"You see other people?" said Cy.
"He sees other people," said Rene. "I'm way too busy for that. I come visit him every few months."
"Say what?" said Cy, now speaking to Jack. "Let me get this straight. This beautiful woman comes and visits you every so often. You show her a good time, she gives you lots of lovin'. Then she goes back to Africa and says it's fine and dandy for you to see other women?"
Jack didn't like the way Cy was making it sound. But that was basically it. "It's pretty unusual, I know."
"Unusual?" said Cy, shaking his head. "Man, Theo must hate your guts."
Jack could have explained that Theo wasn't jealous in the least, that Theo was nuts about Rene. But Theo liked Andie, too. And still in the back of Jacks mind was Theo's comment about longing for the woman who makes herself unavailable – the implication that Jack had cut Andie out of the picture only because she was the one who really wanted to be in it. But there he went again, overanalyzing everything.
You done, Swyteck?
"Yeah, Theo should hate me," said Jack.
"Turn here," said Cy
Jack headed up Douglas Road, the southwest entrance to Coconut Grove. The questionable area near the busy highway was Theo's childhood neighborhood. The worst of the old wooden shacks were long gone – including Theo's old house. They'd been razed and replaced by new single-family homes that were freshly painted in pastel colors. Much of the business district, however, retained the look and feel of the old ghetto. Groups of young men hanging out on the sidewalk with nowhere to go. Drug dealers and whores at work behind the boarded windows of dilapidated buildings. Rap music blaring from low-riding cars with metallic paint jobs and shiny chrome wheels. Bars and package stores marked by crude wooden signs that looked as if they'd been painted by Tom Sawyer on crack.
Cy suddenly fell quiet. He was sitting back in his seat, looking out the window. The dramatic mood swing reminded Jack of the time he and Theo had taken this same shortcut into the Grove. In the span of a single city block, Theo – just like his Uncle Cy – had gone from his usual animated self to staring vacantly out the passenger-side window. It had happened some years earlier, and it was the only mention Theo had ever made to Jack about his mother.
Theo had pointed out where she lay dead in the street.
"You okay, Cy?" asked Jack.
"Mm-hm," he said.
Soon, the ghetto's vapor lights and tall fences topped with spirals of razor wire gave way to gated streets and oak trees. They were approaching Theo's new neighborhood. Central Grove wasn't crime-free, but the sound of gunshots in this area could just as likely be a doctor shooting his wife's tennis pro as a holdup.
Jack parked in the visitor space outside Theo's town house. Cy thanked him for the lift and climbed out of the backseat. He appeared a little unsteady walking up the steps. Jack got out and helped him to the front door.
"Are you okay?" said Jack.
"It's this damn medicine I'm on," said Cy. "Makes me woozy when I stand up after sittin' for too long."
Uncle Cy had always seemed old to Jack, but he suddenly looked very old. "Let me help you up to your room."
Jack sensed that the old man was about to protest, but another one of those dizzy spells came upon him. "I'd appreciate that," Cy said.
At Jack's behest, Rene followed them upstairs to Cy's room. She switched on the lamp as Jack seated him on the edge of the bed. "Rene's a doctor," said Jack. "You want her to check you out?"
"I don't need no doctor. Doctors is what got me all screwed up. All these medicines they give me." The old man lay back against his pillow.
Rene said, "What kind of medication are you on?"
"I don't know. It's sittin' right there on the nightstand."
"He had a mild stroke last summer," said Jack.
Rene read the label. "This is to lower your blood pressure. Your doctor might have to adjust the dose or prescribe something else if you're getting light-headed." Rene took a minute to check his pulse. "Ticker seems fine."
"Of course it's fine. Everything's fine. Now get lost, you two. Go have fun."
The old man's eyes were already closed. Rene pulled off his shoes, and Jack switched off the lamp. Then they said good night and went downstairs. Jack suggested that they hang around for ten or fifteen minutes so that Rene could check on him again before they left.
They sat on the couch in front of the television. Rene snatched up the remote, and Jack was hard-pressed to deny such a pleasure to a woman who was headed back to the primitive corners of Africa's cocoa region in less than thirty-six hours. Jack watched in silence as she switched from Tom Hanks in Sleepless in Seattle to George Clooney in Sisters to an old episode of Thirty Something – again and again.
"You sure you can't stay past Monday?" said Jack.
The question brought her surfing to an end. Jack was apparently stuck with Sisters. Not a terrible choice – if you had no testicles.
"I really can't," she said.
"Why not?"
They were seated so close that she was leaning against him, and Jack had both arms wrapped around her. He could feel her body stiffen.
"I'm the clinic's only doctor."
"I understand that. But whenever you come to see me, you always leave sooner than planned. Five days is never five days. A week is never a full week."
"Something always comes up."
"I -" Jack measured his words, but he decided that it needed to be said. "I honestly don't buy that, Rene."
His arms were still around her, but it was as if their blanket of comfort had been yanked away and thrown to the cold tile floor. They sat in silence, both staring at the television but neither one watching it. Jack wished they were sitting face-to-face so that he could read her expression.
"You're right," she said quietly.
"I am?"
"Yes. I don't really have to get back to the clinic on Monday I could stay a week. I could stay two weeks."
Jack's chest tightened. It sounded like he was about to get dumped, but he still had to ask: "So why are you leaving?"
Slowly she broke away from his embrace, sat up, and faced him. "Because if I stayed any longer, I'm afraid I might never go back."
She sounded sincere, and Jack wanted to believe her. But somehow he couldn't help wondering if she was speaking from the heart or saying what she thought he wanted to hear.
Theo's telephone rang. It was across the room on the counter-top, and the answering machine picked up. Theo liked to screen his calls, so the message played loud enough for Jack and Rene to hear every word as it was being recorded.
"Yo, Theo! Where the fug' are you, man?"
Jack didn't recognize the voice immediately, and even though he knew he shouldn't listen, he couldn't close his ears.
"Answer me, Knight! I know you got my message. So where are you, dude? I been waitin' here almost half an hour for you."
Jack hadn't heard Isaac Reems's voice in years, and they'd had only one telephone conversation. But he was dead certain that Theo's machine was recording the message of a fugitive.
"Dude, here's the deal," said Reems. "Two thousand bucks. That's all it takes. I'm sure you think I don't know what I'm talkin' about. But trust me, a man hears a lotta shit sittin' in prison as long as I did. So get me two grand, bro'. Just do me a couple of favors. And then I swear, I'll tell you who killed your momma."
The line clicked. The machine stopped recording.
Jack and Rene exchanged uneasy glances.
"What was that all about?" she said.
Rene was a bit of a New York Times snob and hadn't read the Miami paper or watched any local news. The first she'd heard of Reems's escape was when the cops showed up at Sparky's and Jack had told Theo to go cool off. She hadn't asked any questions – Jack said the cops were chasing rabbits – but in light of this phone call, maybe it was a good thing she was returning early to Africa after all.