“Because the work is the thing?” This sultry, mocking half-smile on Rachel’s face, she said, “Chacun à son gout?”
“The insanity of the work, yes,” Hector said, smiling back. “Here are the real questions. Who on this goddamn rock truly knows surrealist art? Who disdains it or resents its practitioners so zealously as to mock it in this bloody way? Who hates women so much as to do that wicked thing to one? Those are the questions to seek answers for. Supply those answers, and you find your killer.”
Pauline, looking slightly nauseous, sipped her wine. Hector wasn’t sure how much she’d had, but she seemed a good bit tighter than when he and the “boys” had gone on their hideous scavenger hunt.
Bishop Blair cleared his throat to announce his presence. He said, “My wife is very tired...and a bit overtaxed by events, Pauline. I’m afraid we must go. Now.”
“It’s too late to call for a cab,” Pauline said. “There’s only one on the island and, frankly, Ross is usually quite drunk by this hour.”
“We could walk,” the old artist said less-than-convincingly.
“No, the La Concha is too far to walk to from here,” Pauline said. “And it’s Saturday night — the vets will be out and they are their own kind of menace. So I’ll have Ernest drive you.” She looked at Rachel and smiled. “Have you seen La Concha, Rachel?”
“No.”
“Then you should go, too,” Pauline said. “Go with Ernest. It’s really quite beautiful, particularly at night, with all the lights on. You should see it before the storm perhaps damages or destroys it.”
Rachel frowned at the old man. “Don’t you fear staying there?”
The painter said, smiling, “If it looks like Key West is to take a direct hit, Pauline and Ernest have promised us safe haven here.”
“There’s another reason I want you to go along, Rachel,” Pauline said, “but you can’t mention a word to Ernest. His night vision, it isn’t so good, though he’ll never admit it. So, I’d feel much better knowing there’s a sharp pair of eyes with him. I’d be quite grateful for you to ride along.”
Rachel nodded. “All right. Are you coming Hector?”
One glance at Pauline’s stern face told Hector he was to stay. He said, “A murdered woman’s body was just found less than fifty yards from here, Rache’. Go see the pretty hotel. I’ll stand sentry here over Pauline and the boys.” He smiled and picked up a half-empty bottle of rum. “I’ll guard them, and this soldier...”
Quentin, the art critic, wandered into the crowded kitchen, yawned, and stretched. “I’m staying at the Concha, too — a nice change from the Matecumbe Hotel,” he said. “I’ll ride along, as well.” He smiled and winked at Rachel. “If it’s too crowded, you can sit on my lap, dear.”
“In that event, I’ll take the rumble seat,” Rachel said, pure ice.
“Why don’t you strike poses on the running board, Quentin,” Hector said. “Maybe the goddamned real wind will blow you off the car and out to sea.”
Rachel said to the critic, “You were recently staying at the Matecumbe Hotel?”
“Yes,” Quentin said.
“Why?”
“Working my way down here...car, boat — I don’t trust that train,” Quentin said. “I missed the last ferry and had to spend a night on Matecumbe. What a shithole.” He looked at Rachel again and frowned. He raised a finger and was about to say something when Pauline called loudly, “Ernest, find your keys — you need to drive our guests back to the hotel.”
***
Pauline leveled a skinny finger in Hector’s face. “I can’t believe that you brought that woman here, Hector!”
Flustered by her angry tone, Hector scowled and said, “Rachel? What in God’s name is wrong with Rachel?”
“She’s a reporter! How could you bring a journalist into this house — and unannounced? Ernest could well shoot you for this.”
Hector was reeling. “Journalist? What the hell are you talking about?”
“Rachel Harper — she’s a correspondent for Parade,” Pauline said.
The second Mrs. Hemingway was a college graduate with a journalism degree and clip file spanning several daily newspapers. Pauline had been working for French Vogue about the same time she met Ernest and took him from his first wife. Despite Pauline’s own reporting credentials, Hector said, “I don’t buy it.”
Fuming, Pauline beckoned Hector to the sitting room. She leafed through a stack of magazines, then pulled out a copy of Parade. She flipped through pages, then held up a spread on European fashions, by-lined “Rachel Harper.”
“You know I covered fashion for Vogue back in Paris in the twenties,” Pauline said. “Even in this tropical hell hole, I like to try and stay a little current, Hector...see what’s in style in places where style still matters. I recognized that woman’s name as soon as you said it.”
Hector waved it away. “It’s a fashion piece...a bit of fluff, Pfife. I’d hardly call it ‘journalism.’” The former Paris Vogue correspondent’s brown eyes flared. Hector shrugged. “I mean by that, it’s not the kind of journalism to threaten us, or Ernest.”
“But you didn’t know she was a reporter, Hector. She kept it from you. What else might she be keeping from you?”
“I’m not sure it’s fair to say she ‘kept’ it from me, since I haven’t asked her what, if anything, she does for a living.” Hector said it sheepishly: “I haven’t asked her much about herself, to be honest. Only met her a few hours ago, Pauline. It didn’t come up.”
Pauline’s smile hardly qualified — more in the neighborhood of a sneer. She said, “Oh, something came up all right. Your mind, and your other parts, were too focused on that pretty face and body of hers. You’re such a...man.”
Hector said, “I’ll confront her later this evening, Pauline. I’ll make sure she’s not on the clock for some newspaper or magazine — make sure she’s not thinking of using any of this evening for some profile or the like. No sweat.”
***
Rachel kissed Hector’s cheek. “Miss me?”
“Of course.” His hand strayed to the small of her back. Hugging her to him he said, “That damned critic didn’t get fresh did he?”
“No, I sat up front with Ernest and Mrs. Blair.”
Hem strolled in, hefting a bottle and grinning. “Say one thing for your friend Bish, P.,” he said. “He knows the way to my hard black heart.” Hem held up the dark green bottle. “Can you believe it? Absinthe, children!”
Rachel said, “Isn’t that illegal?”
“Terribly...everywhere but in Spain,” Hector said.
“Bish smuggled in three bottles for us in a hidden compartment in his steamer trunk,” Hem said. “These, and a couple of banned books by some guy named Miller.”
Pauline said, “You’re not thinking of drinking that poison? That wormwood? Not with your stomach, Papa? You’re still ill. And that can damage your brain...your nervous system.”
“Not in the quantities we’ll be drinking it,” Hem said. “Gotta ration this precious stuff...stretch it out, because there’ll be no more. And that’s all bullshit about it hurting your brain. It opens the mind and that’s important for creative types like me and Lasso.” He winked at Rachel. “You’ll have some with us too, won’t you, Harp?”
Hector knew then that Rachel had made it into Papa’s inner circle — nicknames were always the badge of merit with Ernest.
Rachel smiled uncertainly. “Of course...”
“Gotta rustle up some things to do this properly...or improperly, since it’s illegal as hell, as Hector points out.” Hem smiled at his frowning wife. “You’ll have some too, right? Boys are asleep, so it’s time to be fun, yes?”
Pauline nodded shallowly. “Of course...”
Hector lit a cigarette and stared at its glowing end. He’d never cared for the bitter, vaguely licorice-tasting dark green spirits. In Hector’s limited experience with absinthe, the liquor didn’t ‘open’ his mind so much as assault it from a
ll angles. But he’d be damned if he’d shame himself in front of Hem by deferring the potent mixture of anise and wormwood.
As Hem set up the drip glasses and spoons — arranging sugar cubes on each spoon — he said, “Bishop was teaching me and Rachel all about the Minotaur myth as it relates to surrealist art. It seems to be a central image or motif for the surrealists...hence their naming of their magazine Le Minotaure. Bish said Picasso made an image of the Minotaur by juxtaposing a bicycle seat with a set of handlebars...he made a kind of metal bull’s head.”
“Picasso called it Tête de taureau,” Rachel said, carefully watching Ernest’s preparation of the absinthe. She was looking increasingly apprehensive. Frowning, she said, “Picasso also seems to be going through some period now of producing illustrations of Minotaurs and bulls raping women.”
“Well, at base, Picasso’s always been a woman-hater,” Hector said. He made a face at his first taste of the absinthe. “You can never be ready for it,” he said. It numbed his tongue and burned his throat all the way down to his belly.
Hem said, “Lasso! One true sentence: ‘Absinthe tastes...’”
“‘...like regret,’” Hector said.
Rachel said, “Probably the most famous Minotaur image in the surrealist movement, at least so far, is a photograph by Man Ray called Minotaure. You know it, Hector?”
“Huh-uh. He licked his numb lips. “What is it — some snapshot of a bull like out of Hem’s Death in the Afternoon?”
Rachel made a sour face after her first, hesitant sip of the absinthe. She let it settle, then sipped some more. It seemed to agree with Rachel as much as it didn’t agree with Hector. Her voice a little raw from the liquor, she said, “It’s a nude woman’s torso, taken against a field of black. It’s the expanse of her body between her navel and shoulders. No head is visible — it’s cloaked completely in darkest shadow. Her arms are raised, like this.” Rachel raised her own arms over her head. “Like horns — the horns of the Minotaur, you know? The model’s breasts are the eyes of the bull, and the concave portion of her belly — the model is very skinny — is in heavy shadow, evoking the mouth and muzzle. Man Ray, using crops and shadows, has made this naked woman’s body suggest the head of the Minotaur.”
“Vividly put,” Hector said, narrowing his eyes. “You talk — or describe — like a writer, Rachel.” Hector could almost feel Pauline’s gaze drift his way.
Rachel hesitated. “No, I’m no writer like you two. Nobody for you two writers to worry about,” she said, pointing at Hector and then at Ernest. “In terms of competition, I mean.”
Hem, savoring his absinthe, said, “Writers...like me and Lasso?” There was an edge in his voice. Hem clearly resented being assigned peer status with Hector. Or so Hector suspected. Hem confirmed it: “Oh, hey, Lasso — driving back from the hotel me and Rachel saw your fellow mystery writer.” Hector frowned at the word “mystery.” Hem continued, “You know, Jonathan Latimer.”
Hector knew Latimer well enough, he supposed. Jonathan was a recent arrival on Key West...a journalist turned pulp novelist. Latimer’s stuff verged on the comic and downright deranged. Locals were always confusing Latimer and Lassiter’s last names. Hem said, “Of course the son of a bitch was stinking drunk, like most pulp writers.” He glanced at Rachel and winked. “And journalists.”
“Of course,” Hector said, hoarse from the absinthe. “Drink is an occupational hazard for all crime writers. For all reporters. And for all so-called literary writers, too. Drink, and sodomy for that latter class.”
Ernest smiled crookedly at Hector. It was stupid to provoke Hem, but tonight, the grand man wasn’t to be baited. Hem asked, “Ladies, how’s the absinthe? Does it make the heart grow fonder? I mean, for ugly sons of bitches like Lasso and me?”
“A little goes a long way,” Pauline said. “Time to stop this before we’re all driven mad, Papa. It’s past late.”
“It is,” Hector said, rising. He stretched and yawned, then offered a hand to Rachel. He drew her up into his arms. “The main brace is well and truly splashed,” he said. “Time to head back into port and batten down.”
***
Hector thought he could smell the rain on the wind now. It was bit cooler and the wind was still steady. He said, “How are you doing Rachel? Okay to make the walk?”
“I’m a little drunk,” she said, hanging on his arm and walking with her head resting on his shoulder. “I’m a little drunk,” she said again. She laughed. “Well, maybe lotsa drunk.”
“Good — the state of least resistance.”
She looked up at him with sleepy eyes. “Oh my — what are your intentions toward me, Mr. Lassiter? What’s on your mind?”
“For the moment, satisfying my own curiosity,” he said. “When did you mean to — or did you ever intend to — tell me that you’re a journalist?”
She nodded once, deeply. “Oh.” She sighed. “Wasn’t ever going to say,” she said. “Though I did confess it to Papa on the drive back from the hotel. Mostly because I saw a copy of a magazine with one of my articles in their house.”
“Yeah, Pauline made you, like that,” Hector said, snapping his fingers. “She was a fashion journalist, herself. What did Ernest say when you confessed to him that you’re a reporter?”
Rachel shrugged, watching their shadows. “Hem laughed. He doesn’t put much stock in fashion reporting — that was clear enough.”
“Hope he doesn’t tell Pauline that.”
“Well, anyway, Papa’s very disdainful of lifestyle reporters.”
“Yes,” Hector agreed. “Probably puts them just a notch above crime novelists. Only reason he tolerates my company — he can look down on me as a writer.”
She said, “I really like your books better. You understand women in ways Hem doesn’t.”
“You know the way to my heart,” Hector said. “But when were you going to tell me that you’re a journalist?”
“I told you — never,” Rachel said. “Or probably never. It’s irrelevant. I’m not here as a reporter. I’m on holiday, that’s all.” She squeezed closer to him, her head on his shoulder again. “Still mad?”
“No,” he said. “I was never mad. But there is one thing — you’re hanging on my gun arm.”
Rachel smiled mischievously. “Is that some of kind of euphemism?”
“No, sweetheart, it’s a literal statement of fact. We’re headed toward some strife, Rache. Casual-like, but swiftly, switch sides with me — take the left-hand side.”
Looking confused, Rachel drifted to Hector’s left arm.
Two men stepped from behind a big old Banyan tree, blocking their path.
Hector stopped and urged Rachel behind himself.
The two men were skinny. Both looked to be in their mid-thirties. They were clearly drunk...unshaven and dressed in badly patched clothes. Vets on a tear. One was missing an eye; the other had a hook where his left hand should be.
The one-eyed vet hefted a metal pipe. “Your wallet, her jewelry and her purse, lickety split.” He pointed the pipe at Hector and said, “That means right now.”
Hector said, “Move on boys. Because you’re fellow veterans, I’m giving you the chance to walk away before I maim you more.”
The one-handed man turned his hook back and forth so it glinted in the light. “Maim us? How’d you like one of these yourself, slick?”
Hector shook his head. He reached under his sports coat, cocking on the draw.
The vets’ eyes widened at the sight of the antique Colt. “Seventy-three Peacemaker, boys. Ready to sleep forever? If not, best drop that pipe and get on with you. I want to see asses and elbows all the way down Duval.”
The vets backed away, the one stooping to drop the lead pipe.
They half ran, half fast walked down the well-lit street, headed toward Negro Beach.
Hector holstered his gun and Rachel said, “So that’s why the sports jacket. That’s what you went back for earlier this evening — your gun?”
“I usually keep it under my pillow,” he said, still watching the retreating vets. “But Saturday night in Key West? Like I said, danger city, baby.”
As they passed the Colonial Hotel, Hector held up a finger. “You check with the front desk — see if there’s been an answer yet to our telegram. While you do that, I’m going to pinch their copy of Le Minotaure.”
“A masterpiece...may be unwelcome, but it is never dull.”— Gertrude Stein
ACHUCHÓN
8
“Nightcap, Rachel? Some coffee? Maybe aspirin?”
She tossed her purse on his couch as Hector checked the locks. He’d closed most of the windows earlier in the day and secured the storm shutters, but he’d left two windows open on either side of his house — the windward side and one at the other end — in order to keep a cooling cross breeze. Hector turned on the electric fans to help draw in more of the cooler night air and he again smelled rain. He dropped his stolen copy of the surrealist magazine Le Minotaure on the coffee table — it was all they’d gotten at the hotel. Neither Bev, nor her alleged “suitor,” had responded to Hector’s telegram.
Rachel kicked off one shoe and then the other, tipsy enough that she lost her footing. Hector caught her arm. “Easy there.”
She smiled up at him, sloe-eyed. “Again to my rescue — that’s what, two, three times today?”
“I’m not counting, and neither should you,” Hector said. He stroked her cheek with his knuckles. She turned her head to kiss his hand.
“I should get your room ready,” he said.
“Let’s drop that pretense,” she said, her hands clasping the back of his neck, urging his face down to her waiting mouth.
***
They’d kicked off the sheets and chenille bedspread — far too sweltering for those. The oscillating fans were no real help, either. Hector had left the venetian blinds cracked and bars of inky shadows criss-crossed his bed. The darkened room reeked of sweat and sex.
Hector didn’t know if it was the absinthe and the other liquor, the threat of the storm, or just Rachel’s own nature, but she was utterly abandoned — completely giving herself over to him. Her damp hands were clutching the now-slippery bars of his bed’s brass headboard, her legs wrapped tightly around his waist. Rachel pushed hard against him, groaning loudly and causing the headboard to squeak as her sweaty palms gripped the bars for purchase — seeking counter leverage to his thrusts.
Toros & Torsos (The Hector Lassiter Series) Page 6
