Miami Midnight Page 3

  “Well, you know what I mean.” Gaby watched Dodd help himself to more spaghetti. He still ate like a linebacker for the Miami Dolphins, which he had been during his pro football years, rather than the successful Miami lawyer-businessman he was now. At Gaby’s insistence he’d taken off his suit jacket and loosened his tie, but even so, his custom-made shirt stuck to his upper body in dark, sweaty blotches.

  “He does too remember,” Gaby’s mother said loudly. “It’s true, people just fell all over themselves to get an invitation to our parties. Sh—sometimes we had Eddy Duchin’s band to play. But ush—” She stifled a belch. “—usually it was Meyer Davis and his Society Orchestra. They always wrote it like that in the newspapers, ‘Meyer Davis and his Society Orchestra.’”

  Gaby looked away. She was embarrassed that her mother was bringing up the Colliers’ days of lavish spending, when Dodd had come to dinner to discuss some way to deal with their present dire lack of money. Before she’d been summoned back home, there had even been terrible talk of Jeannette’s applying for welfare.

  “You couldn’t,” her mother went on truculently, “have a party in Miami in those days without Meyer Davis and his Society Orchestra. That is, not if you wanted to have anybody who was anybody!”

  Under the table Jupiter, the Colliers’ ancient Labrador, gave a loud groan. Gaby saw Dodd’s lips quirk with suppressed laughter. She glared at him. It wasn’t funny. Listening to Jeannette night after night, Gaby felt like groaning aloud too.

  Jeannette refilled her glass from the martini shaker. “Now we’re so goddamned poor,” she whined, staring at the withered olive at the bottom of the cocktail glass. “We don’t even have any money to get the air conditioners fixed.”

  “Mother, please.” Gaby put down her fork and closed her eyes for a second, feeling drained. After this particularly long day, she deserved something more than her mother’s usual drunken complaints.

  When she’d gotten back to the Times-Journal offices, it had taken her an excruciatingly long time to write the fashion story. Dealing with the drugged model falling into the lily pond was more difficult than most of her assignments. When she’d at last filed her copy, Jack Carty, the features editor, had kept her another hour and a half to rework what she’d done. Inept hadn’t been the word he’d used. Gaby’d had the feeling he was searching for something stronger.

  Fortunately Crissette’s photographs had saved the story. Jack had taken a look at the contact prints of the model and the good-looking hunk in the white suit, and had suddenly decided to bump the story up to the lead feature in the Sunday edition’s Modern Living section. Gaby still hadn’t gotten over her shock.

  “It’s too bad your father never put in central air-conditioning, Gaby,” Dodd was saying. “He certainly talked about it enough.”

  The year Gaby’s father had talked about installing central air-conditioning was also the year Paul Collier had fallen madly in love with an enormous Chris-Craft Challenger. It had been no contest. The next year the money had gone to rebuilding the dock for the extravagantly expensive boat, and enlarging the terrace for bigger and better parties.

  Gaby’s gaze lifted to the wall above Dodd Brickell’s head. It was covered with framed pictures, including the famous cover from the August 1956 issue of Life magazine. That elegant café-society luminary, Mrs. Paul Aston Collier, was posed on the back terrace of her fashionable Palm Island, Miami mansion. Jeannette had been ravishing thirty-odd years ago, her cool, sculpted beauty accentuated by masses of thick red-gold hair that matched her gold chiffon gown. She was already a heavy drinker then, but not yet showing the ravages.

  Above the Life cover was a black-and-white picture of Paul Collier at the polo grounds in Palm Beach, lean, handsome, and dashing, his arms around Winston Rockefeller. There was a photo of a smiling Paul Collier and Sonny Whitney at the racetrack at Hialeah, Paul Collier and Betty Grable in a sports car in Palm Springs, Paul Collier and Senator Jack Kennedy docking a sailing dinghy on Cape Cod. In the entire collection of photographs that filled the downstairs of the Colliers’ rambling old house, only a few included a small, silent, solitary child, Paul and Jeannette Collier’s daughter Gabrielle. Known not-all-that-affectionately as “Mouse.”

  In the living room, the collection continued with pictures of Miami Beach entertainers who had become world famous: a young Dean Martin and Jerry Lewis when they were a 1950’s comedy team; Arthur Godfrey and Jackie Gleason, who had streets named for them in their beloved Miami Beach; and below Godfrey and Gleason, the singing McGuire sisters with their special friend, Miami Beach celebrity and notorious Mafia mob figure, Sam Giancana.

  Gaby lowered her gaze and found Dodd studying her sympathetically. “Hard day at work, honey? Are you getting the hang of it now?”

  She was silent for a long moment, trying to think of an answer. She was indebted to Dodd and his father for getting her the job at the newspaper, more than she could ever say, but there were times when she was tempted to blurt out the truth: that she wasn’t doing any better in her job as fashion reporter for the Times-Journal than when she’d started three weeks ago.

  Gaby didn’t dare tell Dodd; she knew he would want to do something. And Dodd and his father had already done enough.

  “Dad had lunch with Gardner Hedison the other day,” Dodd said, not waiting for her reply, “and he asked him how you were doing in the new job. Hedison said you were doing just fine. He was quite pleased.”

  Gaby frowned. The Times-Journal newsroom had seemed to know immediately when Dodd’s father had had lunch with his friend the publisher. It didn’t exactly boost her popularity. “I wish your father wouldn’t do that, Dodd. Check on me at lunch with Gardner Hedison.”

  Dodd looked surprised. “Why not? From what your publisher says, you’re doing a great job.”

  Out of the corner of her eye Gaby saw her mother’s head droop forward, almost to the surface of her still-full dinner plate. With any luck, she couldn’t help thinking, Jeannette would be ready for bed early. If she didn’t pass out right where she was. “I know he wants to help, Dodd, but I just wish your father would leave it alone.”

  It was his turn to frown. “And I wish you’d stop beating on yourself, hon. When Dad told Hedison you were Paul Collier’s daughter, he jumped at the chance to hire you.” Dodd reached across the table to squeeze her hand. “Hey, Dad didn’t have to sell you, Mouse, your background did. The paper needed you. Old Miamians are scarce as hen’s teeth these days.”

  Gaby pulled her hand away. “Well, the newspaper certainly didn’t hire me for my writing ability.” She knew she sounded cross, shrewish, but she couldn’t help it. “And I made it plain I didn’t know anything about fashion.”

  “I don’t see why you’re complaining about that job,” Jeannette broke in. She lifted the empty cocktail shaker and shook it fretfully. “Besides, I never asked you to take care of me. My father left me prov—provided with plenty of money!”

  Dodd shot Gaby a warning look. “I don’t think she was exactly complaining, Jeannette.”

  “Oh, leave her alone,” Gaby muttered. “She can’t carry on a sensible conversation at this hour of the night. She’s too drunk.”

  The remark was a mistake. A mean mistake, Gaby realized at once. A look of pure venom passed over her mother’s face. “You don’t have to work if you hate it so much!” she cried shrilly. “God knows you could have had plenty of money if you’d married Dodd!”

  A painful silence crashed down.

  Gaby tried to tell herself her mother was at her worst after sundown. She was drunk, she’d been drinking all day, and Dodd knew it. It didn’t help.

  “If you hadn’t run off to Europe,” her mother persisted, her voice hoarse with liquor, “Dodd would never have married that other woman.”

  Gaby pushed her chair back. She couldn’t bring herself to look at the man across the table.

  “You ran away.” There was no stopping Jeannette now that she had center stage. “You ran away, s
tupid little Mouse! I’ll bet Dodd still doesn’t know you’re in love with him!”

  Dodd cleared his throat, his gaze on Gaby. “Jeannette, let’s talk about something else.”

  “And what did running away to Europe get you?” Jeannette went on relentlessly. “You took your money out of your trust account and spent it, and God knows your father and I could have used some of it. Espesh—especially those last years when he was so sick.”

  Gaby stood up so quickly, the dishes rattled. “Stay where you are,” she said. “I’ll clear off the table.”

  “See?” her mother cried. “You’re running away again! That’s what you always do!”

  But Gaby had left.

  Chapter 3

  Gaby leaned against the kitchen sink, eyes closed. This was the worst part of coming back home, she thought. Not the shock of finding that her parents’ money was gone, evaporated like mist, so that it was necessary for her to get a job in Miami, any job, to keep Jeannette from going under. Nor even the humiliation of finding, when Dodd and his father persuaded the publisher of the Times-Journal to hire her, that she wasn’t a reporter and probably never would be, even though fashion reporting was supposed to be, outside of writing obituaries, the easiest job available. No, the worst part of coming back home was just what the problem always had been. Dealing with Jeannette.

  She didn’t look up when Dodd entered the kitchen.

  “You know my father wasn’t ‘sick for years,’” she said abruptly. “Oh, Dodd, if she’d said anything about money, written to me about my father’s heart condition—you know I’d have come back!”

  He leaned against the kitchen table, arms folded, “I don’t pay any attention to what your mother says, Mouse.”

  “Don’t pay any attention? My God, it’s been this way all my life!” Gaby put her hands over her face. “Why did you bring me back from Italy?” she asked, her voice muffled. “Why couldn’t you have just let the sheriff come and take possession of the house? And put my mother in some hospital for alcoholics?”

  “Gaby, she’s your mother.” He shrugged. “And legally you’re responsible.”

  “Responsible? My parents never knew what the word meant! This is what I ran away from. I ran away from this place!” She flung out an arm to include the entire ramshackle house. “Would you believe that when my grandfather built it, this was a famous Miami showplace? Now it’s a neglected, falling-down wreck because of two people, my mother and father, who destroyed everything they got their hands on!”

  He sighed. They’d been over this before. “Honey, she needs your help. That’s why I sent for you.”

  Gaby turned to the sink and jerked at the taps, sending water gushing over the plates. “I wish I were back in Florence typing manuscripts and dealing with Italian bureaucrats!”

  He picked up a dish towel. “Your mother needs to be institutionalized.” It was the same advice he’d given, both as lawyer and friend, many times. “The problem right now is you can’t let these decisions hang fire too much longer.”

  “I can’t do anything about my mother,” Gaby snapped. “She won’t let me!”

  “Yes, you can.” He took a plate from the drain rack and wiped it slowly. “The solution is simple. You need to get your mother to sign a power of attorney so you can sell this place, free up the money that’s left. Then we can settle the back taxes, maybe have a little left over to put Jeannette in an alcohol treatment facility somewhere.”

  She shook her head. “Mother’s not going to sign anything. She thinks signing a paper means we’re trying to do just that, get her into a sanatorium.” Gaby turned to him. “My mother’s right, you know,” she said in a low voice. “I’m a coward. I can’t deal with her. Having Paul and Jeannette for parents was—was a job for somebody stronger and braver than I!”

  “Now, Mouse,” he began.

  “It’s true! My mother and father were totally absorbed in themselves. They never had time for me. But now I’m the one who’s left,” she said bitterly, “to deal with their messes!” She suddenly threw the dishcloth into the soapy water and leaned against the sink. “Oh Lord, it’s so hot! I hate Miami. I don’t want to be here!”

  “Honey, just take it easy.” Dodd moved to her quickly, wrapping his arms around her and resting his chin on the top of her head. “Sweet Mouse, you’ve been a good soldier so far,” he murmured. “Don’t go all to pieces on me now.”

  Gaby lifted her gaze to the window over the kitchen sink. The night-darkened glass reflected them like a mirror: a big man with rumpled blond hair, a rugged face that had once graced a thousand newspaper sports pages, now grown older with an unmistakable aura of success and worldly power. By contrast, she was a willowy, indistinct image whose features were less spectacularly lovely than those of her once-beautiful mother, but with Jeannette’s great silvery gray eyes and tawny mane of curls.

  She pulled away from him slightly. “Please don’t call me Mouse. You know I hate it.”

  “Okay, not Mouse.” In the window she could see his tender look. “You’re right, it doesn’t fit anymore.” He paused before he murmured into her hair, “I can’t believe it, how beautiful you are.”

  Gaby shut her eyes, not trusting herself to speak. How many times in past years had she dreamed of Dodd being there to comfort her? Holding her, just like this? He’d always been a hero to her, this bronzed, assured god of a man. He was the only one who really understood what it had been like for her as Paul and Jeannette Collier’s neglected child. And Dodd Brickell had been, when she was eighteen, her first and only lover.

  Unfortunately, he’d married someone else.

  “Things will work out, honey.” His voice rumbled through his chest reassuringly. “You’ll see.”

  Gaby wasn’t convinced. “All the ghosts are still here, in this house.” She shivered. “In my life, too, since I’ve come back. Oh, Dodd,” she moaned, “I thought I’d never come back to Miami. At least not like this!”

  “Mmm,” he said against her cheek.

  “Don’t just say ‘mmm.’ Your parents were kind and good. Mine weren’t.”

  Dodd’s family had lived diagonally across the street from the Colliers on Royal Palm Way in another sprawling Spanish-style mansion. Dodd and Gabrielle had been friends and played together since kindergarten. But conservative lawyer Dodson Brickell, Sr. had never approved of Paul and Jeannette, nor most of the Palm Island set. When Dodd was in high school the Brickells moved to an estate below Coconut Grove.

  Gaby pulled her head back to look up at him. “Dodd, remember Willie, our chauffeur? Who drove me to school in the Cadillac every day?” She smiled tentatively. “That was something, even for Miami in those days, being driven to school in a big limousine with a chauffeur. But that was because neither my mother nor father could get up in the morning because of their hangovers.”

  He smiled back. “Now who’s living in the past?”

  There was a sudden crash from the sun porch and they both jumped. “Do you want me to go and see if she’s all right?” Dodd asked.

  Gaby turned back to the sink. “She only dropped her drink. She’ll get another.”

  He cocked his head, still listening. “Your mother won’t wander out the back way, will she? Or out on the dock?”

  Gaby pulled the rubber plug out of the drain and watched the water whirl sluggishly away. The sink needed a plumber. So did every other drain in the house. “Jupiter follows her around. I’ve seen him get in front of her and sort of nudge her off in another direction if she goes toward the water.”

  Dodd looked displeased. “Gaby, that old dog is about in the same shape as everything else around here. How old he is now? Fifteen, sixteen?” When she didn’t answer he muttered, “Jupiter’s been lying out on the porch ever since I got here. I haven’t even seen him move once. He’s no good as a watchdog, sugar, he’s dying of old age. You ought to put him to sleep.”

  Gaby wasn’t going to consider such a thing. “Jupiter helps me. After all, I can’t wa
tch Mother constantly, especially in the middle of the night when she roams through the house with her shaker of martinis, playing old Frank Sinatra records. I’ve got to sleep sometime, too, you know.”

  “Gaby, she can’t take care of herself when she’s here alone.”

  “She’s not alone in the daytime,” she reminded him. “Angel and Elena are here.”

  The Escuderos lived in the Colliers’ garage apartment. Elena did housework for families on Palm Island, and her son Angel tended yards.

  “Those damned Cubans,” Dodd said, exasperated. “Your grass hasn’t been mowed in weeks. And while we’re on the subject, Angel’s probably the one supplying your mother with booze.”

  “You don’t know that.” They always argued about this, she thought. Dodd felt the Escuderos ought to be paying rent. And if they couldn’t afford it, the garage apartment ought to be let to someone who could.

  “Those two are about as much good around here as the damned old dog. Which brings us to another subject. Gaby, you’re not going to like this, but I’ve got to remind you this old place isn’t safe. In fact, living on the waterfront anywhere in Miami these days is dangerous.”

  Gaby braced herself against the sink, overpoweringly tired. “Please, Dodd, I’ve had a—” She caught herself just in time. There were no words to describe the day she’d just had “Can we discuss this some other time?”

  He took her by the shoulders and turned her around to face him. “Gaby, I’m serious.” His craggy face showed that he was. “We’ve had an epidemic of waterfront burglaries where gangs pull power cruisers up to private docks, break into houses, and ransack them. It’s almost like a military operation. You wouldn’t believe it. They storm these places like commando teams.”

  She shook her head. “We haven’t got anything to steal.”

  “They don’t know that,” he said grimly. “These thugs don’t think. They’re too coked-up, drugged-up, to know what they’re doing. With two women alone in this place—” He stopped abruptly.