6 Martini Regrets (7 page)

Ethan wiped his hand across his mouth. “Anyway, she left Susan and Ben the land, and they started over for the third time.”

“That sounds like the history of Florida—getting wiped out and starting over.” Mathew downed the last of his coffee and pushed back from the bar. “I’d better get started or I’ll get wiped out.” He raised his hand in farewell. “See you later.” He’d be back in a few hours, just like he was every night.

Ethan hardly noticed he was gone.

I added Mathew’s cup and saucer to the rest of the dirty dishes. “Mathew’s right about Florida. My daddy’s family moved down to Florida in the thirties. If everything is timing, my family has none. Losers ’til the end.” I dug a couple of jars out of the bar fridge and began to load a garnish tray with pickled onions and olives. “Turns out things were as bad here in Florida as they were back in the coal mines up north they were trying to get away from. When they got down here they survived by fishing, crabbing and hunting wild hogs, eating anything they could catch, just like Sammy is still doing.”

The spoon I was digging out olives with stilled. I could almost see Grandma Jenkins standing at the stove, one hand planted on her jutted hip, madly stirring something cooking on the burner and telling the family history. Recounting how for years no one in the family had a new piece of clothing. “In those days sugar came in cotton sacks,” she would say. “Empty sacks became pillowcases, towels and our clothing.” When she got to the clothing, we always waited for the best story of all, how at a revival meeting a woman got the power and started rolling around on the ground. Her dress worked up her legs until the congregation could see, written across her cotton-covered backside, the slogan
Sweeten with Redpath
. No matter how many times she told that story, Grandma would laugh ’til she cried and we’d howl right along with her.

“Funny, all that no-account poor-folk food we ate when I was a kid, things like fried gator, is now the most expensive thing on my menu.”

I raised a hand and waved to Paul Clarke and his real-estate partner as they left. “All except coon. Not much call for that.”

Ethan grinned. “You never know, it might catch on. It’s out of the ordinary and original, just like you.”

“Oh, I’m not all that original. Down here, pretty much all of us have the same stories about the struggle to survive.”

He pointed a finger at me and then at himself. “That’s why I think you and I have a connection: a common background.”

“What? I thought you were one of the lucky ones, born rich. Your daddy drove a Cadillac; mine was lucky to have a ten-year-old used pickup.”

“Ben and I were raised on a ranch not that far from here.” He lifted his hand and pointed in an easterly direction. “We were expected to work right alongside our parents, with no special concessions for our age. Later, I stayed on the ranch while Ben went to agricultural school over in Miami. It was a hardscrabble life, barely staying alive by working like hell, but then we started mining the land for phosphates.” He rubbed his palms together, and his face twisted in an emotion I couldn’t get. “Ben was younger than me and idealistic, wanted no part of phosphates. We fell out. It destroyed us. Only saw him once in twenty years, and that was at his daughter Val’s funeral.”

He went silent, staring down and away as he gazed into the past. “Ben never had any luck . . . except for Susan.” He said her name like it was sweet toffee on his tongue. “I suppose she was enough luck for any one man.” He flinched and then a wry grin lit his face. “Ben got Susan and I got rich.”

“Rich sounds good to me.”

“Hell, it’s not so bad.” A bark of laughter. “Do you hanker after money, Sherri?”

He watched me closely; there seemed to be a subtext to what he was asking.

“It would be a lie to say no. Like everyone, I want enough to be protected. Beyond that . . .” I shrugged. “Hell, I’m too lazy to be rich. I’d have to go out and spend it. You have to do things when you have money, join things and take part. I’m not a take-part sort of person, so I’ll settle for safe.”

He wasn’t leaving it alone. “How much would it take to make you feel safe?”

“I don’t even have to think about it. No mortgage, that’s my happy place.”

Both of his palms were flat on the mahogany and he leaned towards me. “So what would you do to be there . . . steal . . . kill even?”

“No.” It came out way too loud and too emphatic. I was denying a bad memory of being willing to cross a line, to kill to protect myself, but that was a secret I shared with no one. Guilt turned me away from him and set me fussing and tidying.

“Ah, but sometimes,” he said, his voice deep and soothing, like he was practicing seduction, “temptation is too strong to deny.”

“Yeah, like having that last dirty martini.”

“It led to something bad?”

I nodded. “Not a Hallmark moment.”

He looked at me quizzically. “What’s a dirty martini anyway?”

“About five ounces of vodka, or gin if you’re a heathen, and the brine from a jar of olives.” He’d hit my obsession now, and my hands were busy describing the process as I drifted towards him. “You take a martini glass out of the freezer, coat the inside with a little vermouth and then shake up the vodka and the brine and pour it in. Pop in a few olives, olives that are stuffed with jalapeños, and sail straight to heaven.”

“Your favorite drink?”

“Nope, not anymore. I’ve given them up.”

“Why?”

“Because I’m not good with temptation.”

“Few of us are.”

“Talking from experience?”

“Oh, yeah.”

“But we learn from our mistakes, right?”

“Yup, and we probably have lots more to learn.”

We laughed together, knowing we’d each met a fellow sinner.

CHAPTER 15

Back in the thirties, the building housing the Sunset Bar and Grill was a hotel. Now, the Sunset takes up the entire second floor, giving diners a clear view of the sun going down out over the Gulf of Mexico.

There are three commercial properties on the ground floor and one of them houses Clay’s real-estate company. It means we can see each other during the day, for coffee, lunch or just because, and he never goes out to show a property without coming up to tell me where he is going.

Clay is old Florida. His kin have been here since the Civil War. They served in the legislature early on and led movements to pass laws designed to generally make Florida a better place. Coming from a family of Florida landowners and people who counted, his mind is an encyclopedia of who, what, where and when. I count on him to recite the social register when questions arise. So later, after Ethan had left and before things started to buzz in the bar, I asked Clay if he knew Ethan Bricklin. Clay had come in for an early meal before showing a property and now sat at the bar, eating scallops.

He carefully put down his knife and fork in the five o’clock position and raised his head. “Who?”

“Ethan Bricklin. Ever heard of him?”

“Sherri, he’s one of the richest men in all of Florida. Everyone knows him.”

“You mean everyone who reads the financial pages. Tell me about him.”

He didn’t even have to think about it; he just reeled the information off like he was reading a stock report. “He struck gold, or rather phosphates, on the family ranch and turned it into a multimillion-dollar industry. He used that to grow more wealth, diversifying into land and other industries, but phosphate mining is still his main business. There are big issues over phosphates now, but back then everyone wanted to get into the act.” He grinned. “I remember my father asking everyone how you could tell if there were phosphates on our ranch.” He picked up his utensils again. “He rode his whole thousand-acre spread on horseback, looking for a sign of them.”

“Did he find them?”

“Nope.”

“Bummer.”

“Bad luck. Dad always thought fate had cheated him, but my mom just called him a fool for dreaming. The most practical-minded woman in the world, my mother.”

“Guess you take after her, huh?”

He didn’t rise to the jibe, but then he never did. I asked him another question. “So Bricklin would have no reason to hang around the Sunset, or look me up, except trying to find out about his brother’s death.”

“His brother?”

“Ben Bricklin, the dead guy at the nursery, was Ethan Bricklin’s brother.”

Clay looked doubtful, like I’d told him an alien had just landed in the kitchen. “Are you sure these two guys are related?”

“Swear,” I said, raising my right hand. “Ethan Bricklin came in today and stayed awhile.”

“Ethan Bricklin came in here today?” he asked in a tentative voice.

“Yup. He was here for about three hours.”

“Why?”

“The cops told him about Tito having my card. He seemed to think I was involved.”

I watched him push a very fine scallop around the plate. I asked, “Can you think of any other reason he’d hang around except wanting to know how I knew Tito?”

He tilted his head to the side, thinking. “No, unless it’s the obvious.”

“And that is?”

“He wouldn’t be the first man who got ideas being around you.”

I planted my forearms on the bar and leaned towards him. “You mean the way you get ideas being around me, some real dirty ideas, some ‘let’s get naked and roll in the muck’ sort of things. That’s the kind of ideas you get, isn’t it?”

He put down his knife and fork again, but this time he pushed his plate away. “Time for me to go.”

“One day you’re going to break, Adams.”

He pointed at the sapphire-and-diamond engagement ring I wore, the one we couldn’t afford, and said, “I thought I already had.”

I watched him walk away. The guy had the best ass in town.

Later that night, I told Clay I’d made a really big decision.

He reached up and turned off his light. “Going to come clean with Styles?”

“God, no. Are you crazy? That business in the Everglades is over.” I stretched my arm across his chest and covered his legs with mine. He pulled me close to his side.

“No,” I said, “this decision is about us.”

His body went rigid and he lay still, waiting without speaking for what was to come. It almost felt like he’d stopped breathing.

I reached up and stroked his cheek. “I was thinking perhaps we should move the wedding up.”

“What?” He pulled away from me and reached to turn his light back on. Raised on his elbows, he stared down at me. “What’s brought this on?”

I could have told him it was a reaction to facing death out there on that drainage canal. My life had changed that night, and there was no going back to where I’d been before that night in the Everglades.

Clay’s brows were furrowed and his piercing black eyes were locked on mine. “You aren’t saying this just to please me, are you? I know I’ve been bugging you to set a date sooner rather than later.”

“Nope.”

He still wasn’t convinced. “What changed your mind?”

I started to lie, but it wouldn’t work. “Fear,” I said. “I didn’t want to die and leave no one behind.”

He beamed down at me. “I should have taken you out in the Everglades and dropped you there a year ago.”

It was a busy Thursday the next time Ethan Bricklin came in.

Saying it was a surprise to see him back again hardly covered it. I picked up a tray of drinks and took it to the wait station, making an effort not to look at him or engage with him in any way, figuring if I ignored him as if he were an unwanted salesman, he’d go away. Turned out Ethan wasn’t easy to ignore and he was more determined than the best aluminum-siding man in the business. He sat down in front of the beer taps, the same as before, crossed his hands on the counter and waited.

What the hell did he want with me? I was pretty sure it wasn’t my sparkling conversation. Besides, I thought we’d discussed everything we had in common: redneck living in Florida, whose family was poorer and where to get the best grouper sandwich on the Mangrove Coast—besides the Sunset, of course. He waved at me to catch my eye. I nodded to him but went right on shaking martinis and filling the glasses on my tray. I carried the martinis to the wait station and buzzed Jackie and then went to Ethan. I placed a paper coaster in front of him and said, “What’s your pleasure?”

He gave me a naughty grin and raised his eyebrows.

“Shit, not you too.”

He laughed. “I’m still breathing, aren’t I?” A little-boy-in-trouble grin teased his face.

I pointed my forefinger at him. “You do know that when you waggle your eyebrows like that, your ears wave too. Might want to think about that.”

He ignored the jibe. “I brought you a present.”

Now it was my turn to raise my eyebrows. Gifts from drinkers aren’t a good idea.

He picked something off the stool beside him, then sat an orchid on the counter.

“Oh, it’s so cute.” I looked closer at the base of the plant. Yellow and brown, the flowers grew out from a large dried-out clump of roots that didn’t look capable of sustaining life. “Wait a minute. It isn’t dying, is it? The roots don’t look so healthy.” Suspicious and annoyed, I glared at him. “What kind of a gift is a dying plant?”

“It’s a cowhorn orchid,” Ethan said. “A slipper orchid, native to Florida and tough. It can live in the air or in water and in sun or shade. It reminded me of our conversation about people like us, who survive. There aren’t many of these left in the wild and not many of us left either.”

I pushed the orchid towards him. “If it’s rare, then don’t leave it with me. It will die for sure.”

He slid it back towards me. “I told you it was tough, just like you. Now, how about a draft?”

I brought his beer but he didn’t touch it, didn’t even look at it when I set it in front of him. Instead he said, “I’ve just come back from Redlands.”

“What’s that, a music festival?”

He shook his head in despair at my ignorance. “It’s an orchid show over near Miami. Orchidophiles from all over the world show up for it. It’s a big deal. Florida does millions of dollars in legal orchid sales alone every year. If you add in illegal sales . . .” His shoulder rose in a little shrug. “There were hundreds of thousands of people at this show.”

“God, maybe I should open a bar just for the show. Put little orchids in every drink.”

He laughed but it didn’t last. “There’s a rumor going round that Ben bred a black orchid before he died, even sent out notices to people offering it for sale.”

I turned the crazy-colored flower around, studying it from all angles. “A black orchid sounds pretty boring compared to this little darling.”

He shook his head. “You don’t understand. No one has ever seen a black orchid. There are some with black petals or black spots, but there’s never been one that’s all black. They don’t exist. It’s a matter of genetics.” He spread his hands wide. “There are thirty thousand species of orchids and more than a hundred thousand hybrids, making it the most lucrative flower business in the world. Can you imagine if you were the only person in the world to own a black orchid, can you see what that would mean?”

“Money would be my guess.”

He was leaning forward with enthusiasm, his eyes shining with excitement. “A black orchid is like . . .” He thought for a minute. “Like finding a Michelangelo in your attic. If you had a black orchid, had a new genus, it would be worth a lot of money, but more important than money would be the bragging rights.”

“That’s not more important than money.”

“You’d have the right to name it.” He spoke slowly, emphasizing his words by marking them off with his open palms. “Your name would be on it forever, making you immortal.”

I moved aside so Mick could pull a pint. “You orchid people are all crazy.”

“Perhaps you’re right. People will do all kinds of things, legal and illegal, for an exotic plant. At Selby Gardens, up in Sarasota, they had a big problem with an illegal orchid that was brought in from South America. People ended up in court, a really nasty business. If people thought Ben had a black orchid, some orchid collectors would offer him a fortune for it and some would try and get it by any means. Even murder.”

Fear shivered down my spine. “That’s crazy. People don’t kill for a flower.”

“I think you’re wrong about that. This gossip about Ben having a black orchid, even if it wasn’t true, would make him a target.”

“So how did the rumor start?” I asked.

“Apparently, it started with Ben. That’s what I can’t understand. He knew better than to make a mistake between a truly black orchid and an almost black.”

“Has anyone actually seen this orchid?”

“He e-mailed a picture of the orchid to at least a dozen buyers and said he had one for sale.”

And then it hit me. “Maybe your brother was playing a gigantic practical joke.” Just thinking about him having all these fanatics running around, lustfully panting after something that didn’t exist, gave me a giggle. “Man, that’s my kind of funny. I think I would have liked your brother.”

Ethan wasn’t smiling. “Ben didn’t have that kind of sense of humor.”

“Could he have faked the picture?”

“Why would he do that? These were people he did business with and wanted to stay on friendly terms with. You don’t do that by playing games.”

“So he must have believed he had one.” A second possibility hit me. “Or perhaps the e-mails didn’t come from Ben.”

“My tech person at the mine says they did.” Ethan paused, watching me and waiting for me to respond, but I was fresh out of ideas.

“Well, I’ll take real good care of this flower.” I picked it up. “And when it’s finished blooming I’ll take it out to Clay’s ranch in Independence and reintroduce it to its proper home, but you better tell me how to look after it and keep it alive until then.”

Ethan hung around, drinking slowly, ordering stone crab he barely touched and waiting for me to come back for more conversation, telling me more than I wanted to know about raising and keeping orchids. He was right when he told me he was obsessed. I knew better than to ask people about their passions. It was always just too boring.

Over the next hour, drifting back and forth between mixing drinks, I got a college course on orchids. But there was an intensity about Ethan that said he wasn’t idly passing time. I was ready to bet Ethan Bricklin never did anything without intent. But why on earth would anyone talk to me about orchids? And it was definitely orchids he wanted to talk about. For me, they were just pretty things that survived a long time on the bar—lots of bang for my buck. Man, I should put that on a tee shirt, I thought.
Lots of bang for your buck
 . . . but then people might get the wrong idea.

When Ethan was through talking about orchids, he wanted to talk about the one thing I didn’t want to think about ever again: the night of the fire. Hunting and searching for the words, he told me he had been a bad brother, not keeping in touch and not helping out when Ben needed him. Now he wanted to do one last thing to make things right.