Postcards (21 page)

YARRA WAS EXCITED. ‘He sent it. I know he sent it. Goddamn, there’s a check in there, I didn’t think he’d send it. But he did. That was a good list of names. Wasn’t that the list where the woman sent a hundred? Sure it was. A good list.’ His tan porkpie hat was tilted aggressively down over his nose so he had to tilt up his chin when he looked at Dub. The jaws worked on the everlasting invisible piece of gristle.

‘You open it?’

‘No, course I didn’t open it. Got your name on the front, think I open somebody else’s letter?’ He flapped the envelope virtuously in front of Dub’s face.

‘So how do you know there’s money in it?’ Dub felt like he was underwater. The motel walls were the blue of swimming pools. On the rickety desk his bottle of whiskey, roll of stamps, the ballpoint pen, the packet of envelopes, the tablet of crinkly letter paper, lists of addresses and replies. He could whip those letters off.

Dear Mr. Randall,
Your name has been given to me as the name of a man who can be trusted and who would be interested in an excellent money making opportunity. I will come right to the point as I know you are a busy man, and tell you that due to no fault of my own, I am at this time a political prisoner in a Mexican jail. Things are done very different here than in the U.S.A. and it has been made known to me that if I can raise the sum of $300 I will be released from this prison. Liberty! The sweetest words on earth! Naturally I am not asking you to contribute $300 to me as a risk, but I can tell you in all confidence that I have a Large sum of money, close to $350,000 buried in the U.S.A. in a spot known only to me, and if I can get released from this place, I will split that sum with the man who befriends me, half and half. The money is of no use to me here in this terrible prison. The rats are very bad. If I could get at it I would be free in a minute. But I know you are a fellow American who can be trusted, and if you remit the $300 to insure my release I will contact you at once on my release and we will go together to where I have hidden the Large sum. You as the good Samaritan will get back five hundred times your investment. Because it is risky to try and send a letter across the border I have arranged a special hand delivery arrangement. Send the money in a plain brown envelope or a money order addressed to Mr. Marvin E. Blood 1408 Lily Garden Ave., Miami, Florida. He will pass it on to a trusted friend who will soon be in Mexico on business.

Yours sincerely,
Joseph W. MacArthur (a distant relation of Gen. Douglas MacArthur)

Some job.

But this was the place, Florida, this was for him, the lush brightness,
the spiciness and fast-thinking people. He felt alive here. He’d never go back north.

‘I held it up to the window. I could see a money order form.’

Dub slit the envelope with his jacknife. A money order for five hundred dollars did out of a folded letter.

‘Jesus! We hit the jackpot. This guy sent two hundred more than I even asked for. Listen to this. Listen.

“Dear Mr. MacArthur. Maybe I am crazy to take a chance on you but I’m going to risk it. I think you will pay me back. I have been down myself. Enclosed please find the $300 to get you out of the ‘Mexican prison’ and another $200 to help you get started in some legitimate calling. I hear men can make fortunes in Florida real estate and callings associated with the tourist industry. Perhaps this will start you out. Sincerely, J. J. Randall.”’

‘Hey, he knows it’s a con.’

‘Yeah. And he sent it just the same. That’s a hell of a nice guy.’ Dub floated in a sea of good luck.

‘He probably done time himself, knows what it’s like. Probably just pulled off a supermarket robbery or something. Could of whacked a old lady on the head, snatched her cat food money.’

‘Yeah. But maybe just a guy wants to give somebody a hand. Or some rich guy never even notice five hundred. There’s people like that. Over at Palm Beach they’re like that. That’s the address we got on Randall, Palm Beach. You can’t even go on the streets at night unless you got a pass. Those are rich, rich people.’

‘They hold on to it, too. Palm Beach. Where the rich families dump their retards. Pick a warm climate so the dummies don’t freeze to death they don’t know how to make a fire.’

‘Hey, don’t be so sour. Let’s go. Cash this thing.’

‘I want to buy the best dinner in town, steaks with onion and mushroom, get the hell out of this dump. How about Los Angeles? Get out of this dump.’ A little life comes into Yarra’s lumpy face, complexion like an unbandaged foot.

‘I’m thinking.’

‘Think on the way. Let’s go.’

‘Anyway, I rather have one of them Cuban sandwiches, I love them things.’

Dub read the letter again while he ate, cramming in the spicy pork. The crust sawed the roof of his mouth. The letter. What the hell, real estate. He hadn’t thought about doing anything since the piano tuning. Just swindle letters. Dumb!

‘Yarra, you know I started to be a piano tuner once?’

‘Yeah? What happened?’

‘Nothing. Nothing.’ He was thinking. It didn’t have to be real estate. He could be anything. He tried to think of occupations, but all he could come up with was waiter, restaurant manager, post office worker, motel keeper, ideas he got by reviewing the day. He didn’t want to do any of that. Where the hell did you find out about ‘callings’?

Late that night the idea came to him: look in the phone book. See what people did. He got up, ignoring Yarn’s strangled question from the other bed, and took the phone book into the bathroom to sit on the cool throne among the cockroaches, flipping the yellow pages and considering how far he’d get as an adoption agent, private investigator, septic tank cleaner, diamond merchant, sign painter, marina manager, nurseryman, towel supplier, tennis court maintenance man, smoke odor remover, rope maker, bookseller, traffic analyst, or tattoo artist. He looked under Real Estate. Son of a bitch, there were pages and pages of appraisers, developers, estate managers. He was all reared up. There were a couple of real estate schools. In Miami. He’d call one up in the morning. Just for the hell of it. But God, he was all reared up and could not sleep.

Yarra drove him crazy. The guy wanted to take off for LA right away. He wanted cornflakes and bacon and pancakes for breakfast. He didn’t like Miami. He hated the sound of Spanish he said, there were too many niggers, it was too hot, he had a sunburn just from walking around, the car was crusted with bugs, the windshield all gummed up, he hated fruit, the shrines had the wrong saints, let’s get the hell out of here.

Dub left Yarra at a diner pouring cane syrup on corn bread and went up the street for Cuban coffee and a couple of sugared
churros.
The quiet phone booth at the back of the marina a block from the diner. He talked to people at two of the real estate schools. The phone didn’t answer at the third. He liked the girl at the Southern Florida Real Estate Institute and called her back.

‘I sure do remember talking with you ten minutes ago. And I’m glad you called back?’ She made every statement into a question. ‘Because I thought of something else. We are a six-month school leading to the real estate license, just sellin’ the real estate, you know. But. There’s the real estate college, Miami Realty Junior College. Real good courses on every phase of the business if you’re real serious about advancing in the field? Not just selling. But. Investment, development, stocks? You can work in the daytime and take courses at night? I’m not suppose to tell you this, but you sounded like you wanted to know it all?’

‘I do want to know it all. I just decided that. And I want to know your name and what time you get done work. I’d like to buy you a drink for your help. And meet you.’

‘Mr. Blood, I have a surprise for you? You have been allured by a woman’s voice. I am a sixty-two-year-old grandmother and my husband wouldn’t like for me to run off to a gin mill with a stranger? But I know about the college because my daughter graduated there seven years ago. She went to Houston? She’s with a top development firm? So it can be done. But thank you for asking. Bye-bye, now and you have good luck?’

Yarra was ugly. He was standing on the sidewalk in front of the diner looking up and down the street. He was snapping one fist into the palm of the other hand, showing his muscled forearms. Ropy arms, Levis creased like metal. His fishing hat was pushed back. He looked at his watch. Figured I run out on him, thought Dub. For a minute he was tempted, he had the money, but walked up behind him and tapped Yarra on the shoulder.

‘Where the hell you been?’

‘Making phone calls. Making plans.’

‘Yeah? Well, the only plan I want to make is get out of here. There was a fuckin’ cockroach in the corn bread. I almost puked on the table. I just want to get out of here.’

‘Let’s talk about it. I like it here.’

‘Like it! What are you, spic-lover or something?’

‘I don’t know, I just feel good here. There’s something going on, there’s this feeling of taking a chance. It’s like going to the races every day.’

‘Miami stinks. It’s better in LA. The climate’s nice and even, not sweaty like here. I got contacts in LA. We’ll clean up. Get some fancy stationery for the letters. We’ll live good. Hey, Hollywood! A few more nice letters like yesterday we’ll be all set.’

‘I don’t want to go to LA. I don’t want to write any more letters. I’ll split the five hundred with you but I’m staying here. Gonna try to get in this real estate college. I got an appointment with the admissions this afternoon.’

Yarra stopped chewing on the piece of gristle. ‘Oh oh oh I got a prince with me.’ He put the back of his right hand on his hip and fluffed his wiry hair with the other. ‘Why, pardon my bad manner, sir, I thought we was on the same fuckin’ trip but I see different. I didn’t know I was goin’ around with a prince. What the hell. You not much fun, anyway. Just a goddam farm boy, dazzled by the bright lights. Give my two-fifty and I’m gone.’

‘Two-twenty-five – I gave you twenty-five yesterday after we cashed it.’

‘Oh yeah. Wouldn’t want to forget that now, would we? But I want to ask you, who was it give you the idea of the letters? Me. Who was it showed you the scam? Me. Who was it got you that list of addresses? Me. Who was it picks the letter up when it comes? Me. And NOW, who is it gets kicked in the balls and dumped? Me. And I’ll tell you something, you won’t ever make it. You’re not the type that makes it.’

‘Your ass. But if it makes you feel better I’ll give you the two-fifty.’ He only wanted to get rid of Yarra. Minute by minute he was getting into Florida, feeling the charged-up rhythm.

‘And what about the VW? Who gets the VW?’ The stream of people parted on both sides, a woman, red toenails jutting out of peek-a-boo shoes, a black woman in a dress printed with violet orchids, a black woman in a uniform carrying a Woolworth’s bag. A pair of
short Cubans, bellies swelling their guayaberas, hair springing up at their throats, the rich cigar smoke trailing after them, ran into him as they stared at two blondies in pedal pushers and ballet slippers. A tourist hauled a child holding a rabbit balloon by the ears. The dwarf with a red vest, three hard hats without shirts, belly hair rising out of blue jeans, a man with red glass rings on every finger, a hard-eyed Mikasuki wearing saddle oxfords and a yellow shirt rolled past, the traffic, buses drowned their voices, left them spitting into each other’s faces.

‘O.k., let’s take it around to a couple of used-car dealers, see what they offer. Strike an average. You want the car? You pay me for my half. We went halfies on the car. We can sell it, split the dough. Both be better off that way, I think. You could take a bus to LA.’

They got two hundred for the black VW and Yarra left on the noon bus for Mobile, New Orleans and west.

‘Good riddance, meatball!’ he shouted, leaning out the bus window, giving Dub the finger.

Mr. Bent came through the classroom door like a tiger. He stood in front of the class, stared at them for a long minute. His face was tanned a deep red-orange. A ridge of muscle around his mouth whitened the rim of his upper lip and gave him the look of a shrewd simian. The bags under his eyes were dusky blues. His hair, parted on the left, leaped up in a great quiff over his left eye. He wore a white linen suit with a nylon knit shirt of pale yellow. The collar flared over the suit lapels, and when he leaned out, Dub, sitting in the front row, could see the crown emblem stitched over his left nipple. He bent toward them and, in a coaxing voice, said, ‘I am a millionaire. How many of you want to be millionaires?’

The Cuban-looking woman beside Dub shot her hand into the air and held it there. Other hands went up. Dub hesitated, then thought why the hell shouldn’t I be a millionaire and raised his hand. Only a heavyset man with a sad expression let his hands lie on the desk top.

‘What is your name sir?’

‘John Corcoris.’

‘Well, John, if you don’t want to be a millionaire why are you in this class?’ In the laughter the hands slid down again.

‘Well, I was in sponge diving, my family done this for generations, Key West, Tarpon Springs, but the sponges is thin out, there’s the synthetics. I thought maybe a good idea get into real estate. Never thought about being a millionaire. I just want enough to raise my family, live comfortable.’

‘Mr. Corcoris. I will invite you to step out into the hall and reflect a moment. If, at the end of five minutes you do not want to be a millionaire, kindly point yourself in another direction. This class WILL be animated by each student’s desire to make a million dollars. And I will personally be insulted if every person in this room does not go for that goal with everything he or she has got. You CAN DO IT. You come from all walks of life, from every background, you are different ages – how old are you—?’ pointing at an acned boy, then at an older woman whose hair was streaked with yellow white – ‘there you are, twenty-two and sixty-three. Some of you may have had sorry pasts, others may have fallen from earlier glory or riches. Yet you are all here in this room, united by a single motive – the motive to be a success, to make a fortune, to make a million dollars. And I am here to show you how. The motto of this class is “I refuse to accept the fate life handed me. I will MAKE my OWN fate.” In other classes you’ll learn about deeds and conveyances, contracts, title searches, brokerage and mortgages, but with Maurice Sheridan Bent you will learn how to be a millionaire.’