“Counselor” (and the word counselor rankled because it was more often than not used sarcastically even among contesting attorneys in a courtroom) “it would be nice to have your word that from this minute on you won’t be running all over the city of Calusa questioning anybody you think might have some connection with this case, as I would hate to have the blood of a six-year-old girl on my hands if I were you, Counselor.”
Matthew had said, “Stop talking to me as if I’m a fucking Los Angeles private eye.”
That was the first time Bloom had felt it necessary to chastise Matthew. The second time was more recently. It had, in fact, been shortly before Matthew took the bullet in his shoulder. And yesterday morning was the third time, only it hadn’t been Bloom, a friend, delivering the warning, it had been a detective Matthew knew only casually. And he was still annoyed. He had not, to his knowledge, done anything to jeopardize or compromise the police investigation into the death of Otto Samalson. He had not spirited away evidence, he had not forewarned witnesses or suspects, he had done nothing whatever to warrant Rawles’s blunt reprimand. “You’ve been busy.” It occurred to him that Bloom had once used those exact words. With much the same sarcastic lilt. “You’ve been busy.” Maybe all cops said “You’ve been busy” when they meant “Fuck off.” And the reprimand was even more annoying because Matthew had been calling to give the man information, the make and color of the automobile that had followed Otto out of the Seven-Eleven parking lot last Sunday night. Matthew hadn’t sought this information, it had come to him. And he had immediately turned it over to the police. And had been told not to talk to anyone else. He was tempted to call Grown-ups Inc. and ask them to please get Rawles off his back.
Grown-ups Inc.
Another game he and Susan had invented. Long long ago. When they were still in love. On the way to her house that Friday afternoon, he thought about that game. And wondered if Susan remembered it.
His annoyance began to dissipate as he drove out toward Stone Crab Key. It was impossible to stay angry on a day like today. A day like today reminded him of a Chicago summer. The sky clear and piercingly blue, the sun shining, the temperature back to what it should have been in June, a pleasant eighty degrees at 5:35 P.M. (or so his car radio had just informed him), the humidity a comfortable forty-two percent. Driving westward across the Cortez Causeway, Calusa Bay billowing with sails on either side of the bridge, he thought for perhaps the thousandth time how wonderful it was to be living down here. And thought of the plans he’d made for himself and Joanna this weekend. And grinned from ear to ear.
He felt peculiar going up to the front door of the house he used to live in. Usually, he parked at the curb and tooted the horn and Joanna popped out a moment later. Today, he went up the walk, and rang the front doorbell, and looked over at the orange trees he himself had planted six years ago, and wondered if old Reggie Soames still lived next door, and rang the bell again, and Susan’s voice came from the back of the house, where the master bedroom was, “Matthew? Is that you?” She sounded surprised. Had she forgotten she’d invited him for a drink?
“Yes!” he called back. “Am I early?”
A long silence. Then:
“The door’s open, come in.”
He twisted the doorknob, and the door sure enough wasn’t locked, and he walked into a living room he remembered, different furniture in it now, she’d completely redecorated after she kicked him out, but familiar nonetheless. He’d been in this house only once since that night two years ago. He stood in the living room now, and looked out through the sliding glass doors to where he used to dock his sailboat. The Windbag. He had named it over Susan’s protests. She hated sailing and had wanted to call it The Wet Blanket. The boat had cost seven thousand dollars used, which hadn’t been bad for a twenty-five-footer that slept four comfortably. The boat and the Karmann Ghia he still drove were virtually the only two things he’d got out of the divorce. Susan had got everything else: the house, the Mercedes-Benz, his daughter, his clock collection, everything. Matthew had the Karmann Ghia repainted and sold the boat a month after the final decree. Oddly, he hadn’t been sailing since.
“Matthew,” Susan called, “fix yourself something, will you? I’ll be right out.”
“Where’s Joanna?” he shouted, but got no answer. He went to the bar, found it still well-stocked, poured himself a Canadian Club on the rocks, shouted “Can I fix you something?” and was surprised when he heard her voice behind him, almost at his shoulder, saying, I’m here, don’t yell.”
He turned.
She was wearing a white terry robe.
Her hair was wet.
She was smiling.
No lipstick on her mouth.
No makeup at all.
Susan fresh from the shower and smelling of soap.
“Hi,” she said, “didn’t Joanna call you?”
“No,” he said, puzzled. “Why? Is something wrong?”
“Well, that depends. Damn it, she promised.”
“What is it?”
“Well... she’s on her way to Palm Beach.”
“She’s on her way to where?” Matthew said. He was almost amused. This was beginning to sound like the old Susan. Keep the kid away from him any which way possible, make Life with Father as difficult as...
“This wasn’t my idea,” she said at once, “I promise you, Matthew. She called me from Diana Silver’s house all excited because Diana’s parents were going to Palm Beach for the weekend, and they’d invited her along, and she wanted to know could she go with them. This was eleven o’clock or so, I would have called you myself, but I was already late for an appointment, and I had an open house to set up and a hundred other things to do. I told her to call you and get your permission. When I got back here tonight, there was a note on the kitchen table saying she’d be home late Sunday night. I assumed she’d called you and you’d said it was okay.”
“Well, I had three closings today,” Matthew said. “I was out of the office till four-thirty. Maybe she—”
“I’m sure she would have left a message.”
“I didn’t get any.”
“Then she didn’t call.”
“Maybe she was afraid I’d say no.” Matthew shrugged. “The Father’s Day weekend, you know.”
“Maybe.” Susan really did look troubled. “Anyway, I wasn’t expecting you. I figured...”
“Don’t worry about it,” he said, and put his drink down on the bar. “If you’ve made other plans...”
“No, that’s not it,” Susan said, “it’s just... I was in the shower... I must look like a drowned cat.”
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“Sure, sure, sweet talker.”
There was an awkward silence. She made an abrupt motion, as if she were about to raise her hand to fluff her hair, the way women will do when they feel they are being observed or admired or both, and then aborted the motion and shrugged girlishly and said, “Did I hear you offer me a drink?”
“Name it,” he said.
“A Beefeater martini, on the rocks,” she said.
He looked at her.
“Yeah,” she said, and grinned.
When they were married, their most frequent argument was what Matthew had labeled the Beefeater Martini Argument. It had been Susan’s contention that Matthew never got drunk when he drank, for example, two Scotches with soda or two anythings with soda, but that he always got drunk or fuzzy or furry or slurry (these were all Susan’s words) when he had two martinis, especially two Beefeater martinis. The magic word Beefeater somehow added more potency to the drink.