“What?”
“Never mind.”
“Well, I called up there and never got to talk with you after the shooting,” she said. “Some bitch answered once and told me to piss off.”
Good ol’ Kate.
“Well, I guess I figured I owed you a call back, despite everything,” he said.
“What’s that supposed to mean, you git?” she exhaled.
“Well, you called ostensibly to express some sort of concern for me, even after you left me for a busboy, so—”
“A bartender…and it wasn’t that simple.” Her tone sharpened from defensive to offensive.
“Really? What’s not simple about you fucking the guy behind the bar…the bar I helped finance? You know, the one that ate my life savings? The bar that destroyed my credit rating? Sounds pretty fucking simple to me.” Pilate paced.
“John, that’s over and done,” she said.
“Then why did you call me in Cross?”
“I just wanted to know you were okay,” she said, “and I need to talk to you—”
“You never called to see if I was okay when I got laid off from the newspaper, when I was alone, just ten miles away,” he said. “What made this so special?”
“I just…felt…I just—”
“What? Speak up, damn it!”
“Let’s not do this on the phone—not like this,” she said.
“Why the hell not? You can fuck a guy on a sticky barroom floor, but you can’t have a conversation with me over the damn phone? What the hell, Samantha?”
“John, when you’re like this, what else can I say?”
“Nothing,” he said. “Let me say it all for both of us. You needed a green card, and I needed to get laid. You needed a fool to finance your bar, and I needed to drink. You needed to fuck the bartender, and I needed to get the hell out of town. That about sums it up, right? Like I said, damn simple.”
“John, I’m…uh, I—”
“What? Spit it out, for God’s sake.”
“Pregnant. I’m pregnant, John.”
He held the phone to his ear, the cell radiating heat. “What?”
“I’m going to have a baby,” she said, her voice breaking.
“Well, if I were there, I’d tell that boyfriend of yours whose lying in your bed to go get a damn paternity test,” Pilate said. “And you go straight to hell.” He turned off the phone and flung it onto the sofa. He sat at the table, poured a tall glass of Stoli, and gulped it down. Then he peered at the empty glass for a second as if it was his worst enemy, then smashed it against the wall.
Daylight streamed through a slight part in the curtains, right into Pilate’s eyes. His eyelids fluttered and squinted. He closed them and rolled over, facing the wall.
“John, wake up.”
He didn’t open his eyes; it was a male voice with a haughty tone. “Oh no,” Pilate said, burying his head under a pillow. “You’ve been put out to pasture. Sandburg and I are working that out.”
A laugh flew through his head like a sparrow trapped in a chimney.
Pilate lay there a moment and finally removed the pillow off his head when he heard nothing more. He opened one eye and scanned the room: nothing unusual. “Hmm,” he said. He looked at the clock: It was ten after ten.
Beside the clock sat his cell phone and the pink poker chip. He scooped up the phone and searched for texts or missed calls. There was a text from Kate reminding him to call her back.
He made coffee, smoked his last cigarette with the first cup, then called Kate to fill her in on all the details, except for the odd pink poker chip.
“Why don’t you come back to Cross? Take a break?”
“Sweetie, I would like nothing better, but I have to finish this book, or they’re going to put a hit out on me to get the advance back.”
“Not funny, John,” she said.
“Sorry. You’re right.”
“Well, we could come out there,” she said, though Pilate knew it was an empty offer, as she really couldn’t get away from Cross College or take Kara out of school until the end of the semester.
“Kate, I’m good. Let me get this thing cranked out,” he said. “Besides, I don’t want to have to deal with any media folks wanting my reaction to the Lindstrom thing. Nobody knows where I am right now, and that’s a good thing. I go back to Cross, and the next thing I know, that idiot from People will be knocking on the door again.”
“I can’t argue with that. There’ve been quite a few new faces popping into town since the news broke about Jack,” she said. “How about we come out at semester’s end?”
“Perfect. So it’s settled. I’ll see you both then, okay?”
“All right, but keep your ass out of the bars, would you?” Kate said, trying to sound light but failing miserably. “Why do you need to go out drinking anyway?”
“You’re absolutely right. No reason at all for me to be drinking.”
Pilate walked to a convenience store off Duval and bought a copy of The Citizen. The newspaper offered no coverage of the murder; it had happened late, after the paper had been put to bed, so the story probably wouldn’t show up for another day.
He put the paper under his arm, wandered over to Caroline Street, and slipped in to Pepe’s Café. Known for breakfast, Pepe’s was reputedly the oldest restaurant in Key West and looked every bit the part. The smell of bacon grease, eggs, and coffee hung like a delicious cloud draping the entire atmosphere of the restaurant. Pilate ordered three eggs over medium, coffee, bacon, and wheat toast with butter, not margarine. He liked Pepe’s. The Monday night meatloaf reminded him of his grandmother’s recipe.
Just over the din of patrons, Pilate made out the sound of music on the radio—out of Havana, if he wasn’t mistaken. Knickknacks and other arcana lined the walls in an authentic, effortless way, something hundreds of chain restaurants across the country continuously fail to emulate, in spite of their superficial and synthetic attempts.
He scanned the “Citizen’s Voice” section of the paper, a guilty pleasure: To the boat captain in Summerland Key, once again, don’t you know what NO WAKE means?
Pilate took note of the dozens of bottles of condiments on the tables as he wolfed down his breakfast; he made a point to remind himself to try the French toast next time.
After receiving the check, which arrived affixed to a mousetrap, Pilate tucked a tip under the spring-loaded wire. He walked into the eighty-four-degree climate of Caroline Street, blanching momentarily.
The poker chip in the pocket of his khaki shorts seemed to summon his attention. His mind moved through a plethora of scenarios, all the possible reasons why a man would try to hide a poker chip—worth only $2.50 in some Bahamian casino—on the person of a stranger.
Pilate surmised that someone wanted that chip and was obviously following the poor guy. At the very least, the chip might be the one key that could implicate the murdered man in some awful, heinous act.
No shit, John.
He decided he needed to tell the police. He hadn’t done anything wrong, after all, for he hadn’t even realized he had the chips until after the police had interrogated him and let him go. For some reason or another, though, he wasn’t ready to part with the chip and the fresh conundrum it brought.
His head hurt, and the sun beat down; it wasn’t that bad, really, but Pilate was still living on Cross Township time and weather. In any case, he had writing to do, but also a new development to keep him from his work. He turned to Duval Street and headed to Sloppy Joe’s.
Ernest Hemingway’s hangout during his extended stay in the Keys during the 1930s, Sloppy Joe’s was a top tourist attraction in Key West. “Papa” didn’t actually hang out at that particular location, however—the one where Hemingway spent his time drinking Teacher’s and soda was on Greene Street, a former icehouse that doubled as the city morgue.
Nevertheless, that particular Sloppy Joe’s was good enough for Pilate. Besides, Marlene was the bartender, so the place had its assets.
; “Oh, wow. Lookin’ a little rough there, handsome,” Marlene said, flipping her head to keep her long, dark ponytail from hanging in her face as she wiped down the bar. As her lovely locks danced behind her head, the tops of her perfectly tan breasts were revealed, practically popping out of the Sloppy Joe’s t-shirt she had custom-cut for maximum tips.
“Thanks. I work at it,” Pilate said.
“The usual?”
“No. I need some vitamins and minerals. Let’s do a Bloody Mary, with plenty of hot sauce, okay?”
“You got it,” she said. Her red-nailed hands danced from a clean glass to the vodka to the Snap-E-Tom, lime, and celery stalk, as if she could have made the drink with her eyes closed. When it was ready seconds later, she placed it on a cardboard coaster in front of Pilate.
He stared vacantly at the wall behind her.
“You okay, Nebraska?” The first time he had met her was a similar early afternoon. She had said she was good at picking out accents and pegged him for “Nebraska or one of those other boring states nearby.” He recalled telling her she was close enough.
“Hmm? Oh, yeah.” He drank a big gulp of the Bloody Mary.
“Hear about the shit that went down at the Hog’s Snout last night?” she asked over her shoulder as she dumped a tub of ice into the bin under the bar, her tempting cleavage giggling all the while.
“Hear about it? No.” Pilate said.
“Some dude got cut in the men’s room,” she said, putting two bottles of beer on the bar, opening them, and pushing them to a waitress. “Not sure if it was some sort of lover’s quarrel or what, but it was a nasty one. They say his throat was slashed, and he bled out on the spot. Ruined his whole evening, I suppose.”
Pilate looked across the saloon at about twenty or thirty patrons; he suspected they were mostly tourists like him. “Quiet in here, isn’t it?”
“Yeah.” Marlene wiped her hands on a bar towel. “It’ll pick up though—always does. Besides, I’m doing a booze cruise this weekend on Rick’s cat. Tips should be pretty good. You ought to come out sometime.”
“Yeah.” Pilate took another gulp and relished the taste of his drink. For a girl with such a magnificent body, Marlene was an excellent bartender.
“Nebraska, hon’, what the hell? You see a ghost or something’? What’s up with you? That book of yours kicking your ass?”
Pilate looked from his drink into Marlene’s green eyes. “You could say that.”
“Well, drink a couple more of these, then go to the beach and chill,” she said, holding his gaze. Leaning forward, her voice just above a whisper, she went on, “Or you could come hang out with me tonight.”
“Hmm, now that’s an idea,” Pilate said, smiling. “What ever would we do?”
She held onto his eyes for a few more seconds. “Honey, as yummy as you are, if you don’t know what I want to do to you, then you’re a real dumb ass.”
Pilate smiled but didn’t bother blushing.
A waitress called out an order, and Marlene hurried to fill it. “You’re a million miles away, aren’t you?” she asked, dropping ice into a glass. “You need a diversion.”
“You’re very kind. I’m flattered, but—”
“No dick. I wasn’t hitting on you again,” she said, placing the drink on the bar. “Order up! And if you keep turning me down, I may stop doing it around this time next year. Seriously, I think you should go see some sights. Take a walk and let Key West fire up your imagination. Get inspired!”
“Hmm,” he said. “Not a bad idea, Marlene.”
“Yeah? Well, I’m a bartender, so I’m full of ‘em,” she said. “Ideas and kinky fantasies. Anyway, just walk out the door and go ‘round to the Artist House. Go see where Robert the Doll lived.”
“Robert the Doll?”
“You’ve never heard of Robert the Doll?” she said, nonplussed. “I figured a bookworm like you would’ve seen something about it on the Hitler Channel or the Travel Channel or whatever.”
“Nope,” he said.
Marlene wiped down the bar as she talked; clearly, multitasking was one of her many fine assets. “Okay, here’s the deal. Apparently, Robert the Doll was animated or haunted or something like that.”
“What? Like Chucky?”
“Not exactly, but close. Just listen, will ya? In the early 1900s, a little Bahamian girl gave Robert, the boy who lived in the Artist House, a…” Her brow furrowed, and she trailed off, as if she needed a moment to figure out some complex algebraic formula. “It wasn’t called that then, I don’t think. Anyway, she gave the boy a life-sized doll. It was stuffed with straw, dressed in a sailor suit. Some say the doll was an innocent childhood gift, but others claim it held some curse that she put on the family. God only knows why.”
“Okay. Well, that sounds scary,” Pilate said, “some Stephen King kind of shit.”
“Keep listening, smart ass. So, anyway, little Robert liked the doll so much that he named it after himself, and his folks even built a room for the doll in the attic, where they kept all the toys and stuff.” She looked Pilate in the eye, and when she saw that he wasn’t laughing or blowing her off, she continued, “The spoiled brat even started blaming the doll when he did whatever mischief boys got into back those days.”
“Okay…go on.”
“Well, so the boy grows up, gets on with his life, marries, and eventually returns to live in his childhood home, this time with his wife in tow. He had become an artist and used the doll’s room to paint while the doll looked on.”
“Chilling,” Pilate said, his left eyebrow raised.
Marlene rolled her eyes. “Anyway, kids would walk by and see Robert the Doll propped up in the window of his room, and they said sometimes that doll moved from one window to the other—on its own,” Marlene said. “Visitors said they often heard giggling from Robert’s room in the attic, and some people swore Robert the Doll’s facial expressions would change from one minute to the next.”
“That’s weird, to say the least,” Pilate said. “Did the artist ever paint a portrait of Robert the Doll?”
“Good question. Hmm. I don’t know, but after the artist died, his widow put Robert the Doll in a cedar chest in the attic for safekeeping. After she kicked off, the doll was donated to the East Martello Museum.”
“So some kids claim a doll was moving, and in the end, the old thing ends up in a museum? Marlene, you let me down. I can honestly say that was not scary.”
“Oh but wait…that’s not all. People claim that when they try to take his picture at the museum, their cameras break,” she added.
“Do you honestly believe that doll was haunted or possessed or whatever?” Pilate asked, stifling a giggle.
“Shit, I don’t know,” she said, “but there’s one thing I do know.” She leaned forward conspiratorially, biting her lower lip.
“What’s that?” he said, leaning in to within inches of her face.
“I know I got you out of your own head for a minute there,” she kissed his cheek.
“Indeed you did,” he said, finishing his drink. He dropped a ten on the bar and stood up. “Thanks, Marlene. Really.”
“Rain-check on the booze cruise then?” Marlene said, smirking and scooping up the ten spot, which she promptly tucked into the valley beneath her shirt.
“Yep. Rain-check.”
Pilate had a tendency to think well and remain clear-headed when he walked, and Marlene was right: Key West had ample sidewalks, streets, and sights to keep his mind occupied while his subconscious turned over recent events, trying to make sense of it all.
Strolling away from the seaward side of town, Pilate took Duval Street to Eaton Street, where he made a turn and walked until he arrived at the intersection of Eaton and Simonton.
He passed by the elegant Victorian mansion, the Artist House. In the turret room window, he saw nothing but curtains. “Robert the Doll my ass,” he said, heading back to Trevathan’s house. “Damn, Marlene,” he muttered, grinning and shaking h
is head. “You got me.”
CHAPTER SIX
When he ventured inside Trevathan’s place, though, there was something to see: a window was smashed in, and the living room was ransacked.
Pilate now had no choice: He had to call the police. Someone had broken in through the back alley window and torn the place apart. The entire first floor was a disaster area, but even though he wasn’t a forensics expert, it was pretty clear to see that somebody must have spooked the burglars, because the upstairs bedroom and balcony office apparently untouched.
Relieved that his laptop was still where he left it, he picked up the phone and dialed 911.
After an hour or so, an attractive, blonde, blue-eyed patrolwoman in her late twenties rolled up on a bicycle. “Is this your home sir?” she asked, her notebook at the ready.
“No. It’s my, uh…my friend’s place,” he said.
“You sound a little unsure about that,” she said.
“Well, he’s actually my boss, but as strange as it sounds coming out of my mouth, I suppose he’s also my friend. I’m just staying here for a while, working on…a project.”
“Okay,” she said. “Where do you live then, when you’re not staying at your friend’s place?”
He told her, and she made notes without looking up at him as he spoke.
“We’re going to need a list of whatever has been stolen,” she said, still writing on her notebook. “Can you help me out with that? Do you know the place well enough?”
“Well, I can’t believe it, but I don’t think anything’s missing. From the looks of it, they just broke the back window and looked all over the first floor,” Pilate said. “I think they must’ve gotten spooked and run off, because my laptop and some other stuff worth pawning were left upstairs, untouched.”
“You got lucky then,” the officer said, copying his statement into her notebook. “Well, not lucky that the house got broken into, but at least you didn’t lose anything.”
“Silver linings, I guess,” Pilate said, putting loose cushions back on the sofa. “So, anyway, I guess there’s not a lot you can do, right?”
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