Gold Coast Read Free

tan and lean, in any of several faded bikinis. God, no, she didn’t look like those widows with their gaudy prints and queen-size asses.
    Okay, but then what was she doing sitting home alone? Why did the few interesting, eligible men she had met since Frank’s death show up once or twice and then seem to vanish?

2
----
    IN MAY, five months a widow—exactly a year from the time of the double-standard disagreement, the argument with Frank, the ultimatum—Karen was seated in Ed Grossi’s private office on the thirty-ninth floor of the Biscayne Tower.
    The sign on the double-door entrance to the suite said DORADO MANAGEMENT CORPORATION .
    Karen could ask Ed Grossi what Dorado Management managed and he would tell her, oh, apartment buildings, condominiums; that much would probably be true. She could ask him who all the men were, waiting in the lobby, and Grossi would say, oh, suppliers, job applicants, you know. His tone patient. Ask anything. What do you want to know?
    But if she were to probe, keep asking questions, she knew from experience the explanation that began simply would become complicated, involved, the words never describing a clear picture.
    They sat with glossy-black ceramic coffee mugson his clean desk, and Karen listened as Grossi said, “Well, it looks like you’re worth approximately four million.”
    Karen said, “Really?” Noncommittal. She had thought it might be much more.
    “There was a tax lien that had to be straightened out, some business interests of Frank’s sold—I won’t go into all that unless you want me to.”
    Four million.
    She still had nearly two hundred thousand of her own in stocks and savings, plus the thirty-five thousand cash—in one hundred dollar bills—she had found in Frank’s file cabinet.
    “Do I get it in a lump sum?”
    Ed Grossi seemed alone and far away on the other side of the clean desk, the Miami Beach skyline behind him, through a wall of glass. Mild Ed Grossi sitting on top of it all. He wore black, heavy-framed glasses and was holding them in a way to see through the bifocal area clearly, looking down at a single sheet of paper on his desk.
    “According to the way Frank set it up, the money’s held in trust.”
    “Oh,” Karen said, and waited for the complicated explanation.
    “In Miami General Revenue bonds, four million at six percent, two hundred and forty thousand a year. How’s that sound?”
    “Do I pay tax on it?”
    “No, they’re municipal bonds, the earnings are tax-free. Two-forty or, the way it’s set up, twenty thousand a month as long as you live.”
    Karen waited. There was a catch, she felt sure, certain stipulations. “What if I want to take the entire two hundred and forty thousand, all at once?”
    “And do what?”
    “I don’t know. I’m saying what if. Are the bonds in my name?”
    “No, Dorado Management. You remember the lawyer explaining it? Frank appointed Dorado administrator of his estate.”
    “I thought he appointed you,” Karen said.
    “No, the corporation. Answer your question, yes, you can take the entire two hundred forty thousand for a given year in one payment but, for your own protection, it would have to be approved by Dorado Management.”
    “By you,” she said again, insisting.
    “Karen, I could cross Flagler Avenue and get hit by a car. The corporation is still the administrator of Frank’s estate. You follow me? Like as a service to you.”
    “Then I can’t just cash in the bonds if I want and take the four million.”
    “Why would you want to?” Quietly, with an almost weary sound. “Put it in what? Some hotshot comes along with a scheme—that’s why Frank set it up like this. Dorado administrates the capital, doesyour paperwork, you don’t have to worry about it.”
    “What about when I die?”
    “It stops. Your heirs are yours, not Frank’s. But, in the meantime you get this money working for you, you’ll have quite a sizable estate.”
    “What if I marry again?”
    Ed Grossi