“This has to be brief,” she says, and asks him about his day.
“Nothing much. Worked on the book. Ate lunch at Lim’s. How about you?”
“The usual. Interrogation. Field exercises. Advanced interrogation.”
“It can’t be that bad.”
“No, it’s not…but I don’t want to be here. That makes it worse.”
“Are you coming back tomorrow?”
“I don’t know yet. It depends on how much aftercare mom’s going to need.” A pause. “How’s the book coming?”
“You can judge for yourself, but it feels pretty good. Today I wrote about this movie I did with Robert Mitchum and Kim…”
“Shit! I have to go. I’ll call tomorrow if I can.”
“Wait…”
“Love you,” she says, and hangs up.
He pictures her standing in her mother’s front yard, or in the bathroom, a little fretful because she didn’t intend to say the L word, because it’s the first time either of them have used it, and she’s not sure he’s ready to hear it, she’s worried it might put too much pressure on him. But hearing the word gives him a pleasant buzz, a comforting sense of inclusion, and he wishes he could call her back.
He falls asleep watching a Magic game with the sound off; when he wakes, a preacher is on the tube, weeping and holding out his arms in supplication. He washes up but chooses not to shower, checks himself in the mirror, sees a heavy two-day growth of gray stubble, and chooses not to shave. He breakfasts on fresh pineapple, toast, and coffee, puts on a t-shirt, bathing suit, and flip-flops, and walks down to the beach. It’s an overcast morning, low tide, the water placid and dark blue out beyond the bar. Sandpipers scurry along the tidal margin, digging for tiny soft-shelled crabs that have burrowed into the muck. People not much older than himself are power-walking, some hunting for shells. One sixty-something guy in a Speedo, his skin deeply tanned, is searching for change with a metal detector. During spring and summer, Cliff reflects, Daytona is a stage set, with a different cast moved in every few weeks. After the spring breakers, the bikers come for Bike Week. Then the NASCAR crowd flocks into town and everywhere you go, you hear them display their thrilling wit and wisdom, saying things like, “I warned Charlene not to let him touch it,” and, “Damn, that Swiss steak looks right good. I believe I’ll have me some of that.” But the elderly are always present, always going their customary rounds.
Being part of the senior parade makes Cliff uncomfortable. In the midst of this liver-spotted plague, he fears contagion and he goes up onto the boardwalk. Most of the attractions are closed. The Ferris wheel shows its erector set complexity against a pewter sky; many of the lesser rides are covered in canvas; but one of the arcades is open, its corrugated doors rolled up, and Cliff wanders inside. Behind a counter, a short order cook is busy greasing the grill. Three eighth- or ninth-graders, two Afro-Americans and one white kid dressed hip-hop style, backward caps and baggy clothes, are dicking around with a shooter game. As he passes, they glance toward him, their faces set in a kind of hostile blankness. He can read the thought balloon above their heads, a single balloon with three comma-like stems depending from it: Old Fucking Bum. Cliff decides he likes playing an old fucking bum. He develops a limp, a drunk’s weaving, unsteady walk. The kids whisper together and laugh.
At the rear of the arcade, past the row of Ski Ball machines, where they keep the older games, the arcade is quiet and dark and clammy, a sea cave with a low ceiling, its entrance appearing to be a long way off. Cliff scatters quarters atop one of the machines, Jungle Queen, its facing adorned with black panthers and lush vegetation and a voluptuous woman with black hair and red lips and silicon implants, her breasts perfectly conical. When he was a kid, he’d lift the machine and rest its front legs on his toes so the surface was level and the ball wouldn’t drop, and he’d rack up the maximum number of free games and play all day. It didn’t take much to entertain him, and he supposes it still doesn’t.
He plays for nearly an hour, his muscle memory returning, skillfully using body English, working the flippers. He’s on his way to setting a personal best, the machine issuing a series of loud pops, signifying games won, when someone comes up on his shoulder and begins watching. Ashford. Cliff keeps playing—he’s having a great last ball and doesn’t want to blow it. Finally the ball drops. He grins at Ashford and presses the button to start a new game.
Ashford says, “Having fun?”
“I can’t lose,” says Cliff.
Ashford looks to be wearing the same ensemble he wore during the interview, accented on this occasion by a fetching striped tie. The bags under his eyes are faintly purple. Cliff’s surprised to see him, but not deeply surprised.
“Have you guys been watching my building?” he asks.
“You didn’t answer the buzzer. I took a chance you’d be somewhere close by.” Ashford nods toward the counter at the front of the arcade. “Let’s get some coffee.”
“I’ve got twelve free games!”
“Don’t mess with me, Coria. I’m tired.”
The two men take stools at the counter and Ashford sits without speaking, swigging his coffee, staring glumly at the menu on the wall, black plastic letters arranged on white backing, some of them cockeyed, some of the items misspelled (“cheseburgers,” “mountin dew”), others cryptically described (“Fresh Fried Shrimp”). The counterman, a middle-aged doofus with a name badge that reads Kerman, pale and fleshy, his black hair trimmed high above his ears, freshens Ashford’s coffee. Even the coffee smells like grease. The arcade has begun to fill, people filtering up from the beach.
“Are we just sharing a moment?” asks Cliff. “Or do you have something else in mind?”
For a few seconds, Ashford doesn’t seem to have heard him; then he says, “Stacey Gerone.”
“Yeah? What about her?”
“You seen her lately?”
“Not for a couple of weeks. Jerry said she ran off to Miami with some rich guy.”
“I heard about that.”
A shorthaired peroxide blond in a bikini, her black roots showing in such profusion, the look must be by design, hops up onto a stool nearby and asks for a large Pepsi. She has some age on her, late thirties, but does good things for the bikini. Ashford cuts his eyes toward her breasts; his gaze lingers.
“Ain’t got no Pepsi,” Kerman says in a sluggish, country drawl. “Just Coke.”
“This morning around five-thirty, one of your neighbors found a suitcase full of Stacey Gerone’s clothes in the dunes out front of your house.” Ashford emits a small belch, covering his mouth. “Any idea how it got there?”
Alarmed, Cliff says, “I didn’t put it there!”
“I didn’t say you put it there. You’re not that stupid.”
“I haven’t been to the house for three days. I just drove by to see if everything was all right.”
The blond, after pondering the Pepsi problem, asks if she can have some fries.
“You want a large Coke with that?” asks Kerman.
Again the blond ponders. “Small diet Coke.”
Kerman, apparently the genius of the arcade, switches on the piped-in music, and metal-ish rock overwhelms the noises of man and nature. Ashford, with a pained expression, tells him to turn it off.
“Got to have the music on after nine o’clock,” says Kerman.