The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [157]
“Tell him fine. Still wearing the bracelet.” He spun the braided lariat on his wrist. The braids reminded Annie of the green design on the cowboy boots she’d worn as a child. “Chamayra’s kid made me this.”
Proudly Chamayra announced, “Him and my boy did this thing together. FSU Role Model Program.”
Dan tapped the bracelet. “Tell Alex, keep it cool. Dry ice.”
She made her imaginary rectangular sign in air. “Clean is Cool.”
Dan took his credit card and bill off to find a waiter. As soon as he moved off, Chamayra sat down beside Annie. “You not getting my Raffy in trouble, are you? Don’t talk about him to Danny.”
Annie repeated that she wanted Dan Hart to help her negotiate a deal for Raffy and her father.
Chamayra blew out a noisy sigh of exasperation. “It’s bad enough Raffy plays guitar. This mess with your dad is driving me loca. Raffy thinks he’s like God and every time it’s nothing but heartaches and court costs. You know where he probably is?”
Annie said she had no idea.
“Doing some shit for your dad.” Chamayra stuck her thumb under the heavy gold necklace she wore as if she were going to yank it off. “Okay, you hear from him? Tell him he don’t show up tonight, then he don’t be calling me till he got Alzheimer’s and don’t know my number.” She swatted at Dan as he returned to the booth. Her tight chartreuse pedal pushers disappeared into the crowd. “Bye bye.”
Dan waved to the retreating waitress. “Tough life, Chamayra’s. Her ex? Complete ass wipe. But she’s the best.”
Annie insisted she would re-pay him for her half of the bill. “You don’t even have a job,” she pointed out.
“Next time it’s on you.” He left too big a tip in cash. His hand brushed over hers as he slipped the money under a glass. “You’ve had a little too much to drink. How about we take a walk on the beach? Fresh air. Moon over Miami?”
She had the odd sensation that unless she held onto the table she’d float to the ceiling and tangle herself in the blue netting among the toys and seahorses. The thought made her laugh. She said it was odd that she was laughing after she’d talked so sadly about the breakup of her marriage. What her father said about con games was true of love; only the cheats get cheated. It wasn’t so much that Brad had tricked her; it was that she had worn blinkers. She’d blinkered herself and tripped and fallen. And if there was blame, it was hers as well as Brad’s. She’d been too busy, she told Dan, even to know how she felt.
“I knew exactly how I felt,” he said. “Like somebody took an axe to my heart.”
Here, she thought, was a man who wasn’t afraid to feel his feelings. On the other hand, it was amazing he could feel anything, after the amount of tequila that must have gone down his throat. She asked him how he could drink so much. She’d only had a few margaritas and her head was spinning.
“I bet.” He admitted that tonight he had way over-gone his limit. “I keep it to two a day most times. But I’ve got a hollow drum. Rusted too.” He hit hard on his breastbone.
“Oh?” She smiled at him. “I thought you said there was a broken heart in there.”
He pulled her hand to his chest and pushed it against the muscle beneath his shirt. “You feel that heart? Doesn’t it feel broken?” To her wonder, her own heart leaped so intently that she had to take a long breath.
In La Loca, laser lights crisscrossed dancers on the shiny floor; broken blinks of flashing blue and pink flickered across Annie’s and Dan’s faces. Their looking at each other was in a peculiar way simultaneously intense and effortless.
Dan’s phone was ringing and finally he checked the number. “Hello?…Hello?…I’ll be right back,” he told her. “Don’t go anywhere.”
She felt—and it was a new sensation—in no hurry.
After he left, she telephoned Georgette, who was asleep in Emerald and whose heavy book on Roman ruins slid off the bed when she sat up. Annie told her friend that to her surprise she appeared to be falling for a Miami detective she’d recently met.
“How recently?” asked Georgette, turning the light on, feeling for her glasses.
“Like a couple