Queen of the Underworld Page 3

  It was a yacht, a fairly big one named Dixie Naiad, with three middle-aged people, two men and a woman, in skimpy bathing suits that would have been obscene without their tans. They wore big-brimmed yellow rain hats. I could feel how the downpour gave them a thrill of empowerment, like having a playful servant-god overturning buckets on their sleek brown bodies when they were all but naked anyway. I could hear the loud hollow rain plops as they would sound from inside the hats, and yet their hairdos would still be in place for dinner. They could no longer eat anything they wanted but were making a pretty good effort to keep in shape, considering they probably docked at a five-star restaurant every night. A married couple and a friend? The husband’s friend or brother? The wife’s secret lover? All we knew about Tess’s calamity was that she had fallen in love with her husband’s much-younger brother. If she had been more cunning, would she now be aboard her husband’s yacht, with the young brother along for the ride and still in the picture, all three keeping their secrets to themselves under their matching rain hats?

  Now they were waving to someone on shore, or else just generally waving, as the passing privileged tend to do, whenever envious peons might be looking on. If that striking Cuban family I’d seen in the lobby happened to be looking out at this same view from their room, their hearts could well be aching for some lovely yacht of their own left behind in Cuba. Or maybe they had come over in it, and were expecting, like so many others, that Fidel would bite the dust any minute, so they could go back and reclaim their usurped lives. Yes, amigos, wave and pass through, the Cuban father or mother might be saying inwardly in Spanish to the Dixie Naiad crew, you never know what turn of fortune waits to capsize you round the next bend.

  Patas were the feet of an animal; pies the feet of people. The Cuban woman had been reading the little girl Platero and I, and I had recognized it! My mother had once worn a pillbox hat with a veil like that. How could I have been so stupid as to have sent my Spanish-English dictionary back to Mountain City?

  I washed my hair and set it on rollers to get the curl out of it so I could loop it into the sleek French twist Paul liked. I then settled back onto propped-up pillows in my Julia Tuttle bed, which was an old-fashioned double—in other words, hardly more than a single—with a real headboard and footboard. All the furniture in this room could have come straight from my grandmother’s. Whatever “renovations” the owner had carried out must have applied only to the bigger rooms or those overlooking the bay, though my light blue walls did have the look and the smell of a recent paint job.

  I flipped to the back pages of the “Go, Tar Heels!” notebook and reviewed the notes I’d been collecting on recent top stories in the Miami Star. I don’t know quite what I expected, my first day of work: some sort of quiz, perhaps.

  Name the most important news developments of international significance in the last three months.

  Well, of course, everyone knows the Reds want us out of West Berlin and they’re threatening to spoil the Geneva Conference; and Castro’s “Robin Hood” land grabs continue to bring joy to the peasants and fury to the likes of Arthur Vining Davis; and Venezuela and all sorts of other people are arming Nicaraguan rebels. And on the home front Eleanor Roosevelt in her syndicated column, “My Day,” scolds Washington for its lack of both imagination and breadth of world vision and declares herself frustrated by the Democratic congressional leaders’ “want of comprehension about the real needs of the world.” And Governor Earl Long of Louisiana, shouting hog calls and obscenities, is committed, released, and returned to the mental hospital.

  Also, I was hoarding for the opportune moment of newsroom repartee an AP wire story buried inside the June 1 Miami Star about Castro’s plans to tax the society pages in Havana’s newspapers: $1 per item, $1 per adjective, $5 for each square inch of photograph of a person mentioned in a story, and $100 for each title of nobility of a Cuban national mentioned in a story.

  I could hear myself remarking casually to a fellow reporter, perhaps to the city editor himself, “Better watch my adjectives, Castro’s charging a dollar apiece for them now.”

  After reviewing these notes, I flipped back to the pristine first page of the notebook, which had been awaiting this moment, and entered the date, time, and place of composition, including my room number, 510. After announcing my arrival in Miami, I listed a few impressions, including Tess’s continued good looks and the elegant displaced Cuban family in the lobby, and gave myself a pep talk about what I intended to accomplish at the Star.

  I then switched over into my Paul-cryptography, worked out over the past year of our secret liaison, so that should these or any similar jottings fall into an interloper’s hands, he or she would assume that the diarist was deliberately switching from reportage into the continuation of a fantasy romance between a distinguished alien from another world and the young protégée he has been sent to protect and instruct so that she can fulfill her destiny.

  In this installment, the young woman is anticipating a reunion with her alien guardian-lover and, in her impatience to be joined with him after a separation of six months, frequently crosses the line into purple prose. The interloper could either hop aboard the passion train or watch it go by and scoff, “What a caprice! Of course, this could never happen in real life.”

  AS I expected, Paul called from the house phone in the lobby at exactly seven, and I gathered up my raincoat and purse and went down.

  He was in on the secret of my extreme nearsightedness and had positioned himself near the elevator so I would see him without having to gawk, but not close enough so I would collide with him when I stepped out.

  I walked toward the dark blur in evening suit and tie, savoring his gradual materialization from elegant shadow into my fully focused Paul Nightingale with his tawny skin, Saracen features, impeccably barbered salt-and-pepper hair, and the four slashes of wrinkles—two horizontal, two vertical, like the beginning of a tic-tac-toe game—in the middle of his forehead. Finally the little gold tie pin, his logo, took on its familiar nightingale shape at about the same time his special cologne kicked in, and, though he was practicing his usual custody of the eyes, I felt the pulse-quickening jolt of being desired in all my details.

  We were being noticed by the few others in the lobby. A group of men in those pleated smocklike shirts that I would learn to call guayaberas played dominoes at a table in the corner while listening to a Spanish-language station on their transistor radio. Behind the front desk where morose Luís had been stationed earlier, a square-chinned young man in blazer and someplace’s school tie sat on a high stool reading a hardcover book. He looked up and gave us a polite nod as we went by. Paul nodded in return.

  I saw us through their eyes: a suave Jewish man somewhere in his forties, and a queenly young woman in a well-fitting black dress with dark blond hair coiled up and away from her neck. Father and daughter? Too different in coloration, unless she’s an adopted daughter. But there’s a charged reticence between them that isn’t at all familial. They could be two spies on a joint mission; but most likely, in this setting, she’s his young mistress.

  “IT’S BEEN a long time since Christmas.” Paul’s first words once we were alone in the car.

  “It sure has.”

  “You’re looking extremely well.”

  “So are you.”

  “Thank you, we try. You hungry?”

  “I’ve been saving up all day.”

  “In that case, should we zip straight up Biscayne and cross over at Broad Causeway? That’s the fastest.”

  “No, let’s go the slow way, beside the ocean. I prefer to spin out my pleasures when I know they’re finally in reach.”

  He laughed softly and reached over to cover my hand with his, the first time he had touched me since Christmas. His cologne, concocted for him by his aunt Stella, who had a thriving custom-perfume business on Miami Beach, enfolded me with its many associations dating back to last summer when I began waiting tables at the Nightingale Inn and realized I
was falling in love with the owner.

  Though it was drizzling and almost dusk, I could make out the bobbing lights of ships in their sea-lanes and they convinced me I was finally here, with both the job and the man I most desired.

  “Now this was your aunt who fixed you up at the Julia Tuttle?”

  “No, my mother’s college roommate, but I guess Tess is the nearest thing I’ve got to an aunt.”

  “The one who works for the Cuban dentist. That figures.”

  “Why? Is there something wrong with the hotel?”

  “On the contrary. How much are they charging you?”

  “A hundred and three dollars a month.”

  “And the Star’s starting you off at what, two hundred? You should be able to make it. With a few devoted friends feeding you regularly. No, her Cuban connection got you a good deal is all I meant. If you think Jews are notorious for sticking together, wait till you get to know some Cubans. That was your manager on the desk, Alex de Costa.”

  “That boy with the book? But he’s so young!”

  “A kid like you. Fresh out of Harvard, with some degree that has nothing to do with business. International Literature, something like that. The grandfather is Cuban-American, a real estate baron. The Julia Tuttle’s just a handy sideline of his.”

  “For what?”

  “His Coral Gables empire. All these exiles are going to be either renting or buying homes, depending on which way the wind blows down in Castro-land. The ones who weren’t able to bring out their money, he lets them run up a tab at Julia’s. Like the old company store. Whether they go back or stay, they’ll be beholden.”

  “Do you know this grandfather de Costa?”

  “His name’s Prieto, Prieto y Portes in full. When you get to work tomorrow, have some savvy person escort you through the maze of Cuban monickers. All the surnames and compound names, it’s a wild ride. The mother’s name usually gets tacked on at the end. No, I’ve never met Prieto, he stays mostly out of the picture up in Palm Beach, but all of us in the tourist trade get the scuttlebutt. During the season when we’re open, young Alex slips over to Nightingale’s whenever he can and has a quiet game of cards upstairs.”

  “You know him?”

  “He’s a paid-up member of my club.”

  “But you two barely nodded to each other!”

  “He needs his hideaway same as everyone else.”

  The parade of beachfront hotels soon began, starting with the old three- and four-story stucco dowagers with their wraparound corners accented in neon colors, where Paul had first washed dishes, then waited tables, in the pre–World War II years when he couldn’t aspire to managerial positions in those restricted establishments. In those days, there were still signs saying “No Dogs or Jews” on Miami Beach lawns.

  Then past the Blue Flamingo Apartments for retirees, formerly the Army-requisitioned Blue Flamingo Hotel managed by Corporal Paul Nightingale for the duration of the war (a satisfied general staying overnight had told Paul he had a rare gift for hospitality), and on into the neon sparkle of Collins Avenue where, after being demobilized, Paul had worked his way up through the management levels of ever newer—and now unrestricted—hotels, perfecting the art of treating tourists like millionaires for two weeks, until he decided to start his own nightclub where locals like himself could feel pampered and welcome.

  Then came the taller sweeping curves of the debutante edifices with their movie-set interiors and cutthroat competition. The owner of the Fontainebleau, Paul had told me, had built a fourteen-story addition to shut out the afternoon sun from the rival Eden Roc’s cabana next door.

  And then on north into Paul’s territory, where stretches of lonely beach could still be glimpsed between the most recently constructed hotels.

  “So, what’s your pleasure, darling?” Paul inquired as we entered Bal Harbour. “Should we repeat our Christmas routine or head straight for the Ivanhoe? It depends on how hungry you are.”

  “Let’s keep our traditions intact and go to the Americana bar first.”

  “Their dry martinis won’t knock you out after your long day?”

  “My ‘long day’ has mostly been spent resting up for you on my bed at the Julia Tuttle after a good night’s sleep on the train.”

  Before Paul, I would never have admitted such a thing to a man I cared about.

  “Tell me something, Emma.” On the rare occasion when he used my name, it still sent a jolt through my system.

  “What?”

  “How is it you’re always better than I remember?”

  “WE’LL START with two dry Beefeaters straight up with a twist, and then in ten minutes if you’ d bring us two shrimp cocktails.”

  “Certainly, sir.”

  You could tell from the way Paul placed orders that he was imagining ahead for both of you just when you’d be ready for what. Ten minutes would be exactly the right amount of time for two or three slow sips of gin to dilate our receptor channels and enhance the savoring of our reunion. How I loved our preliminaries in these dark tropical spaces with their fantasy settings: a ship, an island, a medieval castle, even the inside of an airplane.

  Paul nudged a flat silver case from an inside pocket, narrowing his eyes at a waiter as he flicked it open. Only when he was coaxing a cigarette from the case with exaggerated slowness did the waiter dart forward with a lighter.

  “Three out of ten?” I suggested as soon as the waiter was out of earshot.

  “Nope, he should have jumped the moment he saw the case. But we’ll give him your three because he recognized his mistake and because I’m happy tonight.”

  A stickler for anticipating his guests’ needs, Paul was merciless with his staff at both his establishments, the Nightingale Inn in North Carolina and P. Nightingale’s, his club in Bal Harbour.

  In my first week of waiting tables at the Inn last summer, Paul suddenly appeared beside me as I was complacently folding napkins at my station for the next meal.

  “The garbage on the Cohen table is piling up,” my boss coldly murmured.

  I then saw to my alarm that all four Cohens had their knives and forks aligned down the centers of their entrée plates, on which there were hardly any remains, certainly nothing big enough to qualify as “garbage.” But there was a stone in my chest as I cleared away their dishes. The friendly Cohens seemed not to have noticed my lapse, chattering on throughout the removals and sending me amused, affectionate smiles. The first night of their stay I had won their hearts by being the good-natured goy-butt of their joke. Mr. Cohen, the father, had asked me to see if the chef had any of that “good kosher ham,” and I had dashed off to the kitchen and learned what was what. “Chef’s fresh out of kosher ham tonight, sir,” I came back to report, keeping the chef’s annoyed outburst to myself, “but the brisket of beef comes highly recommended.”

  The stone lay on my heart for the remainder of the evening, because it was the first time my boss, with whom I was already in love, had found fault with me.

  “I’M PUTTING in an upstairs kitchen at the club,” Paul reported as we sliced into our medium-rare New York strip sirloins in the Knight Room at the Ivanhoe.

  “For your private use?”

  “That’s what it says on the building permit. No need to raise the commissioners’ hackles. My cardplayers tend to get hungry at three in the morning. Next season I’ll be able to provide them with a short-order menu and a cook on call, just like the country clubs.”

  Beach gambling had been wiped out by Kefauver, Paul had explained to me, but Nightingale’s was just as much a private club as the Surf, Bath, Indian Creek, or La Gorce, and if some dues-paying members wanted to get together in an upstairs room for a party of high-stakes bridge or poker, it was going to be harder to put the finger on them than on guests paying calls on a bookie in a hotel room.

  “It’ll mean frequent commutes over the summer. I’ll be flying up to Carolina tomorrow to help Bev and Aunt Stella open the Inn, but I plan to be back here by Thurs
day evening to celebrate your birthday.”

  “That would be wonderful, but—”

  “You’ve made other plans.”

  “No, but, I mean, won’t it seem odd? Fly up there on Monday and leave again on Thursday?”

  “Why? I’ve got to keep an eye on my contractor.”

  “But won’t you be missed?”

  “I flatter myself to believe I’d be more missed here.”

  That was the closest we came to “discussing our situation.” Paul was my first married man as well as my first Jewish man; he was also twenty years older, and I took my etiquette cues from him. From the beginning, he had included his wife, Bev, in our conversations: Bev had said this, Bev had done that, though never anything about their private life. After a while it felt to me that the three of us made up a sort of unusual family, although Bev didn’t know about this family. Meanwhile, she was joint owner of the Inn in Carolina and of P. Nightingale’s in Bal Harbour. She had shared Paul’s life for almost as long as I had been in this world.

  I had gotten to know and admire her myself last summer after she had recovered from her hysterectomy in Miami and returned to the Nightingale Inn. When Paul brought her back from the airport and she emerged from the station wagon with her cloud of smoky-platinum hair, I thought of Kim Novak in Vertigo, but up close Bev was a smaller, finer-boned creature, and her speech was quick and mocking, a total opposite to the dreamy Novak style. Her feet were so sexy and perfect they drove me to despair, making me want to hide my own and at the same time labor over them after waitressing hours with creams and pumice stones and the exact shade of frosted rose polish she used. Now in her forties, she still modeled clothes in the seasonal fashion shows at Burdines, where Paul, in Army uniform, had first seen her behind the counter when buying a piece of costume jewelry for his mother’s birthday in 1942.