Frenchie

Solomon Blistein, a.k.a. Sol Rogers, a.k.a. Sol Bass, Solly to his friends, stood by the Royal Palm Motel pool on Fort Lauderdale beach fishing leaves off the water with a long-handled net, a cigarette and a cup of coffee in his left hand. The sun had just come up. A few tourists were walking along the beach. A gaunt, stooped old man with the brim of a dirty golf cap pulled over his eyes was sweeping a metal detector methodically over the sand, stopping every few feet to bend and pick up... what? A penny? A bottle cap? A fucking ten-carat diamond ring?

Sol shook his head in disgust and carried the net full of wet leaves to the sand and shook it out. Fucking Royal Palm, he thought. There wasn't a fucking royal palm in sight. Just a few scraggly-ass arecas too close to the pool so that Sol had to skim off their leaves every morning. The Royal Palm was a one-story cinderblock motel of six efficiency apartments plus Sol's one-bedroom manager's apartment, with a parking lot out front and the fucking pool in back that nobody ever bothered to swim in, what with the ocean only a few feet away. No one ever stayed at the fucking place, even in season. It was too far from the action on the Strip, with the new outdoor cafés and the Beach Plaza shopping mall. The only guest here now was a French broad who could barely speak English. She must have booked her room through a travel agent in Paris who'd never laid eyes on the place.

Sol sat down on a plastic chair next to the pool, sipped his coffee and smiled. He could see it, the travel agent holding up the Royal Palm brochure, an artist's drawing featuring towering royal palms around a kidney-shaped pool with beautiful babes lounging in Fifties bikinis up to their belly buttons. That should've been the tip-off, Sol thought. Babes with flip-up hair and polka-dot Beach Blanket Bingo bikinis watching a bunch of guys playing water polo in the pool, flashing their teeth.

Frenchie hadn't complained when Sol showed her the room with the greenish scum on the bathroom floor and fucking palmetto bugs lounging on the kitchen counter waiting for a guest to bring them food like they were on vacation too. She'd looked at it all, her smile fading, but she said nothing, except, "Is fine," taking it on the chin, tougher than she looked but still a nice kid, sweet, maybe 23, polite. Maybe she didn't have the bread for anything better. Maybe she didn't know any better, thinking the Royal Palm was the top of the line in beach motels. She had no car, no friends, no one her own age stopping by for a visit. A real mystery chick. Sol thought, but beautiful, different from the Lauderdale bimbos with their straw-blonde hair and water-balloon implants. She was more subtle, classy, in that French way. She brushed sharply cut sand-colored hair off her brow with the backs of her fingertips in a sensual way that seemed foreign to Sol, exotic. What the fuck did he know about the French?

Sol stubbed out his cigarette on the pool tile, picked up the cup and got up to go inside. Glancing at the ocean, he saw dark clouds forming way out. He squinted into the sun. A big blow, maybe. Fucking storm shutters. Geez.

Frenchie came out of her room, walking past the pool, clean-looking, scrubbed, with no makeup, in a palegray business suit and those clunky, low-heeted shoes all the broads wore these days.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Bass," she said. Big smile. Wide, pale-blue eyes, almost startled-looking her eyelids were so thin.

"Morning, honey. Your ride here yet?"

Her smile faded. "Soon." She was carrying a briefcase. She was a stockbroker trainee with Merrill Lynch on Federal. Her boss picked her up every morning in his cream-colored Merc 600 SEL 12-cylinder. A slick-looking guy with styled wavy black hair, Porsche Carrera shades and the dark suit. A soft-looking guy, like he'd dropped a lot of weight recently and wasn't used to looking good, not to 23-year-old French chicks anyway. His tan was too perfect. A raghead, Sol thought.

Sol looked back at the ocean, and then to the girl again. "There might be a storm tonight, honey. I was you, I'd stay in." The boss took her out to business dinners, bringing her home late. Business dinners, my ass, Sol thought. He was just another wiseguy wannabe, liked to be seen with a young chick on his arm. What was he, maybe 45? The same age as Sol. Almost.

"Merci, Monsieur Sol." She flashed that big smile again.

Sol watched her walk away in the morning sunlight, around the motel to the parking lot. He went inside his apartment and went straight to the bathroom, where he peered out the tiny window at the French girl waiting for her ride. The Merc pulled up and stopped. An arm reached across the seat to open the door. A Rolex below French cuffs glistened in the sun. A President, Sol thought, maybe 30 large.

The kid bent down to get in. Sol could see her face, not smiling now, as she slid into her seat, her skirt hiking up to reveal her thigh, a little chunky, but muscular. The kind of legs wrapped around you could break your back, like the Russian broad in the James Bond movie who got off fucking guys with her legs clamped around their backs. Just when they were about to come, she'd break their backs. Coming and going at the same time.

The car disappeared from his window. Sol turned and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. Fat, bald, with a salt-and-pepper goatee. His big hairy belly hung over his dirty white shorts. He looked at his bare wrists. The gold bracelets, gone. The one-ounce Star of David on a gold chain around his neck, gone. His own Rolex, gone. The wad of C-notes wrapped with an elastic band. Gone. There was a time when chicks like Frenchie stood in line to go out to dinner with Solly Bass. Lauderdale chicks who didn't see a fat, bald Jew pushing 50. They saw a player. Fucking strippers, Solly thought. They never looked at the entrees on the menu. They always ordered from the price. The $50 lobster they never finished and the $100 bottle of Dom they did, getting high on it, laughing too loudly. Feeling good, in a classy restaurant for a change. By dessert, they were running their hands up his thigh under the table.

A player. Before he learned how to play pinochle in the slam. Then he got out. Not a player anymore. The manager of the fucking Royal Palm, thanks to Meyer. Fuck it. He went outside to get the storm shutters.

•

He'd finished putting up the shutters when the storm began to blow at dusk. He went inside his apartment, fucking dark now, put a TV dinner in the microwave and made himself a Cuba libre. He turned on the television to drown out the noise, but it only got louder, like a freight train passing by his door, the wind whooshing against the door and shutters like it was going to cave them in and whoosh right out the back wall, taking Sol with it. Nothing as loud as a hurricane, Sol thought. It was like the fucking thing was alive, a huge, snarling monster, a dinosaur out of a Spielberg movie.

He wondered if Frenchie got home safely. He wouldn't have heard her door close with the rain beating against the shutters like buckshot. He settled back on his sofa in the darkness and tried to watch the seven o'clock news. A broad in a rain slicker, her hair whipping wildly, was standing on the beach describing the fucking hurricane. Big leaves from the palm trees on the beach whipped past, tumbling down the sand, reminding Sol that tomorrow he'd have to spend the whole fucking day fishing leaves off the water and from around the pool. Maybe the storm will blow the fucking trees down, too, Sol thought. That would be nice.

He heard a knock on his door, a frantic pounding, really. He opened the door, the wind whipping in, blowing Frenchie up against him. He struggled to shut the door in the wind. She didn't push herself away from him right away, but stayed close, like she expected him to protect her. The poor kid was drenched and scared. Finally, she stepped back.

"I'm so sorry, Monsieur Sol. But the storm, it frightened me." She looked like a drowned rat, her wet hair hanging down around her big eyes, but sexy, too, her T-shirt plastered against her chest, no bra, her small breasts with big nipples, like grapes, sticking through.

"No problem, honey," he said. "Come in and get dry. You can wait it out in here."

"Oh, thank you, Monsieur Sol." He got her a towel and handed it to her. She dried her hair, the towel covering her face, Sol staring at her nipples. Then she handed it to him and smiled. "Thank you again."

"You better get out of those clothes, honey. You'll catch pneumonia. I'll get you some things to wear."

She went into his bathroom. He handed her a pair of shorts with a drawstring and a T-shirt. She shut the door. He put on a pot of coffee. When she came out she was wrapped only in a towel. She handed him his clothes.

"It is all right," she said. "I don't (continued on page 74)Frenchie(continued from page 64) need these." She sat down on the sofa, pulling her muscular legs with the big calves, like that Russian broad, under her ass, hugging the towel to her. Soltried to picture her naked, caught himself, felt like a fool. The poor kid was probably too embarrassed to wear his clothes. She didn't mean anything. Maybe it was a French thing. They went topless on the beach, didn't they? Sol had seen them, not even noticing all the Americans sneaking peeks at their tits. Like it was natural.

He brought her some black coffee, conscious again of the wind howling like an animal outside. She took the coffee from him, smiling up at him with her big blue eyes. "You are too kind to me, Monsieur Sol." She held the mug in both hands, like a kid, close to her face, and sipped. Sol sat across from her on the easy chair. They both listened to the storm for a few awkward minutes.

Finally, Sol said, "You don't have storms like this in Paris?"

"Oh, no," she said, big eyed. "The weather there, it is, how you say it, more prudent."

"Moderate, I think you mean."

"Oh, yes." She giggled. "My English is not so good, is it?"

"It's fine, honey. You just need practice is all."

"I know. I not get much chance to speak English so far."

"What about at work?"

She shook her head. "No. My boss, She shook her head. "No. My boss, he is French Lebanese. He speak French to me all the time."

"Doesn't help your English much, does it?"

"No." She waited a minute, as if deciding something, then said, "Is my boss get me this apartment."

Sol smiled. "Tell the truth, honey, he could have done better for you."

"Yes. Maybe. But is secluded, he say. Safe for me. No one to bother me."

"Your boss must be pretty protective of you, eh?"

"Yes. He say I have to be careful of Americans. Not to trust."

"What about him? Do you trust him?" She just smiled at Sol, without answering. Sol said, "Well, it's a good thing you didn't go to dinner with him tonight. The storm would've been bad by the time you got home."

"Yes. The storm, it save me."

Sol looked at her. "What do you mean?"

"Oh, nothing." She smiled brightly.

"Just it give me a chance to see you, Monsieur Sol."

Sol felt himself blushing. "To see me? You mean, so you can practice your English?"

"That, yes. But is nice to talk to someone who is so kind."

Sol grinned. "Kind?" he said, shaking his head. "I been called a lot of things, honey, but never that."

"Well, maybe people not know you."

"And you do?"

She shrugged, that French way.

"Maybe."

She embarrassed him, this kid, like she was a kid most of the time, but older, too, knew things about people.

She lay down on the sofa and closed her eyes. "All this English," she said, "it tires me. I think I will go to sleep now," and she was asleep almost instantly. Sol watched her sleep for a while, the towel around her, and then he dozed off sitting up in his chair.

They woke the next morning to sunlight. She sat up, quickly, like she didn't know where she was. The towel fell from her breasts, small and firm. She didn't pull it up right away. She looked across at Sol sitting there, staring at her. He thought he saw a thin smile on her lips. She reached down a languid hand, picked up the ends of the towel at her waist and refastened it around her breasts with an almost deliberate slowness, like she was giving him one last teasing peek before she covered up. Like she'd been there before, naked in a guy's room. Why not? Sol thought. She was 23. The same age as the strippers Sol used to date. What did he expect? A fucking virgin? The kid was sweet, but she wasn't retarded. And she wasn't hard, like a stripper. She was like those little kids on the beach, running into the surf with no sense of shame at their own nakedness.

Sol offered to make her breakfast, but she said she had to get ready for work. When he opened the door for her, she stopped a minute, reached up on her bare toes and kissed him lightly on the cheek. "You're so sweet," she said. "Thank you. Merci."

Before he could stop himself, Sol blurted out, "Maybe you might wanna have dinner with me some night?" She gave him that thin smile again. "Just a thought." He felt like a fool around this kid.

"Avec plaisir," she said. Sol was confused. "With pleasure, Monsieur Sol."

"Tomorrow night, then." She nodded yes, then walked slowly over the wet leaves plastered against the ground back to her room, wearing only a towel, as if she didn't give a shit if any of the other guests saw her. What other guests? Sol thought. She knew she was the only one. He watched until she went inside, then his eyes fell on the fallen leaves, the broken branches, the overturned tables and chairs, the sand washed up from the beach covering everything. A fucking mess. It would take him all fucking day to clean up. He went inside to get his coffee and cigarettes.

She was gone by the time he went back outside with his rake and big plastic garbage bags. He righted the overturned furniture first, then began to rake up the leaves around the pool. It was already hot in the early morning sun, as though the hurricane had never happened, except for the fucking mess. He bent over to rake the leaves into a bag, and then he saw, floating in the pool, a square, tightly wrapped cellophane package about the size of a carry-on bag. Sol instinctively glanced around. Nobody was on the beach except the old man with the metal detector, his eyes glued to the sand, looking for his fucking treasure. There were no boats on the calm ocean. Nothing. Sol grabbed the long-handled net and pulled the package to the lip of the pool. He hoisted it out--about 20 keys, tightly wrapped with waterproof tape. Still dry, Sol thought. A professional wrapping job.

Sol carried the package toward his apartment, glancing left and right to make sure nobody saw him. Who would see him? He wondered if Frenchie had seen the package in the pool. What if she had? She wouldn't know what it was. He balanced the package against his stomach and the wall as he opened the door and went inside. He set the package carefully on the floor. He got a steak knife from the kitchenette and kneeled close to the package. He said a little silent prayer. To who? The god of retired smugglers managing shithole motels, that's who. He made a little slit in the package and stuck the knife blade in. He withdrew the blade with a flaky, pearlescent white powder on it. No. Not powder, more like a metallic-y pastry crust. He touched the flakes to his tongue, tasted the bitterness, waited, then felt his tongue and lips slowly getting numb. Jesus fucking Christ! The real McCoy! Maybe 400 large wholesale.

He called Meyer on the phone. "I (continued on page 128)Frenchi(continued from page 74) gotta see you," he said.

"What? Something happen to the motel? You put up the shutters, didn't you? I told you--"

"Fuck the motel! This is important."

"You see a hurricane coming you put up the shutters or else--"

"I put up the fucking shutters! The motel is fine. This is something else."

Meyer calmed down, his precious fleabag was OK. "So? Tell me."

"Not on the phone. Not your office, either. Someplace private."

Meyer sighed, like he was dealing with some hyper kid. "Solly--"

Sol exhaled a great breath, tried to calm himself. It was so long he'd forgotten how to deal with Meyer, what caught his attention. "There's something in this for you, Meyer. A nice piece a cake."

"How big a piece?"

Sol smiled. "Big enough."

"All right. I'll be at the Trap tonight you wanna see me."

Sol hadn't been to the Trap in a long time. There was no reason anymore. With no bread, the strippers would avoid him like he was a disease. He was just another short, fat, bald working stiff now. Three sawbucks in his wallet instead of a wad of C-notes wrapped with an elastic band. He wondered if he'd remember how to get there. North on 95, west on Atlantic, north on Powerline past Black Town, west on Hammondville, and the Trap was up ahead, its pink and baby blue sign flashing 24 hours a day. The booby trap lounge, home of stylish nude entertainment. Meyer's little touch. Meyer owned a piece of the Trap, just like he owned a piece of the Royal Palm and everything. Meyer was the smugglers' full-service shyster. His clients were the growers in Medellín, the pilots like Sol, the transporters in Miami, the dealers on the street. He got ten percent from everyone on a deal, not even counting the retainer he got from everyone, too.

Meyer was at his usual table in the darkened Champagne Room off the main room of the Trap, dancers scattered around like flowers in a field, naked on plastic boxes under rose-colored lights. Sol walked through the main room, past the girls and the tables of guys, nobody recognizing him, to Meyer, whose shiny pink face with thick-lensed eyeglasses was upturned to a girl dancing on his table, thrusting her trimmed bush at him. Sol sat down facing the broad's ass, leaning his head to one side to see Meyer.

"Meyer, I ain't got time," Sol said.

Meyer made him wait until the girl was finished. He reached up a hand, always the fucking gentleman, to help her step down from the table, the girl pouting now, like she hated to leave the sexiest guy in the world, until Meyer slipped a C-note into her garter and she stopped pouting and kissed Meyer on the lips. "Thanks, Meyer," she said, still smiling, the way they used to smile at Sol Bass and would again soon. She walked off, swinging her bare ass, not even putting on her little wrap.

Meyer turned his attention to Sol. "So what's the big deal, Sol? You get a better offer managing a Holiday Inn?" He smiled. Sol glanced around the dark empty room, leaned across the table and told him.

Meyer didn't say anything for a minute, then he began to smile again, like he was about to tell Sol something he was going to enjoy. "So, you think you're a player again, eh, Solly?" Sol didn't say anything. He just waited for Meyer to tell him what he was dying to tell him.

Meyer leaned close to Sol, Sol smelling his bad breath, and said, "You know who that parcel belongs to?" Sol waited. "Some very heavy people, I hear. They might want it back. They might be pissed if they find somebody trying to move their parcel."

"Who are these heavies?" Sol said, smartass again, feeling it coming back.

"Reverend Jackie." Sol tried not to show what he felt. Meyer went on, still smiling. "Maybe you heard of him?"

"Yeah, I heard of him. And his rasta hitters, like stoned fucking snakes with dreadlocks."

"I were you, Solly, I'd take Jackie a little more serious."

"I'm not afraid of that fucking faggot hairdresser."

"Well, maybe you should be, he finds you're trying to move his parcel. He put the word on the street, ten large anyone gives him a name." Meyer sat back in his chair. He took out his gold cigarette holder, put it in his mouth, sucked on it.

"You still trying to quit, Meyer?" Sol was smiling now. "Bad for your health? Maybe you should make up your mind you're a smoker or not. Settle it once and for all. Be what you are."

Meyer snapped at him, "I know what I am, Sol. It's you don't know what you are. You're the manager of the Royal fucking Palm Motel. That's all. You listen to me. Give Jackie back his parcel. You don't it might be bad for your health." He smiled, his capped teeth showing. "Maybe I can broker a finder's fee for you, take ten percent, maybe even eight we go back so far."

Sol stood up. "Fuck you! And Jackie, too. I don't need either of you."

As he walked away, he heard Meyer's voice. "Don't say that I didn't warn you, Solly."

Sol woke the next morning to a knock on the door. He fumbled around in a dresser drawer for his piece, the little Seecamp .32 ACP. He went to the door, the room still dark--he'd left the hurricane shutters on.

"Who is it?" he said through the door.

"C'est moi," said a voice. "Delphine."

Sol stuck the gun in back of his boxer shorts and opened the door.

"Everything is right?" she said, looking worried.

"Sure, kid. Why not?" The Seecamp slipped down his shorts. Sol clamped his hand on it in the crack of his ass before it fell through to the floor.

"The shutters," she said. "They are still on."

Sol smiled, the kid worrying about him. "Oh, yeah. I'll get to it. I been busy."

The kid was frowning now, something still bothering her. "Too busy for dinner?" she said.

Geez, Sol had almost forgot. "Of course not, honey. About nine."

She gave him that big smile, leaned toward him, kissed him on the cheek and walked off toward her ride. Without turning, she waved her hand at him, that European way, the fingers grabbing at the air, meaning I'll be back. "Ciao!" And she was gone.

Sol dressed for dinner, the first time in a long while, his good blue oxford shirt with the buttons in the collar, his charcoal gray slacks, his loafers with the little tassels. He slapped on some aftershave and looked at himself in the bathroom mirror. Not bad. Looking younger than his age with his blue Paul Newman contacts. Too much belly on him, though, like he didn't care about himself anymore. Until now. He missed his jewelry, his Rolex, only a couple of c-notes and a ten-spot in his wallet. But soon.

They drove south on A1A along the beach in Sol's Alamo-leased Taurus, a holdover from his smuggler days when he always leased and rented things so that when he got caught they couldn't confiscate anything. Except his fucking jewelry. They passed Sunrise, then came to the Strip, the beginning of the renovated hotels and the new outdoor cafés. Locals and tourists were eating outside, staring across at the white beach wall with the neon tube running in it, filled with some kind of liquid that changed color, pink and blue and green, and beyond the wall at the beach and the white surf and the dark ocean and far out on the ocean at the blinking red lights of ships passing slowly by. Sol felt good. The package in his apartment. The little Seecamp in his front pants pocket. The good-looking chick beside him dressed in a creamy silk blouse with no bra, and a tight camel-colored miniskirt that flashed her thighs.

The kid didn't talk much, not like those strippers that never shut up, always talking about themselves, the only subject they had any interest in. Maybe it was hard for her to make small talk in a foreign language. Sol said, "You hungry, baby?" The way he used to, "baby," like she was his now.

"No hurry," she said, looking out her window at the tourists sitting at the cafés.

He turned right on Las Olas, went over the high Intracoastal Bridge. She sat up in her seat to look down at the yachts docked in front of the waterfront mansions.

"Is very expensive, no?" she said.

"Very expensive," Sol said as they came off the bridge and drove past more outdoor restaurants and then the fancy dress shops with the mannequins in the window in white lace wedding dresses only broads in Lauderdale would wear, so low-cut they flashed the top half of their tits. Sol stopped at the valet stand at the Left Bank, the expensive French joint he thought she might enjoy.

The maître d', a dark, oily-looking guy in a tux and frilly pink shirt, stopped them at the dining room entrance.

"You have reservations, Monsieur?" He looked Sol up and down, gave Frenchie only a glance, pissing Sol off.

"Hey, slick--" He felt the kid's hand on his arm, stopping him. She was looking at the maître d' with her big blue eyes now unreadable, not cold, not angry, but like she was a scientist looking through a microscope at a bug. She said something in French. His eyes widened, then he said, "Certainement, Mademoiselle." He bowed and made a sweeping gesture with his big menus. The kid walked past him, followed by Sol, past the other diners, old guys in dark suits and crisp white shirts, old ladies in evening dresses with upswept silver hair and about 40, 50 large in diamonds around their necks.

The maître d' led them to a banquette against the far wall. The kid slid in first, flashing those thighs, and then Sol slid in beside her. The maître d' handed them each a menu with a flourish and another bow and was gone.

Sol looked at her. "What did you say to him?"

"Oh, nothing, just that I recognize his accent. Algerian French." She smiled. "He recognize mine, too." A bigger smile now. "Parisian French."

Sol laughed. "You're somethin' else, baby," he said, and shook his head in admiration.

They studied their menus, in French, with no prices--A bad sign, Sol thought, thinking of the lousy two bills in his pocket and the ten-spot he'd need for the valet.

"I order for us," she said, taking charge. This was a new feeling for Sol. Not bad, really, having a chick on your arm with class who could take care of herself, and you, too.

She spoke French to the good-looking young waiter. He nodded with each choice, writing it down in his little book, then snapped the book shut and gave her a big GQ smile. She said something else to him in French. His eyes shifted to Sol for a split second and then Sol thought he saw a small smile on the guy's lips, like he was sharing a joke with her, and then he backed off.

"What was that about?" Sol said.

"Oh, nothing. He asked if mon père would like something to drink, maybe scotch."

"Pear?"

"Father. I said no, and that you are not mon père. You are--how do you say in English?--my date."

Sol smiled. She made him feel good, taking his mind off his problems. Jackie and his rasta hitters, the parcel, how he was going to move it. He asked her what she had ordered for them. She told him escargots, frogs' legs, a bottle of Pouilly-Fuissé she was surprised to find in America. It probably cost 50 bucks, Sol thought, trying to calculate in his head if his two bills would cover it all. Geez, she was like a stripper! But the moment he thought that, he felt foolish. The poor kid probably just ordered stuff she was used to in Paris, like it was something she always had there, like McDonald's for Americans, and she didn't realize how expensive it was in the States.

When the waiter brought the wine, Sol sniffed the cork, took a sip, nodded, and the guy poured. She raised her glass to Sol's with a big smile on her beautiful, scrubbed face and said, "To you, Monsieur Sol, for being a so sweet man." Sol blushed as they touched glasses. Sweet! Did she mean it?

"Now, to you," Sol said, raising his glass to hers again. "To your stay in America and success in your job." A frown passed across her face. "What's the matter?" he said.

"Is all right," she said, trying to hold it in, but showing it, like a kid.

"Come on, baby. You can tell me."

She turned and looked at him, her eyes serious now. "It is my boss."

"What about him?" Making him drag it out of her.

"He is, how do you say it, romantic to me."

"And you?"

"Oh, no! He is just my boss."

"Then tell him that."

"I try, but he won't listen."

Sol felt his face flush with anger. "You want me to tell him?"

"Oh, no!" she said, knowing what he meant. "I have to do it. But it is hard. He is the kind of man used to getting everything he want. And he knows I need this job to keep my visa and stay in America."

"Yeah, America's nice," Sol said. "But I heard Paris ain't so bad."

"For you, maybe," she said in a flat voice. "But for me, Paris is mort."

"Mort?"

"Death."

Sol laughed, the kid being dramatic. "What, you kidding?"

She shook her head no and looked down at the table. She was silent for a moment. When she finally raised her pale-blue eyes to him again, they were opened wide. "My life in Paris is, how you say it... proscribed for me. My father is a diplomat, a very important man. He wants me to marry. A lawyer."

"You don't love him?"

"That is not the point," she said. "You don't understand. If I marry him I live in a big château outside Paris, with servants and children. My husband will take an apartment in Paris where he works. And a mistress. That is how it is done. Maybe he will visit me on the weekends." She shrugged. "Maybe no. Maybe I will be out there alone, walking through my garden in my straw hat with my gloves, cutting flowers for the vases in all those rooms in that old château that will be my prison."

She smiled at Sol now, not really a smile, more a knowing grin. "That is how it will be for me if I go back. Worse even than your hotel with the bugs, you see." The grin vanished and her voice became hard. "Don't you understand? I will do anything to not go back to that life."

Sol nodded, like he was the kid and had to have things explained to him. "So that's why you put up with your boss?"

She nodded, trying to calm herself. "I make the mistake one night and tell him all this. That's why he put me in your apartment. Alone. With no car. So I will meet no one. He will have me all to himself."

"He sounds worse than your life in Paris."

She glared at him. "Never. Not even he is worse."

The waiter brought the snails and they ate in silence, Sol struggling with the little pliers-like tongs, watching how she did it, expertly, holding the round shells in the tongs, then scooping out...Geez, Sol thought, fucking worms!

She was very serious as she ate. Finally, she said, "It is not only at work. He takes me to dinner, business, he says, and then goes to la toilette every few minutes and by the end of dinner he is, how you say it, aggressive." She said it with emphasis on the last syllable, eeve.

"He's doing lines in there," Sol said.

"Lines?"

"Coke. Cocaine. He's a cokehead."

"Yes, I guess that. I think he gives it, the cocaine, to his clients to make the deal. He makes very much money."

The frogs arrived, little dinky things Sol hoped he could get down, knowing what they were. He stared at them, thinking of the unbelievable good luck this kid had brought him.

"Maybe I got a way you can make a few dollars, get your boss off your back," Sol said.

She looked at him as if confused. "Off my back? What is this?"

"Not bother you anymore." She nodded, waiting, not asking but making Sol tell her by her silence. "I have something he might be interested in. A package came into my... possession, you might say."

"The package in the swimming pool." Not a question. She knew.

"You know about it?"

"I see it when I go to work. Floating. When I come home is gone."

"You knew what was in it?"

"No." She shook her head, her hair falling across one eye. She brushed the hair off with the backs of her fingertips. "Not then. But now."

Geez, the kid was full of surprises. Just when Sol thought she was so innocent. She left a lot out, unless she wanted you to know something, like about her boss, Paris. You had to fill in the blanks with her, like those paint-by-numbers paintings, only sometimes you got so caught up in the colors, not paying attention to the numbers, you started filling in the colors you thought should be there, not the ones that were supposed to be. You'd find yourself with a sky the wrong blue because you didn't pay attention to the numbers.

"This package," she said, "is this expensive?"

"Very. Maybe too steep for your boss."

"Steep?"

"Too expensive. Maybe $300,000, which would actually be a bargain. Last him a year to impress his clients, make even more money than he's making." Sol looked at her to see if the numbers impressed her. But she gave him nothing, like 300 large was a figure she was used to. Maybe it was, dealing in stocks all day with high rollers.

"It's a little dangerous, too," Sol said.

"You mean, the police?"

"There's that. And your boss, too. It might be too dangerous for him."

She shook her head no, finished chewing the last of her escargots and then said, "He is not afraid of police. He cheat his clients. He give them the cocaine at dinner so they won't remember. Then the next morning he makes stock transfers he tells them they agree to the night before. They can't remember, so they can do nothing."

Sol smiled. "A real sweetheart. Can I trust him? He might want the package without paying for it."

"I can help you," she said. "He trusts me."

"You sure this is something you want to get mixed up in, baby?"

She leaned close to Sol, putting her hand on his thigh, and looked up at him, big eyed. "I don't care about the danger, Sol. With dollars, I can leave, look for another job without lose my visa." She smiled. "I will be free."

Sol smiled, feeling her hand gently massaging his thigh, absentmindedly, he thought. "Me too, baby. Free again."

They discussed the plan over dessert, baked Alaska, which they shared, sitting close, like two lovers, talking softly. The check came to almost two bills, leaving Sol with just enough for the tip and the ten-spot for the valet.

As they waited around for the Taurus, the kid slipping her arm around his, Sol saw a black Jeep across the street with two dark forms inside it, waiting. He held the door open for her, then walked around the car with his hand in his front pants pocket, feeling the little Seecamp. He got in, turned on the ignition and the lights and made a U-turn on Las Olas, the lights of his Taurus shining into the Jeep for an instant, illuminating the two rastas with their dreadlocks, and then swung past them down Las Olas. The Jeep followed them over the Intracoastal Bridge, and then left onto AlA along the beach.

Fucking Meyer, Sol thought. Sold my name to Jackie for the ten g's. The kid sat close to him, not talking now. Sol wondered if he should tell her about the rastas, maybe scare her off. No, they didn't want her. They wanted the parcel. But they wouldn't come after him until he tried to move it. They had to be sure he had it, not scare him off too soon. He'd keep her out of it. Let her set up the swap with her boss over lunch tomorrow, get the bread, and then Sol would do the rest. If he couldn't shake two fucking rastas on his tail, he didn't deserve to pull this off. It made him feel good, not scared, the danger of it. Sol Bass wouldn't have it any other way.

When he pulled into the motel parking lot, he shut off the lights and waited a moment. The Jeep moved slowly past and stopped down the road with its lights off. The kid was asleep against his shoulder. He shook her gently. She woke with a dreamy smile.

"We are home?" she said.

"Yeah, baby."

They walked around the motel to her door. Sol listened for the Jeep to start up again, but heard nothing. She put her arms around his neck and kissed him softly on the mouth, not hard and fake-hungry like those strippers. She pulled back from him and smiled.

"Don't worry, baby," Sol said. "Every-thing's gonna be fine."

"Oh, I'm not worried, Sol. I trust you." And then she was gone, inside, the door shutting behind her, Sol standing there, thinking. It was "Sol" now, no more "Monsieur Sol."

Sol sat on his sofa in darkness, the Seecamp on his lap, waiting for the rastas until he fell asleep just before sunup. He didn't hear her go off to work.

Sol got dressed and went around to the parking lot to see if the Jeep was still there. It wasn't, so he went back to the pool and busied himself, trying to keep his cool until she came home from work.

He was sitting on his sofa having a Cuba libre when she burst through the door at about six, almost scaring the shit out of him. She ran to him on the sofa and jumped on it, like a kid, all excited, smiling, big eyed.

"He agreed!" she said. "He is excited! He say he will have the dollars by nine o'clock tonight, at the Burger King on Sunrise Boulevard. You know which one, Sol? Near the expensive-automobile store."

"Yeah, I know the one." She threw her arms around Sol's neck and kissed him smack on the cheek.

"Only a few more hours," she said.

She went back to her room to change while Sol put the cellophane package into a black carry-on bag with a few airline stickers still pasted on it. When she returned, about eight, she was wearing a white T-shirt, jeans and little white sneakers.

"Are we ready?" she said.

"What do you mean, 'we'?" Sol said. "You ain't going."

She frowned, not a real frown, but an exaggerated comic frown, pouting. "But I have to," she said. "My boss will do this only with me. He trusts no one but me."

Sol thought about it for a minute. It made sense. He would do the same thing he was in the guy's shoes, always someone there you trust. They both would now.

"OK," he said. "We'll both make the swap."

She shook her head no. "It must be me alone or he won't come."

Sol looked at her, so serious, a good kid, with balls. "OK. I'll park far enough from him not to scare him off. But I'll be watching, I'll be right there."

They left earlier than they had to, Sol figuring he would drive around a little, relax, make sure there was no heat around, no guys lounging around their cars in the back Burger King parking lot too close to the cream-colored 600 SEL Merc. He felt good driving down the Strip past the restaurants and the beach with this French chick sitting close to him, the two of them in this together, for now anyway.

"What are you thinking about, Sol?" she said, her head against his shoulder, not looking at him.

"Nothing, baby." He had doubled back and was now heading north on AIA when he came to the light at Sunrise, and as he did, he saw in his rearview mirror the lights of the black Jeep, Shit!

Sol drove past the Burger King, thinking. She turned her head back toward the Burger King. "Sol, you passed it."

"A little change in plans, baby." He told her not to look around, and then he told her about Jackie and the rastas in the Jeep, waiting for her to gasp and her eyes to get big and frightened like they did that night of the hurricane. But she surprised him, again.

"Only a little problem," she said, her chin resting on her hand, thinking.

"Could be a big fucking problem, you understand?"

She shook her head no, but she said nothing.

"Maybe I can shake them," Sol said. "If I can't, we gotta call it off."

He turned left onto Federal and headed toward the airport with the French chick and the black bag and the rastas on his tail. The black bag with the airline stickers on it held his future, her future--maybe even their future--in it. He drove slowly, thinking, and then he saw a hooker up ahead, swinging her ass down the sidewalk, looking over her shoulder at passing cars, smiling. Sol slowed the car, waiting for the hooker to round the corner. Then he turned the corner too. The Jeep moved slowly past him and parked up ahead in the darkness at the edge of Black Town, someplace Sol did not want to be caught in with two rasta hit men. The hooker stopped at Sol's window. Skinny, dirty, with missing front teeth.

"You wanna party, honey?" she said, leaning her arm on the window. Then she saw Frenchie. She smiled. "Cost you more for a threesome, honey."

Sol slammed the car into reverse, nailed it, the car spinning backward onto Federal, just missing another car, that car swerving, the driver nailing his horn, the hooker screaming that he almost tore off her fucking arm, Frenchie not saying a word. Sol slammed the gearshift back into drive, nailed it again, the tires squealing, smoke everywhere, the smell of burning rubber as the big Taurus launched down Federal. Sol hung a left at Third Street, then a quick right, and another left until he was deep into Victoria Park with all its narrow one-way streets and dead ends. He looked in the rearview mirror for the Jeep and didn't see it. He turned back onto Broward, heading west, then made a left onto Federal heading toward the airport, speeding now, right past the Riptide Bar, the Copa, the fag bar, almost to the airport now. He looked again in the rearview mirror and still couldn't see the Jeep.

"I think we lost 'em," he said.

She turned around in her seat and stared out the rear window for a long moment at the pairs of headlights behind them before she said, "No, Sol, I see the Jeep. Maybe two, three cars behind."

"You sure, baby?"

She turned back around. "Yes."

"Shit!" The airport was in front of them. Sol turned onto the access road and headed toward the terminal. "Listen, baby, these guys are dangerous. I don't want you involved. I'll drop you off at the airport, then I'll try to shake them again. You catch a cab back to the motel. I'll meet you there, we'll set it up another time with your boss."

She turned to him with frightened eyes. "No, Sol! You cannot! My boss, he will be afraid now. Suspicious. Maybe he will not do the deal."

"There's no other way, baby."

She stared at him, thinking furiously, and finally she said, "There is. I will do it alone."

"Do what alone?"

"Go to the Burger King. Make the swap, the money for the package."

"You outta your fucking mind?"

"No. Listen." She was calmer now, very serious. "You drop me at the Delta terminal with the black bag. Like I am taking a trip. You drive away. Let the Jeep follow until midnight. Then go back to the motel. I will take the taxi to the Burger King, make the swap, then go to the expensive hotel, the Harbor Beach. I call you from there at midnight to tell you everything is well."

"What if everything isn't well?"

"It will be. Trust me, Sol."

He glanced at her, this kid who was always surprising him, so serious now with her big blue eyes. So he did. Without thinking. Trusted her. He reached into his pants pocket and withdrew his little Seecamp. "Take this," he said, handing it to her.

She looked at it but didn't take it. She shook her head no. "I do not need this."

"You sure?"

"Yes."

He stopped at the Delta terminal, ticketing, and she got out with the carry-on bag in her hand like it maybe had a change of undies and some cosmetics in it. Sol got out, too, went around to the sidewalk to kiss her goodbye. They kissed and hugged for a moment, Sol whispering in her ear, "Make sure the Jeep follows me, baby," and she whispering back, "Don't worry, Sol."

He got back in the car and waved to her, standing there, smiling at him, holding their futures in her hand. She raised her free hand to the side of her face and waved to him too, like she had waved to him that morning on her way to work, only somehow differently. Then she was gone through the sliding glass doors.

Sol drove off, looking in the rearview mirror for the Jeep, but he couldn't see it There were too many cars circling the airport. Maybe it was a few cars back. He headed back to Federal, busy with traffic now, so many headlights behind him he couldn't pick out the Jeep. Fuck it, he thought. He slowed down, drove aimlessly around town until midnight. Then he drove back to the motel. He waited a few minutes in the parking lot for the Jeep to pass by and park up ahead. But there was no Jeep. He got out and went around the building to his apartment.

Sol sat on his sofa in darkness, waiting for her to call, something bothering him. He leaned forward, his elbows on his knees, his hands clasped as if in prayer, and stared down at the floor trying to figure it out. He played it over in his mind, over and over again, the Jeep following them, Sol trying to shake it, then not seeing it, then Frenchie telling him it was still on their tail, then stopping at the airport, hugging her at the Delta terminal, getting back into his car, waving to her through the window, the beautiful French girl waving back, smiling, her hand raised alongside her head, waving to him, but not like before, not with that odd, European, fingers-grabbing-air wave that meant I'll be back. It was a different wave. Familiar. American. Hand-flapping. Goodbye.

It was three A.M. when Sol heard the rastas come around the corner toward the door to his apartment.

She picked up the ends of the towel at her waist and refastened it around her breasts.

The strippers would avoid him like he was a disease. He was just another short, fat, bald working stiff.