I certainly did not want to talk over anything with Dougie d'Agasto, no matter how rich he proposed to make me. But it was May who'd asked me to come.
It is not a long flight from Papeete to Miami, but it uses up a whole night-you cross over five time zones. And so I arrived at ten in the morning with no more than an hour's sleep and my disposition cranky. I took a taxi from the airport to the address Dougie had given me. What I wound up in looked like a warehouse district and smelled like the city dump. A couple of gasoline-burner cars, half dismantled, rusted along the curb. We were only a block or two from Biscayne Bay-that accounted for part of the smell. At least two of the low-rise buildings on the block had been burned out and boarded up. An elderly black woman was throwing a bucket of hot, soapy water on the sidewalk in front of a little grocery store and attacking it with a broom. I walked up to her, carrying my overnight case. "Excuse me, I'm looking for Douglas d'Agasto, I said.
She straightened up. "Round back, she said. I thought there was some hostility in the way she looked at me, but she added, "You want me to help you with that bag?
"Thank you, no. But it's kind of you to offer: I gestured at the soapy sidewalk. "I didn't really expect to see anybody doing that around here.
"I ain't from around here, she said, dismissing me. At least there seemed to be one decent person in the neighborhood to keep May company, I thought-but could d'Agasto really have May living in this wretched slum? Well, of course he could, if it suited his purpose-but not himself!
Of course, I had made a wrong assumption. Neither of them lived there. It was an office, not a home, and once you got to the inner courtyard, obviuusly a luxurious one. A slim black man appeared from a vined trellis and circled a marble fountain to ask what my business was. When I gave my name, he passed me on through a door- there was a very thick frame around it; weapons detectors, I realized- and into a handsome, huge waiting room. There a handsome small woman with rose-red hair conducted me to the very office of Douglas d'Agasto himself.
I've seen pictures of a bigger office. It belonged to that old dictator, Mussolini. "Uncle Jason, d'Agasto cried welcomingly, rising to wait for me to cover the fifteen meters to his desk before he stretched out his hand. "Glad you could come! Sorry to make you come to my office first, but I figured we might as well get the business out of the way so you could relax when we get to the house.
I let him shake my hand. "What's the business we're talking about?
He nodded approval of my directness. He was just as direct. "May wants to own the Fleet free and clear. No more trustee. No other owners. So we want you to turn the trust over to her and sell her your stock. We'll pay you fifty million dollars for it, Uncle Jason.
He had not invited me to sit down, but I sat down anyway. "I'm not your uncle, I said, "and my stock's not worth that much. Fifteen or twenty at most. It doesn't matter, though, because I don't want to sell.
"May really wants you to-
"What May wants me to do, May will tell me to do herself.
The look he threw me was instant anger on top. That didn't bother me a hit. Underneath was a cocky confidence, though, and that did. "In that case, he said, spreading the dimples on the sun-tanned face with a wide smile, "we better just get our asses out to the house so she can do that little thing. I think you're going to like our place.
If what Dougie meant was that I would think it very luxurious, I knew that sight unseen. I had been signing the fund transfers into May's account to pay for it. The luxury started long before we got there. We were only a block or two from Dougie's boat dock on the bay, but there was a chauffeured car waiting in the courtyard to take us there. As we pulled out into the street, I saw the old black woman pause in shining her cracked store window to glare at us over her shoulder. I appreciated that; at least now I knew who the hostility belonged to. We got in a hydrofoil with a three-man crew and screamed down the waterway, under causeway bridges, past small islands, until we came to a large one. We coasted along it for a while. There were lavish estates along the shore; then there were none, just mangroves and cypress, until we came to a dock that could have handled an oaty-boat. Well, not really. I exaggerate. But the dock was an exaggeration, too. There was no vessel he might want to own that would need that much space.
The house was as grand as I could have expected, but the grandest part was May running down the green, green lawn to meet me. She hugged me twice as tightly as I had expected, then leaned back to look at me. And I at her. It was my veritable sweet May, as ever was, the clean, clear face, the thoughtful, wide-set eyes, the silky hair- "You look tired, I said. I hadn't meant to, but it was true. It was not polite, so I added, "Too much golf, I suppose.
The smile flickered, but it came back fast. "It's more like too much not seeing you, Jay. Come on in! Oh, Jason-I've missed you so much!
If consulted by the tribunal when it is time to decide how long Dougie d'Agasto should roast in hell, I will say on his behalf that at least he let us alone to talk. He excused himself at once. He went up to his "study for an hour, came down for lunch, and immediately took off in the stiltboat for most of the afternoon-it was for his tutoring in thermal engineering, he said. So I had May to myself. I saw the house. I heard how Jimmy Rex was doing. May told me that the secessionist mobs were pretty worrying when they rioted, but maybe they were right and this part of Florida should anschluss with Cuba. She wanted to know if I'd seen much of the big new Chinese boats that were being launched, or any more dead fish. I even had time for a nap before dinner; and not once did she bring up the trust, or I.
Dinner wasn't grand-just very good, with all the things in it that May had known I liked all her life. When the coffee was on the table, Dougie chased the servants out of the dining hall and leaned back.
"So tell him, honey, he said with that smile that was on the very verge of curdling into a smirk.
May looked reluctant, but she didn't put it off. She put her elbows on the table and her chin in her hands, and she gazed at me. "You've been as good a father to me as my father ever was, Jason.
Those were not the words I most wanted to hear from her, but under the circumstances they were about the best I could expect. I reached across and patted her hand.
"So don't think I'm not grateful to you, dear, because I am. I always will be. But I'm not a child anymore. I'm a grown woman, married- Three times married, I thought, and she was thinking the same because she hesitated- married, with a child. As much of an adult as I'm ever going to be, Jason. So I'm asking you to dissolve the trust. Dougie pursed his lips and nodded judiciously, as though he had just heard the idea for the first time and thought that by and large it might be sound. He didn't say anything. That was just as well, for I might have said something in return that could never be unsaid. "You don't have to sell your own stock if you don't want to, Jay, she went on. "Dougie thought that might be a good idea for you, but it's up to you. But, please, will you do the other'?
I didn't look at Dougie again. I didn't have to, for I could feel the temperature of his smile.., and I could feel it drop to zero as I said, "If I do that, May, I will be killed. It's your father's orders. And I spread before them the nineteen letters I had received from my unknown assassin. And I told them what the Commodore had said to me.
Dougie slammed his fist down on the table. It was thick teak, but it shook. I didn't look at him, and he didn't say a word. May, with tears in her voice, said, "You mean my father paid someone to have you killed? But that's horrible!
I touched her hand again. "No, love, it's not. He was right to make sure of me. If I'd failed you, it would be fair punishment. And wished I were more sure that I hadn't failed her already.