Killer Move - Michael Marshall [19]
I stopped in front of the gates, wound down the window, and jabbed the buzzer. Nothing happened. I waited a couple minutes and then pressed it again. Nothing continued to happen, or happened again.
I gave it five minutes and a couple more presses. Then I got out of the car and walked up to the gates, wondering if Warner was waiting in the driveway space beyond. There was no sign of anyone. A few lamps were lit around the area, but the house itself looked dark.
I went back to the car and pulled Karren’s notes out of my folder. A quick look was sufficient to confirm I was at the right house. I got out my phone, then realized I didn’t have a number for Warner. He’d taken mine, but deftly circumvented my attempts to get his. I searched back through my call history until I found incoming from just before six that evening.
It rang for quite a while before anyone answered.
“Bill Moore,” I said in a clipped voice. “I’m supposed to be meeting with David. Right now.”
“I don’t work for him twenty-four-seven, you know.” Melania sounded tetchy. I could hear the sound of a television in the background.
“Neither do I,” I said. “It remains to be seen whether I work for him at all. My point is I’m at the house, he’s not, and it’s after quarter past.”
“Christ,” she muttered. There was a pause. “Oh god,” she said then, contrite. “I’m so sorry. I just checked the BlackBerry. His dinner is running late so he asked me to see if you could meet him in Sarasota, around ten?”
It was on the tip of my tongue to tell her to inform her boss that he could meet me during office hours at Shore, or not at all. It seemed dumb to blow it when I’d already sacrificed the evening to the cause, however, and I’d be driving that way home anyhow.
“Am I meeting him anywhere in particular? Or is guessing the venue an exercise for the Realtor?”
“Krank’s,” she said quickly. “I think you met him there once before? Look, Mr. Moore, I’m really sorry. He’s got your phone number, right? I don’t know why he didn’t just call you himself.”
Because that’s also how these people roll, I could have told her. The big house and the money are not enough. That’s just cash wealth—and existential wealth is what counts. You’ve got to make it clear to everyone, every day, that your life is different, that you don’t have to jump through the conventional hoops, that politeness is for those who cannot afford to behave otherwise. That you rule. That you’re god.
You learn this within days of starting in the luxury real estate business, and I looked forward very much to behaving this way myself.
As a start, I ended the call without saying anything more. If she had any sense, Melania would have realized that I now had a choice over whether I revealed that she’d failed to pass on her boss’s message. Which meant she owed me, which in turn meant that being jerked around would wind up playing to my advantage in the end. If you’re sharp enough to see through the games people play, you start to pull ahead. Bill Moore understands this.
Bill Moore is fit for purpose.
Except . . . the asshole didn’t show up there, either.
Krank’s is a newish bar/restaurant on Main in Sarasota at the intersection with Lemon Avenue (the street name a remnant of the days when the town was only here to grow and ship citrus), the kind of zeitgeist-crazed trend pit where you have to be ever vigilant in reminding yourself that you are not there merely to kowtow to the whims of the staff. I parked with ten minutes to spare. Being inside the bar was like being punched in the face with music, so I got a bottle of Ybor Gold and took it onto the terrace out front instead.
I drank the beer. Twenty-five minutes later, Warner hadn’t arrived. I got another Gold. I drank that one, too. Warner still didn’t show. The beers were, however, doing what beers do the night after too much wine: making me feel a lot better.
So I had one more. By the time that was