“Your little friends,” Roland said, “where’d they go?”
“Who knows. Fuck ’em. I said to Ed, okay, then back me again on the Colombian thing. Three times, three loads, you take my cut as well as your own, I’m paid off.”
“And he said?”
“Shit, you know what he said.”
Roland buttoned his suitcoat and switched the canvas bag from his right hand to his left, ready to go.
He said, “It’s hard out here in the world of commerce, ain’t it, Arnie?”
But rewarding to those who put their nose to the grindstone and their ear to a box-full of cassette tapes, the way Roland did for twenty-four hours and fourteen minutes spread over three days, listening to something like one hundred forty-six different cassettes.
And ninety-nine percent nothing. Somebody called the weather every day. The lady called her hairdresser once a week, this queer who scolded her and acted impatient. (What’d she take that kind of shit for?) She talked to some people in Detroit a few times; nothing. She talked to her daughter Julie in Los Angeles; listened to her daughter bitch about work and her husband fooling around, the daughter talking away, never asking how her mother was doing. (“Hang up,” Roland would say to himself. “Whyn’t you hang up?”) There were calls to Marta, short conversations in Spanish. Then a woman calling from the Miami Herald a couple of times, wanting to interview her, take some pictures of Mrs. DiCilia at home, Mrs. DiCilia saying not now, some other time.
Then the dinks started calling about the middle of February. Dinks asking her to go out. Dinks calling again and saying what a fun time they had. “Hey, that was a ball, wasn’t it? Delightful.” Laughing like girls. One dink giving her his golf scores for the week. This other dink boring the shit out of her (and Roland) with all these stock market reports. Another one, the only thing he talked about was his Donzi cigarette boat and off-shore racing, Miami-Bimini, Miami-Key West, how big the waves were, implying what a fucking hero he was out there at the helm. (Roland said to the voice on the tape, “You dink, I’d blow your ass off with a Seminole air boat. Put you smack on the trailer.”) From the sound of them, it couldn’t have been too hard to scare them off. The lady didn’t know how lucky she was, saved from listening to them dinks.
Then the woman from the Miami Herald again wanting to interview her; DiCilia saying all right. Then a call from some Palm Beach magazine, the Gold Coaster, something like that, and Mrs. DiCilia agreeing to talk to them.
Then more conversations with Ed Grossi in May. (Roland would sit up and pay attention to these.) Then Ed inviting her to his office.
There, that was up to where Roland took over the tape concession and started getting them directly from Marta or Jesus Diaz. Nothing interesting yet, not the kind of information he was listening for.
Then the one, her call to Ed chewing him out. “I never want to see that man here again.” Not loud, but a good bite in her tone. “Keep that animal away from here.” (Animal? Hey now.) Then saying, “Why didn’t you tell me yourself? Why did I have to hear it from him? Keep him away from this house. You understand?” (Roland saying, “Hey, take it easy, Karen.”)
He listened to the end. Then played it back and listened again. No sir, nothing about his proposition. Not a word. Blowing off steam, but not telling the whole story, was she? Keeping a possibility open. Roland grinned.
The next few tapes, nothing of interest. One he thought at first was going to be good.
The woman talking to the operator, asking for the number of Goodman and Stern in Detroit, telling the operator it was a law office. (Uh-oh.) Then talking to a guy named Nate. Nate telling her it had been too long and how sorry he was he couldn’t make Frank’s funeral and was there anything he could do for her. Then Karen asking him if the name Maguire and Deep Run meant anything to him. Long pause. The guy, Nate, saying yes, he believed they handled it. Why? Karen saying it wasn’t important but she’d like some information about Maguire if they had it on file. She had met him, she said, and something about Maguire wanting a job recommendation. This guy Nate saying, after another pause, well, he’d have somebody named Marshall something put a report together and send it to her. But he’d advise her to use discretion and touch base with someone at Dorado, someone close by. And how was everything else down in the land of sunshine?
“Hot in the day, cool in the evening,” Roland murmured to himself. Dink lawyers, you never knew what they were talking about.
Another tape. Another conversation with Ed Grossi. Ed back from his trip. That would have been yesterday. Roland paid attention, listening carefully as Karen asked Ed about a trust fund, wanting to know what bank it was in. Ed told her.
KAREN: You said in bonds, I know, but I’ve forgotten the name.
ED: Miami General Revenue, at six percent.
KAREN: Don’t I get records, something on paper? How do I prove they’re mine?
ED: Well, as I told you, the bonds are in the name of the administrator of the estate, Dorado. The yield, the interest-what’d I say, two and a half?
(“Here we go,” Roland said.)
KAREN: Two hundred and forty thousand.
ED: Yeah, goes into the trust and the bank deposits it, or they credit it to your account, twenty thousand a month. Yeah, that’s it.
(ROLAND: “That’s it all right. Man, that is it.”)
KAREN: But I don’t have anything that describes me as the beneficiary, or whatever I am.
ED: You’re getting the money, aren’t you?
KAREN: Yes, but I’d like something on paper.
ED: I’ll have Vivian get you a copy. We’ll get you something, don’t worry about it. How’s everything else? Clara says she wants to get together with you sometime.
KAREN: That’d be fine. (Long pause) Ed… look, we’re going to have to talk about this other thing. When can I come to your office?
(Roland, writing figures on a pad of paper, looked up.)
ED: What other thing?
KAREN: Ed, for God’s sake. Maybe this happens in India or Saudi Arabia, but not Fort Lauderdale, Florida. You can’t simply ignore it.
ED: Karen-
KAREN: You’ve got to stop it, that’s all. If you won’t, I’ll take you to court. I’ll do something-leave here if I have to.
ED: Karen-
KAREN: If you think I’m going to live like this you’re out of your mind.
ED: All right, we’ll have a talk. How about tomorrow, my office? Come on up, we’ll go to lunch.
(ROLAND: “That’s today.”)
KAREN: I’ll meet you at Palm Bay.
(ROLAND: “Shit.”)
He looked at his figures again, scratched them out and started over, multiplying, dividing, trying different ways, finally, finally then, coming up with the answer, what twenty thousand a month was six percent of. Jesus Christ, four million dollars the woman had!
LUNCH AT PALM BAY. Ed Grossi used a Rye Krisp and a spoon on his bowl of cottage cheese. Karen listened, sipping her Bloody Mary, picking at her shrimp salad, every once in awhile shaking her head. Unbelievable. Having to threaten, almost hit him with something to get him to talk about it.
“You serve me with some kind of cease and desist order. From doing what? Karen, this is a very personal matter. You want to get something like this in the papers?”
“If I have to. Ed, this is my life we’re talking about.”
Almost to himself: “People wouldn’t understand it.”
“Of course they wouldn’t. It’s something out of the Middle Ages.” Karen leaned closer, staring at the quiet little man across the table. “He told you this in the hospital? Was he lucid? How do you know he was even in his right mind?”