Got back onto Route 95 again and headed south past Cocoa, Palm Bay, Vero Beach. We stayed the night in West Palm Beach, dined well on broiled dolphin, and went to a disco late in the evening. We didn’t dance; just watched. Then we went back to our motel and made love.
It wasn’t the first time we had had sex since Dick Fleming’s death, but the intensity hadn’t diminished. We coupled like survivors, like the plague was abroad in the land and we had to prove we were alive. Between paroxysms I questioned Jack about his family, his youth, what he had done, how he had lived. Never again did I want to mourn a stranger.
But reticence had become such an ingrained part of him that I couldn’t break through. And even when he did reveal something — an event, an incident, a triumph, a failure — I never knew whether or not to believe him. He had told me to doubt everything he said, and he had taught me too well.
He did say this …
‘I used to go to the track all the time. In the grandstand, you know, or standing at the rail. And I’d turn and look up at the clubhouse, and I’d see these men and women. No different from me and you. I mean, in my head I knew they were no different. They ate and shit. They were going to die. But to me, they were different. The way they dressed. Moved. Watching the race through binoculars worth more than I owned. Laughing and drinking their champagne from those swell glasses. Class. I mean, they had class.’
‘Bullshit,’ I said. ‘They had money.’
‘Yeah, well, maybe,’ he said. ‘But with some of them it was more than that. I mean, you can look at a good colt and see the breeding. The build, the way it carries its head, the way it steps out. You just know. Good blood there. Good breeding. Well fed and cared for, of course. That’s where the money comes in. But also, a thoroughbred could be hauling an ice wagon, thin as a pencil, bones sticking out, sores, and you’d still spot it. If you knew what to look for. It’s class, Jannie: the greatest thing in the world. And the people in that clubhouse had it.’
‘An accident of birth.’
‘Sure,’ he said. ‘I agree. Not something they did. Something they were born to, just like that frisky colt bouncing along and tossing his beautiful head. But that’s what I wanted. To be. To have. All my life. When I was in the bucks, I bought the right clothes and went to the right places. I learned how to act. The small fork for the salad — right? But the headwaiter always knew, and I knew he knew. Slip him enough and you’d get a good table and good service. You’d think you were in, until you saw how he treated the class people. Maybe they didn’t even tip him dime one, but he kissed their ass. They were something special, you see. And no matter how much I paid him, he knew I was just a redneck in drag, with punk between my toes and calluses if you looked close enough.’
‘Just shut up and lie back,’ I said fiercely. ‘Let me pleasure you.’
‘All right,’ he said faintly.
After a while, just before he fell asleep, he murmured, ‘I’ll never make it.’
‘Sure you will. We’ll be in Miami tomorrow.’
‘No,’ he said drowsily, ‘not that.’
Jack drove the Cutlass on the final leg south toward Miami. For some reason, I couldn’t fathom, the closer we came to journey’s end, the slower he seemed to move. He cut over to Federal Highway #1, and we got caught in heavy seasonal traffic. We were stopped at traffic lights every mile or so, instead of buzzing along on Route 95 where signs warned of going too slow.
Also, when we halted for breakfast and lunch, he dawdled over his food. I asked him why he was stalling. He just shook his head and wouldn’t answer. I wondered if he feared what awaited us in Miami. I wondered if he was plotting to ditch me and take off with the Brandenberg gems. I even wondered if he was planning to kill me.
You see, in my new role as veteran criminal, I had learned mistrust. I carried a loaded pistol in my tote bag and slept with it under the pillow. The same gun I had bought from Uncle Sam ages and ages ago.
We were driving through Boca Raton when Donohue said: ‘Listen, babe, maybe it would be smart not to go right into Miami. They’re sure to be looking for us there. So why don’t we stay outside the city and only drive in to do our business — arrange for the plane and new ID and all. But we won’t actually stop in Miami. Just drive in and out. Cut the risk.’
I thought about that a moment. It made sense.
‘Where do you want to stay, Jack?’ I asked him.
‘Maybe Pompano Beach,’ he said. ‘I know the area. It’s like forty-five minutes, maybe an hour from Miami, depending on the traffic. We’ll take a place right on the beach.’
‘Sounds good,’ I said. ‘We can get some sun, do some swimming.’
‘Uh, I can’t rightly swim,’ he said. ‘Not more’n a few strokes in a mud crick. But I like the beach. Especially at night. I really go for the beach at night. Wait’ll you see the moon come right up out of the water. It’s so pretty. Just like a picture postcard.’
We turned left onto Atlantic Boulevard and drove toward the ocean. The bridge was up over the Intracoastal Waterway, and we waited about ten minutes in a long line of cars while a beautiful white yacht went by.
‘Four people on that boat,’ I said, ‘and they’re holding up about a hundred cars.’
‘So? They own a yacht; they’re entitled. This place we’re going to is called Rip’s. I stayed there a couple of times when I was playing the local tracks. I mean, it’s right on the beach. Step out the door and you’re in the water. Rip’s gets a lot of horseplayers and a swinging crowd. Guys boffing their secretaries — like that.’
‘Swell,’ I said. ‘We’ll fit right in.’
‘That’s what I figured,’ he said seriously. ‘We’ll try to get an efficiency. That’s got a refrigerator and a little stove. So we can cook in if we like. Mostly we’ll eat out, but we can have breakfast in and keep sandwich stuff handy.’
He wasn’t exaggerating about Rip’s being close to the water. It wasn’t more than fifty feet to the high-tide mark, a two-story structure of cinder blocks with a Spanish-type tile roof, all painted a dazzling white. It was built in a U-shape, with a small swimming pool and grassed lounging area between the arms of the U. I thought that was crazy: a swimming pool so close to the Atlantic. But I learned later that most beachfront motels had pools, and they got a bigger play than the ocean.
I went into the office with Jack to register. He signed the card ‘Mr and Mrs Sam Morrison.’ Residence: New York City. The clerk looked down at it, then looked up.
‘Hey,’ he said. ‘Mr Morrison? There was a guy here just the other day asking for you.’
Donohue played it perfectly.
‘Oh?’ he said coolly. ‘When was that?’
‘Let’s see … not yesterday, but the day before.’
‘A short, heavyset man? A real sharp dresser? Wears a vest, hat, bowtie?’
‘Yeah,’ the clerk said. ‘That’s the man. Said he’s a friend of yours. Wondered if you’d checked in yet.’
‘I’ll give him a call,’ Jack said. ‘I told him we’d be here, but we got tied up a couple of days with car trouble.’
We rented an efficiency, a ground-floor corner apartment. We could look out a big picture window, and there was sand, sea, and, if we could have seen it, Spain.
‘Is this smart?’ I asked Donohue. ‘Staying here? If Rossi has been around?’
‘Sure it’s smart,’ he said. ‘He’s already checked the place out, so he probably won’t be coming back. It’s safer than a place he hasn’t been yet.’ That made sense, logically. But I had been doing some heavy, heavy thinking. Part of the changes I was going through. I was evolving a new philosophy, and logic didn’t have much to do with it. Well … maybe not a philosophy, but an awareness of how things were, and how things worked.
It seemed to me I had come into a world totally different from the one I had known before. That had been a world that, despite occasional misadventure, was based on reason. Bills arrived and were paid. Traffic lights worked and most streets and avenues were one-way. I paid my rent, bought gas, had sex, wrote novels, traveled, read books, went to the theater — all with the expectation of waking the next morning and finding the world, my world, relatively unchanged. It was a stable existence. There was order, a meaningful arrangement of events.