Gumbo Limbo (21 page)
“It’s four in the morning. We’re an hour from the airport.” Spence’s voice echoed from down a long tunnel. I opened my eyes. He sat only five feet away in the driver’s seat. “Your flight’s at seven-thirty.” Still the echo. “We’re on a bridge in Alabama, just east of Mobile. We get to the end of this bridge, you want to stop and eat?”
I had dreamed about phone calls. I needed to send warnings, in advance of my arrival in Key West. In order of importance: Claire Cahill, Olivia Jones, Sam Wheeler. I wanted to hear Teresa Barga’s voice. I didn’t dare call. I had no way to know whose phone had been tapped, whose answering machine might be monitored. One thing certain: I wouldn’t find anyone awake at four A.M. I had better make sense with my warnings.
“Let’s stop near a telephone, see if I can walk. How did you hook up with Fortay, if you don’t mind my asking?”
“Started, he saved my life. Some administrative error, I got sentenced to thirty-six months, but by mistake sent to Atlanta. Maximum loony bin. I’m in the washroom, a deranged Marielista jumps me, goes for my throat. Fortay walks in, pulls him
off, swabs the floor with the fucker. Everything he could do but kill him, in fifteen seconds flat. He tells me to get the hell out of there, all the noise, somebody’s going to solitary. He said, ‘I can take the hole. You can’t.’ So I split and he gets thirty days of dungeon. Through my lawyer, I sent his wife in Baton Rouge five grand cash. Fortay got out of the hole, learned what I did, I never had another problem, the two more months it took me to get transferred. Believe it or not, ever since he got out, we’ve stayed in touch. He even sends Christmas cards, pictures of his grandchildren.”
off, swabs the floor with the fucker. Everything he could do but kill him, in fifteen seconds flat. He tells me to get the hell out of there, all the noise, somebody’s going to solitary. He said, ‘I can take the hole. You can’t.’ So I split and he gets thirty days of dungeon. Through my lawyer, I sent his wife in Baton Rouge five grand cash. Fortay got out of the hole, learned what I did, I never had another problem, the two more months it took me to get transferred. Believe it or not, ever since he got out, we’ve stayed in touch. He even sends Christmas cards, pictures of his grandchildren.”
Spence turned off Interstate 10 onto U.S. 98, a four-lane divided highway. He parked alongside a pay-phone kiosk in front of a construction site. A huge sign read, COMING SOON MOTEL. Brilliant. The chains had begun promoting their places with laughs instead of free Raisin Bran.
Jesse helped me out of the car. I called my own number. I got my machine. I said, “Claire, it’s me. I’ll see you soon,” and hung up. I called Sam Wheeler, got his machine. I said, “Sam, it’s me. Sorry about the time. Pick up, please … Waiting … Still here …”
I hung up, afraid to leave a cryptic message for fear my words would be too cryptic, too confusing. I also didn’t have the strength to remain standing at the pay phone. Spence helped me slide back into the Chrysler’s rear seat. We drove a few hundred yards and stopped again. I kept my eyes closed.
Minutes later Spence woke me with a tall orange juice and a plate of scrambled eggs and sausage. “What‘d’ya know,” he said. He poured at least three ounces of Absolut into the juice. “A Waffle House, in Daphne, Alabama. Here in the middle of friggin’ nowhere. Drink this, eat this, fly south. You’ll be a brand-new man by cocktail hour.”
“Brand-new?”
“You got it.”
“With a longer dick and a bigger brain?”
“Sorry. It’s one or the other.”
I
deplaned in Orlando, hunched over to negotiate the center aisle, down the ladder one step at a time, then shuffling up the incline. Like walking on soft-boiled eggs, trying not to jar my rib cage. Sitting and standing required awkward, suggestive contortions. The drug-vodka buzz turned into a hideous spike-brain headache. Squealing tots, arriving, exploding with Disney anticipation, were replaced in the concourse by weary, pissed-off tots wiped out by days of long lines, hyper-energized by themepark junk food. Parents, terrorized by the cacophony, became more childish than their rampaging offspring. Some days I wondered why America didn’t just lop off Florida like a diseased thumb and send it floating to another hemisphere.
deplaned in Orlando, hunched over to negotiate the center aisle, down the ladder one step at a time, then shuffling up the incline. Like walking on soft-boiled eggs, trying not to jar my rib cage. Sitting and standing required awkward, suggestive contortions. The drug-vodka buzz turned into a hideous spike-brain headache. Squealing tots, arriving, exploding with Disney anticipation, were replaced in the concourse by weary, pissed-off tots wiped out by days of long lines, hyper-energized by themepark junk food. Parents, terrorized by the cacophony, became more childish than their rampaging offspring. Some days I wondered why America didn’t just lop off Florida like a diseased thumb and send it floating to another hemisphere.
I went for a phone bank on a wall near some lockers. Two wrong numbers. I hung up before they charged my credit card. Finally, my fingers worked in my favor. My own voice on my own machine. No messages. Odd. One more call. Olivia Jones had just walked into her office.
“Any reward takers?”
“One flaky call that I knew was a hoax. Some Conch kids. I tried to get you at home. These guys were calling, pestering me, trying to scam the reward. I finally said, ‘Screw it,’ and passed it to the lady in the motel. Let her get rid of them. I’ve got another one, though, and this one’s promising. Still pending.”
“Meaning, you didn’t pass it along?”
“Right. This one, I wanted to call you first. It just came in. I should say, he just came in. You’ll never guess.”
“Don’t say a name on the telephone.”
“You’re sounding weird.”
“And don’t call the motel at all.”
“You’re costing me money.”
“When I have fun, I have fun.”
“I know you
that well.”
that well.”
“Well, I’m serious right now. I’m talking genuine danger. Can you take him somewhere, anywhere, and not let him out of your sight? Call me around two. Don’t leave a message. Keep calling until you talk to me directly. I’ll cover your lost reward, your expenses, your exorbitant hourly rate …”
“You’re scaring me.”
“Good. Now’s the perfect time for it. I’m scared, too.”
A long silence. “I can take him to …”
“Don’t tell me, please. I’ve got a better idea. Get a contact number to your client …” How to describe Liska? “When’s the last time you heard ‘Stayin’ Alive’ in a bar?”
Olivia hesitated, but said: “I know who you mean.”
“Don’t tell the contact anything except how to find you. Go now.”
TVs played “Headline News” at the departure gate. The waiting passengers were a mixture of khakied weekend warriors, scurrying to the Keys for thirty hours of booze and debauchery, and foreigners—German and Brit kids. Young men weary, defiant. The women awkward, with huge potential for moodiness. There must be a European “been there, done that” checklist somewhere, the Requirements of Fulfillment that dictated walking the length of Duval Street in heavy sandals with backpack. Do two miles, sleep in the hostel, jump the next plane out. It was their shallow business, the hit-and-run tourism, but they’d
worn out their welcome on small aircraft with their refusal to budget soap and deodorant.
worn out their welcome on small aircraft with their refusal to budget soap and deodorant.
The takeoff prompted another of Jesse Spence’s mystery pills. After the medication took, the droning became an enveloping Magic Fingers, the vibrations lulled me into surrealistic vignettes, ponderings that gave to half-awake, abbreviated dreams. The same question kept forcing its way to the head of the line: Why had Tazzy Gucci invited me to New Orleans?
An attendant raised her hand to adjust my pillow. I flinched. She checked my wounds, quickly apologized, and offered me a microscopic bag of peanuts. I conned her out of six, and asked if anyone northbound had left a
Key West Citizen
in the cabin.
Key West Citizen
in the cabin.
She found a front section. Marnie Dunwoody’s mission had paid off with a lead story:
DOCUMENTS INDICATE CRIME COVER-UP
Howard Tucker, son of Monroe County Sheriff Tommy Tucker, and husband of Wednesday’s murder victim, Chloe Tucker, is no stranger to jail cells. His rap sheet includes such pastimes as crack cocaine sale and possession, petty larceny, motor vehicle theft, alleged domestic abuse, aggravated assault with a motor vehicle, and possession of stolen goods. But documents gathered from seven South Florida law enforcement agencies suggest that Tucker’s convictions represent only “the tip of the iceberg,” says retired Monroe County detective Nestor “Pepsi Cola” Lopez.
Computer data suggest that Howard “Little Howie” Tucker has avoided prosecution almost four times as often as he has faced a judge. His jail time, for eleven misdemeanor and seven felony convictions, totals fewer than fourteen months. State Attorney Lyle Johnston yesterday refused to confirm that the impaneled Grand Jury has reviewed evidence linking Monroe County Sheriff Tommy Tucker to his son’s preferential treatment.
Sheriff Tucker, asked to comment on allegations that he systematically pressured law enforcement officials to grant favors and leniency to his son, called them “trumped-up bilge water and pansy-assed political backstabbing.”
Broward County detectives yesterday linked Howard Tucker to pawned jewelry items possibly stolen from Chloe Tucker in the days or hours immediately preceding the discovery of her body in the Key West Cemetery.
Marnie had handed Chicken Neck Liska the election break he needed. The kid had been “hands-off” in politics for fifteen years. Tucker’s opponents had assumed no proof existed that could tie him to Little Howie’s invulnerability. Suddenly, a weakness. The sharks would swarm to attack, and Tucker’s allies would vanish like steam off Cuban yellow rice. The Lower Keys had built a history of eleventh-hour vote swings. This shift would be founded on more than the standard mud-slinging.
The plane avoided the mile-high cumulus cloud that hovers near Wisteria Island in late August. A routine west-east approach, quickly descending, past astronomical real estate on the postage stamp once called Tank Island. No one had derived the name “Sunset Key” from a Spanish or Seminole phrase. One still saw blank spots in Old Town where huge ficus and banyan and other non-native trees had toppled during 1998’s Hurricane Georges, though indigenous vegetation and most full-time residents had quickly bounced back.
We touched down on schedule, at precisely one-ten P.M.
My paranoia produced an ugly dividend: with my fear of contacting anyone by phone, I had failed to ask anyone to pick me up at the airport. On the other hand, in my condition, I didn’t particularly want to see a familiar face.
Outside the Arrivals gate, a pack of cabbies stood in the shade of an overhang, bullshitting, kicking the dirt, flicking their ashes downwind.
“Cab downtown, sir?” said a short black man in a referee’s striped shirt. Then he looked at me as if he’d changed his mind, gone off the clock.
My mini-zoom camera hung from its neck strap. My carry-on bag was as good as empty. The cabbie stared at my pocked face. I’d checked the multiple scabs in an Orlando Airport men’s room. Two had been draining. No telling what they looked like coming off the flight into Key West. The cabbie saw me as another cheap-ass, bad-tip tourist, arriving drunk at the party, a bona fide risk to puke in his hack.
I looked past him, at another driver, and recognized a gnarled face, black Greek captain’s hat, smoker’s complexion, and gray ponytail. The Five-Sixes driver who’d delivered Abby Womack and me to my house the night we’d met at Louie’s Backyard. He looked back and, biting a fingernail, gave me a once-over, then turned away. I walked up to him.
He said, “Y‘okay, buddy?”
“Sprained my back yesterday. I’m moving slow.”
He motioned with his arm toward the black man. “Gentleman over there’s first in the hack line.”
“But today I want to do business with you.”
He shrugged and led the way to the pink cab with its wingedwheel door logo. I carefully slid into the backseat.
Over his shoulder, “Can I ride you around, show you the budget hotels?”
“Shitcan it, man. I live here.”
He laughed and shook his head. “Shame, that guy kickin’ the bucket.”
“Which one is that?”
“Guy from
Saturday Night Live
.”
Saturday Night Live
.”
Had there been news I hadn’t heard? “You mean Belushi?”
“I mean that comedian.”
New travels slowly in the Keys. I took another stab: “Phil Hartman?”
“That’s the one.”
“Quite a while back, right?”
“Right. His old lady zipped him with a pistol. He was asleep. Clocked with a Glock. She probably bought it on his charge account. Shame.”
He must practice his ditz rap, must imagine it improves tips. He’d come to paradise to live in his own little world.
I gave him precise directions to the house. I wanted this trip to end. My list of chores got longer each hour. I wanted, more than anything, to be in bed. I wanted to recuperate in a private high-ceilinged room with sand-colored plaster walls, on natural cotton sheets, with green leaves reflecting sunlight in my window, a soft breeze, moderately humid, fluttering the gauzy curtains, polished hardwood floors, a constant nurse—Teresa Barga, in a white bibbed uniform—begging me to once again be whole. Amend that. The uniform would include a thin cotton skirt cut above the knee so my prying hand, in spite of my pain, might explore the seams and textures of her underwear, the smooth contours of her …
Twice, the cabbie got into the wrong turning for the most direct route to my house.
“How long you been in Key West?” I said.
“Two weeks, actually.”
“Still learning the city?”
“You might say.”
The cab stopped on Fleming, ten feet from the Dredgers Lane stop sign.
I said, “The other night you brought me here.”
The driver reached to fuss with the fare meter. “Tell you the truth, pal, I didn’t remember your face.” He started to turn toward me, but remembered how I looked and twisted forward. “But I remember this drop-off. With a lady in white shorts, right?”
“The other night you didn’t want to drive into the lane.”
“Like right now. I made that goddamn mistake earlier that same day. What was it, Monday morning? Wore out the goddamn power steering trying to get around, to leave.”
“This lane or another lane?”
“Like I said, this one.”
I handed him a five. “Man or a woman?”
“Man. Stank like a brewery.”
“Where’d you pick him up?”
“Caroline and Duval.”
I handed him a ten. “Do me a favor. Show me which house he went to.”
I already knew the answer. I could have saved myself the ten.
Sam Wheeler’s Bronco was parked in the lane. I hobbled twenty yards to the house. My blown-out window had been repaired. Trimmed and painted, a light anti-UV film on the glass. Easy open and close, a special security lock. Better than ever. An invoice was taped to the frame. Two seventy-five for one window. Extrapolate it out, materials and labor, a million and a half to replace my home. I felt another two seventy-five shy of wealthy.
Sam sat on the porch, wearing the rattiest sneakers I’d ever seen. I saw the Bud bottle in his hand. A shudder went up my back. “Same people make your footwear as made your truck?”
“I’m a plain fool for comfort. You’re walking like you got a ten-pound sash weight up your ass.”
I steadied myself on the porcelain-topped table as I sat on the lounge chair. “I was dragged into a foreclosed bar. A man the size of Boca Chica Naval Air Station broke my back and knocked my brains into my sinus cavity.”
“Where, exactly, did this transpire?”
I turned my head to the neighbor’s yard. “What’s that tree with the peeling red bark?”
“The gumbo-limbo. What are you talking about?”
“Great name for a restaurant, Gumbo Limbo. What time you fishing her in the morning?”
“The future Mrs. Wheeler?”
“You may want to think again.”
“Yesterday was her last day.”
“She’s Buzzy Burch’s daughter. She’s tied into all this crap.”
Sam nodded as if to say it all added up. We both knew it didn’t. “She said you looked preoccupied, worried. But don’t worry. I didn’t let loose of anything.” He thought for a few seconds, pushing his emotions, his disappointment, to the back burner. “She knew a lot about the stock market, I’ll give her that much.”
“Maybe she was planning to get rich sometime soon.”
“Isn’t it hard to murder and loot when you’re in a boat all day?”
“I haven’t figured that out yet. You know how to reach her?”
Sam shook his head. “A couple things she said … I assumed she’d leased a condo or was staying with friends. Whatever, it gave me the impression she wasn’t in a hotel.”
“Any names? Or the genders of friends?”
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