But that would be pointless. Instead, I go into the marina building in search of a sandwich and a beer. Inside the door is a store that sells bait, tackle, marine equipment, nautical clothing, and groceries. One wall is covered with the photos of people who’ve been here to fish; some are posed outside with their trophies hanging from that same hoist, others are strapped into fighting chairs on the decks of boats, their poles bent under the weight of whatever they’ve hooked. Many of the photos are very old, in faded black and white, others are in color. Included in the gallery are shots of famous people such as Ernest Hemingway, Ted Williams, Joe DiMaggio with Marilyn Monroe, John Wayne, Clint Eastwood, and Bill Clinton with a woman who is not Hillary, all posing with their catches. A veritable Islamorada Fishing Hall of Fame.
“Help you?” a man behind the bait counter asks as I’m studying the photos. He looks old enough to have sold bait to Hemingway back in the 1930s. He is wearing a tee shirt bearing the marina’s name, and tan canvas shorts with stains on them, probably fish blood.
“Are you serving lunch?” I ask.
The man nods toward a doorway in the back wall.
“Right through there,” he says, then picks up a little net and begins scooping up minnows floating belly up in a tank. Maybe they’re going on the lunch menu.
The door opens into a large pine-paneled room with three big fans with woven bamboo blades slowly turning on the ceiling. The tables are filled with customers, many of them looking windblown and tanned as if they’d been out on the charter boats that morning. More trophy fish are mounted on the walls, along with the heads of wild game: a bighorn sheep, a boar with long ivory tusks, an elk with a big rack of antlers, a black bear with an eternal snarl displaying pointed yellow teeth, and a moose. A sad graveyard.
I find the one empty table and sit. A waitress comes over, hands me a menu, and says, “Specials today are conch chowder, lobster mac and cheese, a grouper sandwich, breaded and fried or blackened, and baked mahi mahi.”
I order a draft Red Stripe and a blackened grouper sandwich. As I’m eating, the waitress comes over and asks, “Would you mind a little company?” I look over to see a man and woman and a young girl standing just inside the dining room doorway, looking my way.
“No, that’d be fine,” I tell her.
The family comes over and takes chairs. “Appreciate it,” the man says. “I’m Larry Blaisdell. This is my wife, Marla, and our daughter, Lucy.”
I stand up and shake his hand. “Jack Tanner. No problem at all.”
I learn that they are from Toronto. I can hear that Canadian “oot” and “aboot” in their speech. They are driving to Key West, just like me. Lucy is twelve and on spring break. I’m reminded of my own family on vacation. Long live happy families.
Today is Hope’s twenty-first birthday. A hard day for me, and for Jenna, too, back at The Sanctuary, if she’s still as lucid as she was during my visit, and remembers. I can recall all of Hope’s birthdays, but now think about her ninth. A week before it, Jenna asked Hope what she wanted. “I want to be ten,” she said, in all seriousness. Children always want to be older, adults want to be younger.
Now Hope would never be older than nineteen. She would never graduate from college, or go to Europe and maybe meet her future husband there, as Jenna did, or have a family of her own, or a career … or do whatever else she wanted. I thought about calling Jenna this morning, but decided not to. The call would have been too painful for us both.
Larry has been saying something to me, I realize.
“… and so the hotel clerk apologized and upgraded us to a suite at no extra cost.”
We chat for the rest of the lunch. A nice family.
“All happy families are alike …”
17
I cross the causeway onto the island of Key West. I’ve finally arrived. Now what?
I decide to drive around to scope out the island before choosing a hotel. I know from Pete Dye that Slater Babcock lives in a house on Admirals Lane and that his bar, the Drunken Dolphin, is on Duval Street.
I’ll go to his house and bar as if on a surveillance stakeout. I’ve never met the young man, but I’ve seen digital photos of him and Hope together, taken by Hope’s roommates: longish, sandy blond hair, regular features with a square jaw, blue eyes, a friendly smile, and the physique of an athlete. A handsome kid. Maybe he has a beard now, or long hair, like me. There is no chance that Slater would recognize me, even without my weathered, beachcomber look, which I’ve gotten to like; now, no one would mistake me for a corporate lawyer, a good thing. If Hope had shown him a family picture, he would never expect to see her father, not in Key West, not after all this time. If there were to be a confrontation with me, it would have happened long before now, Slater would likely assume.
First, Slater’s house. I turn right off the causeway onto North Roosevelt Boulevard, pull into a gas station, and enter the address of Slater’s house into the GPS. I’m directed by a woman’s voice to take a left out of the gas station, proceed south along Roosevelt Boulevard, which becomes Truman Avenue after it crosses White Street, then right onto White-head Street, left onto Eaton Street, right onto Front Street—at this point I’m grateful that this GPS lady knows her way around town—and finally right onto Admirals Lane, a little semicircle near the northwestern end of the island.
I slow as I come to number 501, a single-story white cottage with a green tin roof and crushed shell driveway, and park across the street. The carport at Slater Babcock’s house is empty; the green wooden hurricane shutters are propped open. What if I come back at three A.M. with a gas can and burn down the cottage, ideally with Slater Babcock in his bed? Would I be able to go back home, content that Hope had been avenged, even if Slater didn’t know why he was dying? Would that end the matter?
Probably not. I would not have found out what happened to Hope. And I couldn’t do something like that anyway, as Pete Dye has pointed out, and as Vernon Douglas certainly knows, too. No, whatever plan I can come up with, whatever revenge I may seek, needs to be something that does not make me no better than Slater Babcock. I sadly understand in that moment that solid-citizen Jack Tanner is sitting here in this rental car, still constrained by the rules of civilized society, and thus powerless to take any action that matters. But I’m here, so I need to find out what I can do, and what will happen as a result.
I check my notebook again for the address of the Drunken Dolphin, program it into the GPS, ease away from the curb and drive to Key West’s main drag and prime tourist destination, with its restaurants, bars, shops, art galleries, souvenir stores, ice cream parlors, and hotels.
I follow the GPS lady’s instructions and find Duval, then cruise slowly along the street, taking in the sights of this interesting little town (I guess I’m a tourist at heart). And then there’s the Drunken Dolphin, a white one-story cinder-block structure with a flat roof. An adjoining lot has been converted into a beach volleyball court with a thatched tiki bar hut. I park the Taurus in a vacant space on the other side of the street, in front of the Almond Tree Inn, and watch customers enter and exit the bar for a while, then decide to go in for a drink and a look around: the showing-up-is-80-percent-of-life part of the game, with the remaining 20 percent a total crap shoot.
Inside, the Drunken Dolphin has an Old Key West motif: photos of Duval Street starting a century ago, judging by the horse carts, and then the automobiles, and look of the people. In some of the photographs, old-time fishing parties display their catches hanging on long stringers, and men wearing mustaches and straw boaters sit at a bar, not this one, and drink foamy draft beers, raising their mugs to the camera. Also on display are lobster pots, fishing nets with big cork floats, gaping shark jaws and more mounted game fish: big bulky tarpon, majestic sailfish and barracuda with mouthfuls of needle-sharp teeth.
The place is packed. “Margaritaville,” the Jimmy Buffett anthem for the kick-back-in-the-tropics crowd, plays loudly on the sound system. I slide onto a barstool. Aft
er a moment, the bartender, a huge man with a ponytail and the dark skin of a native of some island somewhere, his arms covered with tattoos, comes over and asks, “What’s your poison, sport?” He’s wearing a red tank top and jeans.
I order a draft Red Stripe and scan the room. Tourist families—they don’t look like natives of the Keys—sit at tables munching on platters of nachos and chicken wings and sipping drinks containing fruit and parasols. Lined up along the bar beside me are weathered men who could be fishing guides and tour-boat captains, and women who seem to be regulars, judging by their bantering with the bartender as they drink shots and beers, sans parasols.
All the usual suspects for a bar like this, but not the proprietor. I decide that I’ll finish my beer and leave. I’ve come to the jackal’s den and the jackal is not at home.
And then Slater Babcock pushes through the kitchen door and walks over to the end of the bar, not ten feet from where I’m sitting.
“Hey boss,” the bartender calls out to him.
“Gimme a Bloody Mary,” Slater says, nodding a hello to the customers he seems to know.
This is why I came, but still, I’m shocked, frozen in place, staring at him. He does have a beard now, and longer hair, a deep suntan, and a gold ring in his pierced left ear, but otherwise looks like the person in the photos. It’s definitely him. He’s wearing a black Bob Marley tee shirt, olive green cargo shorts, boat shoes with no socks, and a shark’s tooth necklace: a frat boy on permanent spring break.
So here it is, the moment I’ve been anticipating all during this journey. For an entire year, really. I look at my heavy glass beer mug sitting in front of me on the bar. It could be a weapon. Or I could go out to the car and get Langdon’s Derringer …
Slater walks over to the three girls standing at one end of the bar. As a responsible liquor license owner, he should check their IDs. None of them look to be of legal drinking age—or legal anything age. Instead, he begins chatting them up.
Girls like Hope.
I find myself standing next to him without knowing how I got there. One of the girls is laughing at something he said. Slater looks at me and smiles.
“Help you, sir?”
Yeah, he can help me. I’m shaking as I jam my finger into his chest.
“What did you do with my daughter?” I shout.
Slater takes a step backward and raises his hands.
“Hey, wait a minute, sir. Calm down …”
“Is there a problem, boss?” the big bartender asks Slater.
“Your daughter?” Slater says. “Who’s that?”
The three girls have moved away from us.
“I’m Jack Tanner. Hope Tanner’s father,” I tell him.
Slater pauses, as if trying to remember who that is. And then: “Hope … Look, Mr. Tanner, I cared for Hope and, as I told the police, I have no idea what happened to her. I really don’t.”
I notice that the place is silent, everyone watching this drama play out.
“You’re lying!” I shout and grab him by the shoulder. Then feel a big strong hand grab me by the bicep and pull me backward, away from Slater.
“It’s okay, Mickey,” Slater tells the bartender. “We’re fine.”
“We’re not fine,” I say.
“Look, Mr. Tanner, I’m very sorry for your loss,” Slater says, “but I’ll say again: I do not know what happened to Hope. And if you need anything else from me, you should contact my lawyer. But you should leave here now …”
I pause and Mickey grabs my arm again.
“Right now,” he says. “Easy way or hard way.”
I pause a moment longer, then turn and walk out of the bar, get into my car, and drive away, with no idea in the world where I’m going.
AFTER DRIVING around awhile, no destination in mind, wondering if I’m now done with Slater Babcock, and not knowing the answer, I check into the Casa Marina Resort on Reynolds Street, which looks like a nice place to stay.
The hotel, on the southern tip of the island, is a three-story yellow stucco building that looks like a grand old Spanish estate. In my room, which has an ocean view, I flop onto the bed, exhausted, and more pass out than fall asleep. I don’t know how often I dream, because, if I do, I don’t usually remember them. But later, I will remember this one.
A HURRICANE is battering Key West. Where the hell did that come from? There’d been no warning, at least none that I’d heard. Its name is Brenda. It’s a level two, an intensity somewhere in that middle ground between ride it out, and mandatory evacuation. The streets are deserted except for me as I make my way down Duval, soaked, storm-tossed, fighting the wind for forward motion. It’s not clear why I haven’t taken shelter.
A black-and-white Chevy Tahoe with Key West Police Department markings comes rolling slowly down Duval toward me. It pulls over to the curb with a short burst from its lights and siren. I look around: Who, me? There’s no one else on the street.
The officer, who looks exactly like Vernon Douglas, powers down the window and says, “Hey Jack, what are you doing out in a storm like this? Hop in, I’ll take you to a shelter.”
I don’t want to be taken to a shelter with other orphans of the storm. I know that I’m on a mission, even though it’s not clear what the mission is. I make an effort to appear calm and reasonable, as calm and reasonable as a man can be who is out for a stroll in a level two hurricane. I walk over to the Tahoe, grabbing onto a parking meter with both hands for balance, and shout to be heard above the howling wind: “Hi Vernon. I’m on my way to a friend’s house just around the corner.”
Vernon looks at me, as if deciding whether to believe me or not, then replies, “Okay. Go directly there and stay inside.”
“I will, thanks.”
Thanks for not diverting me from my still-unknown mission.
Two more blocks down Duval, I reach a cinder block building with no sign announcing its name. This is my destination, I realize. The building is battened down with plywood nailed over the windows. The parking lot is deserted, except for six motorcycles blown over in a heap. No other signs of life.
I somehow know that there is a hurricane party inside. I push through the door to find that it’s a bar packed with lively partygoers. A Jimmy Buffett song, “Surfing in a Hurricane,” is playing on the sound system. Dripping water onto the floor, I scan the crowd.
Seated at a round table back near the kitchen entrance are the Devil’s Disciples: Harold Whittaker, Alan Dupree, Miles Standish, Langdon Lamont, Victor Purcell, and the resurrected Tom Jarvis. Harold notices me, and waves me over. In the world of dream logic, I’m not surprised to see them. Those were their motorcycles out in the parking lot.
Then I spot a young man standing at the far end of the bar with a group of three young women, one of whom looks like Hannah, laughing at whatever he’s saying. The man has long, sandy blond hair, blue eyes, and a beard, and is wearing a Hawaiian shirt, jeans, and boat shoes. I don’t know who this young man is, but I realize that he is evil and must be killed.
I approach him, grab his shoulder, and say, “Where is she?”
“What?” the man responds, turning to face me.
I shout, “Tell me what happened to my daughter!”
The man raises his hands, palms out, in a gesture of peace. “Hey, look buddy, if your daughter’s here at the party, I’ll be happy to …”
“You killed her!” I shout.
“Killed her? Now wait a minute, pal. Killed who?”
“My daughter!” I yell. “Hope Tanner!”
The man backs away from me and shrugs his shoulders as if he’s never heard the name before. Enraged, I withdraw Langdon’s Derringer from my pants pocket, which until then I didn’t know I had, close the distance between us, press the barrel to the man’s forehead, and say, “Admit it and I won’t kill you.”
“Hey, wait a minute …” he says, not moving.
I cock the little pistol.
“Wait … Wait … Okay, I did it. I killed her,”
he says, and starts to cry.
Through the din of the party I hear a familiar voice shout: “Jack! Hey Jack! Wait!”
Pete Dye is standing just inside the front door in a combat shooting stance, his pistol pointed toward the other end of the bar at the big bartender, who is leveling a shotgun at me.
Standoff.
I resolve it by pulling the Derringer’s trigger. A metallic click. Not loaded! Then an orange-red flash from the shotgun barrel out ahead of the sound and Pete Dye firing too …
RIGHT AT that point a noise wakes me up. I look around, trying to get my bearings. The noise is a leaf blower outside the window. I stand up, move to the window, and watch the waves rolling up onto the beach. Desperate, hopeless, ashamed, I close my eyes, and for the first time in my life, utter the closest thing to a prayer I can manage:
Please. I want my family back.
18
I’ll have lunch and then book a flight out of Miami and go home. Finally, I have the answer to what I’ll do when I confront my daughter’s killer: Nothing, nothing at all, except defeat him in my dreams. I don’t know what will become of me when I get home, but there’s no longer any reason to stay here. I am who I am.
I could get a sandwich at the hotel but instead, I’m not sure why, I drive back to Duval, park at a spot a good distance from the Drunken Dolphin, and notice a place called Crabby Dick’s, with an outdoor patio. I get out of the car and go in, and ask the hostess for a table outside.
I’m looking over the menu as the waitress comes over to take my order. She’s a pretty young girl wearing a skimpy white tee shirt with a Crabby Dick’s parrot logo and tight white shorts.
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