Body Language. James Hall

       3

      What she had in mind was two weeks in the Panhandle. Fly up to Panama City, rent a car, drive over to Seaside, rent one of those purple-and-yellow cottages. Then later on, she and Stan could drive around, maybe try to locate that beach house where she and her parents had stayed almost twenty years ago.

      The beach, the sunsets. That’s what they needed, two weeks in the sun. She and Stan lounging on the white sand, watching the dolphins roll, dining on boiled shrimp and good wine. Both of them on the same schedule, midnight strolls, make love all night, sleep through the morning. Take a shot at rekindling things. A final shot, perhaps. That’s how it felt these days, the last embers losing their glow. A puff of breath might just as easily extinguish as revive them. But she wasn’t going to let it slip away without a fight. Her folks lasted nearly thirty years, weathering rougher seas than anything she and Stan had known. She was determined, by God, to do as well as they.

      She had all the arguments ready. She’d arranged for her dad to stay with her friend Gabriella Hernandez. Both Stan and Alex had lots of furlough time stored. It was off-season up in the Panhandle, prices down from their summer highs, the first cool October nights, a nice break from the Miami heat. She’d even gotten a brochure from a downtown travel agency with great wide-angle shots of Seaside, Florida, the pretty rainbow houses, the immaculate white sand, dunes and sea oats, the gorgeous wrinkled blue of the Gulf.

      Stan was finishing his breakfast when Alex set the skillet in the drain and dried her hands, drew out the brochure from the kitchen shelf.

      She spoke his name, but he was lost in the sports page. The Dolphins’ latest blunder.

      ‘Stan,’ she said.

      He managed a grunt.

      ‘You got a minute to talk about our vacation?’

      ‘Vacation?’ He kept on reading.

      ‘You remember. Two weeks off, somewhere exotic. Cuddle late in bed, all that.’

      He put his finger on the passage and looked up at her.

      ‘Oh, yeah,’ he said. ‘Like before you got so goddamn busy.’

      She held her smile in place, unfolded the brochure, the words gathering in her throat. She’d plead if she had to. Threaten, nag, whatever it took.

      ‘You win the Publishers’ Sweepstakes or something?’ He looked back down at the newsprint. ‘What makes you think we can afford a vacation?’

      ‘Stan,’ she said. ‘I don’t think we can afford not to take one.’

      ‘Oh, is that a fact?’ Stan kept his eyes back on the paper. ‘And what about the old man? He going along with us? Keep us company?’

      ‘Gabbie’s agreed to take him for a couple of weeks.’

      With a bitter grin, he looked up again.

      ‘You’ve got to be kidding. That woman’s a magnet for disaster. You might as well turn the old man loose, let him wander the goddamn interstate. He’d be safer.’

      ‘Gabbie’s fine. She’s in a secure place now. I wouldn’t leave Dad with her if I didn’t think he’d be a hundred percent safe.’

      ‘Forget it, Alex,’ he said. ‘All the money we’ve been throwing away on that old man, we can’t afford a goddamn vacation. What’re you thinking about?’

      ‘Look, Stan …’

      In the hallway, the flinty click of her father’s police dress shoes sounded against the tile and Alexandra sighed and turned to watch Lawton Collins march into the kitchen.

      He’d shined the black shoes to a high polish and his police tunic was buttoned tightly across his small potbelly. Instead of pants, he was still wearing his pink-and-blue pajama bottoms, shorties that exposed his spindly white legs.

      ‘Christ,’ Stan said. ‘Here we go again.’

      Alexandra refolded the brochure and slid it back into its slot on the shelf.

      Her father’s mist of white hair was wild, one side mushed flat, the top and other side aswirl with cowlicks. He carried a black suitcase in his right hand, and apparently he’d discovered the drawer where Alexandra had hidden his .38 service revolver. The holstered pistol high on his right hip.

      ‘Dad, what do you think you’re doing?’

      He set the suitcase down and drew the pistol and aimed it across the breakfast table at Stan.

      ‘Call for backup,’ her father said. ‘We have an intruder, Alex. And he looks like trouble.’

      ‘Dad, no.’

      Stan leaned back in his chair and held very still.

      ‘That goddamn thing better not be loaded.’

      ‘Dad, give me the pistol right now.’

      ‘All right, sonny, don’t move a muscle. Put the fork down and stand up and spread your legs. We’re just going to give you a quick pat-down for weapons.’

      ‘If that gun’s loaded, Alex, the old man is out of here today. Sunny Pines, Century Arms, whichever one is cheaper.’

      ‘There aren’t any bullets in the house, Stan. Just relax and let me handle this.’

      ‘You resisting arrest, sonny? That what we have here? A smart aleck?’

      Alex rested a hand on her father’s shoulder and reached out for the pistol, but he shied away and kept his aim on Stan’s chest.

      ‘Dad, please. Put the pistol down.’

      ‘I believe I recognize this lawbreaker,’ he said. ‘Yes indeed. I put this one away back in the seventies. Armed robbery. Held up a gas station near the airport, wounded the attendant and two patrons. Went by the name of Frank Sinatra. Got a free ride to Raiford, thirty hard ones.’

      ‘Frank Sinatra,’ Stan said. ‘Jesus.’

      With his eyes on the pistol, Stan bent forward, scooped up more of his breakfast, and patted his mouth with his napkin.

      ‘Okay, Frank, quit stalling. On your feet, and do it slowly, with your hands in plain view.’

      ‘Dad, stop it. This is Stan, my husband. He lives here.’

      Her