Car after car came hurtling up to Thorn's bumper, blooming large in the rearview mirror, then, with inches to spare, they bounced out to the passing lane, roared past, then cut in a foot from his front bumper. Some new game being played. Everyone in on the rules but Thorn.
He hung on to the wheel, dragged it to the right. The car steadfastly determined to veer across the median, turn ever tighter counterclockwise circles till it ran out of gas. At least it gave him something to do, something other than thinking about Sugarman, replaying the voice on the phone line, the look in Rochelle's eyes, any of it. He tried to stay focused on the three lanes in front of him, on his hands clenching the wheel. The tick of the next second.
A minute or two later while he was scrambling to remember which combination of highways was the most direct route downtown, his front right tire blew. The tension in the steering wheel abruptly vanished. The flat equalizing things, letting him steer with one hand for the first time in an hour. But a minute later he heard the rim grinding against the asphalt, saw sparks whisking past.
He took the first exit he came to, Kendall Drive. Into the concrete heart of Miami's condo district. Thumped down the ramp and pulled into the first gas station that was open. A minimart, six pumps out front.
He drew up to the side of the grocery, parked in the shadows. He hammered the wheel, cursed the gods, then cocked his arm, aimed his fist at the windshield. A dark-haired woman in the passenger seat of a bright yellow Corvette next to him gazed over, smiling. Knew just how he felt. Thorn lowered his fist. Gloria Estefan doing a raunchy salsa on the Corvette's speakers.
He didn't have a spare tire. Didn't have a nickel in his gym shorts. He dug through the coins in the ashtray. He'd spent his last fifty cents on the toll back in Cutler Ridge. All that remained were seven pennies, a paper clip, and a bonefish fly he'd tied about seven years ago. A Crazy Charlie. Quirky thing that used to knock the bonefish dead. The guy that tied that fly seven years ago had been fifteen pounds lighter, twice as hard. A man who never let blown tires defeat him. Never sat in minimart parking lots, slamming his knuckles into safety glass.
Thorn opened the door, stood up, shook the kinks out of his arms. To his right coming out of the minimart was a heavyset man in a metallic shirt and black trousers. He had a bottle of wine tucked under his arm and was opening a pack of cigarettes. Thorn watched him crumple the cellophane and let the wind take it. He was headed toward the Corvette, whistling to himself as he smacked the pack of cigarettes hard against his palm.
Thorn beat him to the sports car by five steps, ducked inside, slammed the door and locked it, shot the window up. He had the engine started as the guy reached the car. The man hammered his fist against the hood, yelled at Thorn in Spanish, and grabbed hold of his aerial.
Thorn buried the accelerator, smoked the big tires backward, narrowly missed the pumps. The guy shouting at him, slinging his pack of cigarettes as Thorn fishtailed onto Kendall. Not much of an arm.
"Don't worry," Thorn told the woman. "I'm a safe driver."
He ran two red lights, hit eighty before he had to slow for the entrance to the Palmetto Expressway. He glanced over at her.
"Hell," she said. "I thought we'd never get rid of that dork."
Twenty minutes later they were at the Port of Miami and Thorn was convinced he'd done the Corvette guy a favor, kidnapping his date. The woman's name was Sherry. She was a waitress with three kids. Fired from six jobs in the past two months. She'd been drinking white wine from a plastic cup when they left Kendall, and by the time they reached the docks, she was glubbing it direct from the bottle. She guessed she had a drinking problem. But then who could be sure when something was a problem? Look at the French, look at the Russians, all the shit they drank, and those people lived forever. She just liked the taste of the stuff. And it made everything sharper, clearer. Gave her good ideas. It also, by the way, made her want to dance. She knew some great dance places. You could rub against ten people at the same time in one of them. Forget South Beach. That was all transsexuals and trendy wanna bes. Give her Tobacco Road. Good old-fashioned boogie, tight little dance floor, smoke so thick the visibility was down to a foot. Sherry's kids were home with Mom. Sherry was worried about her daughter. Fourteen and with aspirations to be a stripper. Had knockers out to here, took after her mom in that department. The girl said she might as well get paid for having such giant headlights since everybody stared at her all the time anyway.
"There're cabs over in that far lot," Thorn said as he swung into a space and shut down all those horses.
The M.S. Eclipse was brightly lit. The gangway down. A little activity at the bottom of the ramp.
"You going on a cruise, honey, and you're not inviting Sherry? Your old friend, all the things we been through. 'Cause look here, I can be very romantic, you know. Cruises make Sherry incredibly horny."
Thorn told her good night and jogged over to the ramp. He could hear Sherry shrieking at him fifty yards away.
"I'm a friend of Lola's," he told the red-faced security guard at the bottom of the ramp. The guard was chewing thoughtfully on a pink drinking straw. He craned his head and listened to Sherry's curses, then grinned at his cohort, a supple young Latin man with a manicured mustache. The Latin guard grinned back. Then both of them gave Thorn a long look. In his gym shorts and sodden T-shirt. Must've smelled like a mildewed jock strap.
"Well, well, Hector, if it isn't another friend of Lola's."
"Lola has a great many friends," the young Hispanic said.
"Whole fucking world is a friend of Lola's. She's in their living room nine o'clock every morning, yes sir, Lola's their old buddy."
"Look, I spoke to her a couple of hours ago. She called me, told me to get up here."
"She called you, did she? The two of you had a fine chat."
"Yeah, Lola telephoned him to get up here. His friend Lola." The Greek chorus plays Miami.
"You got any ID, perchance?" The red-faced guard twiddled his straw with his tongue. He had an old-time Boston brogue, like the baaing of an Irish sheep. Another place, another time, Thorn might've invited him out for a pitcher of beer. Swap lies.
"Call Lola, ask her if she wants to talk to Thorn."
"That your name? Thorn?"
"Kind of fucking name is that, Thorn?" The Hispanic kid was trying hard to sing harmony with the cop but was half an octave off. "Not any kind of fucking name I heard before. How about you, McDaniels?"
All three of them turned to watch the Corvette roar out of the lot, clip a parking barricade, and disappear into the night.
"You see," McDaniels said. "Here's how it is, old chum. Everybody and his retarded brother-in-law wants to go along on this cruise. We been getting you dumb fucks all day long. Please, mister. Please, mister, I'll do anything. Down on their knees, willing to perform unnatural acts if that would get them on board. But the problem is, see, you got to purchase a ticket before you go for a boat ride. And the tickets are gone. Sold out weeks ago. So it doesn't matter if you had yourself a holy psychedelic vision telling you Lola Sampson wanted to see you. You don't have a fucking ticket, you can take a fucking hike."
"She said she was leaving a ticket for me."
McDaniels grinned painfully. But the kid's face went soft and he turned and slunk away behind the cop, went over to the bulletin board that was set up beside the gangway. He plucked an envelope off the board and brought it back to the cop.
Sheepishly he held out the envelope to the older man. McDaniels snapped out a hand, gripped the young man's slender wrist, drew the envelope close, then, still clenching the kid's wrist, the cop reached into his breast pocket, drew out his glasses, and peered at the writing.
"Thorn," McDaniels said. He seemed older now. Aged fifteen years in a few seconds. The pleasant flush of arrogance draining away, leaving behind a tired man who was paid to do grunt work for the monied few. "Thorn," he said again. "All right. Well, I'm still waiting to see some ID."
Thorn told him he
didn't have any. Smiling coldly at the man now, pushing it. Telling McDaniels that people like Thorn ordinarily didn't trifle with ID, because most citizens of this planet were perceptive enough to recognize who he was without showing them a little card with his photo on it.
"Is that right? You're a celebrity, that's what you're telling me? I'm supposed to know who you are?"
"Hey, Barney, there's a note on the envelope there. Says don't delay Mr. Thorn. Says send him straightaway on board." McDaniels cut his gaze to his partner, burned him with that look. There was going to be hell to pay for this, and the supple one was about to start coughing up.
"Well, Mr. Thorn, enjoy your cruise." The cop looked his way, took a healthy chew on his pink straw. "I guess we'll be seeing you at the party."
"Lucky me," Thorn said.
***
The ship's hospital was two floors below the waterline. Behind the nurse's desk sat a young Asian man reading a paperback romance novel. Lavish script emblazoned over the image of a longhaired man without his shirt, his damsel sinking into quicksand, clutching his thighs for salvation. The Asian man behind the desk was slender and had a small mouth. He glanced up at Thorn and rubbed his eyes. A rough reentry into the shabby world.
He took a peek at Thorn, then lifted off his chair a few inches to get the full view. He let himself down and squinted at Thorn's face.
"You need see doctor or nurse, they no duty now. Come back tomorrow you sick."
"I'm looking for a man named Sugarman."
The Asian man tried to repeat the name but failed.
"Sugarman. Sugarman."
"Oh," he said. "You here for stiff? You from coroner office."
Thorn stared at him, felt his head nod.
"Got two stiff tonight. You take your time getting here. What, you very busy with shooting on street?"
"That's right," Thorn said. "Murders, lots of them. Bodies stacked up."
"America terrible place. Miami bad. Very much murders."
The man stood up, came around the desk. Green surgical pants, a dirty white T-shirt.
Thorn followed him out of the infirmary, down a short hallway to a shiny steel cabinet. The silver box was humming. Thorn had seen them before, portable meat lockers. He knew the sound of the tray sliding out, knew the sterile chemical odor, the dizzy jolt when the bloodless body came into view.
The man swung open the door. Both trays held cadavers, soles facing out.
"Have heart attack on last day of cruise. Too much party."
He rolled out the first tray and held the sheet aside so Thorn could view the naked body of an elderly woman. Thorn shook his head. The man pushed her back and slid out the bottom tray. It was a black man. Six two, slender build. Thorn stared at the corpse's face for a long time before he was certain it was not Sugarman. This man was seventy, seventy-five with a white mustache.
"Neither of these," Thorn said. "Younger. A black man."
"What say name again?"
"Sugarman. Sugarman."
The man worked it in his mouth like a glop of peanut butter.
"Ah," he said. "Slugger man."
"Right," said Thorn. "Slugger man."
He nodded wearily, finally unraveling Thorn's abysmal enunciation.
"Where is he?"
"He upstairs. No room here." The man waved at the locker.
"Where?"
"In spa," he said.
"Where?"
"He go spa," he said. "Spa. No room here, he go spa."
***
Thorn couldn't locate the elevator, so he climbed the eleven stories to the uppermost deck. The ship was a garish blur around him. Tinsel-flecked mirrors, tacky neon, carpets and walls in feverish shades of fuchsia and iridescent purples as gaudy as the lipstick of hot-tempered whores. There was music oozing from the PA system, some processed gruel with echoes of Mancini.
Thorn was angry by the time he reached the spa. Angry and frazzled and ready to chew flesh. Somewhere in a back room of his consciousness he'd decided that when he finally tracked down Sugarman's murderer, he would take him back to Key Largo and make it his life's work to torture the son of a bitch, keep him just above the waterline for the rest of his days.
The New Horizon Spa was a few feet away from the railing of a seven-story atrium, a hollow core in the center of the ship that glowed with golden neon. You could perch at the railing on any of seven floors, spy on your fellow passengers above, below, across from you. On the other side of the canyon, a glass elevator rode up its tracks, empty.
There was no one at the front desk of the spa. Thorn hammered the bell, called out several hellos but nobody answered. He went behind the desk and pushed through a mirrored door into what appeared to be the spa's business office. The room was lit but unoccupied.
He went back outside and headed down the darkened hallway toward the men's locker room. Showers, dressing rooms, saunas. A coed weight room at the end of the hall. He looked in every room and found no one. Then swung open a door marked MASSAGE. Four rooms in a row down a short hallway. Thorn threw the first door open, switched on the light. A padded massage table, a small desk with oils and fluids. A mirror and a clothes rack. No one there.
In the third massage room, he flipped on the light, drew in a breath, and stepped back into the hallway. Sugarman's body lay on the massage table. He was wrapped from his feet to his chin in silver foil. His face gray, eyes shut tight.
CHAPTER 15
"Nice view," Butler said.
Monica stepped into the cabin, Butler across the room, holding the heavy curtains aside so she could admire the Miami skyline bristling with light.
After they returned from Baltimore, Butler changed clothes, putting on white slacks, a blue Hawaiian shirt, and a Panama with a jazzy colored band. Ready to reggae. Their passports said they were married. Mr. and Mrs. Oliver Jackson. Canadian. She'd asked him where the hell he'd gotten the head shot of her, and he'd smiled mischievously and refused to answer. Clearly a photo taken while she was at Sugarloaf. Then she remembered an old couple with a camera a couple months back, their weird request to take her picture. It spooked her, every detail of his scheme so carefully worked out. On the other hand, it gave her some perverse comfort. They were going to pull this off, not get caught.
"Will there be anything else, sir?"
The Filipino valet stood in the doorway. It was almost one in the morning. They'd had a difficult time finding anyone to help them with their bags. Butler with a heavy Nike athletic duffel, four suitcases. Monica carrying the five shopping bags filled with new clothes. The two sullen cops at the gangway had tried to ignore them until Butler got nasty, showed them his first-class tickets, told the cops he was a Hollywood director, Monica the star of his latest hit. The younger cop believed he recognized her, wound up asking for an autograph. Monica batting her eyes, signed an index card. Finally the older one motivated himself to locate a valet, call him down. Chop, chop, the red-faced man said into the phone. Get down here chop, chop.
The Filipino handed Monica the door keys.
Butler Jack didn't turn from the window, saying "Aren't you going to show us the room, point out all the amenities? I believe that's customary."
Monica told the valet they were fine, he could be on his way. She found a five in her new purse and with a final darting look at Butler Jack, the valet shut the door.
"Look at that," Butler said. "Squandering all that money on electric lights when there's a billion people on this planet who'd kill for a pot of rice. Five percent of the earth's population gobbling up seventy-five percent of its resources."
Monica set down the shopping bags and surveyed the room. Gray tile on the floor, the curtains and bed done in a matching flowered print of rich greens and golds. The overstuffed blue tweed sofa was stacked with burgundy pillows. Walnut covered three walls and trimmed the sliding glass doors that led out to a spacious balcony. In the bathroom white marble topped the teak vanity. Three vases of fresh gladioluses were stationed around the room.<
br />
"Know how much all this luxury is setting us back?"
"I don't care," she said. "We're here."
"Six thousand dollars apiece. Twelve thousand total for a measly six days at sea. Do you know how many Lucys could eat for a year on twelve thousand dollars?" He turned from the window and stared at her.
"I still haven't heard the plan, Butler. I want to know what the hell we're doing before we get any farther along."
"Tomorrow," he said. "Don't worry, it's all written down. My list. I'll go over it with you before things get hot and heavy."
A smile reshaped his face. "It's romantic, isn't it. Being on a ship."
"We're still tied up at the dock. It doesn't start being romantic until we're under way. Or so I've heard."
She sat down on the edge of the bed and watched Butler's lips sneak into another smile.
"Know how Florida got its name?"
"Spare me, Butler."
"Ponce de León discovered the peninsula in 1513 around Easter time, the time of year when Spanish churches are filled with flowers. Pascua florida means the flowering season, or Easter. So there you go again, God, religion. Florida was named for the season of rebirth. Death and resurrection. A holy state, a state of second chances. All those retirees getting their second chance. Just like you and me. We're getting ours too."
Talking to Butler Jack was like trying to have a conversation with a used car salesman. It didn't matter what topic you started with, he'd find a way to circle back to the sales pitch.
"It's incredible, when you think about it. That we're here like this, together again after all these years, overcoming so much. Your mother, my mother, interfering like they did the first time. They didn't understand. But look at us now."
He did a little bounce and smiled at her.
Holding her eyes for several moments, another mood seemed to seep into him. The smile drifting away, Butler steepling his hands at his chest. His eyes flickering.
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