Straits of Fortune - Anthony Gagliano [3]
“You should have been a lumberjack,” I told him. “You could have saved a bundle on chain saws.”
“Is that supposed to be funny?”
“Where’s the Colonel, Rudolph? I didn’t come out here to go down memory lane with you.”
He frowned at the sound of his first name. “Out by the pool,” he said. I followed him past a wall of windows toward the French doors that led out to the patio. After the air-conditioned chill of the house, hitting the August heat again was like walking face-first through a box of invisible cotton.
The sunlight was shining on the surface of the swimming pool, and it gleamed like liquid turquoise. At the far edge of it, the Colonel sat at a table under a green-and-yellow-striped umbrella. He was looking out at the ocean through a pair of binoculars. I followed the line of his gaze and saw a white yacht anchored about three hundred yards out. The sea it sat on was as blue and as flat and as calm as the water in the swimming pool. The sky above it was a tourist’s dream of permanent summer. The only thing in it was a small plane dragging a banner I couldn’t read in the sun’s perfect glare. The Colonel stood up as I approached and tightened the sash of his black silk robe. I knew he didn’t like to shake hands, so I didn’t bother with the gesture.
The Colonel was nearly my height but as lean as a fox and looked as if he hadn’t gained a pound since college. He had a widow’s peak of straight white hair smoothed back over his narrow head like a skullcap or maybe one of those latex hoods some sprinters wear. His eyes were light gray and penetrating. He had a million-dollar tan, skin so taut it looked shrink-wrapped, and the ultra-high cheekbones of an ex-model—though he would have died if you’d told him that. I knew he was seventy, but he looked at least ten years younger. We nodded at one another and sat down in a pair of teakwood chairs without cushions.
“Well, Jack,” he said in a jovial tone that didn’t suit him, “how’s business?” He looked up at Williams. “I’ll take it from here, Rudy.”
Williams nodded, then walked back along the edge of the swimming pool like a tiger very sure of his footing. The maid appeared and filled our glasses with orange juice from a crystal decanter, then set it down on a place mat at the center of the table and went quietly away.
“Business is fine,” I lied. “For this time of year.”
“Training anybody interesting these days?” the Colonel asked.
“Just Elvis, but he’s missed a few appointments lately. I’m starting to get worried.”
He smiled and set down his glass. “It’s been a long time, Jack. I’ve missed your sense of humor. I’m still working out, but it’s not the same without you. Of course, considering the circumstances, I understood why you elected not to keep me on as a client. It would have been awkward.”
“What happened to the trainer I referred you to?”
“Raul? Oh, we get on fairly well; he’s a nice fellow, really. But you know how it is. I was rather spoiled by your company. Raul is a good man and all, but not much of a conversationalist—other than on the subject of progressive resistance, which, as you know, has its limitations as a topic of interest.”
“Not for Raul,” I said.
“We had some rather interesting discussions, you and I, wouldn’t you say, Jack?” Something seemed to come to him. “By the way, did you ever finish reading Gibbon?”
He was referring to the leather-bound, hand-sewn, three-volume set of The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire he had given me as a gift soon after he realized, once we’d worked together for a week or two, that I could actually read. He’d bought it at an auction in London. It was without a doubt the single most valuable thing I owned, and there was no sense at all in telling him that I’d be pawning it in a few weeks if business didn’t pick up.
“I finished it,” I said. “But I think they should make it into a movie, like Star Wars.”
But the Colonel hadn’t heard me. He was still looking out at the yacht. He shook his