When Klement came on the line, she said, “Hello, this is Sandy Jennings, I was talking to a friend of mine this afternoon, a girl named Merilee James, she had some interesting things to say about two Hispanic gentlemen.”
“Oh?”
Caution in that single word. British caution, but caution nonetheless.
“I think I might be able to accommodate them,” Jenny said.
“I’ll have to call you back,” Klement said.
“No, I’ll call you back. What do you want to do? Check with Merilee?”
“If you don’t mind.”
“I’ll call you back in half an hour,” Jenny said, and hung up.
There was no way she was going to give this telephone number to anybody. Not this one, nor the one at the hotel, either. She didn’t want Klement or his two spic friends — or anybody, for that matter — barging in looking for coke.
She wondered when Vincent would be home.
When she’d spoken to him on the phone this morning, he’d told her his last appointment was at two-thirty, and he’d be back at the condo by three, three-thirty. She’d come here right after talking to Merilee, hoping he’d be home already, knocked and knocked and finally let herself in with her key. Tried him at Unicorn, they told her he’d already left. So where the fuck was he? Six o’clock already. She desperately needed to tell him what she’d heard from Merilee, first damn good news since they’d come to Calusa.
Sitting on four fucking keys of cocaine, you think there’d be buyers coming out of the woodwork like cockroaches.
Well, you can’t take an ad in the paper, can you?
No way.
You kept your ears open, you listened, you didn’t trust anybody with the secret. In the state of Florida, you could find yourself on the bottom of the ocean if somebody thought you had four keys of coke. So you had to play your cards very close to your chest. Meanwhile sitting there with what you knew was worth seventy, seventy-five a key. All that shit and no way to translate it to cash.
Until now.
So where the fuck was Vincent?
Thought it might be him when the lawyer knocked on the door.
How the hell did a lawyer get into this?
If he really was a lawyer.
Man, this was weird.
Well, he’d given her a card, she guessed he was a real lawyer.
Summerville and Hope.
On impulse, she dialed the number—
“Good evening, Summerville and Hope.”
— and immediately hung up.
So who hired the lawyer?
Larkin again? It sure as hell wasn’t Fat Louie in Miami. You steal a man’s cocaine, he doesn’t go to any kind of law. No, it had to be Larkin again. Guy coming around with a picture of her. Knocking on the door here at the condo, you know this girl? Vincent later described the picture. Polaroid color shot of her in the ice-blue gown she’d worn first for Amaros in Miami and later here at the Jacaranda Ball. Went there with a girl she’d met at the Sheraton. She hadn’t told Vincent about that night with Larkin. Hadn’t told him she’d stolen the Rolex. Didn’t want to risk his shrill faggoty rage. Didn’t want to piss old Vincent off, fags could get meaner than pit vipers.
The look on his face.
“Amaros,” he said.
She knew it wasn’t Amaros, she knew it was Larkin.
Larkin trying to find her for what she’d given him.
Directly traceable to Amaros.
Nice little present from Amaros, the shit.
She didn’t say anything.
She figured four keys of coke was worth getting herpes.
Maybe.
“When did he take your picture?” Vincent said.
“I don’t remember.”
“Well, damn it, remember! Can’t you see he’s traced us here?”
Voice high and strident. Very nervous now. Started pacing back and forth. This was like Friday a couple of weeks ago, the fourth, the fifth, somewhere in there. Biting his lip while he paced. Nervous as a cat. Eyes flashing.
“I don’t remember,” she said again.
Damned if she was going to tell him about Larkin and the Rolex, have to listen to his fuckin’ faggoty screams.
Which was why she was a little nervous about talking to Klement now, before she’d had a chance to discuss this. She didn’t want Vincent taking another fit. A fag throwing a fit was something to behold. But shit, if there were some real buyers out there...
Was the lawyer from Larkin?
Knew names she’d used since she was for Christ’s sake sixteen years old!
She looked at her watch. She hoped he’d get home before she had to call Klement again.
When he wasn’t there by six-thirty, she started getting a little worried. Had he had an automobile accident or something? Last client at two-thirty, so it was now six-thirty, so where was he?
She dialed the number at the Springtime restaurant.
“Mr. Klement, please,” she said.
“Whom shall I say is calling?”
Same bitch from this afternoon. Whom. My ass, whom, that’s whom.
“Sandy Jennings.”
Jenny Santoro sort of ass-backwards, she thought.
“Hello?”
Klement’s voice.
“Did you check with Merilee?” she said. “Am I real?”
“When can we meet?” Klement asked.
“We can’t,” Jenny said. “You tell me what your end is, and then you give me a number to call. That’s how it works.”
Cover your ass. She’d learned all about covering her ass in Los Angeles. It was even more important to cover it here. Four keys of high-grade? Shit, man.
“Sorry,” he said, “I don’t do business that way.”
“You’re not the one holding,” she said.
“True.”
“Do we talk or not?”
“My end is ten percent,” he said.
“Five or forget it.”
“I hate haggling like a fishmonger.”
“So do I.”
“Seven and a half then.”
“Fine. How do I reach your people?”
“Have we got a deal?”
“Yes. Payment on delivery.”
“No. I don’t want to be there.”
“Then get your end in advance.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“From your people. As soon as we set a price.”
“Most professionals don’t do this sort of business on the telephone.”
“Lucky I’m an amateur,” Jenny said. “Let me have the number.”
Klement gave her the number.
Only once before had Vincent been tempted by a male client, and that was when he was working for Vidal Sassoon in New York. The man’s name was Melvyn — with a y, no less — and he was as queer as a turnip, but oh so gorgeous. Great blond locks and cornflower blue eyes and muscles he doubtlessly flexed every weekend at Cherry Grove — oh, what Vincent wouldn’t have given for a tumble with young Melvyn.
At the time, Vincent was spending his weekends with two good friends of his who owned a house in Pound Ridge, near Emily Shaw’s Inn. He made the mistake one Wednesday afternoon, while Melvyn-with-a-Y was in having his golden fleece shorn, to suggest that he might enjoy coming up one weekend, meet some of the boys, party a bit, did Melvyn think he might enjoy that? Melvyn lowered his baby blues and put one hand on Vincent’s arm, and said, “Oh dear, that’s so kind of you, but I’m involved just now.”
The person he was involved with, as it turned out, marched in that very afternoon to make certain his sweet little boy was having his hair properly trimmed. The grandest old drag queen who ever lived, wearing a black cape and high-heeled boots and blood-red lipstick that made him look like Dracula.