“Holy fucking shit!” Angie said, slapping her forehead. “Ouch.”
“Yes, that’s about right,” he said.
“You have proof?”
“Not yet, but I went to the scene of his suicide in Naples—”
“Florida?”
“Yes. Florida. Naples, Florida,” he said. “Anyway, I talked to some people there, and some things just don’t look right.”
“Oh my God!” she said. “Like what? Has he been seen?”
“No, but the circumstances of his death are in question. In fact, I’m talking to the police about it.” Pilate smiled, thinking of the sheets twisted around Kay Righetti’s nude body.
“The police? Really? Okay, okay. So we need to keep this really quiet, right?”
“Well, yes, unless you want bad things to happen,” Pilate said.
“You’re right. We don’t want anybody else writing about this first.”
Pilate rolled his eyes. “Sure. Yes, Angie, that’s right. We don’t wanna get scooped.”
“Killed is more like it,” Simon said.
“Okay, John, but I have to tell the publisher something,” she said.
“Tell them I have to do more research on the whole Lindstrom death thing,” he said. “Tell them it will be the kind of stuff that will get us on 60 Minutes. Tell them it will virtually guarantee a Times bestseller.”
“John, I never tell publishers that kind of thing,” she said. “They’d laugh me right out of their office and blacklist both of us forever.”
“Since you never tell them that kind of thing, they’ll take you seriously if you say it now,” he said, slipping a cigarette in the corner of his mouth.
“John Pilate, you’d better be right on this,” she said. “I’m sticking my neck out for you…again.”
“I know, Angie,” he said. “You’re taking some real risks, and I appreciate it.”
After he hung up, his hands shook violently as he lit the cigarette. It tasted foul in the sun’s glare. His stomach was sour and gurgled; he had painful cramps from too much coffee and frayed nerves. Sure, he may have managed to score a reprieve on the book deadline, but that was the least of his problems, and it did little to relieve his tension.
He stubbed out the cigarette on a street trashcan and tossed the butt in. He walked the cracked sidewalks of Duval, feeling weary, but he was wary about returning to Trevathan’s for rest.
Pilate took out his cell phone and entered a new contact: Simon, +24° 32' 57.10"-81° 59' 49.60". Then he tore the piece of paper into tiny shreds and promptly ate them.
A Hispanic man with a tidy mustache sidled into the Internet café. He stopped beside the recently vacated computer station, pretending to tie his Nikes. Looking about to be certain no one was watching him, he scooped the three or four crumpled pieces of paper from the wastebasket, shoved them in his shirt, and left the café.
“What do you know about the Marquesas?” Pilate asked, drinking his coffee and Bailey’s at Sloppy Joe’s.
Marlene leaned against the bar, squinting her dark brown eyes at him. “What am I, Tony Bourdain?” She snickered and poured herself a cup of coffee.
“Well, you’re my Key West connection,” Pilate offered. “You know everything.”
“Well, not everything,” she said, winking.
“Some things are best left a mystery,” Pilate said.
“You’re no fun,” she said. “You know I’ll only chase you for so long before I’ll just slip you a Mickey and make you my own.”
“Now that’s something a guy could look forward to,” Pilate said, nodding his head and theatrically pushing his coffee cup away from him.
The pair laughed.
“Okay, the Marquesas, huh?” She looked up, as if summoning her data bank to life. “About thirty miles or so west of here. Not far from where Mel Fisher hit the mother lode.”
“Who?”
“Oh come on, John! Surely you’ve seen all the Mel Fisher stuff around town. He has a couple of stores, a museum—a real local legend,” she said. “He found the Atocha.”
“A shipwreck, I assume,” Pilate said.
She nodded. “Spanish galleon from the 1600s. I think it was worth nearly half a billion bucks for all the gold, silver, gems, and artifacts they pulled outta there.”
“Wow.”
“Not bad for a chicken farmer from Indiana, huh? Thing is, they say there’s still more to be found,” she said. “You can pay for a dive on the wreck. What I wouldn’t give for a day or two alone down there with a scuba rig and a metal detector!”
“Does Rick go out there on his cat?” Pilate pulled his coffee mug back and drank a sip.
She shook her head. “Not often. It’s across the Boca Grande Channel a ways, and he doesn’t do the fishing or diving thing,” she said. “He’s more about the booze cruise, dolphin-spotting kind of stuff. I guess he does pass by on the way to the Dry Tortugas once in a blue moon, but he makes more money sticking closer to home. Besides, it’s too shallow. His cat’s too big to noodle around out there. Why? You lookin’ for a lift?”
“Maybe,” he said. “I just heard it’s pretty cool—great fishing and all that.”
“It does have some great fishing. Lots of skinny water, sand flats, deep water…” She touched her right index finger to the finger on her left as she spoke. “There’s tarpon, bonefish, barracuda, redfish—that sort of thing. Used to be a target range for the Navy ages ago, but now it’s a national park area.”
“Interesting,” he said. “So it’s pretty well traveled?”
“Yeah. There are always fishermen, and tourists want to go out to the wreck sites. Sometimes there’re even some Cubano rafts.” She stretched, her arms reaching for the ceiling, sending her torpedo breasts at him from across the bar in 3-D.
Pilate smiled. “Cubano rafts?”
“Cubans trying to get to Florida,” she said, yawning. “They make rafts out of whatever they can and try their luck. If they’re that far west of here, I’d say most of them don’t survive the trip unless the Coast Guard or a friendly fisherman pulls them out of the water.”
“Oh,” he said. “So I’d need a smaller boat to get out there and fish?”
“Yup. Maybe something maneuverable with a captain who knows what he’s doing,” she said. Smiling expansively, she leaned over the bar till she was just inches from his face. “So, sailor, what are you doing tonight?”
CHAPTER TWELVE
“You want to do what?” Taters said. He stopped moving gear from the boat to the dock after the day’s charter and eyed Pilate suspiciously.
“I want to head out to the Marquesas,” Pilate said, extending a hand to help Taters unload an ice chest.
Taters handed Pilate the chest and looked around. Seeing no one within earshot, he hopped from the TenFortyEZ to the dock. “What do the Marquesas have to do with what we found out in Naples?”
“Actually nothing,” Pilate said. “I’d just like to go fishing.”
“For what?”
“Oh, tarpon, barracuda—”
“Barracuda? Bullshit, Pilate.”
“We can catch bullshit out there?” Pilate smiled.
“Hell, I can catch it right here, the way you’re throwin’ it,” Taters said.
Pilate folded his arms across his chest. “Look, Taters, I want to have a look around out there is all. I hear there’s good fishing, and frankly, I need to get off this island for a little while.”
“Might I ask why?”
“Honestly? My ex-wife showed up, pregnant as hell. She’s staying at the Blue Marlin right now,” Pilate said.
Taters didn’t laugh or smile. “Serious?”
“Yeah,” Pilate said. “It could be.”
“Well, John, it’s none of my business, and I’m always happy to take your money, but if you got a gal pregnant, ex- or not, I have to say I’m not too agreeable to leaving her high and dry,” he said, hands on his hips.
“No, Taters, you got it all wrong
,” Pilate said. “The baby’s not mine. It belongs to the guy she left me for. But I think she heard about my book deal, smelled money, and came running—or waddling, as the case may be.”
“So she’s trying to sell you on the idea that the baby’s yours?”
Pilate nodded.
“What a bitch.” Taters looked up the dock, spying his wife Jordan ambling toward them, dressed in a bright blue bikini top and shorts. “Nothing like my gal.”
“You’re right about that,” Pilate said. “The only thing those two have in common is their sex.”
“Nah. I bet Jordan’s got your ex- beat on sex too.”
Pilate only nodded, forbidding himself from saying anything inappropriate about the man’s wife, but he secretly had to agree that Taters was probably right.
“We can go out tomorrow morning,” Taters said, skipping down the dock toward his wife with his arms outstretched.
Pilate wandered around Key West—anything to avoid going back to Trevathan’s. Sweaty, tired, and footsore, he toured Truman’s Little White House, on the grounds of a former Navy submarine base. In the large building that used to be the base commander’s quarters before President Truman took a shine to them, there was a museum maintained to look just as it had when he spent his time there—as if the president had just stepped outside for some sun.
Truman reputedly played poker most of his adult life; it was one of the few forms of relaxation he allowed himself during his presidency. It made sense that Key West was a prime poker spot. Pilate admired the large living room area that included Truman’s custom-made poker table in a sunny corner of the room.
The round table was made to spec by sailors for the thirty-third president; it seated seven and included inlaid ashtrays, drink holders, and a poker chip carousel centerpiece on a sea of green felt. Each place setting featured a wicker chair, a hand of cards, and stacks of poker chips. Pilate assumed the seat with the most chips belonged to old “Give ‘em Hell Harry.”
The poker chips made Pilate more acutely aware of his own dilemma. He fingered the memory chip in his pocket, feeling a rush of adrenaline that his stomach interpreted as nausea.
A tour guide droned on about the artifacts in the room, apologizing for an air conditioning failure. The heat was stifling, and Pilate felt lightheaded. Some of his fellow tourists—most several years his senior—looked positively clammy.
Pilate counted twenty-five people and a tour guide in the room. The guide passed from the poker table and drew the audience’s attention to a few bits of arcana on the east side of the room. Pilate hung back, close to the poker table.
“Oh no! Martha!” a man said.
A woman had succumbed to the heat, and the tour guide and most of the tourists gathered around her.
During the diversion, Pilate’s first thought was to place the chip at the bottom of President Truman’s healthy stack, but Truman’s were—fittingly—red, white, or blue; any attentive tourist would spot the gaudy pink chip almost immediately. Pilate froze for a second, then quickly removed the poker chip from his pocket and slid it under a hand of cards. He turned back to the clamor of people fanning the elderly lady and realized not a soul had seen what he’d done.
“Give her some air!” a woman cawed.
People moved back, revealing the woman trying to sit up. “I’m fine, I’m fine. Just hurt my pride,” she said.
“Well, it is dreadfully hot in here,” another lady exclaimed.
Pilate nodded.
“Ladies and gentleman, we’re going to get this nice lady some water,” the tour guide said, walking to the entry. “Does anyone else need a drink?”
There were a few thirsty murmurs of assent.
“A drink?” said a corpulent, perspiring lady in a purple muumuu. “What I want is my money back.”
She and several others made for the exit, and Pilate kept quiet and blended in with the exiting group, casting one last look over his shoulder at Harry Truman’s poker table.
“You made the right play, John,” Simon said.
“Ha,” he coughed into his hand.
He bought a bottle of water, but he didn’t ask for a tour refund. No need to raise a ruckus to remind anyone I was here.
On the porch of the Little White House, a welcoming ocean breeze chipped away at some of his sweat. He felt better after drinking down most of the water. He looked casually around; when he came to the conclusion that no one was watching, he confidently sauntered away from the Little White House.
Pilate trudged up Front Street and spent an hour in the Shipwreck Museum, learning more than he’d ever wanted to know about the 1985 rediscovery of the wrecked ship Isaac Allerton. According to the literature, it “sank in 1856 on the treacherous Florida Keys reef.” It was actually fascinating, but Pilate couldn’t keep his mind from continually wandering back to more recent events.
He moved on to the sunset celebration at Mallory Square dock. Hundreds gathered there, listening to a mix of junkanoo, reggae, and folk music. A man on stilts strode through the crowd and waved sparklers; a fire juggler told jokes as he worked his flaming batons; vendors with carts sold everything from fried cheese to conch fritters; and women of every age, shape, and size ambled along in bikinis, holding hands with unshaven men in t-shirts, board shorts, and flip-flops.
A man had strung ten feet of rope between two ladders; he coaxed several small dogs to walk the tightrope. The crowd delighted in the performance, whooping, hollering and throwing small change in a tip bucket.
A bagpiper held sway over a few tourists, while a bluegrass banjo picker on a unicycle orbited. He picked a tune on his banjo that defied the odds and complemented the bagpipes.
Artisans, jewelers, painters, and t-shirt vendors lined up cheek by jowl under portable tents, vying for tourists’ bucks. Body art purveyors applied hair wraps, braids, and henna.
It’s like the freaking midway at the state fair, Pilate thought, only much more pleasant. He wished for a corn dog.
“Tarot? Read your tarot?” a woman beckoned from her tent. She was fiftyish, the color of a dried-out cigar; her hair was tucked under a colorful scarf, and her watery eyes were sequestered behind pince-nez spectacles on a gaudy chain.
“No thanks,” Pilate said. “I fear the future.”
“No need to fear it, unless you believe you can’t change it,” she said, shrugging.
“So I can fight the future?”
“Fight? No! Why would you want to? Fighting isn’t what living is about. You change the future by living the right way.”
“And the tarot will show me what to do?”
“Try it and see,” she said, gesturing for him to sit.
He sat on the folding chair. “I feel silly,” he said.
“You look silly,” Simon said. “If she had a Hungarian accent, I’d say she was an understudy for the gypsy in The Wolfman. Even a man who is pure in heart—”
“Clear your mind. Take a few deep breaths,” she said.
“Hard to clear my mind with the bagpipes and banjos,” he said.
“Try. Do.”
After a moment of deep breathing, he said “All right.”
“Now I want you to think about the question at hand,” she said. “What troubles you most for an answer or guidance? Focus on that.”
Pilate thought of the poker chip…and Kate.
“And poor dead or undead Jack Lindstrom.”
“One thing please,” the tarot reader said.
“How did you know I was thinking of more than one thing?”
“I’m psychic,” she said, all droll and perhaps a little bored.
Pilate closed his eyes and thought of Kate, wondering if he would be able to put things back together after his indiscretions.
“Shuffle the cards.”
Pilate did as he was told, careful not to tear the worn and colorful deck.
The reader took the deck and dealt four cards, face down. “This is elemental spread,” she said. “We will review your issue
by revealing the elemental perspective.”
“Okay,” Pilate said, arching the eyebrow over his left eye.
“You have a lovely eyebrow,” she said.
“Thanks.”
Without fanfare, she turned over the first card, revealing an upside-down harlequin. “The Fool,” she said, looking him in the eye. “Reversed. So you have been a fool.”
Pilate cocked his head, though his face remained impassive.
“Next card.” She flipped it over. “The Lovers, reversed. So you have been a fool in love. You have done something naughty, no?”
Pilate remained silent, his face as still as he could make it.
“Next card is The Emperor, also reversed. Oh my! You cheated.”
“I’m not married,” he said.
“But you’re in love, and you cheated. The cards don’t lie,” she adjusted her glasses. “Last card—”
“Will this tell me how to change the future?”
“No. This will tell you the future path you are on,” she said. “You have to pay for another card to tell you how to change the path.”
“There’s always a catch,” Pilate said. “Go ahead.”
She revealed the car. “Interesting. The Tower, upright.”
“What does that mean?”
“It means the end of things,” she said, “a sudden change or end of a friendship.”
Pilate leaned his chin on his fist, with his elbow propped on the table. “Okay. Give me the last card.”
She held out a small bejeweled basket. “Fifty dollars.”
“Fifty?”
She nodded, looking away. “Sunset coming. Tick tock.”
He dropped the money in her basket.
“All right. The next card will be your result if you change your behavior. In your case, if you stop cheating on your love, whoever he—”
“He? You mean she,” he said.
“You never can tell here,” she said. “Whoever she is.” She flipped over the last card. “Ah, very good! Rejuvenation, upright—atonement and forgiveness.”
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