Tourist Season

by Carl Hiaasen

  “I won’t tell you!”

  Wilson slipped one hand around Renee’s freckled neck. It felt soft and cool. He gave a sharp, tennis-ball squeeze; that was plenty.

  “David Richaud,” Renee said, starting to sob. “R-i-c-ha-u-d.”

  Viceroy Wilson carefully wrote down the name. “And where are you staying?”

  “At the Royal Sonesta.”

  “Thank you, Renee, my sweet,” said Jesús Bernal, bobbing at the foot of the bed.

  “Shut up and type,” said Wilson, shoving the paper at his companion. Bernal bounced over to the kitchen table and sat down at a portable electric typewriter.

  Viceroy Wilson turned to his victim and said, “Do you believe that fuckhead went to Dartmouth?”

  Jesus Bernal may have come to the cause with impressive credentials, but he was not highly regarded by Viceroy Wilson. Jesus Bernal had once held the title of defense minister for a rabid anti-Castro terrorist group called the Seventh of July Movement. The group was named for the day in 1972 when its founders had launched a costly and ill-fated attack on a Cuban gunboat off the Isle of Pines. In later years an acrimonious dispute had arisen over the name of the group, with some members claiming that the Isle of Pines attack had actually occurred on the sixth of July, and demanding that the group should be renamed. A compromise was reached and eventually the terrorists became known as the First Weekend in July Movement.

  Throughout the late 1970s this organization took credit for a large number of bombings, shootings, and assassination attempts in Miami and New York. According to the Indian, Bernal was named defense minister chiefly because of his Ivy League typing skills. As Viceroy Wilson knew, one of the most vital roles in any terrorist group was the composing of letters to take credit for the violence. The letters had to be ominous, oblique, and neatly typed. Jesus Bernal was very good in this assignment.

  He had been recruited to Las Noches de Diciembre after a bitter falling-out with his comrades in the First Weekend in July Movement. Actually Bernal had been purged from the group, but he never talked about why, and Viceroy Wilson had been warned not to ask. He tolerated Bernal, but he had no instinctive fear whatsoever of the Cuban. And he was getting awful damn tired of this macho switchblade bullshit.

  “We’re moving out soon,” Wilson told Renee LeVoux. He balled up the towel and started to stuff it back in her mouth.

  “Wait,” she whispered. “Why did you tell me your names?”

  Wilson shrugged.

  “You’re going to kill me, aren’t you?”

  “Not if you can swim,” Wilson said, inserting the gag. “And I mean fast.”

  Renee’s eyes widened and she tried to scream. The more she tried, the redder she got, and all that came out was a throaty feline noise that filled the tawdry motel room. She tossed back and forth on the bed, fighting the ropes, trying to spit out the gag, until Viceroy Wilson finally said “Dammit!” and whacked her once in the jaw, knocking her cold.

  Meanwhile, preoccupied at the Smith-Corona, the man writing for El Fuego began to type:Dear Mssr. Richaud:

  Welcome to the Revolution!

  Four items of special interest to Brian Keyes appeared in the Miami Sun of December 6.

  One was a lengthy front-page story about the jailhouse suicide of Ernesto Cabal, accused killer of B. D. “Sparky” Harper. One hour before the tragic incident, Cabal had complained of stomach pains and been transported to the infirmary, where he drank a half-pint of Pepto-Bismol and declared that he was cured. While confined to the clinic, however, Ernesto apparently had pilfered a long coil of intravenous tubing, which he smuggled back to his cell. No one checked on him for hours, until they found him cold and dead at dinnertime. Using the I.V. tube as a noose, Cabal had managed to hang himself, naked as usual, from a water pipe. The duty sergeant remarked to the Sun that it was difficult to make a really good noose out of plastic tubing, but somehow Cabal had done it. When asked why none of the other inmates on the cell block had alerted the guards to Ernesto’s thrashings, the sergeant had explained that the little Cuban “was not all that popular.”

  The second item to catch Keyes’s attention (he was reading on a musty sofa next to the aquarium in his office, where he had spent the night) was the inaugural column of Ricky Bloodworth. The headline announced: “Miami Rests Easier as Harper Mystery Ends.” The column was a fulsome tribute to all the brilliant police work that had landed Ernesto Cabal in jail and driven him to his death. “He knew the evidence was overwhelming and he knew his freedom was over,” Bloodworth wrote, “so he strangled himself to death. He was nude, alone, and guilty as sin.” Then came a quote from the big redheaded detective, Hal, who said that the Harper case was closed, as far as he was concerned. “This is one of those rare times when justice triumphs,” Hal beamed.

  Keyes noticed that there was no quote from Al García. And there was no mention of the El Fuego letters.

  The third article of interest was not very long, and not prominently displayed. The story appeared on page 3-B, at the bottom, beneath a small headline: “Police Seek Missing Woman.” The article reported that one Renee LeVoux, twenty-four years old, a visitor from Montreal, had been abducted from the parking lot of the world-famous Miami Seaquarium shortly before five P.M. the previous day. Incredibly, there were no witnesses to the crime. Miss LeVoux’s male companion, whom police declined to identify, had been knocked unconscious by a single blow to the back of the neck, and was of no help. Anyone with information about Miss LeVoux’s whereabouts was encouraged to call a Crime Stoppers phone number.

  Brian Keyes made a mental note to find out more about that one.

  Finally he spotted the one news item that he’d actually been looking for. Mercifully it was buried on 5-B, next to the advertisements for motorized wheelchairs.

  The headline said: “County Lawyer Stabbed in Melee.” Splendid, Keyes thought ruefully, it made the final edition after all. Keyes wondered if the Sun had gotten the story right, and forced himself to read:An attorney for the Dade County public defender’s office was assaulted Wednesday night at the Royal Palm Club.

  Mitchell P. Klein, 26, was standing at the bar when he was suddenly attacked by another patron, police said. The assailant pulled Klein’s hair, ripped at his clothes, and tried to choke him, according to witnesses. As Klein attempted to break away, his attacker threw him to the floor and stabbed him in the tongue with a salad fork, police said.

  The suspect, described as a well-dressed white male in his early thirties, escaped before police arrived. Witnesses said the man did not appear to be intoxicated. Klein was taken to Flagler Memorial Hospital, where he was treated for minor injuries and released early this morning. Due to oral surgery, he was unavailable for comment.

  Careless reporting, Keyes grumbled, as usual.

  For one thing, it hadn’t been a salad fork, but one of those dainty silver jobs designed for shrimp cocktails and lobster. Second, he and Mitch Klein hadn’t been standing at the bar, they were sitting in a booth.

  Still, it had been a reckless gesture, something Skip Wiley himself might have tried. Keyes wondered what had gotten into him. Was he finally losing his grip? Assaulting an officer of the court in a nightclub, for God’s sake, in front of a hundred witnesses. He couldn’t believe he’d done it, but then he couldn’t believe what Klein had said as they were talking about Ernesto’s suicide.

  “The only reason you’re upset,” Klein had said, “is that the case is over, and so’s your payday.”

  This, after Keyes had told him all about the Fuego letters, all about Viceroy Wilson, all about Dr. Joe Allen’s opinion that Ernesto Cabal was the wrong man. After all this—and four martinis—Mitch Klein still had the loathsome audacity to say:

  “Brian, don’t tell me you really gave a shit about that little greaseball.”

  That was the moment when Keyes had reached across the table, seized Klein by his damp curly hair, and deftly speared the lawyer’s tongue with the cocktail fork. No choking. No ri
pping of clothes. No grappling on the floor. There was, however, a good bit of fresh blood, the sight of which surely contributed to the later embellishments of eyewitnesses.

  Keyes had gotten up and left Mitch Klein blathering in the booth, the silver fork dangling from his tongue, blood puddling in the oysters Bienville.

  And that had been the end of it.

  Now, the next morning, Keyes was certain the cops would arrive any minute with a warrant.

  Actually it turned out to be Al García, all by himself.

  He knocked twice and barged in.

  “What a pit!” he said, looking around.

  “Why, thank you, Al.”

  García sullenly peered into the murky fish tank.

  “Don’t smear up the glass,” Keyes said.

  “Those are the ugliest guppies I ever saw,” García said.

  “They’re catfish,” Keyes said. “They eat up the slime.”

  “Well, they’re doing a helluva job. It looks like somebody pissed in this aquarium.”

  “Anything’s possible,” Keyes muttered. He lay on the sofa, the newspaper spread across his chest. Garcia picked it up and pointed to the article about Mitch Klein.

  “Did you do this, Brian?”

  “1 got mad. Klein went to see Ernesto yesterday and told him the case was locked. Told him he didn’t have a chance. Told him to plead guilty or they were going to charbroil him. Ernesto wanted to fight the charges but Klein told him to quit while he was ahead. Ernesto was going nuts in jail, all the queers chasing him. He had that incredible tattoo on his joint. The one I told you about.”

  “Fidel Castro.”

  “Yeah,” Keyes said. “Well, some maniac tried to bite it off one night in the shower. Thought if he chomped off Ernesto’s dick, it would kill the real Fidel in Havana. Witchcraft, he said. Somehow Ernesto got away from the guy, but he was scared out of his mind. He said he’d do anything to get out of jail. So when Klein told him he’d better plan on twenty-five to life, I guess Ernesto figured he was better off dead.”

  “But Brian—”

  “Why didn’t that cocksucker Klein talk to me before he went over to the jail? That case wasn’t locked, no way. You know I’m right, Al.”

  “All I know,” the detective said, “is that we’ll never know. You gotta calm down, brother.”

  Keyes closed his eyes. “Maybe I’m just mad at myself. I should have told Klein about El Fuego as soon as I saw the second letter. But how was I to know the sonofabitch was in such a hurry to dump the case? Whoever heard of pleading your man five days after the goddamn crime?”

  “He thought it was a loser,” Garcia said. “He was just trying to expedite things.”

  Keyes sat up angrily, looking ragged.

  “Expedite things, huh? Well, he expedited his client right into the morgue.”

  Garcia shrugged. “You hungry?”

  “I thought you were here to arrest me.”

  “Naw. Klein’s making noises about pressing charges. Assault with a deadly cocktail fork, something like that. Fortunately for you, nobody at the state attorney’s office likes the little prick, so he’s having trouble getting a warrant. He’d probably forget all about it if you’d pay his hospital bill. Can’t be much—what’s six little sutures on the tongue?”

  Keyes smiled for the first time. “I suppose it’s the least I could do.”

  “Make him an offer,” Garcia advised. “If you’re lucky, you might not even have to say you’re sorry.”

  “What about the Harper case?”

  “You read the paper. It’s closed, man. Nothing I can do.”

  “But what about Bellamy and the other Fuego letter?”

  “Talk to Missing Persons,” Garcia said dryly, “and they’ll call it a probable accidental drowning. And they’ll say, ‘What letter?’ ”

  The detective lumbered around the office, poking at books and files, flipping through notebooks, taking up time. Keyes could tell that something was bugging him.

  “For what it’s worth,” Garcia said finally, “I agree with you. There’s more to the Harper murder than the late great Ernesto Cabal. I bitched and moaned about keeping the case open, but I got outvoted.”

  “What’re they afraid of?”

  “It’s the start of the the season,” Garcia said. “Snowbirds on the wing, tourist dollars, my friend. What’s everyone so afraid of? Empty hotel rooms, that’s what. A gang of homicidal kidnappers is not exactly a PR man’s dream, is it? The boys at the Chamber of Commerce would rather drink Drano than read El Fuego headlines. Not now, Brian, not during the season.”

  “So that leaves me the Lone Ranger,” said Keyes.

  “I’ll do what I can,” Garcia said, “quietly.”

  “Great. Can you get the state to pay my fee?”

  The detective laughed. “No, Kemosabe, but I got you a present. An honest-to-God clue. Remember the tag on the Cadillac at Pauly’s Bar?”

  “Sure,” Keyes said. “GATOR 2.”

  “Well, guess who it comes back to.”

  “The legendary Viceroy Wilson!”

  “Nope. The Seminole Nation of Florida, Incorporated.”

  “Swell,” Keyes said, flopping back on the couch. “That’s some swell clue, Tonto.”

  Cab Mulcahy arrived at work early, canceled two appointments, and asked his secretary to please hold all calls, except one. For the next three hours Mulcahy sat in his office and eyed the telephone. He loosened his necktie and pretended to work on some correspondence, but finally he just closed the drapes (to shield himself from the rest of the newsroom) and sat down in a corner chair. Through the window, Biscayne Bay was radiant with a sailboat regatta; Hobies skimmed and sliced fierce circles, leaping each other’s wakes, orange and lemon sails snapping in the warm morning breeze. It was a gorgeous race under an infinite blue sky, but Cab Mulcahy paid no attention. It was one of the darkest days of his career. Ricky Bloodworth’s column had turned out just as half-baked, unfocused, and banal as Mulcahy knew it would be. Yet he had thrown away twenty-two years of integrity and printed it anyway.

  Why?

  To flush Skip Wiley from his hideout.

  It had seemed like a good plan. No sense blaming Keyes.

  But what had Mulcahy done? He’d unleashed a monster, that’s what. He glanced again at the phone. Where the hell was Wiley? How could he sit still while a jerk like Bloodworth came after his job?

  Mulcahy pondered one plausible explanation: Skip Wiley was dead. That alone would account for this silence. Perhaps a robber had snatched him from his car on the expressway and killed him. It was not a pleasant scenario, but it certainly answered the big question. Mulcahy figured that death was the only thing that would slow Wiley down on a day like today. The more Cab Mulcahy thought about this possibility, the more he was ashamed of his ambivalence.

  He could hear the phone ringing every few minutes outside the door, at his secretary’s desk. Readers, he thought, furious readers. How could he tell them, yes, he agreed, Bloodworth’s writing was disgraceful. Yes, it’s a bloody travesty. Yes, he’s a congenital twit and we’ve got no business publishing crap like that.

  Much as he wanted to, Mulcahy could never say all that, because journalism was not the issue here.

  There was a firm, well-rehearsed knock on the door. Before Mulcahy could get up, Ricky Bloodworth stuck his head in the room.

  “I hate it when you do that,” Mulcahy said.

  “Sorry.” Bloodworth handed him a stack of columns. “Thought you might want to take a gander at these.”

  “Fine. Go away now.”

  “Sure, Mr. Mulcahy. Are you feeling okay?”

  “A little tired, that’s all. Please shut the door behind you.”

  “Any one of those could run tomorrow,” Bloodworth said. “They’re sort of timeless.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind.”

  Mulcahy sagged behind his desk and scanned the columns. With each sentence he grew queasier. Bloodworth had generously
penciled his own headline ideas at the top of each piece:

  “Abortion: What’s the Big Deal?”

  “Capital Punishment: Is the Chair Tough Enough?”

  “Vietnam: Time to Try Again?”

  Mulcahy was aghast. He buzzed his secretary.

  “Seventy-seven calls about today’s column,” she reported. “Only three persons seemed to like it, and one of them thought it was satire.”

  “Has anyone phoned,” Mulcahy asked, “who remotely sounded like Mr. Wiley?”

  “I’m afraid not.”

  Mulcahy’s stomach was on fire; the coffee was going down like brake fluid. He opened the curtains and balefully scouted the newsroom. Ricky Bloodworth was back at his desk, earnestly interviewing two husky men in red fez hats. Mulcahy felt on the verge of panic.

  “Get me Brian Keyes,” he told his secretary. Enough was enough—he’d given Keyes his lousy twenty-four hours. Now it was time to find Skip Wiley, dead or alive.

  9

  “How’s the fish?”Jenna said.

  “Very good,” said Brian Keyes.

  “It’s a grouper. The man at the market promised it was fresh. How’s the lemon sauce?”

  “Very good,” Keyes said.

  “It’s a little runny.”

  “It’s fine, Jenna.”

  She lowered her eyes and gave a shy smile that brought back a million memories. A smile designed to pulverize your heart. For diversion, Keyes took a fork and studiously cut the fish into identical bite-size squares.

  “I liked your hair better when it was shaggy,” Jenna said. “Now you look like an insurance man.”

  “I’m in court so much these days. Gotta look straight and reliable up on the witness stand.”

  Keyes wondered how much small talk would be necessary to finesse the awkward questions: Where’ve you been? What’ve you been up to? Did you get our Christmas card? He was no good at small talk, and neither was Jenna. Jenna liked to get right to the juicy stuff.

  “Are you seeing anybody?”