Key West Connection (14 page)

Just before my head exploded, I recognized the face of Benjamin Ellsworth.

The ebony woman stood over me when I awoke for the second time. She wore a long cotton print skirt with blue conch shells and green hibiscus blooms on it. Her blouse was of a white satinlike material, and she wore no bra beneath it.

“What . . . where the hell am I?”

I tried to sit upright, but she forced me back down on the bed with surprising ease. She shook her head and held a brown index finger to her lips. I was not to speak. There was a basin of water and a sponge on the table beside the little cot on which I lay. She wiped my face with the cool water.

“You've been badly injured, captain,” she whispered. “For two days and two nights I thought you would certainly die.”

Softly, she covered my mouth with her hand. It smelled faintly of spice; some strange perfume.

She whispered again. “If they hear you, captain, they will come and question you. They will try to force you to talk, and you are still not well.”

I closed my eyes and knew that she was right. My neck ached, my head throbbed with every heartbeat, and the room spun in the self-imposed darkness. I opened my eyes. So I was still alive. It came as some surprise. I had awoken at some other time. That night or the previous night—I didn't know. Everything was blackness. A total and complete absence of all light, and I was sure that I was dead. In limbo, perhaps. Or hell. Yes, hell, because that's what I deserved. I had killed too often, and too well. . . .

“The gauze around your head is filled with moss. Don't let it frighten you, captain. It's an old island cure that I know. I'm afraid we have no real medical facilities here. And the Senator forbade the summoning of a doctor.”

I touched the bandage that was wrapped around my skull. It felt hot and wet. I looked at my fingers. Blood.

I saw the tremor of concern cross her face. She began wiping me with the sponge again. “You really are much better. You must believe that, captain. It's very important that you not let yourself die. Very important.”

She looked tired. Very tired—as if she hadn't slept for days.

“You've been with me the whole time?” I asked in a hoarse whisper.

“Yes. Mr. Ellsworth wanted to kill you. And he would have. But they found some sort of electronic device that they think you planted here. The Senator insisted on questioning you. He's worried. They will make you tell them everything, and then kill you. That is the truth. Please believe me.”

Oh, I believed her all right. Beneath the white sheet, I tested the rest of my body. Arms and legs okay. My left ankle hurt a little—I had, perhaps, twisted it in falling. But my head felt as if someone had stuffed shattered glass in through my ears.

She saw me take the quick survey, and mistook my concern.

“Yes, you're naked.” Her cheeks turned a delicate auburn color as she seemed to blush. “The Senator was quite upset when he realized that I had undressed you. He is quite jealous of anyone who . . . who looks better than he does. But don't let it bother you. I was a nurse before I came here. A very good nurse. Sometimes I wonder why I ever let myself . . . ”

Her voice trailed off, leaving a strangely tangible sadness afloat in the little room. I seemed to be in some kind of basement. The first basement I had ever seen in Florida. No windows, plumbing fittings and electrical conduit overhead, cool concrete walls. Without moving my head, I could see a shelf of radio apparatus in front of me. On a cork board was a large nautical chart of the Florida Keys, and another of the Bahamas. There were little red pins stuck in the charts. What did they mark? Pickup points?

“I have some broth you should try to get down,” the woman said. She produced a stoneware bowl and a big spoon. Gently, she added another pillow beneath my head. It was some kind of beef soup. I realized that I was starving. She couldn't spoon it fast enough.

“Slowly, captain, slowly. You've been sick for some time.”

And then my stomach rolled. Nausea. She saw it coming and forced my head into her lap.

“Don't be embarrassed, captain. Let it come.”

She held me gently, talked to me in soothing tones. Bile and vomit on the pretty dress. I wanted to apologize, but I couldn't speak. I was racked by convulsions, and there was a knife in my brain, and then, gratefully, there was darkness . . . a darkness that echoed with someone whispering in my ear: “You must get well, captain . . . you must get well and take me away from this awful, awful place. . . . ”

 

More voices. A voice that I recognized and loved. It was Janet. She stood before me in the darkness, calling to me. She wore the Irish twill suit and white blouse she had worn in her last movie. I had never seen her so beautiful. An ethereal light seemed to glow within her face and long auburn hair. She held out a long white hand to me.

“Dusky! Come on! We've been waiting and waiting. . . . ”

Dazzling smile on the happy face. It was as if she was waiting for me to run across the moor with her.

Across the moor . . .

I wanted to go; wanted to go so badly. I struggled in the darkness. My feet wouldn't move, my mouth wouldn't open to reply, my lungs refused even to breathe. She was just over
there;
a few steps beyond the veil. I fought and fought to join her, and still my traitor body would not budge.

And then Ernest and Honor were there, too. Blond hair as white as pure sunlight. They giggled and called to me. And when I did not answer, they grew sober. They exchanged looks and, as if upon cue, they straightened and saluted me, like little West Point cadets.

I wanted to go to them so badly. I wanted to cross the line. I felt as if I wanted to die. . . .

 

Yellow light and soft bursts of color beyond my eyelids.

More voices:

“I tell you, that big bastard is never going to wake up. It's been three days, and I say let's go ahead and get rid of him.”

“Well, I don't give a damn what you say, Ellsworth. I'm tired of getting you out of jams. He knows something. Those bugs were state department bugs. And if he was sent here by the government, I have to know what they're up to. I want to know for sure before I make final arrangements for South America.”

“He was after
me,
Senator. And if Jimmy and I hadn't found those dogs, I'm telling you—”

“You're not telling me anything, Ellsworth. I'm telling you. We'll give him another day or two. And if he's not well enough to talk then, then we'll get Lenze to set something up and make it look like an accident. But I'm not going to hand him over to you just for your personal amusement.”

I heard footsteps going toward the door, and I heard the door open. I heard someone take two steps back toward my bed, and I felt the wet stringer slide down my face. Before turning out the lights, Ellsworth had spat on me. . . .

 

It was Janet again. She stood on the bow of my old cruiser,
Striker,
face into the wind, hair streaming out behind her, just as she had that first time.

We had met the week before. Her film company had chartered my boat to take them around scouting locations. They wanted a deserted place with a beach and palm trees, clear water and shallow coral reefs.

I had taken them out to a little spot I knew off the Content Keys. It was everything they wanted and more.

You hear a lot about “positive chemistry” between two people.

And I had never really believed in it—until I met her.

Of course, it was expected of me. Every man who had ever met her or ever seen her on the screen felt it.

The unusual thing was that she had felt it for me. And I knew it. She let me know it.

Nothing flirty, nothing coy. She displayed her interest through questions and conversation, direct gazes and an occasional bawdy wink. When we passed each other on the narrow confines of the
Striker,
we always seemed to brush closer than necessary. There was an intense, physical awareness of each other between us, no doubt about that. But there was something more, too.

She was the one who finally broke the ice. Frankly, I have always been a little shy of women. Not intimidated, not lacking in confidence—but just reluctant to get involved in that long tiresome game of “Is he going to try to take me to bed?” and “Will she let me take her to bed?”—the big questions of dating sexuality that always, always get in the way of interesting talk and genuine friendship between a man and a woman.

So she made the first move.

I was down on the docks, coiling lines. I smelled of fish and, after a long day on the boat, my hair was bleached to straw and my face was peeling.

She came down to the boat in long, mannish strides. She wore baggy brown fishing pants belted tight to the narrow waist, and a baggy blue shirt that seemed to make her blue eyes glow like a certain shade of Gulf Stream water. She looked great.

“How about it, sailor? Interested in a good time?” She had her hands on her hips and punctuated the questions with a big wink, the way a dishwater blonde in a 1930s movie might have.

“You dames are all alike,” I had said, playing the role. “Coupla quick drinks an' ya try to push us swabbies inta the sack.”

The ice broken, we both fell into fits of laughter.

“How about it, Dusky? Buy a dead-tired actress dinner?”

“Dutch treat, maybe,” I had said, still laughing. “Just give me a minute to shower.”

“Naw, you look fine. My grandfather was an old Iona Banks fisherman out of Scotland. It'll be nice to go out with a man who doesn't smell like the latest French perfume.”

So we went out. That night and every night afterward. And we had great long rambling conversations. Boats, books, politics. I told her about the circus, a little bit about what I had done in the Navy, and a lot about me. She told me about acting, about growing up in New York City, and how she was ready for something different; something lasting.

Two opposites. Two people made for each other.

We held hands occasionally, but I never once tried to kiss her. I enjoyed the woman; I enjoyed the person—and I didn't want it suddenly complicated or spoiled.

Then one late evening, almost midnight, I had heard a hesitant knock at my cabin door. It was Janet. She was in tears. She took two steps and fell into my arms.

“Dusky, I can't stand it anymore. I can't! All those silly takes and retakes. It's all so important to them, and it all seems so silly to me.”

I had gotten her a beer and left her alone while she showered and settled down. I cast off the lines and headed out the old Northwest Channel into the tranquilizing darkness of night sea. Three miles, four miles: far away from the pressures of celluloid and make-believe, far away from the bright Key West lights. And then I shut the engines down, drifting. I looked at the stars and thought about what I wanted to do with my life. A professional killer looking for a purpose. And after I had decided, I went down to her. I expected a dramatic proposal, well-rehearsed jubilation afterward.

But there was none of that. She lay asleep in the forward cabin, fist to her mouth like a child.

Quietly, I slipped off my shoes, my shirt, and lay down beside her and was soon asleep.

I don't know who awoke first. Maybe her, maybe me—or maybe together. But our mouths were already joined; open and searching the other. In feverish readiness, we wrestled each other's clothes off. Her breasts, her hips, her silken hair—the most beautiful woman I had ever seen. Ever. We took each other again and again, saying an unspoken yes each time; experimenting and loving without shame. I knew. We both knew.

And the next morning I had awoken with a start. She wasn't there. I pulled on a pair of shorts and ran topside. She stood on the bow, wind in her auburn hair, looking out on the turquoise sea.

“Janet. Last night. I was going to ask you to marry me.”

She turned and there was a seriousness to her lovely face. “Too late, sailor boy.”

“What?”

And she had smiled then. “While you were asleep—you don't snore by the way, thank God—while you were asleep, I asked
you
. After all . . . the activity . . . you were your typically stoic self, and so I jerked your head up and down a few times. You said ‘Yes,' and you're committed, buster boy. Not exactly a verbal agreement, but I think my lawyers can make it stick in court. You can still carouse and fish and drink with your buddies occasionally. And maybe if I decide to do a film or two in the far future—which I doubt—I still can. But other than those two minor concessions, we've got a contract, you and me. You also agreed to a bunch of babies, a nice little house, and me for your best friend and wife for ever and ever, by the way. How about it, Dusky?”