She led me outside at a surprisingly brisk pace considering those shoes. As the sliding doors opened the wet Florida heat hit me in the face like a sneezing dragon. The surface of my skin went from shiver to sweat almost instantly. Then we were climbing into Gerri’s illegally parked Mercedes and she cranked the air conditioning on full almost before she even started the engine. So that was how she stopped her make-up sliding.
“So, Charlie,” she said as she pulled out fast into traffic. “I take it you’ve worked in the States some before?”
“No,” I said, wondering what exactly Sean had told her about me. Less, it would seem, than he’d told me about her. “Actually, this is my first time.”
She frowned, then said with the faintest touch of bite, “Well, I guess you’ll find we like to do things a little differently over here.”
Uh-oh, I thought. Where did that come from? But I said nothing, just smiled and nodded as though she’d spoken without the undercurrents. Nevertheless, it made it more difficult to phrase a question that didn’t show my ignorance still further. Like what the hell was I supposed to be doing?
In fact, it wasn’t until we’d navigated our way out of the airport complex and were onto the highway that I plucked up the courage to do so. But my tentative opening gambit of “Excuse me, but can you tell me wh—?” was cut short by the shrill ring of her mobile phone, amplified by the in-car kit it was slotted into.
She peered down at the tiny display, then leaned across and pressed a button to receive the call on hands-free.
“Hi, it’s Gerri,” she said, slightly singsong, speaking loudly enough to combat the muted background noise. “And how are you today?” She sounded like someone out of every American film I’ve ever seen. And I’ve seen a lot.
“I’m good, Gerri,” a man’s deep voice rumbled. “But you’re not gonna like what I have to tell you. Are you alone or do you wanna pick up?”
She shifted her eyes sideways and decided in an instant that I was slightly above invisible servant level. She grabbed the big pearl clip-on on her right ear and yanked it off before snatching the phone out of its dash-mounted cradle.
“OK,” she said, and the singsong tone had turned to steel. “Shoot.”
There followed a fairly lengthy, mainly one-sided conversation, only punctuated by the occasional “uh-huh” on Gerri’s part. Her voice may have stayed neutral, but after the first couple of minutes her left hand started to flex around the Merc’s leather-rimmed steering wheel. High-carat stone rings glinted on most of her fingers like an ornamental knuckle-duster.
I tried not to look like I was eavesdropping, staring out of the window at the odd mixture of low squat concrete discount warehouses and tinted glass skyscrapers that we passed. All the really plush buildings seemed to be banks. I recognised maybe one in four of the makes of car around us.
Eventually Gerri ended the call, almost slamming the phone down. For several minutes afterwards she drove in simmering silence, then her only words were a muttered, “Son of a bitch.”
I didn’t think now was the right time to strike up a friendly conversation. I kept my lip buttoned until we left the freeway twenty minutes later and turned east towards the coast.
The closer to the water we got, the more expensive the housing became. This year’s fashion accessory seemed to be a very large motor yacht parked at the bottom of your lawn, and when your garden backed onto an inland waterway, all things were possible. It was only when Gerri finally turned into a quiet side road that I realised perhaps I should have paid more attention to the route.
She was still spitting feathers when we drove up to a set of motorised gates at the end of the road, tapping her fingers impatiently against the steering wheel until they’d swung wide enough for the Merc to get through.
The house itself, set back in the trees, was so massive that for a moment I wondered if it was split into apartments. Gerri left the Merc at a jaunty angle on the front driveway and rushed up the steps to the double front door almost before I’d time to grab my bag out of the back of the car. I had to jog to catch her up just as the door was opened by an unsmiling Hispanic maid.
Gerri hurried past the woman without a second glance. I nodded, tried a tentative greeting and was rewarded by a fleeting smile. I’ve always thought you can tell a lot about somebody by the way they treat other people’s staff.
A well-built black man in neatly-pressed slacks, a blue Oxford shirt and loafers with tassels on the front met Gerri in the cool tiled circular hallway. A double staircase curved around the sides of the walls and the domed glass ceiling was thirty feet above our heads.
“What the hell is going on, Chris?” Gerri snapped at the man before he could open his mouth. “I’ve just had a phone call telling me it’s all over the goddamn press.”
“I’m sorry, boss,” the man said, eyes widening with surprise at the sudden onslaught. “We only just got the news ourselves.” His gaze skimmed towards me a couple of times as he spoke, but Gerri didn’t bother to introduce us.
“How’s Keith taking it?” she demanded.
“Well, I guess you could say he’s kinda upset right now,” the man said, picking his words with care.
Gerri sighed noisily. “OK, where is he?”
Chris waved a hand towards a pair of glass doors behind him. “Out back in the lanai, by the pool.”
She headed out, the whole exchange having been carried out without her actually breaking stride, so that Chris had to shift into rapid reverse to stay with her. Unsure whether I was supposed to follow or not, I stayed right behind her, lugging my bag with me. It seemed like the safest place to be.
The back of the house was as breathtaking as the front. A paved terrace swept down to an expanse of lawn so big it should have had herds of wildebeest grazing on it. Clusters of palm trees were grouped at the edges of the grass and then you were straight out onto the waterway.
The pool Chris had mentioned was off to the left and the lanai, I surmised, was the giant mosquito net structure over the top of it and joined onto the far wing of the house. The pool itself was fed by a waterfall at one end and lined with pale turquoise tiles. An array of slatted wooden sun loungers was arranged around the sides of it, their teak faded to a soft-sheen silver by the constant blazing sunshine. Even with the breeze coming up off the water, the heat had a mass all of its own.
There were two men by the pool, but neither of them seemed to be enjoying the amenities. One was tall with artistically greying hair and a very good tan. He was dressed in shorts and a knitted shirt with a designer label, and deck shoes with no socks.
The other man was younger, on the scrawny side, with a wispy moustache and beard, and little wire-rimmed spectacles with badly matched clip-on sunglasses over the top. He was wearing a cheap-looking Hawaiian shirt, swimming shorts, and plastic flip-flops. He was also carrying a small net on the end of a long pole. Until the three of us got close enough to hear the conversation they were having, I assumed he was just there to clean the pool.
“I’m real sorry, Mr Pelzner,” the grey-haired man was saying, “we don’t know how it happened.”
“How can you not know how it happened for Chrissake, Lonnie!” the bearded man snapped. “What in hell’s name do I pay you for?”
There was a small doorway set into one side of the lanai. As Gerri pushed it open the hinge squeaked and both men looked up sharply. I could almost see Lonnie’s muscular shoulders relax when he recognised Gerri and realised he was about to be rescued. Then they tensed again as he caught the thunderous expression on her face.
“Gerri!” the bearded man yelled, throwing the net aside and striding to meet us – as far as it’s possible to stride in flip-flops. “Will you tell your guys to get their butts into gear? How can they have let this happen?” He let out a frustrated exclamation of breath, shook both fists in the air and whirled away.