Pressure Drop Page 5

  “It means it can’t be done. Not by Carib-American, or any other reputable institution.”

  Get up, Matthias thought. Go. But he said: “On what grounds?”

  “Nate, let me be candid.” Dicky straightened his tie—fabric: silk; width: au courant; color: yellow, with pink and lavender diagonals. It could have been the tie of a regiment that had won its stripes at the Battle of Capri, or someplace like that. “I’ve always been candid with you, Nate, and I don’t want anything to change that, now or in the future.”

  Matthias thought: Future? He said: “Heaven forbid.”

  “Nate. Please. I’m trying to be candid. Let me tell you about this guy we had in here last week, a small businessman with six kids and a wife dying of cancer. I’m not making this up. We’d done business with him for twenty years and his father before him and his grandfather before that, and we still had to pull the plug.”

  Matthias waited for him to continue. When he didn’t he said: “What’s the moral of the story?”

  “The hard decisions are hard, Nate. You wouldn’t want to be in my shoes.”

  Matthias tried to see through the smoked lenses of Dicky Dumaurier’s glasses to the eyes behind. Dicky looked down at the papers on his desk, shifted them around. “It’s black and white, Nate. Even if we forget for a moment about the judgment—”

  “I plan to appeal.”

  “—we’ve still got the two mortgages and a cumulative nut of thirteen-five a month. You can’t go on like that—you haven’t got the capacity. You’ve been sinking deeper for years. So how can we talk about another note? You don’t meet the guidelines.”

  Because, Matthias thought, without the money, there would be no appeal. No appeal, no more Zombie Bay. But that wasn’t banker talk, so he said: “Bookings are picking up.”

  Dicky searched through the papers. “I’ve seen your projections for the winter. I’ve worked the numbers. Believe me, I’ve worked them. I was up till after ‘Nightline’ working them. It’s just not in the cards, Nate. I really hope things turn around. Believe me when I say we’d hate to have to foreclose.”

  “Foreclose?”

  “Don’t get me wrong, Nate. Your place is … charming. Although it’s unfortunate you’re not a tad closer to the beaten path. It wouldn’t be of much use to us at all.”

  “My condolences.”

  “Huh?” said Dicky. He licked his lips. “It would be a headache, in fact. Despite all its many, many good qualities. For us, you see. But, my goodness, I don’t have to tell you about the trials and tribulations of doing business in the islands, do I? The point is, I’m pulling for you, Nate, honestly. We all are, here at Carib-American.”

  Matthias put his hands on Dicky’s desk and leaned across it, feeling his suit jacket straining at his back and shoulders. He was aware of his size, his strength, his deep tan—acquired not because he wanted to be unfashionably dark or die of melanoma, but because he worked outdoors in a hot country—and of the Carib-American Bank, with its deathly green computer screens, its telephones that made electronic noises instead of ringing like bells, its cold air. He might as well have had a bone through his nose. “I’m glad you’re pulling for me, Dicky, really and truly glad. But if I don’t get the money, I can’t pay the lawyer. And if I can’t pay the lawyer, I lose this case by default.”

  Dicky shrank back in his padded chair. He bit his lips, first the top, then the bottom; he pursed them; he sighed again. “But we’ll still be protected, Nate, no matter what happens. Don’t you see?”

  Matthias rose. He kept his fists by his sides. “Don’t call me Nate,” he said, and walked out of Dicky Dumaurier’s office.

  “But I’ve always called you Na—that,” said Dicky, somewhere behind him. “What should I call you?”

  Friends called him Matt, but why pass that on to Dicky? Matthias strode through the gleaming lobby of the bank. He wanted to do something violent. But he was forty-four years old and a responsible citizen of two countries. So he just ripped off his necktie. He considered flinging it across the lobby, but ties don’t fling very well. He jammed it in his pocket instead.

  Matthias walked out of the bank and into white glare. A taxi materialized, like a special effect in a film about commuters in deep space. Matthias raised his hand, feeling the sweat already dampening his armpit. The taxi stopped. Matthias got in, spoke the address he wanted to the back of the driver’s head. The head nodded. The car began to move. Matthias looked out the window, saw nothing. After several blocks he realized that the driver hadn’t understood him and tried again in Spanish.

  “Perdón,” said the driver, making a violent U-turn. He glanced at Matthias in the mirror. Matthias had seen that glance before; now the driver would either leave it alone or pursue him along a line of inquiry that Matthias had gotten used to. The driver glanced at him again, cleared his throat. “Usted no me parece cubano, señor,” he said.

  “No soy,” Matthias answered.

  “Anglo?”

  “Sí.”

  “Pero usted habla español muy bien.”

  “No es tan raro.”

  “Pero habla como un cubano.”

  Matthias grunted. The driver swung into the passing lane and stepped on the gas. Traffic was heavy, but that didn’t keep his eyes from shifting to the mirror from time to time.

  “Eran uno de sus padres cubanos, señor?”

  “No.”

  The driver nodded. He had a thin neck with two prominent tendons. The tendons lengthened and shortened as he nodded, then came to rest, giving Matthias the impression that the driver’s head might be fastened insecurely to his shoulders. This image, and the driver’s questions about his past, brought back another image, recalled from long ago: an image he hadn’t wanted to see again.

  The taxi had almost reached the Grove when the driver said, “Perdón, señor, pero ha usted vivido alla?”

  “Adónde?”

  “Cuba, señor.”

  “Sí.”

  “Antes de Castro?”

  “No.”

  The taxi stopped in front of Café Martinique. Matthias paid the driver. The driver opened his mouth as if to try one more time, but all he said was, “Gracias.”

  Matthias went into the restaurant. It was packed with the lunchtime crowd, but Matthias spotted Marilyn the moment he walked through the door. She sat at a pink-covered table by the water, stretching her lips taut while she applied lipstick of the same shade. Drawing nearer, Matthias saw that Marilyn was outdoing Dorian Gray, not just retaining her beauty, but growing better looking with time. Her cheekbones seemed more prominent, the blond highlights in her hair blonder, her smooth skin smoother, her white teeth whiter. She looked like the figurative million dollars; she was probably wearing twenty thousand real ones in clothes and jewelry, although Matthias didn’t have enough experience to know for sure. That was one of the lesser reasons for the break-up of their marriage.

  Danny was sitting beside her, wearing orange-tinted sunglasses and catapulting snowpeas with his spoon. It was a trick Matthias had taught him long ago, in a moment of bad parenting: a good trick, and cute at the time, when Danny was four. But now he was almost fifteen.

  They both saw Matthias coming at the same moment, and looked up with expressions on their faces that weren’t easy to read. “Hi, Danny,” said Matthias, sitting opposite them. “Hello, Marilyn.”

  “Hi,” said Danny. He didn’t remove the orange-tinted sunglasses and he didn’t say “Dad.”

  “We went ahead without you,” Marilyn said.

  “I was delayed.”

  Marilyn studied her lips in a small oval mirror, snapped it shut and said, “I’ve got to run.” She turned to Danny. “Please be at Howie’s office no later than six, Daniel. We’re going to the Biermeyers’.” Marilyn signed the bill, picked up her Gold Card and was gone.

  Matthias looked at Danny. “Had enough to eat?”

  “Yeah.”

  “Then let’s go.”

  “Where?”


  Where. On these paternal afternoons, he and Danny had been everywhere in South Florida, from Lake Okeechobee to Marathon. “We could shoot some hoops at the Y,” Matthias said.

  “The Y?”

  “Anything wrong with the Y?”

  “I’m not into hoops.”

  “You used to like it.”

  Danny shrugged.

  “We could go to a batting cage.”

  Danny made a face.

  “Not interested in sports anymore?” Matthias asked, trying to peer through Danny’s lenses, the way he had with Dicky Dumaurier. He saw only his own broad, dark face, wearing the same baffled expression Dicky must have witnessed; except now it was orange.

  “Yeah, I am.”

  “Like what?”

  “Golf.”

  “You like golfing?”

  Danny made another face, different from the first. This was a face Matthias had seen many times before on Marilyn, but never on his son. “Not golfing,” Danny said. “Playing golf.”

  “Is there a big difference?”

  Danny said nothing. He flicked a pea off the table with his middle finger.

  “All right,” said Matthias. “Let’s go.” He smiled. “I’ll golf and you play golf.” It wasn’t much of a joke, and Danny couldn’t be blamed for not smiling too. “Do you have any course in mind?”

  “I play at Turnberry Island.”

  “Good enough,” said Matthias, rising.

  Danny remained seated. “You have to be a member.”

  “Are you?”

  “Howie is. He arranges everything.” The orange lenses were directed at Matthias’s face. He thought of the chain gang boss from Cool Hand Luke. “Maybe I’ll call him and see if it’s okay,” Danny said.

  Matthias sat down. “Who’s Howie?”

  “Howie? You know. Howie.”

  “I don’t.”

  “He’s Mom’s …”

  Matthias watched his orange face react to this information, in duplicate. “Dessert?” a waiter said.

  Matthias shook his head.

  They found a driving range near the airport. Matthias hadn’t held a club in thirty years, not since his last summer as a caddy. Now, standing on a pad next to Danny’s, Matthias felt his hands take the driver in the right grip all by themselves. He watched Danny tee up. The boy took no practice swings, stood over his ball, hit it. His swing wasn’t bad, but he took the club back a little too fast, and his head came up a little too soon. The ball, topped, but not by much, whistled off on low trajectory, dove to the ground and rolled to the 100-yard marker.

  “Fuck,” Danny said.

  He quickly teed up another ball, took less time, hooked it low and left across the range. “Fuck,” he said, reaching for another ball. This time his head came up right away and he squibbed the ball a few yards to the right. “Fuck.” He reached into the ball basket, teed up. Matthias saw that the ball was even with the wrong heel, his right one, and that he was standing too close to it.

  “Why don’t you take a few practice swings?” he said.

  But Danny was already into a jerky backswing; this time he barely touched the ball. It fell off the tee, rolled to the edge of the rubber pad, hesitated for a long second, then dropped on the burnt grass. Danny rounded on him: “Don’t you know enough to shut up while a golfer’s addressing the ball?”

  Matthias looked down on him. If this were my kid, he started to think, I’d pull him off the course. But Danny was his kid. Matthias turned away.

  A few pads beyond him, a well-dressed old woman was watching. She quickly bent over her ball and stroked it smooth and straight beyond the 150-yard marker.

  On the other side, Danny took another furious swing and whiffed. “Fucking shit.”

  “Relax, Danny, it’s not—”

  “Don’t talk while I’m playing,” the boy yelled. He swung a few more times, missed, banged the club hard on the rubber pad, kicked the ball basket and stomped away. Balls fanned out slowly across the grass.

  Matthias picked one up. He set it on the tee, stood over it and took the club head back. All at once he saw the ball with great clarity: a moon with sharp-edged dimples in its northern hemisphere and shadow-filled ones in the southern. He hadn’t intended to hit it very hard, but somewhere on the downswing he changed his mind. The ball landed beyond the 300-yard marker and bounced over the metal fence at the end of the driving range. He felt better for a moment.

  “Bravo,” said the old woman. And the moment was over.

  Danny was talking on a pay phone. He hung up as Matthias approached. Sweat was running down his face, but he seemed calmer. “What would you like to do, Danny?” Matthias asked.

  “When I grow up, you mean?”

  “I meant right now. But when you grow up will do.”

  “Investment banking,” Danny said. “Or maybe commercial real estate.”

  There was a multiscreen cinema across the highway. Alone in a little screening room, Matthias and Danny watched a comedy in which Dabney Coleman played twins separated at birth. One becomes an encyclopedia salesman, the other head of the KGB. The CIA finds out and sends Encyclopedia Dabney on a mission to Moscow. There are complications. KGB Dabney has a wife and a mistress who, et cetera et cetera. It was funny when Dabney Coleman was on the screen. The rest of the time, Matthias stole glances at Danny, who had taken off his orange glasses. By the flickering light from the screen, Danny looked much older than he had on Matthias’s last visit. Perhaps it was just the way he watched the movie, and the jokes he laughed at. His childhood was almost over. Matthias tried to picture him as an investment banker and easily could.

  After the movie they took a taxi downtown. “Any plans for a visit before school?” Matthias said. “Rafer’s always asking about you.”

  “Who’s Rafer?”

  “Moxie’s son.”

  “Oh yeah.” Silence. Danny’s head turned to follow a big limo going the other way.

  “How about it?”

  “I don’t know,” Danny said. “We might be going to Greece for a few weeks.”

  “That’ll be fun.”

  “You’ve been there?”

  “No. But it sounds like fun.”

  “Yeah.” The taxi stopped in front of a tall glass building. Danny opened the door. “Do you know where to go?” Matthias asked.

  “The penthouse,” Danny said. “I’ve been here lots of times.” He paused with his hand on the door, about to say something. For a second Matthias let himself think that Danny was reconsidering Greece. “How’s your case going?” Danny said.

  “We’re still in there pitching,” Matthias said. “Nothing’s going to happen for a while, if you were thinking of coming down.”

  “It’s not that. It’s—it’s just that they say you haven’t got a chance.”

  “Who says?”

  “Mom. And Howie.”

  “What does Howie do?”

  “He’s a shrink.”

  Matthias wondered if Marilyn’s relationship with him had begun on a professional basis. He kept the thought to himself. “I’m not sure that qualifies him as an expert on Bahamian law.”

  “Howie’s an expert on everything. He’s got a mind like a computer.”

  “That’s nice.” Danny put one foot on the ground. Matthias held out his hand. “Call me when you get back from Greece.” They shook hands goodbye. For a moment, Matthias felt the man-boy hand in his. Then it was gone.

  “There’s his car,” Danny said. A red Porsche emerged from the parking garage beside the tall building. The attendant hopped out and held the door. A man walked swiftly out of the building and got into the car. Danny ran over to it, jumped in the other side. The man didn’t look at him.

  Matthias stepped out of the taxi and found himself walking over to the Porsche. He heard Danny saying, “Sorry if I’m late.”

  “‘Sorry’ won’t get us there any faster,” said the man in the driver’s seat.

  Matthias put his hands on the roof a
nd leaned into Danny’s window. “He’s not late. It’s five minutes to six.”

  The man looked at him. He wore orange glasses identical to Danny’s. “Who’s this?” he said.

  “My father,” Danny answered.

  “Dr. Howie Nero,” said the man. “Pleased to meet you, but we’ve got to run.”

  Matthias kept his hands off the car. He took in Dr. Howie Nero’s diamond ring, tan suit, lime green open-collared shirt. He reached into his pocket, pulled out the necktie and tossed it in Howie’s lap.

  “What the hell is this?” Howie said.

  7

  “Let’s get polluted,” yelled someone in the back of the plane. The flight from Miami to Nassau lasts forty-seven minutes but it was long enough, as Matthias had often observed, for tourists to get the pollution process well under way. They were itching to check into the hotels of Paradise Island or West Bay Street, where a getaway world of booze, smoke and sex with partners whose names they didn’t always get straight was waiting just for them: the sheets were being changed at that very moment. There were no raised voices on the return flights.

  The plane banked between two thunderheads, descended over water that changed abruptly from deep indigo to translucent green, glided over a narrow stretch of scrubland and jack pine and landed at the airport. The door opened. Hot, moist air came in. Hot, moist four-day-three-nighters went out. They filed unknowingly past the empty corner in the terminal where Blind Blake had played his banjo for so many years and into the long lines at the immigration booths. Matthias went to the booth with no lines, marked RETURNING RESIDENTS. “Nice trip, Mr. Matthias?” asked the immigration officer, waving him through.

  In the parking lot, two shirtless boys, ten or eleven, were eyeing his Yamaha 535. “You boys don’t want this old thing,” he said, climbing on and starting the engine. “Too slow.” They giggled. Matthias drove off.

  The bottom of the sun was just touching the horizon when Matthias leaned into the turn at Love Beach and rode through the feathery shadows of the casuarinas. The sun wobbled at the impact, as though it had really been made of Jell-O all the time, and quickly slipped away. A minute later the sea, which had been a caldron of red and gold, went black. By the time Matthias reached the downtown part of Bay Street, the sky, which had been a pastel version of the sea, had blackened too, and a round white moon had risen over the low roofs of the shops and office buildings.