Vincent swore off that very minute.
Never again would he come on with a client.
Cut the hair, make the chitchat, and let it go.
But at 6:47 that night, while Jenny was on the phone asking for cabin number three at the Suncrest Motel, Vincent was in a room at Pirate’s Cove, making love with a man named George Anders, who’d been his two-thirty client.
Anders was a married orthodontist.
Giggling, Vincent told him he had a very bad overbite.
At exactly that moment, Susan Hope walked onto the deck of the restaurant at Stone Crab Shores and spotted Matthew sitting at a table overlooking the water.
A wide smile broke on her face.
Swiftly, she walked to him.
With twenty-five cents and the accent of the man on the other end of the line, you could start a banana plantation in Cuba.
“Sondy Hennings?” he said.
“Yes,” she said. “Martin Klement asked me to call you.”
“Ah, sí,” he said.
“Is this Ernesto?”
“Sí.”
No last name. Martin hadn’t given her one, and she didn’t ask for one. She didn’t care how many names of hers he had, first, last, it didn’t matter, the Sandy was a phony and so was the Jennings.
“I understand you’re looking to buy some fine china,” she said.
This was what Martin had told her to say on the phone. Fine china. What bullshit, she thought. Ernesto was thinking the same thing. Domingo was sprawled out on the bed, looking through the July issue of Penthouse.
“That is correct,” Ernesto said.
“I have four fine plates that may interest you.”
“How fine?” Ernesto asked.
“This is 1890 china we’re talking about,” she said.
“Ninety?” he said.
“That’s right.”
Fooling nobody, she thought. We’re talking ninety-pure and we both know it and so does anyone listening, fine china my ass.
“How much do these plates cost?” he asked.
“Seventy-five dollars,” she said. “I want three hundred dollars for the four plates.”
“That’s expensive,” Ernesto said.
“How much are you willing to pay?”
“Fifty,” he said.
“Well, so long then.”
“Wait a minute,” he said.
And then silence except for static on the line.
It was going to rain again.
She could visualize wheels turning inside his head, gears meshing but she didn’t know why.
Was he trying to figure a more reasonable comeback price? Fifty was ridiculous. You sometimes got tricks, you told them it was a hundred an hour, they started bargaining with you. Make it sixty, all I’ve got is forty, whatever. You said “Well, so long then,” they always came back with “Wait a minute.”
Only the pause wasn’t as long as this one. She waited. She waited some more.
“Where’d you get these plates?” he asked at last.
Funny question, she thought. All that huffing and puffing and this is the question he comes up with?
“Funny question,” she said out loud. “Where’d you get your money?”
“My money is Miami money,” he said.
“So are the plates.”
“You got them in Miami?”
“Listen, are you interested at seventy-five a plate or not?”
“We may be interested. But we have to make sure they’re quality plates.” This came out: “Burr we ha’ to may sure they quality place.” Another pause. “Where did you get them in Miami? From the Ordinez people?”
“You’re asking too many questions,” she said. “I’m gonna hang up.”
“No, no, please, por favor, no, don’t do that, señorita.” Another pause. “How does sixty sound?”
“Low,” she said.
“Can we talk about this in person?”
“No.”
“It would be good to see you face-to-face.”
“When we deliver. First I need a price. So does Mr. K. He’s in for seven-and-a-half finder’s.”
“We?”
“What?”
“Who’s we?”
“My partner and me.”
“Who is your partner?”
“Who’s your partner?” she said, and hung up.
She pressed one of the receiver-rest buttons, got a dial tone, and called the Springtime again. When Klement came on the line, she said, “What is this? A setup?”
“What?” he said. “No. What?”
“Your people are asking too many questions. I want a price and no more questions.”
“How much are you really looking for?” Klement asked.
“With no bullshitting back and forth?”
“Your best price.”
“Sixty-five. With no haggling.”
“I’ll tell them.”
“Times four. Less your seven and a half.”
“I understand.”
“I want to close this five minutes from now.”
“I’ll see what I can do.”
She called him back five minutes later.
“They’ve agreed to your price,” he said. “They’re waiting for your call.”
The rain started so suddenly it caught everyone on the deck by surprise. One moment there was sunshine and then all at once raindrops were spattering everywhere. The outdoor diners grabbed for drinks and handbags, sharing for a moment the camaraderie of people caught in either a catastrophe or an unexpected delight. There were cries of surprise and some laughter and the sound of chairs scraping back and a great deal of scurrying until the deck — within moments, it seemed — was clear of everything but the empty tables with their white cloths flapping in the wind, and the empty chairs standing stoically in the falling rain.
The rain came in off the water in long gray sheets.
Susan said, “I’m soaked.”
She looked marvelous. Summery yellow dress scooped low over her breasts, cinched tightly at the waist, flaring out over her hips. Not quite soaked, but her face and hair wet with rain, a wide grin on her mouth.
Waiters were bustling about, showing diners to tables inside. There was the buzz of excited conversation, everyone marveling at how swiftly and unexpectedly the rain had come.
“It reminds me of something,” Matthew said.
“Yes, me too,” she said, and squeezed his hand.
“But I can’t remember what.”
“Mr. Hope?” the headwaiter said. “This way, please.”
He led them to a table close to the sliding glass doors. Outside, busboys were hurriedly gathering up glasses and silverware. The wind was fierce. The tablecloths kept flapping, as if clamoring for flight.
“Something in Chicago?” Susan said.
“Yes.”
“Something that made us laugh a lot?”
“Yes.”
“But what?”
“I don’t know. Is your drink okay?”
“I spilled half of it on the way in.”
He signaled to the waiter. The place was quieting down now. He kept trying to remember. Or was it something that had happened so many times that it had taken on the aspect of singularity?
The waiter took their order for another round.
Susan was silent for a moment.
Then she said, “We have to stop meeting this way,” and they both burst out laughing. “Truly, Matthew, this is absurd.”
“I know,” he said.
“I feel like I’m cheating on your wife! That’s carrying Electra a bit far, don’t you think? You should have heard all the questions she had about why I was all dressed up and—”
“You look beautiful,” he said.
“Thank you, and where I was going, and who with, and—”
“What’d you tell her?”