by Tom Corcoran
I shrugged. I had time to kill. I could use some time to think.
“Betsy’s at work. I’ve got yours and three other jobs to process. You’ve got the place to yourself. Zone out, watch the grass grow.”
I accepted, for the Cuban coffee and solitude. I followed Duffy Lee into the kitchen. He disappeared into his darkroom. Outside, I chose a slat chair facing the street.
The lush, shaded yard offered a pure dose of the tropics. Duffy Lee was right The neighbors’ birds gave it an exotic touch. The first Conch Train of the day rambled past, its driver explaining that the sapodilla tree, like the one in Hall’s yard, was the source of chicle used to make chewing gum. He drove on, ignoring the rare bottle-gourd tree, the calabash across the street.
I’d never thought that Olivia Street would host rush hour. Its nearness to Garrison Bight dictated the traffic character: charter captains in panel trucks with boat logos painted on their sides, or on mopeds or bicycles; in khaki pants and shirts, long-billed caps, wraparound shades. A funky old sedan passed, its trunk lid removed, the trunk and backseat fashioned into a pickup-truck bed. Then a small refrigerated truck delivering bait A big hotel van with five or six of what Sam Wheeler called the “natty anglers.” More bikes, with high handlebars, ridden by marina laborers in cut-off Levi’s and work boots, red sweat-soaker bandannas around their foreheads. A couple of taxis with whining transmissions. The parade lasted ten minutes. I’d lucked into peak viewing time. Then Olivia Street returned to a cool breeze, buzzing air units, birdsongs, muffled noise from neighboring streets.
I couldn’t find mental calm. I started to add up facts. The caustic Heidi Norquist encounter. The three-on-one street attack. The construction-site murder, with Dexter Hayes, Jr., giving me the bum’s rush. A headless corpse in a surreal setting.
What did it all amount to?
The friction with Dexter Hayes had only confirmed my fears of the past four months—that my gig with the city had dried up. Okay, things change. The Dunwoody family strife was not my problem. Best to stay out of range wars. I could offer Marnie only sympathy. The body at Butler Dunwoody’s construction site was unusual. And the murdered man on Stock Island was standard for the territory—as much as any murder could be “standard.”
But there was no linking the separate events. All of it added to zilch.
For two-thirds of my life I’ve made a point of dodging conflict, traffic jams, idiots, bureaucrats. I don’t believe in runs of bad luck, or karma shifts. I don’t insist that bad news comes in threes. I’ve never been superstitious. I sometimes knock on Formica to mock the “knock-on-wood” concept. I have no patience with the idea that bad yesterdays should spoil good tomorrows.
But, damn.
In the past two years I had seen two spates of misfortune. Tragedies and felonies had formed patterns, shaped conspiracies. Worse, they had harmed friends. This run of crap was different. I had no valid suspicions, no far-out logic to connect the dots.
Someone had ordered my mugging. It had been too deliberate, the black pickup stopping next to me, the short one with the jewelry and the barbed-wire tattoo going after my camera. I’d be a fool to think that I’d been chosen at random. Heidi Norquist had been talking on the phone. Had she called Dunwoody, told him I was snooping? Was that reason enough to order an attack?
Marnie had given her brother mixed reviews. A hardworking, money-saving entrepreneur. A morally shallow womanizer. A survivor. A high roller who paid bottom-rung wages to his employees. His life and his business had no connection to me. What bearing could my photographs, or anyone else’s photographs, have on the success or failure of his new mini-mall?
No answer to that. But one fact stood out. The unknown reason for the attack may still exist. Ignoring danger only invites more danger.
My only other concern was Dexter Hayes’s attitude. He’d made a point of contacting me, through Marnie and through the city switchboard. He’d asked me to take photos. Then he’d greeted me coldly, fired me halfway through the job. Almost as if he wanted only to watch me work, wanted to observe me. Almost as if I were a murder suspect
I returned the coffee mug to Hall’s kitchen. I went back out, twisted the front door lock, pulled it shut behind me.
7
A dust haze filtered the winter sun, but I could see a signal at White and Truman. Power restored, at least to that corner. I pedaled to a laundry on White, donated thirty-five cents to a maverick phone company. A man—not Mercer Holloway—answered and put me on hold. A flash from the past The “on-hold” music was a thirty-year-old recording of the Junkanoos, Key West’s old Bahamian-style rhythm band. Mercer’s secretary came back on. Mr. Holloway would welcome a meeting during the next hour. I told the man I could adjust my busy schedule.
Six minutes later I coasted to Southard’s 700 block. I chained the bike to a lamppost in front of Holloway’s two-story home. A faded red van backed into a curb space ten feet away. It displayed a Vietnam service ribbon bumper sticker—the yellow band with green and red vertical stripes. The van’s vanity license plate read, KHE SANH. Some vanity, I thought. But it offered a moment’s consolation. I’d read Michael Herr’s Dispatches and would never forget its images. If I ever thought I had it rough, in Florida, witnessing the rare death and common betrayals, I could take comfort in never having been to war.
Holloway owned a symmetric, five-bay Classic Revival, one of the few houses in old Key West with its own driveway. It radiated wealth, tradition, nineteenth-century elegance, and mind-boggling upkeep. I had heard Conch Train drivers describe it Built by a rich shipwreck salvager in the late 1850s of termite-resistant Dade County pine, it had passed, by marriage and death, through five generations bearing three family names. The house and yard had been remodeled in 1972 and again in 1994. The yard showcased twenty palm tree varieties.
Legend held that, in 1998, Mercer Holloway had turned down a huge offer from a Paris cosmetics tycoon. The Citizen had quoted Holloway’s refusal: “The second-floor toilet is a splendid place to meditate. What do I do with another six mill?”
A flagstone walkway led to four broad wood steps and the north-facing, full-width gallery. A half dozen square columns rose from the painted decking to the steep roof overhang. Dark green hinged shutters flanked peaked window surrounds. A beveled-glass transom crowned the twin glass-paned mahogany front doors.
I rang, heard footfalls on a wood floor, then quiet A moment later the door swung open. I recognized Donovan Cosgrove, Holloway’s son-in-law. Cosgrove had been the Pier House night auditor and desk clerk in the late seventies. He’d proved expert at deciding who was sober enough to drive, who needed a taxi home from the Chart Room. He’d accommodated late-night skinny-dippers by turning off the pool lights and delivering towels. In those days people openly joked that Cosgrove’s lifestyle was courtesy of the Pier House. They suggested that the bottom line had leaned a little his way, that his ledger work may have financed the deck behind his home, a vacation or two in Grand Cayman. But he’d never been questioned or caught or fired. He’d moved on to better jobs in the eighties and nineties. Employment with his father-in-law would have been out of choice instead of necessity. The old jokes had been handy rumors to explain the comfort of a successful man who wasn’t a pot smuggler.
Donovan greeted me. He was about five-ten, with thinning, sandy-brown hair, horn-rimmed glasses, a plaid short-sleeved button-down, and a salesman’s smile. He’d gained weight since I last saw him. Given his years on the island, he had to be about fifty. He looked it. He asked how I’d been doing.
I shrugged. Asked the same and added, “How’s Suzanne?”
“Same old fire-spitting Southern belle. How it’s worked out is a mystery to me.”
Suzanne had been in a bad mood for thirty years. People in Key West had hoped that her years in college, off the island, might change her. It didn’t happen. I don’t know how she’d managed to attract a husband. Donovan Cosgrove was a patient man.
Donovan exited throug
h double doors to my left. The foyer was a simple, almost square room, with subdued decor. Three tall, thin tables along yellow tongue-and-groove walls; brass sconces, white woodwork, custom cornice molding. A well-used Oriental rug atop polished hardwood. On the west wall a vintage Detroit Lithographic color print, a hundred-year-old photograph of Greene Street and the U.S. Government Coaling Station, shot from the peak of old city hall. A note stuck to its frame: Julie to bank. The note written on yellowed stationery from the old El Mirador Motel.
The first floor of the house had been redesigned, turned into offices. The door to the right, held open by the rusted fluke of an ancient anchor, led to what had been a sitting room. Now, if I guessed correctly, it was Donovan Cosgrove’s office: tall, dark cherry file cabinets, a long, low table with stacks of papers, each crowned by an antique glass paperweight, a cherry desk, a medium-height blond leather chair, a single straightback chair for visitors, a vase with fresh-cut flowers.
I snagged a glimpse down the center hallway: a sunroom with glass-top tables, miniature palms in ceramic planters, white wicker furniture with poufy cushions, their striking tropical print upholstery just shy of gaudy.
Donovan invited me into Mercer Holloway’s office, then excused himself. Holloway, in dark slacks and a pink, long-sleeved dress shirt, stood at a front window. Reflected light caught in his silver hair as he peered through the oak blinds. “Day after day, that dirty red van. Big wart in front of my house. Dead center, the middle of my view.” His gravely voice hinted at a Southern accent He drew out his words: “Ugly business in the papers this morning, these murders. But they missed the biggest facts. Am I the only person in this town who’s realized that similar whatever they’re called—methods of operation—were used to kill other people in the past several years?”
“I hear that a coroner’s investigator saw a similarity on Caroline Street. The victim in drag, dildos around him. The other, I don’t know.”
“It wasn’t that many years ago,” he said. “A beheading, the body and head found hundreds of miles apart. Except last time they found the head first. This time it’s the body. Anyway, my point is, this town’s become a bad mixture of Woodstock and a modern hobo jungle. Alternate lifestyles galore. Right out my front window, in particular.”
“The island changed thirty years ago, Mr. Holloway. When the Navy left.”
His head turned. His stern expression promised a reprimand. But Mercer knew what I knew. If he had to choose between not accepting back talk from an employee and admitting I was right, he was stuck. I had yet to accept his job offer. And I was right.
“Some of us,” he said sharply, “hoped Key West might grow out of its stupid and awkward adolescence.”
“Some people have paid dearly to stop the clock.”
He jabbed his finger at the window. “One man’s succeeded. The Vietnam stickers all over that hippie truck, that man’s living in the past.”
“I’ve never had a quarrel with you, sir, but people in this town think the same of Mercer Holloway.”
“Rather than argue the point, sir,” said Holloway, “I’ll point out what I’ve accomplished.”
“Did you spend the first four months of 1968 getting your ass blown to bits on some remote Asian hilltop?”
“Okay. You know the guy who owns that red truck, is that it?”
“Nope. Nice place you’ve got here. Who owns it, the Red Chinese?”
I waited out his silence. My half of the argument was ended.
It worked. He’d blown off his steam. He shrugged off the debate, stepped closer to offer a handshake. “You’re right. Let’s talk about photography.”
Mercer Holloway, long ago, had established himself in the Keys. He saw himself as a figurehead, much as he hoped his fellow citizens regarded him. He always looked the part of his self-image, a cross between a Fortune 500 chief executive officer and a prime-time television evangelist I’d never seen him wear shorts or a shirt without a collar. Until that moment, in his own office, I’d never seen him alone.
Locals considered Holloway eccentric. I once heard a city commissioner call him a philanderer, then correct himself and call him a plain old pussy hound. He was known as a favor broker with a caustic wit. He was capable of hair-trigger and arbitrary decisions. He was famous for spooky wee-hour ramblings. He considered everyone competition: an opponent in a political race, another contract bidder, or—no secret to his family—someone in a race to make the next pretty tourist woman. Folks wondered why his divorce hadn’t happened three decades earlier. Yet, off the island, he owned the reputation of an invincible bureaucrat: moral, fair, more honest and square-shooting than most politicians.
Holloway offered me one of two identical leather chairs. He waited until I sat, then took his own seat behind the large mahogany table that was his desk. It held a compact speakerphone, two short stacks of papers, and forty square feet of empty space. “First off,” he said, “I’d like this chat, for business reasons, to be confidential. Can we start together on that page?”
“We can.”
“I need pictures of a select assortment of properties. I assume you’re up to speed on architectural work.”
“I’ve done it. I own a lens specifically designed for it.”
“Good. The technical stuff, that’s all up to you. You’re the craftsman. I’ll want curb views, significant architectural detail, all outside entrances and, in some buildings, interior main foyers. Once you’re familiar with the scope of the job, we’ll want aerial shots, too.” He stood and began to pace the office. A century ago it had been the formal room where its owners had greeted, entertained visitors. Six antique glass-enclosed barristers’ bookcases along the walls held law tomes and pottery. One held a collection of Keys-related novels and reference books. I noted the pre-war WPA guide to the island with its wonderful black-and-white photographs. On a short, wide table behind the desk sat a laptop computer—open, not running. Next to it an antique Seth Thomas clock, and a foot-wide glass bowl full of jelly beans.
“It’s been twenty years since we pulled together an overall appraisal,” said Holloway. “I’m not getting any younger. I need to make changes, revise a number of trusts. And I need your quality of photography. We’ll provide a list, you devise your own work schedule, a day and time for each property on our list. You with me so far?”
I nodded.
“We’ll arrange for the city to move aside ugly power lines, for however long you need. You want security, you got off-duty cops taking orders from you. You need a crane, we rent a crane. You want to work from the top of a van, we lease a van, build you a roof platform. Matter of fact, we’ll lease one for the project, you outfit it, drive it, take it home at night. It’ll be your van, however long you want. You need to stop traffic on a street in town, a couple hours? Done. You got camera trouble, a little glitch? We replace your camera, brand new, yours to keep. You understand how we do business?”
He lifted a china cup from its saucer and sipped his coffee. He winced, stood, walked to a window behind his desk, lifted the bottom section, and spit his mouthful of coffee onto an exquisite bougainvillea. “Cold,” he said. ‘Tasted like motor oil. Bitter oil, at that.” He shut the window, used his hand to wipe a few splatter drops from the sill. “Any questions?”
“Tommy Tucker.”
“My vice president in charge of making things happen?”
I stood to leave. I’d adapted to quirks and inconsistencies, job to job. But the scope of Holloway’s offer, his attitudes and choice of associates, had just asked more of me than snapping pictures.
Holloway read my disgust. He backpedaled quickly, returned to his seat, used calming hand gestures to urge me back into the chair. Benefit of the doubt, I sat.
“Okay, I understand,” he said. “I’m not blind to public opinion. Tommy Tucker’s a liability.” He swiveled his chair toward a window. “Understand, Mr. Rutledge, that I’m showing loyalty to a childhood friend.” He focused his eyes on a distant point, looki
ng into the past. “His nickname when we were kids was Bacon Fat. We and two or three other kids were too young for the Swamp Gang, as the cool boys were known. We were inseparable friends. Back in the salt marsh, or on the jetties. Or on North Beach, before North Beach was lost to development. Then we went our separate ways. I chased votes, he chased criminals. But he helped me often, when he had the power to grant favors.” Mercer turned again to face me. “The man’s unemployable in the Lower Keys. He may have broken rules, but he wasn’t a thief. He’s not a wealthy man. I loaned him a few bucks to start his own little business, the security thing. Look at it as one-third paybacks, two-thirds charity. If he never pays me back . . .” He tried to read my face, to see if his argument had flown well. “You okay with that?”
An acceptable Key West explanation. “So far,” I said.
“I’ve been a lucky man, Mr. Rutledge. You will learn in the next few weeks that I’ve accumulated what I call ‘opportunities.’ Property appraisers look upon them as ‘tax targets,’ and that’s a large reason for what we’re doing. I intend to challenge a few arbitrary valuations. That much I owe my heirs, although I go by Warren Buffett’s concept of letting children fend for themselves. They’re capable. I don’t want to deprive them of the joys of making their own fortunes. I just don’t want to be screwed big by small officials.”
He wanted a reaction. I had no opinion.
He pulled a packet of papers from the stack closest to him. “I’ve assigned priorities. There’ll be three groups. Group One is typed out here for you. Again, not to offend, I’ll stress the need to keep this confidential.” He held out a pen. “If you could just read and sign this form we’ve prepared . . .”
I didn’t reach for the pen. “You have my word.”
Suzanne Cosgrove—Holloway’s daughter, Donovan’s wife—barged into the office from an adjoining room. Too thin to be healthy, a black pantsuit, a pixie cut to her dark brown hair. She glanced at me, snapped her head as if she’d viewed fresh roadkill, and snatched a file folder from the desk.