West Palm: The Complete Novel (11 page)

T
he lighting above the bar was blue, the bottles were backlit with blue, even Smoker's drink looked blue. The lounge was near the police station on Banyan, and cops hung out there after work.

He looked across the bar into the mirror, and saw Ingersoll coming toward him like a sturdy tugboat emerging from its blue depths . . .

He took the stool next to Smoker. “Why am I here?”

“It's a come-to-Jesus meeting.”

“What're today's sins?” asked Ingersoll. “In order of importance. Breaking the law?”

“Not lately.”

“About to join AA?”

“Not likely.”

“Stepping out on Dottie?”

“Not exactly stepping out.”

“Toe in the water?”

Music videos blared on both sides of the blue display across the bar, forcing Smoker to speak more loudly than he liked. “I'm obsessing about the amazon. I tell myself it's being conscientious, but really I just have a jones for her. I keep coming up with reasons to drop by.”

“What kind of reasons?”

“I make up reasons.”

“Has she given any sign that you're in line for being her one and only?”

“She's living with a gay antique dealer in Flamingo Park.”

“What does this tell us?”

“They went to high school together.”

“And he swings both ways?”

“I don't think so, but what if he undergoes a conversion experience?”

Two attractive off-duty policewomen came in through the door, nodded, and went to the other end of the bar.

“And I'm sitting here with
you,
” said Ingersoll.

Smoker overlooked the interruption. “I'm so obsessed with her, I bought a bar from him. Not cheap. A genuine Casablanca from the forties. Bamboo front and sides. Solid oak counter. Wraparound foot rail. Pristine condition. Most of them from that era are beat up from being left outside, but this one—”

“Save the sales pitch. I'm not taking it off your hands.”

“I enjoy sitting at my Casablanca bar. It's better than this dive.”

“You got your own bar, you can keep out riffraff like me.”

“You're welcome anytime. Drinks are on the house.”

“What does Dottie think of your new bar?”

“She chalks it up to male menopause.”

Ingersoll let his gaze travel around the room, his eyes settling on a nearby table at which two young men with shaven heads were talking loudly to be heard above the music; the subject was hedge funds. Ingersoll's gaze seemed to singe the skin of their bare skulls, and Smoker knew the reason why. Ingersoll's stockbroker had advised him that the little bit he'd invested for a rainy day should all be sold, a week before she left the brokerage firm; it had been her last chance to gather in commissions. The market immediately went up, and Ingersoll, along with the rest of the broker's trusting clients, was left with losses instead of gains. “Do you think an idle threat would shut them up?”

“Idle never works.”

“You're right. I should just go over and arrest them.” He looked at Smoker indirectly through the mirror. “Is the amazon still seeing her attacker everywhere?”

“I hope not, she's packing a Colt .380.”

“I believe in an armed citizenry. Problem is it's usually the wrong citizens.”

“What I'd like most of all is to bring her the snake man's head on a platter.”

“The snake man?”

“He wore snake bracelets. The kind of crap you find in Indian import shops.”

“Shiva.”

“Come again?”

“Indian God with snakes around him.”

“I took Dottie to the reptile house on Sunday to see if it would give me ideas.”

“You don't spend enough time in the toilet bowl? You have to put on a snorkel and go in on Sundays too?”

“I prefer not to think of it as a toilet, though there was a strong smell.”

“How did Dottie feel about her trip to the reptile house?”

“She was not as enthusiastic as I'd hoped.”

“Did they feed them live rats while you were there?”

“No.”

“There was the problem. No entertainment.”

Smoker swallowed the rest of his drink. “What's the story on the two slit throats in John Prince Park?”

“Dope,” answered Ingersoll succinctly. “A couple of little gangbangers. Been in juvenile court since they got out of diapers.”

“So there's no connection with the guy who cut my amazon?”

“It looks like it was a gang setup. They were cleaned out of money and everything else. Penniless, like kids their age used to be. Now all these little bastards are walking around with huge wads of dough in their pockets.”

Smoker put his hand in his own pocket and placed the broken bits of Christmas lights on the counter. “I went back to Seafarers Landing. These are from the string he was carrying.”

“Spreading light and joy.” Ingersoll played with the fragments.

“Judging from where I found them, he must've been watching her from the corner of the property. There was another megayacht docked there, and I had a perfect view of a broad in a bikini.”

“Broad Corner.”

“She's on a giant yacht, thinking nothing in this world can touch her . . .”

“And there's a PI hiding in the bushes.”

“Dottie must be right, I'm going through a weird change of life.”

“Dottie's always right.”

“Something about the amazon gets to me.”

“Something? She's a big curvaceous doll.”

“She used to be a basketball player.”

“You got a thing about lady basketball players?”

“Legs up to here.” He indicated the top of the bar.

“And she has a great jump shot.”

“I look at her legs as if I'm looking for clues.”

“Always a good place to look for fingerprints.”

“It bothers me to think of an honest young woman hiding away like someone in the witness protection program.”

“When she could be sitting at your Casablanca bar. Just you, her, and Dottie. What's wrong with this picture?”

“I know, I know, I've got to catch the guy, and then it'll be over.”

“No, it won't. Then you'll be her hero. There'll be a victory celebration, you'll get drunk together . . .”

“You think?”

“It's a distinct possibility. But I'll be there to correct your moral compass.”

“That's why I'm not inviting you.”

“My feelings would be hurt if I had any left.”

“W
elcome to Bougainvillea Park, where there ain't no bougainvilleas.”

Zach looked up from his library book and saw a tiny, crinkly-faced lady leaning forward on her walker.

“I don't want to interfere with your studies.” She clearly planned to stick around and talk. “Is that your Talmud?”

He held up the book. She saw constellations, whirling cosmic dust, and realized she was dealing here with a brain.

“We're the only Jews in this trailer park,” she said. “Of course the shul's so far away you need a camel to get there. You, you got a bicycle. Me, all I got is this.” She shook her walker, then suddenly swiveled it as if it were a dancing partner, and pointed its feet at the ground between his trailer and hers.

He rose from his chair and went to pick up the object she was pointing to: an empty snakeskin, still in perfect shape, from the open jaws and eye caps to the tip of its tail.

“Ecdysis,” he said.

She nodded at this further affirmation she was dealing with a brain, and imagined the trailer park slowly being taken over by scholarly Jews like this one who was gazing so fixedly at the specimen she'd found for him. She watched him shake out the red ants that were beginning to attack it.

“Fire ants,” she said. “They give you such a bite.”

She appreciated the finesse with which he was examining the skin. He held it up to the sun and inserted a finger down its throat. Maybe he was a medical student. Anyway, some kind of scientist here in Bougainvillea Park.

“I wish I could shed
my
old skin,” she said. “Snakes do it when they grow too big for it, but me, I'm shrinking. You'll come out of your trailer one day and see a dwarf in a walker.”

He ran his hand along the diamond mesh of the snakeskin's back and caressed the ribs underneath.

“You wouldn't believe how tall I used to be,” she said. “Guess.”

“Guess?”

“How tall I was.”

“Six feet.”

Maybe not a medical student, she thought. A medical student would know I couldn't have shrunk that much.

She came to the point. “I notice your bicycle has a basket on it. If you're going to the grocery store, maybe you'll pick up a few things for me.”

She reached into the pocket of her housecoat and thrust a shopping list at him. He gave her a startled look.

She remembered something about Einstein being on a bus not knowing where he was going. Sometimes these scientific types couldn't cope with the little things of life.

“Never mind.” She put the list back in her pocket.

“No, give it to me. I'll do it for you, ma'am.”

He opened the door to his trailer. She craned to see inside, but couldn't. He put his book away, locked the door, and got onto his bicycle.

“Wait,” she called after him.

He stopped and turned.

She thumped toward him on her walker and handed him twenty dollars. “Count the change. They'll cheat you blind at that bodega.”

She watched him riding off and admired the piety that made him dress like a Pole in a snowstorm here in the tropics.

Then she poked around at the edges of her trailer for the snake that had shed its skin practically on her doorstep.

I
t still tingled. She tingled. That was something they didn't tell you about, how sexy a tattoo made you feel. That's probably why people kept getting more of them, but she couldn't see herself covered with tattoos. Just this one on the small of her back to draw attention to her slim waist when she was bending over to set down plates, and hopefully get her bigger tips. The only possibly tasteless thing about the tattoo—after all, it was just a snake—was that it continued down into the invisible reaches of her pants, leading the eye and the imagination.

Her friend Tracy had made the mistake of tattooing her husband's name on her ass. He had said that was the place for it because it was just between the two of them, and that the tat shouldn't be just his name, but his name on an eight ball, to honor his bald head and the fact that he loved shooting pool. When he left her for a lady pool shark, Tracy had the thing excavated, and that's how it looked, as if it had been chewed out by beavers. Nowadays of course they used a laser, which was less invasive.

But why think about removal when she'd only gotten her tattoo two weeks ago, and today was the first day it was fit to be seen in public?

She selected a bag of potatoes and moved on to onions. As she leaned over the the bin, she was pleasantly aware of her crop top riding up, exhibiting the freshly healed tattoo. It looked great now because she had a tiny waist, but how would it be if she got fat like her mother? The snake would stretch and flatten out, the colors would spread, and it'd look like roadkill.

She put back the potatoes, the avocado, and the chips. Now she had to diet for her tattoo. Life was so complicated.

The tattoo had been Step One of her Six-Step Plan.

Step Two was to stop choosing men who turned out to be losers, but at least she hadn't tattooed any of their names on her ass. Tracy's husband had asked her to do it as a sign of commitment. Notice, he didn't offer to tattoo
her
name on
his
ass.

She squeezed a mango. Step Three was bigger lips. Min offered Juvéderm injections for a fraction of what plastic surgeons charged. It was illegal for amateurs to do it, but that was mainly for fear of infection, and Min, while not exactly a doctor, was a certified nail technician. Her apartment was immaculate, so everybody said. She threw Pouting Parties in her immaculate apartment where all the ladies walked in with skinny lips and walked out pouting.

She bagged her mangoes. Another good thing about where her tattoo was located, it didn't show unless she wore a crop top, in case she got a job at a more conservative club, like the Colony in Palm Beach, where they featured real-live Broadway legends instead of karaoke. Getting a job in a snazzy club was Step Four on her Six-Step Plan.

The shoppers around her were talking Spanish, though occasionally she caught the sound of Haitian French. She picked up a weird-looking tropical tuber she hadn't yet tried. She was also working her way through weird fruits, so far with sour results. Either they were an acquired taste, or Mexicans prepared them with unhealthy quantities of sugar.

Along the walls above the fruit were entire shelves of flavored aloe vera. She didn't know if Mexicans were congenitally constipated, or if they knew a secret about aloe vera that Americans didn't. She'd found it all appealingly exotic at first, especially the Haitian Botanica down the street, which sold voodoo potions and charms.

But exotic had its drawbacks, especially with a job that let out in the small hours. Twice her car had been stopped by cops warning her to keep out of the neighborhood after dark. When she told them it was where she lived, they advised her to move as soon as humanly possible. So Step Five, after getting a better job, was moving to a more boring neighborhood.

She pushed her cart down the narrow aisles, picking up this and that. One thing she would miss when she moved was the variety of rice. Colors you never saw before, in sacks as heavy as you could carry, at dirt cheap prices.

The last thing on her Six-Step list had to do with striking it rich, because she wasn't just a waitress. She created fashion accessories. Unfortunately, her necklaces crocheted from strips of discarded plastic bags had failed. Her Cleopatra necklaces hung with bobby pins arranged in groups of blond and black had failed. Her decorative seashell clips to put on your flip-flops had failed, though not as badly. Her three-dimensional crop tops made from old cassette recording tape had been a disaster. She'd had high hopes for them, the way they shimmied when you danced, but for some reason they just didn't catch on.

The problem was getting ahead of the curve. She always seemed to come in on the curve's downturn. Cigar box evening bags for instance. She'd screwed on handles, lined the boxes with velvet, added some glitz, varnished them, and the results were pretty spectacular. Ideal for single women in bars. Just think about it. What other kind of purse could possibly interest a man? Especially if it happened to be his favorite brand of cigar. Yet though you still saw the occasional cigar box evening bag around, their hour had definitely passed.

One thing or another, she kept at it every day. This month she was trimming jeans with strips of thrift shop curtain lace. But her goal was to think of something no one had thought of before that would really take off.

She bent down to pick up a twenty-five pound sack of yellow rice.

“Let me help you,” said a man's voice.

His hands replaced hers on the sack. Virile hands with muscular wrists, a snake bracelet on each. She'd bet anything it was her snake tattoo that made him notice her. Could it be that Step One of her plan had led her straight to Step Two—a man who wasn't a loser?

She turned to him with a smile of kinship.