visiting. She might have been out working except that the drapes were pulled and there was an old and battered red Mustang parked on the drive. A car that had once been his. How could she have let it get that badly rusted?
He knocked again. This time when the dog barked he heard someone curse the animal. And after a minute or two the door creaked open and there, gathering a thin, kimono-style robe around her overweight, naked body, stood Lisa. Older than he remembered. Well of course, she was. But harder too. As if life hadn't been especially kind to her. Maybe if Nick hadn't died it would have been different. But the hell with that, he told himself. He was the one who'd spent the last five years behind bars. And had she thought to come and visit him? To do more than write a couple of badly spelt letters? She had not.
'Dave, my God,' she said, obviously flustered. 'My, my. You're out.'
'Hello, Lisa.'
An impossibly large dog came to the door, nudging her behind with a muzzle the size of a shoebox and growling quietly. It looked like a Dobermann that snacked on chocolate chip steroids.
She pushed the dog back indoors, and said, 'It's just my kid brother.'
Dave wasn't sure if she was talking to the dog or to someone else in the house. He had a glimpse of a dingy interior behind her and his keen eyes took in an ancientlooking TV, a grimy moth-eaten sofa, a table with a half- empty bottle of bourbon and, next to the bottle, looking like recent and incongruous arrivals, two new $100 bills.
He said, 'I wasn't sure if I'd find you in.'
She shrugged back at him, still trying to find a smile. When it came it looked uncomfortable. 'Well, here I am.' Glancing back over her shoulder, she added, 'You should have called.'
'I was in the general area,' he lied. 'Passing through. So I thought I'd stop, say hello, see how you were.'
'Only it's a little inconvenient, right now.'
Dave thought he guessed what he had disturbed.
'New boyfriend?'
Lisa smiled thinly and nodded with little more conviction.
'Yeah.'
'That's good.'
'We were--' A sheepish look filled in the blanks. 'I'd be embarrassed to let you in. My underwear is all over the floor.'
Dave grinned and said, 'Same old Lisa.'
She was looking past him now, around the neighborhood. 'Hey, less of the old Lisa, will ya? I'm only five years older than you.'
That was right. He remembered now. She had been just his age now when he went inside Homestead. Dave was about to pick up on that but then let it go. He wasn't here to reproach her, but to help.
He said, 'I brought you a present.' He handed over the bag. Inside were two parcels, each containing 50,000 of the 250 grand plus interest Jimmy Figaro had given him. 'Actually, there's one for Mom as well.'
'Why thank you, Dave,' she said and, hesitantly, brushed his hair with her hand.
As she touched him his nostrils detected a sweet cloying smell that for some reason made him start thinking of babies. It was on her hands. A kind of sheen.
'Just promise me that you'll only open it when you're alone,' he said.
'Sure, OK.' She frowned and laughed at the same time. 'Whaddya do? Rob a bank or something?'
'Not yet.'
'Look, why don't you come back, in about an hour, and we can talk. I'm not much of a cook, but hey. What the hell? You never complained when you were a kid and big sis fixed your dinner.'
Now he remembered the smell. It was baby oil. Johnson's Baby Oil. Only Lisa had never had her baby. It had been stillborn. And what with the two C-notes and the anonymous boyfriend back in the bedroom an unpleasant thought began to strut its way along the sidewalk of Dave's imagination.
'Whaddya say, little brother? Be like the old days.'
It was Dave's turn to be evasive now.
'I'd like to, Lisa, really I would. But I'm on a pretty tight schedule.'
There was no need for him to say anything. He told himself it wasn't his right to do so. Whatever family obligation he'd had, he'd fulfilled, hadn't he? Fifty thousand dollars a head was a lot of payback for not much of an upbringing. Now he just wanted to get the hell away from there. Forcing a smile that was the equal of the pinched nerve that was Lisa's own, Dave backed toward his car.
He said, 'Another time, huh?'
'Sure honey, but call first, OK?' she told him. Like he was some John.
'I'll do that.' He jumped into the open car and started the engine.
'Nice car,' she said. 'Are you sure you didn't rob a bank?'
'Not yet,' he repeated and waving stiffly, drove off, trying not to floor the gas pedal and look like he was suddenly desperate to be away from her. And at the same time ashamed. Ashamed for what he felt he was. Just another john in his sister's life, giving her money and then going away again. His own sister. His own sister.
Kate Furey was giving Kent Bowen a tour of the boat. The Carrera was moored alongside dozens of other yachts on Fort Lauderdale's intercoastal waterway, and a stone's throw from R.J.'s Landing, one of the dockside area's better restaurants. Bowen had already suggested lunching there, but Kate had told him they had too much to do getting him up to speed with the lexicon of yachts and their equipment. She had already figured out a way around his lack of boating knowledge, but she wanted to punish him a little for not being scared off with all her best stories about squalls and seasickness. A water taxi slipped by with a couple dressed up to get married. They waved, and from the sunny skylounge aft deck where he and Kate were standing, Bowen waved back.
'You haven't been listening to a word I've said.'
'Sure I have,' said Bowen.
Unconvinced, Kate pointed toward the davits above their heads. She said, 'OK, what are those?'
'You mean those things holding up the boat?'
Kate made an inhuman noise that sounded like the wrong answer button on a TV game show.
'Incorrect. That isn't a boat. It's a tender. As in Tender is the Night. But don't get any ideas. And the tender is attached to? What?'
'A crane, I guess.'
Kate made the noise again. She said, 'Davits. Those are davits, dammit. Look sir. Kent. This isn't going to work unless you become a little more familiar with the right names for things. You won't, thank God, have to try and sail this boat. But the chances are you'll have to talk about her with people from other boats. You know? Like you're proud of her? And by the way, those shoes you're wearing? They'll have to go.'
Bowen glanced down at his Air Nikes.
'What's wrong with them?'
Kate shook her head firmly and said, 'They're not proper boat shoes, that's what's wrong with them. A real boatman wouldn't be seen dead in those things. But we can fix that. We can stop off somewhere along Las Olas on our way down to the port. There's bound to be a man's shop, or a chandler's somewhere on the boulevard. Docksiders are best. Leather uppers, flat rubber soles. At least you can look the part even if you screw up on the glossary.'
Kate walked through a glass doorway and into the salon where a large and extremely comfortable leather couch, arranged aft to port, faced an enormous TV. A smaller sofa and narrow built-in counter with maple wood cabinets lined the starboard side of the salon. The arrangement of furnishings prompted Kate to ask Bowen yet another question. She pointed at a circular, six-place dining table that was located forward of where they were now standing.
'Am I pointing to port or to starboard?'
Bowen thought for a moment. Impatiently Kate started to click her fingers at him.
He said, 'Port.'
'C'mon, it's got to come faster than that. Like the difference between your right and your left.'
He followed her through the salon casting a look of regret in the direction of the 27-inch TV. He wished he
