “You can’t fight this gentleman, Mr. Anderson, he’s our county attorney… I know you gentlemen would like each other… Mr. Pappy, Mr. Anderson was one of our leading war aces.”