Bone Island Mambo: An Alex Rutledge Mystery

by Tom Corcoran

  Shit. No coins for a phone call.

  Inside of two days and six hours, two men’s lives had ended and I’d been either the unfortunate victim of repeated, random vandalism, or I’d received my third undefined warning. Would the spinning marble fall into my slot, or was I immune? Bigger question: If the motorcycle’s destruction had been planned, was Wiley Fecko in danger for my having been at his campsite?

  Another ear-busting blast. I almost dived, ate dirt. From the west this time, a Navy fighter swooping on final approach to Boca Chica, crackling, spitting, shaking the ground. Hot pilots in training. Another jet came, close-stationed. A ribbon of ivory-toned condensate streamed from its port wing tip. The third jet followed, then faded fast. Again, in their wake, the huge quiet. Did campers in the mangroves put up with this racket every day?

  “Fecko, I need your help.”

  No Fecko. Between the road explosion and the thunder above, Wiley had beat feet I needed to chase him like a wounded deer, not to dispatch him humanely, but to rescue his emaciated butt from whomever.

  I hoped Fecko didn’t ask me to identify the enemy.

  My first steps through his camp were careful ones. I didn’t know whether he’d booby-trapped it, or had dug a latrine, or kept a box of trained snakes. I noted that he owned a balloon-tire bicycle, with two flats, no chain, and a mildewed seat. A tin cup and metal plate, hooked together by a twisted coat hanger. A stack of aluminum frames, maybe eighteen by twenty-four, motel art-sized, without glass or art. A collection of stuffed black garbage bags. No telling what they held. Wiley Fecko’s mini-museum of vintage trash, items discarded fifteen or twenty years ago: an RCA Victor 45-rpm record changer with a plastic one-inch center post. A mildew-encrusted vinyl carrying case, full of sun-warped eight-track tapes. His bed: the broken-sponge composite of carpet underlayment. A cache of unopened Vienna Sausage tins, Frito wrappers, and empty wine bottles. Fecko had shoplifted screw-top vintages. I grabbed a bottle to carry. I wasn’t sure why. Maybe I’d have to fend off attacking bats, or one of Fecko’s soul mates, an opossum, a rabid armadillo.

  I gained distance from the crackling fire, stopped to listen. Wiley was not a master of escape and evasion. It wasn’t a stepped-on twig that got him, but labored wheezing. I found him less than twenty yards away, on his ass in a patch of sand, swatting away gnats, rubbing his ankle. His eyes were those of the cowering, pissing dog I’d seen an hour earlier at Big Crab Fish House.

  I said, “I want you to come with me.”

  “I ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

  “Someone might try to kill you.”

  He swatted. “I can live with that.”

  “Humor is good.” I held up the bottle. “You into grape?”

  He grinned, almost leered at his weakness. “Artificial energy. I was nine or ten, hiding under the trailer, beer-buzzed. My grandmother told me I’d turn into a drunk. I should’ve took her warnin’ way back then.”

  “You saw something happen the other day. Something a few bad people would rather not hear mentioned in a court of law.”

  A hint of fear in his fogged eyes. ‘Tell ’em I didn’t see jack.”

  “When do I do that? The next time I see ’em at Fast Buck Freddie’s?”

  “Whatever.”

  “Lemme see if I got this right, Fecko. You want to drink your next pint through your mouth, or bypass that? You want the express route down your neck? You can do it just like that man the funeral dudes left on the sofa. No tongue to get in the way, no swallowing. They might be kind to you, use a clean hacksaw blade instead of a dull rusty one. Unless a chain saw did it . . .”

  He withered. “There’s people back in here. I go away, they rip me off.”

  “How ‘bout you go with me now, we come back in a couple days, I replace anything that’s missing?”

  He swatted, then shook his head. “Certain things, gotta carry ’em out.”

  “Whatever you say, man.”

  I will learn not to issue blanket statements.

  Fecko took fifteen minutes to inventory his belongings. I waited for a fire truck, a sheriff’s department cruiser, or a curious passer-by to stop and ask about the smoldering Kawasaki. Maybe a shrimper in the dockyard, the caretaker aboard the Lady Caribe I. Maybe someone in Bernstein Park heard the bang. Nobody came to the party. I felt as isolated as Wiley. To the rest of the world, the explosion had been one hand clapping.

  When he’d finally sorted the contents of his garbage bags, the contents of which I had no desire to examine, I asked if I could help carry anything.

  “Whew,” he said in his strange high-pitched voice. “You could use a bath, my man. That reminds me. I gotta take my shower.”

  “A shower?”

  “Bring it with me, or some jackoff’ll rip me for it.”

  Wiley Fecko possessed the innocence of a man too addled to imagine duplicity. Or else he strove for that ideal. He’d also developed the resourcefulness of an ocean-transit sailor. His shower was a contraption formed of a coral-colored douche bag, a hot-water bottle, a plastic funnel, and a maze of fifteen feet of translucent surgical tubing. Silver duct tape held all the parts together. I looked closely. Fecko had gotten his hands on a funnelator.

  The first funnelator I’d ever seen had been aboard a sailboat in Antigua, during a photo assignment for Outside magazine. Two sailboats had shown up with them. The captains of four other yachts that I knew of had paid air-express rates—before FedEx—to have proper components sent to Nelson’s Dockyard. Funnelators were, quite simply, water-balloon launchers. Rigged correctly, with the surgical tubing lashed to pelican hooks and those hooks affixed to vertical stays, the funnel could be armed with a fat water balloon, pulled backward to the far gunwale, to the full stretch of elastic tubing, and released. The resultant pay-load, aimed with precision, fired with skill, could fly forty or fifty yards and put another sailboat’s whole cockpit awash. The liquid bomb became ceremonial, instant tradition, an irreverent, oceangoing party joke. Captains felt it a point of honor to return fire. Half the racing fleet scrambled to obtain rubber, plastic, and tape, no matter the shipping cost. Fecko, somehow, had found one that a sailor had discarded. He’d also had the cleverness to add the douche bag and water bottle that, filled with water and hung from high branches in direct sunlight, would create a hot-water shower.

  The man was no dummy. I began to understand that he lived in the weeds by choice, for reasons that meant much to him.

  We walked toward the road called, ironically, Fifth Avenue. I balanced a stuffed garbage bag on the flat-tire bicycle I’d volunteered to push. Atop the bag the toilet seat and lid, a toaster and a neon beer lamp. Items important to Fecko in his camp without electricity. Fecko limped along clutching a metal folding chair. With his free hand he continued to shoo no-see-ums.

  The trio of jets returned for another approach on Boca Chica’s runway. A chopper chugged westward four hundred feet above us. Paranoia runs deep. I felt like a refugee in exodus, traversing a conflict zone, running from enemy gunships. This chopper was not a military unit. A silver sheriff’s department star on its hull. I didn’t expect it to check out the still-smoking cycle.

  It didn’t.

  I thought, No more Kawasaki, no more imported motorcycle. The recovery of my all-American image would please Liska. He’d be pleased to know that I’d joined the new breed, the American victim. Free to walk.

  We passed the site where purple birthmark found his ultimate freedom.

  “Got friends in Key West?” I said.

  Fecko’s thin hair fluttered as he walked. “Don’t reckon.”

  “Not a single one, somebody to connect with?”

  “My friends, mostly, they DBF.”

  I’d heard of DBA—the Dis-Barred Attorneys club. But not DBF.

  “That’s a street slang,” explained Wiley. “Dead by forty.”

  I had three problems. Panhandling shouldn’t have been one. I defined humility; I assumed Wiley Fecko had the ability. But we lacked pros
pects.

  Problem two, if I called Teresa Barga, even though her Grand Am was five or six years old, a survivor of her college years and eight months on the chuckholed streets of Cayo Hueso, there was no way she would allow Wiley Fecko inside her car. Finally, I didn’t know what to do with the Feck once I got him inside city limits. I may have been humanitarian of the week, dragging him out of the bush to save his life, but I didn’t want a houseguest. If I dropped him on Duval to join the buggy brigade, the residentially challenged old-pro bums, they’d chew him up and forget to spit him out.

  “Maybe this’ll be the first step to getting you out of the woods,” I said.

  “I’ll go back here,” said Fecko. “I know you mean well, but I have a pretty damned good sense of destiny.”

  At the intersection of Shrimp Road and Fifth, I looked left, saw a deputy parked in the shade near the entrance to Bernstein Park. The deputy had his head down—maybe paperwork, maybe a snooze. What kind of vigilance? My taxes pay that man’s salary. Maybe I could tap on the cruiser’s window, get change for a buck. Maybe not I’d have to explain the toilet seat and the neon beer lamp.

  I steered Fecko to the right We headed for the pole-mounted pay phone in front of the Rusty Anchor. I dug once more into my pocket hoping that by some miracle I’d find coins for a phone call.

  “Little short?” said Fecko.

  “No change, no ride.”

  “You got money where you stay?”

  I took out my wallet showed him twenties, tens, and fives.

  Fecko grabbed his heart. I thought he’d cave in his chest. “Jesus, man,” he said. “Never show that to a man in hard times.” He checked the street walked down the side of the restaurant found a rusty coat hanger in the weeds. He looked around again to see if he was being observed. He pulled the cap off a cylindrical fence post the chain link that surrounds All Animal Clinic, stuck in the hanger, pulled out a Baggie. He unwrapped it as he walked toward the phone. He placed two coins in my palm, took out a small device, unlocked the square coin-box access door.

  “Make your first call.”

  “Amazing.”

  “Use it don’t abuse it. They never catch on.”

  “How’d you . . . ?”

  He swiped at his filthy clothing with the backs of his hands. “I wasn’t always like this. I was a sparkling kid, a young man. I had jobs and wives and children. I had a future. I climbed Mount Whitney. I owned a Morris Minor and a Triumph Bonneville motorcycle. I could take that cycle apart and put it back together blindfolded. My last job was at BellSouth. I kept a token of their appreciation.”

  Survival.

  I paid the machine, dialed Teresa’s office. In the time it took to be routed to voice mail, I observed Fecko’s battle with gnats. They hadn’t bothered me. I realized there were no gnats, probably hadn’t been any gnats. The bugs were characters in Fecko’s continuing nervous tic. I hung up, recycled the coins, called Teresa’s condo. Got her.

  “Look, I’m sorry about lunch.”

  “Me too,” she said. Unpleased.

  “I’ve got a huge favor to ask.” I tried to sound desperate. “I’m stranded on Stock Island, and I’ve got company.”

  “I don’t want to know her name.”

  “It’s a gentleman who may have info on the decapitation murder.”

  “You playing detective?”

  “Somebody’s got to do it. But I need to warn you. He’s running short on hygiene. Have you got access to the city’s car?”

  “Your ride will arrive shortly. Wear dark glasses and change your name. I’ll explain when I see you.”

  I thanked her. My next call was to the house. Three messages. The first from Marnie Dunwoody: “The car in the water? I did what you asked. I didn’t connect your name to it. Near as I can tell, no one else did, either. It was an old Nissan Maxima, showed on a hot list, stolen in Boynton Beach. Here’s the nut. It was swiped from Dexter Hayes’s ex-partner in the police department up there. The new captain of the Boynton SWAT Team. Dexter’s in a rage. I’m not sure it’s because of that. Sam says to keep your sails high and the wind on your quarter. Thanks again for supper the other night. Talk to you later.”

  Another love note from Liska: “Your silence is deadly. Once a month I reevaluate my friendships. It’s part of politics. I already forgot your name.”

  Finally, Mercer Holloway. “Alex, I hoped we’d pitch in to get this done on schedule. Are you still in town, or have you run off for a week in Cuba? I’ve called a man in Tampa who’ll get me a quote by noon tomorrow. You’re still my first choice. Please contact Donovan if you wish to participate. If you choose otherwise, I would recommend you don’t cash that check.”

  I called local information—what luxury, a freebie—got the number for Schooner Wharf. I called there and asked for Dubbie Tanner. It sounded as if the bartender—a woman whose voice I didn’t recognize—did not want to admit Dubbie was at the bar. I began to describe him . . .

  “Hold on.” It was more of a grunt, like “Hldn.”

  “Jeb Bush for President, Campaign Headquarters.”

  Dubbie Tanner lived out of the trunk of his old Chevy. He badgered both tourists and locals for free beer. He lied about pirate exploits and alleged family wealth to suggest marriage and thereby seduce women from foreign countries. He picked clothing from Dumpsters in Old Town. I was probably the only person in Key West who knew that W. B. “Dubbie” Tanner, over the past fifteen years, had established himself as one of the foremost children’s book authors in the country. He was living on pennies, stashing royalties. He was expert on SEP-IRAs, small-cap, no-load growth funds, communications and biotech start-ups, and high-speed server networks.

  I identified myself to him.

  “Gettin’ fuckin’ chummy, callin’ on the damned phone, aren’t you? All you ever want is favors. Least you could do is venture down here to the low-rent part of town, scoot a few frosted mugs my way. But, no. You’re dialing me up on your cordless, nine-hundred megahertz, fifty-channel unit while my mouth is dry like an upside-down canoe. What’d’ya want?”

  I spoke in general terms—Wiley Fecko had moved closer, was listening in. Tanner got my drift, picked up on the fact that I had an audience.

  “Tell you what you do. I’ll need twenty-seven bucks for the hotel room.”

  “Hotel?”

  “City jail. I’ll sluice him down with bar gin, take him to Front Street, right across from the Aquarium, get him to stumble against a beat cop, breathe on him, cuss in front of a few tourists. Get him grabbed for petty vagrancy.”

  “I’m not sure that’s what we need.”

  “Hey, look, brother. He’ll get a ride to the city, they’ll delouse and bathe him. They’ll wash his clothes, give him a haircut and two meals. He’ll come out a new man. The twenty-seven’s for court costs, so he can stay in good standing. We can do it again in six weeks.”

  These street-life boys weren’t bucking the system. They were playing it like a well-tuned fiddle.

  I said, “Where can I meet you?”

  “Corner of Einstein and Franklin.” Tanner hung up. The coins, for the fifth time, dropped into my palm.

  A taxi cruised Fifth Avenue, looking for its fare. I handed the coins to Fecko. “Stay here and stash these,” I said.

  I separated myself from Fecko, hurried away, brushing my shirt as if to unload the bad luck in which Wiley dwelled. I hailed the cabbie, gave him a thankful expression for appearing, for saving me from the bum. The driver regarded me strangely, then saw Fecko dragging his belongings, trying not to be left behind in the parking lot. The driver got the picture. He stopped. I opened the rear door of the cab and positioned myself halfway inside so he couldn’t pull away. I stalled, argued, threw a twenty over the seat back and dropped the name of Darren, the cab company’s owner. I threatened to have the whole company busted for breaking federal discrimination laws. I knew Darren when he was a teenager, driving the only airport limo in town—a van with eight seats.

/>   Pissed, confused, the cabbie popped his trunk. He refused to help Fecko load his junk. I didn’t want Wiley to have to make two lumbering trips. But I was afraid to get all the way in and close the door so the cab could roll closer to the Rusty Anchor. At least the driver didn’t attempt a getaway with my feet on the pavement. Finally the useless bike was hooked to the trunk-mounted bicycle rack. Fecko got in the other side of the car. He handed me the plastic bag that held the coins and key. It would be my job to restash them.

  I leaned over the seat back and whispered, “If you try to drive past that deputy up there, you may as well kiss your ass adios. Take my word.”

  “I recognize you.” The driver gave me the hard eye in his mirror. “Your name’s Rutledge. The city’s looking for your sorry butt. You need to toss me another sawbuck and sit low in the seat.”

  17

  “This time of year, sunset’s early.” The cabdriver spittle-sprayed his dash as he spoke. The windshield fog was turning into a science experiment If he’d showered since New Year’s, he’d omitted shampoo. I wanted to think that the seats were stained with saddle soap. He sped down Truman, clocking forty.

  “Lucky you,” he said. “In darkness you can hide your face.”

  Lucky was out of town.

  I didn’t want this dunce to get pulled over. He’d use me as a blue chip. He could do burnouts on Front Street, screeching turns off Duval. He’d hand my ass to the city, cool the ticket, slide with a warning. I burrowed lower in my seat The taxi’s mildewed vinyl fought the good fight. But it came in second place. Fecko’s stench of malnutrition had combined with drive-thru burgers and onions I’d bought so I wouldn’t fade and Wiley wouldn’t croak on us. I was ripe as a dropping tide. Windows down didn’t help. I couldn’t blame the cabbie for wanting us out of his hack promptly. I handed him another twenty and asked for less throttle.