fishtailed, the rear of the limo sideswiping the other car. He spun the steering wheel to the left, over-correcting, fishtailed right, then spun out of control, the limo's tires shrieking on the pavement as it turned one hundred eighty degrees, sliding across the road, crashing sideways into a strand of red mangrove trees. He came to a sudden, hard stop, the limo pointed back toward Miami, as if intent on returning him home. The tangled mangrove roots and limbs, intricate as a spider's web, had broken the slide, though not without caving in the passenger side of the limo.
He took inventory of his body parts. All seemed to be in the right place. Not even a whiplash, but his left shoulder ached where it had banged into the driver's side door. He was just getting out of the limo when the other car pulled to a stop on the other side of the road, angled to throw its high beams in his face. He heard the door slam and then his name called out.
That voice! Out here?
He squinted into the lights and shielded his eyes with a hand. 'Is that you?' he asked, hoping.
'It's me,' Christine said.
An hour later, he could still feel the warmth of her cheek against his. She had thrown her arms around his neck and hugged him fiercely, her fingers digging deeply into his shoulder blades. He hugged her right back, the tension and fear draining from him.
Now, back in his cottage, suddenly filled with sound and light, they sat on the old sofa of Haitian cotton, remembering, talking, pouring out a flood of feelings.
'I'm sorry for everything,' she said. 'It's my fault for letting my father run my life and run you out of it.'
'No. I mishandled it, Chrissy. I made ultimatums. I didn't give you a choice.'
'Is it too late to…'
'No! We can do it.'
'You were right, Bobby. You were right about Craig and about my father. You were right that Scott would be better off with you than under Daddy's control. And you right about something else, too.'
'What's that?' He looked deep into her green-gold eyes, praying she would say it. His heart was choking. He had loved her when she returned his love, and he had loved her when she didn't. He had loved her through the nights of wine and honey, and he had loved her when pricked by angry thorns. He never stopped loving her and never would.
'What you said to me in Green Bay,' she said.
'Something about how cold it was,' he replied, pretending he didn't remember, wanting to hear her say it.
'No. You said, 'I still love you, Chrissy, and you still love me.''
'I know the first half is true,' Bobby said.
'It's all true. I repressed what I felt. I let my anger overcome me, but nothing could extinguish what I felt. What I still feel.'
Bobby was a jumble of emotions, laughing and crying at the same time, the rain falling and the sun shining, a rainbow of feelings. In this instant, he knew, his life had changed. With Chrissy's love, there was new hope.
He didn't know if she moved toward him, or if he moved toward her, but in a second they were in each other's arms. He felt feverish as if he'd been hit with heatstroke. He kissed her with a hunger and desire that he could scarcely remember he possessed. She kissed him back, greedily, biting at his lower lip. Their hands tore at each other's clothing. He felt a surge of heat moving through him. He wanted to devour her.
Their lovemaking was urgent and laced with torrents of emotion. Chrissy sobbed, her tears dripping on him, as she straddled him from above. As their coupling grew frantic, their bodies joined, an animalistic roar came from deep inside him.
Moments later, as she lay on his chest, listening to the beats of his heart, Bobby said, 'You want to try this again, but a little slower this time?'
'Maybe in the morning,' she said. 'We've got work to do now.'
'Work?'
'We've got to figure out how to beat the Mustangs in the Super Bowl,' Christine said.
It was after one a.m. and Christine was sleeping when Bobby, wearing gym shorts and nothing else, walked onto his front porch, carrying a cold Samuel Adams. It was a cool night, and he shivered as he sank into an old chaise lounge with broken straps.
He wanted to think things over. He had told Christine everything, the first six hundred thousand dollar bet with Vinnie LaBarca, how he got middled in Green Bay and lost 1.2 million — now 1.4 million with interest — and then fronting the five-million dollar bet with her father to try and pay off the first bet.
Christine said she wanted to sleep on it, that in the morning she'd have a plan. Just like that. Bobby wasn't skeptical, even for a moment. If anybody could think through a problem-awake or in dream land-it was Chrissy. He sipped at his beer, listened to the cries of a neighborhood mockingbird, a male, calling for its mate. He was at peace.
He saw it then, a car parked down the street two houses away. It had been Chrissy in that spot earlier tonight, but who was this? The vanity light was on, then clicked off. Okay, so someone was in the car. Probably nothing, no reason to be paranoid. He squinted into the darkness but couldn't make out the model.
He stepped down from the porch and started padding barefoot that way. The car's engine turned over and it pulled away from the curb with its lights off, screeched through a U-Turn, and headed toward U.S. 1. It was too dark to make out the driver or read the license plate, but Bobby was close enough to I.D. the car. It was a white Infiniti, just like the one Angelica Suarez owned.
41
Saturday, February 4
Day Before the Super Bowl
The screeching of the neighborhood parrots jarred Christine awake. She was disoriented. She was on her side, the warm breath of a man on her neck. It took a moment for her to realize it was Bobby, and they lay there in the spoon-to-spoon position, bodies touching. Sun streaked into the bedroom from an open window. Bobby stirred next to her, his heavy breathing still so familiar even after all the time apart.
So much had happened in the last twenty-four hours. But so much more remained to be done. Was there time? Could they do it? Bobby had made a mess of everything, but she blamed herself for his plight. She should have protected him from her father two years ago. She could have run interference for him, like one of the Mustangs' offensive linemen. Maybe she could still do it, but now, she'd have to run straight over her father.
Christine had fallen asleep weighing the benefits and risks of a dozen different plans. She prayed for one that could rescue Bobby without sinking Daddy. But it wasn't possible. There was a one-man life raft in a sea of sharks, and this time, Bobby would get the rescue line.
''Morning sweetie,' Bobby said, thickly, stretching and opening his eyes.
'Good morning. Do you still own a business suit?'
'Two, trial lawyer sincere blue and funeral director charcoal gray.'
'Wear the gray. You'll blend in with all the Gulfstream jet crowd from Ford, Coca-Cola, and Apple.
'What are you talking about?'
'The Commissioner's party. We're going to need to get into the VIP room.'
'Do you think we have time to party?' he asked, rolling onto his back and cracking his knuckles over his head.
For an intelligent man, she concluded, Bobby could be such a dolt. She watched a thought slowly cross his face like a wagon train plodding across the old West.
He made a clucking noise with his tongue. 'I don't believe it. You want me to go public? 'You want me to do
