Hector frowned. “‘Storm,’ even ‘big storm,’ is understating it more than a bit, Rachel. It’s almost certainly a damn hurricane — maybe the worst we’ll ever see.”
She sipped her mojito...a savoring sip. Hector smiled. She seemed to like it fine. But her hand was trembling. “I’m terrified of this storm,” she said. “I hear, only now of course, that if it hits Key West directly, everything here could be laid waste.”
Hector reached across the table and squeezed her hand. She squeezed briefly back, so he was emboldened to leave his big and callused hand there, closed over hers. “Rachel, Key West has never taken a direct hit from a tropical storm like the one you’re fretting over,” he said. “Many of these homes here on Bone Key pre-date the Civil War. The old Islanders believe Key West’s position makes it impossible for a tropical storm to strike it directly. But that’s not to say it can’t still be very nasty.” Hector felt Rachel’s hand flutter under his own. But she didn’t move to withdraw her hand.
Encouraged, Hector leaned in, smiling. “With precautions, we can ride these things out, Rachel, please believe me. I’ve been through several hurricanes and tropical storms since I moved here years ago. I’m still standing, and so is my house.”
“I suppose,” Rachel said. “I mean, here you are to prove it, right? But I have no experience with these things, Mr. Lassiter. And alone and with that man watching me? It’s almost too much to cope with. I really don’t know what to do, Mr. Lassiter.”
“Hector. Where are you staying, Rachel?”
“We’re in the Colonial Hotel.” At seven stories, it was the tallest structure on the island — Key West’s lone “skyscraper.” Approaching the island by boat from a certain angle, with the lighthouse and the three wireless towers at the naval base hidden behind, the hotel made the island look like it had a hard-on.
“Swanky digs,” Hector said. “The island’s best rooms and view. It’s pretty solid, too. ’Cept for all those damned windows. How high up are you, Rachel?”
“Fifth floor, facing east.”
“Then I’d urge you to consider checking out of there in the next few hours. Speaking just for myself, I wouldn’t try to ride out a hurricane in that joint. And certainly not on that side.”
Rachel stared at her hands, flexing her fingers...she was feeling the alcohol numbing them, Hector figured. She said, “If I check out of the hotel, where would I go?” He could hear the strain in her voice.
Hector said, “Well...I have a second bedroom, Rachel. You could take refuge at my place until the danger is passed. I boarded up the windows this morning. I laid in my own provisions, and early. We’ll probably be without phones and electricity for a few days, if not a week here on the island. And fresh water will maybe be scarce, too. But I’ve seen to that at my place. Just have some last minute shopping to do — makings for big fresh sandwiches and some more candles for late-night writing. More batteries for the short-wave. And the fixings for more of these.” Hector hefted his mojito, grinning.
Rachel smiled, propping her head up on her hand, clearly a little drunk now. “You sound like a boy planning an adventure.”
Hector smiled. “It’s my way of coping with this damned blow,” he said. “It’s the strategy that has seen me through storms before. We can be scared, Rachel. We can be depressed, or fatalistic. Or, when it comes to us and this storm, we can be well-fed and pleasantly lit. I can spend my time writing to make some money and taking breaks to warm my belly with rum and my big Cuban sandwiches and good talk with you.” He smiled again. “So, are you willing to share this ‘boy’s’ adventure, Rachel?”
“You know, you really didn’t answer my question,” she said.
“What question is that, Rachel?”
“Whether you know that man who keeps looking at me while he plays with his knife.”
Hesitation: “I do.”
“So he is a local.”
“Kind of.”
“And you know him?”
“Kind of.”
“Are you going to tell me more, Hector?”
“I don’t want to upset you any more than you already are, Rachel.”
“I want to know about him, Hector. You tell stories for a living. Do that now. Skip the worst parts of it if you have to, but let me know this man’s story. Why would he be after me?”
Hector held up fingers for two more drinks. Hector had finished his mojito. Rachel was two or three sips from polishing off hers. “This man you’ve identified is an island character...or I suppose you’d call him that in a charitable mood,” Hector said. “He’s part Cuban. He goes by the name of Tito Castillo. He’s reputedly linked to a revolutionary cell based in Havana. The Cuban revolutionaries have lately taken to grabbing gringo tourists for hostages. They release them in exchange for ransom money they use to fund their guerilla operations. They rob banks and businesses across the Keys to generate more money to buy guns and explosives — that sort of thing. Tito has a small boat and allegedly smuggles guns and rum and revolutionists between here and Cuba and back. But he’s also got a reputation as a lady-killer. I mean that literally.”
Rachel was ashen. “And the police have done nothing to stop him? I mean, if you know, and if the whole island knows...?”
“Proof, Rachel.” Hector nodded at Josie as the bartender placed their fresh drinks on cardboard mats. “Gotta have proof, Rachel, and Old Tito is a careful one. He may not look like much other than a one-eyed, gangly rummy with bad teeth and skin, but he’s probably one of the five most dangerous men on Bone Key.”
Rachel said, “So what do we do, Hector? Do I sneak out the back and you meet me somewhere, or...?”
“Nothing so cloak-and-dagger,” Hector said. “Please remember, Rachel, I’m a crime novelist, not a mystery writer. So I tend toward the direct approach. You just wait here, sweetheart.”
Hector rose and walked over to the table where the tall, swarthy man with the eye patch sat. As Rachel had said, he had a Bowie knife out, and he was dragging his callused thumb across the blade.
Hector pulled out a chair across from the man and smiling, plopped down. Hector winked and said, “Hola, Tito.”
The man scowled and said, “I don’t know you, do I? No, I don’t think I do. Maybe have seen you around. But I don’t truly know you.” He held up his knife and grinned — most of the teeth on the left side of his mouth were missing. “I no looking for company, my pretty boy.”
Smiling, Hector said, “Me either.” Then he brought the heel of his work boot down on the top of the swarthy man’s sandaled foot. The one-eyed man screamed and reflexively raised his wounded foot, his knee smacking the underside of the table. As Tito groaned at that second impact, Hector reached across the table, grabbed the man by both ears and slammed his head down against the tabletop.
Hector stood and stepped back from the table, surveying the results. He smiled at a slack-jawed Rachel and stern-looking Josie. “Out cold,” Hector said. He took Rachel’s shaking hand. “Now we go.”
Looking flustered, Rachel stood and smoothed out the pleats in her dress and grabbed her purse and copy of Hector’s novel. Then she paused and drained her mojito and set it back down, the ice cubes tinkling in the now empty glass.
“He’ll come looking for you, won’t he,” Rachel said, scowling, “I mean, come looking for you for revenge? You know what they say about ‘no good deed going unpunished.’”
Hector shrugged, draining his own drink. “Not so sure sucker-punching some son of a bitch qualifies as a ‘good deed,’ Rachel. And Tito lives on that boat of his I told you about. He’s famous — or infamous — for riding out storms on that sorry crate. If this blow is half as bad as it looks to be, bastard’ll likely be drowned before end of Labor Day weekend. So don’t sweat it on my account, honey. If Tito survives the hurricane, I’ll see to him myself. ‘Retaliate first,’ that’s my motto. But now let’s get out of here.”
He took her arm and said to Josie, “Sorry pal.” Hector smiled an
d shrugged. “But at least no damages this time, yeah?”
“Sure,” the bartender said with a frown. “Those’ll likely come when that son of a bitch comes to.”
Looking contrite, Hector bit his lip and steered Rachel out into the muggy sun. They walked a few yards, then Hector said, “I feel bad about that — for Josie I mean. And I forgot to arrange delivery of our provisions.”
Rachel frowned. “You mean that we’re going back?”
“Just me,” Hector said. “Just to arrange delivery of the liquor to my place, and to give Josie some money to have his boy, Carlos, maybe drag old Tito to the other side of the island. Likely best to let Tito wake up far from the scene of my crime and Josie’s joint. You wait here, Rachel. You’ll be safe, I swear. I’ll be back in a jiffy.”
Hector ducked back into the shade of the saloon, his eyes slow to adjust from the harsh sunlight. He blinked a few times and looked back over his shoulder to make certain that Rachel hadn’t followed.
Josie was patting the swarthy man on the back and handing him a drink and a wet towel for his swollen lip as Hector sidled up beside him. The one-eyed man grinned with bloodied gums and a swollen lip. He said:
“It worked, Mr. Lassiter?”
“It worked so fine, Tito. You okay?”
“Yeah...hell yeah, Mr. Lassiter. Thanks for putting the damage on the left side. I’m trying to save what teeths left on the right so I have something to chaw with.”
“I promised you I would make it the left side, Tito.” It was the least Hector could do: their little scam to score tail for Hector was tried and true, and it had cost Tito several of those teeth now missing along the left side of his mouth.
Hector dug down into his pocket and pulled out his roll. He tugged off two tens and handed them to Tito. “There you go, as promised, old pal.” Hector smiled at Tito, thinking, Poor toothless goddamn rummy. But Hector said aloud, “We’re going to hunker down at my place until this storm passes, then she’ll likely be getting back on the boat for Miami. Think you could stay to the other end of the island until after the Big Blow, Tito? Wouldn’t want to send her off to the mainland thinking you’re still stalking her, Teet.”
“Can do, Mr. Lassiter.” That terrible smile.
Hector smiled back and clapped the one-eyed man on the back and handed some more cash to Josie. “A fresh bottle for Tito here, Josie. Then, say in an hour, can you send Carlos to my place with some ice and makings for mojitos?”
Josie nodded, holding out his hand for more cash. “Sure. Gonna nail this skirt, you figure? She’s sure enough a looker, Hector, that’s for certain.”
“Time will tell,” Hector said with a shrug and a smile.
“Hell of a soothing way to ride out a storm,” Josie said.
“The only way to do it,” Hector said. Then he frowned and stripped off two more bills. “And send Carlos around to the jewelers. Have him pick me up a locket, or brooch. Maybe a bracelet. Something old looking would be best...something I could say belonged to my mother.”
Josie shook his head. “Jesus but you’re going to go to hell, Hec.”
The crime novelist smiled, then squared his shoulders, set his mouth in a frown and stepped back out into the harsh sunlight.
Rachel was standing on the corner, her bare and proud shoulders squared, silhouetted against the sun...the outline of her thighs visible under the backlit cotton of her dress and sheer silk of her slip. Rachel held her purse in front of her and she nodded at Hector as she saw him step out of Sloppy Joe’s. There was a worried look on her pretty face and she said:
“That man, Tito, he’s still out cold?”
“Still is.” Hector said. “Now let’s get over to that hotel and collect your stuff and get you settled in.”
“I can’t thank you enough for all you’ve done, Hector,” Rachel said. “Not that you ever want to confuse authors with their books or with their characters, but I have to confess, I didn’t expect you to be so gallant, Hector. I never expected you to be such a gentleman.”
“That’s me all over,” Hector said, wrapping an arm around Rachel’s waist as they crossed the street. “I’m a regular Boy Scout.”
Learn more about TOROS & TORSOS at:
http://craigmcdonaldbooks.com/
Toros & Torsos
Craig McDonald
ISBN 978-0-615-39911-9
PRINT THE LEGEND
Hector Lassiter returns in PRINT THE LEGEND, the third novel in the Edgar-/Anthony-nominated Hector Lassiter series (available in eBook format).
It was the shot heard ’round the world: On July 2, 1961, Ernest Hemingway died from a shotgun blast to the head. It’s 1965: two men have come to Idaho to confront the widow Hemingway—men who have doubts about the true circumstances of Hemingway’s death. One is crime novelist Hector Lassiter. What Hector finds are pieces of his own, long-ago stolen writings, now in danger of being foisted upon an unsuspecting public as Ernest Hemingway’s work. As Hector digs into the mystery of his and Hemingway’s lost writings, he uncovers an audacious, decades-long conspiracy tied to J. Edgar Hoover’s FBI. When legend becomes fact, print the legend.
Excerpt:
“There are never any...
successful suicides.”
— Ernest Hemingway
July 2, 1961
He rose with the sun as he had every morning since childhood.
It was Sunday and the old man was alone in the house with his wife, Mary.
George, his ex-boxer pal, was in the cinder block guest quarters next door. He trusted his damaged memory on that much.
The old man shrugged on his “Emperor’s robe” which draped his wasted frame like a red circus tent. He hardly recognized his own face in the bathroom mirror — his wispy, white fly-away hair was going every which way and his smile back at himself was something terrible to behold. Passionate brown eyes each of four wives praised as his best feature were now as empty and dead as those of the trophy heads gathering dust at his abandoned Cuban Finca.
He reached for his toothbrush with a trembling hand, then thought better of it: perhaps the funk of morning mouth would mask the taste of the oiled barrels of the shotgun.
Mary had locked his guns away from him in the storeroom. She left the key to their hiding place resting on the ledge over the kitchen sink. He had seen the key there last night — as she had perhaps intended...left the key just sitting there on their first night back from the Mayo Clinic. The old man’s rattled brain kept wondering at Mary’s reason for hiding the key in plain sight.
A taunt, or invitation?
A characteristic half-assed kindness?
He snorted at the mystery of his last wife’s motive for making this he was about to do possible, and, grimacing, tiptoed down the stairs to the storeroom.
The old man selected a silver-inlaid, 12–gauge double-barreled Boss bought years before at Abercrombie & Fitch. He broke open his carefully cared-for shotgun and cradled it in the crook of his left arm. He pulled open a drawer and selected a box of shells. The old man’s hands trembled so badly he couldn’t draw any from the container. Disgusted, he emptied the shells into the drawer and scooped a handful in a fast reach for his robe’s puckering pocket. Two cartridges — more than enough to do the job — fell true; the rest pinged as they hit the floor and rolled to the four corners.
The self-declared “former writer” would normally be deep into his morning’s composition at this early hour, but that was in another country, the old man thought bitterly, and his muse was at last dead.
He trudged back up the stairs, lugging the big English-made gun. He thought of his father, making a similar last climb up a flight of stairs, intent upon effecting a bloody escape from his own intolerable half-life. He now had the answer to the question he had posed so many years before, in a story inspired by his father: “Is dying hard, Daddy?”
He knew now how easy it could be, denied your desires and the things you are driven, for better or worse, to do.
&nbs
p; He crossed the living room to the foyer directly under Mary’s bedroom, pausing to stare out the window at the cloudless sky and rising July sun glistening on the ripples where the rocks lay thickest on the bed of the Wood River from which two deer now drank.
Gnats sported in the rapid’s spray in easy reach of the trout that gorged on them.
Chipmunks darted through the dew-kissed grass, unaware of the old man’s stalking cats.
Bald buzzards wheeled on the rising vapors.
It would be a good morning for others to hunt or hike or to go fishing.
As he turned, he was startled by a reflection in the mirror on the wall — thought he saw a familiar, hated face peering through the window. He whispered distractedly, “Creedy? Creedy, is that you?” He turned but there was no one at the window. He shook his head: What did it matter if he was out there? He was so tired of looking over his shoulder. So tired...
Seppuku by shotgun: If he could wait nineteen days, he could celebrate his sixty-second birthday.
The old man’s trembling hand rooted the pocket of his robe for the first shotgun shell. His heart beat faster. Robbed of his own words, he resorted to those of another to whom he had once been improbably compared. He muttered the favorite quote over and over to himself:
A man can die but once...he that dies this year is quit for the next.
August, 1961
Fidel Castro stood behind the Finca Vigía, Hemingway’s Cuban “Lookout Farm,” watching the Widow Hemingway fussing over the boxes stuffed with her husband’s papers and manuscripts she had traded the house and nearly all of its possessions to “liberate.”
The young Irish woman with the widow had started a fire below the tennis court, and some of the papers — just selected letters and old magazines, Mrs. Hemingway insisted — were being burned.
What a strange little woman this widow was.
Castro tried to reconcile Mary Hemingway with the sense of the man and writer he had gotten from reading For Whom the Bell Tolls — one of the books that had actually guided him in the guerilla warfare he had so successfully waged against Batista — and, much later, with the old but boisterous man he’d met at Hemingway’s fishing tournament.
Head Games (The Hector Lassiter Series) Page 23