counted more than a dozen Thomas Jefferson executive models for sale. Every other listing was a beach condo.
Real estate sales seemed a little stagnant on Sandy Key, and Ford wondered if Sealife Development was having financial trouble.
He tried a few more ploys to get into the main building; none worked. If he wanted to check the office shelves for pre-Columbian art, he'd have to come another day.
Just off the main street, he found the Everglades County Sheriff's Department: three floors of brown stucco with mirrored windows and a chain-link lock-up out back where several white-and-green squad cars glittered in the sun. At the desk, he asked the stern woman in uniform and holster harness if Sheriff DeArmand was in. If he had been, Ford had already decided he would ask about employment. He wasn't.
What Ford was trying to do was get a feel for the place, a sense of the organization. He had fifteen single- spaced typed pages on Sealife Development back at his lab, but he wanted to flesh out the impression. He wanted a physical understanding of what he was up against. He bought a city map at a 7-Eleven and, using Rafe's address book, found DeArmand's home: a huge split-level version of the Thomas Jefferson executive model built on a sodded half-acre plot that butted up against a line of gray melaleuca trees that separated it from the golf course.
Ford slowed. Three cars in the drive: a new station wagon, a red Corvette, and a white, unmarked Ford squad car. DeArmand and wife seemed to be home. Ford considered stopping; thought about asking directions —'I'm looking for a Jefferson model on the seventh green'—but decided that was just a little too cute, too risky. He turned at the circular dead end, then headed back out to Ocean View. At a pay phone, he found the address for H. B. Hollins—it wasn't in Rafe's book—and drove to the other end of the island looking for 127 Del Prado Place: a white ranch house with two palm trees, an overgrown lawn, and a faded Honda Accord in the drive.
The bell didn't work, so he rapped on the door . . . waited . . . rapped again . . . waited . . . then followed the sound of thudding rock-n'-roll and the smell of chlorine to the screened pool behind the house.
The pool water was the color of lime Jell-O, and a woman there lay on her back in a lounge chair, pale pink thread of bikini bottoms tracing the curve of her buttocks, pink bra top in a tiny heap beside the chair, heavy breasts taut in the heat beneath a viscous coating of oil, arms stretched behind her head to form a pillow, eyes closed.
Helen Burke Hollins, Rafe's ex-wife, was spending this quiet afternoon at home.
Ford had to speak loudly over the music. 'Hello? HELLO?'
The woman stirred lazily, reached for the drink on the table even before opening her eyes, saying 'Come on in, babe—you're way early.'
Ford opened the screened door and stepped into the muted sunlight, replying 'Rafe's funeral didn't last as long as I thought.'
Focusing her eyes, she said, 'What?' Then:
Ford said, 'You did,' trying to smile as if embarrassed, averting his eyes. 'I didn't realize you were . . . not dressed. I'm really sorry, Helen. I had no idea.'
She had the top on now, squirming to get herself placed just so, standing to face Ford. 'Who the hell are you, anyway? How do you know my name?'
Ford was still smiling at her—the kindly stranger who had done a dumb thing. He started as if to answer, then said, 'Man, Rafe was sure right. You sure are pretty,' as if a little in awe. Which was a lie. Helen Hollins had mousy bleached-blond hair, a chubby little-girl face with thin pouty lips beneath the pink lip gloss, a bulb nose, and a thick layer of brown belly fat that rolled over the elastic of her bikini bottoms. From the way Rafe had talked, Ford had expected better. But the lie softened her; he could almost see the hostility drain from her face. She said, 'You knew Rafe?'
'Yeah. We were friends back in high school, then we did some work together down in Masagua. I thought I'd stop and see if you needed anything. I thought you might be at the funeral.'
'Not goddamn likely.' She was back on the lounge chair again, sitting, taking a gulp from the tall glass and shaking a nearly empty pack of cigarettes. 'You must not of talked to Rafe lately if you thought I'd be there. We didn't part on what you'd call the best of terms. The bastard. '
Ford said, 'Oh. I'm sorry. Rafe always spoke so highly of you. ...'
'That's a laugh.'
'Well ... I didn't know. I hadn't seen him in more than two years, then I flew back into town just in time for another friend of ours to tell me about the funeral. It was quite a shock.'
Exhaling smoke through her nose, using her thumb to flick at the filter of the cigarette, she said, 'What did you say your name was?'
'Rafe used to call me Doc.'
'And you worked with him down there in Central America? You know what he did?'
Ford said, 'Same thing he did for Sealife Development, right?' Playing it coy, as if he knew the whole story.
That made her snort. 'He sure as hell didn't make the kinda money he was making spraying mosquitoes for a bunch of spies.'
'Different pay for different payloads, Helen.'
'And that's what you do? You fly?'
'No. There's money to be made other ways down there.'
She liked that, the inference that he had money; staring at him, her eyes moving from his thighs to his face in appraisal, she began to smile. 'Rafe was the type to always pull out the high school yearbook, brag about the good old days. I remember your picture. The handsome one. Rafe used to mention your name. Told me all about the wild things you two did.' She let that hang in the air for a moment before adding 'He said the girls purely loved you two. Said
Ford said, 'Well, Rafe was always one to exaggerate.'
In the long silence that followed, her eyes took on a sloe, sleepy look, never leaving Ford's eyes, and for the first time, Ford could feel more than see what Rafe had meant that morning on the phone.
A bead of sweat fell from her nose to her chin, then down onto her left breast, and she wiped it away with a slow massaging motion of her right hand. Ford felt a stirring in his abdomen, and he watched her meaty thighs squeeze, then spread slightly as she said, 'Hey, I'm not being much of a hostess. Let me get you a drink or something. Gin and tonic? A beer?'
'Tonic and ice would be fine.'
She was standing, not bothering to adjust the suit now even though a blood-pink half circle of areola peeked over the thin bikini bra. 'You don't look like any Boy Scout to me. Maybe just a splash of gin? Or maybe something you don't put in a glass. '
'No thanks. I've got a long drive ahead of me.'
She had a high, girlish laugh. 'Long, huh?' and was off across the deck, wide hips swinging on the pendulum of narrow back, thigh fat echoing the impact of bare feet on cement, sliding the glass doors open without closing them behind her.
Ford released his breath, then laughed softly at himself.
In his life, Ford had met four, maybe five women who had affected him in exactly the same way; women with that same quality of animal sexuality, a sexuality so strong that it bypassed the conscious fabric of awareness and struck some deep visceral chord. It had little to do with beauty. None of the ones Ford had known had been model material. They had been tall and gawky, lean and sharp, or ripe and doughy like this one, Helen Hollins.
Rafe had said, 'She smells like she wants it.'
From inside the house, the music changed from heavy metal to mainstream rock as the woman switched stations and lowered the volume, then called out, 'Hey, you—Doc. Give me a hand in here.'
Ford stepped through the Florida room into the refrigerated chill of air conditioning, his eyes trying to adjust to the darkness. Plush carpet, heavy drapes, the chemical smell of synthetic fiber mixed with the odor of soiled clothes thrown on the couch and coffee table. Suburban decor beneath a layer of dirt. Then she was standing before him with that same sleepy look in her eyes, a bottle of tonic water in her hand, but giving him all her attention.
