A Second Chance in Paradise (12 page)

Before we left we searched in the darkness for clues but came up empty.

“Let’s call it a night,” Buster finally said. “I gotta clean up the boat and get some shut-eye.”

“
I’ll give you a hand,” I said, then turned to Pa and asked him, “What about Fred?  How’s he doing?”

“
When I left, Jackie was pullin’ two nasty splinters out his foot. I’m gonna check on him when we get back, but I’m sure he’ll be fine. C’mon, let’s get goin’.”

The three of us sloshed through the puddles back there and came out at the corner of the building. That
’s when I noticed something lying beneath a palmetto bush just off to the side.

“
Hold on,” I said, as I stepped over to it and picked it up. “It’s a matchbook! Says Hugs and Jugs, Key West Florida. Julie just told me yesterday that when she was at work a few days ago Topper and some friends of his had stopped in for drinks. She overheard them say they were going to Hugs and Jugs when they were leaving.”

“
We know,” Buster said as he came alongside me. “Julie told us all about it. Here, let me see it.”

Buster opened it up. It was empty. All the matches had been ripped out.

“Hmmm,” he said, “ain’t no wear on this. It’s soaked, like everything else, but the colors ain’t the least bit faded.”

He then closed the cover and we studied
for a few seconds. The resolution of the pink lettering on the glossy, black background was still perfect.

“
It ain’t been here for long,” Pa said. “It definitely was either Topper or one of his flunkies who started the fires. And I’ll tell ya another thing. When we saw those taillights from the boat, I noticed the left one looked brighter than the right.”

“
I thought the same thing,” I said, “but it was so far away I couldn’t be sure. You must have good eyes, Pa.”

“
Not really. The binoculars were laying in front of me at the time. I picked ’em up real quick like and got a look just before the bastard was out of sight.”

“
Ya see anything else,” Buster asked.

“
Nope. That was it. Woulda told you by now if I did.”

“
It ain’t much to go on,” Buster said, squeezing the matchbook as if here were trying to get even with it, “but it’s a start. I’m gonna be doing some snooping around real soon.”

I don
’t know what made me say what I did next, then again, I do. I genuinely liked these guys and everybody else on the key. Not only that, but I’d always had a disdain for Lionel Topper types. I’d been rooting for underdogs all my life. And though I’d never seen many of them win during my thirty-nine years on this planet, that only made me pull all the harder for them now.

“
Buster,” I said, “if you’re going to check that Hugs and Jugs place out, I want to go with you.”

Lowering his head; narrowing his eyes, I could tell he was giving me a chance to reconsider,
“You sure about that?”

“
I’m in. When do you want to go?”

“
Meet you here in the bar, ’bout eight tomorrow night. We’re all pretty ragged out right now.”

After we tromped back to the dock, I noticed Pa
’s forehead had pulled into creases. He was tired, and damned concerned about all that had happened. When we were about halfway back, he warned Buster, “When you go down to Key West tomorrow, I don’t want you turnin’ the whole damn town upside down.”

“
Nah. Don’t worry about nothin’.”

“
Yeah, sure! Don’t worry about nothing! Just like when you went down lookin’ for that guy who got weird with Sissy at the store that time. I don’t want to be bailin’ you outta jail again.”

I didn
’t know a thing about the incident Pa had mentioned, but I did now know that as nice a guy as Buster was, he had a temper.

The three of us cleaned up the boat quickly and then called it a night
. The heavy downpour had rinsed any salt spray from the evening’s trip so the cleanup was a snap. Even though it was obvious that Fred and Jackie had managed to get to their trailers, I volunteered to stop at their places and let them know that everything was okay at the store. The light was out at Jackie’s so I went over to Fred’s. They were both there. Fred had taped Jackie’s ankle, which by then had swelled to the size of a softball.

“
It’ll be fine in a few days. It’s just a sprain,” said Jackie, who had administered plenty of first aid during his years on the N.Y.P.D.

I only stayed a few minutes. After giving them a quick rundown about the condition of the store and what we suspected, I trudged back to the Airstream to get some much-needed rest. It had been a long night. And I worried that the next might be even longer.

Chapter 12

The following evening I left a half hour early to meet Buster at Barnacle Bell’s. Antsy as I was, I just had to get out of that trailer. Hour after hour, all day long, my mind had been
whirling round and round like a gulf water spout. And it still was. Time and again I’d envisioned a hundred different possible outcomes of this trip to Key West. And none were promising.

There were quite a few vehicles parked outside the bar when I arrived, but as soon as I stepped inside Pa saw me and
fished a Miller Lite from the cooler. As I approached a vacant stool he twisted the cap off, wiped the top of the bottle with his fresh apron, and said, “Sorry Sonny, these Millers could be a wee bit colder.”

“
That’s fine, as long as it’s wet. Looks like it’s business as usual here, huh?” I said, glancing around at the goodly crowd of customers, then at the back wall – right about where it had been burned on the outside. Relieved for the second time that there’d been no damage, I then turned my head back around, laid a ten on the bar and picked up the beer bottle standing before me. In a quick succession of gulps I emptied half is contents. Pa watched me warily, saying nothing. But as soon as I plunked the bottle back on the bar he said, “Now don’t be gettin’ too fired up. You just might need to have your wits about you later.”

“No problem.
I’ll be okay,” I said. But I had one foot resting on the brass foot rail that encircled the bar, and the knee just up from it was pumping up and down like a piston. I caught myself and held it still.

Pa stepped away to wait on some other customers and by the time he came back I’d emptied the beer.

“Want another?” he asked, holding up the bottle.

“
I’m going to do a pitcher instead.”

Swiveling his head to the side, Pa studied me from the corners of his knowing eyes for one short moment. Satisfied that I’d gotten his message, he then reached for a pitcher, put it beneath a tap and let a cold yellow
stream flow into it.

“
You’re a big boy. I guess you know what you’re doin’.”

Once the glass pitcher was filled he sat it and an empty glass in front of me
then walked to the other side of the bar to serve a group of sunburnt construction workers. All of them had their ball caps turned backwards and seemed to be feeling little or no pain. Loud but not quite boisterous yet, they were hitting on two grocery store cashiers. One of the women, a redhead with the top of her powder blue uniform unbuttoned low enough to expose a generous portion of two freckled breasts, was eye to eye with one of the wood butchers. He said something to her that I couldn’t hear, but I did hear her comeback. Smiling seductively, ever so slowly running her index finger down her cleavage, she said in a deep throaty voice, “How’d you like to find out?” On the ring finger of the same hand she was enticing him with there was a cheap gold band. But it didn’t seem to bother either one of them. She picked her purse up from the bar, whispered something to her friend, and they were out of there.

I swiveled around and
watched them through the front window for a moment. As the two locked arms around each other and leaned against the guy’s green, sun-faded pickup, all I could think of was Wendy and Steve Silverman. I felt like another piece of my heart was being wrenched off. As much as I’d thought I was over her, it still hurt. I felt that dark, all too familiar funk settling in again. But then I got lucky.

Before the gloom could completely shroud my spirit there was a distraction. I saw Julie on the other side of the glass. She was walking toward the door, about to come into the bar. The clown with the backwards hat – class act that he was, ogled at her. Exposing a set of nasty looking teeth, he smiled and said something to Julie. She just kept walking, bad-teeth’s
new girlfriend gave him a playful slap, they shared a boozed-up laugh and climbed into the truck.

Julie came through the doorway along with the last of the day
’s sunlight. Looking like royalty in cutoffs, we exchanged hellos then she alighted onto the stool next to me.

“
What’ll ya have, Julie?’ Pa asked, as she crossed her long legs elegantly beneath the bar.

“
Just a Coke Pa. Sissy and I have to do some studying tonight.”

Tapping the bills lying
on the bar in front of me, I said, “I’ve got it Pa.” Then I turned back to Julie. “You’re going to be darn sure she passes that GED, aren’t you?”

Nodding her head she said, “
She’s going for her test on Wednesday.”

“Is s
he coming along okay?”

“
Sure, she’s an extremely bright kid. Her retention abilities are remarkable.”

“
She sure seems very sharp.” I said before lowering my voice, looking around the bar, and adding, “I guess you heard all about the fire?”

“I sure did. A
nd I think we all know who’s responsible. But let me ask you something. What do you and Buster think you’re going to accomplish tonight?”

“
I don’t know ... proof, I guess. We’re hoping to get some proof that Topper was behind it. Then we’ll take it from there.” My knee was bouncing again, both of them were.

“You know how
dangerous this thing can get, don’t you Sonny?” Julie said, looking deep inside my eyes the way she did when she was very serious.

“
I know! I know! Believe me I’ve given it a lot of thought.”

“
Then why are you guys going?”

“
Like I said, to get to the bottom of this thing.” 

I
lit a cigarette, inhaled it then went on, “I don’t have a vested interest in this island or anything like that. But I like it here. And I like the people, too. I’ve seen the little guys bullied around all my life, so in a way it does concern me. I’m not going to sit back and just watch.”

Someone
had fed the juke box and the old Beatles’ hit,
It Don’t Come Easy
, reverberated throughout the bar. Julie had to raise her voice a bit when she said, “I can appreciate you feeling that way. But why can’t you guys just get the police to handle it?”

“
Because they’d surely send the fire department here to investigate the fire. Buster said the place barely passes its fire inspection every year because of the age of the building.”

Julie thought aloud,
“I see. They would shut Pa down.”

“
Believe me ... I’m not looking forward to this,” I said, pouring myself another glass of beer.

“
Just don’t get too courageous.”

“
I know. I know.”

Julie studied
her Coke for a moment. She swirled the glass around a couple of times then said, “I wonder where Jackie and Fred are.”

“
Fred had a late afternoon doctor’s appointment up in Marathon. It wasn’t easy, but I talked him into going up to Fisherman’s Hospital for x-rays.”

“
They’re still there?”

“You know how those two are. They said they’d probably make the rounds up there after the x-rays. Jackie said he likes the
karaoke at one of the places there. I think he said the Hurricane ... yeah, that’s it, the Hurricane Lounge.”

Right about then the entrance door opened again, and
Julie shifted her eyes over her shoulder. It was Buster. It was the first time I’d seen him without his Redman cap perched on his head. With his hair combed neatly, he put me to mind of a giant schoolboy – a giant
unhappy
schoolboy.

“
My, don’t we look all spiffy?” Julie said, smiling now.

“Yeah,” I chimed in, “y
ou lost the hat?”

“
All right, all right,” Buster came back in his usual deep, resonate voice. “Don’t be givin’ me a bad time now.”

Holding my glass up now, I asked him, “Are you going to have a couple?”

“No, I’m okay. I wanna git into this one straight, but I’ve got a couple of cold ones in the truck if you want ’em.”

“
Well ... I’m ready if you are,” I said, with the words feeling just the slightest bit clumsy as they came out.

I
stood up, emptied my glass and glanced at the pitcher. It was already two-thirds empty. I shook my head and picked my cigarettes up from the bar as Julie got out of her seat as well. Pa stopped rinsing glasses for a moment from his post behind the bar and told us to be very careful.

When we stepped outside
into the sticky Florida evening, a Greyhound bus lit us up with its lights before it roared by. Once it had passed Julie’s beautiful face winced when she said, “Be careful, you two. Please.”

Moments later, with Buster steering his Ford pickup down the Overseas Highway, I turned to look out the back window. Julie was still standing in the dark parking lot. She was watching us, and she continued to until we rounded a curve and drove out of sight.

Chapter 13

“
Beer’s in there.” Buster said, nodding at a small cooler between us on the floorboard.

“No thanks,” I told him, “I’m alright for now.”

We didn’t say anything else for the next mile or two. It’s very dark at night in the lower reaches of the Florida Keys, and there were virtually no lights along the stretch of highway we were on. Not many cars either. My mind only drifted as I peered into the surrounding blackness.

When we drove through Summerland Key
, Buster honked at a couple of friends – good old boys, coming out of an isolated convenience store. Both of them were toting twelve-packs of Old Milwaukee but when they recognized Buster’s truck they each raised a hand in a slow wave. Nobody hurries in the Keys, only the tourists who are either just arriving or just leaving.

Before I knew it, we
were crossing the inky waters of Boca Chica Channel and coming onto Stock Island.

“
See that big ole bar comin’ up on the left?” Buster asked.

“
Yeah.”

“
That is one wild and crazy place, man. Plenty rough too. It’s called The Purple Conch.”

As we passed it, two angry men were out in front
shouting in each other’s faces. A frazzled looking woman in a white tee shirt down to her knees was trying to get between the two. She was one feisty lady though. With a drink glass and cigarette in one hand, she was shoving the two combatants with the other. She was doing it pretty damn hard too. It was an intense confrontation for sure. The whole scenario, painted purple by a neon sign across the top of the austere, cement-block building, only seemed to add to the drama.

“That r
eminds me of my wilder days back in New York, before I got married,” I said to Buster.

“
Is that what brought you down this way ... ” he asked as he down shifted the gears for a red light, “a busted up marriage?”

“
Yeah,” I said, and as I continued I heard each of my words echo in the emptiness inside me, “seventeen years with the same woman. Then, one day, I found out that after all that time I couldn’t trust her anymore. Now there isn’t much of anything I trust.”

Buster said nothing as he hung a right onto North Roosevelt
, and I just watched the small waves of Key West Harbor as they danced in the glowing light of the business district. A short distance later Buster turned a fast, hard left across the boulevard into the parking lot of Hugs & Jugs, just beating a barrage of oncoming headlights. The driver of the closest car leaned on his horn angrily as he passed by. It was a rushed, impulsive decision that I wouldn’t have expected Buster to make; way out of character for a man who normally took things slow and easy.

As soon as we entered the crowded parking lot we slowly motored around the lighted image of
a fifteen-foot female dancer. A tall, pink neon Amazon she was; gyrating enticingly atop a high, metal post. With light dancing on the hood of Buster’s pickup, he drove around it and parked right next to the wild lady, facing the boulevard. Hearing the sign buzzing and the sound of insects popping on hot tubular glass, I asked Buster as we climbed out, “We want to lock it up here, don’t we?”

“
You bet we do!” was his answer.

Inside the joint there was all kinds
of hooting and hollering going on. Every type of psyched-up, boozed-up, horned-up male you can think of was in there. Sailors, drifters, business types, rednecks, tourists, pirates, villains and more were crowded around the sprawling bar and sitting at tables. Half of them were shouting words of encouragement to a dancer as she strutted her stuff on stage-like platform in back. All was dark except for some strobe lights that pulsated across the tall, scantly-covered blonde. I could see she had a tough edge to her face, but her body was shapely and she knew how to flaunt it. As she shimmied, bounced and jounced her goods to the Stones’ hit
Start Me Up,
Buster and I walked along the front of the place to an empty table by a window. Perfect. It looked right out into the parking lot.