"You got excited?" Maguire said.

"I was afraid he was going to hurt her. I didn't know it was an act."

"Then when you realized it," Maguire said, "you were Cool Karen again?"

"What're you trying to say?" She put on a little frown, but it didn't indicate much concern.

"You've got this guy hanging on you," Maguire said, "but you don't seem too worried anymore. Like, so what? What's the big deal? I don't know if you've given up or you don't care."

"Guess what he wants?" Karen said. "He finally said it. Everything, including me."

"See? That's what I'm talking about. You think it's funny or what?"

"He said I'll reach the point where I'll want want to give him everything, because he'll be my only to give him everything, because he'll be my only chance."

"You believe that?"

"Well-he's got more confidence than anyone I've ever met."

"He's got more bulls.h.i.t, and that's what he's giving you. He's gonna look for the opening, set you up and take whatever he can. And if you're laying there with your head broken, that's tough s.h.i.t."

"He likes me."

"He may, but that's got nothing to do with it."

"But you see, his self-confidence, that's the flaw," Karen said, leaning closer over the table. "What does he base it on? Not much. There's considerably less to Mr. Roland Crowe than he realizes. Watching you two yesterday-you know what it was like? Two little boys showing off in front of a girl. Arguing about the parrot-I couldn't believe it."

"You didn't get it."

"No, I a.s.sumed you were putting him on, but he was serious. I'd look at Roland. This This is the one who's giving me trouble? I thought of something Ed Grossi told me once, about being concerned with people who turn out to be lightweights." is the one who's giving me trouble? I thought of something Ed Grossi told me once, about being concerned with people who turn out to be lightweights."

"Ed Grossi," Maguire said. "He told you that, huh? You want some more advice?"

"What?"

"Forget Ed Grossi's advice. Talk to Vivian Arzola."

Roland said to Lionel Oliva, "How can you live in this dump? G.o.dd.a.m.n place ain't any bigger'n a horse trailer."

"We manage."

"Get her out of here."

Lionel turned to the woman cooking something for him on the tiny stove. She edged past them without looking at Roland and stepped out of the trailer. Roland bent down to watch her through the window-big Cuban a.s.s sliding from side to side as she walked out of Tall Pines toward S.W. Eighth Street.

"You want the boat?" Lionel Oliva said. "Take somebody out?"

"Not just yet." Roland straightened up, making a face as he looked at Lionel. "You drink too much, you know it?"

"I like to drink sometime, sure."

"You like to live in this stink?"

"I don't smell nothin'."

"Jesus, look at the place. You work for me, you're gonna have to clean yourself up."

"I work for you now?"

"I want you to see if you can find Vivian Arzola. Her and you both used to pick oranges, didn't you?"

"Man, a long time ago."

"Well, go look up some of your old buddies still around. See if anybody's seen her lately."

"How come I work for you now," Lionel Oliva said, "you don't get Jesus?"

"He went to Cuba, you d.i.n.k. You were sitting there when he told me."

"No, he never went to Cuba. I see him talking to a guy in Centro Vasco yesterday."

"You see him again, tell him to call me," Roland said. "Tell him I don't hear from him and run into him on the street, I'll bust his little bow legs and wrap 'em around his d.i.n.k head."

Roland got out of that smelly house trailer. He'd look around some for Vivian; stop in and see Karen, make her day a little brighter. First, though, he was going to go home and pick up a firearm to carry on him or keep in the car. There was too much going on now not to be ready for what you might least expect.

Vivian Arzola said to Jesus, when he returned in the morning, "I have to think about it."

"Think about what? She wants to help you."

"How? All I do is endanger myself telling somebody else."

"Trust her," Jesus said.

"All right, but only Mrs. DiCilia. If she brings police, I don't know anything."

"Her and one other, a friend that's helping her. This is his idea, but I can't tell you anything else."

"You can't tell me, I'm supposed to tell him everything. All right, the two of them. And you," Vivian said. "Any more, I have to rent chairs. You see what they do to this place? Sneak out before the first of the month, leave all this c.r.a.p. Look at the condition, the dirt. Five years I've owned this place, I've never made any money."

"What time?" Jesus said.

"Late, after it's dark. I don't know, nine o'clock. You drop them off-what kind of car?"

"I don't know yet."

"Forget the whole thing," Vivian said.

"Wait, let me think. Gray Mercedes-Benz."

"You drop them off. I don't want the car in front."

"What else?"

"Tell them I'm not going to the police. If that's what they want, they're wasting their time. No police in this. I see a policeman, I don't know anything you're talking about."

"If you say it. Anything else?"

"A gun," Vivian said.

"What kind?"

"What kind, one that shoots. I don't care what kind. A big one."

"Take it easy," Jesus said. "You got nothing to worry about."

21.

JESUS, DRIVING THE MERCEDES, dropped them off in front of the pink stucco house on Monegro Avenue within a minute or so of nine o'clock, telling them he would drive around and come back at exactly 9:30.

Maguire wondered if all this was necessary: like synchronizing their watches, everyone very grim, Karen wearing dark gla.s.ses-why? So who wouldn't recognize her?-but he didn't say anything. Or comment, make a harmless smart remark about Vivian letting them in with the lights off, taking them back to the kitchen and closing the door to the hall before turning on the kitchen light. Maguire was glad he'd kept quiet. Even seeing Vivian for the first time-not anything like the stylish woman Karen had described in the car-Maguire realized how frightened she was. Vivian looked like she had been on a drunk for several days; combed her hair maybe, but had forgotten about makeup. For the first few minutes they were in the kitchen, he had never seen anyone so tense. Maguire poured the coffee. He lighted three cigarettes for Vivian, while she told them about driving Ed Grossi to Boca Raton and seeing Roland and barely getting away from him.

"Why won't you go to the police?" Karen asked her.

Vivian said, "Because he'll kill me. Why do you think?"

"But he'll be in jail."

"He'll be out on bond, he won't be in jail."

"Well-the police will protect you."

"Excuse me," Vivian said, "but I worked for Ed Grossi twelve years. If they want a person dead, the person's dead. This is what Roland does, it's his job."

Karen said, "To kill people?"

Maguire watched her. She seemed more fascinated by the idea than startled or shocked.

Vivian said, "Yes, of course. He can go to prison and pay somebody else to do it. Or, if he wants to himself bad enough, he waits till he gets out. Don't you know that? They convict him, I have a nice time for ten years. Then what?"

"They've charged someone else with his murder," Karen said.

"Arnold Rapp, I know that," Vivian said. "It's too bad, but I'm not giving my life for Arnold Rapp."

"It's almost nine-thirty," Maguire said.

Karen, seated close to Vivian, looked up from the kitchen table. "Why don't you go with him? Come back at ten."

Why? What were they going to talk about? He couldn't see Karen's eyes behind the gla.s.ses. She sat in the dirty kitchen of the house on Monegro in the Cuban quarter working something out. As though she did this all the time.

Maguire went out to the curb and got in the Mercedes as it came to a stop.

"Where is she?"

"We come back in a half hour."

Jesus drove off. "I went up to Eighth Street. I saw a guy there he say Roland's looking for me. s.h.i.t. Man, I got to go to Cuba or do something."

Maguire didn't say anything, looking at the people sitting in front of their houses and the ones on the sidewalk watching the silver-gray Mercedes-Benz drive by.

"What do you think about Vivian?" Jesus said.

"I think she's scared."

"No, I mean do you think she'd pay us something? Why not, uh?"

They picked up Karen at 10. Maguire slid behind the wheel and Jesus got in back as far as S.W. Eighth, where they dropped him off. Maguire cut over to 95 and headed north to Lauderdale. Karen had taken off her gla.s.ses. She sat holding them, silent.

"Well?" Maguire said.

Karen didn't say anything.

"What else you find out?"

"Nothing, really."

"She still won't go to the police."

"The day Roland dies, she will. If the other man is still in prison. He kills people," Karen said.

"You mean Roland."

"Yeah. He kills people."

Maguire said, "Do you want me to stay with you tonight?"

Karen took a long time to answer. She said, "Not tonight, okay? I'd like to do some quiet thinking."

"That's the only kind," Maguire said, keeping it light, but feeling a little hook inside him. Something was going on.

They drove in silence; left the freeway and headed east toward the ocean through light evening traffic, across the 17th Street Causeway and past Seascape, Maguire's other world, dark. Maguire picturing the dolphins by themselves, surfacing in moonlight within their pools and tanks.