“Did you hear me?” Carson said. “Tip Breen. I’m buying the Lil’ Champ.” Carson was talking loudly, breathlessly, and it sounded as though he was walking. Then Frank heard Carson’s car door slam, heard the engine start up.
“Does Tip know this?” Frank said.
“Of course he does. I’m leaving the jail. I’ve just been to see him. He’s got bigger problems than the Lil’ Champ, Frank. I saw him and the defender, and he’s in for a while, the sorry shit. So I’m buying him out, gonna make a go of it.” Carson was talking fast. His car radio blasted AC/DC and then was quickly silenced. “And when he gets out, he can come work for me,” he continued. “I’m going to need somebody to sell the coffee to the yuppies. By then I’ll be franchised, maybe. Stores all over the place. Gourmet groceries. Whole foods. Granola out the ass.”
“And scones?” Frank said.
“Scones is right!” Carson said. “Fucking gold mine sitting there, Frank. Café lattes. Paninis. God-damned wine tastings!” He chortled, and Frank had to smile. It was good to hear Carson getting excited again.
“What about your firm?” he said.
“I’m settling up, closing the shop,” Carson said. “St. Augustine’s a museum. It’s a catacomb down here. But Utina? The marina and shit? That’s about to bust wide open. We’d be idiots not to be a part of it, Frank. It’s time to act.”
“So you’re coming back to Utina.”
“Yeah,” Carson said. “I guess I am.” He paused for a moment. “It’s time to redistribute the assets, know what I mean? Time to take inventory.”
“Of business?”
“Of all of it, Frank,” Carson said.
“Hey, Carson,” Frank said, slowing the truck for a gopher turtle inching across the road. He’d just remembered something. “I got it: they were all facing impeachment.”
Carson guffawed into the phone. “Wrong!” he said. “They were all named after their peckers!”
Frank laughed. He hung up and rolled the windows down. The smell of the ocean behind him was fading quickly, displaced by the smell of palms and pines and the last sweet remnants of the season’s jasmine as he drew closer and closer to Utina.
At the turn on County Road 25, he slowed down. There in the median stood Do-Key, surrounded by campaign signs (
DONALD
KEITH!
FOR
SHERIFF!) and waving maniacally to passing drivers. When Keith saw Frank he waved him over.
“I understand you are the one who posted bail for Tip Breen on Wednesday,” Keith said immediately. “Good move, Bravo. That worked out well, didn’t it?”
“I didn’t know it was your case,” Frank said. “You on the Utina beat now? Or you just being nosy?”
Do-Key smiled broadly, waved at a passing car, then dropped the smile and glared at Frank. “They’re all my cases,” he said. He pointed to the sign: “Sheriff,” he said.
“Not yet,” Frank said. “Not ever, we hope.”
“I’ll be following up with you on Tip Breen, Bravo,” Do-Key said. He looked at his watch. “I’ve got questions. But I’ve got the homecoming parade here in a little bit.”
Frank tried not to smile. What
was
it with Do-Key and parades? “My God. I’m going to buy you your own twirling baton, all these parades you do. You driving the mayor again?” he said.
“No, asshole,” Keith said. “I’m the marshal. It’s a campaign thing. I’ve got a ’53 Chevy cruiser and—” He stopped himself. “Not that you’d give a shit.”
“Oh, I don’t know,” Frank said. “I might give a
shit
.”
“Jackass,” Keith said, walking away as another car passed by. “Fucking Bravos,” he called back over his shoulder.
Frank suddenly had a feeling that felt like a memory, a buzzing spike of adrenaline he had not felt in many, many years. The buzz was faint, but it was familiar and seductive and good, and he could see, suddenly, no reason not to welcome it completely.
He drove into Utina and stopped at the Dollar General. He selected an eight-inch screwdriver on the hardware aisle, then walked slowly up the toy aisle until he found what he was looking for. He brought his two purchases to the counter, paid, and drove directly to the parking lot behind the First Baptist Church where he knew that by now, nearly noon on Utina High’s homecoming day, the volunteer committees would be staging the afternoon’s parade. He glanced at his watch, confirming. He had a couple of hours. Plenty of time. He spotted the car, a beautiful 1953 Chevy police cruiser, pristine and newly polished. He estimated his obstacles: a gaggle of cheerleaders, a handful of PTO mothers organizing the volunteers, and a fifty-five-year-old car door lock. Easy. Child’s play. It was almost unfair. He grinned. It was almost criminal.
By the time he’d finished his work, it was after one o’clock, and he straightened up next to the antique car, brushed off his pants, and admired his ingenuity. Under the Chevy’s front seat, the Dollar General screwdriver was tightly wedged into the adjustable steel bench track, immobilizing the seat in the farthest-forward setting and allowing little more than ten inches of space between the bottom edge of the steering wheel and the thick vinyl of the seat back. Even Elizabeth, tiny as she was, would have had a hard time piloting the car with the seat set at this angle. He smiled. He could only imagine how Do-Key would manage. He’d look like an imbecile, a fat moose wedged into a seat too small for him, but it would be typical, for Keith, a man who’d made a career out of inserting himself into positions and situations for which he was entirely unsuited. It was beautiful. Carson would be proud. Will would have been proud.
Frank the Prank
.
He reached into his pocket and removed the rubber alligator he’d bought at the Dollar General. It was sticky and fat, with painted-on claws and an unrealistic kelly green cast to its body. Frank positioned it carefully on the Chevy’s steering column, its grinning white teeth bared, its crazy red eyes peering, jubilant, through the spokes of the wheel.
When he pulled up at the Cue & Brew, Mac’s Mustang was out front, as was Susan’s dented Mazda, on which she’d evidently jimmied the driver’s side door sufficiently to allow herself to get in and out, but which had not yet received any legitimate repairs.
Inside the pub, Mac and George were holding down stools at the end of the bar, Mac still looking like hell, the swelling on his nose scarcely subsided at all, and Frank did a double-take when he realized the pretty blonde leaning against Mac’s knee was Susan.
Irma the waitress walked past with a tray of drinks. “You’re here now?” Frank said, incredulous. He’d felt terrible, letting Irma go when they’d closed Uncle Henry’s last week, and with everything that had followed after the wedding, he’d forgotten to check in with her, find out what she’d planned to do for a job.
“Where else am I gonna go, dummy? You think they’re gonna want me in Starbucks?” She walked behind the bar, put two empty pint glasses in the sink, then reached across and slapped Frank gently on the arm. “What do you want to drink, Bravo?”
He ordered a Bass, and she walked to the taps and returned with the beer.
“Thanks, Irma,” he said.
“Oh, shush,” she said.
Susan was on Mac’s lap now, and Mac—his eyes rimmed with purple bruises—looked sheepish for a moment, but then he stood up, gently pushed Susan aside, and walked over to Frank. He clapped Frank’s shoulder roughly, then cleared his throat.
“You hanging in?” he said.
Frank nodded.
Susan leveled her gaze at Frank.
“You and your brother been beating up anybody else we should know about?” she said. She pointed at Mac. “This here is some piece of work.”
“That wasn’t me,” Frank said. “That was all Carson.”
Mac snorted. “Makes no difference,” he said. “One Bravo’s the same as the next.”
“Like hell, Mac,” Frank said. But it was probably true.
Susan settled back into Mac’s lap.
“I’ll take care of you,” she said, putting her arm around his shoulders. “I will.” Mac smiled broadly beneath his bruises.
She was a little drunk, Frank could tell, but he was charmed by her beautiful blond ponytail and the sass in her voice and the gentle way her arm rested across Mac’s shoulders. She was lovely. Maybe he should have loved her. Maybe he should have.
“Susan,” he said. “I have come to pay my debts.”
She turned and stared at him.
“That car of yours is some mess,” Frank said.
“You can say that again,” George said.
“I don’t believe anyone asked you, George,” Susan said, narrowing her eyes.
“Ha!” George said.
“You don’t deserve a car like that, Susan,” Frank said.
“Well, that’s what I think,” she said. “But you—”
“I’m here to make amends, Susan.” Frank took the checkbook out of his pocket and wrote a check to Susan Holm for $30,000. He slid it down the bar to her, and when she looked at it, her eyes grew wide and her mouth opened.
“Frank,” she said. “That’s too much.”
“Take her to Jacksonville tomorrow, Mac,” Frank said. “Help her pick out something good. Maybe a convertible.”
Mac grinned, delighted, the pain of his injuries temporarily abated by God knows how many Bass beers and the thrill of having the beautiful Susan Holm now leaning her generous left breast into his arm as she staggered under the weight of the $30,000 check and stared unbelievingly at Frank Bravo.
“I can’t take this,” she said.
“Don’t worry, it’s not a gift,” Frank said. “It’s an advance on your commission.”
“What?” she managed. Mac had one hand on her backside, holding her up, it appeared.
“Tomorrow we’ll talk about listing, Susan,” Frank said.
“Bravo, my friend,” Mac said. “Good stuff.”
Frank took his beer and walked out of the Cue & Brew, down to the end of the boat dock, to where the steel gray waters of the Intracoastal shimmied by under the fading rays of the sun. In the distance, at the east end of Seminary Street, he could hear the Utina High School band warming up for the homecoming parade, and he thought of Bell, baby Bell, how she would grow up here in Utina, like they all had. She’d live here with Elizabeth, and maybe with Carson, too. She would go to Utina High, would ride the school bus up and down the streets of South Utina, past An-Needa’s house, past Tony’s Hair Affair. She’d eat at Sterling’s, shop at the Dollar General, at least for a while, anyway. At least as long as they still stood. She’d watch the new marina bring in the new people, the rich people, and maybe she’d go to prom at the new hotel, maybe get a summer job at the Starbucks or check groceries at the Publix. And it would be okay. It would be all right. Utina would still be Utina, as long as there were Bravos here. He thought of Arla’s ashes on the water, floating, then descending, mingling with those ancient particulate traces of Will, sifting like sediment through all pain, beyond all time. They would always be here. Always.
He knelt down at the end of the wooden planks, rested his weight on his heels. He looked south, where the view was clear, the channel having been cut straight and plumb years ago, decades ago. Then he looked north, where the scars of the clear-cutting at Aberdeen and Uncle Henry’s were visible along the banks. But beyond that, farther on, miles and years ahead, there lay mountains, and trout, and cool air, and water like ice that rushed white across smooth gray stones.
“It’s time,” he said, to no one at all. “I’ve waited long enough.”
A
CKNOWLEDGMENTS
First, thanks go to Judith Weber and Amy Hundley for their faith, their vision, and their friendship. I am humbled. Thank you Nat Sobel, Kirsten Carleton, Julie Stevenson, and Adia Wright. Thanks go to Flagler College and the many business clients who make my writing life possible. To my writing friends, especially Darien Andreu, Suzy Fay, Jim Wilson, and Sohrab Homi Fracis. To Roberta George and the late Jeanne Leiby for encouragement. To John Dufresne for guidance and inspiration. To Liz Robbins for unflagging friendship, and to Kim Bradley for the countless ways we’re in it together. Thanks also to the Janssen family, and to all my friends and neighbors in St. Augustine, a city where every day is a page in a story. Love and thank you to Dale and Letty DiLeo and Dawn Langton. And to my family: Monica, Emma, and Lily Hayes; Sarah and Tim Kelly; Roger and Pam Smith; Alison, Tom, Fiona, Genevieve, and Abigail Gillespie. To Christian—we miss you. To Casey, Kris, Shawn, and Lysne Cook—with all my love, always. To my father, Ken Cook, captain most courageous. And to my beautiful mother, Judy Cook, who shines the light.
Thank you Chris, Iain and Gemma: my wonderful world.
Acknowledgments
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