6 Martini Regrets

by Phyllis Smallman

  “We’re going there this weekend. Clay may have the listing. Are you in the market for an island?”

  “Why do you ask?”

  “Because you’re the only truly rich person I’ve ever met. Maybe Clay will share his commission if I find a buyer.”

  “My experience with women tells me you’ll get your half even if he doesn’t share his earnings.”

  “Nice to see you have faith in the female sex.”

  “Have you been to the island before?”

  “Oh, yeah.”

  It was an island I’d spent time on as a kid. Tully used to take Marley and me out there to play pirates and shipwreck when it was his turn to play parent. He’d drop us there and then anchor a few hundred yards offshore to fish. It had been a magical time and place. Later, when I was a teenager, I went there with Jimmy to swim and make love under the stars.

  Uninhabited, it was an island I’d always thought of as belonging to all of us. One day, one of our last times together as a couple, Jimmy and I went out there to try and retrieve a little of the magic. We were shocked to be faced with a big sign saying, PRIVATE PROPERTY—NO TRESPASSING. It was a pretty good description of how things were between Jimmy and I, a symbol of our dead marriage. Two things I’d never thought would happen came together that day: I’d never thought Jimmy and I would ever break up, and I’d never thought that island would be lost to us.

  That night I was up front working as hostess because it was Gwen’s night off. Nina Dystra walked in. I hoped she was there to have dinner and not for anything to do with orchids.

  After brief and insincere pleasantries, she said, “May I talk to you?” and walked away, sure that I would follow her. I got someone to cover for me and went outside, where she had lit a cigarette and was dragging furiously on it, like she was about to inhale the whole thing right down to the glowing tip.

  “Have you found it?”

  She didn’t have to tell me what she was talking about. I let out a big sigh, annoyed and impatient. It had already been a long day, and a stuffed head wasn’t soothing my intolerance for idiots. “That’s the same thing everyone asks me. One more time: I never heard of this orchid until Ethan walked into my bar. He explained about the orchid and told me about his brother Ben being dead.” That’s when I remembered Liz had said Ben didn’t get in touch with Nina. “How did you find out about the black orchid anyway?”

  Her eyes narrowed calculatingly as she considered me. “I went over to see Ben about Christmas.” She threw the butt over the railing. “Ben had a guy working there from some place in El Salvador. That guy had smuggled in some interesting plant material in the past. I’d bought a small . . .” She thought better of revealing more. “I wanted to see if anything new had shown up.” She opened her purse and dug out a fresh cigarette. “I got the strong feeling there was something more, because Ben had this animation about him. He was onto something good. I could feel it.” She lit the cigarette before going on. “That’s when I met Tito.” Her tongue flicked out over her lips, a cat licking cream. “He was a little treasure in more ways than one.”

  Nasty. I edged away.

  “I paid Tito to watch Ben and find out what he had, but then one afternoon over in Homestead, Ben accidently saw us coming out of a motel. He was furious with me.” Her eyes opened wide. “Said he’d never sell me so much as a blade of grass, said I was dead in his eyes. Why was he so angry? Tito was nearly eighteen.” She looked genuinely confused and hurt.

  “But you found out about the black orchid anyway?”

  “Tito heard Ben talking to someone on the phone. I couldn’t believe he had a black orchid, but I gave Tito ten thousand dollars to find it. I told him I’d give him another ten thousand dollars when he delivered it. I never saw him again.”

  A couple in their thirties climbed the stairs. “Good evening,” I said as they went by us. When the door had closed behind them, I said, “But that wasn’t the last time you spoke to Tito, was it?”

  She shook her head. “Tito called late the night Ben’s nursery burned down. He was in trouble and wanted me to help.”

  “And?”

  “And what? Tito said he didn’t know where the orchid was. He was no use to me anymore.”

  “So you never spoke to him again?”

  “Boys are a dime a dozen. I didn’t have anything to do with Ben’s death, and I didn’t want the cops or anyone else looking in my direction.”

  “And that’s all you know about Ben and his precious plant?”

  “Except Sasha was there just days before Ben’s death. They had a big argument and Ben told him to get out. I called Sasha after Ben died, but Sasha said he didn’t have Ben’s orchid.”

  “Do you believe him?”

  “I don’t believe anyone, not even you.”

  The bitch not only insulted me, she didn’t even stay for dinner.

  I went back to seating guests, smiling and handing out menus, while my brain worried the question of why all of the people from the ball were showing up at the Sunset and asking me questions. It was Erin Faust’s call that set me straight.

  After I told her I had nothing to sell, I asked, “Why come to me?”

  “Our only chance of getting Ben’s orchid is if you have it. The others won’t sell it; they don’t need the money. You haven’t any money, so you’ll sell it if you have it. That’s why I’m calling. Please don’t get rid of it until you talk to me.”

  So there it was. Everyone had come to the same conclusion. I was the weak link in the chain, the only one likely to do a little deal. And I’d given everyone at the dinner table a business card from the Sunset, convincing them I had something to sell besides food and booze. “If I trip over this orchid, how much are you willing to pay for it?”

  I could almost hear her brain humming as she calculated sums and decided just how cheap I was. “I’m prepared to pay fifty thousand dollars if you can guarantee me it is the only one.”

  “Nina offered a hundred thousand.”

  “I’ll match it.”

  “Is this a great country or what?”

  “Have we got a deal?”

  “I don’t have that flower. You better talk to Ethan. It was his party and his black orchid.”

  She made a sound of disgust. “Ethan didn’t stage that entertainment. Ethan wouldn’t sell the black if he had it. The person who arranged that little show had all the big orchid buyers gathered in one room. They were showing off their product to find a buyer. Like I said, my only hope is if you have it.”

  “Then I guess you’re screwed, aren’t you?”

  But the woman wasn’t listening. She said, “I expected to hear from you before this. You haven’t sold it already, have you?”

  “Let me say it one more time. I haven’t a clue when it comes to orchids.” I reached out to Ethan’s orchid, now sitting on the podium in the foyer. “I only have one orchid, and I only have that one because Ethan gave it to me.”

  She made a clicking noise. “Playing dumb might have fooled Martin, but you don’t fool me. Here’s my cell number.” She rattled off a number, but I didn’t waste time writing it down. “Get back to me and not Martin. He doesn’t need to be involved.”

  The dining room had pretty well cleared out when Clay came in. His eyes were shining. “I just optioned my first piece of property for Ethan.”

  “Nice,” I said. “Try the seafood lasagna for dinner. I want to know what you think about it. I feel it’s a little bland, but Miguel says it’s perfect.”

  He wrapped his arms around me and pulled me in close. “You are real impressed with my abilities, aren’t you?”

  “Some of them.” I leaned back in his arms. “I’m just not excited about the people you’re working for.”

  He released me. He wasn’t smiling or looking enthused anymore. “I’ll eat in the bar.”

 
At the door he turned back and said, “I’ll try the seafood.”

  How could I make Clay understand that what he saw as an opportunity I saw as a big deep well we were about to get lost in?

  CHAPTER 31

  The day before our trip to Dancing Lady Island, I went into the office to get the mask Ethan had given me. I wanted to have it framed in a shadow box to put behind the bar. The Sunset was slowly turning into a repository for bits of my life and was barely still on the side of tasteful, but there was room for one more treasure, especially one as beautiful as the black swan.

  As my hand stroked the black feathers of the mask into place, I saw a small package on my desk. I set the mask down, took scissors from a cracked mug and cut across the top of the bubble wrap.

  Inside was a pink flip-flop. No message, just the colorful rubber footwear with a red hibiscus on the instep. The shoe dropped to the desk as I sank down onto my chair and stared at it. What the hell did it mean?

  Tully came in without knocking and I jerked back in startled fear, shooting the chair into the walnut bookcases behind me.

  “What?” he said and stopped.

  I was unable to answer.

  He walked towards me. “What’s happened?”

  I swallowed and pointed at the thing on my desk. “I was wearing that when I went to the gas bar.”

  He reached for the flip-flop, turning it over in his hands. “What’s it doing here?”

  I shook my head.

  “You must have some idea how it got here. Did it just appear on your desk?”

  I pointed to the empty envelope. “It came in the mail.”

  He picked it up and looked at the postage stamp before he squeezed the envelope open and stared inside. Then he went to the door, glancing up and down the hall before closing it firmly. He came back to the desk. “Is it a threat?”

  “Maybe. I lost one at the gas bar, but I don’t remember what happened to the other. It doesn’t matter. They know I was there. It was sent by someone who was also there that night.”

  He dragged his fingers through his hair. “Jesus, Sherri, what have you got yourself into?”

  I gave a choked laugh. “You know how many times I’ve heard you say those words?” I followed this with “Don’t tell Clay, will you?”

  “Why?”

  I couldn’t really say why I didn’t want Clay to know except that he was happy, excited about the future and our life together. I didn’t want to screw things up for him. What was I thinking? I’d already done that.

  Tully collapsed on the chair across from my desk. “He has to know. He has to be able to protect you.”

  The defiant part of me wanted to say I could look after myself, but it wasn’t true. It’s one thing to protect yourself from an enemy when you can identify them, but just who was I trying to protect myself from now? I tried to figure out why my flip-flop had been sent back to me. The only thing I could come up with was it was a ploy to make me do something. If I had the orchid, this definitely would make me get rid of it.

  “Tell Clay,” Tully said.

  I made a face.

  “And I’m following you home.” He raised a hand to stop me from arguing, but I’d only been going to say, “Thanks.”

  Clay was already asleep when I got home. I didn’t wake him.

  My cold was still hanging on when I awoke to the sound of a lawn mower. Clay, determined to be the best little suburbanite ever, was mowing the sand that sprouted random blades of grass, but mostly weeds, in our backyard.

  I checked the time. It was shortly after seven. I hadn’t fallen asleep until just about four. Not quite enough sleep for me, but no way was I going to get more with that annoying racket. I headed for the shower.

  The coffee was finished dripping when Clay came in, grass clippings clinging to his jeans and sweat plastering his white tee to his chest. It was already in the high seventies and almost a hundred percent humidity. It was going to be a scorcher.

  His hair was rumpled and his face was flushed from beating back nature, almost cute enough to stop me from telling him a few home truths about how much I liked being wakened by a lawn mower.

  He lounged against the counter and drank his coffee without comment while I expanded on the theme.

  My anger ran down, and I refilled my coffee cup and went to stand beside him, staring out the window at the unfinished house behind us. Clay had mowed neatly to the edge of the tall jungle. Behind that, the concrete-block walls of the house had blackened with mold, and the bare plywood on the roof was discolored and lifting. The holes left in the blocks for windows stared back at me like unseeing eyes. The next builder who came along would probably knock the whole structure down and start over.

  “I got a present in the mail yesterday,” I said.

  I turned my head to face Clay. He lifted his eyes to me and waited.

  “Aren’t you going to ask me what it was?”

  Slumped against the counter, one hand on the granite and the other holding the mug, he lifted his shoulder and said, “You wouldn’t have brought it up if you weren’t going to tell me.”

  I’ve always figured conversation is a give-and-take kind of thing, but with Clay it was often a delivery of information from one person to another, and nothing more. He never felt it necessary to put in the extra morsel of chatter, the normal bits and pieces of everyday dialogue, so he just waited and listened until I dumped it all out there.

  “Someone mailed one of my pink flip-flops back to me.”

  This time I got a reaction. He jolted to his feet, no longer detached. He stared at me and then looked out the window for a minute before turning back to me. “But you have no idea who sent it, right?”

  “Of course I don’t know who sent it.” But that wasn’t true. “Yes, I do.” I set my mug in the sink. “The guy who killed Tito sent it.”

  “When did you get this package?”

  “Yesterday.”

  “And you’re only telling me now?”

  I winced and folded my arms across my chest. “I was shocked, and I wanted to think about what it meant before I could talk about it. Besides, you were asleep when I got home.”

  “You . . .” I could see he was searching for a nonconfrontational way to say what was on his mind. “Well . . .” He smiled. “You have a pretty active imagination.”

  “What happened out in the Everglades wasn’t my imagination.”

  “I know,” he soothed. “I know you were scared and it’s made you panicky and jumpy.”

  “Only a fool wouldn’t be nervous, given the circumstances.” I took a deep breath and forced myself to speak calmly, to bring my voice back in the register where humans and not just dogs could hear it. “Doesn’t the fact that someone sent me that shoe say something?”

  His thumbs rubbed back and forth on the smooth surface of his coffee mug as he stared straight ahead at the skeleton of a house.

  “What?” I asked.

  He shrugged.

  And then it hit me. “You think I sent that thing to myself?”

  He turned to me. “I think you’re angry because you believe I don’t take this as seriously as you’d like me to. You’d like some proof that it isn’t over, that someone out there is watching you and waiting to pounce . . . something real to account for the way you feel.”

  “That’s just crazy.” Which was exactly his point. I sucked in air, struggling for calm. But how do you prove you aren’t crazy? “Clay, listen to me. I did not put that thing in the mail. Someone else did.”

  “Why would anyone do that?”

  “I don’t know, but it proves it isn’t over.”

  “Ahh,” he said and nodded as if I’d just confirmed what he was saying. “When you decided not to tell anyone about Tito stealing your truck, it was over. That was your choice. And that put an end to it. Don’t keep tr
ying to show there’s still something going on.”

  He really believed I’d put that flip-flop in the mail. I was so shocked I couldn’t look at him, couldn’t tell him he was full of shit. Big tears began to run down my cheeks and drip off my chin.

  “Come here.” He tried to turn me around to face him, but I went rigid.

  I put my hands on his chest and shoved him away. “I’m not lying to you.” I wiped away my tears with the flat of my hand.

  “Okay. Call Styles and tell him everything. Turn it over to him, like you should have done weeks ago.”

  While Clay went to shower, I called Styles. I got a message that he was out of the office until Friday. I was given a number to call if it was an emergency. This was Thursday, and we were off to spend the night on Dancing Lady Island, so Friday was the perfect time to talk to Styles. Besides, it let me put off a nasty task a bit longer. Avoiding difficult things has always worked for me.

  CHAPTER 32

  We were leaving for Liz’s after lunch, so I headed into the Sunset to make sure everything was in order. It wasn’t. I called two suppliers and let them know exactly how unhappy I was with their delivery system, and then, feeling mean enough to chew horseshoes and spit tacks, I called a kitchen employee who was an hour late and told him not to bother showing up—ever.

  I wasn’t done with my very bad mood or the orchid party yet. I was stocking the bar when Martin Faust came in. He stopped just inside the door and looked around with a slight curl of contempt on his lip. My temper went into overdrive. The son of a bitch had the nerve to look down his nose at my bar, the best one on the Mangrove Coast—right there and then my patience ended.

  When he got in front of me, I growled, “Doesn’t matter what you want, I ain’t got it. Get out.”

  He jerked back in astonishment. “What?”

  “You heard me. I don’t want you in my place—not you, not your wife, not any of your friends. My bar is off-limits to you.”

  Faust’s stunned surprise nearly matched my own, but I’d already put up with enough shit for a lifetime.

  His commitment to his quest was greater than my nastiness. He said, “I don’t want a drink.”