The Mango Opera

by Tom Corcoran

  Love and a tushy swat, A.

  This breakup reminded me of her old morning routine. She was not getting out of bed, showering, slipping into her clothes, leaving for work. But she had talked herself into the past tense, covered herself in memo form, with no eye contact, no touching.

  The phone rang. Carmen said, “I saw your light on. I know you’re supposed to go fishing, but I’m in a jam.”

  “Fishing?”

  “Last thing I heard, Sam was taking Monty to the Marquesas to make up for the trip they missed last week. You and Marnie were going along.”

  “News to me. What’s the jam?”

  “I’m already late for work. And I can’t miss another day. Maria’s got a sore throat, and today is my mother’s day to volunteer at the MARC home. Can you baby-sit? I’ll say it just once. Please.”

  “This ought to be good for a toss in the hot tub.”

  “In chain mail, you bastard. But I will take that answer as a yes, and we can negotiate later on terms of the deal. There’s Cuban coffee here.”

  “Okay, go to work. Tell Maria I’ll be there in five minutes.”

  “Thank you, Alex. I still can’t believe they cut his balls off.”

  “Have a good day at the post office.”

  I came off the front porch carrying a box of cereal. Marnie’s Jeep rolled up. The three of them, dressed out for a day on the flats. Long sleeves, sunscreen, long-billed ball caps.

  Sam laughed. “You going to chum with Raisin Squares?”

  I admitted my failure to recall the morning’s plans, and explained my agreement to watch Maria. The anglers promised to return with food for the table.

  I read old newspapers while Maria slept until after ten. She didn’t look sick when she bounded out of bed. I wondered if the previous day’s events hadn’t piqued her curiosity and inspired a marginal illness.

  Our first get-well project was to read a new book she’d received from her Uncle Cruz Ayusa. A Prayer for the Opening of the Little League Season by Willie Morris. One page prevailed upon the Almighty to stand by the umpires, the poor guys who have to make the calls and enforce the rules. In that short passage I saw room for people like Liska and Monty and Bernier as well. They had to do a job that most people would shun, to do it alongside poisonous elements like Hatch and Fernandez. They needed our patience, our encouragement to keep clear of the poison.

  I had a strange craving for seafood that I couldn’t lose. Either the lunch I had missed yesterday or the promise of fresh fish from Sam’s boat had me going. I also did not want to encounter Annie when she came to pick up her “stuff” during the noon hour. I suggested to Maria that she might feel better if she helped me stow the Shelby in the garage behind her house, then rode her bike with me to the Half Shell for lunch.

  It wasn’t a tough sales job.

  It took less than ten minutes to move the Shelby and pull its car cover into position. I padlocked the garage and walked as Maria pedaled across the lane. She reached my porch, then shouted indignantly: “Alex, your phone is ringing.”

  I knew who it was. The answering machine could earn its keep. “I’m too hungry to talk business, Maria,” I called out. “I’ll get a message later.” I entered the yard. “Soon as I unlock my bike we’re out of here.”

  A child’s mind questions the injustice of grown-up logic. “But you’re right here. You can answer it.”

  I’d left the volume turned up. My recorded voice barked through the screening, “Alex Rutledge. Please leave a message.” I walked quickly past the porch. I did not want to be tempted by Annie’s voice.

  From the machine: “Alex, Bob Bernier, ten minutes before noon. Look, I’ve put together some information that should interest you. Our friends in Georgia checked a stack of phone records …

  I snatched the receiver. The machine cut off. “Alex here.”

  “Rutledge … Did you catch what I said? We found records of a call from Albertson, Georgia, to Hatch’s home three weeks ago. You want more?”

  “I’ve always said, you can’t tell the players without a scorecard.”

  “Well, we wouldn’t be this far along without you. I wanted to fill you in.”

  “I’m not sure it’ll change much in my mind,” I said. “Maybe it’ll answer some questions down the line.”

  “You tell me when you want me to stop, okay? Ray Kemp is still under sedation, in the hospital up in Marathon. Raoul, Palguta, and Hatch all retained lawyers. We’ve started to interrogate them and they’re spewing details like crazy, trying to shift blame. Maybe they’re looking for reductions. Ultimately, they’re incriminating themselves. Anyway, we’ve pieced together a sequence of events starting when Ray Kemp came to the Keys two days after that call, which would be eleven days before Ellen Al-bury was murdered. Kemp revealed to Avery a plan to ‘even some old scores,’ as Hatch described it, and leave clues on purpose, to link the crimes to his boat, Barracuda, and his legal problems that led to prison time. Kemp intended to kill Michael Anselmo, Anselmo’s girlfriend, and Julia Balbuena.”

  “That fits those short stories that you found.” It also meant that Kemp had not intended to even a score with me.

  “Right. And Avery felt powerless to stop him because of a blackmail threat regarding an old smuggling exploit…”

  “… the story that he gave to Liska and me.”

  “Okay. Anyway, once Hatch had been told how Kemp would carry out these crimes, he apparently decided to settle some grudges himself. Sally Ann Guthery had rejected him after a brief affair, so it’s our guess that he raped and killed her in the manner that Kemp had planned for his attacks.”

  “The Barracuda clues…”

  “Right. And the investigating officers—Hatch and his partner—elected not to reveal crime-scene details to the press. Kemp had no way to know that by using knotted rope, duct tape, semen stains, whatever, in his attacks, he’d be setting himself up for complicity in the Guthery and Mary Alice Noe cases.”

  “You think Hatch killed them both?”

  “No doubt in my mind.”

  “How about the bomb in Annie’s convertible?” I said.

  “Kemp. When the story of Ellen Albury’s murder hit the newspaper, he knew that he’d killed the wrong woman. The bomb was a hurried attempt to make up for his mistake. Fragments in the VW matched the homemade bombs our team found at his place in Georgia.”

  “What about Billy Fernandez?” I said.

  “Palguta said that Fernandez pieced together clues from the Guthery and Albury murders, caught on to Avery’s act, and assumed Hatch’d killed Julia, too. Fernandez went to Miami to deliver Avery’s ass to the Balbuenas. Meanwhile, Avery was arresting Sam and you were telling Raoul what he already knew, that Julia’s killer was Ray Kemp. Raoul also was aware that Fernandez knew Julia from the old days, but Billy denied ever knowing her. Fernandez thought he was gouging dumb rich people for a reward. He wanted a whole lot more than five grand. Naturally, Palguta claims that it was Carlos who carved up Billy.”

  “I still don’t understand why Kemp killed Julia.”

  “Palguta says she handed Kemp to the DEA on the second bust. It was a currency rap. After she and Anselmo had rigged the Witness Protection deal for Kemp’s first bust, Julia found out her little brother had been dragged into one of Ray’s operations. Ray had bought him a car and a condo, and made him a runner. The deal went south. They found the poor kid in a drumful of used cooking oil behind a Burger King. Not long later, Julia discovered that Kemp was heading for St. Barth’s with a new identity and seven hundred thousand dollars. So she turned him in.”

  “You have any idea how Anselmo escaped being attacked?”

  “Dumb luck and timing. Last Thursday night he started drinking at one of the hotels, despondent, he said, over his love life. He drove over to your house to confront Annie, looked through your porch and saw her cooking dinner for you. He resigned himself to the situation, went back to the hotel bar, got drunker, couldn’t drive home, so he rent
ed a room for the night. Next morning, closer to noon, he straggled home and found a scribbled note that read, ‘Don’t make yourself so scarce.’ The handwriting matched threatening notes he’d been getting in the mail.”

  “Are Sam and I clear regarding Georgia?”

  “It never happened. But yesterday afternoon, a place called Sinclair Lake near Milledgeville, south of Albertson, bunch of boxes and bags start popping to the surface. Kemp’s stuff. Divers found his pickup in twenty feet of water. We figure Kemp thought he was cute, going to the funeral as part of his revenge. But you blew his deal by recognizing him. He raced back to Albertson and began to pack everything he owned. He almost made it. Palguta and Carlos snagged him before he could split. They rigged the place to blow up, sank the truck, and took Kemp south. Palguta operated, again claiming it was Carlos.”

  “Thanks for the call, Bob.”

  “One last thing. The Bureau’s not going to wait for the state of Florida to reinstate Monty’s badge. He’s already got a tentative date to report for training at Quantico.”

  Sometimes people who get the wienie get reprieves.

  I hung up, locked the door behind me, and went to get my bike. I hadn’t heard the car drive up, the new-looking Honda four-door. Annie Minnette was hunkered down in the side yard, chatting with Maria.

  I gave Maria the key and sent her into the backyard to fetch my bicycle.

  “So, you’ve got things sorted out in your mind?” I said.

  Annie shielded her eyes from the sun, but didn’t focus on anything in particular, least of all my face. “It’s not you, Alex. It’s this damned town.”

  “What you’re saying, then, is you didn’t get tired of me, you got tired of Key West.”

  “Yes, that’s exactly it. All the craziness … People either not giving a shit, or screwing each other royally.”

  “Well, I just wondered,” I said. “Because you didn’t go to bed with another city. You went and slept with another man.”

  She almost caved in. I hadn’t meant to be so strong.

  She turned and looked me in the eye. “I guess I had trouble defining my desperation. Michael helped me understand that I needed a change of scenery more than I needed a new lover.”

  “He’s going to have some changes himself.”

  “I think he realizes that. He said he’s been waiting for the doorbell to ring for a long time.”

  A change of scenery. It occurred to me that Annie had been too focused on her own ennui to chip in assistance tracking down her roommate’s murderer.

  “Whose car?” I said.

  She looked at the Honda. “Benjy Pinder’s. I rented a truck. Michael’s going to help me drive it up tonight.”

  “Middle of the week. Ought to be a snap.” I couldn’t believe I was talking about traffic conditions. I felt something nudge the back of my leg. Maria, with the Cannondale, my key in her open hand.

  Annie slipped her arm around my waist and kissed my cheek up next to my ear. “It’s been a great three years,” she said softly. “You changed my life for the good. There’s a chance that the next three years won’t compare…”

  “There’s a lot in those three years I wouldn’t have accomplished without you,” I said. It was the truth. We’d been a good team. I kissed her forehead. “Drive carefully.”

  “Okay.” She smiled. “I’ll leave your house key in the kitchen after I load up my stuff.” Her arm slipped away. She watched Maria and me ride away.

  I laughed to myself. Whether he realized it or not, Michael Anselmo would get talked into driving the rental truck all the way to Pompano Beach.

  Then I realized that I would miss her tremendously.

  * * *

  At the Half Shell, Peggy Sue Peligrosa steered us to two barstools next to hers. It was her day off. “Yes, ma’am, buddy. This is a happy camper,” she said to Maria, as if two big girls were about to share confidential information. “I went shopping this morning for a Wonderbra, and the saleslady told me I plain didn’t need one. I am one happy camper.”

  Maria giggled at that one.

  “Now,” said Peggy Sue, “I happen to know that you’re in Mrs. Fox’s third-grade class with my little girl Holly.”

  “No. I’m in Miss Gualtieri’s fourth-grade class with Buddy.”

  “Okay, I knew it was one of them. So I need to know why you’re playing hooky. This island may be a vacation paradise for some folks, honey, but for us normal people it’s real life.”

  I ordered two grouper sandwiches with slaw. A Coke for my recuperating friend and tea for me. I reminded myself to buy shampoo. The ice in the tea froze a nerve in my broken tooth. I shuddered and wondered if Annie had remembered to return Ellen Albury’s bike to Mrs. Embry.

  Read on for an excerpt from Tom Corcoran’s latest book

  GUMBO LIMBO

  Now available from St. Martin’s Paperbacks

  This time I had good intentions.

  Two cups into the Cuban coffee on a hot morning, ready for chores. Key West had fallen funk-deep into its humid, mid-August dog days. I smelled rot in the yard, old rainwater held by the lowest layers of dead leaves. Carmen Sosa, my sweet neighbor, always joked that this time of year you could take a bath just sitting in the car. Two nights ago her father, Hector Ayusa, said it was too hot for anything good to happen.

  The yard needed work. I needed brain-free exertion. I’d pulled a trowel and shears from the fruit crate on the porch, and I’d stepped out back to attack my thirty-by-thirty rain forest and lizard preserve. Manual labor by choice, under the mango tree. Sweat penance for future misdeeds.

  Then the phone rang.

  Ten steps farther from the screen door, I’d have let the message tape roll. I returned to the porch, dropped the implements on my porcelain-top table, and caught the call before the machine clicked on.

  “Rutledge,” I said, slightly out of breath. Perfect. At eight A.M. I liked to sound confrontational. Being snappy at that hour inspired brevity and tended to discourage future early calls.

  “Now, hear reveille, reveille.…”

  I already knew the voice.

  “Now, all hands on deck. Sweepers, man your brooms. Give the ship a clean sweepdown fore and aft. Sweep down all lower decks, ladders, and passageways. Now, sweepers.”

  Zack Cahill, my gregarious Navy buddy, for the past twenty years a bank executive in Chicago.

  “Will the man with the keys to the ship’s am-ba-lance please report to the quarterdeck with same.…”

  The background noise placed my friend in a bar. “Zack…”

  “No, dipshit,” he shouted, “it’s Mamie Eisenhower.”

  “I’ve been out of bed since seven.”

  “Rutledge, you asshole. I wanted to wake you up and piss you off.”

  “You in church?”

  “Correct. Our Lady of Sloppy Joe’s.”

  The Problem. You live in Key West, all visitors think you’re on perpetual vacation. “The morning sun,” I said, “it’s over the yardarm somewhere…”

  “Right again, Alex. Like, Libya. They aren’t allowed to drink, so I’ll make up for them. Look, I’m in town just for the day. I came in after midnight, beat all to hell. But I got up at six-thirty. You’re lucky I didn’t call earlier.”

  “No advance alert this time?”

  “I forgot. Look, you need to come bend an elbow. Your amigo here is on top of the goddamned world. I’ll explain when you get here. I’m on the fifth stool from the beer coolers, facing Duval, between a large Hell’s Angel who smells like a wrestling meet and a chain-smoking, eighty-pound widow from Ocala. We’re passing judgment on Key West and Fidel Castro. We’re wondering what the hell ever happened to Bebe Rebozo. I’ve got an important lunch at Mangoes, then I’m out of here on a four-thirty flight. With any luck, after this lunch thing, you can join me in a celebration.”

  “Sounds like it’s already rolling.”

  “Get on down here, amigo.”

  The financial wizard, trying to
sound like an El Paso huckster.

  For two months my laid-back tropical life had been too hectic. No skiff runs to Woman Key, no day sailing or kayaking the back-country mangroves or snorkeling the reef beyond Hawk Channel. Certainly no time for trimming backyard crotons and raking out dead fronds. I’d awakened to free space on the calendar. I had two weeks until my next photo assignment. I knew from the radio that a twenty-knot east wind had chopped the ocean, so I’d ruled out any kind of offshore play. This would have been my day in the yard.

  I pulled on a shirt, changed into presentable shoes, closed up the house, and unlocked my bike. I zigzagged Old Town, dodging traffic on Eaton Street, coasting the shady slope of Grunt Bone Alley, dodging coconuts, catching a diesel whiff off the marina docks, angling to the foot of Elizabeth. An eight-minute ride. By the time I’d reached Sloppy Joe’s and locked the lightweight to a bicycle rack, Zack Cahill had vanished.

  I felt no immediate concern. I figured Cahill had finished one too many breakfast beers and had wandered off to Duval Street’s two thousand T-shirt shops to grab gifts for his twin teenaged boys and Kathryn, his younger daughter. I beckoned to Bonnie, who’d worked Sloppy’s day shift since the mid-1980s. “Yuppie-looking guy in here fifteen minutes ago?”

  She smiled and raised her left arm. “His watch.”

  Cahill’s gold Rolex. “He called me at the house,” I said. “Asked me to meet him here.”

  “I ran a mental tab on two Coronas. He ordered one more, so I asked him to settle. The place was filling up, you know … I was afraid I’d lose track. He reached back, no wallet. He had to go back to his hotel.”

  I looked again at the Rolex.

  “Hey, I told him I’d trust him for two beers. He didn’t look like a rip-off artist. He told me to hold it. He insisted.”