STOKELY JONES DOWNSHIFTED, GRABBING third, accelerating up and over the humpbacked bridge. It crossed over from downtown Miami to his magical island hideaway, Brickell Key. Is this living, or what? he asked himself, hearing the satisfying blip of the black-raspberry metallic GTO convertible's race-tuned engine, feeling the deep rumble of the tuned twin exhausts in his bones. Sex? Something like that, maybe.
Sometimes he actually had to wonder: Does sex with Fancha, his gorgeous fiancee, even hold a candle to this completely badass Pontiac?
The answer was always, unequivocally, yes. Nothing could ever hold a candle to his love for Fancha. Period. Still, Stoke curled his hand around the ivory shift knob of the Hurst four-speed shift lever as he downshifted again. If they had cars up there in heaven, he had no doubt, all those angels up there in paradise, they cruised GTOs down those streets of gold.
Passing the entrance to the ridiculously expensive and beautiful Mandarin Hotel on his right, top down, salt air breezes blowing, speakers blaring 'Let's Stay Together,' one of Al Green's greatest hits, Stoke got that old feeling again: complete disbelief at his current tropical luxury lifestyle. Former Harlem homeboy gangsta makes good? Oh, yes indeedy, life was good.
God was good. America was good. And, God, please bless America. We could sure use it right now.
Damn, I must be in a really good mood, he thought, approaching the tall glass and steel Brickell Towers on his right. He slowed for the turn, singing a song:
Yeah, we're movin' on up, movin' on up, to a dee-luxe apartment in the sky…and I feeeeel good, da-da-da- dum…
Keeping time to the lyrics and rhythms in his head, palm beating on the steering wheel, and, man, here he was, home again at last.
He hooked a right and swung into the gently curving palm-lined driveway leading to his own personal paradise, his condo in the sky, the light-filled penthouse overlooking Biscayne Bay that he called home. Paid for with the sole proceeds of his sainted mama's six-story apartment house in Bayside, Queens. He'd only lived in Miami a couple of years. Now he couldn't imagine living anywhere else. New York?
Fuggedaboutit.
He kept an eye peeled for the building's aging security man, Fast Eddie Falco, normally scouring the premises in his custom Rolls-Royce grilled golf cart at this hour. Stoke had stopped by Books & Books in the Grove, picked up a couple of paperback copies of the selection his two-man book club would be reading this week. The John D. MacDonald's Men's Reading Society would soon be digging into The Dreadful Lemon Sky.
Eddie, a former jockey, had spent his entire life as a railbird over at Hialeah before retiring. Never read word one not related to his beloved ponies and the jocks. Then one day Stoke introduced him to Travis McGee and his houseboat, the Busted Flush. Boom! Just like that, Eddie Falco found a whole new reason for living besides horses and football.
Just before turning into the ground-floor garage, he thought he caught a glimpse of Eddie's heavily customized fire-engine-red cart. Seemed to be parked beneath a palm tree. Actually, shit, it looked like he'd rammed the damn tree head-on. Stoke, thinking heart attack, screeched to a stop, leaped out over the closed passenger door, and ran across the thick green grass. Eddie was slumped forward over the wheel. Damn it! Unless a coconut had landed on his head, he'd probably blown an artery.
'Eddie! You okay?' he cried, racing toward his friend.
Eddie was definitely not okay. But it wasn't a coconut head bop or a heart attack. Looked like he had a deep wound in his right leg, just above the kneecap. The blood had soaked one whole leg of his khaki pants and pooled around his shoes. What the hell? He'd let a palm tree run into him, yeah, but not hard enough for even a minor injury.
Stoke leaned under the fringed white canopy, examining the hole in his pal's knee.
'Eddie, what the hell, man? What'd you do to your leg?'
'Ouch!'
'Sorry.' Stoke probed the wound with his index finger. Narrow, but deep, down to the bone.
'The grille. How's it look?' Eddie said through clenched teeth.
'The what?'
'The grille!'
'What grille?'
'The goddamn Rolls-Royce grille! Did I dent it? Scratch it? Tell me, Stoke. I can take it.'
'Eddie, f'crissakes, forget the grille. What the hell happened to your leg?'
'Aw, shit, Stoke. Somebody stabbed me.'
'Stabbed you?'
'Yeah. I'm bleedin' to death, here, f'crissakes,' Eddie croaked, and he looked like he might croak for real, too. Old man was in shock, his face white as a sheet, eyes dilated. And blood was seeping out of him, out of the cart, onto the grass.
Stoke pulled out his cell, punched in 911, and whipped off his belt, cradling the phone between his shoulder and his ear, waiting for an answer as he wrapped the belt tightly around Eddie's thigh just above the wound. 'C'mon, answer me, damn it…'
'Nine-one-one. What is your emergency?'
'Listen carefully. My name is-'
Eddie eyed him with a watery eye. 'Don't you hate it when they say, 'Por Espanol, press one'?'
'My name is Stokely Jones Jr., resident at Icon Brickell Towers, 495 Brickell Avenue, Brickell Key, downtown Miami. I have a stabbing victim here, deep puncture wound to the thigh, lost a lot of blood. I need both EMS and Miami-Dade Police assistance immediately.'
'Yes, sir. Could you repeat-'
'You heard me. This man needs help now. Make it happen.' He snapped his phone closed and cinched the belt tighter. The flow eased up a lot.
'Stoke, am I gonna die here?' Eddie moaned, looking up at him.
'Die? Shit, no, you ain't even about to die. I got this belt cinched above your knee. Cut off the bleeding. Ambulance on the way. You're going to be good as new. What the hell happened here, Ed? Take a deep breath and talk to me.'
'Some wacky broad, man. Trespassing on private property. I spotted her ass over there in the garden, trying to hide behind the birds-of-paradise, looking up at the building with a pair of binoculars. Asked what she wanted, she says the master key card, crazy bitch. Ow! Fuck!'
'Sorry, it has to be real tight. Hurts like a bitch, I know. Can't help it.'
'Yeah, but Jesus, Stokely.'
'What happened next?'
'I drive over here, tell her to leave. She tells me go fuck myself. Then she pulls this goddamn diamond stiletto out of her handbag, jams it in my damn knee, that's how I rammed this tree. She says gimme the key card or I make it an even pair. My fuckin' knees! What am I gonna do? I hand it over. She takes the key card and splits and- hell, I dunno, I must have passed out.'
'Diamond stiletto?'
'Yeah, the whole handle was gold, encrusted with diamonds.'
'What did she look like, Eddie?'
'She was fuckin' beautiful, that's what. Some blond babe with tits out to here, that's what she looked like. Shit! This hurts!'
Stoke heard sirens screaming in the distance. He looked at Eddie hard. The bleeding had stopped. His color was coming back. He'd live.
'Hold on, Ed.'
He ran for the entrance to his deluxe apartment in the sky.
'Stoke! Wait!' he heard Eddie screech behind him.
He stopped short and turned around. 'What?'
'Did ya get the books? Dreadful Lemon Sky?'
'Jesus, Ed. Yeah, I got the books, okay?'
