The Mango Opera

by Tom Corcoran

  “Monty’s wife says he left an hour and a half ago. But he said if you called, to get in touch with Bob Bernier. Something about … about Michael Anselmo.” She inhaled and shivered, then rested her forehead in the palm of her hand. “Something that happened a long time ago.”

  Carmen joined us. “My mother’ll call us back in ten minutes. My daughter is behaving like a maniac. Annie, are you going to hate me? American had two standbys, but they’re almost a sure bet on Sunday, so I booked one for myself.”

  Annie shook her head.

  “I wouldn’t go except for Maria…”

  “That’s okay.” Annie looked up. “It’s normal. She misses you. You’re not in any danger down there. You did me a favor by bringing me here. I was thinking, maybe I’ll drive up to West Palm and visit my parents.”

  I called Bob Bernier and got his machine. I called my own number, got my machine, and asked anyone to pick up if they were still staking out the place. Bernier answered and had a bitch of a time shutting down the “record” mode. “Okay, okay, I got it now. I wondered if you’d call, or if you’d heard.”

  “Tell me.”

  “Three things. Big ones,” he said. “First, Wheeler’s at the county.”

  “I know that.”

  “I figured you did. I’m to blame, but not on purpose, I promise you. I was invited to observe an all-agency sit-down last night. I mentioned to Hatch about Sam’s being privy to the identities of your lady friends. I also mentioned that Sam helped set up Kemp’s sale of his charter boat. Avery raised the possibility that, as middleman, Wheeler took possession of the Barracuda equipment, like the anchor they found in the Albury scene. Then he linked the special knots to Sam’s oceangoing knowledge. He figured he had enough to move on. Monty says the city’s keeping mum, but Liska and the other city detectives think it’s a lame call. Unless the sheriff’s people come up with something else, something real to support it, I’m not going to pursue it. By the way, we picked up Ellen Albury’s father, Pepper Neice. It looks like he’ll alibi out. Anyway, one way or another, Sam should be sleeping in his own bed tonight.”

  “Okay. That’s one thing.”

  “Item number two. You know about the murder on Elizabeth Street?”

  “I know there’s a dead woman.”

  “Okay. I’m going to say a name, Alex. We both know there’s a chance…”

  “Just say the name, Bob.”

  “Mary Alice Noe?”

  “Aw, shit, shit, shit.”

  “Another ex-girlfriend, or just someone you knew?”

  I thought back. “Neither.” I looked around. Annie and Carmen were outside in the hall. “When was that earthquake during the World Series game in San Francisco?” I said. “October, ’89? That was the night she dragged me out of the Chart Room and took me home. She was engaged to some guy who was out of town, and she wanted one last fling. God, she was good-looking. Long blond hair, wonderful shape. I remember her talking to the bartender, looking over at me. Then she came over, blatant as hell, and said, ‘Jerry gave you the stamp of approval. You want to go somewhere and get high and get naked?’ I couldn’t believe my luck. That was it.”

  “One night?”

  “Yeah. She loved the guy and didn’t want to screw up the relationship. I don’t remember his first name. Something Noe. She married him, but I heard later they got divorced. I’ve seen her around town, in Camille’s and at the movie theater. I think both times I was with Annie. We just smiled and said hello to each other. It was the original painless one-night stand.”

  “Who could have known?”

  “I’ll think on it, but I can pretty well promise I never told a soul.”

  “Not Sam?”

  “Not Sam. Not Annie. Not a soul.” I waited a moment; Bernier didn’t say anything. And I wondered how Annie could be so certain that Carmen was in no danger in Key West. “I’m ready for the next bummer, Bob.”

  “We did some work on Kemp’s background. He was busted up in Dade in ’82, in a sting called Operation Snapper. They had videotape, informants, an alleged murder. It was a conspiracy to distribute four tons of hashish. Kemp’s arrest got turned into an information deal. Witness Protection, fake name, a new residence, the whole kit. It’ll be a few days of paperwork and arm-twisting to dig deeper.”

  “Monty’s wife said you’d learned something about Anselmo.”

  “Anselmo was the prosecutor. He was in on the sting from the word “go.” We aren’t sure, but it’s odds-on he okayed the Witness Program for Kemp. Looking back, it’s possible Kemp got a free ride. They didn’t need any more informants. They had enough evidence to pack ’em away for years. But Kemp got immunity anyway. There was also a problem later with one of the detectives on the case. He got sent away for confiscating cash and never turning it in.”

  “Smells like low tide in the canal. What does Anselmo say?”

  “We’re sitting on it until tomorrow. Are you coming back?”

  “On American. I get in at twelve-forty.”

  Bernier paused. “I’d like to keep your house another day or two.”

  What did he know that he wasn’t telling? “I’ll camp out on Sam’s couch.”

  “I’ll contact you there tomorrow, midday.”

  We had fifty minutes to catch the plane.

  Carmen knew a quick way from the Enchanted Forest to the airport. I drove the Mustang down Dixie Highway and over to I-95. Traffic was light on the toll expressway to LeJeune Road. Minutes later Annie kissed me good-bye at the curbside check-in and drove away. With my duffel and her paper sack full of clothes and toilet articles, Carmen and I looked like street people. A young black baggage handler made a crack about her “Haitian Haliburton.” The woman at the ticket counter didn’t bat an eye. Processing passengers to Key West, she must have seen all kinds. We got adjoining seats.

  I didn’t relax until we were airborne, over the water. As the plane banked to the southwest, I looked down on Cape Florida at the southern tip of Key Biscayne, at the parallel patterns cut by the east wind across the wavetops. For years, an offshore community of stilt houses, spare platform camps, had dotted the tidal flats. They’d offered a touch of the old Florida that on the mainland was now paved and developed. But Hurricane Andrew had erased Stiltsville.

  About the time we leveled out, Carmen nudged my thigh. “Look, friend. It’s time for a heart-to-heart, okay?”

  This sounded like personal business, and I wasn’t in the mood.

  She continued, “Anybody ever tell you that your woman’s a flake?”

  “No. But you’re about to explain it, aren’t you.” This had nothing to do with springing Sam.

  “Let me tell you, and this figure of speech does not come from the women’s movement. She tends to skirt the truth with a full skirt.”

  “Is that like embellishing reality?”

  “It’s like talking crap. Her mind rolls in and out like the tide. She talks about her great dilemma. She loves you but she’s mysteriously, physically attracted to Mr. Anselmo. And that’s what I call bullshit.”

  “Is it sexist to suggest that a man might accept that concept?”

  “She was head over heels for this guy—enough to move out on you—and then she caught him fucking Ellen Albury the night Ellen died.”

  “So I’ve been told.”

  “She tell you the details? About how his butt was doing the up-and-down dance and Ellen had her thumb in his behind?”

  “She told me parts of that … and he looked up and said, ‘Oops.’”

  “Did she tell you that the bastard finished his downstroke? Right in front of her face. At least he could’ve pulled out. Pardon my explicit frankness.”

  I caught myself, for some reason, trying to calculate Annie’s point of view. Had it been a side view like an R-rated movie, or straight up the middle, toes to crotch, like a porn shot? Just as quickly I decided I couldn’t care less.

  Carmen went on. “Later that night he fell all over himself to apol
ogize. He blamed it on Ellen. He said she’d seduced him. He tried every scam in the book to get back into Annie’s good graces. They stayed up all night long, drinking wine and talking about their relationship, how she still had feelings for you and that he would make allowances for that. He wanted her full-time and he would never be unfaithful again.”

  “Where does the bullshit come in?”

  “She loves you. She caught this guy fucking her roommate. And she’s still in a dilemma?”

  “That’s what it sounds like.”

  “Hello? From a man’s point of view, it’s a dilemma. From a woman’s point of view, take my word, it’s pure bullshit. You’re either in love or not.”

  “It’s possible to love more than one person.”

  “See? That’s a man’s point of view. Your woman needs a set of values.”

  “I think she may have had some before she went to law school.”

  “Are you still in love?”

  “I don’t know anymore. Maybe I’m just in need.”

  “Maybe that’s the whole problem, a man your age.” Then Carmen tacked on another question. “You said you had a lot of girlfriends because it took so long to find Annie. Was she the only one that ever clicked? Has there ever been another woman that made you feel something?”

  “Yes. But all she gave me was one lay and a hand job in a hot tub.”

  That put a squint in Carmen’s eyes that I’d never seen before. I’m not sure where in my brain it came from, but I realized as I spoke that I’d told the truth.

  “You said Annie was the closest to the real thing since you were in the Navy.”

  “Yes, and you were giving me a bunch of shit when I said that. I left you out as a matter of spite. Anyway, this is a rank time for me to be out hunting a new girlfriend.”

  Carmen stared straight ahead, at nothing. I glanced at her expressionless face and caught myself flashing ahead to the rest of my life, imagining what it might be like to spend it with her. The overall picture was not unpleasant. Then I wondered if Annie might get in touch with Anselmo, might let it be known that Bernier had information about events from “a long time ago.”

  Someone had left the Keys section of the Herald in the seat-back pouch. I pulled it out and spread it open. Citizens versus the EPA. The EPA versus the citizens. The county versus the state. In the lower left-hand corner, a short two-column piece:

  BROTHERS COLLIDE

  —UPI, Key Largo

  Brothers Luis and Umberto Ruenes, each heading a different direction on U.S. 1, collided one mile south of Layton on Friday afternoon. Umberto Ruenes, 33, of North Key Largo, told the Highway Patrol that a gust of wind pushed his four-ton dump truck into the path of the eighteen-foot U-Haul truck driven by his older brother near Long Key. Luis Ruenes, 35, of Tavernier, suffered a broken collarbone and fractured arm when his leased U-Haul left the road at approximately 50 mph, collided with two concrete utility poles and destroyed a roadside seashell market. Umberto Ruenes regained control of his dump truck and suffered no injuries. There were no injuries reported at the unattended shell stand. The Florida Highway Patrol estimated damage to the U-Haul in excess of $16,000. An investigation is continuing.

  A gust of wind?

  Who knew that I was traveling U.S. 1?

  Annie … Carmen … Sam … Bob Bernier … and Billy Fernandez.

  Detective Billy Fernandez.

  22

  “Above the Key West baggage ramps: BIENVENIDOS A CAYO HUESO.” A literal translation: “Welcome to the Island of Bones.” Indeed.

  Our plane taxied past bright rows of private aircraft tethered to recessed eyebolts. Everything moved in slow motion, shimmered in the intense heat of high noon. The ground crew waited in the shade of an overhang until the last minute to approach. As the plane halted, Carmen leaned her shoulder against mine, tilted her head my way. Solidarity and support. “Can you drop me at home before you check on Sam?”

  “You feel like calling your friend Larry Riley?”

  “And?”

  “Exact causes of death for each of the four women. And anything he’s held back from the media or the police. I can’t lose the feeling there’s a puzzle piece waiting to come out of the closet, for want of a better expression. No one official has mentioned rape, for instance.”

  “It’s not like he and I are intimate friends, you understand.”

  “The way things work in this town, that’s a plus.”

  She looked puzzled. “You mean disease?”

  “You two are wise enough to deal with that. I’m talking about truth.” I held back a moment, then said, “Thanks for the lecture on bullshit.”

  With the single open door and no power for air-conditioning, the airplane quickly turned into an oven. We were the last two off. I hadn’t showered in Miami. Before we got to the portable stairway, I smelled like I had spent the morning rolling in the hay. Indeed.

  Even with sunglasses the brightness hurt.

  “A greeting committee,” I said. Monty Aghajanian and Chicken Neck Liska stood behind chain-link at an employees’ gate. Liska in a broad-collared shirt, bell-bottoms, white belt and white shoes. The Fear: they were here to arrest me. Billy Fernandez’s slurred warnings echoed from a corner of my brain. But Liska hated what he called dirty work, and there were no uniformed officers in sight.

  “What’s with that guy’s clothing?” said Carmen. “He left everything in storage while he did twenty years in the Navy?”

  “He prides himself in being a walking museum. I know for a fact that he practices moonwalking in front of his bathroom mirror.” I recalled the Key West fire chief in the 1970s who wore red polyester clothing and red leather shoes. He also wore rose-colored dark glasses, red silk socks, and a ruby pinkie ring. In any other city in America, these civil-service captains would be laughed out of their jobs. Liska’s abilities might save him. The fire chief changed professions after selling drugs to a federal agent.

  “Your taxicab awaits you, ambassador.” In open sunlight Monty still looked crisp and neat. The FBI ought to have been laying roses at his feet. “We’ll run you out to the county jail,” he said. “You can help us make our pitch for Sam’s innocence.”

  Again, the Fear: They’d drop me off and split. The joke would be on me.

  Monty knew Carmen from the years he’d lived on Dredgers Lane. He introduced her to Liska. As we passed through the gate area, an instrumental version of Queen’s “Fat Bottomed Girls” warbled through the music system.

  Carmen held me back while the other two walked on. “He moonwalks?”

  “I, too, have problems with the truth.”

  Their unmarked pale green Taurus occupied a “No Parking” zone. Monty unlocked the passenger-side doors. Chicken Neck went for the front seat. Monty opened the rear door for Carmen, closed it after she had gotten in, then ushered me around to the other side. “Bernier said he’d filled you in,” he muttered under his breath. “Don’t mention Anselmo to Liska.”

  The FBI trusts Monty but not his boss?

  I opened my door. “Can we drop Carmen at her house?”

  On South Roosevelt bike riders, Sunday strollers, and Rollerbladers cruised the County Beach strand, basked in warm breezes. To the southeast a shrimper headed into Stock Island as a yawl departed under motor power. A Bertram, its tuna tower swaying in the roll of inshore waves, overtook the sailboat. Farther down A1A, a yawning young couple climbed from the back of a station wagon, he in a slingshot bathing suit, she in sweatpants and a tie-dyed tank top. Across from the first condos a fellow slept on the sand, a newspaper tent over his head, his bicycle chained to his leg.

  Even at full blast, the car’s air-conditioning did not help much. Liska checked a bikini on a ten-speed. “How’s your lady friend doing?”

  “Perfect. She needed a vacation. She’s sharing a house with a couple of gay guys, and she’s got the pool to herself all day long.”

  “Wish you’d been here last night,” said Liska. “Cootie Ortega was boo
zed on Spanish brandy, so we had to use that county photographer, that fruit out of Marathon. Put Lester Forsythe up against a tattooed, matty-haired, toothless street-freak dirtbag in Key West, Lester’s the weirder of the two.”

  “Where did Mary Alice live?”

  Monty half-turned around. “Three doors down from Sam at the far end of Elizabeth. Between United and South near … I don’t know what it’s called now. Used to be Lord’s Motel. Did you know that she and Sam had a thing, too?”

  “Nope.” Small world.

  “They had a fling after she divorced that guy from Bell South. He said she didn’t like to go out much. Afraid of running into her ex. They wore a path between their houses. It lasted about a year.”

  Why hadn’t Sam ever said so? Had Mary Alice Noe mentioned me to Sam?

  Sam Wheeler…? I wanted off this train of logic.

  I suggested that we drop Carmen in front of Cobo Pharmacy. An official vehicle in Dredgers Lane might interfere with Bernier’s surveillance. After a moment’s thought I expressed concern for her safety.

  “Somebody jumps me,” she said, “I yell and my daddy blows his head off.”

  We kept an eye on her until she had turned up the lane. Monty eased up Fleming and turned south on Frances.

  Liska tilted his head toward the south side of the island. “Stock Island will wait. We’ve got to run to Elizabeth Street.”

  Mary Alice’s house? “My cameras are in my house.”

  “You’re not on the clock today. You’re donating your time to an ongoing investigation. This is civic duty.”

  “We had some unusual problems this morning, Alex,” said Monty. “The representatives of the Monroe County Violent Crimes Task Force were a little whacked out. Naturally, we don’t appreciate having county detectives screwing around with city cases in the first place. This whole Task Force deal that the state dreamed up has a crowding effect. But they showed up and Avery Hatch was walking around like a loadie on Quaaludes. ‘Disoriented’ would be accurate. Billy Fernandez was charged up like a drill sergeant. Showered and shaved, fresh shirt, shined shoes, trimmed mustache. A million things at once, all very proper, all very organized. Not at all like Billy.”