“So this here’s the porpoise man,” Roland said. “Hey, partner, what do you do, play with them porpoises all day? They get you excited, watching ’em? Little shithead comes in here, starts flapping his mouth.” Roland held Maguire with one arm around his neck and began to rub the knuckles of his free hand into Maguire’s scalp. “Hey, shithead, how’s that feel? Give you a knuckle massage. I’ll give you a knuckle sandwich I ever see you around here again. How’s that feel, huh? Kinda burn, does it?”
Karen said, “That’s enough. Stop it.”
Roland took hold of Maguire’s right arm as he released him and bent the arm up behind Maguire’s back, lifting him up, raising his face that was flushed and stung, trying not to yell out but, Christ, his shoulder was about to twist out of place.
“That way,” Roland said. “Go on, toward the hall there.”
Karen watched, still at the fireplace, remembering something like this from a long, long time ago: Karen Hill watching two seventh grade boys on the school playground. The headlock; the Dutch rub, they called it then; the arm bent behind the back-
“Go on, get your ass out of here.” Roland in the hall now, giving Maguire a shove as he released him.
Maguire kept going to the front door. He saw Marta in the doorway that led to the back hall, watching him, sympathetic. Or maybe not. Maybe thinking, So much for him.
Roland called out, “Leave the car!”
Maguire was opening the door when he called again.
“Wait a minute!”
Maguire waited, looking outside at the faint, early evening sunlight, not turning around. Roland came up to him.
“I want to ask you something,” Roland said, his tone mild again. “You’re over there with them porpoises all the time-you ever see ’em do it?”
“Do what?”
“You know, do it.”
“Every night,” Maguire said.
“No shit, every night, huh? Hey, you suppose I could come over sometime and watch?”
Jesus Diaz said to the woman in the doorway, her TV on loud behind her, “I know he be coming home soon. See, I know where he is. He told me to wait for him.”
Aunt Leona said, “It’s all right with me if you wait. Sit anywhere you want.” Pointing to some old lawn chairs.
“I mean I’m supposed to wait inside his place.” In case Roland followed Maguire for some reason, Jesus wasn’t going to have Roland see him sitting here at the Casa Loma. He’d go to Cuba right now before he’d let it happen.
“Well, I don’t know,” Aunt Leona said.
“See, we old friends. I’m not going to steal nothing.”
Man, all that to get in his apartment. If it was dark he would have walked in himself. As it turned out it became dark as he sat watching Maguire’s black and white TV and drinking some of Maguire’s rum. A good-looking girl in a red T-shirt came in. Jesus stood up and said he was waiting for his friend. The good-looking girl said, “Lots of luck,” and went out. Finally, when Maguire walked in the door he looked surprised, though more drunk than surprised.
“I saw your two cars at the DiCilia house,” Jesus Diaz said. “But you’re all right, uh? You want to know who I saw before that?”
Maguire poured himself a rum over ice. “I don’t know, do I?”
“I saw Vivian Arzola. I look around Keystone all day. Nothing. I drive to her mother’s place in Homestead. There she is.”
“That’s nice,” Maguire said. “Tell the lady. Hold your hand out like this, she’ll give you a tip.”
“Right away Vivian’s scared to death when I see her. I say take it easy, I’m not going to hurt you. I jes want to tell you Mrs. DiCilia want to talk to you. She look at me like she don’t trust me. Something is strange about her. You know? I leave, but I wait around in my car. Pretty soon she come out with a suitcase. I follow her little foreign car back to Miami to a house on Monegro. You know where I mean? In Coconut Grove, little pink house there. She goes in, a little while later I go up, ring the bell. No answer. Shit, I know she’s in there. But what’s the matter with her? You listening?” Jesus Diaz looked at Maguire stretched out on the bed now, holding his drink. “I ring the bell again. Nothing. So I open the door with these keys I have, you know? I look through the house. She’s hiding in the bedroom, man, in the closet. She say, ‘Oh, please don’t kill me.’ I say, ‘What do I want to kill you for?’ She say, ‘I won’t tell, I promise you.’ I say, ‘You won’t tell what?’ You listening? We talk some more, talk some more, I’m very nice to her, we talk about our mothers, I tell her I quit the business, I’m going to Cuba. She say, ‘I want to go with you.’ I say, ‘Why?’ We talk some more. You know what she’s scared of? Of course, Roland. You know why she scared? Hey, you listening? Because she know Roland killed Ed Grossi.”
“I’m listening,” Maguire said.
LESLEY WAS SAYING INTO THE MIKE, “That little hole there on top of Misty and Gippy’s head is called their blowhole. It’s just like your nose. If they get water in there they could catch pneumonia, pleurisy, or even drown. So please don’t splash them. ‘Sides if you do, they’re gonna splash everybody back.” Pause. “And no one has ever won a water fight with a dolphin.”
Lesley, Karen decided-walking away from the Porpoise Play Pool-was cute but a little tacky. Probably not too bright, either.
She looked in at the grandstand show pool again, walked around to the refreshment stand and there he was. At a picnic table having coffee.
“Why aren’t you working today?”
Maguire looked up. “I’m trying to get fired.”
“I think I asked you once before, why don’t you quit?”
“Pretty soon.”
Karen said, “I’m sorry about yesterday.”
“Yeah, I could see, the way you were standing there watching.”
“What did you expect me to do, hit him?” Karen sat down at the picnic table. Maguire, stirring his coffee with a plastic stick, didn’t look up. Karen watched him. “I just found out something you wouldn’t tell me. ‘These are Atlantic bottle-nosed dolphins. The porpoise is a much smaller animal, nervous and high strung, practically untrainable.’ ” Karen said, giving it a little of Lesley’s southern Ohio accent. “ ‘But we call ’em porpoise so you won’t get ’em mixed up with the dolphin fish you see on menus in some of Florida’s finest restaurants. Don’t worry though’-you all-‘when you order it, you are not eating Flipper.’ You think I could get a job here.”
“Talk to Brad. Tell him you need the money.”
“Are we a little pouty today? I thought you handled it pretty well, considering everything. At least you stood up to him.”
“I did, huh?”
Karen picked up his coffee and sipped it. “Too much sugar.” She put it down again. “I brought the car for you-if you can drive me back.”
“What else can I do for you?”
Karen studied him, waiting for him to look at her. “Why’re you taking it out on me? There wasn’t anything I could do.”
“I got the feeling you didn’t much care,” Maguire said, “one way or the other.”
“Would it’ve helped if I’d screamed, kicked him in the shins?”
“It might’ve.”
“The police were already there once, and did nothing.”
“For what? You called them?” Maguire looked up, interested.
“Roland was making a point. That he could hit close to home and the police wouldn’t do anything about it. He pretended he was going to rape Marta, and I got excited and called the cops.”
“You got excited?” Maguire said.
“I was afraid he was going to hurt her. I didn’t know it was an act.”
“Then when you realized it,” Maguire said, “you were Cool Karen again?”
“What’re you trying to say?” She put on a little frown, but it didn’t indicate much concern.
“You’ve got this guy hanging on you,” Maguire said, “but you don’t seem too worried anymore. Like, so what? What’s the big deal? I don’t know if you’ve given up or you don’t care.”