Back on Poorhouse Lane, Peter laid out silverware and napkins on the poolside table while the women prepared a luncheon platter. The three of them were passing around bowls of cole slaw and potato salad when Meg’s cell phone rang. It was her policy not to answer calls at mealtimes, but when she quickly glanced over at the screen she decided she’d better pick it up.
“Hello?” she said.
“Hi. Is this Meg?” a male voice said. The voice was slightly gruff but not forceful, a rather bashful voice in fact.
“Yes.”
“This is Benny. Benny Bufano. The person who—“
“Yes, I know who you are.”
“Ah. How’s everything down there?”
How’s everything? Meg thought. Where should she start? The smashed window? The estranged wife who might be having a breakdown? The goon attack at the seawall?
“Oh,” she said, “fine. Everything’s fine. Nice house. Love the pool.”
After she said it she looked across the table at Glenda, pointed exaggeratedly at the phone, and mouthed the words, It’s him. It’s Benny.
Glenda responded by instantly flushing a hot, congested pink, waving her arms as if desperately trying to be spotted by a rescue plane, and repeatedly mouthing back the single word No.
“Good,” said Benny. “I’m glad it’s going well.” There was a slightly uncomfortable pause and then he went on. “But listen, I’m really sorry to bother you, I know this wasn’t our deal, but something, um, unexpected has come up, I’m kind of in a bind, and I’m wondering if maybe I could hang out at the house for a day or two.”
Meg said, “Sorry, there’s some static on the line. You need to hide out at the house?”
“I didn’t say hide out. I said hang out. Just till I work through a couple things. I’ll try not to be in the way. I promise.”
“Ah. Can you hang on a sec? Let me talk to my husband.”
Meg muted the phone but before she could say a word Peter blurted out, “He wants to come here? Oh, perfect. Dream vacation in a desperado hideout. We can be the hostages. The human shields.”
Meg said, “He said hang out. I heard hide out. It’s a bad connection, I’m missing like every third word.”
She unmuted the phone and went back to the call. “So, Benny, when were you thinking of coming by? Like, tomorrow?”
“Actually,” he said, “more like twenty minutes. I’m just a couple miles up the Keys.”
“Oh. Hold on another sec, would you?” She muted the phone again and reported the news.
Horrified, Glenda said, “Twenty minutes? No. I can’t face him. I can’t do it. If he’s coming here, I’m bolting.”
Meg said soothingly, “You’ll have to face him sometime, honey. If only to see how it feels, to be sure you’re really following your heart.”
Peter said, “Can we please cut short the marriage counseling and decide how we can safely tell this murderer that there’s no way in hell he can come to his own house?”
Glenda winced at that and Meg said, “We don’t know he’s a murderer. Look, if he was going to take us hostage, you think he would’ve called to ask permission? He needs a place to stay. He’s asking nicely. Not pushy or anything. He sounds nice. He sounds tired.”
“Of course he’s tired,” Peter said. “You think it’s easy braining people with baseball bats all day?”
Meg frowned at her husband, glanced with deep concern at Glenda, and came to an executive decision. She unmuted the phone and said, “Benny? Sure. Come by. I’m sure it’ll be fine.”
In a tone that was surprisingly humble, Benny said, “Thank you. Thanks for understanding. But listen, there’s one more thing—“
He didn’t get to finish because Peter was now frantically waving his arms and Meg asked the caller to hold on again. “Ask him if he has the fucking cat with him. Maybe there’s no cat, at least.”
Meg asked, and Benny said, “You know I have a cat? Yeah, I have her. I hope that’s not a problem.”
“No, it’s fine. We’ll work it out.”
“Great,” said Benny. “But there’s one other thing—“
“Hold on,” said Meg, once again distracted by Peter doing semaphore.
“Tell him about Carlos. Tell him he almost got me drowned.”
To Peter, Meg said, “Honey, don’t over-dramatize. It was four inches of water.”
To Benny, she said, “Oh, and I think you missed a meeting with somebody named Carlos.”
“Shit,” said Benny. “Totally forgot. Okay, see you soon.”
“Travel safe,” Meg said, and she broke off the connection.
Peter sneezed at the thought of the cat and cringed at the thought of being housemates with a killer. Glenda grimaced and ran off to the guest bedroom, where she began hurriedly throwing some things into an oversized purse, preparing to run away somewhere, anywhere.
A moment later Meg walked in and tried to talk her out of it. “Are you really sure you want to do this?” she gently asked. “You tried it once before, this storming out, and where did it get you? It made you miserable, remember? You came back to try again.”
Bathing suits and underwear were flying into Glenda’s bag. She said, “I know, I know. But that was before—“
“Before what? Before you knew what kind of business your husband was involved in? Come on, let’s be honest here. You’ve known it all along. Maybe you never had to really look it in the eye before. Now you do. So—you love this man or you don’t. You love him in spite of everything or finally it’s finished. How can you get on with your life until you know for sure?”
Glenda did not so much sit as sag onto the bed. Her shoulders dropped, her chin turned downward in a helpless pout, she looked about fourteen years old. “You’re right, I know you’re right. I just don’t know what to do.”
“For starters?” Meg said. “For starters, wash your face. Fix your hair. Get into some of those crazy shoes you like. And when your husband gets here, meet him at the door.”
“At the door? I can’t.”
“He has no idea you’re here,” Meg said. “He’ll be totally surprised. Don’t you see, it’s the perfect opportunity to know what’s really in his heart. He won’t have time to think, he’ll just react. You’ll see him clearly and you’ll know. Trust me. Do this.”
23.
To Benny, as it would to anyone, it felt very odd to be ringing the front doorbell of his own house as if he were an ordinary visitor.
After ringing he stood for what seemed a long moment on the wrong side of the threshold, waiting for the Kaplans, whoever they turned out to be, to let him in. Warm sun poured down; shrubbery gave off the baked smell of mid-afternoon. Benny had barely slept for something over thirty hours. His back hurt from fifteen hundred miles in the car; strangely, his feet hurt too, though he’d barely used them. At his side, Lydia was in scarcely better shape, though there was something undeniably sexy in her fatigue and disarray. Her features had softened with tiredness; the heavy-lidded eyes were somehow beckoning. Her hair had come undone at the back and hung carelessly down against her neck. Her skirt and blouse were wrinkled as though she’d made love with her clothes on. Too exhausted to stand up quite straight, she and Benny lightly leaned against each other, shoulders touching.
Glenda opened the door.
For some seconds Benny just stood there, seeing but not comprehending. He was too wrung out to feel surprise, exactly; what he felt was utter bafflement, as if he’d slipped without noticing into a different world with a different logic and different rules and different outcomes. In the real world, Glenda had left him. She’d resisted all his urging to talk, to reconcile; she’d said she was never coming back. And now in this changed world she was standing once again in the house they’d shared, the house where they’d often been happy, regal in her tall shoes, her high hair crowning the face that he had tried to draw a thousand times since she’d walked out on him but had never quite got right. He looked at her; he slightly shifted the angl
e of his neck to look at her some more; and his eyes welled up with tears of gratitude and joy.
Then he remembered that he had another woman with him, leaning up against him, in fact, both of them rumpled and disheveled as if from a very wild night. The first thing he said was, “Um, I can explain.”
Glenda looked from Benny to Lydia, from Lydia to Benny. “No,” she said, “it’s wonderful!”
Benny’s heart sank. Glenda was happy that he seemed to be with someone else? Had she found someone else herself? So soon? Had she forgotten him already? Weakly, he said, “Wonderful?”
“She’s alive!” said Glenda. “You didn’t whack her.”
Benny said, “What?”
Glenda said, “And you’re alive. And you’re here. And you’re not a murderer. I love you, Benny. I’ve missed you so much.”
With that they fell into each other’s arms and stood there petting each other’s backs and nestling their teary faces against each other’s necks. The cat jumped out through the car window and ran into the house. Lydia, who’d been slightly squeezed against the doorframe by the embraces of the happy couple, discreetly slipped into the shade and coolness of the living room.
When Glenda and Benny had finally finished sniffling and hugging they found Meg and Peter standing at the base of the bedroom stairs, dressed for travel, their luggage at their feet. Glenda said, “Hey, where you going?”
Rather stiffly, nervous to be in the same room as the fearsome Benny, Peter said, “We’ve talked it over and we really think it’s time for us to go.”
Meg’s averted eyes suggested that she didn’t entirely agree.
“No!” said Glenda. “It absolutely isn’t. Everything’s fine now, can’t you see? Everyone’s alive. Everybody’s here. Stay. Enjoy Key West awhile. Let’s all get to know each other better.”
Peter said, “Thank you, but no. It’s really better that we go.”
“Go where?” said Glenda. “New York’s miserable right now. Florida’s packed. Where you gonna go?”
“Not sure,” Peter admitted. “Maybe Boca.”
From a corner of the room, all but forgotten, Lydia said, “Boca? Yecch. I’d rather die.”
Glenda said to her husband, “Benny, these people have been just wonderful to me. Please, don’t let them go.”
Don’t let them go? thought Peter. Were they about to become hostages after all?
But Benny just shrugged and said mildly, “Glenda would like you to stay. Which means that I’d like you to stay. So, please…”
Meg looked sideways at Peter and said, “And, damn it, I’d like us to stay. I think that makes a majority. But on one condition. We’re moving to the guest room. You two take the master. The honeymoon suite. Capisce?”
Benny and Glenda went upstairs. Lydia lay down on the living room sofa and almost instantly fell asleep. In the downstairs bedroom, Meg and Peter were unpacking again. “I can’t believe you said capisce to him,” said Peter. “Doing Mafia shtick. You trying to get us killed?”
“Benny doesn’t kill people,” Meg observed. “Haven’t you noticed that by now?”
“He didn’t kill this one particular person this one particular time. You can’t extrapolate from that to say he doesn’t kill anybody ever.”
“Come on, he’s a nice guy. Gentle.”
“Gentle. Remember that story a while back about the lion biting the lion tamer’s head off? The lion was gentle. Then it had a bad day. Then somebody didn’t have a head.”
Meg decided to let that slide and hung up a couple of sundresses in the closet.
“Plus now we’ve got the fucking cat,” Peter resumed. “Hair balls. Dander, whatever that is.”
“Honey, it’s a Burmese cat.”
“So?”
“Don’t you know why they’re so highly prized?”
“Why would any fucking cat be highly prized?”
“Because they’re hypo-allergenic. One hundred per cent. Different kind of fur. Totally no problem.”
“Really?”
“Really. So breathe easy, honey. Benny’s not a killer. The cat is hypo-allergenic. It’s all going to be fine.”
24.
Beat up from the long solo drive, strung out from the supercharged caffeine and sugar drinks he’d been chugging to keep awake, Andy Sheehan crawled through the afternoon traffic and construction zones on U.S. 1, past a disheartening and seemingly endless array of pink and turquoise motels whose marquees all said No Vacancy. Since crossing the Cow Key Bridge onto the dense little island of Key West, he’d begged for a room at several places in spite of what the signs said. Desperate, he’d even flashed his badge a couple times. The tactic got him nowhere. Key Westers, unimpressed with when not actively hostile to authority, were less, not more inclined to help a Fed.
Finally, when he’d almost run out of island—almost reached the fabled Southernmost Point, ninety miles of myth and Gulf Stream from Havana—he came upon a dive that, with characteristic local humor and complete unvarnished honesty, was called the Last Resort. It was an old-style motor court, a tight cluster of cheesy and thin-walled rooms in a U-shape around a lumpy asphalt parking lot with weeds squeezing up through the cracks. It was flanked on one side by an all-night drugstore and on the other by a huge garage where they rented motor scooters. In the cubicle-sized front office sat a fat man with a greasy silver ponytail. He didn’t bother looking up until Sheehan asked for a room.
“How long you want it for?”
“Not sure yet.”
“All night?”
“Yeah, all night. Just not sure how many nights.”
“Lemme know by noon if you want it again. Seventy bucks. Cash only.”
That was it for registration. Sheehan took his key and found his room. The door to it, swollen with humidity, was stuck in its frame and needed shouldering to open. Inside there was a rug that had once been gold in color but was now stained and dimmed to a shade like the crust on too-long opened mustard. It stank of mildew. The bed had a thin mattress with a trench in the middle like a shallow grave. The bathroom floor was linoleum, scabbed and unglued at the corners where water had seeped through; the plastic shower curtain was splotched with furry black dots of mold. From the scooter place next door came the staccato racket of people starting up their nastily whining engines and trying out their blaring horns.
The odd thing was that Sheehan really liked the place. The seediness, the grit, the slow decay of long neglect; to him, it looked and smelled and sounded like police work—the kind of police work he’d been born and trained to do in the kind of world he understood. The stink and the noise and the general discomfort were strangely homey, reassuring; the misery confirmed him in his vocation, made him feel, in his way, the joy and the peace of suffering for one’s art. Removing nothing but his shoes, he lay down on the bed that seemed to hum with a thousand guilty secrets and fell into a deep sleep that got him through to early evening.
On Poorhouse Lane, Benny and Glenda had had a passionate reunion and a snooze. Lydia had napped on the sofa, borrowed the guest bathroom for a shower, and changed into a rather fetching pale blue sundress generously lent by Meg; the sundress was a little snug on her, especially in the bust, and it added to her overall aspect of slightly unkempt and untapped sensuality. Peter, feeling as he often did like the odd man out, spent some time reading by the pool and then some time watching the cat perched on the kitchen counter, waiting for a chance to drink from the faucet. To his surprise and secret embarrassment he found himself playing with the cat. Not touching it, of course; just turning the water on and off to see what the cat would do. The cat got faked out several times and then it looked at Peter with its yellow eyes and meowed. Peter left the faucet running, mildly amused by the way the cat cupped water on its tongue and drank its fill without even getting its whiskers wet.
The sun went down, the light softened, and everyone got hungry. Meg suggested that they all go out for a celebratory dinner, but Benny deflected the notion, saying h
ow nice it would be to hang around the pool and order in some pizzas. Waiting for the delivery, they all drank wine and worked at making small talk. But by the time the pizzas arrived and had been placed on the outdoor table still in their cardboard boxes, the safe chit-chat had been pretty well exhausted.
Seated, Benny graciously gestured for his guests to help themselves before reaching in for a big slice of pepperoni. Peter and Meg had gone for the vegetarian option and were just about to start eating with knife and fork when they saw their host fold his slice in half, support the drooping tip of it with an index finger, and prepare to lift it to his face, Staten Island-style. Not wanting to give offence or look too hoity-toity, they did likewise and started eating. After they’d all blistered their palates with the first hit of boiling oil and volcanic melted cheese, Benny put his slice down, dabbed his mouth on his napkin, and drank some wine. Then he said to Peter and Meg, “So, I gather from Glenda that you two basically are in the know about, let’s say, my situation.”
Meg nodded vaguely. Peter, worried that whatever he said would be the wrong thing, said nothing.
Benny went on. “You know more than you would know under, let’s say, more normal circumstances. Is that right?”
Peter and Meg just nodded.
“Probably you know more than you wish you knew. Is that fair to say?”
Peter stayed silent. Meg hesitated, then said, “Yes and no.”
Her husband kicked her under the table. She ignored the kick.
“Yes and no?”
“We didn’t like knowing you were supposed to ice Lydia,” said Meg. “Knowing that was kind of creepy. But we’re glad to know you didn’t do it. That was nice of you.”
“Thank you,” Benny said. “Thank you for saying that. But now we got a problem.”
“Problem?” Peter managed through a pinched-down throat.
“Lydia’s supposed to be dead. My boss thinks I did the job. If he finds out I didn’t, if anybody sees her, I’m fucked, to put it simply. That’s why, for example, we couldn’t go out for dinner. But the pizza’s not bad, right?”
Tropical Swap (Key West Capers Book 10) Page 10
