6 Martini Regrets

by Phyllis Smallman

  He went to the front door, picked up his keys off the room divider and left without answering. The house was suddenly too quiet.

  I thought about what that meant in the minutes before sleep.

  Nearly the first thing Clay said to me the next day was, “Call the police.”

  “I don’t need you to tell me what to do.”

  The snap of his newspaper accented the silence.

  “Look,” I said in exasperation. “What can I tell them? My truck was stolen, but I got it back. Where’s the big crime there?”

  He lowered the paper. “What about the dead man?”

  “Oh, I’m pretty sure they know all about him by now. That fire was at the nursery, and they’ll be sifting through the ashes. When they find those remains, they’ll be looking for Tito. Maybe they’ve already got Tito and his cousin. Trust me, Tito will be singing like a little birdie.”

  “You’ve made up your mind.” The paper went back up.

  “All I can tell them is the man was dead and Tito knows something about the men involved. Not much help.”

  He stayed silent behind the paper barrier.

  “I’m just getting over making the news.” I stood and picked up our plates. “One more piece like that last one and the Sunset will be out of business. You know how people stopped coming in after that one ran. They blamed me for Ryan’s death.” I went to the sink. “Some people are afraid to be anywhere near me, like I carry some virus for violent behavior.”

  “Maybe you do.” His muttered words were barely audible.

  I wanted to go back to the table and smack the newspaper out of his hands, but that would only prove his point.

  It was a scene that played out more than once between us over the next week. His line was always the same: it was my duty. Each time he brought the subject up, I came up with a new reason to delay. Along with lying, stalling is another of my specialties, and the harder Clay pushed for me to call the police, the stronger my resistance grew. There was a long stretch of silence and extreme politeness before Clay and I smoothed out the bad feelings between us and plastered over the disappointments and shortcomings we saw in each other.

  I couldn’t go back to work until my cuts and blisters healed, so I had lots of time to think. I’d come to a decision about our future, but I wanted things to go back to normal between us before I told Clay. I didn’t want him to think I was using my change of heart to win him over.

  What I thought about most, the thing that made me harden my jaw, was that I never wanted to be a victim again. Just how I was going to manage that I wasn’t sure, but not setting myself up as a target by testifying against bad guys was a good place to start.

  Doing nothing is easy. You just avoid the problem for a moment, an hour, a day and finally a week. Soon, doing something becomes a bigger problem than the one you’re ducking. In time, if you open your mouth you have a whole new set of questions to answer, the first one being why it took you so long to come forward. So after a while it just became easier not to call the police and explain.

  The weeks that followed the night in the swamp were a time of waiting, a holding pattern. Maybe, in the deepest part of my being, I was expecting more bad news. The hard part of fear is to know when it’s over, to decide when you’re out of harm’s way and you can put it all behind you.

  Whenever I was alone, I surfed the Internet for news. There was a report of the Osceola Nursery burning down and the death of the owner, a man named Ben Bricklin. The details on why it had started were vague. The news article only said that the fire department was looking for the cause of the fire.

  In the end, three hundred acres had gone up in flames and Alligator Alley had been closed for two hours. My pickup must have been one of the last vehicles to get by.

  Two days after I read that article I checked back to see if there was any more news on the cause of the fire. What I read sent me into panic mode. Two more bodies had been discovered. The remains of Ruben Orlandez, twenty-three, and Angelina Martinez, nineteen, had been found in the ashes of the nursery. Ruben Orlandez had been an employee of the plant center, and Angelina, Angie to her family, was his girlfriend. Again, police weren’t saying if their deaths were accidental or murder. There was a subtle suggestion in the news report that Ruben tried to burn down the nursery and got caught in the fire.

  There was no mention of Tito. He was probably down in Miami or hiding out in the Keys. Either way, I was sure he’d gotten away. So unless the police found him, it was over. I didn’t share any of this new knowledge with Clay. Except for the return of my violent nightmares, that horrible night was behind me.

  CHAPTER 13

  One Friday morning I was in the bar getting ready for the lunch crowd. Ella crooned in the background while overhead the giant fan turned slowly. It and the mahogany bar came from a private men’s club back in the thirties. Black-and-white pictures of the early days in Florida cover the walls, and giant palms in clay tubs provide privacy for black leather club chairs and small silver tables. The bar of the Sunset is probably my favorite place in the world.

  Tully strolled in and perched on a stool in front of me. His handsome rawhide face broke out in a big smile as he shoved his battered cowboy hat to the back of his head and said, “Good to see you, little girl.”

  My thirtieth birthday had come and gone more than a year before, but I couldn’t stop my old man from thinking of me as a little girl. For a long time it had made me angry, like he was putting me down, but now it just made me laugh. I pulled him a beer and said, “What’s happening, Tully?”

  “Not much. Just thought I’d better come and tell you that Bernice is moving to California. Wanted to tell you before Ziggy gets his tail in a twist and rushes in here to worry you.”

  My hand stopped pulling the pint and I swung to face Tully.

  He pointed at the half-full glass. “Jesus, girl, don’t ruin my drink.”

  I looked back to the brown liquid and said, “So, how and when did this all come about?” Bernice was my ex-mother-in-law, a woman I hated but someone Tully seemed to care for. She and Tully had taken up with each other the summer before, and I’d practiced biting my tongue until the blood flowed. “You guys seemed pretty solid.”

  “We were . . . we are, but Bernice wants to be closer to Amy now that a grandchild is coming.” There was the smallest hint of an accusation in his voice. He never got tired of telling me to hurry up and have a kid before he got too old to enjoy it, and I never gave up telling him to mind his own business.

  I set the beer on a paper coaster in front of him. “I can understand that.”

  He reached out and pulled the stein towards him, his lips already pursing to welcome in the liquid.

  “Did she ask you to move to California with her?”

  He wiped his lips with back of his hand and said, “Yup.”

  “Why aren’t you going?”

  “Take me out of Florida, I’d likely die.” He sipped his beer again. “’Sides, she wants to be with her daughter just like I want to be with mine.”

  I let out the breath I been holding waiting for his answer. “Ah, Tully, are you saying you’re giving up Bernice for me?”

  “Not exactly.”

  “Good. I’m glad you didn’t try ’cause now I don’t have to tell you how full of shit you are. My guess is, you got tired of Bernice and you’re happy to see her go.”

  “Whatever you say, baby girl.” He pointed the glass at me. “But I’m sticking with you.”

  I grinned at him and then I said, “Tully, I’ve got something to tell you.” I told him about the night in the swamp. And then I told him about the other deaths, something I hadn’t told Clay.

  Tully listened without saying a word and then he said, “You think it’s over?”

  I turned away and reached for a bar cloth, saying, “Sure.”

  He knew
I was lying, but he just nodded and picked up his beer.

  Not long after my talk with Tully, there was a knock on my office door. I didn’t lift my eyes from the timesheets I was filling out on the computer. I just hollered, “What?” and went on typing in numbers.

  The door opened quietly. I heard it close but no one spoke.

  I looked up.

  Detective Styles stood just inside the door, leaning back on it with his hands folded behind him.

  “Oh,” was all that I could manage. I sat back in the chair, my hands settling out of sight in my lap as I waited.

  Detective Styles was the cop in charge when my husband, Jimmy Travis, was murdered two years ago. Always holding himself in check and hiding any emotion, Styles was a man I’d thought of as gray and uninteresting—until recently. Then he’d become far too interesting.

  Over the last couple of years our connection had changed, and we’d started dancing across dangerous ground, the advance and retreat of “Shall we wreck our lives by giving into a passing physical desire, or shall we pretend we’re adults?” And then one night shortly before I ran to Miami, I saw another side of him, the face of raw and naked passion. It was a crazy experience we both were eager to forget.

  We stared at each other, searching for danger—or maybe that thrilling excitement that had sent me into panic mode.

  Styles’s green eyes gave nothing away. The man I always called Mr. Bland, the man who always dressed in a plain beige suit, today had gone wild and put on a pink shirt with a navy and pink tie. He said, “Hi.” And then he added, “I’m here on official business.”

  Well, that answered one question.

  He walked slowly towards me, almost as if he was reluctant to get too close in case of . . . what? He stopped three feet away from my desk. “I had a call from Dade County police force. They found a young man murdered, executed by a shot in the head.” He folded his hand into a gun and touched his temple with a forefinger. “He had your business card in his pocket.”

  If other things weren’t distracting Styles, he would have caught the little start I gave, the sucking in of air. This was the moment I had dreaded. My guts were doing a rumba, but I managed to keep my mouth shut.

  He pulled a photo out of his jacket and, leaning forward, laid it on the desk, pushing it towards me with the tips of his fingers.

  I reached out a finger and slid it the rest of the way to me across the desk. Tito stared up at me. I pushed back in my chair, clutching my hands together in my lap to hide their trembling, and waited.

  “Why?” Styles said.

  “Why what?”

  “Why did he have your card?”

  It was because the ashtray in the truck was full of them. I lifted my shoulders and let them drop. “Someone must have given it to him.”

  “Why?”

  “You’re the detective. Maybe he was moving to this coast and was going to hit me up for a job—busboy, waiter . . .” I shrugged again, dismissing any knowledge of Tito. “Can’t tell you.”

  He nodded in understanding but added just the same, “So you don’t know him?”

  “Don’t think so.”

  “You didn’t even ask what his name is.”

  “Okay, what’s his name?”

  “Tito Martinez.”

  I pretended to search my memory bank. “Still don’t know him.”

  “Can’t tell me anything about him?”

  “Nope.”

  “He had eight thousand dollars in cash in his pocket.”

  “Then I sure as hell don’t know him.”

  We both smiled.

  “He’d just paid two thousand dollars for a used car. So how does a guy probably living on less than minimum come up with ten thousand cash?”

  “If I knew a guy with ten thousand cash . . .” I stopped right there. It was a bad joke, and one I couldn’t make. “Still don’t know him.”

  “So I guess that’s it.”

  “Looks like it.” He leaned over and picked up the picture. He stepped back. Relief showed on his face. “Fine,” he said.

  What was fine?

  His mouth lifted at the corners in a slight smile. “Just needed to ask.”

  “Anything else you want to know?”

  It took him a minute. “Naw. I’m glad . . .” He didn’t finish.

  Was he glad I didn’t know a murder victim or glad he could get the hell away from me?

  “It’s done then,” he said.

  I nodded. But it wasn’t done. There was a whole lot more between us than an inquiry from Dade County. There was a cobweb of emotions, with a dangerous something squirming in the center that neither of us was going anywhere near.

  “I’ll tell Dade you don’t know anything about this guy.”

  “Good,” I said, looking back to the computer screen.

  He started for the door and then turned back. “We have to talk,” he said. “We can’t just go on avoiding each other.”

  “Is that what we’re doing?”

  “It was only a kiss.”

  “Seen by Marley.”

  “It only happened because we’d been drinking.”

  “Yeah, lately too many things have been happening because I was drinking.” I smiled at him. “I’ve drunk my last martini.”

  His forehead wrinkled. “Why . . .” Before he could finish, there was a brief rap on the door and Gwen came in.

  Styles said, “Bye” and bolted out behind Gwen.

  I was folding laundry on the kitchen table when I told Clay about Styles’s visit and Tito’s death. “Why did Tito have my card?” I asked. My hands smoothed a stack of towels, but my eyes searched Clay’s face for reassurance.

  “Didn’t he say he was going to return the pickup?” Clay crossed his arms and leaned back against the counter. “Maybe he took the card because he felt bad and wanted to call and tell you where you could find your truck.”

  I pulled a pillowcase out of the pile. “Yeah, he said he was going to return it.” This simple explanation was reassuring.

  “Why didn’t you tell Styles that you knew him?”

  “But I don’t know him.” The cotton snapped as I shook it. “Except his name is Tito and he worked for the dead man, Ben Bricklin. The cops already know that.” I smoothed the material, folding it in on itself. “There’s nothing extra I can tell them about Tito.” I picked up the stack of clean laundry. “I don’t want to get any deeper into it. I don’t want the guys that killed Tito coming after me.”

  “But maybe Tito told someone about you.”

  A pile of towels tumbled from my hands.

  CHAPTER 14

  The Sunset was packed with tourists hiding from the eighty-five-degree sun, but there were two extra servers on, so I wasn’t totally on the run when the tall broad-shouldered man walked up to the bar and smiled at me. He was wearing a black tie with an orchid, hand-painted in white and mauve, on the silk. The outrageous necktie seemed at odds with the rest of him. In his early sixties, he was still fit and held himself with a confidence that said he was on top of life. Deeply tanned, like a man who’d spent his life on a golf course chasing pars, he had sharp blue eyes and stiff, wiry black hair that looked like it had an attitude to equal the guy himself. Even his eyebrows were thick and aggressive, but when he smiled I found myself smiling back at him.

  A bartender quickly learns how to size people up, and I knew a few things right off. This man was different from the normal drinker who wanders in at lunchtime. This guy wasn’t in the Sunset because he was thirsty for a beer; he was there to talk. I could tell because he stood right in front of the beer taps. If you want to talk to the tender, position yourself where they can’t ignore you: at one of the work stations. I raised a finger and said, “I’ll be right with you,” then went to deliver the beer.

  Coming back and w
atching him assess the room, taking it all in, I made another assumption. This was a man who was accustomed to being in charge—one who brooked no obstacle to his wishes.

  My mind quickly processed the possibilities that brought him to the Sunset. It was one of those rare times in my life when I wasn’t noticeably behind in my payments, so he wasn’t there to break my legs or repossess something. And as far as I knew, he couldn’t have been sent to find me by a rich uncle with money to give away.

  Wait and see, I told myself as I came up to him. “What can I bring you?” I said, giving him my best customer-relations smile.

  He pointed to a purple orchid sitting by the cash register. “A fellow orchid lover, I see.”

  My eyes followed his pointing finger before I replied. “Home Depot, the grocery store . . . I can never resist them.” I set a paper coaster on the bar in front of him.

  “It’s a Dendrobium.”

  I tried out the name. “I’ll have to take your word for it. I haven’t got a clue about them.”

  His broad finger twirled the coaster. “It’s the most common orchid in the retail market. There are millions of them grown every year in Florida. A billion-dollar business.”

  “No kidding.” Already I knew where this was going, but I’m awfully good at playing dumb. Well, let’s face it: it isn’t much of a stretch.

  He smiled, a self-deprecating and strangely boyish smile. “I go on a bit, don’t I? Can’t help myself.”

  “Do you grow orchids?”

  “Nope, but my brother did.”

  That’s when I knew for certain. I smiled and asked again, “What can I bring you?”

  I drew the light beer while he spread hands the size of dinner plates on the bar and settled himself on a stool, still surveying his surroundings, taking in everything and judging. When I set the beer in front of him he drew it forward with a hand that knew how to work. Maybe I had him wrong, maybe he wasn’t a rich golf lizard, but he wasn’t in a hurry to set me straight. I filled a dozen orders while he drank half his beer. I’d go broke if everyone took as long to finish a beer as he did. He ordered a sandwich and didn’t finish half of that either. An hour later he was still there.