Queen of the Underworld (13 page)

“Appearances can be deceiving. I think I’ll change my mind about that lager.”

When it came, I clicked my frosted glass against his. “Here,” I said, “let’s drink to the discovery of your Alex-ness.”

I ran past him the names of my old Cuban schoolmates at St. Clothilde’s and St. Clovis Hall. He was familiar with St. Clothilde’s, some friends’ sisters had gone there; he even remembered Raquel Cortez, her brother had invited him to Raquel’s
quinceañera,
but for some reason he hadn’t gone. He drew a blank on Pepe Iglesias. “But it’s a very common surname in Cuba.”

He was twenty-seven to my soon-to-be twenty-two, the child of his mother’s second marriage to a widowed cattleman in Camagüey with two grown sons. He called his mother by her first name, Lídia. Her first marriage, at sixteen, with a cousin who later became a Jesuit priest, had been annulled by order of her father, Alex’s
abuelito.

“When the romance of ranch life wore thin for her, Lídia brought me to Palm Beach, where Abuelito owned commercial properties. Since the age of four, I was raised by my grandparents. Though Abuelita died when I was twelve.”

“What about your mother?”

“Oh, she went off at once to Spain to help lose the Civil War. Lídia loves a cause. Her latest one was Fidel. I believe I told you, she gave a benefit for
la Revolución
last spring. She was in heaven when he took over this past January. She had helped bring down a government at last.”

“What is she doing now?”

“She is between causes. At least I think so.”

“How many marriages has she had?”

“Five, if you count the one that was annulled. My second cousin once removed, the Jesuit. Then my father, Raul de Costa, the cattleman. Then a Mexican painter, that’s the one she went to Spain with. Later was a Spanish diplomat she met in Paris—that was Fredo, my favorite stepfather. I still miss Fredo. Her fifth husband, Dick, her first American, most probably will last.”

“Why is that?”

“Because Abuelito made him his partner. Together they’re buying up the oceanfront as far north as Cocoa Beach and all the swampland south of Miami. Also, Lídia is getting too old for romance. She’s still a beautiful woman, but wealth and power are more important to her now. She ought to have been Cleopatra, or at the very least someone like Eva Perón.”

“I’d like to meet her.”

“Lídia would approve of you. You’re like her in some ways.”

Our food arrived just in time to prevent me from saying something flippant, like: I wonder if I will go through five husbands. The
medianoche
was sinfully tasty, a French-toast-like pork sandwich, all bonded together with melted cheese, though impossible to eat neatly without a knife and fork. I also loved the fried green bananas on the side.

Perhaps Alex de Costa would become my symbolic older brother, a male version of my
más mío,
bookish, questing, self-searching, with a less-than-normal family history, who could discuss the intangible things I adored prying into, and whom I could always count on to find me charming. He would help me become fluent in his
castellano
Spanish, and perhaps provide the inspiration for a story I might write along the lines of Thomas Mann’s incestuous-sister-and-brother tale, “The Blood of the Walsungs.”

All in all, a successful evening, I thought as we walked back through the balmy Miami night, the manager of the Julia Tuttle having slipped his arm through mine in a protective, brotherly way. It occurred to me that Alex de Costa might even suspect me of virginity, which was a plus. Pepe Iglesias once told me Cuban men expected it of the woman they married. Or, as the incorrigible Pepe had put it, “When I marry I shall tell my bride I have had more experience than I have had, and I shall damn well expect her to tell me she has had less than she has had.”

8.

Hot Water Battle

Utility, Customer
Are All Washed Up

By Emma Gant
Star
Staff Writer

It may be only a drop in the bucket, but the North Miami Beach Water Board will just have to do without his $2.06, a North Dade homeowner vowed in a torrent of indignation Tuesday.

Charles P. Rose, of 1371 NW 175th St., said he didn’t mind paying $15.80 of his $17.86 water-and-sewer bill. But come heck or no water the $2.06 difference was staying right in his pocket.

It started, Rose told the
Star
on Tuesday, when the North Miami Beach Water Board purchased the North Dade Water Co. back in April.

Immediately, the NMB Water Board announced a “reduction” in water rates.

Immediately, Rose’s bill went up.

The “reduction,” Rose insisted, was nothing more than a “clever wording trick.”

True, said Rose, the Board was charging a $1.50 base rate instead of the $2.50 base used by his former supplier. But the $2.50 had been for 6,000 gallons or less. The “reduced” rate was for only 4,000 gallons or less.

Hence, the “reduction” became an increase and Rose became boiling mad.

“A lot of people can be manipulated by words they don’t understand,” Rose told the
Star.

He had previously fired off a letter of protest to the Water Board. But the letter, along with Rose’s $15.80 check, came back. Attached was a note from North Miami Beach attorney Larry Winthrop, citing chapter and verse on the right of city utility companies to set their own rates.

And saying that Rose still owed the Water Board $17.86.

Rose vowed he would continue his fight.

The Water Board said it wouldn’t.

“The next step,” said Fred Snead, general manager of the Water Board, “is simply to cut Rose’s water off.”

My story was on page two of the local section, above the fold, with its equivocal cliché of a headline and a kicker that made it sound as though the battle had been over hot water. Someone had broken up my text and made all these itsy-bitsy paragraphs. Also it had been cut, but as I no longer had the original, I couldn’t locate exactly what was missing.

I certainly wouldn’t be sending Dean Ligon
this
simpleminded distillation, even if I had promised him my first bylined story. And Charles P. Rose would think even less of me. Any minute my phone would ring. “Nobody’s
that
stupid!” he would yell at me from North Miami.

At least there was no Joelle Cutter-Crane human-interest spread from Cuba with heart-wrenching photos by her sidekick Kingsley. The lead story, reported by the AP wire service from Managua, was that rebel forces, said to have been trained in Cuba, had invaded Nicaragua. Not even a picture. The only front-page pictures were of a man skiing in Vermont after a freak summer snowstorm in Stowe, and head shots of Brigitte Bardot and her new husband, Jacques Charrier, all AP wire-photos. Cuba had slapped an exit permit requirement on Americans yesterday, but this small front-page item was courtesy of the
New York Times
service.

Such were my consolations on this third day at work, the eve of my twenty-second birthday.

Dave Bisbee was sitting at Rod Reynolds’s desk. He congratulated me on my story, though without any mention of Job or Kafka or the role of the little man in great literature.

“Rod’s been called home, his old man had a heart attack,” he went on. “I’ve been appointed deputy city editor. Lucifer broke the news to me just as he was heading off to Cape Canaveral on some hush-hush mission.” Bisbee’s usual insolent tone failed to hide his pride and surprise to have been appointed Rod’s stand-in, but then he couldn’t wait to pull the rug out from under himself by wondering if this was their way of firing him. “It’s become a
Star
tactic since Lucifer’s been in management. First they blow you up like a balloon and dance you around, get all the mileage out of you they can, then they cut your string.”

“Is it also a
Star
tactic to chop people’s stories up into moronic one-sentence paragraphs like they did mine?”

“That’s copydesk routine, Emma. I wouldn’t take it personally.”

“How can I not? I don’t
personally
write in little jumps and jolts like that.”

“They think it’s an easy way to jazz up boring copy—not that yours was boring, you made that old curmudgeon come right off the page. But somebody did a survey: people pay better attention. Also, a new paragraph indicates more to come, so readers feel they’re getting twice as much news for their nickel.”

“Do you honestly believe that?”

“Whether I believe it or not is a moot point. I’ve trained myself to think in bite-size paragraphs, because that’s how they’ll end up in the
Star
anyway. If I ever get canned and go off to write my great American novel, maybe I’ll go back to my
Tampa Tribune
longueurs. Or maybe I won’t. Cheer up, Emma. You’re right on schedule, maybe a little ahead of yourself.”

“On schedule for
what
?”

“For making it. You will.”

“What are you, a fortune-teller or something?”

“No, just an avid people-watcher, not that it earns me many points. What are your plans for the day?”

“Find out who’s croaked. Unless you have another assignment for me.”

“No, do the stiffs first. Then you could take over my hospital beat: Jackson Memorial, Biscayne, North Shore. I’m going to be pretty busy till Rod gets back. I’ll call ahead and set you up with my contacts, if you like.”

“Yes,
please.
That way they won’t think I’m just somebody’s secretary, like Mr. Rose did.”

“Who? Oh, your old curmudgeon. Well, you fixed him, didn’t you? That coup de grâce last sentence. It
was
yours, wasn’t it?”

“Yes, but it was part of a longer paragraph.”

T
HE
G
RIM
Reaper hadn’t done much business in Miami the night before. By a quarter to ten, I was clacking out the last obit and planning my next ladies’ room freshener when Dave Bisbee hustled over with the tall, gray-haired women’s editor, Marge Armstrong.

“Marge has a crisis, Emma, and we could use your help.”

Ah, here it came. The bosses hardly out of town and the “deputy city editor,” whom I thought I had in my pocket, was already transferring me to the women’s department. I lifted my neck and narrowed my eyes at them.

“She’ll be perfect,” said Marge, smiling down at me. “What are you, Emma, about a size eight or ten?”

“It can go either way.” For Christ’s sake, they needed my
dress size
before I went into the glass cage with the women?

“We’re doing a special feature on raincoats and rain hats, what with all this wet weather,” said Marge, “and our model has let us down. I was going to kill the whole thing, then I looked out here and saw you and wondered if—well, if you wouldn’t mind coming up to the roof and having your photo taken in a few coats.”

“Meanwhile I can call my contacts and get things set up for you,” said Bisbee. “Emma’s going to take over my hospital beat while I’m deputying for Rod.”

“What a good idea!” said Marge. She seemed genuinely pleased for me. As I followed her long tanned legs in their spectator pumps up a flight of stairs to the roof, I decided it was safe to like her.

A striped awning had been set up, flanked by tropical plants in large rectangular containers. It was supposed to look like the entrance to a hotel. There was a coatrack with three raincoats and some wide-brimmed rain hats. The sky glared down on us like a metal reflector, and the photographer started clicking his light meter at me before Marge had even introduced us. He circled me impatiently with a sinister lurching gait, scowling up at my face. His short-sleeved shirt had wet half-moons under the armpits. My own face and neck broke out in a sheen of sweat and I felt my French twist sag in the heavy, sullen air.

“. . . bitch . . .” he muttered.

“Excuse me?” I said. What a horrible person!

“This light is a bitch. I’m going to need filters.” He plunged his hands into a scuffed leather bag. “I expected her to come more made-up,” he growled to Marge as if I weren’t there.

“Jake, you weren’t listening. The model from the agency didn’t
show.
This is Emma Gant, she’s a new reporter on the city desk who’s agreed to help us out. We need this for the early edition, so we’re on a tight deadline.”

“Nice of you to fill me in, seeing as I’m just the fashion photographer.” He had some kind of Yankee accent.

“Jake Rance won a Pulitzer for his work in Korea,” Marge said. “And he’s not a fashion photographer, though he could win prizes at that if he chose to. The Photo Department is short-staffed today and this weather is enough to make anyone cross. Do you think we’re going to get Beulah, Jake? Unusual so early in the season, but there’s a hurricane watch in Panama City.”

Marge was apologizing for him and humoring him at the same time.

“A nasty tropical storm more likely.” The prospect seemed to improve his mood. “Gulf hurricanes are fickle.”

Marge was pinning the back of my raincoat to make it more formfitting. Gingerly she positioned a wide-brimmed hat on top of my French twist.

“No, she can’t wear it like that,” said Jake.

“Why not?” asked Marge.

“It makes her face look too fat.”

“I don’t think so at
all,
” protested Marge.

“Let your hair down.” Jake Rance’s first words to me.

“W
HAT A
nasty man, that Jake creature,” I huffed, back at my desk, my hair pinned up again. “I hope I won’t be going out on any assignments with
him.
”

“You will be,” said Bisbee. “He’s just in a snit because he should have gone to Cuba. He’s the best man we have. But Joelle likes to travel with Kingsley. He dresses better and she can run him. Nobody runs Rance.”

“He has this creepy, lurching walk and he said my face was fat.”

“The walk is because one leg is shorter than the other, he had polio as a child. And he’s disgusted with the world in general, so don’t take it personally. You’ll be happy with the photo, wait and see. Here, check this out for me, will you? A young Metro police rescue diver got the bends while trying to locate the body of another diver. See what you can do with it.”