As Troy got closer, he saw the man’s face was twisted into an angry grimace and he grunted with vehemence on every shot. And then, all was quiet, save for the grinding of the machine’s gears and the man’s huffing breath. Troy took a step up onto the porch next to the court and was surprised to hear a woman’s screeching voice calling out from somewhere above—maybe an upstairs window.
“I think the goddamn thing’s empty, Lucas. It is past ten o’clock. Give it a rest.”
Her accent was thick and latin.
The man smashed his racket into the ground, splintering the head, and turned toward the house.
“I’ll do what I please, woman. Just like you, apparently.”
Troy heard her growl.
“It was a mistake, Lucas. Seriously. It is not like you have never flirted with a tennis bimbo.”
The man jerked a matching pink headband off his forehead. His hair was soaked and flopped down in an odd way. The right side hung down past his ear, but the left was trimmed close. The top of his head was cornrowed with dark plugs in an otherwise barren plain of skin. As if feeling Troy’s eyes on him, he reached a hand up and swiped the longer hair over the top to cover the plugs. Troy wasn’t sure he’d seen a worse comb-over.
“Manuela, screwing the maintenance man is not flirting. It’s … well, it’s screwing the help for Chrissakes!”
The man took two steps toward the porch and realized with a jolt that Troy was standing there.
“What the hell do you want?” the man demanded, pointing a finger at Troy. “Are you here to bang my wife, too?”
With the ball machine still whirring in the night, Troy cleared his throat. He reached into his pocket for the piece of paper he’d found at the Key Largo Kampground & Marina. He un-wadded it and held it up.
“I’m here about the job.”
The man looked up toward the hidden voice coming from above Troy. “Hey, hun, you’re in luck. Here’s a new maintenance man for you to—.”
He was interrupted by the sound of the window slamming shut. Troy was sure he heard the woman’s voice cursing muffled behind the closed glass.
“Did I come at a bad time?” Troy pointed his thumb over his shoulder. “I could come back tomorrow if you want.”
The man put his hands on his hips. He sighed as he tried to calm his panting breath.
“No. No. It’s fine. Just … just gimme a minute.”
He walked over to the ball machine and unplugged it. Troy walked out to the court and started picking up balls with the man, depositing handfuls back into the machine. The man bent over and his combover flopped down in front of his face. He swiped it back over the top without skipping a beat.
“I don’t hire bums or vagrants,” he said.
“I ain’t neither, sir.” Troy said. “Just an honest man lookin’ for work.”
The man took a deep breath and looked Troy up and down. “You don’t look like a tennis guy. You know anything about clay courts?”
“Yes, sir. I dressed ten of them up in Key Biscayne on a daily basis for a few years.”
“Key Biscayne,” the man said. “Well, well, well. Hoighty-toighty. Why’d you leave there?”
Troy’s mind flashed back to the murder of the Colpiller girl and the eventual kidnapping of her twin sister, Mindy. He shivered at the thought.
“Long story. Just didn’t work out.”
“Uh huh.”
“Look. I’m a traveler. Have been for most of the time I’ve spent back from Afghanistan. But I’m a hard worker and I need a place to stay. Your paper here says you’ve got a job and room and board. If you’ll give me a week, I’ll prove I’m your man. If you don’t agree, I’ll move along.”
The sound of glass breaking somewhere upstairs made the man jerk his gaze upward.
“Shit,” he said, running up the steps of the porch. “Let’s talk about this in the morning.”
“Oh, uh, okay,” Troy watched as the man ran past him. “So, um, meet you here tomorrow?”
As he disappeared up the stairs to the apartment above the shop, he called, “There’s a hammock at the back of the porch. You’re welcome to crash there.”
Troy heard a door slam followed by angry muffled voices. He shrugged his shoulders and walked past the rocking chairs to the back of the porch. There, behind a wall of lattice, he saw an old, white hammock, swaying in the light breeze.
He tossed his backpack down beside it and went back around to the first rocking chair. Discovering that it looked to be on its literal last leg, he moved on to the next one and slumped into it. It was comfortable and the air was exactly the right temperature for rocking. He settled into a nice rhythm hoping the couple’s argument wouldn’t keep him awake for very long. It didn’t.
Troy woke the next morning to find that a drizzle had watered the courts nicely overnight so running the sprinklers wouldn’t be necessary. Luckily, his hammock—which he must have moved to sometime in the wee hours of the night—was tucked back under the roof of the long porch so he was dry and fully rested. It only took fourteen tries and three blisters to get the rusted yellow lawn tractor started. He hooked a wide brush onto the back with a bungee cable and pulled the ramshackle grooming zamboni out onto the first court. Before it backfired the first time, he heard yelling coming from the upstairs apartment over the pro shop.
He reached down and turned the key, silencing the tractor. He was about to get off when he saw a leopard print suitcase come tumbling down the stairs and flop out into the gravel parking lot. The lid flew open and clothes went flying. Ladies underwear in all manner of colors and glittery sequins that would’ve made a stripper blush exploded out of the case as it popped open. Shortly after that, a woman in red patent leather stilettos clip-clopped down the steps with the grace of a newborn calf. Troy half expected her to tumble as well, but she managed to make it to the bottom without incident.
Then he heard the door open again and another, smaller, matching suitcase sailed over the railing and crunched down in a heap next to the woman. The assortment of bottles, cotton balls, tubes, sponges, brushes, and other unidentifiable objects that rained down around the busted luggage was more than Troy thought should have been able to occupy the small space. He took off his hat and wiped his brow. It was already hot and the sun hadn’t risen above the surrounding mangroves yet.
So much for gettin’ another cool morning in the Keys, he thought. As he walked toward the woman, she bent down and started tossing the strewn toiletries back into the case. He couldn’t help but notice the curve of her backside in the skin-tight white denim shorts she was wearing. As she leaned further, he saw the tell-tale blue-black ink of a lower back tattoo peeking out as well. Mamacita.
Under her breath, Troy could hear her grunting curses in Spanish and English and halfway in between. She gripped a blue toothbrush in a white-knuckled fist dotted with hot pink nails. Her eyes squinted and she stood up, arm raised toward the upstairs door.
“This is yours, you pig,” she shouted.
She spit on it, threw it in the dirt, and ground her foot on top of it, smashing it into the gravel.
“Might I be of assistance, ma’am?” Troy asked, raising his hands in surrender fashion.
“Who the fuck are you?” she demanded, whirling around to face him.
“New maintenance man.”
Troy saw her eyes flick up and down his body, appraising him. Her left eyebrow twitched up slightly, and the corners of her mouth might have raised a little.
“Is that right?” she said. “Well, I feel sorry for you having to be around that asshole.”
She lifted a fist and shook it at the doorway above the stairs. She looked back at Troy and once again, her eyes lingered on his chest. He cleared his throat and nodded toward the road. A black, Chevy Tahoe was pulling into the lot. It made a gravel-throwing circle to face back out of the driveway, and the passenger door flew open as it stopped. The windows were too dark for Troy to see in, but the music rattling the car’s panels wa
s distinctly Spanish.
“Yo, Manuela,” a voice called out over the din. “Let’s go! Let’s go!”
“Good luck to you and Señor jackass up there,” she said, raising her middle finger and shaking it vigorously. “I hope he treats you better than he treated me.”
“Or at least as good as you treated the last maintenance man?”
Her eyebrows lowered and her mouth flew open presumably to unleash a torrent of anger at Troy, but the voice in the car yelled again and the horn honked.
She flipped Troy off, wrapped her arms around the two broken suitcases and stomped on wobbly legs toward the Tahoe. Underwear and cotton balls dropped out like a fairy tale candy trail behind her. She slammed the door and the SUV hit the gas. Gravel flew up from the wheels and Troy ducked his head, dodging the hail of rocks. When it hit the pavement, the Tahoe’s tires squealed on the asphalt and they tore away North on the Overseas Highway in a storm of furious maracas and suspiciously pungent smoke.
And that’s when Troy heard the gunshot from the apartment above the pro shop.
5
Goin’ Back To Miami
Troy didn’t think twice, he just ran up the stairs, taking them three at a time. His not-so-great knee protested, but he ignored it. The torrent of obscenities and the manic screaming reminded him of Afghanistan. On more than one occasion, his fellow soldiers had displayed an artistic command of the most foul words found not only in the English language, but at least three others as well.
Troy saw the door was open, and as the wailing inside intensified, he rushed inside. He fully expected to see that Lucas Walsh had shot himself—or failed at the attempt causing agonizing, scream-inducing injury. What he saw instead was not only shocking, but slightly embarrassing as well.
The suddenly estranged tennis pro was standing in the middle of the probably canine-shredded brown carpet, drenched in sweat, pointing a pistol at the door. Troy stopped short and threw his hands up.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa now, partner,” he said, seeing the man’s fingers clinch around the grip of the revolver. “Don’t shoot. Let’s just take it down a notch.”
“And why the hell should I do that?” Lucas yelled and jabbed the barrel toward the open door. “My girl has, in the space of a couple of weeks, screwed the maintenance man, and as you probably just witnessed, run off with her asshole, drug-dealing cousin from South Beach. And you think I should take it down a notch.”
Troy shrugged his shoulders. “I do.”
Without blinking an eye, the man raised the pistol to the ceiling and pulled the trigger. The blast stabbed Troy’s ears with pain as chunks of drywall and fluffy pink insulation showered them both. A shrill ringing echoed in his ears and he raised his hands to cover them though it was too late. Lucas fired again and more debris fell around them.
Troy yelled at the man, but his hearing was so muffled, that he could barely tell what he was saying himself. The man shook his head and wiped his dusty, tear-streaked face with one hand. It was at this point that Troy realized the dude was naked except for a t-shirt ironically printed with a bright yellow logo that read: Fuzzy Yellow Balls. No pants, no underwear, no socks, and no shoes. Just fuzzy balls of a different color.
In the new silence of the hazy room, time seemed to slow down. It wasn’t exactly the hail of bullets Troy remembered in the incident that took Harry Nedman’s legs and, not long after, his life, but the danger felt the same. Guns are the great equalizer. It doesn’t matter where you were born, who your parents are, or what your station in life is, a round from a gun of the size that Lucas Walsh was holding, would kill … equally. And as Troy watched the man sobbing and shaking from his head down to his—well, his Fuzzy Yellow Balls—he knew the man was on a path to destruction, destruction of himself, and possibly destruction of Troy. He lunged.
Lucas saw this as it was happening and raised the gun. The barrel swung up slowly, still caught in the slow motion of intense and deadly peril. He pointed the black, gaping hole of doom at Troy and pulled the trigger. Troy ducked his head, hoping that the Outback tea-stained cowboy hat had suddenly developed the impenetrability of a kevlar vest. The click that came from the pistol echoed in the room almost as loud as the previous gunshot. Troy felt a gasp of relief hit him just as his face hit lower than his expected target. Having ducked his head, he’d changed his planned trajectory at the man’s chest. For many years after the incident, neither Troy, nor Lucas would discuss what exactly had happened when Troy tackled the distraught tennis pro.
The part they both acknowledged—after a suitable pair of shorts were placed on Lucas—during an hour of heartfelt conversation sitting at the brown, folding card table in the kitchen was that the tennis pro still loved Manuela. Even with all her faults, he told Troy, she was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
“But what do I do now?” Lucas said, like a man with his fingertips clutching the edge of a cliff.
Troy’s mind drifted back to Debby. Wow, that seems like it was a million years ago. He tried to place when it had actually occurred, but couldn’t nail it down. Suffice to say, a whole lot had happened to him between now and then.
Looking at Lucas now, he wondered if he’d actually gotten as low down and broken as this guy was when it came to loving—or maybe it was hating—the hurricane that was Debby. It might have worked out after all if it hadn’t been for that pesky detail of a husband. A tear slipped out of the tennis pro’s eye and slid down his cheek. This sure seemed like love to Troy, if he even really knew what love looked like.
He tapped the card table with a firm finger. “Ya gotta put on your big-boy pants and go get her. That’s what you gotta do.” Lucas wiped the tear away from his cheek and sniffed back the gob of mucus that was threatening to drip from his nostrils. He took a deep breath and nodded slowly.
“You’re absolutely right.”
He stood up and smacked his hand down on the card table. The wobbly leg crumpled sending the table smashing down onto Troy’s lap. He wasn’t certain, but the rusty lip of the thing might have cut his thighs. He’d check that later.
Lucas ran into the bedroom and emerged more quickly than Troy expected. He had a black, Nike duffel bag thrown over his shoulder. He tossed Troy a jangly key ring with at least a dozen keys on it. He pulled his wallet from his back pocket and handed Troy two crisp one hundred dollar bills.
“You’re in charge. Keep the store stocked with fresh drinks and don’t screw anything up while I’m gone.” He looked down at his watch. “I’ll be back before Friday.”
And with that, he ran through the door and left Troy sitting with the table still propped precariously on his legs.
He lifted the jumble of keys and sniffed. “Well, that could’ve gone worse.”
He was surprised to see Lucas jog back into the room. The man scanned the dirty apartment, found what he was looking for, and winked at Troy. He reached down to the floor, picked up the empty pistol, and shoved it into his waistband.
“Good luck,” he said, rushing out into the night.
“Dangit,” said Troy.
6
The Beat Of A Different Drummer
Dante “The Don” Caparelli folded his hands on top of the damp, dimpled paper drink menu. Across the top, the headline announced that Woody’s in the Keys served the hardest drinks south of Miami. Just to the left of his arm lay his fourth generation iPhone—now a relic. His wife—God rest her soul—had nagged him about getting a new one, but Dante always brushed her off. The damn thing made calls and that was all he expected it to do. He didn’t spend his precious time tapping on candies or building up medieval armies. It was all bullshit designed to keep your head tucked firmly up your ass anyways and he didn’t have time for that.
But right this second, he was watching the phone, willing it to ring and working out the words he would say into the receiver when Matty finally manned-up and called him. An ungodly smash, followed by what sounded like a dump truck flipping over erupted behind him. If he’
d had his cane, he might’ve jumped up, but it was presently lying on the floor a few feet away. It had been there since around ten o’clock when one of the not-too-happy-with-her-tips-tonight dancers had gathered her things and stomped out the door, her dangling, sequined garments wrapping around his walking stick and toppling it to the ground. The war—the second great one—had gifted him a fused knee. He didn’t need the cane for much, but oddly, standing up from a barstool was the one damn thing it did help with.
He looked over his shoulder toward the band stage. The band called Big Dick and the Extenders had played at Woody’s for longer than Dante had owned it. Legend had it that they had been playing on that lot before the strip club had been built on it, but Dante knew that was a load of horseshit. Then again Jack Snipes, the ancient hippopotamus of a man who called himself Big Dick for the stage, sat in his familiar wooden chair, Fender guitar high across his chest, screeching out the lyrics to Simple Man. He was either completely unaware that the drum set had come apart and tumbled down around him, or his hearing was so bad, that he didn’t notice. Either way, the overflow of a man finished his song, then looked around to see the rest of the band in shambles, staring at the fallen drums.
“Dammit, where is Matty?” Dante murmured to himself.
He swiveled back toward the bar and picked up his phone. No messages, no calls, no voicemails, no nothing.
“Nothing from the kid yet, eh?”
“Nope,” Dante said, smacking the phone back onto the yellow, peeling varnish. “I think I’m gonna need a scotch, Sully. Glenfiddich, none a that cheap bottom shelf crap.”
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