“Sure, Lily. Everyone knows that most of the cops are on the take. If a cop catches a rumrunner, it’s a pretty sure bet he’s gonna get off by paying the copper with a case of booze or a few bucks. Everyone knows that this prohibition thing is one of the most disregarded, unpopular laws ever put in place, and, at some point, it’ll be done away with. In the meantime, though, it’s a game of cat and mouse. And when the cat catches that mouse, the mouse can usually buy his way out of it.”
Suddenly, everyone moved toward the veranda at the sound of engines revving up. When they quieted a little, someone began speaking through a megaphone, announcing the start of the first race. Peter and I hurried out to the veranda, and Olivia waved me over to a chair next to her. At the moment though, everyone was on their feet.
“The racers will run a series of six heats.” One of the race officials stood on a makeshift wooden platform on the beach below, shouting to the crowd through his megaphone. He had on a white boater’s straw hat, which was flat on the top with a red and blue ribbon around the base of the crown, paired with a white sports jacket and navy trousers. About a hundred yards down from him, just offshore in the Atlantic, eleven boats lined up side by side. Exhaust streamed out from behind them. When the race began, the air would thicken with it. I could see that Rusty was in the second from the last lane on the far side. Marv was right in the middle. I looked around and saw that there were hundreds of spectators watching from the different hotel verandas, patios and windows, and hundreds more crowding the beach.
Suddenly, the breeze picked up and caught the bottom of my red and white pleated dropped-waist dress, threatening to expose far more than just my knees. Holding the material in place with one hand, I shielded my eyes from the sun with the other and looked up at the banners that I considered removing a short time ago. They were making a distractingly loud clapping sound, and I decided that they were no longer a festive touch but a blasted annoyance instead.
“Each participant will earn a series of points from those heats,” the official continued, drawing my attention away from the banners. “And the six boats with the highest scores will quality for the final race. Then, our new champion—or perhaps our returning champion,” he chuckled, referring to Buff Reynolds, who was positioned right next to Marv, “will be crowned the winner of the Seventh Annual Sandy Cup Invitational.”
I looked off to my right, where cheering had sounded when the official mentioned Buff’s name. It came from the crowded veranda of the Belvedere Hotel. In spite of the crowd, I spotted Chick Belvedere standing at the railing. He stood at an imposing height of well over six feet tall so he wasn’t hard to miss. No matter the time of the year, the man always wore white or light pastel-colored jackets, and today was certainly no exception. The one he wore was a pale yellow. It stood out in stark contrast to his dyed black hair, which he’d slicked back with far too much pomade. He always greased his black moustache, too, which was way too thin for his narrow face. He looked toward the left, allowing me to glimpse more of his face. Even though he was too far away for me to clearly see his eyes, I knew they were nearly as black as his hair. They were too small for his face, though, and always oddly bright, almost feverishly so, giving him a seedy, rat-like appearance.
“You shouldn’t judge a book by its cover,” my mother told me when I’d mentioned Chick’s rat-like eyes.
“Maybe not, Mama,” I replied, “but I believe you can get a pretty good idea of what its content might be.”
Rather than scolding me for my smart aleck remark, she tossed back her head of beautiful thick black hair with its strip of white-gray down the right side of her face and laughed. “Darlin’ girl,” she’d said, “I do believe you might be right about that.”
There was no doubt about it; when it came to that sassy part of me, I took after my mother. She never once made me feel like I shouldn’t speak my mind, or follow my heart, no matter what the circumstances might be.
“Now,” the official said with great exuberance, “let the race begin!”
Immediately, the boats revved their engines loudly. They were designed for hydroplaning and equipped with enormous hundred-pound engines, which allowed them to reach incredible speeds of up to 50mph, and so the sound was deafening, even from a distance.
The official set his megaphone down and picked up a large green flag. Holding his hat in place with one hand as the wind tried to snatch it, he raised the flag in his other, and then, after several seconds of holding completely still, he brought the flag down with dramatic force. Immediately, the boats blasted off from the starting line with incredible power to begin the first two and a half mile lap of the six they would make in this heat. The course was set out in a huge rounded triangle and marked off by flags attached to buoys. The drivers were required to stay on the outside of the flags. If they didn’t handle their turns perfectly, they could find themselves on the inside, which would result in their immediate disqualification. When that happened, the driver would stay safely within the triangle and wait until the heat was completed before moving back out onto the course.
Throughout most of the heat, Marv and Rusty held comfortable spots behind the boats in the first and second positions. Then, as they came around the last hard turn, Rusty cut the boat closer to the buoy than any of the other racers had done, with the exception of Garfield Wood, who had won many racing titles in the crafts he designed and built. Because of that well-played maneuver, Rusty managed to place second in the heat.
The crowd on the veranda went wild. Cheering and laughing with delight, I looked around at everyone and saw that Rusty’s mother, Maven, had grasped onto her husband’s lapels and was jumping up and down, causing the silk fruits on her hat to bounce along as if nodding their approval.
The second and third heats went well, too. Marv placed fifth, just as he had done in the first heat, which put him in a decent position to make it to the final, while Rusty placed second again, and then third, assuring his place in the championship race.
Between heats, the Strickland boats headed over to the seawall where my parents stood, waiting to direct the drivers in any way necessary while the mechanics tended to the boats. I knew my father was discussing strategies with them and wondered if he would instruct Rusty to ride out the last three heats comfortably to prevent the possibility of blowing an engine, or worse, having an accident.
The boats started the fourth heat and made it cleanly around the first two laps without anyone being disqualified. This time, Marv was ahead of Rusty. Buff Reynolds was ahead of them both, and neck and neck with Garfield Wood. As the boats came around the last turn, Buff attempted to break away from Garfield, but instead of doing so, he overpowered his engine, causing the boat to fishtail and careen wildly out of control. At the same time, a strong gust of wind caught the stern, making it nearly impossible for Buff to regain control of the boat. Marv cut past him just in time, but Buff’s stern whipped back again, catching Rusty’s bow. Instantly, Rusty was ejected from the boat at the same time it splintered into a thousand pieces. The other boats narrowly missed hitting the debris. But the next to last boat wasn’t able to avoid hitting Rusty. The boats killed their engines and we heard the sounds of screaming, but Rusty heard nothing as he slipped beneath the waves.
Chapter 6
A Concrete Heart
Daddy and Mama drove the Hollisters to the hospital, while Olivia and I rode with our grandparents. Sitting in the backseat, I held Olivia’s head in my lap as she sobbed uncontrollably. Finally, our grandmother had had enough and told Olivia to pull herself together.
Emergency personnel standing on the seawall had immediately dispatched a small boat waiting there for just such an emergency. The driver circled the area where Rusty had gone under while another dove in and quickly brought him up to the surface. They worked on him in the bottom of the boat for a couple of minutes, and once they got him breathing again, sped back to shore and a waiting ambulance. Neil Aldrich had raced down to the ambulance and rode with Rusty to Miami Beach’s recently built Allison Hospital. By the time we arrived there, Neil had already rushed Rusty up to surgery to treat a critical head injury.
We