Hector came to his front door in threadbare suit trousers, suspenders, bare feet. The tank-top-style undershirt did little to contain his midsection. A museum-quality cowlick sprouted at his thin hair’s peak. He held a .45 in one hand, a bottle of Spanish brandy in the other. Firepower and firewater. I feared for the springer’s life. I changed my mind about needing help. I told Hector that I’d cased the joint. My house was safe for entry. No one waited to cap me, or to bust me for crimes committed, imagined or real. I had no need for an escort.
Hector wanted to come along, just the same. He argued in English, but with pure Cuban mannerisms. When he described his thinking, he pointed to his forehead. When he told me what he’d seen, he pointed to one eye. He’d heard something, he pointed to his ear. If he wanted to clarify meaning, or tell what he’d said, he pointed to his mouth. I wanted to point to his ass, tell him to go sit down.
“I’ll walk you across the lane,” he said.
“I’ll be fine, Hector.”
“Lotta bums in this island. We got to help each other.”
Continuing the conversation could only make it worse. I finally broke away. I crossed the lane, walked onto my porch, reached for my keys. They were still in the police property envelope that I’d jammed into my pocket on my way to freedom. I fished them out, took a chance.
No explosions, no flashing knives. I could tell by the cleanser smells that Carmen Sosa had scrubbed my kitchen sink. I keep an orderly house. She’s a fanatic. She’d left a note on the counter:
If you get home tonight, which Mercer Holloway promises you will, welcome home, you evil man. Someone has watered your parched plants, especially the poor bromeliad which doesn’t need as much in winter months, but it needs
some.
You haven’t been to your P.O. box since last Thursday, so I pulled this stack of mail. My papa is checking your house once an hour until he goes to bed. If you hear him outside, don’t freak out.Love,
Britney Spears
I shoved my clothing into the garbage bag I’d toted from Teresa’s place. No telling how many mutant infectious strains my pants had collected from the cop cruiser. If I kept up my wandering ways, perhaps I could requisition Superfund monies for laundry soap. I opened the refrigerator, checked the vegetable bin. Two beers. In my state of depletion, one would be too few and two would be more than enough. I took a chance and opened both.
Something bugged me. Having shed the mystery of whether I might be jumped or rearrested on returning home, my mind loosened up, wanted to say something. I pestered myself for the right answer until I finally formed the right question. After all the friction, after busting me with great pride, causing me to get my forehead flattened against the mesh divider in Officer Tisdell’s prowler, why had Hayes suddenly shown a change of heart?
I’d been conned by a cop. I wasn’t the only one holding back info.
The phone rang. How did it know?
Sheriff Liska said, “You just can’t get enough of Stock Island.”
“I’m saving to retire there. To hell with Marco Island and Longboat Key.”
“Why is that, Rutledge?”
“No street-work dust, no loud Harleys. And cheap real
estate, unspoiled by zoning restrictions. You get used to the F-18s.”
“We found the crispy critter. Did the rigmarole with your license tag.”
“I figured.”
“Story to go with it?” he said.
“I’m working up a version for my insurance company.”
“We can help you there, if you help us. Get you some cash, next time buy a Blazer.”
“Not funny,” I said.
“Wait’ll you see the towing company’s bill for burned hulk removal.”
“Thanks for cutting me loose.”
“I guess you’ve had a long night.”
“Does Robbie Carpona ride a dirt bike?”
“He told me about Carpona, too. Look, you may be a free man, but parts of your story are still coming up lame.”
“ ‘Bout time I heard a discouraging word. So many people wanted to help me tonight, I felt like Happy Henry in the Barrel. Now I know how a politician feels around lobbyists.”
“We’ll be in touch.” I heard no click. He, was gone.
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?”