by Tom Corcoran
I called Teresa’s number, got her machine. I said, “I’m free, at the house. Maybe you knew that, or knew I was going to be free. Anyway, give me a call. I’ve been worried about you, and I wanted to tell you I’m sorry for causing you embarrassment at the—”
Teresa said, “At least you could say it in person.”
I spun around. She stood on my porch in an orange tank top and spray-on biking shorts. The glow from the kitchen illuminated perspiration on her face and shoulders.
“Anyway,” she said, “to answer your question. You didn’t embarrass me except on behalf of my employers.”
I hung it up. “Hey, it’s the city.”
“You don’t see what I see, every day.” Teresa leaned against the door frame. “Believe it or not, since I’ve been here—what, seven months?—the Key West Police Department’s played by the book. Tonight, no. Procedures got chucked in the ocean. Standard rules of apprehension and booking went adios with the wind. Dexter Hayes was trying to prove something or learn something or fuck with me or fuck with you, but it was screwy. And he knew Marnie was in that interview room with you. I got the impression he figured whatever she did, it’d help his little cause.”
She was running out of steam, depleted, profoundly unhappy. I didn’t want her to quit, or cop a pissant attitude about her job. Until now she’d been proud of her position, confident among male co-workers, and eager. I wanted Teresa to blame her exhaustion on her bike ride.
“You’re in good shape. How did you get this way riding eight blocks?”
“I rode to Houseboat Row,” she said. “But I wanted to check in, tell you what was on my mind.”
She’d made a six-mile round-trip. It had been profound job frustration.
“Want a beer? Glass of chilled white?” I moved forward to hug her.
She stepped back. “My turn to need a shower. Someone bumped your face?” She reached for my beer bottle, upended it for a commendable slug.
“I smell like my fellow prisoners,” I said. “I’ll join you.”
“You’re so romantic. Give me two minutes to wash my hair.”
I reached for the kitchen wall, flipped the remote switch for my outdoor shower stall’s fifteen-watt night-light. I turned back around. Teresa stood there in her tank top and panties. I watched her peel off her shirt. I’d have to start a program of rehabilitation. She topped my long list of reasons never to risk freedom, never to go to jail.
“Bring me a towel?” She did something at her hip with both thumbs. Her panties slid past her bottom, down to her ankles. She stepped out with one foot. With the other she kicked upward, Rockette-style. The underwear went airborne. She grabbed them from the air, curtsied to beg applause, and went out the back screen door. I applauded.
I was carrying a fresh towel from the closet when she stepped back onto the porch, ladylike, all-biz, oblivious to her own nakedness. “What is this contraption out here?” She crooked her finger. I followed.
She opened the shower door. Dubbie Tanner, who knew my house, had stashed Wiley Fecko’s belongings in my shower stall. Three garbage bags, scuffed and split, leaking odors and artifacts. Wiley’s funnelator, his homemade shower with its hoses and douche bag and water bottle, lay atop it all.
“New tub toys, Alex?”
“I can explain everything, dear.”
“You can put it by the curb. The city picks up twice a week.”
“It belongs to Fecko, that homeless witness from Stock Island.”
“He’s staying here?”
I nodded. “I gave him my room. The least I could do.”
“Thank God.”
“Because I gave up my room?”
“Because now I know you’re bullshitting.” She looked into the shower. “I’ve lost my bathing mood. I want to go look at the ocean again.”
A bike ride. Waves. Horizon. Perspective. A unique concept
“Maybe,” she said, “you could buy him a spray bottle of Febreze.”
Teresa borrowed bathing trunks and a long-sleeved T from Lulu’s Sunset Grill that I’d brought back from the photo job in Magnolia Springs, Alabama. She grabbed a ball cap from Robicheaux’s Dock & Bait Shop in New Iberia, Louisiana. She was primed for the Gulf Coast, but headed for the island’s south side.
It has been years since Fausto’s bought Gulfstream Market, but it’s still strange to see that sign on White Street. We skirted rainwater puddled at the curbs, hogged center lane, thankful for light traffic. A cloud of garlic hung near Mo’s Restaurant A city cruiser approached, slowed. We lighted our flashlights to comply with the law. The cruiser kept rolling. We dodged the citation. When you’ve just beat an attempted murder rap, you don’t want to get tripped up by the small stuff.
“Tomorrow’s the full moon.” She pointed upward.
“It’s pulling me southward.”
The end of White Street Pier, for the second time in a day. This time with less mental turmoil. Bright moonlight painted the pier’s concrete pale violet and cast sharp, geometric shadows. Two women on Conch cruisers—old English three-speeds with milk-crate baskets and high handlebars—rode circles on the apron. They were half in the bag, laughing at each other, sharing a joke. Their care-freedom was another Key West resource endangered by growth and change. They spun a few more laps before they pedaled lazily up the pier. Teresa and I leaned our bikes against the southwest-corner seawall. I locked them to a handrail.
I said, ‘Talked to Marnie?”
“She’s changing her tune. She’s starting to get testy about her brother’s bad press. It’s not like his project is a major encroachment. After all these years of development, he’s like the straw that broke the camel’s back.” She paused, then said, “Can we not talk about it right now? Can we forget politics and crime and revenge and graft and crazies?”
“Yes, we can.”
We stood quietly, stared at the faint hazy band where water met the sky. Teresa snuggled against me. The line of weather that had passed while I was in handcuffs moved slowly to Cuba. Sparse lightning danced above moonlit cloud tops. Bright yellow reflections played on waves. The northwest wind carried muffled island sounds—a moped chorus, a distant car horn, shrieks and laughter from Higgs Beach. But none as loud as the soothing play of water at the pier posts. Matching the waves’ rhythm, Teresa shifted her hips, began to sway against my thigh.
I put my nose against the back of her neck. “Seashore bump and grind?”
“A magical dance to ward off evil.”
“It might shield you from violence, but not from sin.”
“I love it when you talk dirty.”
I put my hand under her shirt hem, moved it upward. “Muddy fingers.”
“Tell me more.”
“Old motor oil.”
Her hand went between us, behind her back. She moved it downward.
“Perhaps we should face the beach,” I said. “We’ll know who’s arriving.”
“You look that way.” She turned, faced me, opened my shorts as she spun me around, then pushed my hips to sit me on the cement bulkhead. “I want to come looking at the Gulf Stream.”
I lifted her onto my lap. She pulled aside the bathing suit’s center seam and uttered a soft groan. “Let’s try to hold still as long as we can,” she said.
“Umm, I can’t guarantee . . .”
“Joke,” she said, giggling, moving so her breasts rubbed my chest. “But if you could wait for me twice, I’d be ten times happier.”
I wanted to give her that much, but I wasn’t going to count sheep or think about car wrecks so I could slow down nature. I listened to waves slapping under the pier apron. The night was trying to be peaceful. I looked back at the shoreline, the two-hundred-yard view I’d scoped fifteen hours earlier when I’d worried about a siren headed my way. Now only crime lights and one more moped on Atlantic Boulevard.
Me and my paranoia.
My thinking about the morning helped me deliver Teresa’s first gift. I joined her from that point
on, thoughts focused, my hands caressing slick perspiration on her back. When she held me tighter, quivered, whimpered, I wondered if her eyes were open to watch waves.
After several minutes, after catching her breath, she pushed herself off me, looked around, stripped off the shirt and bathing trunks. “I’ve never made love on White Street Pier. Never been naked, either.”
“Don’t take off your shoes,” I said. “There’s always broken glass.”
“Can’t hurt me. I could walk on hot coals.”
A few minutes later we walked our bikes down the pier. “Funny,” she said. “My stepfather was on the dedication committee for this new construction. I wonder what he’d think about our initiation.”
“I doubt we’re the first”
“Yes, but he looks at me sometimes.”
“He’s an old Conch.”
“He’s a slime. Don’t tell my mother I said it.”
Three young dudes pedaled their bikes toward us. By body language I could tell they were sneering, up to no good. Future Bug Thorsbys, I thought I was not in the mood for trouble. One angled toward us, got close enough to try something. I steeled myself to deliver a bad surprise. Suddenly the kid said, “Evening, ma’am,” and rolled on.
Teresa chuckled. “His father’s an assistant county prosecutor.”
I thought Me and my paranoia.
Back at the house my answering machine awaited us: “Mercer Holloway here, Alex.” At midnight his voice morning-cheerful. “After your ordeal this evening, I’m guessing you need a treat Will you and Ms. Barga please join us for late brunch or early lunch at Blue Heaven? If I don’t hear regrets, make it twelve-fifteen. You would do us all a favor if you brought a camera and a roll of film. Souvenirs are too seldom gathered these days.”
The man was quick to play his chips.
I lifted the phone, said into the receiver, “Thank you, Mr. Holloway. I was just saying to Ms. Barga that brunch at Blue Heaven would beat takeout from Fausto’s deli.”
“You really want to?” Teresa was naked again, on the porch, with a towel slung over her shoulder. She slowly shook her head. “I don’t get you.”
“You said yourself that my pictures wouldn’t harm the island. I want to hear what he’s got to say. Why pass a free lunch?”
She looked puzzled, with a touch of disgust on her face.
I said, “You like to read mysteries, right?”
We both knew the answer. She stared at me for part two.
I said, “He’s in cahoots with Butler Dunwoody. Maybe a clue to solving the murders will jump out as you munch your pencil-thin asparagus gratinée.”
She said nothing. She remained standing there.
She was waiting for specific action.
I went to the shower and moved Fecko’s belongings to the locked shed where I stored my lawn mower. I gave her two minutes, then joined her.
20
Muffled thunder rumbled across the island. A dim flash of lightning woke us. Faint daylight outlined the blinds. The strange silence, one more time. The digital time blinked 00:00.
Another power failure. I hoped the subways weren’t stuck.
Teresa checked the clock, threw off the sheet, hit the floor running. A fine sight. She hadn’t brought office clothes. She’d have to go home before going to work. I boosted myself from bed, trudged barefoot into the living room, opened the door. Humid air wafted from the porch. I went to the kitchen, in dim light began coffee. Yard palms looked blue instead of green. My head felt full of sluggish blood, like a whiskey hangover. Probably from bouncing off the police car’s metal interior grate. Even the birds sang a depressed song. It would be a long, wet morning.
Then I remembered. No power, no coffee.
I’d left myself a note: “Holloway—Blue Heaven.” Mercer would pressure me again to photograph his “opportunities.” A real photo job might remove my mind from other crap. Maybe I could request that he post Tommy Tucker as my personal security guard. I thought back to Butler Dunwoody’s description of his property’s history. A closer knowledge of Mercer’s holdings might make it easier to accept his offer.
Thunder rolled again, more distant Carmen’s car left the lane. Teresa entered the kitchen dialing my cordless handset I looked at the phone. She looked at it, put it to her ear, hung it up.
I said, “What time does your stepfather get to work?”
“He leaves at seven. He does breakfast at Harpoon Harry’s until seven-forty. If it’s not raining he walks into the zoning office at exactly seven fifty-nine. If it’s raining, he’s one minute late.”
“I need an appointment?”
“Not if you carry a bag of doughnuts and a café con leche.”
I plugged in the old rotary for her. “Can he get me into the tax appraiser’s files?”
“Take a pint of Añejo for Cheap Juan Mendez,” she said.
“Can I take the rum straight to Mendez? Bypass your stepfather?”
“I recommend it.” She checked a stack of papers. “What’s all this?”
“Carmen picked up my mail for me.”
“Look at these postmarks,” she said. “Have you paid bills this month?”
“It’s a question of time.”
She looked at the stack and back at me. “Is it a question of money?”
“Do me one thing?” I said.
She answered with a half-awake quizzical expression.
“Think about the afternoon before we went up the Keys for dinner,” I said. “Try to remember if you told anyone where we were going.”
She called for a cab, then poked her head through the porch door. “Okay. If I talked about it, I can’t recall who or why.”
The rain had let up enough for her to wait on Fleming for the taxi. She kissed me good-bye. “Did the concrete scuff your bottom?”
It took me two beats too long to understand.
“Remember, White Street Pier? The moonlight? A naked lady?”
I saved my ass, caught it on the fly: “The seawall texture was that of a mild loofah sponge. Refreshing to the epidermal, a reminder of reality, yet a small factor of my happiness package.”
“I’m getting strong signals on my detector.”
“I woke up with fifteen things on my mind.”
“If you want,” she said, I’ll call Holloway and accept his kind invitation.” Teresa walked down the lane laughing.
I wanted to catch Wheeler before he left for the dock. I dialed Mamie’s cell phone. When she answered, I said, “Thank you for whatever.”
1 don’t usually make jailhouse calls,” she said. “They told me when I left that you’d walk before midnight Do you want him? He’s opening the door.”
“Yes, but I have one more question for you.”
She snagged Sam, then came back on. “You’re going to ask a favor.”
“Two, now that I think about it. Any scuttlebutt about Dexter Hayes in the skirt-chasing category?”
“He’s married.”
“I know,” I said. “I mean, like hitting on suspects or people he meets on the job?”
“I pay absolutely no attention to that kind of stuff.”
“Could you?”
“For two days, maximum. Then I shut it off. What else?”
“I need details on six unsolved city murders, three of which have been copied this week.”
“Three?”
“Last night.”
“Oh. I didn’t even think . . .” She paused. “Joe Hooks is working up a long piece on them, supposed to run in early February. A follow-up to the police-chief controversy.”
“Any chance of getting copies of everything the Citizen ran on scene descriptions, what the police revealed to the press?”
“I like this kind of favor, Alex Rutledge. I promised myself a lazy day. Shoveling newspaper into a copier is the mindless task I need. Here’s the captain.”
Sam, out of breath: “I’m out of here.”
“Client?”
“If he doesn’t wi
mp out by the weather.”
“Can you ask around, see if Jemison Thorsby’s really catching fish?”
“As opposed to . . .”
“The endless list of South Florida alternatives.”
Sam said, “Do we already know the answer?”
“In general, but not specifics. How’s he paying bills? Who’s he dealing with? Who’s on his team?”
“Have a nice day and be a good American.” He hung up.
Cecilia Ayusa’s broom whisked in the lane. I should buy the Ayusas a cable subscription. She could check the Weather Channel before wasting her cleanup efforts. I walked out slowly. I didn’t want to jolt her out of her dream state. I waited for her to notice me. She carried a paper sack and a dustpan.
“Who these bums in the lane?” she said.
“The police, you mean?”
“No, the bums bums. I kick them away, they say your name, they got to make a delivery. Got a old hot-water bottle, I don’t want to say what else. Got trash bags, I think, all the caca this week, dead bodies in those plastic bags.” She stooped to snag a solo leaf. “Hector, he gone to Budde’s to get his sticky-paper notepads. He think I remember my whole life, he put the notes everyplace in my house. I got notes on a bathroom sink. Notes on my bed.”
Cecilia found a pack of dry berries, leaned to sweep them into the dustpan. Before she’d dropped them into the bag, a gust of wind had replaced them with leaves and litter. I didn’t tell her.
At eight fifty-nine I stopped at the Tropical Package Store on Fleming. Then I rode down Bahama to the tax assessor’s office on Southard. I chained my bike to a rack in front of the bank.
Johnny “Cheap Juan” Mendez, the county tax appraiser, worked out of a leased storefront. Mendez stood five-six, had the scrappy look of someone who’d had to fight back most of his life. He spoke into the telephone at his secretary’s desk, lifted his chin to greet me. Every time he spoke, he sneered. An aerial photograph of Fort Jefferson at the Dry Tortugas hung on the west wall. The only other objects in the room were the desk, an adjustable-height chair, an armchair, a circular discount-store clock, and a tiny table stacked with outdated copies of Modern Maturity and Time. Oppressive fluorescent lighting threw a yellow-green tint. A radio played in the next office, boring “beautiful,” music, adjusted for minimum treble. I could smell Mendez’s breath from across the room, a deadly combo of cigarettes and black coffee.
