The Way You Look Tonight (11 page)

And what, exactly? She still wasn’t sure precisely what it was she was supposed to be doing down here. She fished in her handbag for the handwritten scrap of card they’d given her
before she left Boston that morning.

That was it, apart from a scribbled Washington number she was supposed to call in any crisis or emergency.

She wondered what Agent Lee Foster was like.

Just as long as he wasn’t another Crew-Cut.

Stella often wondered what sort of reaction she would have got from the professors on her selection board for Girton if she had answered their very first question with the
literal truth.

Why did she want to study Psychology, the youngest woman on the all-female panel had earnestly enquired of her.

‘
Because my father was a homicidal psychopath and my grandfather shot him dead. It was an ex-judicial execution. That’s rather left me wondering if I’ve inherited any
similar proclivities for ruthlessness from either of them, so I thought I’d thoroughly investigate the question. Good enough reasons for you?
’

She doubted if such directness would lead to the offer of a place at Cambridge so had dissembled accordingly.

But it would have been a completely honest answer. Since the morning Stella had learned that her father was not only a gangster but a merciless killer, and that her grandfather had despatched
him with a nerveless touch all his own, she had begun to wonder whether something of either man’s ruthless streak infected her, too.

Not that she compared her father with her grandfather; not in moral terms. James Blackwell had been the epitome of selfish wickedness; Oliver Arnold was a good and loving man. She knew that. But
somehow it disturbed her that she had found it so easy to accept her grandfather’s explanation for shooting her father dead.

Key Biscayne hadn’t exactly turned out to be the happy hunting ground of his hungry imagination.

But he was stone-cold right about the new money that was pouring in to the island, that was for sure. A lot of modern waterfront developments had sprung up since he was last up here two or
three seasons back. Gated communities, mostly, which were no damn use to him. Uniformed guards in spick-and-span air-conditioned cabins behind electric barriers. He quickly registered that cars and
delivery trucks wishing to be admitted needed to have special community identity stickers gummed to their windshields, different colours for different condominiums.

As he cruised slowly up and down the newly completed ocean boulevards he noted that the occasional cab was allowed through the gates, but all the drivers seemed to have some sort of specific
reservation or booking code which they bawled out to the gatehouse as they pulled up at the checkpoint. Guards inside consulted a clipboard and ticked them off before they raised the
barrier.

His own company’s booking office back down in Key Largo never received calls from this far north, and the cabs going in and out of these model communities were a lot shinier and
smarter than the scruffy sedan he drove. There was no chance of bluffing his way past the gatekeepers, he could see that; he’d stick out a mile.

Anyhow, even if he did talk his way inside, there were far too many residences (pink-and-white-painted two-storey town houses, mostly) with their owners wandering around in a virtual uniform
of golf pants and Aertex shirts, to even think about trying anything. Through green-painted mesh fences he could see Hispanic groundskeepers tending perfectly maintained lawns and clusters of
sub-tropical plants that lined the pavements. Here and there, classy-looking speedboats were being carefully towed on trailers down to private launch ramps that sloped gently into the lapping
waters of the dock.

It was hopeless. He’d wasted the best part of a day driving up here, and then poking around, and he had nothing to show for it – no mark, no plan of action, not even a goddamned
legit fare for his trouble. He couldn’t understand what he’d been thinking of.

These days, he decided, Key Biscayne had become pretty much a semi-detached suburb of Miami itself. That was mostly thanks to the new Rickenbacker Causeway, which they’d finally gotten
around to completing a few years back. Biscayne had lost any remaining atmosphere of the proper Keys – his Keys –which lay sixty miles to the south, where the islands began curving away
from the sprawling brackish swamps of the Florida Everglades, down towards Cuba.

The real Keys were a sloppy, choppy mix of Caribbean, Cuban, and all-American Joe. Not like this pristine place. Welcome to Perfectsville, USA.

Cursing under his breath, he swung the old Buick in a hard, tyre-screeching semi-circle across the street and headed back towards Route 1. He glanced at his watch. It would
be dark in a couple of hours. Already, he knew, folks down in Key Largo were beginning to drift towards ocean bars and restaurants on the westward-facing shores. They’d order cocktails, and
jostle subtly for the best spots to watch the timeless end-of-day ritual: sunset. They’d raise their glasses as the sun drowned itself in the warm, soupy Gulf of Mexico, only to rise again a
few hours later, dripping and renewed, from the cold Atlantic.

Highway traffic was light this evening and if he hit the gas he figured he could be at his favourite Gulfside seafood bar in time to catch the spectacle. The skies were clear, apart from
some patches of high, thin cirrus. That promised a fabulous red-and-gold sunset and if the horizon stayed cloud-free and the ocean was calm, there might even be a chance of seeing the mysterious
Green Flash – an incredibly rare phenomenon. He’d lived in the Keys for most of his thirty-two years and even he had only witnessed it once: the weird, piercing emerald ray that shot
from across the ocean like a searchlight, at exactly the same moment the last fragment of glittering sun winked out below the horizon.

But the bright light that now suddenly flashed in his windshield mirror wasn’t green.

It was red.

A moment later, it was underscored by the clipped, on-off whoop and wail of a siren.

‘State driver ID, licensed cab-driver ID and county certification, please.’

The cop was close to his own age but it was hard to be sure. His uniform cap was pulled down low above the blank lenses of reflective Aviators.

He nodded to the patrolman as he reached up and flipped open his sun-visor, calmly removing documents from the built-in wallet.

‘Here you go, officer. I think you’ll find everything is in order.’

His personal stuff was in the unlocked glove box to his right.

Including the new knife, the rope, and the half-empty bottle of chloroform.

And his gun.

He told himself to stay cool. This was just a routine check.

‘Thank you, sir. Step out of the car, please.’

He loathed being told what to do, but managed to resist the temptation to reach for the gun. He could take this cop here quickly and easily, with his bare hands, if it came to it.

He’d been pulled over at a lonely spot. The waters of the Atlantic and the Gulf hustled in on both sides of the narrow two-lane highway. There was no dry land for buildings of any kind
here in these shallow swamps on the edge of the Everglades, studded with bleached, drowned pines. The dead trees cast thin, gloomy shadows over the two men as the sun settled lower, getting ready
for its big finale.

‘Move behind the vehicle’s trunk and remain there, please. I need to take a look inside.’

‘Whatever you say, officer. I hope I wasn’t speeding. I wanted to catch the sunset at Sloppy Joe’s.’

The cop grunted and bent inside the cab through the driver’s door. After a moment he grunted again and opened the rear door, peering around at the footwells and along the empty parcel
shelf.

‘Open the trunk, please.’

He popped the trunk and the cop made a careful inspection of the spare tyre, the jack and the toolkit. Apart from those, the space was empty.

‘OK. Close it, please.’

He obeyed. Instinct told him something else was coming, and it wasn’t going to be a ticket.

‘You drive for . . .’ the cop looked at the paperwork he held in his hands: ‘Pelican Cabs, Key Largo, right?’

‘That’s correct, officer.’

‘So how come you’re up here, halfway to the Everglades?’

‘I had a one-way fare to Key Biscayne today, officer. Kind of a freelance thing, strictly between us. Off the books. You know how it is.’

The cop grunted once more. Christ, was this guy a terrific conversationalist, or what?

‘So you’ll have been out of radio contact with your base most of the day.’

Where was this leading?
‘Uh . . . yeah, I guess so. The range on these sets ain’t so hot once you’re off the Upper Keys. Why?’

‘Because otherwise you’d know by now we’ve kinda deputised you taxi drivers, as of this morning.’

‘No, I hadn’t heard that, officer. What’s the deal?’

The cop removed his shades and began cleaning them on the end of his necktie. Without them, he looked older. A network of fine lines spread from the outer corners of his eyes and there were
deep vertical creases flowing up towards the forehead above the bridge of his nose, too.

Too much Florida sun over the years.

‘The
deal
is this crazy bastard we’ve been after for weeks now in the Keys. The psycho who’s running around down here killing women. There’s still a news
blackout on how he snares them, but the Sheriff’s decided to cut you boys in on that part of the story. He figures maybe you can help us.’

Oh, this was good. This was almost too good. Why did he always want to laugh, at moments like this? It would be the death of him, one day. Somehow, he managed to look concerned.

‘A
psycho
, officer? My Lord. How exactly can we help?’

The cop pointed to the cab’s dash-mounted two-way radio.

‘By using that thing to call in if you see anything suspicious.’

‘Hell, we do that anyway, at accident scenes and suchlike, you boys know that . . . but is there anything special we should be looking out for right now?’

‘Yeah. Friend Fruitloop wedges three-inch nails under his chosen victims’ front tyres, when they’re parked up. That means they’ll run flat later, around about a mile or
two after setting off to wherever they’re going, and that’s when the son of a bitch takes them. Maybe plays the part of a knight of the road rescuing a damsel in distress. Who
knows.’

‘Jeez . . . he sure sounds like a calculating bastard, officer.’

‘He is. Now, you see any car, any car at all, that looks like it’s in trouble at the side of the road, you call right in and you report it. Right then and there, if you please. But
you reckon it has a flat, you tell us that faster than you can fucking blink, OK?’

‘Sure . . . but excuse me, what if the girl’s still inside the vehicle?’

‘Sheriff’s still working the exact details on that scenario. But we protect our women here in the southland, do we not? So you act like a good citizen. At the very least, you keep an
eye on her from a safe distance until we arrive. If it were me, I’d park my sedan right up close next to hers and offer her my gentlemanly assistance.’

‘And if friend Fruitloop were to put in an appearance?’

The cop smiled faintly as he replaced his sunglasses.

‘You done military service?’

‘Sure. Korea. Special operations. Two years overseas.’

The cop’s smile broadened a little.

‘Then I’d say . . . feel free to use your initiative, sir.’

‘Looks like somebody’s got themselves a ticket there. Cab driver, too. He oughta know better.’

Stella glanced out of the right-side passenger window in time to see a patrol car, its red roof-light flashing, pulled up close behind a dirty white taxi. The policeman was standing with his
back to her but she could see the taxi-driver’s face as they flashed past the little tableau. It was only a fleeting glimpse, so brief that the image was almost as frozen as a still
photograph, but she had the definite impression that . . .

‘I don’t think he was getting a speeding ticket,’ she said thoughtfully.

‘Huh? What? How d’you figure that, ma’am?’

‘Well I only got a glimpse, but it looked to me as though the driver was trying not to laugh.’

Largo Lodge turned out to be agreeable enough. A dozen or so white-painted wooden cabins with little verandas and pretty, bougainvillea-covered porches were dotted around a
much larger twin-storeyed main building. This turned out to house en-suite bedrooms upstairs and, on the ground floor, a reception area with a smallish restaurant and bar. There were a few heavy
pine tables inside under cover, but most were laid out haphazardly in the open, on the sandy beach that looked out across the Gulf.

Stella’s driver, once he’d toted her bag to reception, had driven off without another word.

‘
Charming. Probably gone to buy himself more crisps,
’ she thought, as she signed the hotel register.

‘Would you prefer a cabin, ma’am, or a room right here in the main house?’ The desk clerk was a freckled, overweight man in his fifties with a velvet-soft southern drawl and
the kindest eyes Stella thought she had ever seen.

‘What would you recommend?’

‘Oh, the cabins, ma’am. They’re three dollars a night extra but they all have unobstructed sunset veranda views. And you’re more in your own space in a cabin, I always
think. It’s the low season right now so I can do you an excellent deal. You can pretty much take your pick. There’s only one other that’s occupied, if I’m to be
honest.’

Stella fumbled in her handbag for the card she’d been given that morning. ‘Would that be a . . . let me see . . . a Mr Foster?’