Duma Key (48 page)

“Yes. Just take it easy.”

“I'll do my best.”

I sat with my left hand resting on my bare left thigh, looking at the eye-chart as he grasped my shoulder with one hand and cupped my stump in the other. The seventh line on the chart looked like
AGODSED
. A god said what? I wondered.

From somewhere, very distant, I felt faint pressure. “Hurt?”

“No.”

“Okay. No, don't look down, just keep looking straight ahead. Do you feel my hand?”

“Uh-huh. Way off. Pressure.” But no twinge. Why would there be? The arm that was no longer there
had wanted the pen, and the pen was in my pocket, so now the arm was asleep again.

“And how about this, Edgar? May I call you Edgar?”

“Anything but late to dinner. The same. Pressure. Faint.”

“Now you can look.”

I looked. One hand was still on my shoulder, but the other was at his side. Nowhere near the stump. “Oops.”

“Not at all, phantom sensations in the stump of a limb are normal. I'm just surprised at the rate of healing. And the lack of pain. I squeezed pretty darn hard to begin with. This is all good.” He cupped the stump again and pushed upward. “Does that give pain?”

It did—a dull, low sparkle, vaguely hot. “A little,” I said.

“If it didn't I'd be worried.” He let go. “Look at the eye-chart again, all right?”

I did as he asked, and decided that all-important seventh line was
AGOCSEO
. Which made more sense because it made no sense.

“How many fingers am I touching you with, Edgar?”

“Don't know.” It didn't feel like he was touching me at all.

“Now?”

“Don't know.”

“And now.”

“Three.” He was almost up to my collarbone. And I had an idea—crazy but very strong—that I would have been able to feel his fingers everywhere on the stump if I'd been in one of my painting frenzies. In
fact, I would have been able to feel his fingers in the air below the stump. And I think
he
would have been able to feel
me
 . . . which would no doubt have caused the good doctor to run screaming from the room.

He went on—first to my leg, then my head. He listened to my heart, looked into my eyes, and did a bunch of other doctorly things. When he'd exhausted most of the possibilities, he told me to get dressed and meet him at the end of the hall.

This turned out to be a pleasantly littered little office. Hadlock sat behind the desk and leaned back in his chair. There were pictures on one wall. Some, I assumed, were of the doctor's family, but there were also shots of him shaking hands with George Bush the First and Maury Povich (intellectual equals, in my book), and one of him with an amazingly vigorous and pretty Elizabeth Eastlake. They were holding tennis rackets, and I recognized the court. It was the one at
El Palacio
.

“I imagine you'd like to get back to Duma and get off that hip, wouldn't you?” Hadlock asked. “Must hurt by this time of the day, and I bet it's all three witches from
Macbeth
when the weather's damp. If you want a prescription for Percocet or Vicodin—”

“No, I'm fine with the aspirin,” I said. I'd labored to get off the hard stuff and wasn't going back on it at this point, pain or no pain.

“Your recovery is remarkable,” Hadlock said. “I don't think you need me to tell you how lucky you are not to be in a wheelchair for the rest of your life, very likely steering yourself around by blowing into a straw.”

“I'm lucky to be alive at all,” I said. “Can I assume you didn't find anything dire?”

“Pending blood and urine, I'd say you're good to go. I'm happy to order X-rays on your rightside injuries and your head, if you've got symptoms that concern you, but—”

“I don't.” I had symptoms, and they concerned me, but I didn't think X-rays would pinpoint the cause. Or causes.

He nodded. “The reason I went over your stump so carefully was because you don't wear a prosthesis. I thought you might be experiencing tenderness. Or there might be signs of infection. But all seems well.”

“I guess I'm just not ready.”

“That's fine. More than fine. Considering the work you're doing, I'd have to say ‘If it ain't broke, don't fix it' applies here. Your paintings . . . remarkable. I can't wait to see them on display at the Scoto. I'm bringing my wife. She's very excited.”

“That's great,” I said. “Thank you.” This sounded limp, at least to my own ears, but I still hadn't figured out how to respond to such compliments.

“Having you turn up as an actual paying tenant at Salmon Point is sad and ironic,” Hadlock said. “For years—you might know this—Elizabeth reserved that house as an artist's retreat. Then she became ill and allowed it to be listed as just another rental property, although she
did
insist that whoever took it would have to lease it for three months or longer. She didn't want any Spring Breakers partying in there. Not where Salvador Dalí and James Bama once laid down their storied heads.”

“I can't say that I blame her. It's a special place.”

“Yes, but few of the famous artists who stayed there did anything special. Then the second ‘regular'
tenant comes along—a building contractor from Minneapolis recovering from an accident, and . . . well. Elizabeth must be very gratified.”

“In the building biz, we called that laying it on with a trowel, Dr. Hadlock.”

“Gene,” he said. “And the people who were at your lecture didn't think so. You were marvelous. I only wish Elizabeth could have been there. How she would have
preened
.”

“Maybe she'll make the opening.”

Very slowly, Gene Hadlock shook his head. “I doubt that. She's fought the Alzheimer's tooth and nail, but there comes a time when the disease simply wins. Not because the patient is weak but because it's a physical condition, like MS. Or cancer. Once the symptoms begin to manifest, usually as a loss of short-term memory, a clock begins to run. I think Elizabeth's time may be up, and I'm very sorry. It's clear to me, I think it was clear to everyone at the lecture, that all this fuss makes you uncomfortable—”

“You can say that again.”

“—but if she'd been there, she would have enjoyed it
for
you. I've known her most of my life, and I can tell you she would have supervised everything, including the hanging of each and every picture in the gallery.”

“I wish I'd known her then,” I said.

“She was amazing. When she was forty-five and I was twenty, we won the mixed doubles amateur tennis tournament at The Colony on Longboat Key. I was home from college on semester break. I've still got the cup. I imagine she's still got hers, somewhere.”

That made me think of something—
You'll find it,
I'm sure
—but before I could chase that memory to its source, something else occurred to me. Something much more recent.

“Dr. Hadlock—Gene—did Elizabeth herself ever paint? Or draw?”

“Elizabeth? Never.” And he smiled.

“You're sure of that.”

“You bet. I asked her once, and I remember the occasion very well. It was when Norman Rockwell was in town to lecture. He didn't stay at your place, either; he stayed at the Ritz. Norman Rockwell, pipe and all!” Gene Hadlock shook his head, smiling more widely now. “Ye gods, what a controversy
that
was, the
howling
when the Arts Council announced Mr.
Saturday Evening Post
was coming. It was Elizabeth's idea and she loved the hubbub it caused, said they could have filled Ben Hill Griffin Stadium—” He saw my blank look. “The University of Florida. ‘The swamp where only Gators come out alive'?”

“If you're talking football, my interest begins with the Vikings and ends with the Packers.”

“The point is, I asked her about her own artistic abilities during the Rockwell uproar—and he did indeed sell out; not the Geldbart, either, but City Center. Elizabeth laughed and said she could hardly draw stick figures. In fact, she used a sports metaphor, which is probably why I thought of the Gators. She said she was like one of those wealthy college alumni, except she was interested in art instead of football. She said, ‘If you can't be an athlete, hon, be an athletic supporter. And if you can't be an artist, feed em, care for em, and make sure they have a place to come in out of the rain.' But artistic talent herself? Absolutely none.”

I thought of telling him about Mary Ire's friend Aggie Winterborn. Then I touched the red pen in my pocket and decided not to. I decided what I wanted to do was to get back to Duma Key and paint.
Girl and Ship No. 8
was the most ambitious of the series, also the largest and the most complex, and it was almost done.

I stood up and offered my hand. “Thank you for everything.”

“Not at all. And if you change your mind and want something a little stronger for the pain—”

iv

The drawbridge to the Key was up to allow some rich guy's toy to wallow through the pass to the Gulf side. Jack sat behind the wheel of the Malibu, admiring the girl in the green bikini who was sunning on the foredeck. The Bone was on the radio. An ad for some motorcycle dealership ended (The Bone was big on motorcycle sales and various mortgage services), and The Who came on: “Magic Bus.” My stump began to tingle, then to itch. And that itch spread slowly downward, sleepy but deep. Very deep. I inched the volume up a tick, then reached into my pocket and pulled out the stolen pen. Not blue; not black; it was
red
. I admired it for a moment in the late sun. Then I thumbed open the glove compartment and pawed around.

“Help you find something, boss?”

“Nope. Keep your eye on yonder honey. I'm doin fine.”

I pulled out a coupon for a free Checkers NASCAR
Burger—
Ya Gotta Eat!,
the coupon proclaimed. I turned it over. The flip side was blank. I drew quickly and without thinking. It was done before the song was. Underneath my small picture I printed five letters. The picture was similar to the doodles I'd done in my other life while dickering (usually with some dickhead) on the phone. The letters spelled
PERSE,
the name of my mystery ship. Only I didn't think that was how you said it. I could have added an accent over the
E,
but that would turn it into something that sounded like
Persay,
and I didn't think that was right, either.

“What's that?” Jack asked, looking over, then answered his own question. “Little red picnic basket. Cute. But what's a Purse?”

“You say it
persie
.”

“I'll take your word for it.” The barrier at our end of the drawbridge went up and Jack rolled across onto Duma Key.

I looked at the little red picnic basket I'd drawn—only I thought you called this kind, the kind with wicker sides, a hamper—and wondered why it looked so familiar. Then I realized it didn't, not exactly. It was the
phrase
that was familiar.
Look for Nan Somebody's picnic basket,
Elizabeth had said on the night I brought Wireman back from Sarasota Memorial. The last night I had seen her
compos mentis,
I realized now.
It's in the attic. It's red
. And:
You'll find it, I'm sure.
And:
They're inside
. Only when I had asked her what she was talking about, she hadn't been able to tell me. She had slipped away.

It's in the attic. It's red.

“Of course it is,” I said. “Everything is.”

“What, Edgar?”

“Nothing,” I said, looking at the stolen pen. “Just thinking out loud.”

v

Girl and Ship No. 8
—the last in the series, I felt almost sure—really
was
done, but I stood considering it in the lengthening light with my shirt off and The Bone blasting “Copperhead Road.” I had worked on it longer than any of the others—had come to realize that in many ways it summed up the others—and it was disturbing. That was why I covered it with a piece of sheet at the end of my sessions. Now, looking at it with what I hoped was a dispassionate eye, I realized disturbing was probably the wrong word; that baby was fucking terrifying. Looking at it was like looking at a mind turned sideways.

And maybe it would never be
completely
done. Certainly there was still room for a red picnic basket. I could hang it over the
Perse
's bowsprit. What the hell, why not? The damned thing was crammed with figures and details as it was. Always room for one more.

I was reaching out a brush loaded with what could have been blood to do just that when the phone rang. I almost let it go—surely would have done, if I'd been in one of my painting trances—but I wasn't. The picnic basket was only meant to be a grace note, and I had already added others. I put the brush back and picked up the phone. It was Wireman, and he sounded excited.

“She had a clear patch late this afternoon, Edgar! It might not mean anything—I'm trying to keep my
hopes low—but I've seen this before. First one clear interval, then another, then another, then they start to merge together and she's herself again, at least for awhile.”

“She knows who she is? Where she is?”

“Not now, but for half an hour or so, starting around five-thirty, she knew that stuff and who I was, too. Listen,
muchacho
—she lit her own damn cigarette!”

“I'll be sure to tell the Surgeon General,” I said, but I was thinking. Five-thirty. Right around the time Jack and I had been waiting for the drawbridge. Around the time I'd felt that urge to draw.