Bone Island Mambo (15 page)

I drove into Key West, monitored the rearview. If the Maxima’s occupants had been saved by air bags and made it to shore, they could cause problems. A cell phone to summon friends, if the phone had survived the salt water. Or a wild fiction for the deputy. Some bullshit to shift the blame. I didn’t want to talk my way around another blue-and-red flasher.

I was hiding from bad guys and good guys. I didn’t understand any of it.

Inside of two days I’d been street-jumped, chased in my car, and shot at. Scumbags with loud music and cheap blades had marked me. Jerk-offs with a medium-caliber gun had drenched me in sweat, pock-marked the Shelby’s left side-frame rail. I hadn’t gone looking for trouble. Both times trouble had come straight to me.

On the other hand, I’d made us perfect victims for an imperfect crime. The Caroline Street mess should have put me on notice. But I’d gone out in public when lying low would have been wiser. And I’d taken Teresa with me. We’d been lucky. Our pursuers could’ve used silencers, shot us in Mangrove Mama’s parking lot. Quieter, sliced our throats. Less messy, snugged our windpipes with heavy monofilament or nylon rope. The shooter could have aimed
for my head instead of my rear tire. Instead—for want of an action word—they had
messed
with us.

The head in Marnie’s Jeep had confirmed that the violence was focused on driving away Butler Dunwoody. I couldn’t guess how messing with me, or stealing my car, could stop a construction project Meanwhile, two men had died, one of them a scumbag. Two more people could have died but for someone’s deficient killing skills. Not that Teresa and I wished them higher scores.

I wished I’d had the sense not to expose her to a threat.

I assumed that the sanctity of my house was as threatened as my ass. I didn’t want either of us to spend the night on Dredgers Lane. But I wanted my car out of sight.

I drove up Fleming, quietly coasted into the guests-only lot at the Eden House, the inn adjacent to the lane. No open spaces. Is it double-parking when you block six cars at once?

“Lock yourself in. If anyone shows, pretend you’re passed out” I said. “I’ll be back in two minutes.”

She gave me a cold look.

“Is that okay?” I said.

She opened the car door, stepped out. “Crap’s been going on for thirty-six hours, Alex. This is the first time you’ve asked my opinion.” She closed the door. She was coming with me.

I’d asked her opinion of Dexter Hayes’s actions at the Caroline Street murder scene. Bad time to argue the point I still didn’t want to tell her about the purple birthmark, the connection between my Caroline Street muggers and the body on the dumped sofa.

A cold front had blown itself south of Lake Okeechobee. The midday norther now had a bite to it. It took us three minutes to scope Dredgers Lane on foot. The lane looked safe, my house unmolested. Sure as hell, we returned to a minivan owner who wanted to kick my butt. Poor son of a bitch probably on his dream vacation, tapping out the MasterCard, trying to get some squeeze, having to make a midnight run for Pampers. Teresa shivered, acted drunk,
bitched about no rooms at the inn. After inspecting my expression up close, the van owner backed down.

I lease the garage behind Carmen Sosa’s house in the lane. Her four-year-old Saturn gets parked in open weather, next to her porch. But my rental cash makes up for young Maria’s long-gone daddy’s failure to make child-support payments. With the Shelby’s minimal exhaust system, I try not to come and go after Carmen’s and Maria’s bedtimes. I’d considered spending the night at Teresa’s condo, parking the Shelby there, behind the Shipyard security gates. Who’s kidding whom? The swinging gates are cued by coded keypad; every pizza and package and grocery delivery service, every garbage and recycling-truck driver, every taxi driver had this month’s code. Not that it matters. Anyone can walk into the parking area by sidewalk. The gates open automatically for any vehicle departing. I’d left my car there all night only once and hadn’t slept well.

I coasted to the dead end, hid the Shelby, secured its garage. A night light in Carmen’s bedroom. Her friend in for a visit. He must have parked out on Fleming. I pondered the call I needed to make while Teresa and I walked to my yard. I wasn’t quite prepared to enter my house without making sure no one waited inside.

I stashed the Shelby’s distributor cap in the Weber grill. Then I peed in the bushes. Teresa, not to be outdone, squatted and peed next to the mango tree. Something about team spirit and cool weather . . .

I wasn’t accustomed to thinking like a commando. I faked it. Anyone waiting would have heard the Shelby return. They’d have jumped us while I was locking up. Or watering the foliage. Maybe they knew more about stealth and preferred to wait until I entered the house. Should I go flat on the porch floor, reach up, twist the door handle, hope that the gunfire went high? Or walk on in? I wasn’t going to find the carpet cutter’s head next to the kitchen sink.

I hand-signaled Teresa. She understood. We went in opposite directions, walked the perimeter a second time, checked each window. There was no way to enter without
two keys or causing damage. We found no damage. I waved her away from me, unlocked the door, walked in, flipped the lights. I waited for the bullet I’d never hear.

I didn’t hear a thing. I waved Teresa inside and dialed the phone.

A drowsy voice: “Do you know what fucking time it is?”

A mental picture: Liska in a pitch-black bedroom, knocking over an ashtray, grasping the Caller ID module.

I said, “It’s important.”

“A problem worth waking me, this hour of night? I’m nine-one-one? I’ve been asleep all of forty minutes.”

“Your deputies are pulling bad people out of the water at the north end of Blimp Road. Find out who they are before you release them.”

“Who are they, your Stock Island car thieves?”

“They tried to steal mine.”

“This is a great midnight chat.”

“I can explain in the morning. They shot at me, if that matters.”

“Like I said, nine-one-one.” He clicked off.

Bad planning.

I’d lost Double Jeopardy. First, I’d pissed off the sheriff. Second, it was better than fifty-fifty that Chicken Neck would check with the deputies. If someone was injured, he’d send his boys after me as a witness. If anyone had been shot—God forbid, a deputy—they’d find a prosecutor to charge me as an accessory. Even if it was just two wet renegades, they’d want to know my connection. They’d check my house and, on Liska’s direction, Teresa’s condo. They’d detain me until the crack-of-dawn office hours. I needed more sleep than that. I didn’t want to drain the checking account to the favor of a bondsman. Or open-endorse the deed to my house so I could walk free by lunchtime.

I called Sam. Marnie answered on the third ring. Immediate concern in her voice. I told her about the chase. I asked her to keep her ears open about a car in the water,
but not to connect me to it. She handed off the phone. I told Sam I’d get a room at Eden House.

“I’ve got a guest room right here,” he said.

“If they can find Mamie’s Jeep, they can find your house. You might want to think that way.”

“Strength in numbers.”

“I don’t want to drag a menace to your place.”

He grunted, paused, then said, “You need a day on the water. Good for your health.”

I found the phone number for Eden House. I recognized Helen’s drowsy voice. She told me they were booked up. I thought again about strength in numbers. I called Sam to warn him about incoming house guests. Asked for a ten-minute moratorium on shooting at shadows.

I called a taxi, asked for a pickup in front of Eden House. Then I dug out a foul-weather jacket for Teresa and walked her to the cab. She said she’d stop at her condo, to pick up her toothbrush and work clothes for the morning.

I asked her to start carrying her purse pistol.

Back at the house I grabbed a flannel shirt and a flashlight, and unlocked the Cannondale. I beam-reached Southard, let the breeze push me down Simonton to the Atlantic side. People struggled toward me on bicycles and mopeds, bundled in heavy coats, locked into their own worlds. I passed a woman on a motor scooter who’d mastered the art of dragging on a cigarette while doing twenty into a fifteen-knot headwind.

Funny how outerwear suggests biographies during cold weather in Key West. The last time many residents had worn a protective coat had been the first day they’d hit the Florida line. They refused to buy new ones, given rare cold snaps and no wish to travel northward during winter. Old-fashioned varsity jackets, fat thermal parkas, foul-weather gear, preppy zip-ups, fraternity logos—was that Rastafarian once a Sigma Nu?—plaid woolen coats, Irish knit pullovers. Dozens of hooded sweatshirts. Once a year the Goodwill sold out of coats. Not that real-world style ever ranked high among locals’ concerns . . .

In the dim light of Sam’s rarely used extra bedroom—a twenty-five-watt bedside lamp, the dappling of a neighbor’s yard light through foliage—I saw a vacant glaze in Teresa’s eyes. Fatigue, plus her thoughts about what had happened on Blimp Road. As I undressed for bed she moved close to me. It wasn’t pure affection. It was the jitters. On other occasions each article of removed clothing marked another wee act of love, another rung up the ladder to our pleasing. This time our moves were mechanical.

We both wore T-shirts in bed, nothing else. We held on tightly, absorbing each other at first for security more than passion. We took comfort in the knowledge of chance, the momentary belief that our problems were small jokes in the big world when we held each other. We talked with our breathing, adjusted pillows, brushed the sheets thigh-to-thigh, minute after minute, before relaxation took over, before we shut out everything not us. Our closeness slowly became passion, touches became tranquility. Teresa moved on top, set the rhythm, slowed, wanted something else but the bed was too small and we were almost there, and then she was there and she gave me trembling permission to join her, to melt together, to keep the big world outside the door, away from the bedsheet, out of our minds.

I was almost asleep when Teresa smoothed my damp hair. She mumbled, “The way you drove tonight? Promise me that you knew how it would end.”

“I had a plan, and it worked out okay.”

“Just tell me you knew.”

“I knew.”

“You’ve got something to tell me?”

“Can it wait until morning?”

She grasped my upper arm like a ship’s lifeline. “Fine.”

When you hear a woman say “Fine,” in a certain tone, you’d better get ready to pay one, in some form or another.

I slept lightly in spite of the lovemaking. I heard noises—structural creaks, footsteps in Sam’s yard, whispers of home invaders. Palm fronds ticked the tin roof. I woke before dawn after a truck on South shook the neighborhood. Two guttural Harleys followed. Cats prowled and whined.

The road chase replayed itself in my mind. I wished that the deputy had not shown up. I wished that I’d been alone. I’d have found a way to slip back to the boat ramp, hide between the mosquitoes and random bullets, find out who’d been so eager to chat. Find out why they’d wanted to swipe my car.

One solid fact. No one was after my money, if they knew anything about me. Financial truth was nigh. I’d love to turn him down, tell Mercer Holloway that I had a conflict. But I needed a boost. A freelancer living off the savings account needs career repair. Then again, location shots are difficult for a man hiding from cops and felons. For health and cash-flow reasons, I needed to stop the crap, soon.

Teresa stirred when I got out of bed. Her eyes asked a question.

I asked my own: “Did you tell anyone we were going to Mangrove’s for dinner?”

She shook her head.

“I’m going to get a paper. I’ll call you at work.”

She pursed her lips for a good-bye kiss. We spent a minute holding each other before I left.

I pulled on my jeans, tucked in my flannel shirt. It would be colder at dawn than it had been at midnight. I borrowed a windbreaker from Sam’s pegboard. Even my bicycle felt creaky in the cold, made sounds similar to cat howls. I knew that the submerged car couldn’t have made the papers’ deadlines. But I wanted to check the
Herald
for news about the deaths of Richard Engram and Richard Engram.

I didn’t have pocket change for the vending flip-downs. Valladares’s newsstand—Key West’s daybreak cultural center—wouldn’t open for twenty more minutes. I seized the moment. How often does anyone get the chance to ride the center line of Duval?

Key West at sunrise is closest to the island of twenty-five years ago. Smells of hot Cuban bread and night-blooming vines. Air fresh with the salt tang of onshore breezes before being weighted by exhaust fumes. Muted pre-dawn grays turning into pastels fuzzy with the humidity that will blow away in the first daylight hour. A few people were up early. A few staggered home from a long night of it.

A lemming-like tourist line had crowded Duval’s top end. Folks got up early for this. They could stay in their cars, glance at the Gulf of Mexico, turn left, continue on their way. No chance of spray or ocean scent soiling their vacation duds. One after another they found the dead end, U-turned through huge puddles. They thought it was rainwater. They did not understand high tide and low pavement. The salty seawater would take two years to cause its havoc. The tourists would forget about puddles. They would blame the car makers for faulty brake rotors and rotten shock absorbers.

Inside the Pier House, I got change from the desk clerk, bought a paper. The lobby smelled of eucalyptus and stale coffee. A nervous couple waited for an airport taxi, checked and rechecked their watches. They asked the desk clerk to
confirm the van. The tropical sojourn had failed to chill their inner turmoil.

I sifted for the Keys section, found two follow-up articles. No names—”pending notification of next of kin.” No incident details beyond “foul play” and “under investigation.” Authorities refused to release causes of death after Monday’s autopsies by Medical Examiner Larry Riley. Sheriff Fred Liska “declined comment on rumors or leaks at this time.” No mention of the head found in Mamie’s Jeep.