Free Gold Coast by Elmore Leonard

seventeen feet in the air and ring the school bell.”
    Lesley said, “Yeah?” She still didn’t get it.
    “They’re doing something that dolphins don’t normally do, right?”
    Lesley thought a moment. “Yeah—but they jump. Out in the wild they jump all the time.”
    “They shoot baskets? They bowl out there?”
    “It’s to show how intelligent they are,” Lesley said, “how they can be trained.”
    “Here’s the point,” Maguire said, wishing the Honda was air-conditioned, wishing the lady in front of him would turn, for Christ sake, if she was going to turn, turn . “They don’t normally, the dolphin, they don’t pretend they’re playing baseball out in the ocean or jump up and take a piece of fish out of somebody’s mouth, right?”
    “If you don’t like it,” Lesley said, “what do you do it for?”
    Jesus, Maguire thought. He said, “Just follow the point I want to make, okay? I’m not saying I don’t like it. I’m only saying it’s like playing make-believe. The dolphin wouldn’t be here, they wouldn’t be doing the tricks if we didn’t teach them. You see what I mean? They’d be out there doing something else, we’d be doing something else. But no, we made this up. The dolphins and us, we’re playing with ourselves. We’re going through the motions of something that doesn’t have anything to do with reality.”
    “So?”
    Oh, Christ. “So—if they’re not real dolphins doing all that kind of shit, what’re we? Reciting the canned humor, throwing them pieces of codfish—what’re we?”
    “I was a waitress, a place on Las Olas,” Lesley said. “That was real, real shit. You like to ask me what I’d rather do?”
    “I’d like to borrow your car this evening,” Maguire said. “What’re the chances?”
    He poured himself a white rum with a splash of lemon concentrate, left the venetian blinds half closed and sat for awhile, the room looking old and worn-out in the dimness. Fifty bucks a week including black and white TV, it was still a bargain. He could hear the hi-fi going next-door, Lesley boogying around the apartment to the Bee-Gees, ignoring her aunt, who was a little deaf. A nice woman, Maguire would sit and talk to her sometimes, listen to episodes from her past life in Cincinnati, Ohio, until he’d tell her he had to go to bed, wake up early. Lesley never sat and listened even for a minute. Lesley would roll her eyes when she saw an episode coming and get out of there. Lesley had no feelings for others; but she sure had a nice firm healthy little body.
    Maguire showered and had another rum and lemon while he put on his good clothes. Pale beige slacks, dark-blue sportshirt and a skimpy dacron sportcoat, faded light-blue, he’d got at Burdine’s for forty-five bucks. He loved the sportcoat because, for some reason, it made him think of OldFlorida and made him feel like a native. (A Maguire dictum: wherever you are, fit in, look like you belong. In Colorado wear a sheepskin coat and lace-up boots.) He got the Detroit Free Press clipping out of the top drawer, from under his sweat socks, and slipped it into the inside coat pocket. He then went next door and asked Lesley’s aunt if he could use the phone; he’d be sure to get the charges and pay for it.
    He said to Lesley, “You want to turn that down a little?”
    Lesley said, “Who’re you calling, your hot date?”
    “I don’t have a hot date.”
    “I thought you were going out.”
    “Turn the music down, okay?”
    Maguire gave the operator the Detroit number and waited. He felt nervous. He wished Lesley would quit watching him.
    “Aren’t you gonna clean up?”
    “You want me to leave, say so.”
    “I get back, I’ll take you out to dinner.”
    In the phone, Andre Patterson’s wife said, “Hello?”
    “Okay?” Maguire said to Lesley. “Go on, get cleaned up.” Then into the phone:
    “Hi, this is Cal Maguire. How you doing?” He had to listen while Andre’s wife told him she was