by Don Donovan
MAMBO DIRECTED ME TO TREY WHITNEY'S OFFICE, which was headquarters for one of the local land development companies, one of many enterprises owned by the Whitney family. It sat in a nondescript one-story building in Key Lime Square, a little courtyard hidden away off Duval Street, the island's main drag. Next door in the same row of that building was his father's office. The center of power in Key West.
Trey's company office was only two or three rooms. Nothing fancy. His secretary looked me over. She wasn't crazy about what she saw, I could tell. Maybe it was the tattoo on my bicep, or maybe she got her idea when she checked out my face, which always had a sort of menacing look to it. I never tried for that look, it just developed that way, you know?
Maybe it was my eyes. People always told me they were cold. I don't know, they don't look that way to me, but I guess they do to other people. I guess I've heard that so much over the years, I've come to believe it myself. Or maybe it was the way I square my shoulders to people when I first encounter, legs slightly spread apart, as though ready for a brawl. Whatever it was, I always gave off an intimidating vibe. Even back in grade school I had it.
The secretary was about to tell me to get lost when Trey Whitney came out of his office holding some papers. The second he saw me, he knew.
"Logan." His voice dropped in pitch from the first syllable of the name to the second. The secretary picked up on it.
"Yo, Trey. I need to see you for a minute." I glanced at the secretary slash gatekeeper, then back at Trey. "It won't take long."
He directed me into his office. It was larger than I would've thought, given the junior size of the building. Trey shut the door behind us and I took a seat in front of his desk without being asked to.
He sat in a brown swivel chair behind an old desk which looked pretty expensive, although I had no way of knowing. It could've easily been some yard sale reject and I wouldn't have known the difference. Attractive paintings hung on the wall and the carpet was beige and clean. The air conditioning cooled things down to perfect level. Trey was a handsome guy, all right, with the high Whitney forehead underneath a lot of wavy brown hair. Overall, he was a good fit for the office.
"Mambo wants his money," I said without any preliminaries.
"He will have it, I promise," he said, placing his forearms on the desk. He wore a white golf shirt with the development company logo on the breast pocket. I put him at about thirty-four, since I remembered him as having been two years ahead of me in high school.
He never knew me then. I wasn't important.
But over the years, and during my dealings with The Original Mambo and Mambo the Third, Trey and I ran across each other here and there.
"I know he'll get it," I said. "He just needs it today."
"Ah. You may assure him I'll have it for him tonight." Trey's confidence leaped across the desk at me like a hungry panther. Not bad for someone who's got to get that much cash together.
"Tonight?"
He nodded and said, "Every last dollar. All eighty thousand."
I raised my index finger, moving it twice from side to side in a no-no gesture. "Eighty-one."
"Right," Trey said. "Eighty-one. Of course." He shuffled a few papers around, making it look like he had important shit to do. He said, "Meet me this evening, if you would, at the Grand Café. Back in their delightful little bar. Ten o'clock."
I got up and left without a sound.
≈ ≈ ≈
The Grand Café is a nifty little spot in one of the more active blocks of Duval Street. The food is outstanding and so is the service, and the bar is cozy. Not one of my regular hangouts, because I don't like to go downtown too much. I'd been there a few times, though, and I liked it. I didn't know if Trey's father owned the building, but it seemed like he owned everything along there. They didn't call Winston Whitney the Duke of Duval for nothing.
I made my way to the bar in the back of the place. Ten sharp. No Trey.
I took a stool and ordered a beer. Trey arrived behind me at the same time as the beer in front of me, with a woman at his side. He had changed clothes, shedding his golf shirt for a dressier blue linen shirt. He looked refreshed. The woman looked a little older than he was, but probably wasn't, and she was definitely not his type. Nor was she his wife.
Her impossibly blonde hair didn't come from her genes, and was most likely refreshed very recently by something purchased at Walgreens. Her eyes were overly-round and raccoon-like, thanks to a shitload of eyeliner encircling them, and her nose was straight and small. The full lips looked like they were loaded with collagen, forming a dirty-looking wide mouth through which a lot had undoubtedly passed, in both directions. A clinging, low-cut gold sparkle top showed max cleavage, a bejeweled lightning-bolt strung around her neck plunging downward between the spillover of big tits. They looked soft and round and did a good job of masking the fifteen pounds she needed to lose. I didn't even notice her shoes.
Trey gestured me over to a nearby tall table, where we all took stools.
He said, "Logan, please say hello to Sharma."
She held a hand out for me to gently shake, which I did. Then she said, "Nice to meet you, Logan." Her voice was breathy and without accent, and when she spoke, she squeezed my hand a little tighter than she had to. Her smile looked genuine.
I looked back at Trey. "This isn't a social occasion."
"I know," he said, "but this lovely lady is in town for a few days and I'm just showing her around our wonderful island. A few places, a few local characters. You know."
What I knew was, he brought her along to this public place so I wouldn't lean on him too hard. Or maybe he brought her as a witness in case I did.
Regardless, I said, "We have business to take care of."
"And we shall," he said. "We shall indeed. But first, we must have a beverage." He swiveled his head around to catch the bartender's eye. She came over and he ordered a vodka tonic. Sharma mumbled something about a Key West kind of drink. After a brief chat with Trey, she settled on a frozen margarita.
There were other people in the little bar, so I couldn't get too aggressive just yet. Instead, I folded my hands in front of me on the table. We didn't say much before the drinks arrived, but when they did, Whitney sipped his and spoke up. He was a lot more upbeat than he seemed when I was in his office. He said through a smile, "Sharma's down here from the mainland. Her first time ever in Key West. How about that?"
I looked her over. The slash of her slightly-parted lips showed a darkness inside, one my mind was working on. Wet, hot, and beckoning.
"What do you do, Sharma?" I asked.
She cocked her head at just the right angle, showing confidence. "I'm an entertainer at a gentleman's club."
A stripper. What a surprise. "Which one?"
"Honey Buns Show Lounge. It's in Hialeah."
I'd heard of it. "You … looking for something down here?"
She gave off a coy shrug along with a playful hint of a smile. "Maybe. Something."
Sharma's confident, suggestive posture was the wellspring of what had to be her considerable drawing power in the strip joints. Curvy in all the right spots in this age of stick-figure women, she almost seemed to be a throwback, as if she would be more at home in the 1950s, headlining under a spotlight in one of the old burlesque houses. You know, peeling off elbow-length gloves one at a time as she slinked around the stage in a full-length gown, grinding in front of a tired five-piece band, one that churned out a hard, thrusting rhythm.
Trey broke in. "Do you think LeeRon might find an appropriate spot for her talents? Over at the Wild Thing?"
"I think we better get down to brass tacks, Trey. I can't hang around here all night."
He looked at Sharma. "Honey, would you please excuse us for a minute. Logan and I have some business that requires our immediate attention."
She knew exactly what to do. I could tell she'd been there before. Time for her to take the lawn and leaf bag she called a purse to the ladies' room for a few minutes of introsp
ection.
When she was gone, I narrowed my eyes at Trey and said, "You don't have the money."
"I have it, I have it. I just don't have it … at this very instant." He slammed back the rest of his vodka tonic and signaled for another.
"You don't have the money."
"Yes, I have it. But not here. Not now."
"Well, let's go get it."
Come on, Trey. Tell me we're going to go get it. Please.
He squirmed. "It's … it's not that easy. I don't have that kind of cash just lying around."
I really wanted him to have the money so I could be done with this last bit of action. So I could collect my eighty-one hundred and talk to Don Roy Doyle about investing in that landscaping business with his cousin, and get on with my retirement. Maybe spend a little of the commission from Trey's debt on something nice for Dorothy. But if Trey didn't come across, I knew what I had to do. The thing was, so did he. Turns out he wasn't leaving me any room at all.
Shit, Trey, don't let it come to this.
I should say right here that I'm not especially proud of what I do, but operating on the other side of the law was the only thing I ever made any money at. It's how I always got by. Like that's how it was all supposed to happen, as though there wasn't really anything I could do about it, even if I wanted to. It was the only real choice I ever had.
I thought back to that hot day a long, long time ago. My first heist.
≈ ≈ ≈
We were coming back from Smathers Beach, my buddy Little Petey and I. We had just gone for a swim and were clowning around as we made our way down Bertha Street, snapping our towels at one another. I even snapped mine at a couple of cute teenaged girls who passed us on the sidewalk. They jumped and cussed at me. Little Petey howled and so did I.
We passed by Venetia Street, a small intersection off Bertha. Little Petey glanced up the deserted street and said, "Look. Bikes!"
A couple of doors up Venetia, two bicycles sat on the sidewalk in front of an old concrete block house, kickstands down. They didn't look particularly new, or even in very good shape, but to Little Petey and me, they were like a lost treasure of Spanish gold, glittering in the broiling summer sun. Waiting to be found.
To be taken.
Neither one of us had ever had a bike of our own, being poor as we were, but on this day, at this moment, those bikes belonged to us.
We stared at each other through widening eyes with the shiver of a dare. Up till then, I'd never tried anything like that, never ventured into the shadowed, chancy depths of the underworld, although I'd seen it portrayed in countless movies on our VCR at home. It was a seductive world, the world of Tony Montana, of living and dying in LA, of a thousand cheap crooks and feared bosses.
The world, Chico, and everything in it.
Back then, I was too young to grasp the real meaning of those movies, but they nevertheless carried me away with their images and their in-your-face attitude. They excited me, thrilled me like nothing else ever did. Taught me if you want something, you take it. You don't take no for an answer. And you can never have enough, because the more you get, the more power you have. And power is the real aphrodisiac.
Those unguarded bicycles were like another man's horse in the Old West. His most valued possession, and God help the man who steals it. The idea of boosting those bikes was a big step, an open portal into darkness, beckoning us to slide across it and commit to a life on the other side.
We looked back at the bikes, then once more at each other, each of us waiting for the other to take the initiative. However, we'd already crossed the line. Mentally, that is, even though we weren't aware of it at the time.
I knew instinctively I didn't want to end up on a dead-end street like my father — or rather, like my mother told me about how he ended up — digging sewers for the city, scraping together a few bucks a day to survive, just so he could abandon his pregnant wife and go off and drink himself to death. What I didn't know, though, was how I'd been pointed in this dark direction almost since birth.
Little Petey and I had left our innocence behind in those few minutes on the corner of Bertha and Venetia, knowing what we were going to do. There was really no choice, now that I look back on it. At that tender age, we had arrived at our date with destiny.
Finally, after a few seconds, I said, "Let's grab 'em." Hell, one of us had to say it. It might as well have been me.
We ran up to the bikes and looked around. No one in the vicinity. I got on one and Little Petey grabbed the other. As I took off, I looked over my shoulder and saw him struggling to get on the bike in front of the house. He was shorter than I was and his feet barely reached the pedals. He wobbled on it, trying to get forward movement. Meanwhile, kids ran out the front door screaming and confronting him. I kept pedaling as fast as I could, but he never got away.
So happens he ratted me out, just like I thought he might. The cops came by our house the next day, but I'd already ditched the bike, so they couldn't make anything stick. Next time I saw him, I beat him up.
I was ten years old.
I heard Little Petey died a few years ago, killed in a knife fight in prison. Raiford, I think it was.
≈ ≈ ≈
Trey Whitney's plea penetrated this memory, like a dismal whine deep in the mist, snapping me back to the present.
"I said I don't have that kind of cash." he repeated.
"Motherfucking welcher," I snarled.
I grabbed him by the arm and jerked him off his stool. The tall table shook, causing Sharma's drink glass to overturn and shatter on the floor. Margarita stuff splashed onto Trey's expensive slacks. A couple of heads at the bar turned at the sudden disruption.
As I led him to the door of the men's room, he said, "No, wait. Logan. Wait."
I pulled him inside, and he almost tripped as he flailed through the door. The men's room was empty.
"Waiting time's over. Mambo wants his eighty-one K."
"Jesus, Logan. That's a lot of cash. I don't have —"
"Fuck you. You've had plenty of time. You've owed him for at least two months. I'm here to collect and no bullshit!"
I looked him straight in the eye, waiting for a reply. He knew the score. You don't pay your gambling debts, you take a beating. Simple as that. And at this point in my life, I didn't want to have to be the one giving him the pounding. But it had to be done, and I was the only one there to do it. I mean, that's the way it works.
Why did I agree to do this? Why?
Because Mambo asked me to. How could I say no?
I could see in his eyes he was looking for a way around the beating. Frankly, so was I, so I gave him plenty of time to think about it. Unfortunately, nothing came to him, so I unloaded a solid right to his gut. It was better than one to the jaw, which would do more serious damage. He was soft and he took the full brunt of the shot. A loud grunt and he doubled over, then down to one knee.
With the wind knocked out of him, he waved a hand and tried to say, "All right, all right." Pulling him to his feet, I cocked my big fist, aiming it right at his mouth. I prayed he wouldn't make me go through with the rest of this. I paused in that position and he started talking, anything to prevent me from knocking his teeth out.
He wheezed and said between gasps, "I'll … make you a … a deal. Get LeeRon to give … Sharma a r-regular shift … over at the Wi-Wild Thing … and she'll give you five hundred a … a week. That should … buy me some time … with Mambo."
I pasted my most menacing look on my face. It worked, like always. Fear moved into his eyes and he started shaking as I held him up by the collar of his expensive linen shirt. "Five hundred a week won't buy you shit with Mambo. The vig alone is over three grand a week. And the clock is ticking."
"No, no." He coughed and gasped, trying to get some of his wind back. "I mean … the money … for you. Personally. Mambo doesn't have to know about it. You just … just give him some story. He'll believe you. It'll put five hundred a week in your pocket."
A weekly income? Could Trey have had an arrangement of some kind with the stripper? I took the idea for a spin around the block.
Put him on a plan. That's standard procedure anyway whenever a guy gets in too deep. He pays the vig every week and still owes the principal. Pretty soon, he's paid off the equivalent of the principal in vig alone. The stripper gives me an envelope every week and Mambo gets his vig.
Best of all, I can stay retired while showing some money every week to Dorothy. The dough I got from the bank score can be our nest egg. We won't have to spend it if I have a guaranteed income. We can have a decent life with this money when you add it to what I'll make when I can get that landscaping business up and running. Maybe take a little vacation every once in a while. You know, run up to Miami or something. Maybe even Disney World. She'd like that.
And then maybe I can forget about that teenaged girl …
I loosened my grip on his shirt collar and smoothed it out a little.
"Why would she want to give me five hundred a week, Trey?"
Another wheeze. "Because I … I'll tell her to."
"But why would she do it at all?"
"That's my business. She'll pay you. Don't worry about it."
I slapped him hard, flinging his head backward. "Don't tell me what to worry about. If she's paying me, it's my business, too. Now tell me."
Trey rubbed his reddening face. It didn't do anything for the pain. He hesitated before saying, "If I tell you, you can't let on you know this, all right?"
"She won't find out. Just tell me. And make it quick."
His shaking subsided and he got his voice back. He also got comfortable with the idea of spilling. "I used to go up to Hialeah to see her every couple of weeks or so. She's so lovely. And so very talented. You know what I mean?"
I ignored the question, but naturally, I knew what he meant. "Up to Honey Buns? That's where you went?"
"Right. Honey Buns. Don't you just love that name? But anyway, before I started seeing her, I was enjoying the company of one of her dancing colleagues. A gorgeous young lady, name of Cinnamon. She was quite something, let me tell you. Slender build, long red hair like a fiery sky, a body that —"