Birds of Paradise: A Novel (33 page)

She can’t see his face, just a glimmer of teeth. His hand is heavy, pulling her to her knees. The pants unzip silently. Her eyes water shut but this seems to make the roar in her ears louder, so she opens them again. His fists are full of her hair, yanking her head. She clutches his legs as if she might drown. Her senses drown, her eyes and nose full of salt, taste of limp flesh: a moan shifts through his body. She feels a frigid metal pressed into her spine, pointing down into the path of vertebrae. Tears leak from her eyes in an inert, horrible way; his hands crushing the skin at the back of her neck. She can’t breathe and she wonders if she were to do something like reach for his gun it might persuade him just to kill her more quickly. Instead she reaches carefully and cups the humid sack of the man’s scrotum as if for a caress, then squeezes with all her might, crushing his testicles. He screeches and goes straight down, banging his chin against the top of her head. He rolls in the sand, retching. Felice staggers a couple of steps, stunned. She can hear the man trying to recover himself, moaning and gasping. “You—you’re gonna die. You’re just gonna—fucking—”

Felice manages a few more steps, but she’s shaking so badly she keeps going down to her hands and knees. She can make out the man’s form, rolling over and up onto his knees, sides heaving, he lunges at her. She feels hands on her shoulders, a fierce grip, and she gasps. Her scream sails through her as she feels herself falling backwards. Then nothing is holding her down. Forms like pieces of night come loose, a thudding, sand spraying: two bodies thrashing. For one protracted, surreal moment, she thinks that the other man has caught up to them, that he and Marren are wrestling. But then she hears a choked-off straining, then wheezing, a very soft, low, stifled gurgle. After a pause, from the deep seam of the night comes a rattling, warbling sound unlike anything she’s ever heard before. She reclaims herself, trembling, curls her hands into her arms, chest hunched over her knees. There’s the sound once again, dismal and chilling.

EMERSON, CROUCHING ON HANDS
and knees. She senses his hands near her, hovering, careful not to try and touch her again. Maybe he knows how it goes, has seen it happen with other street kids—attacks and rapes. “Felice,” he whispers. She wants to ask where he’d come from, how he’d found her. But shock has stripped the voice out of her, so at first she can’t make a sound. It seems possible that he might dissolve like a puff of dust—a hallucination. Finally he risks his fingertips, then his hand on her back. “We can’t stay here,” he whispers.

“You—” The whisper scrapes in her throat. “What—happened?”

“He’s done. I made sure.”

Her mind is narrow and isolated, her senses heightened to startling clarity: she can smell the topaz wisps of algae beneath the rocks and hear the crackling scurf of mole crabs plugging into the sand. “There was another one. With him.” She scans the area, but the streetlights barely reach them. Clouds twist over their heads; the beach is a dark miasma, a gaseous planet. Something rumbles low inside her, slick pain in her gut, and she runs over the sand, toward the water’s edge, barely skimming off her jeans in time. Her bowels liquefy. The surf boils around her knees as she finds and yanks free the silver necklace, throwing it into the moonlight. She finishes washing herself off, the water warm and mineral as a desert sea. But then her stomach lurches, bringing up bile and a hot streak of old alcohol. When she crosses the strip of sand to rejoin Emerson, he peels off his T-shirt so she can dry her legs. She accepts, too numb to be ashamed. He takes the damp shirt and whispers, “Someone is out here—something moving—over there.”

Her gut rumbles again, but she clenches herself. They wait in silence, looking: Felice can perceive the third presence which also seems to be soundless and motionless. Barely twenty feet away. The dead man’s body seems to be deliquescing into a black pool on the dark sand. Nothing is clear. She strains her eyes but can’t make out the other man. Finally Emerson murmurs, “Let’s move.” He helps her start walking, to orient herself along the ridge of unlit beach, to stay far from the streetlights, slipping away.

THEY STICK AS CLOSE
to the water as they can—the only place on Miami Beach that doesn’t glow all night. It roars and surges, higher than ever, and makes it impossible to talk or think. When they notice the first hints of gray in the sky, they cut up into the neighborhoods. Emerson tells her that he’d gone to the Cove that evening, looking for her. He didn’t see Berry or Reynaldo, but some of the outdoor kids had seen her in the club, talking to Marren, and another had just spotted her walking out onto the sand with him. “She should not be with that guy.” The kid had pointed in the direction that she’d gone. “You better fucking hurry.” Now Emerson doesn’t let go of her hand, nor does he ask questions about Marren, for which she is grateful. They make it to Derek’s house and throw pebbles up at the window they think is his bedroom. It turns out Derek’s father is out again and Derek is hanging around downstairs on the couch, the light from the TV shuddering through the rooms.

Felice uses the toilet, sweating and trembling and hunched, while Emerson and Derek confer in the kitchen. She waits until the serrated pain in her gut eases a bit and everything inside of her seems to have streamed away in a thin liquid. After that, she washes her face and hands and she rubs toothpaste all over her teeth and tongue and the inside of her mouth with her fingers. She rinses, clutching the rim of the basin. She churns Listerine in her mouth and spits, then swallows a tiny, fiery capful. Before she goes out, she cracks the door. She hears Derek say “lose her.” He’s arguing for Emerson to let Derek and their friends take care of him. “She’ll be okay. Girls are okay—people feel sorry for them and take them in.”

“No, man.”

“I bet she’s still got parents somewhere. I hear she comes from some fucking house in the Gables. Fuck, your stupid temper anyway, man. What does she need with a maniac like you?”

“Fuck you, Derek. We’re together now.”

“You’ve gotta get serious. You don’t know who the fuck that guy was—he could have been some kind of Latin gangbanger. Or the mob—you know some of the Gambinos got a nice winter house a few blocks from here. This isn’t like the time with that scuzzball punk at the mall. Nobody would’ve even cared if he’d actually died. You need some serious lying low, for a good long-ass time. Some witness protection shit, for sure. I deal with shitheads like that, and man, they have got some scary friends.”

“Don’t talk to me about that asshole.” Emerson sounds caved in, shrunken.

“Whoa, man—he needed to die. No doubt. That isn’t under discussion. But
you
need to live, very much so. And you know how it goes, it’s always the same with these chicks—she was cozying up to him at some bar—everyone saw them. Some rich asshole is gonna have associates. People who care about what does and doesn’t become of him.”

“Fuck that loser.” Emerson says with little conviction.

“Your funeral, Sonny. I’m just saying. If you’re sticking with her, then you’re on your own. Count me way the fuck out.”

Felice moves into the penumbra of the kitchen light, puts her hand on Emerson’s shoulder. Derek gazes at something beyond the walls of the room. For a moment, silence fills the space, ticking from the cupboards, pans on the drain board. Now his flat eyes take in the two of them. “Anyone could show up here, anytime. Like my asshole brother, or Steve-o, or anyone. You gotta get as far away the better. I’m gonna call you a cab.”

There’s a fight over whether Emerson will accept a wad of bills from Derek. Finally Derek stuffs the cash down the front of his T-shirt. Emerson removes it, glowering, and pushes it into his pocket. Derek flops back on the couch. “Up to you now. Good fucking luck—I hope it’s all worth it.” But then he walks them out to the cab, hands the driver a black credit card and a small brown paper bag. Derek and Emerson clap each other in a brief embrace. Emerson turns away from him then, automatically reaching for Felice’s hand. As they pull out, Felice turns to see Derek standing in the arc of the circular driveway watching them go, his face hard and motionless.

The cab reeks of a fir-tree car freshener, Felice asks the driver to take them to Homestead. The young black man squints at them in the mirror. “
Where
you want?” His accent is so thick the words are nearly unintelligible. Felice repeats her request slowly, gesturing south. His eyebrows lift. He turns off the meter saying, “Good he give me the card number then.” She slides down in her seat until the back of her neck touches the low, molded upholstery. The car bounces over ruts in the streets, beads and medallions swinging wildly from the rearview mirror, and a drizzle starts, stippling the windows. Not until they’re approaching downtown does Felice feel some inkling of the night before. She has spent so many years awakening in unpredictable circumstances that she is almost accustomed to the dreamy, stifling sense of things, the acceptance of any terrible possibility. Traffic streams by, shadowy in the half-light, and Felice cranes around, studying the swirl of cars. Twice, she becomes convinced that she sees the green Maserati, but all the convertibles have their tops up in the rain, hooded and anonymous. Each car that quietly passes them seems like another miracle.

Emerson gazes ahead, ignoring the cars, but he holds Felice’s hand so tightly that her fingertips feel numb. Once they exit the causeway and start racing along the 95 drop, she feels another potent, mortal quaking start up. Another person has died because of her.

“You okay?”

“No.” Felice hunches into the low spasms in her gut, elbows digging into the tops of her knees. She stares at the driver’s ID:
Henri LaValesque
.

Emerson catches her hand again; he holds it in both of his. “Maybe we should try—just—letting it go. All of it. It could be like none of it ever existed at all? Like here, we’re in this car, just talking about interesting stuff, driving to this new place.”

“Like what?” She stares at the driver’s head. “What’re we talking about?”

“I don’t know. Anything.”

She frowns at the streaks on the window glass; pieces of sunlight filter through some of the low-floating clouds, drawing out prisms suspended in light. Felice pulls Emerson’s hand into her lap—it’s ridged with calluses: she’d never noticed before. “Okay, why did they name you Emerson?”

“My dad.” Emerson glances at the bright, streaky glass. “He was into doing for yourself, growing your own vegetables, making your own soap and candles. His favorite guy was this writer Emerson. He wrote about really doing your own thing.”

“That sounds like a good way to be,” she says softly, but the deep molten quaking has entered her chest and she’s humiliated by the way her voice shakes. Emerson puts his arm around her shoulders and folds her into his side. She clings to Emerson’s midsection, comforted by his size. An intermittent rain spatters the cab, sluicing up between cars.

After a while, Emerson murmurs to her, “Dad said that self-reliance was such a big American idea, but so what? I don’t think it’s that great . . .” His voice tapers off. “It’s just what people do ’cause they don’t want to say thank you.”

Felice watches the bruised sky; another volley of rain sweeps over the cab. It slants in curtains over the city, darkening the platinum high-rises. An olive cast seems to emanate from the deepest part of the sky and she can feel a shivering movement as gusts of wind hit the car. Felice thinks about the fierce summer storms she’s weathered in the Green House, the steamy unlit rooms, tree limbs banging against the roof. “That man’s face.” The words seep out of her, dank heat rising from her back. Her breath feels like it’s squeezed into the tops of her lungs.

“No, no, no.” He gathers her closer. “You don’t need to think about that now.”

“His friends will come after us, won’t they? Derek’s right.”

Emerson seems to also be studying the back of the driver’s head; he says quietly, close to her ear, “We’re going to be fine.”

The cab bounces onto the exit to U.S. 1. “Stanley—my brother—he’ll help us.” Felice takes taut little breaths. “He always knows the right thing.” She knows Emerson is holding himself still and calm for her, that he must have just the same trembling in his core. Or he will have. The cab slows on the exit, rolling into traffic on the narrow highway; Felice is startled by the number of cars, the way they skim within inches of each other. She stares ahead through the windshield, over the backs of the cars lining the road. Gradually, a small comfort settles in her. It’s been years since she’s felt the faint rising sense of the future. But there it is, inside the torn-out cab, the stink of old cigarettes and fake pine, and Emerson’s arm curved to her ribs.

Brian

B
RIAN WAKES TO A SHARP RAPPING NEXT DOOR.
Josh Masterson is on a ladder tipped against the side of his house, installing clear hurricane panels. There are also sounds of Avis in the kitchen, the preparatory clashing and sliding of pans. He calls the office and listens to a recording saying that “due to Hurricane Katrina,” all PI&B employees are asked to stay home. In chinos and work shirt, he goes to the dining room table and finds a place set: a plate with two poached eggs, buttermilk scone, and blueberry-
lavender
jam. Avis comes to the door and says, “The hurricane special.” He lifts his knife. “I am strong like bull.”

Brian labors through the dawn, already a welter of humidity, the storm’s approach churning invisibly through the air. He’d meant to replace the panels with easier accordion shutters. The pieces of aluminum are heavy and the edges cut into his fingers, even through his cotton work gloves. Worse, the small holes refuse to line up with the brackets; there is much clumsy hoisting, dropping, and realignment before he can manage to twist in a single screw at the top, at which point the lower brackets no longer line up. In two hours, he’s managed to install three panels, covering two-thirds of one window. He’s sweated through his work shirt, his hand shaking as he drags it across his forehead.

Craving respite, he creeps back inside. On a cooling rack in the kitchen, he recognizes his wife’s slim, buttery
langues de chat
and the plump
croissants aux amandes
filled with almond cream and Kirsch. The counters are wiped down and the kitchen gleams with emptiness. There is a sense of absence and self-sufficiency here that shortens his breath, a pointed ache in his chest. Perhaps Avis is back in the neighbor’s yard, sitting with the young stranger. Attempting to ignore this discomfort, Brian consults the Weather Channel: the first feathery wisps approach the Florida peninsula. A couple of forecasters argue over the tropical storm system as if it were an upcoming sports event: “So is it still a hurricane watch or a warning?” “NOAA says watch.” “Don’t you believe it—people better get ready for this baby. They’re predicting landfall by late afternoon.” An ominous commercial sponsored by their local Publix asks if everyone’s got their “Disaster Provisions” ready. Then the local newscasters appear, talking intensely about canned foods, dried beans, games to play with the kids by candlelight. Brian has managed only to partially cover one of their twenty windows; he thinks of the driving rain and wind that may come.

On the other hand, he recalls that Javier said he was going in to work today. And what if Fernanda goes in? What if Javier tells her about yesterday afternoon in the field? Or about the disgraceful real estate scheme they’d fallen for? Brian feels a wincing contraction in the pit of his stomach. He showers, returns to the bedroom, and puts on his charcoal-gray suit and the white shirt with the thin blue lines. His jacket creases at his elbows: it’s one of his older suits. Now he seems to be shrinking within it. He sees a thread at the cuff—the softness of such nicely blended cotton and wool, the way it rests on him like a soul. Expensive, fraying thing. He notices he can tighten his belt by almost a notch. The clothes help him feel better—a certain haze that’s lingered at the edges of his eyes, a certain tipsy sensation like that of sleep deprivation, seem to lift a bit. As he emerges, he hears Avis in the kitchen.

“There you are.” He holds his car keys tightly as he leans into the kitchen door.

Avis blinks up at him. She is shaking pine nuts in a skillet, tossing them in an ellipse over the fire. She turns off the flame and wraps her hands in her towel as she comes to the door, frowning. Brian tells her he’s going to work, he won’t be gone long. She touches his left temple, which causes his throat to constrict. “Are you sure you’re—” She hesitates. “Are you sure you want to? With the storm coming. Weren’t you going to work on the house?”

Brian kisses the side of her face. He tells Avis that he has some last-minute document review, he’ll be back well before the storm.

“Nothing you can do from here?” Her tone is mild but grave. It’s almost enough to keep him home, but he lowers his gaze. “I won’t be long. Promise.”

HE HEADS OFF,
driving through the first lashings of rain. The highway is crowded—everyone trying to fit in last-minute commerce. Images of Javier and Fernanda fill his head: he sees them laughing, heads tilting together. The rushing, chaotic highway, the backlit sky—white satin clouds outlined in black, the spray of rain, all have an altered, pre-apocalyptic quality. He feels increasingly doomed, assailed by a series of bad decisions, yet he’s determined to be at the office. Captain goes down with ship, he thinks as he pulls into the lot. A private little sinking. He thinks about Mr. Christian and his mutiny. Was it Bligh who’d gone mad or Christian? His knees feel spongy and untrustworthy, his mind tugs, trying to float away from his body as he walks into the building. Rufus seems surprised by Brian’s appearance; something like concern touches his face—as if Brian looked
that bad
. Rufus barely gets out the words “Mr. Muir,” and Brian rejoins, “Yes, hello, how are you.”

He unlocks the door for Brian. “Not supposed to be letting folks in today,” he mutters. “Supposed to be sending people home.”

The building is half lit with a tinny echo like that of a mausoleum. Brian stares at the painting of vivid, grassy everglades that hangs over the elevator doors. He’d never really noticed it before: it glows in the dimmed lobby. He considers grimly that this is probably an image of the place—glimmering green marsh, corrugated alligator backs, sweep of lazing trees—they destroyed to make this office building. The elevator opens and he wobbles outside himself, gazing upon the thin spot at the back of his head from the elevator ceiling. The corridors on 34 are eerily hollow; his footsteps bounce back, perfect replicas. He watches his own progress down the hall. A line from somewhere—a nursery rhyme?—bounces through his head: I grow old, I shall wear my trousers rolled . . .

Fernanda’s office lights are out. Of course. What had he been thinking? Relief courses through him, expanding his breath; he’s able to collapse back into himself. Safe. What on earth would he have said to her? He will check his messages, he thinks, and go home, and that will be that. Inter-office mail is piled up against his door. Brian watches himself step over it on his way in. Gazing around the cool solemnity of his office, he feels a distance from his surroundings—stacks of thick contracts, his yellow pad covered with the details of commission hearings, the water-blue surface of his desk. And the view: the causeway, the fields of admiral blue water in the bay. All seems frozen and remote, like a diorama. With a soul-emptying sigh, he turns to the computer, taps the keyboard to awaken it, and lets his eyes focus on the Financial News, the headlines,
High Gas Prices Fuel Fear of Financial Hardship
and
florida girds for the next storm
. He scans the websites, searching for some news of the Steele Building fiasco—there is none—then retrieves his mail and combs the papers. A few stragglers and die-hards pass Brian’s office, shuffling folders, determined to work until the moment everything shuts down. The spell of the workday wraps itself around Brian. He flips open a file of recent motions and is able to work uninterrupted by calls or associates. Javier appears around noon, nodding, fingers knotted loosely at the knuckles as he drops into the guest chair. His face is the color of cinders and Brian can smell a waft of tobacco. “Hey, there he is! I thought you might show.”

“You know me,” Brian says. He notices a missed button popping open under Javier’s tie. “The old soldier.”

“You get home okay? You sleep okay last night?”

“Beautifully,” he says, realizing it is true—after much sleeplessness, last night was a luxurious blank slot.

“Ha. Tell me what that’s like.” Javier lowers the top of his head into his hands. “I had two other investors lined up with that goddamned Steele Building. One of them tried to make a wire transfer from his account straight to the developers. It was so much that his broker put a partial hold on it, thank the saints.” Javier crosses himself. “He still gave them about three hundred K.”

Brian wheels back in his seat. “Not too much they can do if they can’t find the guys.” He considers how close he’d come to doing the same thing.

“Their lawyer knows where they are, but he’s not telling. They’re going to declare bankruptcy, and their assets—whatever the fuck they can find—gonna be stuck in receivership. Perez Properties says they want to sue for consulting fees.” He rolls his eyes. “The
cabróns
lied—they didn’t have even half the investors that they claimed. The money fell apart and the
pingas
ran.” Javier nods, elbows propped on knees, his head lowered toward his shoulders. He rubs his hands together, fingers spread. “Hell of a thing, man. You know, I had some friends this happened to. Very similar. This town, you hear all the stories, right? Figure that
mierda
is just for the idiots, old ladies with their sweepstakes, any
imbécil
who wants to believe in magic.” Still sitting, he stretches his back, cracking his neck to one side, then straightens, his eyes wide and glittering. “I thought I was so smart. I thought nothing gets past this boy.” His fingers run over his temples; he looks as if he’s attempting a telepathic feat. “It’s like—damn. Should’ve seen that one a mile away.”

“No, I know. I didn’t see it either, and I feel the same—like, I absolutely should have.” Brian moves a file back onto the stack, trying to seem nonchalant, but he feels an icy chill. “Cautionary tale.”

“Thank God, eh?” Javier says with a bleak laugh. He grabs his arms. “Like check yourself for the shrapnel.”

Brian smiles at the window, its surface intermittently clear, then stippled with raining gusts. In the distance, the bay is driven with sheets of gunmetal swells and troughs. “I had this stupid idea about it—because Stanley needed money.”

“Yeah, but that was a
good
reason to do it.” Javier sits back, his chin sinking on his chest. “We’ll find another project—a great one, I promise.”

“No, no. That’s not what I’m . . .” The sky is getting so dark that Brian can see a layer of reflections there: Javier’s crossed leg, the computer screen filled with passing stars, the framed photograph. A photograph without Felice! He thinks of his mother saying, “A child splits you open.” He turns back to his desk, picks up a stray pencil, teeth marks in its blue paint, and taps it on the glass. “It’s really strange. Trying to be decent—I mean, with your kids? All I figured out is the only way to do it is to leave them. You got to go away. To work. That’s how you take care of them. That’s what I learned from my own father. But then you’re away from them and they’d don’t even care about it, because what good is it . . .”

“What is this?” Javier starts laughing. “You’re kidding. You’re the best father.”

Brian taps the keyboard, glances at the live tracking site, the milky pinwheel of this incoming system, Katrina, poised between the Caribbean and the peninsula. He’d forgotten to turn on his lights, the day prematurely dim, clouds rolling in, heavy as volcanic ash. “Why do you think it’s so funny?” he asks. “Am I that ridiculous?”

Javier’s laugh dwindles. “Well, no, man, of course. It’s just . . .” he says slowly. “My God. For one thing, I thought you were
happy
.
Ay carajo!
You of all people.”

Brian looks at Javier then, startled by the complicated uncertainty on his face. He hesitates, sensing that, in some way, Javier is able to peer into some shadow self of his. He feels a cool contraction now, pervading his skin, as if this sudden unburdening has left him feeling overexposed. He touches the wall and all hard surfaces seem to tremble for a fraction of a second, a swipe of vertigo passes through him. The lip of curvy exterior window is inches from his fingers and his attention strays: the sky trails rain-vapors over the city. “Provide, provide,” he mutters.

“What’s that?”

Brian shakes his head, touches his temples with his fingertips, as if fighting a migraine. He excuses himself. In the executive washroom, Brian splashes water across his face. He cups his palms and spills a cool handful over his head. He holds the sink and inhales deeply, regularly. Tries to focus on his eyes in the mirror.

When he emerges, his office is empty. It’s getting so dark outside the corridor light seems drained. He spots a twinkle of light in the glass wall, a glimpse of movement in Fernanda’s office. He strolls down the hall, then for some reason he wavers just outside the penumbra of her office. She must have moved, because he notices her form slip through the surface of the glass. Unable to see in clearly at that angle, Brian leans toward the glass: he realizes there are two people in the office. A soft, illicit sense like dread passes through him: he wishes he could stop himself, but it’s almost as if some force is compelling him to look. Outside, what sounds like another volley of gravel rattles the windows, rain, flung with enough force to leave tiny transparent smears on the glass for a second, like claw marks. It surges in volume, spattering, then subsides. Moving closer to the glass, he spots Javier, he’s sitting on her desk. Fernanda is sitting before him, inside the V of his legs, her hand on his knee.

His heart expands and collapses: electrical sparks speed under his skin, his limbic system fizzing and crackling. Brian moves backwards, away from the glass; a wisp of laughter escapes him. He sees her sharp, dark glance, then the corridor lighting switches off and there is only the backup generator light: white beams every ten feet; a previously invisible
exit
sign glaring from the end of the hall. The glass walls reveal an enormous, tumid massing of clouds, banks of black and white like a winter’s day in Alaska. Brian makes his way to the elevator: as the doors slide shut, he hears someone calling him.

HE STANDS IN THE
gloom of the elevator, sees himself in a dark green glade, around him there are children and friends, tiny lights glowing on a narrow leaf. He lifts his hands, opening and closing them; he feels prehistoric. If he could just take hold of one of the lovely lights . . . His head tips until his forehead touches the metal of the doors. It is, he realizes, the posture of his existence: face pressed to a snow globe. How had he stepped outside of his own existence? He was jealous: he admits this to himself. But now he just feels like an idiot. The elevator car jerks to a halt on 11 and the doors slide open. Brian must make his way in the pitch black of the stairwell, clinging to the railing. It smells like paint and stale cigarettes; twice he stumbles. He believes he can hear the crackle of cockroaches on the walls, some whispering shuffle high above him. The marble plain of the lobby feels like an empty stage. Rufus is no longer at his post. When Brian opens the glass door, a wailing wind nearly wrenches it out of his hands. The row of royal palms surge, their crowns and necks bowing to the west. His hair whips sideways, his suit plastered to him, as he dashes into the garage.