Tampa Bay Noir

by Colette Bancroft

  “You knew Lois Lane?”

  “We called her Marjie. She was a Libra. God. So much coke back then. Are you going to finish that?” He pointed to her half-eaten portion of blackened tilapia and wild rice. Her second day of calling in sick to work, nearly broke, and waiting for this mysterious cash to come in. It was so stupid. But still . . . maybe something.

  “Tell me about this boat,” she said.

  “It’s more than just a boat. It’s a galleon. Sunk off the coast of Islamorada. Have you ever heard of Mel Fisher?”

  “No.”

  “Really?” He stabbed the rest of the tilapia, looking less dapper than on their first meeting. Bright blue polo shirt with elastic-waist khaki shorts and blue Crocs! When she saw the Crocs she about died. Maybe he’s eccentric. Most rich people don’t care. They dress and live as they want to, her mother had always said. But he’s old. So damn old. Maybe his feet hurt. Fallen arches. Arthritic toes. Is there such a thing? But he’d held out in bed, making a go of it ten, twelve times with the help of his magic blue pill. Making that off-to-the-races horn sound in his clenched fist.

  “Interesting,” he said, chewing. “This is so much better than Applebee’s.”

  * * *

  Most men didn’t give a second thought about shaving. They had their Barbasol, a disposable razor, and horrible hacking habits. Yes, she was supposed to say hacking at their face. Didn’t they know that shaving was a true art? That’s how she’d get them started, maybe a nice guy looking at a straight razor or fancy silver handle for a safety razor, wondering if he might like to upgrade. She was taught to talk to him about it, not sell him, only consult him on what he was doing now and if he might like to upgrade the process. What kind of facial hair do you keep? That being kind of a dumb question if the guy had a big brushy beard or a Tom Selleck mustache or something like that. But mainly she got younger dudes. Guys her age shaved like her dad did, to get clean, but these young guys had shitty little beards or constant scruff to make them look cool and edgy. What do you do to prepare your shave? You know, that’s the most important aspect of getting a close shave—clean your face, prepare your face. She might sell them on the less expensive products, see how interested they were in going all the way to a straight razor, brush, and shaving soap kit that retailed for nearly a hundred bucks.

  Arranging a display of silver-tip brushes and mirrors, she turned right into the face of a husky dark woman. “He’s a fake,” the woman said, whispering to her. “A goddamn phony. You know this? Yes, you do. You are nothing but a meal thing to him. One of those things for a free meal.”

  “A ticket?”

  “Yes,” the woman said. “One of those.”

  She was short and looked and sounded Latin American, with lots of frizzy hair and a wide backside, pointing her finger right at Debbie Lyn’s chest, speaking in a funny little accent that Debbie could never place—Cuban? Dominican? Guatemalan? The woman wore a flowing pink paisley shirt with a lot of silver rings and bracelets. She said her name was Delores. She was a good foot shorter than Debbie Lyn but weighed maybe twice as much. Not to judge . . .

  “Delores,” Debbie Lyn said, “not here. I’ll meet you at the Starbucks in five minutes. Okay?”

  “The Starbucks where I seen you with that rascal of a man, where he kiss your arms and your fingers?” she said. “He make me want to be sick. Make me want to shower myself.”

  * * *

  The Starbucks was nice, big, and open-air, a wide kiosk right by the Neiman Marcus, a marble staircase winding up to the second floor. A gaggle of teenage girls took selfies on the landing, wearing short-shorts and cropped tops, looking for a million views on wherever they posted pictures these days. Their clothes, their manners, all of it so silly and foreign. She would never, not in a million years.

  “Okay,” Delores said, “don’t you tell me. I tell you.”

  “About him?”

  “Yes, about him. It’s all about him. It’s only ever about him. About him and the movies. All those big stars. Him and his big boats. His big cars. His cigars and money. Driving fast in the slow lane. All of it. He tell you about what he did with that man on television? That man from Australia with that knife? He say to me that he and that man were best friends. He say he come up with that line, about the knife. That no knife. This a knife. He say he the man who told that man and how that man go on to the Oscars. I should’ve known. I should’ve known.” The woman hit her own head with her hand. “Delores, what’d you do?”

  “Then who is he?”

  Delores shrugged and blew at her coffee, although it was mainly froth, nonfat, extra-foamy, vanilla cappuccino. That of course Debbie Lyn paid for, back two days and already an hour’s wage gone. But she was curious, so curious, with him lying on her couch when she left, forearm over his eyes from the seven-martini hangover. Ketel One, super dirty with extra olives. He called it a meal unto itself as if buying him seven goddamn martinis at Bar Louie would soften not having to buy dinner. Which she did anyway, drunk and stupid herself, opening up her safety Discover card for a Hawaiian hamburger and fries. He didn’t even offer her part of the burger, the man making friends with half the bar, most them calling him mister and sir, clapping him on the back and wishing him luck with the big treasure hunt. They were all pulling for him.

  “I would like to know,” Delores said. “How about you?”

  “What about me?”

  “What he wants?”

  “I have nothing.”

  “Of course you do,” Delores said. “Or else he wouldn’t waste his time. Sniffing your behind. Who are you, Miss Debbie Lyn? What do you have that I don’t?”

  * * *

  “The house is being painted,” he said. “Tons of fumes, it will make you sick. I nearly passed out just leaving the place this morning.”

  “Where’s your car?” Debbie Lyn asked.

  “In the shop.”

  “And what kind of car is it?”

  “We’ve been through this,” he said, picking at his breakfast sandwich at Pass-a-Grille Beach, egg and cheese on a croissant with black coffee for $4.99. “I don’t want to brag. I’m driving the Aston Martin this week.”

  “I thought it was a Rolls.” Debbie folded her arms over her chest, turning to watch a woman helping a small boy with a kite. It was February and warm, lots of blustery wind coming off the gulf.

  He put down his breakfast sandwich on the Styrofoam plate and looked up. “I know what’s really going on here.”

  Debbie Lyn turned back to face him, trying to gauge his expression, but his oversized Porsche sunglasses making it tough. He had on a Hawaiian shirt, sweatpants, and those goddamn Crocs.

  “Delores found you.”

  Debbie Lyn didn’t answer, turning back to the woman and the kid with the kite, the kid running like hell just as a blast of wind zipped that kite a hundred feet up in the air, the spool unwinding so fast, it burned his little hands. The woman picking it up as it skittered across the sand. This morning, she had seen on TV, Detroit got two feet of snow.

  “I know you two have been communicating,” he said. “I saw it on your phone when I came over this morning.”

  “That’s my own personal business.”

  “It was on the counter. The message flashed on the screen. I can’t believe you’d listen to such trash.”

  “Aren’t we supposed to be at your house?” she said. “Picking out window treatments?”

  “The fumes are awful. Just terrible. I have the worst headache right now.”

  “Sure,” Debbie Lyn. “Exactly. Perfect. Swell.”

  He stood up and stretched, reaching down to touch his toes and then rotate back and forth with his lower back. She could hear his bones and cartilage pop, his smooth silver hair looking more white this morning, kicking up off his head like a rooster’s comb. “Did Delores tell you that she’s been institutionalized? Three times. Sad, really. The last time she believed she was José Martí, wanting to emancipate Cuba or some kind of nonsense.
I’m sorry about that. I’m sorry you’ve so quickly become tangled in my affairs. I wanted to help her. I really did. But she grew paranoid. Dangerous even. Cuban women are the worst.”

  He began to unbutton his shirt, folding it neatly and placing it on the outdoor table near the beach café. A shapely young woman in her twenties wandered past them and began to shower the sand from her body. He watched her as she turned and lifted her feet, toweling off her little rump and heading off with a tote bag and straw hat in hand.

  “Excuse me,” Debbie Lyn said.

  “I’m sorry. She looks just like my first wife.”

  “She could be your granddaughter.”

  He smiled at her, making her feel like she was jealous, like she’d been out of line just asking him a few honest questions and then expecting him to listen instead of gawking at a twenty-year-old wearing dental floss.

  “The thing I like about shelling,” he said, “is the exploration. The adventure. The discovery. You never know what you’ll find if you keep your eyes peeled. Some shells wash up completely intact. Others are nearly perfect but broken off at the edges.”

  “That’s what you want to do?”

  “Isn’t that why we’re here?”

  “Delores,” Debbie Lyn said. “She said you’re a fraud. That you’re broke.”

  He reached out and offered his hand, the old gold coin swinging back and forth like a pendulum from his saggy neck. Debbie Lyn hadn’t moved from the seat, staring up at him and then the beach, the kid now in control of the kite, the woman pulling it in some, showing him how to walk backward to keep everything nice and balanced. Two steps. Two steps. Reel it in slow.

  “How’s the shipwreck?” she said. Again, thinking of her mother. Nice girls don’t pry. They let men talk and they listen. Men like good listeners. They like to feel important.

  “Just amazing,” he said. “Let’s walk and seek and I’ll tell you all about it. The story starts off at the beginning of the seventeenth century. The ship was heavy with gold, treasures from the New World, when it sailed from Havana. Dark skies on the horizon . . .”

  Damn, she loved to hear him talk.

  * * *

  “According to him, it’s you who’s crazy,” Debbie Lyn said, not knowing who or what to believe now. After the beach, he’d taken her to another home he said he owned, this one in St. Pete along Sunset Drive. It had a long wrought-iron fence, lots of palm trees, and a lovely view of the water. He called it one of his properties. But like the one on Bayshore, this one seemed to be under construction too. Only letting her visit the kitchen, where he kept a small table, a few mismatched chairs. He reheated half of a Papa John’s pepperoni pizza with black olives and served her some white Zinfandel from a box.

  “Me?” Delores said, standing by an aging Mercedes Coupe in a Bob Evans restaurant parking lot. “Me? Crazy? Sure, I’m the crazy one. Crazy for believing his bullshit all the time. Me who is crazy for buying this man clothes and dinner and the fancy cologne.”

  Next door was some kind of sex shop, XTC Super Center, with a sign offering two-for-one on inflatables to Make the Bedroom Great Again. There were several cars parked outside but no one seemed to be coming or going from the front door.

  “What kind?”

  “I don’t know,” Delores said. “Some socks. Underwear. I can’t be so sure.”

  “The cologne?”

  “He call it sandalwood. He say he like it because it’s dry and manly. Like I think of him before he stole my money and my pride.”

  “How did you know?” Debbie Lyn asked. “How did you know who he really was?”

  Delores leaned against the trunk of her nifty little Mercedes, faded tan with a few rust blemishes. She pulled out a pack of cigarettes from her Chanel purse and lit one, blowing into the wind, nodding. “You sure you are ready?”

  Debbie Lyn nodded.

  “Come,” Delores said. “Get in the car with Delores and she show you where this old man come from. So much shame. It will only bring you shame. I’m so sorry for this. But you must know.”

  * * *

  The apartment was on the other side of the bay, in downtown Tampa, just off the Hillsborough River. A high-rise complex called Buena Vista Terrace, an institutional-looking building with small balconies overlooking the Crosstown Expressway and a parking lot. The place looked like it had been fancy-schmancy back in the day, with a dry fountain of a dolphin by the entrance and intricate terrazzo floor showing the settling of old Tampa.

  “Third floor,” she said. “You will see. You will see who this man is all about. You meet his friend. The man he lived with. His name is Jack Russell, like the little dog. The man is older than dirt. But he remember things. His mind is sharp. He know. He know the kind of man we deal with here. This man. This man we think we love. Who we take to our beds. He stole this man’s microwave and the scrotum of a tiger.”

  “Excuse me?”

  “You will see,” Delores said, punching the button on the elevator. The elevator clanking and moving upward, Debbie Lyn having to hold onto its side. “Jack Russell collects such things. This man know it was valuable and he took them. The scrotum of the tiger was to keep tobacco. A pouch he got in the war. It was very special to him. It gave him strength, he say.”

  * * *

  Jack Russell was a chain-smoker in a wheelchair, oxygen tubes running up his nose, wearing a Vietnam veteran ball cap. He leaned sideways into his chair, scruffy and potbellied, as he looked Debbie Lyn up and down and said, “Yep, he’s a phony all right. Let me know if you find out what happened to my tobacco pouch. I carried that thing through the jungle. Brought me vigor and luck.”

  “He lived here?” Debbie Lyn said. “With you?”

  “We were roomies for two months,” Russell said, nodding over at Delores, who’d sunk into a La-Z-Boy, flipping through a Guns & Ammo. “Don’t be ashamed. He promised me all sorts of things too. Said that once that pirate ship, or whatever it is, paid out, he’d hire me to watch over all his vehicles. I could wax ’em from my chair. Said it would do him proud to put a disabled veteran to work. Saluted me and everything.”

  “Could he be telling the truth?” Debbie Lyn said. “About some of it?”

  “That man swore up and down he was a fighter pilot in the war. A goddamn Air Force colonel. But you ask him a few questions. About planes and such, and the son of a bitch didn’t know an F-4 from F Troop. Delores, you told her, right? About all those other women? The ones before you and after you? I don’t know how he does it. Is it the silver hair or is it the tan? If it’s the tan, someone please push me on out to the parking lot to get some sun.”

  “It’s true,” Delores said, licking her thumb and flicking the page. Hand cannons, Smith & Wesson M19s, new Combat Magnums. “So many. He probably have that VD. He use his ding-dong like old men use metal detector on the beach. You know, beep-beep-beep. Sweep it left to right to look for silver?”

  “Oh God,” Debbie Lyn said, laughing. “Oh God.”

  “Say,” Russell looked her up and down again, “you got protection, right?”

  She thought he was asking about prophylactics, but he wheeled over to his bed and pulled out a little black gun, so small it looked almost like a toy. He kept feeling under the bed until he got a magazine and slid it in place, grinning.

  “You got to protect yourself, ma’am,” he said. “None of us know who this man is. What he does. One night, he said he was some kind of CIA assassin. Here, put this in your purse. Just promise me to get me that tiger pouch back. Bastard had no right.”

  * * *

  “I feel like a million bucks,” he said nearly a month later. A whole entire month of Debbie Lyn being quiet and polite, a good girl who didn’t ask questions and let the man do the deciding. She wanted to say something or do something, but she’d been having such a lovely time. They’d just gone to dinner, a nice little Vietnamese place off Treasure Island, and he’d spoken back and forth to the woman in French. Debbie Lyn was amazed, being reminded
in some way of Miracle on 34th Street, Natalie Wood seeing that little Dutch girl singing “Sinterklaas,” feeling happy for the first time since losing her family in World War II. He’d been back to himself, clean shaven, non-Croc’d in knit shirt, khakis, and broken-in moccasins, smelling nice. He’d worn a Rolex. He’d opened the door for her. He’d even paid.

  Holding her hand as they brought over the fried green-tea ice cream, he leaned in and kissed her cheek. She knew. She knew. But every night had been fun. Every night different. An adventure, as he had promised. She quit her job and moved into the old estate on Sunset Drive, sending her friend Judy more silly postcards from the beach. A bummy-looking man poking up from an ice hole near a sign that read, Thin Ice, beside a picture of a good-looking woman swimming at the beach, palm trees on shore. Her sign read: Pretty Nice . . . He still didn’t have a car. But she quit asking questions. He was on the phone constantly with the Keys. They had found something nearly a mile offshore. A candlestick. A gold bar. He said they had a big vacuum sucking up all that mucky sand until they hit pay dirt.

  “How do you know French?”

  “I lived in France some time ago,” he said. “Back then, I was in marketing. We handled business for Kellogg’s International. We did a lot of promotion for Frosted Flakes. I knew Tony the Tiger. The real Tony the Tiger. The original, Thurl Ravenscroft. Nobody could do a They’re great! like old Thurl. Wonderful, wonderful deep voice. He’s also the voice of Fritz at the Tiki Room at Disney. Did you know he was very religious? His lifelong dream was to record the entire Bible on tape. I’m talking the whole thing. Old and New Testament.”

  They were back at the mansion on Sunset Drive, sitting in the Jacuzzi with the doors open. She’d bought some Korbel champagne at Walgreens and they drank it from a couple of plastic cups he kept in the empty cabinets.

  “Who really owns this place?”

  “Who do you think?” he said. “I know. I know. Delores filling your head with all that nonsense. I know it’s hard to believe, but I have had a pretty amazing life. I’ve worked in Hollywood and on Wall Street. I have been a millionaire but I also know what it’s like to be broke. I have traveled across this world and hope to again. And yes, Debbie Lyn, I am a risk-taker. A rascal. A rogue. A treasure hunter. Someone who looks tough and weathered on the outside, but inside I’m just a marshmallow. I’m not asking a thing from you but to trust me. Just like you see people do sometimes, those trust-fall thingies, where you close your eyes and fall backward. Why don’t we try and do that? Yes, let’s do that.”