The Mango Opera

by Tom Corcoran

  He introduced himself as Thadd, “with two d’s.”

  Well, maybe so.

  “Give me your things and let me make you a drink. You’ve been through so much turmoil, and I like the name Alex. I like any name with an x. Max, Rex, Tex, all of them. Of course those have only three letters and you have four. You must be a wreck.” He put my helmet and duffel bag on a chrome-and-leather love seat in the foyer and led the way into the kitchen. “The girls and David have gone to bed. Not together, of course.”

  “I could use a plain beer and first a bathroom.”

  Thadd pointed. “Mi casa, su casa. We leave before eight for Key Largo, so sleep as late as you like and ignore the telephone. Our machine will pick up.”

  I turned a rheostat to light the bathroom. Seashells in a glass jar, pastel wallpaper, metallic accents, shell-shaped soaps, a philodendron wandering up one wall, spray bottles of cologne on the counter. Like a hundred thousand others in Florida. I looked into the mirror. Haggard. Four days in a whirlwind. Little sleep and a predawn alarm seventeen hours ago. My eyes, mouth, and facial skin drooped. Ah, yes. The springer spaniel.

  * * *

  Annie stared as I entered the kitchen. Her mouth smiled but her sleepy, sad-sympathetic eyes sent a cross-message. Thadd had vanished and Annie held the beer I’d requested. She took a sip before she handed it to me. I kissed her forehead.

  “I want to hug you,” she said softly, “but I’m too sunburned. I’m sorry.”

  I chuckled. “You’re not accustomed to being a tourist.”

  “You’re right, and it’s not the life for me. I’m going stir-crazy. Thadd said good night and to put your big motorbike in the garage. I think he likes your big motorbike.”

  “Can I see your sunburn?”

  “Yes, but you’ll just want to do something. Let’s do it in the morning, after we talk.”

  “I still want to see.”

  She opened her robe and showed me. She wasn’t completely right about wanting to do something. She was a beautiful sight, and I could have spent hours just staring at her, but I wanted to hear what she had to say. I kissed her again on the forehead and went to move the Kawasaki.

  20

  The bedroom’s second-story screened veranda overlooked a large free-form pool. Glossy patterned tiles surrounded the pool and reflected the yard’s accent lighting. In underpants and T-shirts, Annie and I lay in side-by-side cushioned lounges under a slowly turning fan. The fan rustled the potted plants that lined the floor along the porch screens. A massive thunderstorm painted the sky to the north, and through a break in the trees we watched the light show roll down the East Coast. Lightning streaks jumped between tall thunderheads and split and stabbed downward. Ahead of the weather the streetlights of Hallandale painted a weird neon glow on the cloud bottoms.

  We sat there and didn’t talk. It was time for the Big Discussion, but I was too fatigued to begin and she was too full of nerves. We listened to frogs and the distant buzzing of traffic.

  Annie and I had mastered abstract communication. We almost always got along well, but we had tended to stockpile stubborn pride. Her mother once said that our romance reminded her of her own in-laws. They were such bad drivers that the only reason they’d lived beyond sixty was they’d never met each other coming the other way.

  She broke the ice. “Did you dream about me while I was living on Olivia?”

  I wondered whether this might be a great time to lie my ass off. “Well, no,” I said. “My sleep wasn’t deep enough to register a dream. I can tell you that I missed the balalaika.”

  “It’s not like either of us can play it.”

  We had bought the three-stringed instrument in the gift shop of a Florida museum that had exhibited the treasures of the Russian czars. It had been one of those afternoons when everything felt right. We’d spent hours wandering, holding hands, speculating about wealth, ogling other people’s money. “It’s important to have cultural decorations,” I said. “My life feels larger when the balalaika is on display.”

  She rested her hand on my forearm. “Am I a decoration?”

  “A loaded question requires return fire. I learned that from an attorney.”

  “Fire away.”

  “My life felt larger when you were around.”

  She squeezed my hand. “Okay, past tense. What’s the next thing on your mind?”

  “For two years you’ve said that you love me. On Wednesday you said that you’d been fighting the fact that you love me. Are you fighting the fact or the process?”

  “Oh, Alex, I don’t know how to answer your questions. You analyze things so much.”

  She had a point. I wasn’t sure where I’d drummed up that one.

  She moved her hand back up my arm. “You’ve always been much better with words. I mean, I say what I feel but I don’t expect it to stand up in a court of law.”

  “As I hinted a moment ago, you’ve been trained in techniques for that line of work. You’re supposed to be able to weave words into bullwhips, aren’t you? Turn a caress into a sucker punch? Let’s try this. What do you like least about me?”

  “Loading up, are we? Okay, sometimes you breathe through your nose when you sleep. It’s like a jet stream across the pillow. It wakes me up. What do you like least about me?”

  “Falsehood by omission.”

  She flinched. “I don’t even know what that means.”

  “Of course you do.”

  “If not saying things is the same as telling lies, who can ever be innocent?”

  “Very good. Now we’re into situational ethics.”

  “I know where you’re going with this.”

  “Then you can drive,” I said. It was time for my safety net. I wanted to believe, if only until morning, that she felt remorse.

  The thunderstorm reached North Miami and the light show intensified. Jagged zaps leaped between the low and high clouds. Thunder shook the house and smells of electricity filled the air. Taller pine limbs began to bend and whip and whistle.

  Annie shifted to a matter-of-fact tone. “I was infatuated with Michael. I knew that you disliked him. For obvious … well, for selfish reasons, I couldn’t bring up his name. I guess at first I was trying to cover my ass. I was hedging my bet. If he turned out to be a bad bet I didn’t want to lose you. I moved out because I didn’t want to get involved with him while I shared your house. Am I making sense so far?”

  “Okay.” So much for legal preliminaries. The groundwork of the argument.

  “Since then I’ve tried to blame it on tropical ennui. Or some other wispy notion that doesn’t explain anything. I admit it, I was taking too many things for granted. I assumed that I could move back into your house without a problem. I figured you’d forgive me. Now it looks like you might not.”

  The price one pays for not being combative. “The toughest thing to forgive is your silence,” I said. “You didn’t tell me a blessed thing. You didn’t say squat. There’ve been times in my life when I’ve felt lost. This variety of lost was a new one.”

  She hesitated. “After I realized how badly I’d acted, I was afraid you’d tell me to stay the hell out of your life. I was thinking that at Ellen’s funeral.”

  Lightning flashed and the afterimage left me seeing Annie in the amber and green tones of a color negative. I smelled approaching rain, the breeze ahead of the storm less humid than the still air of five minutes earlier.

  “You didn’t help things, by the way,” she said. “Why didn’t you turn into a pestering jerk? I wanted you to grovel and act like a whiny asshole, or get jealous. You didn’t come around looking for me, causing scenes, throwing bricks through my windows, chasing me through restaurants.”

  “You’ve been watching daytime TV.” The rain began with a bright flash and a crack of thunder. The yard lights flickered and went out.

  She remained quiet a minute or two, then said, “Getting involved wasn’t what I expected it to be. It went downhill after the first couple of days.�
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  “Please. No box score.”

  “I don’t mean to sound like that. I’m just trying to say that after weeks of pondering, it dawned on me that most of the time I was away I was thinking about you.”

  “Now you’re coming out of the woods. I like the sound of that.” Fatigue was setting in. My responses felt as if they were floating to the surface rather than snapping to mind. The whole house had lost power. Without the ceiling fan, the porch became close and smelled of mildew.

  “Can I explain one more thing?” said Annie. “About that last night I stayed with him? Before I found Ellen?”

  “Okay.” This might throw her back into the forest. Another bolt of lightning struck nearby. For an instant the pool glowed quartz-blue. The thunder rattled the house. I wondered if the ceiling fan might fall in my lap, but the concussion diminished.

  The waves of raindrops on the shingled roof forced Annie to raise her voice. “I got spring fever on Tuesday. I came home from work early so I could drive out to County Beach and soak in the sun and play tourist. I walked in the back door and they were doing it in the kitchen. Michael and Ellen. My boyfriend and my roommate. Right on the floor. It’s sort of weird to watch a man’s butt bounce up and down on your kitchen floor. I didn’t recognize him at first. But he stopped and looked over his shoulder at me. All he could say was, ‘Oops,’ and all I could do was run away. But I had nowhere to go.”

  “What time was that?”

  “Four-fifteen, four-thirty.”

  “So where did you go?”

  “I drove up the Keys. I got to the other side of Marathon and asked myself where the hell I was going. I stopped for a margarita at that Holiday Inn where the road turns off to Key Colony Beach, where my parents’ friends, the Gordons, live. Then I drove back into Key West and watched the sun set into the Gulf.”

  “How did you wind up on Ellen Albury’s bicycle?”

  “I was tired of driving and it was dark and I wanted to go home. But I didn’t want to talk to Ellen. I didn’t want to be pissed anymore, and I would’ve gotten that way if we’d had to face each other. The house was lit up. I could see her walking in the living room and down the hall. It looked like she was alone. So I left my car in the street and took her bike. We both had keys to it. I thought about riding over to your house, but I didn’t have the guts for that either. Anyway, I went down William Street. Right away I met Michael coming the other way on his bicycle. He claimed he was coming back to Olivia to find me and apologize. He asked me to come to his house to talk it out, so I did. The truth is, I only wanted a place to sleep, and I didn’t think he’d be in any kind of shape to want sex. His house was the safest bet. For a coward like me.”

  “So you cavorted in his Jacuzzi, slept in his bed, and you became each other’s alibi.”

  “Why would he need an alibi?”

  “I don’t know why either of you would need one.”

  “We talked all night long. We talked until the sun came up. Both of our stomachs were growling, so we ate some cereal and he drove me home and dropped me off. That’s when I found Ellen.”

  Another crack of thunder was followed by a drawn-out rumble. The storm had passed to the south, and the air quickly took on a deeper chill. A thick mist filled the night.

  Just before we fell asleep, Annie whispered, “Please forgive me.”

  I nodded my head against her shoulder. I wanted to tell her I would try, but I fell asleep before I came up with the exact wording of my response.

  21

  In spite of our stockpiled fatigue we both woke early, actually refreshed. Marked horribly on my face by the perforations and patterns of pillowcase ruffles, I suffered Annie’s ridicule and review. To bury my shame I proposed that we make love while attempting not to aggravate her sunburn. Within minutes we had confirmed that the skin least accustomed to direct sunlight was most strategic in our endeavors. We also determined that she needed to face away, on top, so that I would not be tempted to touch where the sunburn hurt most and she would not be tempted to laugh at my engraved skin. The view convinced me that forgiveness has its blessings. When we came up for air I was informed that the doilylike imprints on my face had vanished.

  After hearing Thadd and David’s car back out of the garage we pulled on shirts and shorts and descended to the kitchen. Carmen was wrestling with a steaming skillet on the stove. She pointed at the counter. “The guys left us a pot of Cuban.”

  The Miami Herald was on the counter. The yard looked inviting, a clear sky after the rain. “Anyone mind if I take my coffee on the deck?” I said. “I long to repose on a tropical daybreak next to a trickling fountain and abundant pool, wallowing in the many pages of the mullet wrapper. I will start with the first section, which is mostly Burdines ads. News, bras, news, bras, news, bras.”

  “I never knew this side of you,” said Carmen. “You’re full of shit in the morning. Outside, now.”

  The phone rang. We stood there, looking back and forth at each other.

  Annie waved it off. “Thadd said the machine would get it.”

  “What if it’s my mother?” said Carmen.

  I shrugged. “Go for it.”

  She handed me the spatula and hot pad and grabbed the receiver. “Thadd and David’s.” A heartbeat later: “Hi, Mom.” She stretched the phone cord back to the stove and shooed us out.

  Annie and I went to poolside. The bright tiles and yard colors glowed, reds and greens, even blues in the shadows. Oleander and jacaranda shimmered in the light breeze. Annie positioned a chaise under an arbor of bougainvillea and covered her legs with a towel. We divided the paper. She selected the Business pages with their cover story about career moves.

  I pointed at the headline. “How’s yours going?”

  “Building. But it’s on ‘pause’ right now.”

  “Would you like to be here in Dade County, kicking ass with the big boys?”

  “I’m not so sure.”

  “You don’t hunger for bigger territory, a little fame and glory?”

  “Somewhere down the road. Professional pride, and all that. First I need to figure out which road leads to progress.”

  That hit home. “I know what you mean. Sitting here on my butt, I’m not getting any closer to finding a murderer.”

  “That’s not your job, is it, Alex?”

  “I haven’t gotten the feeling anybody else is doing it.”

  I was either a jump ahead of things, or a stride behind.

  Carmen leaned outside. “Another call came through, Alex. This guy keeps asking for either you or Sam Wheeler.”

  I hurried into the kitchen. “Sam?”

  “Captain Turk of the Flats Broke here. Sam Wheeler give me this number.”

  “What can I do for you, Captain?” Gulls in the background. He was at the Garrison Bight pay booth.

  “Do it for your buddy. They come and hooked his butt fifteen minutes ago. Bunch of deputies and plainclothes, got they guns out, even the girl deputy. Run off half the customers on the dock. Sam told me this number. Said to tell you.”

  “They say why he was arrested, Captain?”

  “They didn’t say, but I hear tell there’s another lady murdered downtown last night. You don’t think ol’ Sam’s caught up in that?”

  “No. Did Sam give you any message?”

  “Nope. Just the number. And that he’s off to the hoosegow.”

  “Thanks for calling, Captain.”

  Captain Turk clicked off. Carmen and Annie stood inside the sliding glass door, staring at me, afraid to ask.

  “Another dead woman, and the county has taken Sam into custody. I can’t imagine the two facts are related.”

  Annie’s reflexes took over. “I’ll call Benjy Pinder.”

  I shook my head. “First thing, I’m going to finish my coffee. In the half minute it takes to do that, I’m going to decide the order of about five phone calls I need to make in the next five minutes. Are there two phone lines into the house?”

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nbsp; Carmen looked around. “I think three. David’s an interior designer. There’s a business line in his office and a fax line that has a regular phone hooked to it.”

  “Okay.” I eased past the women, walked outside, and looked upward. It’s amazing how valuable a simple blue sky can feel when you consider how little of it is seen by people in jail. The coffee had become cold. I carried it inside to the microwave and pressed the buttons. Annie sat on a stool next to the counter, doodling nervously on a scratch pad. Carmen began to wash the pan and her dishes.

  “Here’s the plan of attack,” I said. “Monty’s home number is on a small list in my wallet. Annie, if you could try to get him on one line, I’m going to call Sheriff Tucker on this one. Carmen, let’s see what your mother can find out about this new murder. And Carmen, after you talk to your mother, please try to book me a noontime flight to Key West.”

  The microwave beeped and startled me.

  “You can’t drive back?” said Annie.

  “Flying is sure as hell faster than dealing with U.S. 1.”

  My first call was to Sheriff Tommy Tucker. He’d campaigned on the promise that he would always be available to the electorate. It took five or six minutes to weave through the county switchboard to the top man. They finally rang through to his home.

  “Tucker here.”

  “Alex Rutledge, Sheriff, in Miami. But I just got word that a friend has been detained by your deputies.”

  “You must run with an ugly crowd, Mr. Rutledge. Remind me to review our business relationship.”

  “Sheriff, I’ve been working with Avery Hatch and Billy Fernandez on these recent—”

  “I know. And I don’t have time to talk to you right now, Mr. Rutledge.” The line went dead.

  So much for accountability.

  “Alex?” Annie called from another room.

  I found her seated in a large, airy study cluttered with wallpaper samples and carpet swatch books. As I entered she finished her conversation and hung up the phone.