“Jesus, Skip. You’re nuts if you stick this out with him.”
“Easy for you to say. How much do you make? How much money do you make? My God, Em. I make nothing. We stand to clear two to three thousand dollars apiece when this is all through. To me, that’s a fortune.”
She was quiet. She was breathing deep through that cute little nose, and I marveled at how perfect her face was. Even the teeth, straight as an arrow. I figured the teeth had been worked on, but not the nose. She was so out of my league.
Finally she reached for her untouched coffee, took a sip and made a face. “Cold.”
I caught a waiter’s eye and he replaced the two coffees. She nibbled on a piece of cold, greasy sausage and stared past me.
“Look, we’re seeing each other for the first time in a long time.”
“We are.” I agreed.
“When I left the last time we were both in a lot of trouble.”
“We were.”
“And now — ”
“I’m in trouble again. Or on the verge of trouble.”
“Skip, this doesn’t make the relationship very stable.”
I looked into her eyes. There was a lot here worth saving. “No, but it certainly makes it interesting.”
She squinted, a frown gracing that lovely face. “Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Maybe. But there’s a grain of truth to it. I’ve got an uncle named Buzz, and — ”
“Buzz?”
“Buzz.”
She shook her head. “Buzz is not a name. It’s the sound bees make. It’s a condition.”
“Like getting a buzz on?”
“Yeah.”
“My uncle Buzz, he told me something about life.”
“Oh, jeez, a life lesson from Uncle Buzz. I can’t wait to hear this one.”
I ignored her sarcasm. It had been an hour and she was already down on me big-time.
“Buzz said ‘the only thing we have to look forward to in life is the next big revival.’ ”
Em sipped her warm coffee, leaning back in her chair and staring up at the clear blue morning sky. “So Buzz was a philosopher?”
“Well, we’re all philosophers sometime in our life.”
The morning sun crept under the shade of our umbrella and Em reached into her purse and pulled out her Ray-Ban sunglasses. I couldn’t read her eyes, but I could hear the sarcasm drip from her voice.
“The next time you see Uncle Buzz, please tell him for me that life is a little more than looking for the next buzz.”
“Think about it, Em. What else is there? I mean, I’m trying to get to the next level. That’s what he was talking about.”
“And how does that fit into big trouble at the yellow tent?”
I knew how it fit in. I’d spent half the night, looking up at the stars, thinking about it.
“I’d like to tell you. But some of it involves you. And some of it involves James. That’s a mixture that never seems to go well together. And some of it involves me.”
“Well at least tease me. Give me a hint.” She had picked up her spoon and was softly tapping it on her napkin. Irritating.
“James gives me some vision. Some dreams.”
She shook her head, her streaked blond hair shimmering in the light. “Dreams? James?”
“ You give me some dreams.”
“We’ll table that for now.”
“Cashdollar gives me some dreams. He says that if you give generously, you will be rewarded.”
“And you believe that?”
“I’d like to.” I hesitated. She wasn’t buying this. “James thinks the Cashdollar machine can teach us some things, about how a business organization should run. I can’t argue that this guy is a huge success. He’s got more money than — ”
“God?”
“It would seem.”
“Oh, please.”
“Do you want to hear this or not?”
“Okay. And,” her annoying spoon tapping sped up, “where does all this trouble fit in?”
“Getting to the next level — with James, with you, with Cashdollar’s philosophy — doesn’t just happen. I think it’s a struggle to get there.”
“What? And you’re telling me that the truck, the tires, a threatening letter, the girl getting murdered, a vendor having an accident, and the senator getting shot are all things that you have to overcome? These are your problems so you can get to the next level?” She whipped the sunglasses off her face and her eyes were wide and bright. “Skip, have you completely lost your mind?”
I buried my head in my hands. It had all made sense last night, or early this morning. In a twisted sort of way I’d figured it out. And now, when I needed this concept to save a relationship, to get to the next level, it had escaped me. It sounded stupid.
“Can you forget it? James and I have some trouble. I’ll get through it.”
I looked across the street, toward the beach. A big limo was moving slowly in the heavy traffic, and I thought about Cashdollar and his trappings. The staff, the gold Bible, the limo with the tinted windows. Then there was a break in the traffic and I caught a glimpse of a man, standing in the grassy area. He immediately turned and ducked behind a passing car. When the line of vehicles finally passed, he was gone.
“I’m sorry, Skip. We’ve just seen each other after three months, and I have no right to come down on you like this.” There were tears in her eyes. “I want to start over. I’m not going to argue with you, okay?”
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe this is all just smoke.”
“No. You’ve got to figure out what your dream is. I’m all right with that. And,” she wiped at her eyes with her hand, “I’m glad I give you dreams. Really.”
I looked into her eyes as she wiped them with her hand. Then I scanned the grass on the other side of Ocean Boulevard. He’d disappeared. The man had gone over the dunes, run to the beach, walked across the street, maybe even jumped into a car. But there was no doubt about it. The short stature, the thinning hair, it was the donut man, Bruce Crayer. And he’d been staring right at us.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
B y the time we left it was eleven a.m. I knew that James was planning on serving lunch, but Brook was coming in so he should be covered. Em and I drove over the Venetian Causeway and we ended up at her condo in the Grand Condominium complex. She’s got a sky-box view of South Beach and I’m always both glad to be there and envious at the same time. We didn’t talk much because there wasn’t much to say. I didn’t ask where she’d been and she didn’t volunteer the information. She didn’t ask what I’d been doing; I’d already told her. If she’d had any affairs while she was gone, I didn’t want to know about it. And since she didn’t ask me about the past three months, I decided she already knew. I’d pretty much been celibate. I’d been out with James’s cousin Gail one night. So, as I said, I’d been celibate.
We took the elevator up, and for the next hour we still didn’t talk. We looked out the window at the causeway with its stream of cars and trucks, the marina with its sailboats and yachts, and we viewed the islands and the buildings of South Beach just a little over a mile away. No talk, just the occasional grunting and groaning that come with the physical act of sex. At about twelve fifteen she rolled over, looked at me, and said, “Well, that was fun. We should do it more often.”
I agreed.
As we pulled into the park, the clock struck one. The story was breaking at the top of the hour.
“Controversial talk show radio host Barry Romans, a syndicated right-wing conservative staple in the Miami area for the past ten years, was gunned down in South Beach this morning just two blocks from the former Gianni Versace mansion on Ocean Drive.”
My eyes locked on Em’s. We’d been two blocks from the huge, gated mansion ourselves.
“Romans remains in critical condition at Mount Sinai Medical Center. Personnel at the hospital refused to comment any further. Romans’s assailant remains at large and police are asking for anyone with information to please call the Miami-Dade Police Department.”
“Does this have anything to do with your story about the reverend Cashdollar’s call for action against Romans?”