The Mango Opera (17 page)

The Chart Room Bar had become a local hangout in the seventies, when David Wolkowsky, the original Pier House owner, converted a motel room into a miniature saloon. Six barstools, three tables, a first-class view of the Gulf of Mexico. The tiny lounge had provided a safe haven for a crazed assortment of yachtsmen, drug dealers, treasure divers, and politicians. There had been nights when an unknown songwriter had strummed his guitar and sung for drinks. After finding success he had included the bar’s name in a well-known lyric. But things change. A certain soul, a camaraderie, had evaporated over the years.

I drank another beer while I waited for Laura’s Bloody Mary, and chided myself for moping about the “old days” of only twenty years ago. Fifty years ago what was now the Pier House waterfront had seen huge ships come and go. The SS
Cuba
and SS
Florida
had provisioned and taken on passengers bound for Havana’s exotic adventures. Seventy-five years ago, Aeromarine Airways had occupied the property. The company had flown passengers and mail to Cuba in leftover World War I seaplanes. Fifty years before that, the United States government had run a ship coaling station. Key West had been a marketplace, a hub of commerce for a century and a half. I suddenly felt small, devoid of perspective, bemoaning the shifting moods of a fifteen-by-twenty-five-foot gin mill.

I had just left a murdered woman’s father—a man with a tough history of changing politics, a treacherous looking henchman, a punk for a son, and an envelope full of money. The father wanted to buy a solution to a crime. I knew South Florida. He stood a good chance to succeed. Money had bought change in Key West. It also bought all kinds of justice.

Dangling Laura’s drink in a paper bag, working the bicycle’s gear lever with my thumb, I pedaled across the island. A bike ride on Simonton is the real-life equivalent of a fast-moving video game: you dodge ruts, bricks, Rollerbladers, broken pavement, stray coconuts, mopeds, and fallen fronds. At the Eaton Street light I squeezed between parked cars and traffic to pass the Conch Train, an Isuzu pickup towing a boat trailer, and two convertibles. A Mercedes-Benz 400SEL sedan at the head of the line waited to turn left and head out of town. The old man was in the backseat, Palguta driving. Carlos Balbuena sat low in front, punching numbers into a cellular phone.

Laura Tate had lived in the same place for years. Amelia above Simonton, near William, is lightly traveled, even by Key West residents. Her cottage sits behind another home, protected from island noise by a small rain forest, a snarl of vegetation she used to call Lizardland. One evening, years ago, we spent hours sitting in beach chairs under the canopy of trees drinking sangria that she had chilled in a thermos bottle, and listening to homemade cassette compilation tapes borrowed from a disc jockey friend. When the wine was gone we’d tried to make love down in the dirt and back to nature, until a frog jumped onto her forehead and scared the wits out of her. We managed to shower off the filth and finish the sex without falling in the bathroom, and we fell asleep on the living room floor. After sunrise a flash downpour had struck. I still can picture her racing out the door, running naked in the yard, laughing and scrambling to save the tapes and the ghetto blaster from the rain.

She answered the door wearing a flimsy tank top, men’s boxer shorts, and a backward ball cap. Cute as ever. Pink skin, a weariness in her eyes. She held a large black penis-shaped dildo in her hand.

“Do you know how to fix these?”

I eyeballed the upright phallus and offered the response of a concerned physician. “Hmm. What seems to be malfunctioning, young lady?”

“It’s supposed to be a three-speed model. All I get is full tilt, like a damn Joy Buzzer. Doesn’t do a thing for me, high speed.”

“Have you tried using older, worn-out batteries?” I handed her the bag with the Bloody Mary.

“I think old batteries were the problem in the first place. I didn’t use this thing for a long time while I was dating Tripper Wilbanks, ’cause I didn’t need to. Then the dummy got caught with a briefcase full of blow, and he had to go to camp. Meanwhile the batteries leaked, you know, that orange goo stuff, so I put in new alkalines. Six bucks at the pharmacy, you believe that? Six bucks. Ever since, full speed. Kind of reminds me of that Lithuanian boy last night. Open throttle, all the way.”

Laura fetched me a nail file so I could clean the internal switch and battery contacts. I settled onto a sofa and dismantled the plastic dick while I explained about the murders, the attempted abduction, and the shredded VW. I blabbed on with all the details while I scratched away corrosion. Laura was flopped back into an old beanbag chair, sipping from the Bloody Mary and poking around in her mouth with the straw. Her threadbare tank top permitted the occasional review of near handful-sized breasts. Her nipples pointed outward like pushpins and the boxer shorts were askew just enough to flash wispy hints of pale pubic hair. I must have needed someone’s ear. Or else I did not want to abandon the view. I even threw in the parts about Raoul at the Hyatt and Ray Kemp at the funeral in Coral Gables. I mentioned that rape may have been a partial motive. Finally I stopped talking because there was nothing left to tell.

The coal-colored dork was operational. I needed to get out of the cottage before I succumbed to the scenery. Laura looked at me, stone-faced, making sure I had finished. She began to giggle and apologize at the same time. Something in my story, something in the tale of murder, had struck her as amusing.

“Let me in on it real fast,” I said.

“I’m trying to say I’m sorry. Oh, Jesus…”

She leaped from the chair, dropped her cup on the table, pushed down her boxers and went running for the open door of the bathroom. An exquisite moon, those perfect buns that I had loved to palm as I fell asleep the nights I had spent in the next room. I heard her hit the toilet seat, and listened to the splash as she urinated. Out of breath and wheezing, she patted her bare feet on the tile floor.

She walked back into the living room. “Nothing you haven’t seen before … But don’t look, okay?”

I looked. The flat tummy, the little blond welcome mat. She turned her back, stepped back into the shorts, and bent to pull them up.

This time I should have looked away. Things began to get crowded in my shorts.

She composed herself and sat back down. “This town. This crazy town.”

“No argument there.”

“I get on laughing jags, I wet my pants. Ever since high school.”

“It never happened when I was around before.”

“It comes and goes. Like an allergy. Some years I’m allergic to cats, some years I’m allergic to pollen. Some years I pee.”

“What was so funny?”

“I didn’t know about you and Julia. Up until the day Ray met her, he was sleeping in my bed. Back when I lived on Seidenberg, in that second-floor apartment I rented from Maggie What’s-her-name. The Maggie that moved to New Orleans.”

“I never saw that apartment.”

“So she dumped you and Ray dumped me the same day. We didn’t know each other until five years later. Almost like we got our revenge, but it was too late by then … And now you think Ray’s killing your ex-girlfriends?”

“I know, it doesn’t make any sense at all.”

“Would he kill me, too? I mean, he doesn’t know about us. And I’m his ex-girlfriend. Would he kill me, too?”

“I don’t know. I don’t know for certain that it’s Ray doing it. I’ve got a good idea, but he was in Miami when Annie’s car blew up, so he couldn’t have done that. All I wanted to tell you was, please be careful. Something’s going on. I can’t tell you to leave town, to lock yourself in the house, or anything else. All I can do is what I just did. Warn you.”

“He never acted like the killing type.”

I thought back to Mariel. “No. Just foolish in the face of disaster.”

“Will you lie down next to me until I fall asleep?” Her eyes drooped.

I remembered her remark about still smelling like Eastern European body odor. “Why don’t I take a rain check, tuck you in, and lock the door behind me?”

“You promise? The rain check?”

Before I left Laura’s house I borrowed her phone. Bob Bernier thanked me for returning his call. “How’s your afternoon look?” he said. “Can you spare me a few minutes?”

“Anytime after three-thirty.”

“You up for a beer at Louie’s?”

“Sounds fine,” I said.

“Four?”

“I’ll be wearing a Bimini T-shirt.”

I looked in on Laura. Sound asleep on top of her bedspread. I had a feeling that the rain check might save my sanity sometime soon.

Back on the bike, I rode that section of Virginia Street east of Windsor Lane that remains so Cuban and original. I did not want to race traffic on Truman, so I turned at the stone fire station at Grinnell, zipped the stop sign next to ChiChi’s Bar, and cut around the cemetery. I put some effort into it, getting up speed, blowing through pools of vermilion petals under the poinciana trees on Frances. I quickly built a sweat and felt a few kinks and knots work themselves out of my back muscles. All this intrigue, plus Laura’s sexual radiance, had boosted the pressure inside of me. I wanted to uncork the ache without making any dumb mistakes, unwind without diluting what had turned into a sense of purpose. I would shed the superfluous details and focus on stopping the threat. I wanted to make sure that someone paid for all this damage and death.

I felt as if I had accomplished five percent of those things by the time I turned onto Dredgers Lane and coasted into the yard. I could blame some of the ache on exercise. I had burned off the morning beers.

Cigar odors wafted from the porch.

Avery Hatch in a tank top and a pair of shorts. A warm-weather ensemble similar to Laura Tate’s. Not the same effect.

17

Sheriff’s Detective Hatch delivered a massive belch. “Too much goddamn lunch,” he said. I refused to respond. His intrusion had tossed my mood. I rolled the bicycle around back, locked it to the tree, threw the tarp over it. A million things on my mind, Avery Hatch not on the list. The neighbor’s spaniel whined at the fence. I ruffled the hair on its head. It licked perspiration from my fingers. Unquestioning trust in the dog’s eyes.

A Slurpee cup teetered on the edge of the porch table, cigar ashes stuck around its rim. “You came here to talk about your gluttony, Avery, and you walked,” I said. “Your car’s not in the lane. You wanted to ambush me?”

He shook his head. “Kiwanis pancake brunch at the AARP. Five goddamn dollars, I wanted my money’s worth. I felt like walking off the maple syrup. My car’s around to that lot by White Street, by Southard.”

“Ah, but you’re sitting down. Why here?”

Hatch sat up straighter in the chair. The wicker creaked in complaint. “Ask questions, like before,” he said. “Why else? What do I do every fucking day of my life? I ever got time for social calls? I come here to pay my respects?”

“You want to know what the Cubans said, go ask your partner. Billy’d be happy to share his perspective.” I entered the porch but remained standing. He didn’t take the hint.

“What Cubans we talking about?”

“I hope the rest of your questions have more substance.”

Avery shot back: “Rutledge, y’ever know Sally Ann Guthery?”

Here we go, I thought. “A few years ago. Took her out a few times.”

“You didn’t mention that Thursday morning when I told you she was the victim on Stock Island. I think you already knew she was the victim.” Hatch looked impassive, as if he were reading a menu. I foresaw a one-man tough-guy, good-guy routine.

“I didn’t know until you told me,” I said.

“Where were you the night she was killed?”

“How the hell do I know? I don’t know what night it happened. Even if I knew, I don’t think I could come up with an answer.”

“You don’t know where you were?”

“The last couple of weeks I haven’t paid much attention to myself. I’ve been through a period of personal distress. I sure as hell haven’t kept a diary.”

“So I take it you don’t want to even attempt an alibi. I suppose you know Shelly Standish, too.” He’d begun to spit his words.

“Now you’re guessing, Avery.” I walked inside and continued talking as I went to the refrigerator. “You heard from Lester Forsythe that I asked about the Balbuena and Guthery evidence photos. Shelly Standish, you’re just guessing. Maybe that’s what you do every day of your life. You guess.”

“What’d you learn from the photographs?”

I returned to the porch and chugged from the OJ carton. “Somebody knows how to bend correct knots. Knots that don’t slip, and similar knots in each case. You noticed them yourself, didn’t you? You know enough about knots.”

Avery’s pause was long enough to convince me that he hadn’t noticed the knots in the photos. But he decided to fake it. “Gimme some goddamned news,” he said. “Did you forget that we live on a fucking island? Thirty-five thousand year-round residents right here at sea level. Elevation zero. Adventures in Paradise. Nautical Wheelers. Everybody and his brother knows knots. You think that’s a clue, you got a long way to go. Where were you last Tuesday night when Julia Balbuena was dropped at Bahia Honda and Ellen Albury was offed in her living room?”

“See, everything’s been sort of hyper since Wednesday, so that one I know for sure. But let’s play with this fact, Hatch. I dated Shelly Standish, too, a few years ago. One way or another, I’m linked to every one of these crimes.”

“So why shouldn’t I arrest your ass? I think you’ve been screwing with the evidence.”

“Look at yourself, Avery. In my goddamn chair, suffocating the plants with your two-and-a-half-buck hand-rolled cigar, insinuating that I might be a suspect in three murders. Where’s your common sense? I’m a photographer. I got no chips on my shoulder except you’re getting close to being one. I get drunk, I don’t hurt people, I fall asleep. Do they pay you for this crap?”

He waved his hand to interrupt. I wouldn’t let him.

“You’ve cranked your intuition around to the idea that I might murder a few friends and leave a broad trail to my own doorstep. It’ll read good in the newspaper, won’t it? ‘Crime Wave Suspect in Custody.’ So I freeze in fear. I scamper out and hire a three-piece lawyer. But Avery, it’s a waste of pissant paperwork. You know I’m not your bad boy. If all you want to do is a shit job, take a hike. I’ve got important things to do around here. I’ve got to clean the crumbs out of my toaster. Three days of dishes in the sink. Pour pennies out of the Drambuie bottle and stuff them into rolls of fifty each. Scribble my account number on each roll.”