Read Online Bone Island Mambo by Tom Corcoran - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Tom Corcoran
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for straight reporting. Now Butler’s fucking it up, damn his ass.”
I offered, “You don’t know that for sure.”
“People don’t want to talk anymore. Information used to come easy. I’m not getting good stories. That’s not it.I’m getting good stories, but I can’t develop them. My work feels hollow.”
Teresa said, “Why did your brother come here in the first place?”
“He came to visit three or four years ago.” Marnie fiddled with the place mat. Rolled its corner, released it. Rolled it again. “His eyes lit up. He saw nothing but opportunity. He saw all these people doing business dressed in Bermuda shorts and T-shirts. He made the mistake every newcomer makes. He figured they were rubes. Didn’t give them credit for brains. Right away he started plotting his massive takeover.”
“Motivated by . . . ?”
“My brother sees himself as a great tycoon taking double steps up the marble stair to immortality.” Marnie kept placing her hand on top of her head, perhaps to hold it in place. “He once said he wanted to be so rich, he could have other people go to wine tastings for him.”
“He’s always had that nickname?” I said.
“Calling him Butt was against family rules. But in college he joined a fraternity. Their nickname for him was Butt-Woody. One of his old friends still calls him B.W. Just to show you how my brother thinks, he hated the Butt part of the nickname, but loved the Woody part, so he allowed it to stick. He thought it was good for his image. Might help him seduce women. Back then we joked about him. We always said he was a walking billboard, advertising himself. He was full of slogans. He used to boast that he lived on the four Ts: Tequila, Tic-Tacs, Trojans, and Tylenol. He was big on clever lines, like ‘bed, bath and behind.’ He found new girlfriends before he broke up with the old ones. He called it ‘rotating the stock.’ One high school girlfriend called him a male chauvinist piglet She’s the one who
tried
to get pregnant”
“So he set his eyes on Key West?”
“He came the long way around. He flunked out of college, went into the Peace Corps, spent a year in Central America, came back and worked construction in Virginiawhile he finished college. Then he moved to Jacksonville and became a contractor. He’d bid on jobs like single town houses or strip malls, then hire shitkickers out of bars near the construction sites. Not much of a quality human-resource program. But he banked money. He reinvested. He hired good lawyers and accountants, plus laborers who couldn’t get work anywhere else. Now he’s investing his profits in Key West In my face.”
I said, “So, he . . .”
“He made his big arrival. This was before Thanksgiving. He flies down, buys a Sunday
Citizen,
whips out the real-estate section. He picks ‘The Home of the Week.’ You should see it. It’s a Conch-style job next to a man-made pond at the Golf Club. Three hundred forty-seven grand, and he made a down payment of all but a hundred and fifty thou.”
“I saw that on the real-estate cable channel,” said Teresa. “The glad handshake with the agent. The pat on the back from the banker. The paper listed his girlfriend as co-owner.”
“Then, that yacht he’s got out at Oceanside. He traded it for two vacant lots in Annapolis, and he paid three idiots to bring it down here. They ran it aground twice. He renamed it
Heidi Ho,
like nobody’ll get the joke. And he slapped a bumper sticker on the stern that says, ‘Don’t Laugh, It’s Paid For.’”
“Thank God you don’t share his sense of humor,” said Teresa.
“Then he goes for public opinion,” said Marnie. “He always tries to make a name for himself. The stingy creep hates Christmas. But he rolled around town in that car with the hat on.”
Teresa and I had seen him, the week before Christmas, in his bright red Ford convertible, with the long crimson Santa Claus stocking cap, its puffy cotton-ball tassel
I offered, “You don’t know that for sure.”
“People don’t want to talk anymore. Information used to come easy. I’m not getting good stories. That’s not it.I’m getting good stories, but I can’t develop them. My work feels hollow.”
Teresa said, “Why did your brother come here in the first place?”
“He came to visit three or four years ago.” Marnie fiddled with the place mat. Rolled its corner, released it. Rolled it again. “His eyes lit up. He saw nothing but opportunity. He saw all these people doing business dressed in Bermuda shorts and T-shirts. He made the mistake every newcomer makes. He figured they were rubes. Didn’t give them credit for brains. Right away he started plotting his massive takeover.”
“Motivated by . . . ?”
“My brother sees himself as a great tycoon taking double steps up the marble stair to immortality.” Marnie kept placing her hand on top of her head, perhaps to hold it in place. “He once said he wanted to be so rich, he could have other people go to wine tastings for him.”
“He’s always had that nickname?” I said.
“Calling him Butt was against family rules. But in college he joined a fraternity. Their nickname for him was Butt-Woody. One of his old friends still calls him B.W. Just to show you how my brother thinks, he hated the Butt part of the nickname, but loved the Woody part, so he allowed it to stick. He thought it was good for his image. Might help him seduce women. Back then we joked about him. We always said he was a walking billboard, advertising himself. He was full of slogans. He used to boast that he lived on the four Ts: Tequila, Tic-Tacs, Trojans, and Tylenol. He was big on clever lines, like ‘bed, bath and behind.’ He found new girlfriends before he broke up with the old ones. He called it ‘rotating the stock.’ One high school girlfriend called him a male chauvinist piglet She’s the one who
tried
to get pregnant”
“So he set his eyes on Key West?”
“He came the long way around. He flunked out of college, went into the Peace Corps, spent a year in Central America, came back and worked construction in Virginiawhile he finished college. Then he moved to Jacksonville and became a contractor. He’d bid on jobs like single town houses or strip malls, then hire shitkickers out of bars near the construction sites. Not much of a quality human-resource program. But he banked money. He reinvested. He hired good lawyers and accountants, plus laborers who couldn’t get work anywhere else. Now he’s investing his profits in Key West In my face.”
I said, “So, he . . .”
“He made his big arrival. This was before Thanksgiving. He flies down, buys a Sunday
Citizen,
whips out the real-estate section. He picks ‘The Home of the Week.’ You should see it. It’s a Conch-style job next to a man-made pond at the Golf Club. Three hundred forty-seven grand, and he made a down payment of all but a hundred and fifty thou.”
“I saw that on the real-estate cable channel,” said Teresa. “The glad handshake with the agent. The pat on the back from the banker. The paper listed his girlfriend as co-owner.”
“Then, that yacht he’s got out at Oceanside. He traded it for two vacant lots in Annapolis, and he paid three idiots to bring it down here. They ran it aground twice. He renamed it
Heidi Ho,
like nobody’ll get the joke. And he slapped a bumper sticker on the stern that says, ‘Don’t Laugh, It’s Paid For.’”
“Thank God you don’t share his sense of humor,” said Teresa.
“Then he goes for public opinion,” said Marnie. “He always tries to make a name for himself. The stingy creep hates Christmas. But he rolled around town in that car with the hat on.”
Teresa and I had seen him, the week before Christmas, in his bright red Ford convertible, with the long crimson Santa Claus stocking cap, its puffy cotton-ball tassel
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