Tourist Season (11 page)

Careless reporting, Keyes grumbled, as usual.

For one thing, it hadn't been a salad fork, but one of those dainty silver jobs designed for shrimp cocktails and lobster. Second, he and Mitch Klein hadn't been standing at the bar, they were sitting in a booth.

Still, it
had
been a reckless gesture, something Skip Wiley himself might have tried. Keyes wondered what had gotten into him. Was he finally losing his grip? Assaulting an officer of the court in a nightclub, for God's sake, in front of a hundred witnesses. He couldn't believe he'd done it, but then he couldn't believe what Klein had said as they were talking about Ernesto's suicide.

“The only reason you're upset,” Klein had said, “is that the case is over, and so's your payday.”

This, after Keyes had told him all about the
Fuego
letters, all about Viceroy Wilson, all about Dr. Joe Allen's opinion that Ernesto Cabal was the wrong man. After all this—and four martinis—Mitch Klein still had the loathsome audacity to say:

“Brian, don't tell me you really gave a shit about that little greaseball.”

That was the moment when Keyes had reached across the table, seized Klein by his damp curly hair, and deftly speared the lawyer's tongue with the cocktail fork. No choking. No ripping of clothes. No grappling on the floor. There was, however, a good bit of fresh blood, the sight of which surely contributed to the later embellishments of eyewitnesses.

Keyes had gotten up and left Mitch Klein blathering in the booth, the silver fork dangling from his tongue, blood puddling in the oysters Bienville.

And that had been the end of it.

Now, the next morning, Keyes was certain the cops would arrive any minute with a warrant.

Actually it turned out to be Al García, all by himself.

He knocked twice and barged in.

“What a pit!” he said, looking around.

“Why, thank you, Al.”

García sullenly peered into the murky fish tank.

“Don't smear up the glass,” Keyes said.

“Those are the ugliest guppies I ever saw,” García said.

“They're catfish,” Keyes said. “They eat up the slime.”

“Well, they're doing a helluva job. It looks like somebody pissed in this aquarium.”

“Anything's possible,” Keyes muttered. He lay on the sofa, the newspaper spread across his chest. Garcia picked it up and pointed to the article about Mitch Klein.

“Did you do this, Brian?”

“1 got mad. Klein went to see Ernesto yesterday and told him the case was locked. Told him he didn't have a chance. Told him to plead guilty or they were going to charbroil him. Ernesto wanted to fight the charges but Klein told him to quit while he was ahead. Ernesto was going nuts in jail, all the queers chasing him. He had that incredible tattoo on his joint. The one I told you about.”

“Fidel Castro.”

“Yeah,” Keyes said. “Well, some maniac tried to bite it off one night in the shower. Thought if he chomped off Ernesto's dick, it would kill the real Fidel in Havana. Witchcraft, he said. Somehow Ernesto got away from the guy, but he was scared out of his mind. He said he'd do anything to get out of jail. So when Klein told him he'd better plan on twenty-five to life, I guess Ernesto figured he was better off dead.”

“But Brian—”

“Why didn't that cocksucker Klein talk to me before he went over to the jail? That case wasn't locked, no way. You know I'm right, Al.”

“All I know,” the detective said, “is that we'll never know. You gotta calm down, brother.”

Keyes closed his eyes. “Maybe I'm just mad at myself. I should have told Klein about
El Fuego
as soon as I saw the second letter. But how was I to know the sonofabitch was in such a hurry to dump the case? Whoever heard of pleading your man five days after the goddamn crime?”

“He thought it was a loser,” Garcia said. “He was just trying to expedite things.”

Keyes sat up angrily, looking ragged.

“Expedite things, huh? Well, he expedited his client right into the morgue.”

Garcia shrugged. “You hungry?”

“I thought you were here to arrest me.”

“Naw. Klein's making noises about pressing charges. Assault with a deadly cocktail fork, something like that. Fortunately for you, nobody at the state attorney's office likes the little prick, so he's having trouble getting a warrant. He'd probably forget all about it if you'd pay his hospital bill. Can't be much—what's six little sutures on the tongue?”

Keyes smiled for the first time. “I suppose it's the least I could do.”

“Make him an offer,” Garcia advised. “If you're lucky, you might not even have to say you're sorry.”

“What about the Harper case?”

“You read the paper. It's closed, man. Nothing I can do.”

“But what about Bellamy and the other
Fuego
letter?”

“Talk to Missing Persons,” Garcia said dryly, “and they'll call it a probable accidental drowning. And they'll say, ‘What letter?' ”

The detective lumbered around the office, poking at books and files, flipping through notebooks, taking up time. Keyes could tell that something was bugging him.

“For what it's worth,” Garcia said finally, “I agree with you. There's more to the Harper murder than the late great Ernesto Cabal. I bitched and moaned about keeping the case open, but I got outvoted.”

“What're they afraid of?”

“It's the start of the the season,” Garcia said. “Snowbirds on the wing, tourist dollars, my friend. What's everyone so afraid of? Empty hotel rooms, that's what. A gang of homicidal kidnappers is not exactly a PR man's dream, is it? The boys at the Chamber of Commerce would rather drink Drano than read
El Fuego
headlines. Not now, Brian, not during the season.”

“So that leaves me the Lone Ranger,” said Keyes.

“I'll do what I can,” Garcia said, “quietly.”

“Great. Can you get the state to pay my fee?”

The detective laughed. “No, Kemosabe, but I got you a present. An honest-to-God clue. Remember the tag on the Cadillac at Pauly's Bar?”

“Sure,” Keyes said. “GATOR 2.”

“Well, guess who it comes back to.”

“The legendary Viceroy Wilson!”

“Nope. The Seminole Nation of Florida, Incorporated.”

“Swell,” Keyes said, flopping back on the couch. “That's some swell clue, Tonto.”

 

Cab Mulcahy arrived at work early, canceled two appointments, and asked his secretary to please hold all calls, except one. For the next three hours Mulcahy sat in his office and eyed the telephone. He loosened his necktie and pretended to work on some correspondence, but finally he just closed the drapes (to shield himself from the rest of the newsroom) and sat down in a corner chair. Through the window, Biscayne Bay was radiant with a sailboat regatta; Hobies skimmed and sliced fierce circles, leaping each other's wakes, orange and lemon sails snapping in the warm morning breeze. It was a gorgeous race under an infinite blue sky, but Cab Mulcahy paid no attention. It was one of the darkest days of his career. Ricky Bloodworth's column had turned out just as half-baked, unfocused, and banal as Mulcahy knew it would be. Yet he had thrown away twenty-two years of integrity and printed it anyway.

Why?

To flush Skip Wiley from his hideout.

It had seemed like a good plan. No sense blaming Keyes.

But what had Mulcahy done? He'd unleashed a monster, that's what. He glanced again at the phone. Where the hell was Wiley? How could he sit still while a jerk like Bloodworth came after his job?

Mulcahy pondered one plausible explanation: Skip Wiley was dead. That alone would account for this silence. Perhaps a robber had snatched him from his car on the expressway and killed him. It was not a pleasant scenario, but it certainly answered the big question. Mulcahy figured that death was the only thing that would slow Wiley down on a day like today. The more Cab Mulcahy thought about this possibility, the more he was ashamed of his ambivalence.

He could hear the phone ringing every few minutes outside the door, at his secretary's desk. Readers, he thought, furious readers. How could he tell them, yes, he agreed, Bloodworth's writing was disgraceful. Yes, it's a bloody travesty. Yes, he's a congenital twit and we've got no business publishing crap like that.

Much as he wanted to, Mulcahy could never say all that, because journalism was not the issue here.

There was a firm, well-rehearsed knock on the door. Before Mulcahy could get up, Ricky Bloodworth stuck his head in the room.

“I hate it when you do that,” Mulcahy said.

“Sorry.” Bloodworth handed him a stack of columns. “Thought you might want to take a gander at these.”

“Fine. Go away now.”

“Sure, Mr. Mulcahy. Are you feeling okay?”

“A little tired, that's all. Please shut the door behind you.”

“Any one of those could run tomorrow,” Bloodworth said. “They're sort of timeless.”

“I'll keep that in mind.”

Mulcahy sagged behind his desk and scanned the columns. With each sentence he grew queasier. Bloodworth had generously penciled his own headline ideas at the top of each piece:

“Abortion: What's the Big Deal?”

“Capital Punishment: Is the Chair Tough Enough?”

“Vietnam: Time to Try Again?”

Mulcahy was aghast. He buzzed his secretary.

“Seventy-seven calls about today's column,” she reported. “Only three persons seemed to like it, and one of them thought it was satire.”

“Has anyone phoned,” Mulcahy asked, “who remotely
sounded
like Mr. Wiley?”

“I'm afraid not.”

Mulcahy's stomach was on fire; the coffee was going down like brake fluid. He opened the curtains and balefully scouted the newsroom. Ricky Bloodworth was back at his desk, earnestly interviewing two husky men in red fez hats. Mulcahy felt on the verge of panic.

“Get me Brian Keyes,” he told his secretary. Enough was enough—he'd given Keyes his lousy twenty-four hours. Now it was time to find Skip Wiley, dead or alive.

“How's the fish?”Jenna said.

“Very good,” said Brian Keyes.

“It's a grouper. The man at the market promised it was fresh. How's the lemon sauce?”

“Very good,” Keyes said.

“It's a little runny.”

“It's fine, Jenna.”

She lowered her eyes and gave a shy smile that brought back a million memories. A smile designed to pulverize your heart. For diversion, Keyes took a fork and studiously cut the fish into identical bite-size squares.

“I liked your hair better when it was shaggy,” Jenna said. “Now you look like an insurance man.”

“I'm in court so much these days. Gotta look straight and reliable up on the witness stand.”

Keyes wondered how much small talk would be necessary to finesse the awkward questions: Where've you been? What've you been up to? Did you get our Christmas card? He was no good at small talk, and neither was Jenna. Jenna liked to get right to the juicy stuff.

“Are you seeing anybody?”

“Not right now,” Keyes said.

“I heard you were dating a lady lawyer. Sheila something-or-other.”

“She moved,” Keyes said, “to Jacksonville. Got on with a good firm. We're still friendly.” Surely, he thought, Jenna could see how uncomfortable this was.

“So you're living alone,” she said, not unkindly.

“Most nights, yeah.”

“You could call, just to say hi.”

“Skip doesn't like it,” Keyes said.

“He wouldn't mind,” Jenna said, “every now and then.”

But in fact, when Jenna had first dumped him for Skip Wiley, Brian Keyes had phoned every night for three weeks, lovesick and miserable. Finally Wiley had started answering Jenna's telephone and singing “When You Walk Through a Storm.” Immediately Keyes had quit calling.

“You look like you've lost about eight pounds,” Jenna remarked, studying him across the table.

“Nine,” Keyes said, impressed. “You look very good.” The understatement of the century.

She had come straight from her jazz exercise class, which she taught four times a week. She was wearing a lavender Danskin, pink knit leg warmers, and white sneakers. Her blond hair was bobbed up, and she wore tiny gold earrings that caught the light each time she turned her head. Keyes noticed a fresh hint of lipstick, and the taste of an elusive perfume. As if all that weren't enough, she had a terrific new tan, which fascinated Keyes because Jenna was not a beach person.

“It's been a while since you've been here,” she said, pouring white wine.

“You've really done some work on the place.”

“Damage, you mean. It's Skip, mostly.”

Keyes pointed to a cluster of pockmarks high on the living-room wall, beneath a stuffed largemouth bass. “Are those bullet holes?”

“Now, don't get all worried.”

Keyes got up for a closer look. “Looks like a .38.”

“He got mad one night watching the TV news. The governor was talking about growth, how growth was so essential. The governor was saying how one thousand new people move to Florida every day. Skip's opinion about that was considerably different than the governor's. Skip didn't think the governor should have been quite so happy.”

“Why did he shoot the wall?” Keyes asked.

“Because he couldn't bring himself to shoot the TV—it's a brand-new Trinitron,” Jenna said. “I forgot you don't like spinach.”