Stick Page 17

  Stick glanced over. Kyle didn’t move. Now Barry was looking at his newspaper again and Stick wondered if he was dismissed. He didn’t want to leave, he hadn’t learned anything yet.

  Barry said, “I think Enzo Biochem’s looking good. Up from six and a quarter to twenty-three.” He turned to Kyle. “What do you think, babe?”

  Kyle said, sleepy or bored, still without moving, “Nothing in the field of biotechnology has been brought to market. You’re trading in names and numbers. They could be making cat food or you could be playing Keno for all it has to do with product.” She said, even more slowly, “You don’t need me for that.”

  Barry lowered his sunglasses and ducked his head looking over them. “Babe? What’s the matter?”

  “Nothing”

  It seemed that was all she was going to say.

  Stick said, “I heard about a dental faith healer, he straightens your teeth and fills cavities with gold in the name of Jesus. That come under biotechnology?”

  Kyle opened her eyes.

  “You’re putting me on,” Barry said. “Come on, you serious? A dental faith healer? The age of specialization, man.”

  “At the Church of the Healing Grace,” Stick said. He watched Kyle get up from the lounge.

  “That’s where you’ve been?” Barry said. “You get your teeth capped or what? Lemme see. Babe, you hear this? . . . Where you going?”

  “Home.”

  “You mean home home?”

  “No, my room”—waving him off with a tired gesture—”I’ll see you later.” Not looking at either of them as she walked around the deep end of the pool and headed for the tennis court. They both watched her. Barry said, “Look at those lovely long legs. They go right up to her brain, without any stops along the way.”

  Stick didn’t say anything.

  Kyle put on shorts and a tennis shirt and left the guest house with no purpose but to walk, feel herself doing something physical. She walked past hedges and walls that enclosed the wealth of the kind of people she counseled, walked east to the Atlantic Ocean, a neutral ground, and took off her sneakers to wander an empty stretch of shoreline.

  She had said to her dad, “The money’s great, but there’s no satisfaction. I want to do something, see tangible results.” He told her to drop her start-up companies going public and get back on the Board quick, for the upswing. She said to her dad, “Do you know what I wanted to be when I was little? A cop . . . No, not ever a nurse or a nun.” She had played guns with her brothers and baseball in Central Park and at school in Boston, the boys amazed she didn’t throw like a girl. She side-armed snowballs at cops in ’69 demonstrating on the Commons, knit scarf flying, nose running, perspiring in her pea-coat, drinking beer after and smoking pot; into living. Now: “There’s no excitement anymore. I watch. I’m a spectator.”

  Her dad said get married, raise a family. When she felt like trading, pick up the phone.

  “Who do I marry?”

  Lot of bright young guys on the Street to choose from, share a common interest.

  Like dating sociology majors at school: have something to talk about. Except that textbook conversations ran out of gas and when they took the Orange Line to Dudley Station and prowled through Roxbury she found she could not study “real people” statistically: they were in a life that made hers seem innocent make-believe. Still, she was drawn to the street, fascinated, feeling a rapport she didn’t understand.

  Kyle had brought that home from school and her dad said there was the Street and there was the street. One was neither more real nor unreal than the other. Kyle said, except one was concocted, invented in the name of commerce; while the other was concerned with existence, degrees of survival. She would talk about social and economic inequalities and watch her dad doze off in his chair.

  Today there was still a distinction in her mind. Comparing her Street with the ghetto street—or with rural, suburban or industrial streets, for that matter—she felt insulated, left out of life. She dealt in paper, in notes, contracts, certificates, coupons, with a self-conscious feeling of irrelevance.

  On her recent trip home Kyle said to her dad, “I think I want to get into manufacturing, make something.”

  “Like what?”

  “I don’t know, it’s down the road. Maybe something in genetic engineering.”

  “Pie in the sky. You want to be realistic, buy a stamping plant in Detroit and go out of your mind that way.”

  “Or get into a service business that deals with people who need help on a survival level.”

  “The public defender complex. I thought you got over that in Boston.”

  “You’ve got an answer for everything, haven’t you?”

  “I hope to God I do,” her dad said. “But if you’re serious, why don’t you make a lot of money in the market, then open a home for cute little nigger kids the Junior League ladies can dress up and take to the zoo? Would that make you happy?”

  Her dad had not been entertained by the Chucky stories. Or, he’d refused to accept the fact his daughter had a drug dealer as a client, put it out of his mind without comment. Now, if she told him she’d gone to bed with a man who’d served seven years for armed robbery . . . (The failure to bring it off with skyrockets was beside the point.) On second thought her dad might accept Ernest Stickley the ex-con—once he knew him—and still disapprove of their sleeping together. It wasn’t a subject you discussed with parents, at least not comfortably. She had lived with a premed student in Boston for a year and a lawyer on and off in New York for a year and a half; her parents had been aware of both, without a word of comment.

  Getting involved with Ernest Stickley, Jr., from Norman, Oklahoma, by way of a state penitentiary—God—previewed what could be an entirely new experience. She liked him. She liked to talk to him and felt good with him. At this moment she missed him. He appeared to be predictable, but wasn’t the least bit. The dental faith healer . . . She had left because she was tired of hearing Barry’s voice and was certain he’d take over and do all the dental-faith-healer possibilities to death, without restraint. Which was one of Stick’s strong points, his control, patience, without—thank God—putting on a show of being cool. They had been natural together in bed, both at ease, in sort of a dreamy nod. It was great. Until, maybe, he began to think too much and his male ego got him worrying about performing, being a star, instead of simply letting it happen. Her dad might call it the unfortunate stud syndrome, self-emasculation through anxiety. But that’s all the analysis she was going to give it. Feeling good with him and close to him was enough for the time being. The boy-girl aspect would take care of itself.

  What might require work would be getting him out of that chauffeur’s uniform and into a business suit. But why not? He had the potential, he certainly caught on fast enough. Why not help him get started? Not think of it as rehabilitation, like she was going to straighten out his life. Though it was an intriguing idea: from armed robber to investment counselor. Forget the gun, Stickley, there’s an easier way to make it. No, just help him out, gradually.

  Her dad would call it latent motherhood.

  Crossing Collins Avenue on the way back she noticed the van parked off the road by a clump of seagrape, standing alone. She could make out a man’s head and shoulders through the windshield, a cowboy hat, and thought of Chucky’s unbelievable friend Eddie Moke.

  Kyle began to jog, just in case: in past the gate-house and for several blocks, letting the perspiration sting her eyes, thighs aching now as she turned the corner and came along Bali Way. It was not until she saw the black limousine that she broke stride and slowed to a walk, catching her breath. The car stood at the entrance to Barry’s driveway, a figure hunched over next to it. As she approached, the figure straightened, looking toward her. It was Stick. The car started up and came past her, a uniformed chauffeur at the wheel, alone in the car. Stick waited, starting to smile.

  “You run in weather like this, Emma, you know what happens?”

&
nbsp; “What?” She touched the sleeve of her T-shirt to her forehead. Emma. She had forgot about that part of last night.

  “You die,” Stick said. They started up the drive together, the blacktop soft underfoot. He said, “I just made nine hundred dollars. Not all from that one. The word’s gotten around. He’s my third customer; they call and stop by.”

  “I’m afraid to ask what you’re selling.”

  “Guess.”

  “Not dope . . . Are you?”

  “I never was into that. No, tips on the market. I’m a Wall Street tout, unless there’s another name for it.”

  She said, “Nine hundred dollars?”

  “Two hundred up front for a hot one about to take off, like Ranco. And I sold some over-the-counter stuff for fifty bucks each.”

  “Nine hundred dollars?”

  “Cash, flat-rate deal, Em. I haven’t figured out yet how to charge a percentage or if I should.”

  “Well, first you need a license.” She was aware of the trace of amazement still in her voice. Now it was Em, like last night, familiar.

  “I think I could even make up names of phony companies, they’d buy ’em. They’ve got that much faith in Barry. They think he’s a wizard, up from boy wonder. They think you give him inside information, but he’s the one who picks the winners. And you know what, he loves it. He said sell ’em anything you want.”

  They passed from sunlight into the shade of malaleucas and hibiscus lining the drive, the blacktop hard and firm now.

  “So I guess what it comes down to,” Stick said, “selling’s pretty easy if you have what people want. Is that it?”

  She was recovering. “They don’t even have to want it,” Kyle said. “They only have to believe they’d be fools to pass it up.”

  Barry called to them as they were crossing the terrace, walking away from the house. “Hey, where you going with my driver?”

  He appeared out of a dark archway of the morning room—where his wife had stood in moonlight. Stick saw her again with a wince of guilt, a minor tug that was losing its edge.

  Barry came out to the grass. “Stickley, I got a favor to ask. Guy’s coming in from New York, five something. You want to go meet him?” Barry stood with one arm raised straight up, wrist bent, finger pointing somewhere beyond Biscayne Bay.

  “It’s my day off.”

  “I know it is. I’m not telling you to pick the guy up, I’m asking you.”

  “What if I wasn’t here?” Stick said.

  Kyle took a few aimless steps away and turned back, to be able to watch both of them.

  “If you weren’t here,” Barry said, “then I’d have to pick him up myself or get Cornell, but you’re here. I can see you, you’re standing right there.” Barry pointed. “That’s you, isn’t it?”

  “Since it’s my day off,” Stick said, “I think it should be the same as I’m not here. Otherwise what good’s a day off?”

  “Jesus Christ,” Barry said, “all I’m asking you to do is go to the fucking airport and pick somebody up. Take you maybe an hour and a half. Here—” He stepped back into the morning room and reappeared holding a rectangle of white cardboard, a shirt stiffener, that said in black Magic Marker mr. leo firestone. “You hold this up as the passengers come off the flight. You don’t even have to say anything.”

  Stick looked at Barry holding the sign against his chest. “I don’t think I could do that.”

  Kyle said, “I couldn’t either.”

  Barry said, “Whatta you mean you don’t think you could do it? You don’t do anything, you hold the fucking sign up, that’s all.”

  Stick said, “You asking me if I want to do it?”

  “As a favor, yeah.”

  “If you’re giving me a choice,” Stick said, “then I pass. I think you should handle it as if I’m not here. Okay?” He turned to Kyle. She shrugged and they started off across the terrace. Barry yelled at them, “I don’t believe it!” but they kept going.

  Kyle said, “Instead of trying to get fired, why don’t you just quit?”

  “I’m not trying to get fired.” Stick seemed a little surprised. “You know him—he eats that up. Gives him something to tell his friends, act it out.”

  She said, “You’re right, he’ll work it into an I-don’t-get-no-respect routine. But it’s still chancy, meeting him head to head like that.”

  “You give in too easy. He picks your brain to pieces and you let him. You have to act like you don’t need him.”

  “I don’t,” Kyle said, “but I like him. I’m not sure why exactly . . .”

  “Well, you’re in a position you know what you’re doing, you can afford to let him take advantage of you. I’m still feeling around, learning a few things . . .”

  “Fast,” Kyle said.

  “Doing some thinking . . .”

  “Maybe I can help you.”

  “I bet you can, Em. Who’s Leo Firestone?”

  A horn blared loud behind the van parked in the seagrape and Moke jumped, lifted the curled brim from his eyes to check the outside mirror.

  Nestor’s car, the Fleetwood Caddy.

  Well, now they were getting someplace. Moke got out and walked back on the driver’s side, away from the road, hunching as the Cadillac window went down fast, automatically, and there was Avilanosa, with no expression but an odor of garlic that hit Moke in the face and he tried not to breathe.

  “We going to take flowers,” Avilanosa said.

  “Shit,” Moke said, “bust through the gate. All they got there’s a rent-a-cop.”

  “We going to take flowers,” Avilanosa said. “Nestor talk to Chucky, Chucky say he talk to the man lives there. He say the man is going to leave pretty soon.”

  Moke straightened, restless, fooled with his hat and hunched over again. “Why don’t we just go in? Me and you.”

  “Listen to me,” Avilanosa said. “The guy will be there alone he thinks, in the garage where he lives. We take him away from here to do it. They have business. You understand? So they don’t want police to come and bother them.”

  “Business? Jeez-us Christ, what’s business got to do with it?” He saw the window start to rise. “Wait! You bring my piece?”

  The window stopped for a moment. “I give it to you later,” Avilanosa said, “when I come back.”

  17

  KYLE GAVE STICK THE PROSPECTUS to look over while she showered, telling him, “This is what a film offering looks like. It describes what you have to invest to become a limited partner and how you share in the profits, if and when.”

  “They all do it this way, make movies?”

  “The independents do. Then they go to one of the major studios and try to make a distribution deal.”

  He sat on the guest-house patio turning pages, trying to get a quick idea of what it was about. There was a story synopsis—he read some of it—also names of actors he recognized; but most of it looked like a legal contract or a subpoena, or the kind of words you’d see in a small-print moneyback guarantee and skip over.

  The prospectus was spiral-bound, the size of a nine-by-twelve notebook with about sixty pages in it. The embossed plastic cover read:

  FIRESTONE ENTERPRISES

  PRESENTS A

  LEO NORMAN FIRESTONE PRODUCTION

  “SHUCK & JIVE”

  He was interested but the legal tone stopped him and he didn’t feel like concentrating. He would look off at the bright expanse of Miami—a postcard picture with sailboats and seagulls—but aware of Kyle’s bedroom, its sliding glass doors right behind him. Kyle in there now where they’d been last night. Coming out of the shower, slipping on her skimpy white panties . . . Neither of them had mentioned last night. Everything seemed to be moving along fine, so he sure wasn’t going to bring it up. The best thing to do with failure, put it out of your mind.

  Kyle didn’t take long. She came out in a sundress, barefoot, with a tray that held a bucket of ice, a bottle of Dewar’s and glasses—this girl didn’t fool around—
and placed the tray on the patio table. She asked him what he thought of the movie deal, beginning to pour drinks.

  “This isn’t the tire company—buy now and look for a takeover, is it?”

  “No, no relation. This is Leo Firestone, Hollywood film producer. It says. His credits are in there.”

  “I saw them. I mean I saw the list, but I must’ve missed the pictures when they came out. I never heard of any of them.”

  “You didn’t see Gringo Guns? About five years ago.”

  “I was in prison.”

  “You were lucky. He did one of those, too. Big House Breakout. But he’s best known for The Cowboy and the Alien.”

  Stick turned to a page in the prospectus. “This Shuck and Jive . . . ‘the hilarious escapades of a couple of undercover narcotics agents’ . . . is he serious?”

  “Two and a half million,” Kyle said, “that’s fairly serious. It’s also zany, with riveting suspense and sizzling love.”

  He turned a few more pages. “Mostly, all I see is a lot of legal stuff.”

  “It describes the company, who the general partners are and their background, the risk factors, a budget estimate, a distribution plan . . .” She handed Stick a drink and sat down in a canvas director’s chair with her own. “You’ll see a tax opinion that runs about ten pages I think Leo Firestone’s brother-in-law must’ve written. The story synopsis—you saw that—and some of the Hollywood stars Leo expects to sign.”

  “What you’re telling me,” Stick said, “this isn’t your idea. You didn’t bring Leo in.”

  “No, Barry ran into him somewhere, I think Bimini, and now Barry wants to be in the movie business. He thinks Leo is an extremely talented guy.”

  “Have you met him?”

  “Not yet, but I can hardly wait. I told Barry months ago I’d shop a film venture for him if he was interested; they come along all the time. But the way Barry operates, he decides he wants to go now, he goes. He told Firestone he’d round up as many investors as he needed, with their checkbooks, and sit them down for the pitch. Leo must’ve kissed him.”