Forever’s Just Pretend: A Hector Lassiter novel (Hector Lassiter series Book 2)

by Craig McDonald

  Brinke’s appetite, always prodigious, was all but gone. She picked at her food and he could see the weight-loss in her face and now-smaller breasts. Sullen, she’d sit at her writing desk, doggedly working and reworking the opening pages of her manuscript, or simply staring out the window as the neighbor boy, a fatherless child, played catch by himself.

  The boy quickly became an issue between them.

  Brinke urged Hector to go out one morning, to have a catch with the lonely young boy. Reluctant, Hector nevertheless went out and offered to toss a few balls to the delighted boy in order to placate Brinke. Hector had no glove and so had to catch the ball barehanded, which stung. Brinke watched them through the window above her typewriter.

  At some point, Hector looked up and saw Brinke leave her desk, doubled over. He excused himself to the boy. Hector found Brinke in their bedroom, curled up on the bed, sobbing. “You should be across the street,” Brinke said, barely intelligible between ragged sobs. “His mother is pretty and lonely. You should be loving her and raising that boy. Having a real family. Something to leave behind beyond just damned books.”

  “That’s crazy talk,” he told her.

  The following morning, Brinke again raised the prospect of Hector divorcing her. “Not in this lifetime,” he said. “Closed subject.”

  After three weeks, Brinke’s stitches were removed and they returned to their old swimming place. They were both careful their first day back as their tans had dimmed in the intervening days loafing around the house, mostly writing. “You’ll be fine in the sun of course, with that skin of yours,” Brinke had said. “But I’ll burn. And please, Hector. No looking at my body.”

  But she looked very fine to Hector. When he tried to make love to her she pushed him away. Scowling, she said, “What’s the goddamn point now? Nothing can come of it.”

  “Was a time,” Hector said, searching her eyes, “when we made a point of seeing nothing would come of it. It was about making each other feel wonderful and to no other end. I want those times again. I need you that way again, darling.”

  He pressed the issue until she surrendered. They made love on the beach, slow and sad at first. At some point, Brinke began to move with more intent under Hector. Her mouth gave way to a passionate snarl and she nicked his gums with her teeth as if she was intent upon actually devouring him. Her kisses grew hungry and deep.

  They peaked together, bodies cooled by a soft summer rain. “Maybe we can be all right together,” she said after a time, slowly unclamping her fingers that were knotted in his hair. She traced his jaw with her other hand. “Maybe it will all be fine in the end.”

  They ate dinner at the place that Brinke had taken them Hector’s first night in Key West. Her appetite was more like the old Brinke. She put away a couple of appetizers, her own entrée and most of Hector’s. They split a piece of Key Lime pie. Patting her mouth with her napkin, Brinke said, “Tomorrow, let’s leave for Havana. We can do that, can’t we?”

  Hector smiled, feeling like some corner had been turned. “Sure, we can do that. We’ll leave just after noon.” Hector first needed the early morning to get the boat in shape, to swab up the dried blood from Brinke’s miscarriage.

  He thought about how he’d seen far too much blood shed from the women he had vowed to spend his life with. He told himself he would build a wall a mile high around her to keep her safe. He made a private pledge never to see Brinke at risk again. He swore to himself to protect her forever.

  58

  Mike Rogers sat along the docks, watching the rich men’s yachts coming in. He’d shed a few pounds over the last several months and lost more hair. Tight as money was, the former newspaperman treated himself to a drink once a week at the docks, spending a little of the stingy wages paid him as a freelance correspondent for the wire services.

  For some time, Rogers had been contemplating a return to the States, but he hadn’t yet accumulated sufficient money to make a go of it.

  And where would he go if he could afford it? That question still perplexed him.

  He wouldn’t go back to Key West, not to live.

  Oh, he knew now what had happened to him. He knew how they’d contrived to take everything from him.

  Rogers knew now that that stranger in the bar had snookered him, tricked Rogers into believing he was a whore killer.

  A passing acquaintance from Bone Key had come over in June and stumbled across Rogers on the dockside of Old Havana. The man had been surprised to find Rogers living in Cuba. The two of them got to talking over beers and the Key Wester, a man of low morals and loose-tongued in his cups, well, he’d gotten to jawing about one particular young Key West whore with whom he’d grown enamored.

  Six minutes into the man’s obscene rant about the whore’s “virtues” Rogers had realized the prostitute whom the man was rhapsodizing about was the very one Rogers was supposed to have murdered in a drunken fit several months before.

  Rogers put several questions to the Key Wester and found himself convinced that the man had spent the night in Rogers’ so-called victim’s bed just hours before crossing paths with Rogers in that Havana dockside saloon.

  So Rogers wrote some letters home. He made some further inquiries back in Key West. The journalist confirmed the working girl he had “killed,” a taffy blond named Janice Henry, was still alive and well and turning tricks with her customary zeal to please.

  He was told his landlord had seized his press and other pieces of printing equipment in lieu of owed back rent on the newspaper office. His chief competitor, he learned, had bought Rogers’ subscriber list from his landlord and then used it to raid his client base—drained away all of Rogers’ potential circulation for his paper.

  In terms of reclaiming his business, there was no longer anything to take back, no hope of that at all, it was clear.

  And his swanky new convertible?

  His new car was now reported to be being driven around Bone Key by the fat madam who ran the sporting house in which Rogers had been bamboozled by that man who got Rogers drunk and talked him into visiting the brothel in the first place.

  Everything. Every last thing had been taken from Rogers.

  But according to his Key West correspondents, more had happened back on Bone Key than just the destruction of his own life. Rogers was told Sheriff Hoyt had gone missing and was presumed dead by many living around the Key.

  The mayor and three council members had been indicted for stealing city funds and were expected to actually draw significant stretches of hard prison time. The realtor, Denton Stokes, had lost his real estate license and was also facing charges of fraud and conspiracy.

  In that sense, Rogers figured he maybe was lucky to have been chased off the Key before he could fall prey to the same fate as his associates.

  But those other men hadn’t endured months of cold sweats in the dark hours of the sultry night, thinking themselves a whore killer.

  Rogers couldn’t really afford it, but he’d nevertheless bought himself a cheap gun and two boxes of bullets. His notion was that he’d return to the States via Key West. It only made sense to return via Bone Key. Staying incognito, Rogers figured he’d track down that bastard who took him to that whorehouse and he’d empty his gun in the son of bitch’s too-handsome face.

  A yacht was pulling in. A pretty, dark-haired woman was on the deck, tossing mooring lines to the boys who worked the dockside to make fast. The woman looked vaguely familiar to Rogers but he couldn’t put her in context. The name of the boat was “Devil May Care.”

  Rogers took another sip of his Cuba Libre. He wondered what kind of man it took to win the companionship of a woman like the one moving around the boat. A shadow crossed his face: his waiter was hovering, getting in the way and blocking Rogers’ view of the pretty, black-haired woman. The waiter asked if Rogers wanted another drink. Rogers knew he shouldn’t spend the money, but the improved view decided it for him. “Sí, por favor.” The waiter slunk off to fetch Rogers another ru
m and cola.

  The yacht’s owner was on deck now, helping tie the boat fast. The man was tall and well-built and very bronzed. The man’s back was to Rogers. When the big man turned and leapt over the side of the boat, Rogers had a jolt of recognition.

  The stranger turned his back to Rogers again, extending a hand to the woman still on deck to help her down. The man put two big hands around the black-haired twist’s wasp waist and sat her down on the dock. The man hefted a suitcase from the deck and the couple wrapped arms around one another’s waists, making their way up the inclined ramp to the dockside and passing right by Rogers.

  The journalist ground his teeth, watching them approach and then pass. It was him, no doubt of that. It was the son of a bitch who had cost Rogers his sweet life back on Bone Key.

  And the woman with that son of a bitch?

  It was that bitch who had run out of him in the bar just a couple of days prior to the so-called murder. It was “Tessa Templeton.”

  So, “Tessa” had obviously been playing Rogers all along. She was in cahoots with the bastard who had made Rogers think he’d nearly twisted off some whore’s head.

  They were just a couple of slick grifters who had conspired to burn down Rogers’ sweet life back in Key West.

  The journalist slammed back his drink and followed the couple to a hotel across the street from the big, baroque Grand Theater of Havana.

  Rogers slid into the lobby and stood off in a corner to confirm the couple was indeed checking in. When the pair went upstairs with their suitcase, Rogers ran to the front desk. He held up his own eyeglasses and said to the clerk, “Excuse me, but that man who just registered, he left his glasses in my watch repair store. I ran three blocks to try and catch him, but just missed him at the elevator there.”

  The desk clerk said, “You mean Mr. Lassiter?”

  “Lassiter?”

  “Héctor Lassiter, sí.”

  “Could you give me his room number, por favor?”

  “Three-twelve.”

  “Gracias,” Rogers said, smiling.

  Rogers set off under the pretense of climbing into the elevator to return the glasses. When he saw the clerk was busy with another guest, Rogers doubled back and crossed the lobby fast, intent upon fetching his gun.

  ***

  “Some help, please?” Brinke held her hair up off her back. She wore a strapless white dress. “Zip me, please?”

  Hector did that and kissed the back of her neck, brushing his nose against the soft, short down there. “You feel okay, darlin’?”

  “Wonderful,” Brinke said. She picked up a brush and began running it through her hair. Hector slung on his shoulder holster and slipped in his Colt. Brinke sighed. “Oh, Hector, a gun tonight? Must you?”

  “It’s Havana on a Saturday night and the whole crazy country could lurch into revolution before we’re served our appetizers.” Hector shrugged on his white cotton sports coat to cover the big old six-shooter. He wet a comb and ran it back through his dark hair.

  “I could eat a horse,” Brinke said.

  Hector smiled. “Given the look of some of the joints in this town, you might find yourself doing just that.”

  ***

  The waiter had taken their order and brought them their drinks.

  They tapped wine goblets. “To what do we toast?”

  Brinke thought about it a time, then said, “I’ll get back to you on that, okay?”

  “Night is young.”

  “It is.” Brinke took his right hand and smiled. “My God, you’re handsome tonight. Do you know how much I love you, Hector Lassiter?”

  “How much, darling?”

  “Without reservation,” Brinke said. “Outside time. I’ll love you forever.”

  Time went haywire then.

  Before he could respond, Brinke said, “Why do I feel like I know that guy there?”

  Hector glanced at the man approaching their table, then turned away. Something clicked in his mind just as he heard a woman say in Spanish, “My God, he’s got a gun!”

  Hector tried to free his right hand, his gun hand, from Brinke’s grasp. He pulled the lapel of his jacket away with his left hand to quicken his draw.

  As his Colt cleared his coat, Hector locked eyes with the ex-reporter and snarled, “Rogers, don’t you make me kill you!”

  Wyatt Earp had a winning strategy for gunfights that had always hung with Hector. Earp said, “You must learn to be slow in a hurry.”

  Everything was slow, yet hyper-focused for Hector.

  The two shots came almost simultaneously.

  Women at adjacent tables screamed. A few men screamed, too.

  Rogers tumbled backwards, his face a red smear. Hector said, “Goddamn you for making me do that to you, you sorry son of a bitch!”

  Hector holstered the old Peacemaker. He said to Brinke, “Thank God there are plenty of witnesses in this joint to testify he drew and fired first.”

  He turned around to check on Brinke and Hector’s eyes widened. His legs began to quake.

  Brinke’s head rested on the table. Her longer black hair was spread out on the white tablecloth. Streaks of scarlet were spreading around the long black strands of her hair.

  Hector put a shaking hand to the back of her neck and said, “Brinke? Darling?”

  Hector couldn’t bear to see her face. He felt under her chin with trembling fingers and found no pulse.

  He took a deep breath, empty suddenly, weak in the shaking knees.

  With a bloody, trembling hand, Hector turned around his chair and collapsed into it. Hector rested his head on Brinke’s bare and still warm back and he began to sob.

  59

  They were anchored just off Old Fort Jefferson.

  Sheriff Jack Dixon and Beau Stryder stood either side of Hector, the wind at their backs, the blast-furnace breeze whipping their white shirts and their hair.

  Hector took the lid off the urn and handed it to his grandfather to hold. Hector scooped up a handful of ashes. He let the wind work the ashes from his hand.

  Beau squeezed Hector’s neck.

  His chin trembling, Hector watched the dust sift from between his fingers.

  60

  It was two days since he’d scattered Brinke’s ashes at sea. Beau had returned to his pregnant young Cuban wife, urging Hector to come to Texas, to put some distance between Key West and his memories.

  Hector couldn’t tell Beau how much he resented Consuelo and the life growing inside her. He couldn’t confess to the pain it gave him thinking of Connie, of the prospect of seeing her and seeing the baby that would come with the New Year.

  Hector sat alone on his front porch with a bottle of beer and lit another cigarette, trying to think of something he might write. Groping for something to do that wouldn’t result in him getting drunk, getting in a fight, or doing something equally stupid to punish himself or some luckless other.

  “Hey mister!”

  Hector squinted, holding up a hand to shield his face from the sun. It was the neighbor kid, Billy. The boy held up a brand new glove. “My mom bought me an extra glove, a big one,” the boy said. “It should fit even your hand. Wanna have a catch?”

  Hector thought about it. He smiled and shook his head. He cast down his Pall Mall and ground it out with the sole of his sandal. “Sure, why not,” Hector said.

  They stood in the middle of the street, under the shade of the tall old palms, tossing the ball back and forth.

  Between lobs, Hector sometimes stole glances at the empty picture window of his house, remembering Brinke watching him, remembering the look in her eyes. She was lost to him forever now.

  The ball snapped into his glove again.

  Forever. What was that Brinke had said to him?

  “Forever is just pretend?”

  Hector flung the baseball back at the boy, long and high.

  ***

  That night, Hector had a dream about a dark-haired woman at the top of some hill somewhere in the bo
rderlands.

  The woman with the black hair was astride a strawberry roan, silhouetted against some bloody sunset, waving to him. A little girl held Hector’s hand, walking him up the side of the hill.

  Hector awakened from the dream shaken and cotton-mouthed; sweat-soaked and frightened.

  He found his Peacemaker, emptied the bullets into his hand, one at a time, then opened the back door. He slung the bullets far out into the night where it would be harder to find them.

  Hands shaking, he turned on the lights, brewed some black coffee. No goddamn way he wanted to try and drift back into sleep just now.

  He couldn’t fathom laying there at the mercy of his dreams.

  No, strike that, stretched out there, hostage to his nightmares.

  Hector scrolled a virgin sheet of paper into his typewriter, intent upon pouring all that poison onto the page, desperate to use his hurt. He was determined to find one true sentence. On a hunch, Hector typed, “Forever’s just pretend.”

  THE END

  Reader Discussion Questions

  1. Forever’s Just Pretend is the only novel in the Hector Lassiter series to incorporate no significant cameos or supporting roles by historical figures. Did their lack in any way change your regard for Hector Lassiter? Did the story seem less “real” to you as a result of their absence?

  2. Key West has evolved into a kind debauched tourists’ Mecca over the past several decades. Did its Prohibition-era portrayal surprise you in any way?

  3. If you’ve read Toros & Torsos, did you find yourself comparing circa-1925 Key West to circa-1935 Bone Key? What most struck you as a result of a decade’s passage?

  4. A certain surviving grand house in the otherwise burned out section of Key West—a nod to an all-too-real Key West fire—makes a cameo appearance that pays off in the aforementioned Toros & Torsos. Did you catch the allusion to the house and the foreshadowing of its eventual famous author-owner?