When he scrolled down to the next message, he read this: 383-0910 TMF.
The Motherfucker. Even his Nokia knew who Grunwald was, because Curtis had taught it to remember. The question was, what did The Motherfucker want with him on a Tuesday morning in June?
Maybe to settle, and on Curtis's terms.
He allowed himself a laugh at this idea, then played the message. He was stunned to hear that was exactly what Grunwald did want-or appeared to want. Curtis supposed it could be some sort of ploy, but he didn't understand what Grunwald stood to gain by such a thing. And then there was the tone: heavy, deliberate, almost plodding. Maybe it wasn't sorrow, but it surely sounded like sorrow. It was the way Curtis himself sounded all too often on the phone these days, as he tried to get his head back in the game.
"Johnson...Curtis," Grunwald said in his plodding voice. His recorded voice paused longer, as if debating the use of Curtis's given name, then moved on in the same dead and lightless way. "I can't fight a war on two fronts. Let's end this. I've lost my taste for it. If I ever had a taste for it. I'm in a very tight place, neighbor."
He sighed.
"I'm prepared to give up the lot, and for no financial consideration. I'll also compensate you for your...for Betsy. If you're interested, you can find me at Durkin Grove Village. I'll be there most of the day." A long pause. "I go out there a lot now. In a way I still can't believe the financing fell apart, and in a way I'm not surprised at all." Another long pause. "Maybe you know what I mean."
Curtis thought he did. He seemed to have lost his nose for the market. More to the point, he didn't seem to care. He caught himself feeling something suspiciously like sympathy for The Motherfucker. That plodding voice.
"We used to be friends," Grunwald went on. "Do you remember that? I do. I don't think we can be friends again-things went too far for that, I guess-but maybe we could be neighbors again. Neighbor." Another of those pauses. "If I don't see you out at Grunwald's Folly, I'll just instruct my lawyer to settle. On your terms. But..."
Silence, except for the sound of The Motherfucker breathing. Curtis waited. He was sitting at the kitchen table now. He didn't know what he felt. In a little while he might, but for the time being, no.
"But I'd like to shake your hand and tell you I'm sorry about your damn dog." There was a choked sound that might have been-incredible!-the sound of a sob, and then a click, followed by the phone-robot telling him there were no more messages.
Curtis sat where he was for a moment longer, in a bright bar of Florida sun that the air conditioner couldn't quite cool out, not even at this hour. Then he went into his study. The market was open; on his computer screen, the numbers had begun their endless crawl. He realized they meant nothing to him. He left it running but wrote a brief note for Mrs. Wilson-Had to go out-before leaving the house.
There was a motor scooter parked in the garage beside his BMW, and on the spur of the moment he decided to take it. He would have to nip across the main highway on the other side of the bridge, but it wouldn't be the first time.
He felt a pang of hurt and grief as he took the scooter's key from the peg and the other attachment on the ring jingled. He supposed that feeling would pass in time, but now it was almost welcome. Almost like welcoming a friend.
The troubles between Curtis and Tim Grunwald had started with Ricky Vinton, who had once been old and rich and then progressed to old and senile. Before progressing to dead, he'd sold his undeveloped lot at the end of Turtle Island to Curtis Johnson for one-point-five million dollars, taking Curtis's personal check for a hundred and fifty thousand as earnest money and in return writing Curtis a bill of sale on the back of an advertising circular.
Curtis felt a little like a hound for taking advantage of the old fellow, but it wasn't as if Vinton-owner of Vinton Wire and Cable-was going away to starve. And while a million-five might be considered ridiculously low for such a prime piece of Gulfside real estate, it wasn't insanely low, given current market conditions.
Well...yes it was, but he and the old man had liked one another, and Curtis was one of those who believed all was fair in love and war, and that business was a subsidiary of the latter. The man's housekeeper-the same Mrs. Wilson who kept house for Curtis-witnessed the signatures. In retrospect Curtis realized he should have known better than that, but he was excited.