by AJ Basinski
Chapter 9
Later that same day after we had spent the day at the pool, Sun Li and I had agreed that we would have dinner together in the Inn’s Palmland dining room that evening at 7:30 p.m. We had eaten dinner in the Inn’s restaurant every evening we had been on the island. We both particularly enjoyed the grouper which tasted exceedingly fresh. One of the waitresses had told us that the grouper was caught daily in Palm Island Sound, practically outside the door of the Inn.
I was looking forward to another relaxing evening with Sun Li as we planned what we would do the next day. That was going to be our next to last day on the island. I couldn’t believe how quickly the week had gone by. Because it would soon be over, I was hoping that tonight might see the breakthrough in our relationship. It was now or never, I told myself over and over again. Now or never.
I decided to wear my best checked sport coat for the occasion. I even threw on some men’s cologne, which I rarely used. I had picked up a bottle at one of those cottage shops on Palm Island Road we had driven by when we first came onto the island. The cologne was from Jamaica and I thought it smelled very manly. I was hoping Sun Li felt the same way about the smell.
When I went downstairs a little after 7:30, Zeke Chandler was there to greet me in the lobby just outside the restaurant. I glanced around the lobby quickly but I was disappointed that Sun Li wasn’t there yet. I assumed that like most women, she was just running a little late, fixing her makeup or changing her dress for the fourth or fifth time. Either way, I knew she would be beautiful when she finally came downstairs. She always was.
“I’m just getting ready to leave for the day, but I got this here envelope to give to you,” Zeke said to me as he handed me the envelope in his large, beefy hand. Zeke definitely looked like he had seen better days. Maybe he had seen that Indian princess ghost he had told us about.
“Who’s it from?” I asked Zeke. I wondered who would be sending me a letter here at the Inn. Then I speculated that it was probably from Ed Shipley, still trying to convince me to join in the murder investigation. He just won’t let up, will he?
As soon as Chandler handed me the envelope I knew immediately that it was not from Shipley. I was almost overcome by the exotic smell of Sun Li’s rose water perfume that seemed to permeate the envelope. I also recognized her, small, perfect hand writing on the envelope with just one word written on the front, “Mario.”
I tore open the envelope and quickly read the note inside:
“Dear Mario, You have no idea how much I hate to do this to you, but I just could not stay here with you any longer. You are a good man and I hope you will understand. I will always like you but I don’t believe that I can ever love you, which is what I know you would want from me. I am afraid that it just was not meant to be. Please do not try to follow me.”
The note was signed, “Suzy,” which was the pseudonym that Sun Li had used aboard the cruise ship when I had first met her. To say the least, I was completely floored by her note and her decision to leave. It looked like the end of my dream. But what really shocked me almost as much as her leaving was how different her tone was in the note. Just a few short hours ago, we had been sitting together by the pool as we usually did, laughing and drinking Mai Tais from the bar. Sun Li was laughing at my lame jokes, sometimes throwing her head back and loudly guffawing. I had never thought of myself as particularly funny, but apparently Sun Li did.
I had no hint that she was in the least bit unhappy. What had changed? I also thought that it was very strange that she would use the name “Suzy” now since she had never used that name any time after the cruise.
“Bad news, uh?” said Zeke. Chandler put his arm around my shoulder. He then continued, “Your lady friend came down about an hour ago with her bag and asked me to get her a cab to take her to the Ft Myers airport. She gave me this envelope to give to you. I was going to go up to your room and tell you she was leaving, but she begged me not to. Sorry, my friend.”
“Did she say where she was going?” I asked. I thought seriously about following her to the airport. I still had the Mustang convertible parked just outside the Inn. I was positive that I still might be able to catch up with her before her flight left the airport, which was only a half hour away. But then I thought to myself, what’s the point? From the tone and substance of her note, she made it clear that nothing was ever going to happen between us. She had made up her mind that it was over and this idyllic trip was at an end. I recognized that I needed to respect her wishes, no matter how bad I might feel. It looked like my last chance for love had flown away. I recalled once again what Doc Phillips had told me when I had told Doc that she was going to accompany me on the trip to Palm Island. He had said that Sun Li was “Out of my league.” I thought I now knew what that meant. And maybe Doc was right. Maybe she was not for me.
“No,” Zeke said. ”She didn’t say anything about where she was going. She just handed me the envelope and said to give it to you when you came downstairs for dinner. She then just got in the cab that I had called for her. I probably should have asked her where she was going. Sorry, my friend.”
After a minute or so of just staring blankly into space, I finally said to Zeke, “No problem, Zeke. There was nothing you could do anyways. How about having a drink with me in the bar right now if you are off duty? I sure could use some company.”
“Sure,” Zeke said, “I was just going home but I can have one with you before I got to head home. My wife’s making me some mac and cheese tonight. That’s my all-time favorite dinner. Oh, how I love her mac and cheese, with collard greens on the side. You like mac and cheese, don’t ya? Someday you’ll have to come to dinner with me and have some. Um, yum. Believe me after you’ve had a couple of forkfuls of her mac and cheese, you’ll never go back to that Stouffer’s frozen stuff again or that dry, blue box stuff. You’ll be spoiled just like me. Yes sir, just like me.”
Zeke put his arm around my shoulder again as we headed into the Inn’s bar. “Did I tell you about the time I met Dean Martin when I was working at the Doral in Miami Beach? You remember Dean Martin, don’t up? Old Dino. He was one helluva singer. And I just loved that TV show he had on. You just got to hear this story, man. You just will not believe it. And I got to tell ya my Earth Kitt stories too. Don’t you forget to remind me? Sometimes after a few drinks I get to talking just nonsense. Nonsense. You got to set me straight. Yes sir, straight as an arrow.”
Chandler continued talking away as the two of us walked into the pine paneled barroom. The room was dominated by a long zinc bar that ran the length of the room. There were a half dozen or so couples sitting at the bar on black leather swivel stools. They were talking and laughing as they waited to go into dinner in the dining room next door to the bar. I couldn’t help but wish that Sun Li and I had been one of those couples. Instead, I knew that I was destined to hear Zeke’s entire life story as we drank throughout the night and well into the morning.
Chapter 10
That evening, as we sat in the bar of the Bonita Inn, I listened to Zeke’s entire life story, from childhood on. To me it seemed like he had never forgotten a thing. Zeke told me that he had grown up in Philadelphia and dropped out of school at 13. After a few years of working out at various seedy, local gyms, he became a professional wrestler in what he described as the glory days of wrestling. This was long before the over the top hype of the WWF and those insane cage matches that seemed just like brawls. Zeke told me that he had crisscrossed the country many times, wrestling just about everywhere. He even said that he had wrestled in Madison Square Garden in New York City on at least a half dozen occasions, mostly on the undercard. But once he had actually made it to the top of the billing. And in those days, Zeke told me, it was not unusual for a wrestling card to sell out the Garden.
Zeke had wrestled under the name, “The Black Giant.” At the time, he said that he was the only black professional wrestler on the circuit. Of course, Zeke said, because he was black, he was always the
bad guy. In his prime, Zeke told me that he had wrestled all the famous white wrestlers like Gorgeous George, who wore his platinum blond hair in a flowing mane. He said he had also wrestled Antonio Robustelli several times. Even I recognized Robustelli’s name. Zeke was proud that he had actually fought Robustelli to a draw once in one of those matches. Robustelli had been world champion on at least five separate occasions. Robustelli, like Zeke, called Philadelphia his home town. Zeke told me that he was especially proud that a photograph of Robustelli with his arm around a smiling Chandler was in the window of a shoe repair shop in his hometown of Philly.
Zeke had the broadest grim when he told me that, “For a wrestler like me, it doesn’t get much better than that.”
According to Zeke, back in those days in the late fifties and early sixties, they actually did do some real wrestling. “Not like today,” Zeke said. “Today, it’s all for show. Back then you really had to know how to wrestle. Sure, the winner was usually decided beforehand by the promotors, but the actual matches, they was real… for the most part.”
Zeke told me that his wresting career came to an abrupt end after he had gotten into a fight with a man who had attacked him in a bar in Chicago. Zeke said he had accidently choked the man to death with a choke hold he had used in the ring.
When I asked Zeke if he had faced any charges as a result of the man’s death, Zeke said that the coroner had ruled the death an accident.
“And it was an accident,” Zeke emphasized to me. “I had no reason to kill the guy on purpose. I didn’t hardly know the man and he started spouting all this racial crap at me. But, you know what,” he said “I just couldn’t get back in the ring after that. I guess I was afraid that it might happen again.”
He told me that he had retired from wrestling after that incident and through a friend, he had gotten a job at the Doral as a bellman.
“It was a pretty damn good job,” Zeke claimed. “Good tips and listen up, some mighty fine women stayed at the hotel. Mighty fine. You heard of Eartha Kitt, haven’t you?”
“Sure, I remember her” I said. “She was a great soul and jazz singer.”
“That she was. And one mighty fine woman. Yes sir, mighty fine. She always stayed at the Doral whenever she was in Miami. I seen her hanging out at the pool lots of times. She had a couple of little dogs, Chihuahuas or something like that, little teacup dogs. I think because I was black, she always asked for me whenever she needed anything when she was staying with us. Whew, whew. She was one mighty fine lady, let me tell ya. Mighty fine. And a damn good tipper too.”
Zeke said he had moved to Palm Island a couple of years ago, partly to get away from the congestion of Miami. He said he couldn’t stand the air pollution there anymore. His lungs were bothering him from years of smoking, he said. But you certainly couldn’t tell by looking at him. Even now, though Zeke told me he was 73 years old, he was still well-built and looked like he wouldn’t have any trouble beating any of today’s so-called wrestlers.
I asked him if he was sad at the turn of events that landed him here on Palm Island after all that excitement in the ring and in Miami Beach.
“No sir, not one bit,” Zeke said. “I’m happy here. This is where the Good Lord wants me, that’s for sure. I got my wife, Wanda, and my seven kids and that’s all I really need. They can come down here and visit anytime they wants. My daughter, Janine, she just finished up at the Harvard Law School in Boston, Massachusetts. She’s going to work with one of them fancy New York law firms. She’s going to be down here in a couple days before she starts. I’d like for you to meet her. Yes sir, that’s all I really needs. My family.”
I told Zeke that I would be very happy to meet her.
I had to admit that it was a fascinating story that Zeke had to tell. One that might make a good book or maybe even a movie someday. But, of course, I just couldn’t get the thought of Sun Li out of my mind. I imagined her long black hair, her intoxicating perfume, the way she threw her head back when she laughed at my silly little jokes and comments. No one else ever did that before. I thought about chasing after her a million times that evening and early morning even though I had no idea where she was going. As it turned out, I learned much later, it would not have made any difference in the world if I had tried to chase after her that night.
Chapter 11
The next morning I woke up around 11 o’clock. After Sun Li had left the night before, I had downed at least a half dozen Macmullan single malt, double scotches in the Inn’s bar with Zeke. That’s probably more booze than I normally drink in a year, maybe two. I know it was probably a mistake, but what’s a guy to do when his last best hope for love just dumps him and leaves him on an island by himself?
Zeke, trooper that he was, had stayed with me throughout the night, telling me his stories. Zeke even claimed his wife was writing a book about his experiences in wrestling and at the Doral. I believed him. He certainly had some fascinating stories to tell.
When we finally left the bar together long after midnight, I felt bad that Zeke had missed his wife’s mac and cheese. I also wondered what she thought when he didn’t show up for dinner. So I gave him a couple of hundred dollar bills as sort of a tip for keeping me company. I could tell that Zeke was extremely grateful for the money.
While I was a little shaky getting out of bed that morning after, surprisingly, I felt fairly clear-headed despite all those drinks. I dressed quickly in shorts and a tee shirt and went downstairs to the hotel lobby. They had stopped serving breakfast in the restaurant so I decided to take a walk down to the water. The air was clear and in the distance, I could see several other islands. As I stared out over Palm Island Sound, I made up my mind to stay the rest of the week on the island rather than go back to Miami. I wasn’t due back on the Mardi Gras for another week because it was still in dry dock for repairs. Even without Sun Li’s company, the island was still beautiful. Just not quite as beautiful.
As I walked along the narrow, wooden dock, looking at the small fishing boats and the occasional two-masted sailboat tied up there, I made another fateful decision: I would contact Ed Shipley and see if he still wanted my help with the murder investigation into the death of Mark Sullivan
Because Sun Li had left and I knew now that it was all over between us, I had nothing else to do for the time being, so I decided I might as well help out my old partner, Shipley. Little did I know what I was getting myself into over the next week or so. Like a lot of things we end up regretting later, it just seemed like a good idea to me at the time to make the time pass until I had to get back to the ship.
And maybe, just maybe, it might help me forget Sun Li. At least now that was the only hope I had left.
Chapter 12
“Ed, some things have changed and I have some time to help you if you still need help on that murder investigation you talked to me about a few days ago,” I said to Shipley over the phone later that morning after I had returned to the Inn from my walk.
“Goddam, that’s great,” Shipley said. To me, he sounded just like Ralphie, that kid from the “Christmas Story” movie, who on Christmas day could not believe his good fortune as he finished unwrapping the Christmas present that he had been hoping for but thought he would never get: a Red Ryder BB gun. To tell the truth, I was a little concerned because Shipley sounded almost a little too enthusiastic about my joining him in the investigation. I would find out later why that was the case and how I eventually caused his enthusiasm to wane and ultimately, completely disappear.
But for now, I decided to go along with him. Shipley continued, “How about we meet tomorrow at one o’clock at this little place on Palm Island Road called ‘Sam’s Catch of the Day.’ It’s sort of like an old fishing shack, but they have the best damn grouper sandwiches on the island, if not Southwest Florida. You’re gonna love the place. I’ll fill you in there on what’s going on with the investigation. ”
“Sure, that sounds fine,” I said.
“Thanks. I’ll see you then.�
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I hung up the phone. This was not the way I had pictured this trip at all: having grouper sandwiches with an old homicide partner of mine, who I didn’t even particularly like. I started wondering what Sun Li was doing right now. Then I stopped myself. There was no sense in trying to keep that relationship going even if it was only in my head. It was over and done with and I had to accept that. But it was a hard and bitter pill to swallow as they say. A bitter pill, indeed. It would become even more bitter as the week wore on. Much more so.
I had come to realize that what my ex-wife had told me many times was right: I did not understand nor know how to treat women. What was the secret I was missing?
Chapter 13
The next day when I got to the restaurant that Shipley had proposed for our meeting, “Sam’s Catch of the Day,” Shipley was already there sitting outside at a table on the bay side of Palm Island Road. He was out of uniform that day, wearing a blue Polo shirt and khaki pants. He looked even shorter than I had remembered him to be as he stood up and reached across the table to shake my hand. I noticed immediately that his hand seemed unusually moist, yet cold. For some reason I thought that old cliché about “cold hands, warm heart” just didn’t apply to Shipley. I thought he was just a cold fish.
“Quite a view, unh Mario,” Shipley said as he pointed to the bay, which was just behind us.