He decided not to do the beach this morning so he ran the eight-tenths of a mile to St. Armands Circle in shirtsleeves. Out the side of the hotel, across Cleveland Drive, north on the Boulevard of the Presidents on a sidewalk that divided the four-lane road like a banana split. A patriotic as well as a commercial hub, with all the cross streets named for presidents: Monroe, Jackson, Tyler, Grant, Garfield, Harrison. On Cleveland, the houses hunkered into the shell-covered driveways, squinting at the upper crust through slatted windows. The closer he got to St. Armands Circle, the more elaborate the homes became: a palatial estate with leaded oval windows in its front doors, a house on a canal with an empty boat slip.
There were few people on the street at this hour, a Spandex runner and a white-haired man walking a white-haired dog. But at the circle there was traffic, a half-dozen cars and a SCAT bus from Sarasota County Area Transit, laboring like a bull. The shops and restaurants were closed: the tourist attractions like Olivia’s Fashions and the Columbia Restaurant, the adobe-clad Chico’s and Starbucks, the Italianate marble columns of the Met fashion and day spa, with its three lion heads spouting water into a trough.
In the circle itself a lawn slopeed into a slight depression to catch the rain. Purple petals from what looked like hibiscus trees layered the ground and at the far end a stood a black statue of a naked man labeled “Borghese Warrior,” his penis pointing south. No need to ask for directions.
Back at the hotel an older waitress named Inka from St. Croix served them breakfast. They’d visited the island on a whim a few years ago and found it a strange mix of physical beauty and worn-out buildings in town, with an underlying tension among the workers. He mentioned the visit to Inka.
“What did it look like?” she asked in an accent that could have been German or Scandinavian.
“The homes were gated and the car lots surrounded by barbed wire.”
“Hooligans.” She screwed up her face and nearly spat the word.
“What’s it like to live there?” he asked.
“Dangerous.”
So much for paradise.
They drove around the ever-congested St. Armands Circle onto Longboat Key, land of the free and the home of the rich. North on Gulf Drive to Anna Maria Island, the northernmost part of the Sarasota keys, the place where the locals have preserved what they call “Old Florida.” Condos in adobe and terra cotta tile, smaller homes in cement block, but unlike St. Croix or Orlando, only one gated community. Through Bradenton Beach to Holmes Beach and the Art League gallery, a sky blue building with a rounded front and an oval overhang that could have been a Dairy Queen, or the home of George Jetson. Inside they viewed about two dozen photographs of “Old Florida,” which looked a lot like their backyard, only with water.
They walked the Anna Maria Pier on Sarasota Bay, out to the tin-roofed shack that served as bait shop and restaurant, guys casting lines into the water and drinking beer, a woman in a black dress with a baby stroller waiting with an older woman for a table inside, a row of Mennonite or Amish women in their white caps and black dresses lining one of the benches. Doubt they were waiting to fish.
Then across the street to the Waterfront Restaurant, sitting outside on the deck-like porch, watching the cyclists with their blue T-shirts and yellow caps and beak-like helmets. Road crews were stringing pipe to improve the drainage on a side street. Every few minutes a guy in a backhoe would troll by, the loader filled with muddy water. Each time he passed he’d turn his head toward the diners, a private eye looking for the errant husband, or a character in Tom Bodett’s End of the Road stories, the town’s loader operator who won first place in the parade by following the procession on his way to the gravel pit.
They had a crab sandwich and chicken croissant and iced tea, the motivational singer Cheryl Crow urging them to break down those personal barriers and live up to their fullest potential. If it makes you happy . . . . it’s probably bad for your digestion, your wallet or your marriage. They skipped dessert.
On the way back they swung to the other side of the island to see the Gulf. The water was approaching high tide (4:48 p.m.) and the wind stirred the waves, which rose to about 2 feet. There was a spatter of raindrops but not enough to deter a pair of kids who ran in the surf, or the birds, who patiently worked the shore. No tin cups, no stocking masks, yet something suspicious about the throng that gathered around his feet.
The Gull Syndicate. He recognized their colors: black do-rags over cream suits with dove-gray tails. Very elegant. Their sheer numbers startled him, but not as much as the outer guard: it was the Pelican Gang, down from the Bowery, muscle for a pending job.
Out of the crowd, strutting like a pigeon in Central Park, came a face he recognized as well as his own: Ducat, alert, wary, his head cocked to the side, one mischievous eye aglow. He’d called in reinforcements.
There was trouble in paradise.
