The Four Corners of the Sky_ A Novel - Michael Malone [161]
“Aren’t we all?” Dan murmured. “I mean humans. Just cosmic debris? But just for a tiny bit of time, don’t you think we can be pretty wonderful?”
***
At the Dorado bar, Brad Hopper leaned closer to the blonde. Watching them from a dark corner was Rafael Rook, who sipped morosely on a soft drink. The Cuban was very upset. Not about the Queen, which he knew was locked up in Annie’s room. And not about Diaz, who seemed to have fallen for the story that the Queen had been hijacked to Havana. He was upset about Jack Peregrine, who had told him not to lose sight of Annie. But this morning stupidly Raffy had panicked, jumping out of her car when she had threatened to go to the MPD. Now he couldn’t find her. She wasn’t in the hotel and her phone switched him to voice mail. He’d been waiting here at the Dorado for hours, assuming she would come back. But now it was past midnight and where was she? Moreover, waiting for Annie, he’d had to blow off his promise to meet Chamayra at La Loca earlier and he was now too apprehensive to return Chamayra’s furious messages. Nobody could get madder faster than Chamayra.
Nothing, however, would have made Raffy leave the Dorado bar. At first sight he recognized the long-legged blonde as Ms. Skippings of Golden Days. And when he heard the man she was falling all over introduce himself as Lt. Brad Hopper, U.S. Navy pilot, Raffy nearly choked. Brad Hopper was the name of Annie’s husband (or her ex-husband, he wasn’t sure which), but at least Raffy definitely remembered that name, and how many Brad Hoppers who’d been Navy pilots were there likely to be in this world, much less Miami, much less the Hotel Dorado where Annie was staying, or would be staying if she were here, which she wasn’t? Not many.
The Cuban slid to a closer table in order to eavesdrop more easily. He heard Brad mesmerizing Ms. Skippings with gossip about sex-addict superstar celebrities to whom he’d sold private jets. He then bragged to her about his heroics in Desert Fox. He then told her—hard for Raffy even to listen to—how his unhappy marriage had ended with his wife’s infidelity.
As Raffy eavesdropped, suddenly he caught a distant glimpse of Annie herself. She was walking past the bar entrance but, fortunately, she was at the far end of the lobby. Her clothes were soaking wet and she was laughing with a young man whose clothes were also wet, although it was not raining. The man had his back to Raffy, but when he reached the elevator bank, he turned around and kissed Annie. Horribly enough, the man was Sgt. Daniel Hart.
To Raffy’s great relief, Brad, with his back to the lobby and his eyes wandering down Ms. Skippings’s long legs to her stiletto heels, didn’t see Annie at all. Nor did he notice Raffy as anything more than a small thin man with a guitar case who was leaving the bar. Raffy positioned himself to block Brad’s view of the elevator doors as Annie and the detective moved inside them.
***
The elevator ascended and the doors opened on the eleventh floor. Dan and Annie kept kissing. An old bellboy in his seventies was tiredly pushing a full luggage cart along the corridor.
“Honeymooners?” he asked them. They laughed as they helped him maneuver his cart into the elevator. “Don’t go to bed mad. It’s worked for me and my wife, fifty-two years.” The doors closed on him.
***
In Emerald, Georgette was leaving another voice mail on Annie’s cell phone. “Annie, it’s me. What’s wrong with your phone? I hope you get this message. Watch out. I don’t know what’s happening with your divorce but maybe Brad’s going for alimony. He’s in Miami. He’s looking for you. He’s checked into the Dorado. I told him you’d gone to see a girlfriend in Palm Beach but that I didn’t know her name. It was the only thing I could think of. Whatever you’re up to and I think I know, watch yourself! And don’t call me till morning. Somebody needs to get some sleep.”
***
For a long time, the Dorado lobby had been empty of guests, except for a