by Tom Corcoran
The minutes ground down. Wheelchair assistance, families with small children came at four twenty-two. Four minutes later they issued cattle call. No sign of Zack. I kept an eye on the ticket counter. No announcement for standbys. The waiting area emptied. I pushed myself to imagine a new ploy, a scam like my call to confirm Zack’s seat. I assumed that each passenger had shown identification. I felt powerless to ask anything, or to prove anything. I tried to think how Chicken Neck Liska or any other official friend might help delay the plane’s departure, but explaining myself would take too long.
The ground crew slammed the fuselage door.
If he hadn’t boarded and there was no room for the first person on the standby list, either someone had posed as Zack Cahill or Zack had called to cancel his own reservation. I tried to inquire, to confirm that he was aboard. The new age of airport security. The agents practically laughed at me.
Jesse Spence’s second-floor apartment on Seminary topped a north-facing building set back from the street. It was surrounded by untrimmed old palms, a Spanish lime, a multi-trunked banyan, a dozen other trees. From the head of the pea-rock driveway, the barnlike structure looked misplaced in the neighborhood of older homes and multi-dwelling compounds. At least one, maybe two apartments took the first floor. A Ranger pickup and Spence’s Pontiac Sunbird convertible sat under a makeshift carport, a leaf-stained translucent roof balanced on four oxidized aluminum poles. A wood stairway ran up the west side of the building. Spence’s front door was well hidden by foliage. It wouldn’t have taken an expert to enter the place undetected.
I parked my motorcycle next to a seven-foot croton hedge. Traffic buzzed, a hundred yards away on White Street. I carried my helmet rather than trusting it to chance, hanging on the handlebar. As I approached Jesse’s stairs, I surveyed the yard, noting the neighbor’s fence. A bell rang across the street at Glynn Archer. A bell for nothing, with school out of session.
Spence had heard my footsteps. He opened up before I knocked. His face bore the grief of deep loss. His eyes were unfocused and glassy. A reek of vinegar, sour milk, and burned plastic floated from the doorway.
“The neighbors heard it going on.” Rum on his breath. He must live in Key West. He stepped back to let me in. “They thought it was me, packing for a trip. It only took about five minutes.”
“How many trips you packed for in recent years, Jess?”
“I don’t know. Three or four.”
“You loud when you do it? Make a lot of noise?”
A flash of understanding crossed his eyes. He cleared his throat. “They must have been scared to interfere.”
I still viewed Jesse partly in the image of what he’d been twenty years ago: a suntanned preppie—even with hair below his collar, a red bandanna around his head, an authentic doubloon dangling from a gold chain around his neck. He’d ridden a red moped everywhere, often carrying a drink in a go cup. Since his early-eighties sojourn at the Eglin Air Force Base federal prison, a place light-sentence offenders called “camp,” I’d seen him maybe six times a year, either working in Mangoes or tooling in his ragtop, always with the top down. Now, lit by late-day sun angling through the foliage surrounding his apartment, Jesse looked older, whipped by reality, the stone-cold opposite of happy-go-lucky.
I looked inside. Yesterday it had been Key West elegance: beige tongue-and-groove walls, elaborate white woodwork, polished hardwood floors, six-foot blades on a hefty ceiling fan, broad-blade oak window blinds. Safe haven for someone living well, inconspicuously, in understated opulence. I sensed that Jesse Spence would never again feel safe.
He grasped for humor as he stood aside: “They got me where it hurts, Rutledge. Sons of bitches cooked my Lava lamp in the microwave. Whoever did it, near as I can tell, didn’t steal a damned thing. It’s all this crap for no reason. Trashed the other rooms, too. It’s worse in the kitchen.”
I stepped inside to survey the damage. Senseless destruction. Twin crab-trap end tables with thick glass tops shattered; a rattan rocker squashed to a pretzel; a wicker chaise stomped, shredded; a collection of old glass bottles now milky-green shards; window blinds tossed, broken like spilled fettuccine. A satellite-dish decoder box had been chucked through the screen of Jesse’s yardwide Sony. The glass front of a huge framed photograph had been splintered by a thrown ketchup bottle. Behind the red smear, jagged yellow-green lightning cut across a coal-and-purple night sky above several docked shrimp boats, the Navy docks in the background. The hull of Fawn II, tinted green from ambient fluorescence, looked caked with blood.
“A Laessig original,” said Spence. “The first piece of art I ever bought. I don’t suppose I’ll be able to replace it.”
I stepped carefully to continue my tour. The fifteen-inch castiron skillet in the tub probably had been used to crack the bathroom’s ceramic floor tiles. Jesse’s queen-sized headboard, cut in traditional whorehouse gingerbread pattern—alternating female silhouettes and whiskey bottles—had been split either by the skillet or an object just as heavy. Honey had been poured into the monitor of a Macintosh rig; Elmer’s glue covered the keyboard. A table knife dangled from the floppy-disk slot. The Mac’s future looked grim, unless Jesse needed a twenty-pound paperweight.
I couldn’t imagine an insurance company covering this much damage without a supporting police report. “You sure you don’t want to put something official on record?”
“I’m a realist.” He looked away and mumbled, “They’ll never solve it.”
“Why the pictures?”
“Call it auxiliary insurance. Like a business expense. I got a couple ideas. Some blue chips to cash in.”
“So you want to find out who did this.”
He faced me again. “Long as the police aren’t involved.”
“Mind if I use your phone?”
Spence gestured a go-ahead. “They trashed that, too,” he said. “Snapped those little plastic plugs. But the wire between my computer and my modem survived. Same little connectors.”
I dialed my machine. Nothing from Zack Cahill. A typically quick message from Sam Wheeler: “Marnie said you had a rough lunch. How about Louie’s at six?” I welcomed the invitation. A late-afternoon beer might salvage what was left of my spent day.
Spence’s living room was big enough for straight-ahead documentation. The basic rule for insurance work is no clever angles or odd points of view. Show it like it is. Shoot like the eye would see it. I used an old favorite, my Olympus 40-mm lens. Mild ambient daylight through the west-facing window helped my flash exposures, reducing shadow areas and trueing color tones. Out of habit, I took care not to touch anything so as not to disturb fingerprints. It took twenty-five minutes and two rolls of 36-exposure film to finish the job.
I returned to the main room to find Jesse poking at a wafersized module on a window frame. “The thing I can’t figure is how they beat the alarm.”
“Beat the alarm? Vandals?”
Spence pointed to the front-door frame. “They got around two entry sensors and three interior motion detectors. There’s supposed to be a silent alert to the alarm company, and an exterior blast horn wired direct to the operator. You want a drink?”
My watch said five-forty. I’d forgotten to deliver the murder-scene film to Duffy Lee Hall. I borrowed the phone again and called the pharmacy darkroom. Hall apologized for not having been there earlier in the afternoon. His daughter had thrown up at day care. He’d had to pick up the child and take her to her grandmother’s house.
I said to Hall, “You sticking around any longer?”
“Maybe twenty minutes. I’m finishing a film run for the State’s Attorney. Then I need to retrieve the kid and get her home for supper. Drop that film before I go, I’ll run it first thing and have your prints by noon.”
I cut the connection. For some reason, I dialed my number again. On my machine, the voice of Chicken Neck: “If it’s not six yet, call me.”
I got through to Liska’s desk. He put me on hold for thirty seco
nds, then came back on the line. “I need pix for a secondary ID,” he said. “We pulled a scars match from where our Louisiana bad boy tried to blank his prints with a soldering iron. Omar ‘Joe Blow’ Boudreau. A past like a black hole, like nine strikes and you’re out. Helped put a cocaine blizzard in New Orleans, back in the late eighties. He’s scarfed his last bowl of red beans and rice.”
“Lemme go, then. I couldn’t connect with Hall right after I shot it. I need to drop the film in the next fifteen minutes to get you prints by noon.” I hung up and started packing my camera.
“When I called you at two-thirty,” said Spence, “why did you think I was calling about that evil-looking dude in the restaurant?”
“He’s dead.” I told him about the scene on Front Street, the body on the pavement, and Liska’s info on “Joe Blow” Boudreau. I tacked on a description of the tourist audience.
“I know that deal. A cruise ship whistles in the harbor, fifty minutes later Mangoes fills with bad tippers, Midwest dorks ordering blender drinks.” Jesse tested a chair to make sure it wouldn’t collapse under him as he sat. His face told me that he’d drifted into puzzled thought.
“You said the man had a New York accent.”
“That’s what the waitress said. Maybe she’s never been to New Orleans.” Spence went pensive. “You know what’s changed in twenty years? We lived that crazy life back then. Our philosophy was, ‘If it feels good, do it.’”
“I recall.” I’d bullheaded down that path for too many years.
“The idea of having your place destroyed, all your belongings turned into rubble, that wasn’t a possibility.”
“Laid-back, cop a buzz, rock and roll,” I said. “You worried that somebody might rip off your sunglasses. Worst case, a bicycle or a moped.”
“And now, suddenly, revenge sounds good. All my time in the slam, in the noise and the stink, I fought the shitty thoughts, I talked myself out of bitterness. Now I feel like shooting the fuckers that did this to me. It might even give me the warm and fuzzies.”
I checked my watch. How had ten minutes ticked off? No way I’d catch Duffy Lee. I’d have to get up early and deliver the film when he opened up.
Beyond having two or three friends’ systems explained to me, I knew nothing about alarms. I didn’t know whether a momentary power cut or a phone-line failure would send a default warning to the security company or mask an intrusion. But my impression was that alarms had built-in fail-safes, especially on Key West, where electrical power was less than dependable. I doubted that Spence’s invaders had been mere vandals. Jesse had been through enough crap. For the moment I kept my opinion to myself.
“One of my messages was from Sam Wheeler.”
“Don’t know him.”
“He’s a light-tackle captain at the bight. He said it’s almost cocktail hour at Louie’s. Can I buy you one?”
Spence looked lost. “Thanks. I’m going to stay here and make love to the rum I’ve got left.”
I expressed my sympathies and retreated down Spence’s exterior stairs. My thoughts went back to Zack Cahill. He’d done crazy things over the years. But they’d been crazy in the sense of generating future conversation rather than risking consequences more ominous than cocktail party notoriety. Zack had been in New Orleans. Joe Blow was from New Orleans.
Coincidence, or omen?
4
I wove the Kawasaki through White Street’s Bodega Row traffic, the thrust of Key West’s haphazard ten-minute rush hour. At six-fifteen the sun was still hot enough to bake my head inside my helmet.
Jesse Spence had suffered two Big Ones: the violation of space and insane vandalism. On seeing the destruction in his apartment, I’d felt moral outrage. I’d shown sympathy. But my concern over material damage compared poorly to my blasé attitude toward Omar “Joe Blow” Boudreau, the bottom feeder whose life had ceased right after lunch. Aside from my relief that it wasn’t Zack Cahill sprawled in the gutter, I’d treated the corpse like a common curio in the tourist district. I had exchanged amusing banter with Detective Liska and Marnie Dunwoody. I had surveyed the onlookers, ridiculed their attire. I’d prejudged Omar Boudreau, coldly guessing that a man of his flavor played by rules that permitted violent death. No messy details, no loved ones. A loser in a loser’s game. Then I’d gone to Spence’s place and mourned furniture while Jesse promised ugly revenge.
Blame my skewed perspective on proximity to police cynicism. Maybe Chicken Neck could do me a favor by forcing me out of the crime-pix biz.
Approaching the house, I felt a new dread. For the first time in hours I wanted not to find a message.
There was one. Duffy Lee had waited at his darkroom until ten after six. He’d look for me in the morning. I’d have to apologize. He wouldn’t have called if he hadn’t been pissed.
Foreseeing the finc chance that I would enjoy multiple drinks at Louie’s Backyard, I opted for the bicycle instead of the Kawasaki. I worked up the day’s fourth sweat pedaling across Passover and Windsor Lanes toward the Atlantic side. Jagged shadows of palms lay long on the pavement. I thanked Key West for short blocks. Caught behind an oil-burning lead sled, I angled down United Street. Held up a minute later by a VW bus, I cut across Alberta. Directed by thirst, caught in the rhythm of exertion, I rode the path of least resistance.
I also rode to leeward. The east wind had clocked several points south, carrying tideline stink from Rest Beach, kicking up thin marl-flecked clouds from yards and driveways. But the ride offered quiet. Whatever had undermined my perspective, biking the island’s back streets offered a partial solution. I coasted Waddell wishing that the tailwind could launch me to solitude in the Dry Tortugas. Or straight into a rum bottle.
More wishful thinking: Zack Cahill in his Ray-Bans basking on Louie’s Afterdeck, waiting with a tall drink, an open tab, a shitty grin, a lame excuse or, weirder, a plausible one.
I aimed my bike into the iron rack at Vernon Street Beach. The regulars, an even count of dogs and humans—lounged on the sparse sand or played in the water, just beyond the rocks at tideline. I glanced left. Marnie Dunwoody and Sam Wheeler hurried down the restaurant’s front steps. Sam looked steamed.
Marnie looked wind-blown, angry, two-thirds in the bag.
“What’s up?” I said.
“I just got beeped,” said Marnie. “Somebody called an emergency County Commission meeting. They’re back to hashing out size limitations for election campaign posters, as if this was the big meaningful event of the month …”
I held her back from hugging my damp shirt.
Sam said, “I’ll try to get back for that beer I promised. She doesn’t need to be driving when she’s upset.”
I translated and knew. He didn’t want her driving drunk. “Got a minute to spare?” I said. “I got a problem or two. I need thinkers on my team.”
She turned her watch, squinted to focus. “I’m already—”
“We got a minute.” Sam radiated calm. “I live on this remote rock for just that reason. For minutes to spare. They’ll bullshit the first twenty minutes, anyway.”
She downshifted, tried to retake command. “Alex, you know, don’t you? The detectives clicked on that dead man’s identity. What used to be his fingerprints.”
“That’s part of what I need to unload.” I led them to a patch of shade under the Dog Beach palms. I described my dilemma, my suspicions. I didn’t have to hold back facts. Wheeler knew Zack and Claire Cahill from their many visits. I felt I could trust Marnie with off-the-record stuff. They listened. I got the sympathy I needed with assurances from Sam that he’d be ready to help. Marnie promised to keep me informed of anything that came across her desk.
“What’s it like back there?” I waved my hand toward the Afterdeck.
Sam shook his head. “You go out for drinks with no tourists in town, you realize what a great place this could be. Course, with no tourists I’d be in the breadline next week.”
Marnie faked a cough. We all knew the truth.
Sam owned a small Conch house full of atmosphere and easy chairs, and his military retirement pay could support a family of four. The money he earned on his boat was gravy. Sam was the opposite of ostentatious. Large enough to be considered a tough customer, wealthy enough to do whatever pleased him, Sam had molded his lifestyle to match his surroundings. He’d been one of the fortunate few to leave Vietnam with a minimum of baggage. His antique, lopsided, rust-eaten Ford Bronco had become an embarrassment of funkiness. He and Marnie climbed into it and disappeared down Vernon.
Feeling less than glamorous in my perspiration-soaked shirt, I entered the restaurant foyer, waved to lovely Kim at the inside service bar, and passed the judgmental gaze of a stick-thin maître d’ who already knew that I was not a prospective diner. I slowed at the dining room’s glass doors, checked out the buttonwood-shrouded patio. Ten people at three tables. Not a soul I knew. I squinted against the milky-green inshore waters, scanned the Afterdeck lineup. Every barstool occupied, most faces familiar. Reggae music from behind the bar. No sign of Zack.
I stopped on the restaurant’s narrow veranda for a calming moment. The waterfront, from the reconstructed Casa Marina Pier to the Reach Beach an eighth-mile west, and on to the Southernmost Point, appeared wind-tossed and fresh. Two sailboats on shallow-water hooks nosed to windward. A half-mile out, a beamy workboat eased into the chop, probably bound for a Stock Island wharf. The inshore oranges of late afternoon faded to purplish blue at the hazy distant horizon. Wheeler had bemoaned changes brought by the island’s popularity. He’d said, “ … what a great place this could be,” without considering that, each day, the view from the foot of Vernon was enough to energize—or, at least, neutralize—the most cynical whiner.
No chance to call out my rum order on the Afterdeck’s lower level. Chris had seen me coming. He reached to pass me a tall Barbancourt and soda, but almost fumbled the hand-off. He was chatting up a woman two seats to my right, shouting over Toots and the Maytals, explaining the effect of Lower Keys tides on the feeding habits of fish. Ever since Chris had qualified for his captain’s license and cut his bartending back to three days a week, he’d found it easy to recruit light-tackle clients out of the bar. With ocean smells and lulling waves under the expanded posthurricane Afterdeck, all it took was an offhand pitch to hook a customer. But this woman didn’t look like a prospective angler. Chris’s shift ended about forty minutes after sunset. He was mining social potential more than promoting a boat excursion.
