'You're joking.' He examined one of the brass buttons. 'It even has the insignia.' He shook his head.
'Those rip-off artists are really something. Do me a favor, will you?'
'What?'
'Never cut your hair. It's glorious.'
'Thank you. But it's a pain in the ass to wash.'
'I'll help,' he said, and they stared at each other.
'My name is David Rathbone,' he said.
'My name is Rita Sullivan,' she said, and they shook hands.
'Where do you live, Rita?'
'I just got in a few days ago. I'm staying at the Howard Johnson in Pompano Beach.'
'You want to go back to HoJo tonight?'
'Not particularly.'
'You have a car?'
'Yes.'
'So do I. I also have a town house on the Fourteenth Street Causeway. The drinks are free. Will you follow me there?'
'All right,' she said, 'I'll follow you.'
They rose to leave. Ernie, watching covertly from the end of the bar, wondered who was hustling whom.
Rathbone's home was between A1A and the Waterway. They stood on the lawn and looked up.
'It's enormous,' Rita said.
'Not really,' he said. 'Two bedrooms and a third I use as an office. Three and a half bathrooms. Florida room. Terrace. The pool is for the entire development, but no one uses it; they walk to the ocean.'
'You live alone?'
'I have a houseman and a cook-housekeeper. Theodore and Blanche. Jamaicans. Nice people. But they don't live in.'
The vaulted living room was all white, beige, gold.
There was a forty-one-inch rear projection TV. The kitchen was white with black plastic panels on the appliances. A restaurant range, microwave, overhead rack of coppered pots and pans.
'You know how to live,' Rita said.
'Everyone knows how to live,' he said. 'There's no trick to it. All you need is money. Want to stick to the stingers?'
'Please.'
'I'll have one, too.'
They took their drinks into the living room, sat on the couch, kicked off their shoes.
'What do you do to afford all this?' Rita asked. 'Rob banks?'
'No,' he said with a tight smile. 'I manage O.P.M.-Other People's Money. I'm an investment adviser.'
'I'd say you're doing all right,' she said, looking around.
He shrugged. 'I work hard. And I've been lucky. Luck is very important.'
'It's been in short supply with me lately.'
'Married? Separated? Divorced? Or widowed?'
'No, no, no, and no,' she said. 'Just a single lady. Disappointed?'
'Of course not.'
'What about you?'
'Married,' he said. 'Once. And now divorced. Thank God.'
'And never again-is that what you're saying?'
'That's what I'm saying. Today. Tomorrow I might feel differently.'
'You might,' she said, 'but I doubt it. You know, if I was a man, I'd never get married. What for? Sex?
Companionship? A nurse if you get sick? A housekeeper when you get old? You can buy all that.'
'If you've got the money,' he reminded her. 'You have a very cynical outlook, Rita.'
'Not cynical, just realistic. Am I going to spend the night?'
'I want you to, but it's your decision.'
'The bedrooms are upstairs?'
'Yes.'
'Mix us another and let's take them upstairs.'
'Wise decision,' he said.
'You want me out of here tomorrow morning before your servants show up?'
'That's the first dumb thing you've said tonight.'
Upstairs, she looked around the master bedroom and whistled. 'I like everything about it except for the engraving over the bed. Who the hell is that-your grandfather?'
Rathbone laughed. 'Big Jim Fisk. I'll tell you about him someday. A romantic story. He was murdered at the age of thirty-eight.'
'Oh? How old are you, David?'
'Thirty-eight.'
'Whoops!' she said. 'Can I use the john?'
She did, and then he did. When he came out, she was lying naked atop the silver coverlet, black hair spread over the pillows. He stood looking down at her long body, dusky, with raspberry nipples.
'Ah, Jesus,' he breathed.
She watched him undress. 'You really are a golden boy,' she said. 'Where did you get that allover tan?'
'Show you tomorrow,' he said, and joined her.
He was very good. She was better.
The morning sun was hot, bright. She roused slowly, staring at the ceiling, wondering where she was. Then Rathbone was at the bedside, looking down at her without smiling. He tossed a yellow terry robe onto the coverlet.
'Breakfast on the terrace in fifteen minutes,' he said, no laughter in his voice now.
She came out into the sunlight, wearing the robe, toweling her hair.
'Glorious day,' she said.
'It may be,' he said. He was wearing a short-sleeved shirt of cotton gauze, pale linen slacks belted with a neck tie, espadrilles.
She glanced around the terrace. Glass-top table and chairs of verdigrised cast iron. Canvas slings. Two redwood lounges with flowered mattresses.
'Now I know where you get your allover glow,' she said.
'Right. The only ones who can see you are helicopter pilots.'
Theodore served freshly squeezed grapefruit juice, honey dew melon with wedges of lime, hot miniature croissants with sweet butter and mango jam, black coffee laced with chicory.
'You eat like this every morning?' she asked.
'Uh-huh. Why do you carry a gun?'
She continued buttering her croissant. 'Self-defense,' she said. 'Everyone in Florida carries a gun.'
'Maybe everyone in Florida has a gun,' he corrected. 'I do. But not everyone carries a gun.'
'Since you obviously tossed my bag,' she said, looking at him directly, 'you probably found the newspaper clipping, too. Why the search?'
'You know what Barnum said?' 'There's a sucker born every minute?'
'And two to take him. I prefer being a taker rather than a takee. I like to know the people I deal with. And you're no schoolteacher.'
'So now you know: I pack a popgun and I was charged with shoplifting. You want me gone?'
'No, I don't want you gone,' he said. 'Do you want to move in?'
She was astonished. 'For how long?'
'Until I want you gone.'
She took that. 'What do I do for walking-around money?'
He took out his gold clip, extracted five hundred in fifties, handed them across the table.
