Fran said, 'You can't help it, can you? Your normal reaction is to be a smart-ass. I imagined coming back from Africa, all you've been through over there, you'd have changed, become more serious…'
Terry nodded, waiting.
'… show a sense of responsibility, and gratitude. You know how much I sent you altogether, counting what I paid for the T-shirts?
Over twenty thousand dollars. You write and tell me about the weather and, 'Oh, thanks for the money.''
Terry said, 'You wrote it off, didn't you, as a contribution?'
'That's not the point. What about the cigarette money? With the three trips you must've taken off with fifty grand, counting the Pajonnys' cut from the last one. You spent all that?'
Trying to find out if he had any money. Terry said, 'Fran, I was over there five years.' And that was all he wanted to say about it.
'I read one of your letters to Mary Pat, the one you opened up in a little more than usual, that had all the smells in it. I commented that you were starting to sound like your old self again. You know what Mary Pat said? 'Is that good or bad?'' Fran said, 'You see what I mean?'
Terry wasn't sure, but nodded again, squinting just a little, showing Fran he was giving it serious thought, while Fran seemed to stare at him as long as he could before looking at his watch again.
'I gotta go.'
Terry waited on the front steps until the Lincoln Town Car was out of sight. He went into the library, saw two numbers for Johnny on the message pad-his home and what looked like his cell phone-as he dialed Debbie's number. As soon as she answered Terry said, 'He's gone.'
Man, last night. Last night decided his future for him. It would have to come one day at a time, but the trip looked full of promise all the way.
Just talking about it, Debbie telling stories… First offering to twist one if he wanted. 'A yobie? Sure, why not.' She appreciated his name for it and said that's what she'd call a joint from now on, a yobie. See? Looking into the future together. They sat on her secondhand St. Vincent de Paul sofa toking and grinning at each other, sipping their drinks, getting high while they looked for a way to score off Randy. Now loaded. A fact she hadn't mentioned before. Married a wealthy woman, divorced, but left in good shape, with a few million and a restaurant downtown.
'We'll get to that,' Debbie said. 'I think I told you, the first time he asked to borrow money he showed me a picture of his boat?'
'The one he didn't own,' Terry said.
'That's right but what I didn't mention, it had my name lettered on the back end, DEBBIE, and under it, PALM BEACH. He said he renamed it because he was so crazy about me. And oh, by the way, could I spare a couple of grand.'
'How'd he do it?'
'Wait. Okay, now this is later, after he wiped me out and took off.
It's been a couple of months and I'm in Florida visiting my mother. I stopped by the marina Randy was always talking about, looked around and there it was, a forty-six-foot cutter named DEBBIE with PALM BEACH under it. I asked in the marina bar if anyone knew a guy named Randy Agley. The bartender goes, 'You mean Aglioni?' A salty old guy sitting at the bar goes, 'Randy, that's the creep went around taking pictures of the boats. We ran him off.' I asked if they knew where Randy hung out. The bartender tells me to try the Breakers, where guys like Randy troll for rich broads. The old guy says try Au Bar, he saw him there a couple of times. Okay, at the Breakers I find out Mr. Agley is not allowed on the premises and Au Bar isn't there anymore, it's something else. I thought I'd struck out.
But then fight after, I have my room out to dinner at Chuck and Harold's, we're almost finished and there's Mr. Wonderful himself.
He has a drink in his hand and his sights on two women at a table.
They're dressed casually but you can tell they're Palm Beach, the hair, simple jewelry but the real thing. Randy waits till they've ordered their drinks before moving in, the cheap fuck. I'm watching-it's obvious they don't know him. He gives them some bulIshit for a couple of minutes, something like, 'Didn't I see you charming ladies at the Donald's last week? No? Then it must've been…' He ioins them. Pretty soon the women are laughing and he's not even funny, has no sense of humor at all. I used to throw lines at him, ideas, off the top of my head? Like I'd say, 'My boyfriend is so good-looking, when he goes out he has to wear women's clothes,' beat, 'or else he gets mobbed by babes.' Randy would think about it with a blank look on his face, then turn on this fake laugh that sounds like ha ha ha. He wasn't fun. He had no idea how to get into a goof.'
'He ioins the ladies,' Terry said.
'And I'm with my mom. What do I do, warn the ladies? Pour a drink over his head and cause a scene? Not with my mom there. I told you she thinks she's Ann Miller? While I'm watching Randy, Mom's telling me how much fun she had making On the Town with Gene and Frank, but that cute Vera-Ellen was a pain in the ass the whole time.'
Terry said, 'I'd like to meet her.'
'She's still there. What I ended up doing, I took mom over to the table and said, 'Mother, this is Randy, the bullshit artist who stole all my money.' My mother says to him, 'How do you do, Andy, I'm pleased to meet you.' She thought he was Andy Garcia. I got her out, raced across the bridge to the nursing home--it's right on Flagler- dropped her off, and raced back to Chuck and Harold's. I was sure he'd still be there because he'd have to clear himself, make up a long, involved story. Did you see My Dinner with Andrg, the snob who bores the shit out of Wallace Shawn for an hour and a half? That's Randy.'
'He was still there.'
'I checked to make sure, peeked in. Then schmoozed the valet parking guy to let me sit there and wait, double-parked. Randy comes out, finally, with the two ladies and stands there talking to them while they wait for their car. Randy, I was sure, parked on the street, he never spends his own money if he can help it. He gets the ladies into their car, still bullshitting them. They drive off and he walks along the streetside of the cars parked along the curb. I creep up next to him, my windows down, and go, 'Hey, asshole,' to get his attention. I told him I'd hound him, I'd keep showing up and make his phony life miserable until he paid back every cent he stole from me. But without any idea how I'd do it. He came around to my side of the car, the Ford Escort, and tells me with his face in the open window, 'Don't fuck with me, kid. You're not in my league.''
'That did it,' Terry said, 'calling you kid, huh?'
'That and his tone of voice, Mr. Fucking Superior. I see him walking away, across the street to where he's angle-parked against the median, Royal Poinciana Way, lined with palm trees. I had to go after him. I floored it. I saw his face as he looked back and saw me coming and I plowed into him, bounced him off a couple of cars and drove off.'
'You left the scene?'
'That was my mistake, a premeditated hit-and-run, witnessed by everybody standing in front of the restaurant.'
Terry was sympathetic. 'That's a shame, have all those people watching. You hurt him much?'
'He had to have a hip replaced.'
'I hear that's a common procedure now.'
'He fractured his other leg, punctured a lung. There were lacerations, I think thirty-five stitches in his scalp. The state's attorney wanted to bring me up on attempted murder. I had a court-appointed lawyer who did what he could. He tried for man two, where I'd get maybe a year; we settled for aggravated assault, three to five.'
'You poor thing,' Terry said, slipping his arm around her shoulders.
'Being locked up with all those offenders. It must've been awful.'
She looked up at him with sad eyes, holding the yobie away from them, and he kissed her for the first time, a tender kiss, Terry seeing what it was like, then putting a little more into it to see where it would take him, then glad to feel Debbie getting into it with him. When they came apart he took the yobie from her and put it in the ashtray on the coffee table. But then when he turned to her again there was a different look in her eyes. Not quite sure about this.
