Bone Island Mambo (3 page)

I baited the hook, stuck out my arm and the camera. The knife moved upward an inch. Hell. This wasn’t a rip-off. I was a target Handing over meat was not going to appease the tiger. As soon as the shitbird thought I was in range, the sharp metal would swipe at my arm. Then he’d grab my other hand, pull me in for a deep back puncture, a lung or a kidney.

To break his concentration, I dropped the camera, formed a fist with my hand. I swung my forearm in a circle, like stirring a pot Shorty focused on the moving fist,
brought his knife to waist level, pointed it at my belly button. He didn’t notice the rotating momentum of the Olympus until the camera swung up like a shot banged his head just forward of his ear. My follow-through put me in perfect position: I kicked him in the nuts. A hard, solid connection between his slightly spread legs. An audible smack.

The tall one was almost on me. I needed Shorty completely out of the game. I sidestepped the carpet cutter and let go a scoop kick. It buckled Shorty’s knee. I switched feet and kicked again. The second jab caught his leg broadside. This time I felt and heard his knee go. He toppled, grabbed his partner for support, robbed him of his balance. I swung the camera like a bolo. The tall one’s head bounced backward. He grimaced, tried to stand upright, then spit teeth and blood.

The screech was not from the injured men. The low-slung pickup burned rubber in reverse, coming at me, the open passenger-side door flapping like a black wing. The truck skidded to a stop. The driver jumped out, identical attire except for his backward ball cap. He pointed a strange gun. The way he moved tweaked my memory. I knew his name—Bug Thorsby—and family reputation—god-awful. Neither out of synch with the confrontation.

Drawn by the tires’ noise, silent onlookers began to gather. The driver understood the need for retreat. He tore off his tank top, draped it over the truck license tag—too late, but not in his mind—and managed to shove his wounded comrades into the truck. As a parting gesture he turned toward me, aimed the pistol at my chest, and fired. I felt the hit, the rush of liquid, pain and a coldness. I stumbled backward. I looked down.

A monkey-puke green splotch on my shirt. He’d hit me with a paint-pellet gun. It hurt like hell. I smelled like cheap salad dressing.

The truck sped away, as did most of the witnesses.

“You okay?” Don Kincaid, from the charter sailboat
Stars and Stripes,
offered me a towel from his motor scooter’s basket. A fellow photographer, he worried more
about my Olympus than my clothing. The paint-freckled camera was intact. Don told me the license number.

Another bystander, whom I recognized—a regular customer at the Sunbeam Market—offered to call 911 on her cell phone. I shook my head, then noticed the true miracle. In the excitement and action, no one had stolen my Cannondale bicycle.

Kincaid said he had to go. I assured him I was okay. I just needed to catch my breath. I leaned against my bike and looked up the street I couldn’t dodge the feeling that someone had put the kiddie-thugs on me. Julie Kaiser had said she’d seen Heidi Norquist on her cell phone. No sense in that connection, but this was Key West

The rest of Caroline had shed its turmoil. The Blazers and Expeditions and Cherokees had quit fighting for space. The brunch line at Pepe’s was down to the last three, each customer reading a newspaper. The sun shone bright pale yellow. The sky glowed pure blue. The restored Red Doors Inn gleamed with fresh white and vermilion paint A peaceful Sunday morning in paradise. Someone could argue that the island was improving with age.

I heard a sharp snap, a carpet cutter opening.

There was no one within twenty yards of me.

Just my imagination.

A few hours earlier, my morning had begun on a light note. After waking with Teresa Barga in her Shipyard condo, we’d shared wonderful, energetic love, the toothpaste, Cuban coffee, the toothpaste again. Then yellow-label Entenmann’s pastries, and the
Miami Herald.
She’d shrugged off my suggestion that we spend the day in a kayak. She wanted the time to herself, to catch up on paperwork. In her eighth month as the Key West Police Department press liaison, she was confirming that the crime rate, and her job load, increased during tourist season. I wasn’t happy having to compete with the city for her time on a Sunday. The upside was my admiration for her work ethic, a rare trait in Key West.

Teresa and I had met five months earlier at city hall. She’d been new in town, we’d both been “single” for months. We were attracted by curiosity, humor, and common interests: being on the water and, during bad weather, reading good books. We’d been constant companions since then.

Wearing only a nightshirt, Teresa had walked me to her door, patted my rear end, kissed me. She’d said, “Take care, lover. It’s a jungle out there.”

I’d boasted, “Show me the vine. I’m a swinger.”

She’d laughed. I’m a laugh a minute.

I rode home from Caroline Street to get rid of my paint-stained shirt. I found my neighbor Cecilia Ayusa, in Dredgers Lane, picking up fallen palm fronds, dead leaves, and litter. She’d always kept a perfect yard. But she had a new compulsion to clean the street. None of the neighbors, including her daughter and granddaughter, Carmen Sosa and Maria Rolley, had mustered the moxie to question her preoccupation. I wondered if she had reason to fear larger judgment, was trying to please the Chief Inspector. Even Castro had hedged his eternal standing by tempering his four-decade suppression of religion. He’d allowed the Pope eight days of secondhand cigar smoke. If tweezing the lane—often two and three times a day—gave Cecilia comfort, that was fine. I hoped she was not holding back news of ill health.

I locked my bike to the mango tree. I peeled off and trashed my ruined shirt. No messages on the machine. I spread a plastic garbage bag across my porcelain porch table and cleaned the camera with vinegar and Q-Tips. My camera strap had been badly nicked by the carpet cutter. I chucked it, strung a new one, and hid my photo gear under the false bottom of a cabinet. I hit the open-air shower, listened to church bells and a neighbor’s stereo—early John Prine. The purple paint-ball welt on my chest took me back to Caroline Street. I thought about it, decided not to be a victim, not to slog my flip-flops through self-pity, wallow in victimness. I also pledged revenge. Not simple paybacks, either. I’m easygoing. I shun negativity. But this time, in due time, I wanted cold, refreshing revenge. I also needed to know what had brought on the attack. Choice one was Heidi’s phone call. I hadn’t looked like a fat-cat tourist, prime meat with a fat wallet and a shiny watch.

Help us take these monsters off our streets.

I found three messages after the shower.

Sam Wheeler: “I need you for twenty minutes at the most. I know you love physical labor. You always stay in touch with the inner animal. I have Caribbean fish chowder
as barter bait, and life-affirming cold beer. I’ll give you the play-by-play on my Jamaican vacation.”

Teresa Barga: “I couldn’t work at home, so I came to the office. Just in time for bad boogie. Call my cell.”

The last one: “City Dispatcher Faust, one-twenty
P.M.
, Sunday. Detective Sergeant Hayes needs a call soon as possible. Two-nine-nine-five-two-oh-two. That’s twenty-nine, nine, fifty-two, oh two. It’s a signal five.”

I wrote the number, and understood Teresa’s distress. A “five” was a homicide. I didn’t recognize the detective’s name.

The phone rang. I picked up. Marnie Dunwoody identified herself. She was in her car.

I said, “You went to the tropics to chill out?”

“. . . and then came back to this lunatic island.” Her voice shook. “I’ve got a message. The watch commander’s been trying to find you. Dexter Hayes needs you to photograph a crime scene. I’m on my way right now.”

Dexter Hayes? The old “mayor” of Key West’s black section had been called Jumbo Chief. “Marnie, what are we talking? Big Dex isn’t the police. He was the opposite, until his power dried up.”

“Alex, we’re talking Dex Junior. Detective Sergeant Hayes. He’s been with the city four months.”

“I haven’t seen Dexito in years. Teresa’s never mentioned him.”

“He came down from Broward. He was a SWAT Team leader in Boynton Beach, I think. Take my word, he didn’t get hired by affirmative action. He’s good.”

Four months earlier, my previous Key West Police contact, Detective Fred “Chicken Neck” Liska, had been elected Monroe County Sheriff. He’d given me two small jobs since then, when his regular forensic people were busy. But the city hadn’t called at all.

“Give me the address,” I said to Marnie.

“Caroline Street. My brother’s construction site.” Her voice trembled. Her emotions let go. “A man was murdered. Butler found the body.” She hung up.

Had a body been in there when I was taking pictures?

I returned Sam Wheeler’s call to tell him I couldn’t help immediately. I wasn’t sure he knew about the murder. Also, I wanted him to contact Florida Keys Hospital to find out if anyone had shown up at the emergency room with a smashed face or a broken knee. No answer. Sam was using the power saw or sander.

I scarfed two bananas, gobbled two tablespoons of peanut butter straight from the Jif jar, chugged a tall glass of water. I called it lunch. I pulled my camera satchel from its hidden cubbyhole, snatched a couple three-packs of twenty-four-exposure Kodacolor, grabbed a long-sleeved shirt The job could go late. A January evening could drop to the high fifties.

I locked the house, rode my motorcycle down Eaton. I felt like stockpiling scenery before viewing a murder victim. Then I thought, Bogus idea. What would I do, trade hand-hewn balustrades for discarded weapons? White ibis for a slashed throat? A queen palm for a fist-sized exit wound?

Baseball players get to average their good and bad days. My first call in months from the Key West Police would launch my new year in the cellar.

City cops had closed die three hundred blocks of William Street and Peacon Lane. I explained myself to the uniformed patrolman at Elizabeth Street. He was an old-timer, recognized me from other city crime scenes. Something clicked in my thoughts. I asked if he knew Bug Thorsby.

The officer grimaced. “Rotten mango don’t roll far from the tree.”

I asked if he knew where Bug hung out.

“Little shit’d be out to the Southern Nights, there on Big Coppitt, chasing out-of-town sluts. I got the deputies to pull him outa there once or twice last year. Check it out. He keeps an ice pick in his boot.”

“Appreciate it.”

The officer shoved aside a sawhorse barricade. A huge
remote-TV truck, its dish to the heavens, ready to snag overhead power lines, tried to follow me around. The cop went apeshit I didn’t stay for the power squabble.

Two squad cars blocked the intersection at Caroline. One faced Greene, the other Simonton. Roof lights strobed in the afternoon sunlight. I spotted Jerry Bovim, Key West’s new head detective, in Bermudas and a Hawaiian-print shirt, departing on his vintage Harley. Delegation of duty is not just good management in Key West, it’s an art form, a tradition. I saw no sign of technicians from the county medical examiner’s office.

I parked the Kawasaki thirty yards up Caroline, next to Teresa Barga’s blue motor scooter. So much for her personal-time paperwork. I walked around a silver Mercedes ML-55, another high-ticket sports utility vehicle that would never leave the pavement Its Florida “Save the Dolphins” license tag read
POKEM UP
, which I associated with the Pokémon craze of 1999. I’d seen Butler Dunwoody driving an imperfectly restored ketchup-red ‘61 Ford Galaxie convertible. It too had carried a “Save the Dolphins” vanity plate. Obviously, his Benz. Then I recalled that “poke ’em up,” in Florida, referred to the construction industry’s goal of erecting buildings wherever it found undefiled land.

I crossed the street, didn’t recognize the uniformed cop on duty. I pulled out my KWPD identification card. He showed me through the chain link, not eight feet from the
DANGER
sign where Heidi had stood when she’d told me to mind my own business. Two more uniforms stood inside, next to a row of four portable toilet stalls. The cops looked semiofficial, barely alert I assumed they’d been called at home, scrambled for special duty. The stinky portables no doubt a boost to their spirits. They aimed me toward the northeast corner of the framed-out three-story building. Away from the potties, the place smelled of pine sawdust A walkway of pallets and two-by-sixes lay over clumps of dry dirt, loose rock, fist-sized asphalt chunks from the lot’s
previous life. The makeshift walkway ended at a fresh concrete slab.

Marnie Dunwoody hurried toward me, a frantic look on her tanned face. She moved closer as if to hug, but instead clutched my upper arm. Almost whispering, she said, ‘Too awful. I knew the man, real well.”

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s been four years since I dated him. But I can’t do this for the paper. It’s got to be somebody else’s piece. Call us when you’re done, okay?”

I nodded. She went away. I walked around a pallet stack and an upended Dumpster. For a moment, time froze. In the shade of a high scaffold I saw, in one take: Teresa—her dark hair pulled to a twist, her face grim and pissed off; Mamie’s brother, Butler Dunwoody; Heidi Norquist; Detective Dexter Hayes, Jr.; a uniformed lieutenant; and the city’s prince of nepotism, Cootie Ortega. Cootie Ortega was the department’s full-time photographer, lab tech, and all-around screw-up. He held an old Nikon and a Polaroid camera.