“Darn it! I should have known that.”
“He’s got one good boy, and one boy headed for trouble, so he’s batting high in the league.”
“Jimmy, do you know everything about everybody in Palm County?”
“Now, if I did, honey, everybody would be paying me not to work on the paper.”
They went through the screened portion of the cage at the rear of the house. He slid a glass door open and they walked into the roofed portion of the patio.
“Well, now!” he said, looking at her quizzically. “You’ve sissied out, Kat.”
“And every time I turn the noisy thing on I remember how Van hated air conditioning, and I feel immoral and guilty. You know my tenants stayed to the middle of June, and you know it got hot early this year. So they wanted one and we dickered around, and we finally decided I’d pay a hundred dollars against it, and if they take the house again next year, I’ll cut the lease another hundred. It’s a three-ton thing, and it’s sticking in the wall between the living room and the bedroom wing. What can I fix you to drink?”
“Can of beer is fine, if you’ve got it.”
“Coming up.” She went to the kitchen and brought the two opened cans back to the glass-top patio table, sat across from him.
“Will the whosises want the house next season?”
“The Brandts. They say so. They’ll let me know for sure by the first of November. Let me make my full confession on the air conditioner, Jimmy. I wasn’t going to use it. I was just going to let it sit there. But you know how cold they keep the darn bank all day. When I’d get out, I’d just wilt. I held out until last week, wearing my prickly heat rash like a badge of honor or something. Then I woke up in the middle of the night and my hair was sopping wet and it was too hot to go back to sleep. So like a thief I snuck around and closed the windows and plugged the beast in, and slept so hard I nearly didn’t hear the alarm.”
“Now you’re hooked.”
“I’ve fallen so low I even like the noise it makes.”
Jimmy stood up and walked toward the living room to stand and look the length of it. “Looks just the same,” he said.
“It is, and it isn’t. Jean Brandt had different ideas. I suppose any woman would, really. She moved things around, and she stored things away. I’ve been getting things back the way they were, but they won’t be exactly the way they were. It looks a little different, and it feels different. Do you know? It was our house, but now I feel a little bit as if I were renting it too — from the Brandts. It isn’t as important to me as it was, which is very probably a good thing. I’m glad you talked me out of putting it on the market.”
He came back to the table. “You would have taken a whipping, Kat.”
“I just didn’t think I could endure living here.”
“We can always stand a little more than we think we can. One thing on my mind, Kat, I’ve got to drive up to Sarasota next Sunday. Borklund wants me to do a feature on their public beach program. I’ve got about everything I need, but there’s one fellow I want to talk to. And he won’t take up much time. So how about you and the kids coming along?”
She studied him, wondering if it was coincidence, then saw his casualness was a little too elaborate. “Thank you, dear Jimmy. I know it’s going to be a rough day for me. I’ve been dreading it for weeks. But I’ll manage.”
He shrugged. “But if coming along with me would make it any easier...”
“It would. Indeed it would, and I’m grateful. But, you see, the neighbors have been conspiring to keep me distracted, and I’ve given so many polite refusals I wouldn’t feel right saying yes to you. Van died on July ninth. Once I’m past this one, it will be over a year. I can manage it. The kids and I are going on a beach picnic by ourselves. I’ll have a lot of July ninths to get over. This will only be the second worst. Jimmy, it’s nice to have you stop by. I like seeing you in the bank too, but that’s when I have to keep being the happy hostess. Ready for another beer?”
“I’ll ride with this, thanks.” He frowned at his big, bony, freckled fist for a few moments, then looked at her with an odd expression. “I thought you’d come along on Sunday, and it would have given me a chance to talk to you about something.”
“You act as if it’s something unpleasant.”
“It is, and I better give it to you now. It’s off the record, honey. You’re still active in the S.O.B.’s, aren’t you?”
“Recording secretary, but there hasn’t been anything to record. Save Our Bays, Inc., has sort of been resting on its laurels.”
“It might be a very timely idea for you to resign.”
“What is that supposed to mean?”
“That project of filling in Grassy Bay is going to be opened up again soon.”
“You can’t mean it, Jimmy! You can’t be serious. Two years ago we licked it. I never worked so darned hard in my life. And Van too. All those phone calls and petitions and ringing doorbells and going to public meetings and taking all that abuse. We whipped them. We mobilized all the conservation groups and we got a bulkhead line established in Palm County, and nobody can fill beyond that line. Nobody can touch Grassy Bay. We saved it! You must be joking.”
His smile was bitter. “It’s going to astound a lot of other people too. Let’s say you saved it for two years. It’s a different deal this time. They’ve been setting it up quietly for almost a year. Last time, it was an outfit coming in from outside.”
“Sea ’n Sun Development. From Lauderdale.”
“This time it’s local.”
“Local men?”
“Don’t look so incredulous. And the fill project is a little bigger. Eight hundred acres. They have an option on a good big piece of upland to give them access to the bay. The financing has been arranged for. When the county commissioners set that wonderful bulkhead line, they reserved the right to change it.”
“But they have to have a public hearing.”
“I know. The new syndicate will petition for a change in the bulkhead line along the bay shore of Sandy Key, to swing the line out to enclose eight hundred acres of so-called unsightly mud flats, and request county permission to buy the bay bottom from the State Internal Improvement Fund. The commissioners will set a date for a public hearing, at which time prominent local businessmen will go to the microphone, one after the other, and say what a great boon this will be to the community, a shot in the arm for the construction business and the retail stores. Captive experts will get up and say the fill will have no effect on fish breeding grounds or bird life, and will not change the tide pattern so as to cause beach erosion. It will be nicely timed, because a lot of the militant bird-watchers and do-gooders will be north for the summer, and they won’t give the ones who are left here much time to organize the opposition. The commissioners will change the bulkhead line and approve the syndicate application to purchase. The trustees of the IIF will sell the bay bottom at an estimated three hundred and fifty dollars an acre, and then the drag lines and dredges will move in. It’s going to be a steamroller operation, Kat, and it’s going to run right over anybody who stands in the way.”
“We can’t let it happen.”
“We can’t stop it this time. Kat, there’s a fortune sitting out there in that bay. I figure total development cost at a max of three million against a total minimum gross sales of lots of six and a half million. Where else along this coast is there water that shallow so close to an urban area?”
“But we must stop them, Jimmy!” She stared at him. “Why do you think I’d resign now?”
He stood up. “Need another beer. Stay where you are.”
She heard the refrigerator door slam. Barnett rapped at the patio door. She got his money from her purse and took it to him. He told her he’d cut the vine off close to the ground, and when he came next Tuesday he’d trim the big pepper hedge.