“Boxer?” Karen said.
“Buck’s supposed to fight Bruiser Lewis this weekend, but now the odds are that he won’t show. Too bad. The Village was thrilled, since most opponents are shipped in from up north. Bruiser’s already worked through the southern part of the state, and nobody’s wanted a re-match.”
“Why on earth would you—”
“Blue Heaven pays $1,000 for every round anyone survives Bruiser, and $5,000 if they make all three, but boxings anything but laying low.” Willy curled his lip at me.
“You’re full of surprises, flyboy,” Karen said.
“That your plane that flew over tonight?” Willy said.
I didn’t answer.
“Stop by Redeemer in the morning,” he said. “I have a surprise for you.”
“I can’t—”
“Relax, nobody’s going to kidnap you.”
“What do you think about the demonstration?” Karen said.
“They’re predicting a thousand people. Like I figured. My daughter, all of them are more useful to these people dead than alive.”
Willy was right. They were now being used as a means to an end.
“These jerks and their political lapdogs won’t let history repeat itself, especially if they can rally an invasion,” Willy said.
Willy was then engulfed by fiery-eyed consolationsists. I excused myself under the premise of searching for the champagne tray but really wanted to locate Gutierrez. Another old man in a blue guayabara walked past me. Could the blackmailers be connected to the CANC?
The swarm was thick in the lobby. I searched the crowd for Gutierrez and looked at the paintings as I went. Most of the artists were unfamiliar, but there was an impressive amount of pre-and post-Revolutionary Cuban art, including works by the cubist René Portocarrero. No sign of a Botero, but I didn’t doubt Rosalie, I’m sure it was there.
With two new glasses of champagne, I circled back to find Karen. She had vanished, no doubt pitching Old Island Days’ ideas. Maybe Poquito could arrange to hang a Castro replica in effigy for a public flogging.
There was a commotion by the stairs. I spotted Karen pointing a finger at Posada. Gutierrez stepped between them. He said something that made Posada laugh and spin away. The mayor put an arm around Karen.
I navigated through the crowd with the drinks held to my chest. As I reached the stairs, the mayor’s wife swung her arms in the midst of a story and knocked both glasses onto my shirt. Oblivious to what she had done, she offered no apology or recognition, not that it would have changed the fact that I was now soaking wet. Karen saw me and tried not to smile.
Gutierrez was nestled up to her side. Art looked to be the last thing on his mind. He sized me up from head to toe, and once again I felt underdressed.
“Buck, what happened?” Karen said.
“Champagne front blew through. I was bringing you a fresh glass.”
“Oh, Manny took care of me.” I detected a slight slur in her voice.
I held out my hand. “Nice show.”
Gutierrez took my hand just short of my palm and squeezed my fingers in a strong grip that pressed my knuckles together.
“King Charles,” he said. “The newspaper reported that you took Shaniqua Peebles out to the Carnival.”
A quick study of the expectant faces around us led me to conclude that Gutierrez was either trying to humiliate me, adroit at sarcasm or a ham for information.
“What are your thoughts about the local Santeria community,” I said.
“Not another Mingie Posada. Please, tonight’s show is to help the San Carlos Institute. At the moment I’m helping the lovely Ms. Parks consider major improvements for the hotel.”
“Buck lives at the La Concha.”
“Then perhaps he should go home so he doesn’t catch cold walking around all wet.” Gutierrez nodded toward my soaked shirt. “While we continue discussing your ideas for the Old Island Days and I show you my suggestions for the hotel.”
I bit my tongue.
Gutierrez leaned closer to me and whispered: “Enrique Jiminez is the Sancho on Stock Island. Come by my gallery tomorrow and we’ll talk.” He paused. “Better make it in the afternoon, this could run late.” He smiled and stepped back to Karen.
“Wait.” Karen took me by the arm. “Are you all right?”
“Not particularly, you ready to get out of here?”
She hesitated. “I can’t leave, Buck. My general manager’s expecting me to buy art. Plus Manny’s got an idea how he can help with the races.”
Our eyes locked for a long second. “Good luck, then.”
She frowned, looked from me to Gutierrez, and then stepped reluctantly back toward him. They started up the marble steps. His hand was planted in the center of her back, and as they turned the corner, it dropped to her waist. Was the giggle that echoed down the stucco wall hers?
In the second I stood stewing, Rosalie descended the steps. “I see your friend already knows Manny.”
“So she said.”
“He took her to see his Botero.”
“I’m sure. Are there any other works up there?”
“Dozens, darling, don’t worry, lots of admirers, too. What would she want with Manny anyway?” She laughed after she spoke, as if she could think of a few things. “Anyway, she’d be a fool to squander a catch like you for an art dealer. He’s hoping to become rich, and you—”
“Used to be.”
“Freeze!” a voice shouted from behind me. A sharp hoot sounded. Rosalie jumped, and her hand shot down to her rear end. Mingie Posada cozied up next to her, and she introduced us as a photographer stepped in and lowered his camera. She put an arm around Posada and pulled me into the photo. I ducked away as the flash pulsed.
“Buck? Wait!” Rosalie shouted after me as I hurried into the crowd.
Damn it! The last thing I needed after the articles in the Citizen was my face published in the society pages. Might as well send a press release to The Wall Street Journal: Bankrupt King Charles Reilly Living the High Life in Key West.
If the blackmailers were here, I couldn’t risk talking to Gutierrez or Posada. I was an art show washout. Just what I deserved for revealing my inner secrets, fears, and desires to the first woman I’d been interested in for two years. Cloud Nine had turned into a micro-burst. I left the show soaked and alone.
At least Gutierrez had given me the name of the Stock Island Sancho and suggested we talk tomorrow.
28
THERE WERE NO PRESIDENTS hiding in my room, and once changed, I tried to recollect details of my father’s interest in encryption, an art he proclaimed essential for diplomats. A memory stirred that led to an internet search. My father used to refer to the original American diplomat in a bad French accent as his philosophical mentor, but who was that?
Word searches on codes and ciphers produced a staggering list of different types: transposition, homophones, monoalphabetic, polyalphabetic, digraphs, bigrams, polygrams, nomenclators, none of which rang familiar, and collectively they weakened the likelihood of my ever solving the account identifications or learning the five-character code to the missing key. I concluded that my time would be better spent finding out who the blackmailers were and getting my possessions back.
For the next hour I sat with the lights out, watching the traffic down Duval Street. Shortly after ten o’clock, the balance of the crowd trickled out of the San Carlos. There was no sign of Gutierrez, or Karen.
I took a sip of warm rum and finally saw movement. Gutierrez filled my binocular lenses. Karen was by his side. She pointed to the La Concha. He was talking, gesturing. Finally he put his arm around her waist, and they turned the opposite direction down Duval.
Damn.
29
A GLORIOUS DAWN SPREAD a wash of reds and oranges over the island. From my sixth-floor window I could see the beacon at Key West International airport flash on the horizon. Ray Floyd had doctored Betty, so if it weren’t for the blackmailers I’d be back
on the offensive.
Real blackmail for money would at least give me an excuse to call my brother, but this was extortion. I had to find out who Bush and Clinton were, which meant I needed to stay close to Willy, whether I was helping him or not. He said he had something for me, so at least he hadn’t totally written me off, not that I would have blamed him.
Anxious to leave early, I didn’t want to bump into Karen. That is, if she was even home yet. How far had the need for Old Island Days ideas pushed her last night? Was the chemistry we shared at dinner my imagination, or just to convince me to give her a plane ride? Part of me was angry, and part was embarrassed, but I had to listen to my heart. The fact that it had been insulated in scar tissue for twenty-four months increased my margin for erring on the side of self-protection, but you can’t get hurt if you don’t get too close. Dead men don’t bleed.
My Rover was tucked in next to the moped rental kiosk behind the hotel. The streets were quiet, and I turned down Catherine looking for El Aljibe—oh jeez! I jammed on the brake. The street—the whole neighborhood—was packed a block before the restaurant, and teemed like an engorged anthill. The demonstration. The minute I got out of the Rover someone grabbed my arm.
“Can you hand out these signs?” Placards with not only Shaniqua’s face, but each of the missionaries were emblazoned with aggressive slogans: “Revenge,” “Remember the Carnival,” and even: “War Now!”
A loudspeaker pierced the air. Posada’s bald cranium glistened above the swirl of activity. The more I slogged through the human mass, the denser it became.
“Watch out!” A squat, mole-chinned woman hissed when I brushed past her.
Posada stood at the small podium, shouting instructions into the microphone. White spittle was caked in the corners of his mouth, and his demeanor reminded me of newsreel footage of Mussolini. The CANC was preparing to launch their assault onto the Isle of Bones, and Posada was poised to capitalize on Redeemer’s suffering.
“Mingie?” My voice failed to carry over the din. By the third try, I was nearly screaming. Posada stopped mid-rant and looked down on me. “We met last night at San Carlos? Rosalie Peña introduced us?”
He squinted momentarily, then continued his tirade.
“Are you certain that Cubans instead of Santeros attacked the boat?”
My question inadvertently blasted out over the loud speaker. Posada looked at me as if I’d flung dog crap on his straining guayabara.
“Certain? They plant human garbage with their boat lifts, criminals and spies in our midst, they’re brewing biochemical weapons, they’ve killed and imprisoned dissidents and refugees, and now this?”
He dismissed me with a broad wave. Currito’s nickname for him fit: Poquito. Crouched like a linebacker shedding blockers, I forced my way toward the restaurant.
“Have you signed the petition?” A wrinkled man with a watery smile and ill-fitting dentures pressed a clipboard in my face. “Mingie says everyone must sign.”
I finally made it to the front door. The interior of the restaurant was deserted.
Pictures of old buildings with Spanish architecture adorned the walls. A cathedral, the Morro Castle, along with other sappy mementoes of Cuba. The dining area was totally open except for a small room next to the kitchen.
After a glance out the grease-smeared window, I entered the office. Stacks of invoices formed a glacial heap on Posada’s desk. The walls were filled with pictures of Mingie with a wide variety of others, all of whom wore strained smiles. In the center was a letter from President George W. Bush expressing gratitude for Posada’s help with his first election.
Not knowing what to look for, I hoped to get a measure of the man but found only clutter. On a packed shelf above the desk was more junk, including a dusty highball glass filled with…pink and blue ribbons.
A dozen, at least, of the same ribbons Karen used to mark her “rescued” birds.
Nothing else here beside confirmation that Posada was politically wired. I turned to leave and hesitated again at the photos. A face caught my eye. I thought back to Jo Jo’s funeral, and the pictures on the easels.
The snapshot was of Manuel Ortega standing shoulder to shoulder with Posada at some black tie event. It was the only picture on the wall where people were laughing. Ortega was the missionary embittered from the loss of his brother to a Cuban MiG—
“What are you doing in here?”
I spun to find a woman with her hands on her hips. Mid-twenties, and a knockout.
“Looking for the restroom.”
She gave me a once-over. “You’re not here for the rally, are you?”
“Breakfast, actually.”
“Can’t you see we’re closed?”
“Seemed like there was a party going on.”
As I squeezed through the crowd, I watched the girl make a bee-line toward Posada. Every time she glanced over at me, I pressed harder, careening into surprised people until I disappeared into the mass. If she had the chance to point me out, Posada would recognize me, but if he was behind the blackmail, he already new my identity.
Was the photo of him and the missionary a coincidence, or more?
Nearly back to the Rover, I came upon a sedan with government tags. There was a man inside studying the crowd. His presence triggered alarms in my head. If the Feds were monitoring the Key West demonstration, they were either taking the situation seriously or knew something I didn’t about Posada. Government agents made me nervous, especially after my name had appeared in the Tattler a couple times. I took a deep breath. They’re here watching Posada, not me.
30
I DROVE DOWN A1A past Smather’s Beach, where morning walkers meandered along the thin sand spit, no doubt dodging bottle caps, cigarette butts, broken glass and used condoms. Smather’s was a multi-purpose facility and its lack of hygiene symbolic of the island’s sanitary standards. Superficially tidy, with rubbish peeking out from under each burrow. The scene was tranquil, quite a contrast to the shit storm brewing a mile away.
I walked through the private terminal and out onto the taxiway. Ray Floyd materialized, rubbing his hands on a red rag.
“This was a first for me,” he said.
“Why do I feel like you’re going to ask me to cough?”
“Flying fish smooshed into the filter of the air intake, cooked through and through. Tasted like chicken.”
I held up my hand for a high-five. “That’s a relief, I was afraid—”
“Not so fast. She still needs to be rebuilt, flying fish or not.” My shoulders sagged. “Even at cost, that’s nearly ten grand,” Ray said.
“Ten—”
“Per engine.”
“Was I hallucinating, or did I see you fly over the La Concha last night?”
“She’s got about a hundred hours left in her, max.”
“That’s it?”
“I’m an environmentalist. I keep guys like you from polluting the ocean with old tin cans.” He thumbed toward Betty. “Maybe it was bad luck to change her name.”
“I didn’t change it, I gave her one. Lady of the Waters was more of a description.”
“I still remember Buffett’s face when he showed up here and saw her parked under the palm tree. He practically shit.”
“So Betty’s okay to fly?”
“Gassed up, de-boned, and ready for treasure hunting.”
“That reminds me, what’s Floyd’s Law?”
“’Without balls to drive brains, underachievers wear chains. Without brains to rein balls, overachievers hit walls.’ Floyd’s Law, a.k.a. the Balls/Brains or B/B ratio.”
The world was closing in on Key West, but Ray Floyd was comfortably tucked away in his own private conch shell.
“The anti-Cubans may be goose-stepping through Old Town today, but have you heard about the religious crusaders’ latest casualty?” he asked. “Some poor slob got his leg broken and was tossed into the shark tank at the Aquarium last night.”
“What’s that have to
do with ‘religious crusaders,’ as you call them?”
“He was a local Santero guy. Said a huge black dude with barbed wire around his bicep did the nasty and left him as a snack for Bobby the bull shark. A worker found him clinging to a piling this morning, in shock.”
“Keep an eye on Betty. Someone broke into my Rover yesterday, swiped the knee board from my flight bag, and left a dead chicken in its place.” Ray wouldn’t handle the news well that I was being strong armed, especially if it was by Santeros.
“First a dove and now a chicken? What’s next, an albatross? Speaking of that, did you find your stash, or whatever it was that freaked you out so bad?”
“Still trying to figure out where to start.”
“A fallow mind is a field of discontent.”
Crossings
31
I LEFT THE AIRPORT full of Ray Floydisms and drove up along Sears Town, and past Garrison Bight. Where would the demonstration route be? Would it be idiotic to try and talk to the local Sancho? Enrique Jiminez was the name Gutierrez mentioned.
The road north up the Keys was already packed. Locals fleeing the Cuban American deluge before the Overseas highway became too congested to negotiate. I thought back to when I first came down here as a kid, before all the modern bridges were built in the early eighties. The old ones, constructed by relief workers in the thirties and forties, were narrow as hell by contemporary standards. There were no SUV’s, and eighteen wheelers were a lot smaller back then. When you drove over those bridges you really got acquainted with the oncoming traffic. My mother’s shrieking voice as we approached a tractor trailer halfway across the seven mile bridge, only to clear by fractions of an inch, had left an indelible impression that these islands were remote and inaccessible. Once the new bridges were finished, the floodgates opened, and the Keys have never been the same.
Orange cones blocked off the island’s main drag at Truman and Duval. Posada had positioned his crusade for maximum visibility. It paid to own friends in high places.
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