“What the hell does Gina know about my father?”
She swallowed hard. She knew she’d slipped. He was shaking his head, and his fists were clenched. “Did you tell her the things I told you?”
“Gina’s my best friend. We talk. We tell each other the important things in our lives.”
“Damn it, Cindy!” he shouted as he sprung from the bed. “You don’t tell her anything I tell you about me and my father. How could you be so fucking insensitive!”
Cindy’s hands trembled as her nails dug into the mattress. “Don’t talk to me that way,” she said firmly, “or I’m leaving right this second.”
“You’re leaving anyway,” he said. “Don’t you think I can see that? You’re going to Italy with the boss you used to sleep with. You’re out with Gina till two in the morning checking out guys and prowling the nightclubs-”
“That’s not what we were-”
“Oh, bullshit!” His emotions had run away so completely that he’d forgotten his own whereabouts the night before. “You’re not hanging with Mother Teresa, you know. Hell, I’ve had more meaningful conversations with tollbooth attendants than Gina’s had with half the men she’s slept with.”
“I’m not Gina. And besides, Gina’s not that way. Just stop it, Jack.”
“Stop what?” he said, raising his voice another level. “Stop looking behind what this is really all about? Stop taking the fun out of Cindy and Gina’s excellent adventure?”
She sat rigidly on the side of the bed, too hurt to speak.
He charged toward the bedroom door. “You want to go?” he asked sharply, flinging the door open. “Go.”
She looked up, tears welling in her eyes.
“Go on,” he ordered. “Get outta here!”
She still didn’t move.
He moved his head from side to side, looking frantically about the room for some way to release months or maybe even years of pent-up anger that Cindy hadn’t caused but was now the unfortunate recipient of. He darted toward the bureau and snatched the snapshots of them she’d tucked into the wood frame around the mirror-their memories.
“Jack!”
“There,” he said as he ripped one to pieces.
“Don’t do that!”
“You’re leaving,” he said as he took the picture of them taken in Freeport from his stack.
She jumped up and dashed for the walk-in closet. He jumped in front of her.
“I need to get some clothes!”
“Nope,” he sad, holding another photo before her eyes. “You’re leaving right now. Go back to Gina-your confidante.”
“Stop it!”
He ripped the entire stack in half.
“Jack!” She grabbed her car keys and headed for the door, wearing only her T-shirt. She stopped in the doorway and said tearfully, “I didn’t want it to turn out this way.”
He scoffed. “Now you sound like the scum I defend.”
Her face reddened, ready to burst with tears or erupt with anger. “You are the scum you defend!” she screamed, then raced out of the house.
Chapter 11
At eight-thirty that Saturday evening, Harry Swyteck parked his rented Buick beneath one of the countless fifty-foot palm trees that line Biscayne Boulevard, Miami’s main north-south artery. The governor was alone, as he’d promised his blackmailer. It was a few minutes past sunset, and the streetlights had just blinked on. Harry sighed at the impending darkness. As if he didn’t already have enough to worry about, now he had to carry around ten thousand dollars in cash in Miami after dark. He checked the locks on his briefcase and stepped quickly from the car, then scurried across six lanes of traffic to the east side of the boulevard, following the sidewalk into the park.
Bayfront Park was Miami’s green space between bustling city streets and the sailboats on Biscayne Bay. Granite, glass, and marble towers lit up the Miami skyline to the south and west of the park. Across the bay toward South Miami Beach the lights of Caribbean-bound cruise ships glittered like a string of floating pearls. Cool summer breezes blew off the bay from the east, carrying with them the soothing sound of rolling waves breaking against the shoreline. At the north end of the park was Bayside Marketplace, an indoor-outdoor collection of shops, restaurants, and bars, and the starting place for the horse-and-buggy rides through the park that were favored by tourists.
Tonight it was Governor Swyteck’s turn to take a carriage ride. He hoped to blend in as a tourist, which was the reason for his white sailing pants, plaid madras shirt and Marlins baseball cap. But the leather briefcase made him feel conspicuous. He bought a stuffed animal from one of the cart vendors, just to get hold of the paper shopping bag, and stuck the briefcase in the bag. Now his outfit was complete: He didn’t look at all like a governor, and that was the whole idea-though he did have a plan in case anyone recognized him. “Another stop on my grass-roots campaign trail,” he’d say, and they’d probably buy it. Four years ago he’d manned a McDonald’s drive-through, taught phonics to first-graders, and worked other one-day jobs-all just to look like a regular Joe.
“Carriage ride?” one of the drivers called out as he reached the staging area.
“Uh-I’m thinking about it,” Harry replied.
“Forty bucks for the half hour,” the driver said, but the governor wasn’t listening. He was trying to figure out which of the half dozen carriages belonged to Calvin, the man he’d been told to hire for the nine o’clock ride. By process of elimination he zoomed in on a sparkling white carriage with red velvet seats, pulled by an Appaloosa with donkey-like ears poking through an old straw hat. The governor felt nervous as he approached the wiry old black driver, but he told himself once again that he had to see this mission through. Sensing he was being watched, he looked one way, then the other, but could see nothing out of the ordinary.
“Are you Calvin?” he asked, looking up at the driver.
“Yessuh,” he replied. Calvin was in his eighties, a relic of old Miami, when the city was “My-amma” and truly part of the South. He had frosty white hair and the callous hands of a man who had worked hard all his life. He seemed exaggeratedly deferential, making Harry feel momentarily guilty for his race and the way this old codger must have been treated as a young man.
“I’d like to take a little ride,” said the governor as he handed up two twenty-dollar bills.
“Yessuh,” said Calvin as he checked his watch. “Fair warnin’ for you, though: You’re my nine o’clock ride. I always stop at the concession stand on my nine o’clock ride. Get myself an iced tea.”
“That’s fine,” said the governor as he climbed aboard. I wouldn’t have it any other way.
Calvin made a clicking sound with his mouth and gave the reins a little tug. His horse pulled away from the rail and started toward the waterfront, as if on automatic pilot, while the governor looked on with amusement as the animal navigated the route. “How long you been doing this, Calvin?”
“Lot longer than you been guvnuh, suh.”
So much for anonymity.
The journey began at the towering bronze statue of Christopher Columbus and headed south along the shoreline. Palm trees and musicians playing saxophones and guitars lined the wide pedestrian walkway of white coral rock, the south Florida version of a quaint cobblestone street. Calvin played tour guide as they rolled down the walkway. He was a veritable history book on wheels when it came to the park and its past, talking about how they had filled in the bay to build it in 1924 and how the sea had tried to reclaim it in the hurricane of 1926. He spoke from memory and of practice, but he was clearly putting a little emotion into it for his distinguished guest. The governor listened politely, but he was fading in and out, to remain focused on the purpose of his trip. His anxiety heightened as the carriage curled around the spewing fountain and headed west, away from the brightly lit walkway along the water to the interior of the park, where palm trees and live oaks cast shadows beneath street lamps that were becoming fewer and farther between. As they reached the amphitheater, the carriage slowed up, just as Calvin had warned and the blackmailer had said it would.