Stubbs burst out laughing.
“What’s so funny?” the man asked.
“Nothin’,” Stubbs said, still laughing.
“Man’s standin’ there watchin’ me take out my money…”
“Come on now, come on,” Stubbs said soothingly.
“How’s a person to know whut’s goin’ on inside his head?”
He handed the bill to Stubbs and stood there glowering while Stubbs rang up the sale and made change from the register. He seemed to be debating whether he wanted to start up with Warren or not. He was still debating it when Stubbs brought back his change. He counted it, gave Warren a dirty look, and went out into the rain. His transom hit one of the pilings while he was backing the boat out. Good, Warren thought.
“You get a lot of that?” Stubbs asked.
“Enough,” Warren said.
“I thought that was history.”
“Sure. Where?”
“I just thought it was. That kind of bullshit.”
“Well,” Warren said, and let it go. “You were telling me about Leeds taking the boat out…”
“Right.”
“This was Monday afternoon, correct? Sometime Monday afternoon.”
“Around a quarter to five. Was when he drove in. Time he untied the boat and went off, it was maybe ten minutes later.”
“What time did he come back in?”
“Around six? Thereabouts?”
“Tied up here at the dock?”
“Same as usual. His usual slip. Number twelve.”
“What time did you leave the marina that night?”
“I don’t leave it. Not any night. My house is right there past the storage sheds. I’m here all the time.”
“Would you have seen anyone going onto Mr. Leeds’s boat after he’d brought it in that night?”
“Except him, do you mean?”
“Yes, I mean after he brought it in.”
“I know, but…”
“Anyone else is what I mean.”
“I know. But what I’m saying is I was asleep after he tied up the second time.”
Warren looked at him.
“He took the boat out twice,” Stubbs said.
“What do you mean?”
“Once in the afternoon, and again later that night.”
“When later that night?”
“Well, he called me around nine o’clock…”
“Leeds?”
“That’s right, Mr. Leeds. Told me he’d be taking the boat out again for a little moonlight spin, said I wasn’t to be alarmed if I heard him out there on the dock.”
“And did you hear him on the dock?”
“I did.”
“At what time?”
“He drove in sometime between ten and ten-thirty. Like he said he would.”
“You saw him drive in?”
“I saw his car.”
“Did you see him getting out of the car?”
“Yes, I did. Moonlit night, it was Mr. Leeds, all right. Locked the car and went straight to the boat.”
“What time did he bring the boat back in?”
“I don’t know. I was asleep by midnight, it had to’ve been after that. Boat was here in the morning when I woke up, tied up as usual.”
“What kind of a car was Mr. Leeds driving?”
“A red Maserati,” Stubbs said.
3
Tall and blond, with an engaging smile and an even year-round tan, Christopher Howell was old enough at forty-one to appear beatable to the male players at Calusa Bath and Racquet. He was also young enough at that age to appear attractive to the female members of the club. The fact was that he could, and did, beat the best players the club had to offer. But he seemed aware of the fact that no one liked a tennis pro who came on with the married ladies, and so his manner with the thirtysomething young mothers who flocked to take lessons from him was entirely businesslike and circumspect. As a result, the men did not feel threatened — except by his devastating serve and his ferocious backhand — and the women respected his courteous professionalism. Born and bred in Boston, Kit — as he preferred calling himself — had moved to Calusa almost a year ago, and his speech still carried the regional inflections of his native city, giving him a courtly sound that was entirely becoming. Matthew liked him a lot, even if he normally felt inadequate in his presence.
This Saturday morning, he felt particularly inferior.
Perhaps because he’d overslept and hadn’t had enough time to shave. A man needing a shave looked, and felt, particularly unkempt in tennis whites. The club’s idiotic rule was whites only. Kit looked magnificent in his spanking-clean whites and his glorious tan. He was also clean-shaven. Perhaps because, being blond, Kit didn’t need to shave as often as Matthew did. Altogether he looked like some kind of Viking ready to smite an inept foe with his battle-ax. The fact that he was three years older than Matthew did nothing to change the uneven equation.
According to Matthew’s partner, Frank, a man’s life ran in twenty-year cycles. Twenty years old was young. Forty was middle-aged. Sixty was old. And eighty was dead. Finito. With women, it was slightly different. Their lives ran in fifteen-year cycles. Fifteen years old was young. Thirty was grown up. Forty-five was experienced. Sixty was middle-aged. Seventy-five was old. And ninety was still alive and kicking and hanging in there.
Maybe Frank was right.
Matthew knew that if he himself had his preference, men and women would remain respectively and eternally thirty-seven and twenty-nine. He was now thirty-eight. Over the hill, he guessed.
“… against a left-handed player,” Kit was saying.
Showing off, of course. He was a natural right-hander, but he could play with either hand at will. There were some players, in fact, who said his left-handed serve was even more powerful than his normal serve. Today, he was going to teach Matthew how to play against a left-hander. Matthew could hardly wait. The inside waist button on his tennis shorts had popped while he was putting them on, and they were now fastened only with the outside button. Matthew felt certain they would fall down the moment he tried to return one of Kit’s aces. Kit’s teaching technique was simple. No mercy. Take no prisoners. He played against you as if you were facing each other across some disputed battlefield. It worked. Matthew’s game had improved a hundredfold since he’d begun taking lessons last October.
“There are a lot of things you have to remember about playing a left-hander,” Kit said, “but we’ll cover only the two most important ones today, okay?”
“Sure,” Matthew said.
He was wondering how many others there were. Two seemed like more than enough.
“The first thing is that he is left-handed,” Kit said. “You’ve put on a little weight, haven’t you?”
“Yes,” Matthew said, and sucked in his gut.
“I thought so,” Kit said.
Which made Matthew feel even more terrific.
“Most of the people you play against are right-handed,” Kit said, “so you know exactly where to put your serve, you know exactly where the backhand is because you’re in the habit of hitting the ball to it, of avoiding the forehand. So you’ve got to set your mind immediately to the fact that this guy is left-handed, and he’s going to remain left-handed for the rest of the game, that isn’t going to change one damn bit.”
Unless you’re Christopher Howell, Matthew thought. Who is ambidextrous and can change handedness midstream.
“A lefty is a lefty is a lefty,” Kit said, smiling, “and if you have to hesitate for even a single second to remember that, then he’s got an edge on you. So the thing you have to do from minute one is drum that into your head, he’s left-handed, he’s left-handed, and never for a minute forget it. That’s the first thing.”