"I didn't start this trouble," Harvick protested.
"Yeah, you sorta did, by saying what you said."
That wasn't completely fair, since Harvick hadn't known how the local was going to react – and to be honest, the guy really didn't look all that much like Hemingway – but the bouncers had a point, too.
I moved in and linked arms with Harvick. "Why don't you come with me, Walter?" I suggested. "We'll go to the bar and get a drink."
He didn't pull away from me. He said, "Well, I suppose that would be all right . . ."
It sounds bad to say it, but Harvick wasn't exactly the type to have women paying a lot of attention to him. And while I'm no femme fatale, I think I clean up pretty nice. Halfway decent, anyway. So Harvick seemed to enjoy it as I hung on to him and stayed close while we made our way back across the crowded room, trailed by Luke. A glance over my shoulder told me that the bouncers were helping the lookalike to his feet.
"What in the world did you do to that man?" I asked, forcing a slightly gushing tone into my voice. "I never saw anything like it."
"Oh, it wasn't anything, really," Harvick said with a note of modesty that was just as false as the enthusiasm I'd just displayed. "I just exerted some force on one of his nerves. Anyone could have done it."
"Well, I couldn't have," I said.
Luke leaned forward and added, "I would've punched him in the face."
"You must be some sort of cop to know how to do that," I said to Harvick.
"Oh, no, not at all. I'm an insurance adjuster."
"Well, I'm impressed anyway. That guy was big."
"But not tough. There's a difference between bluster and genuine toughness."
He was right about that, of course. Still, he had an air of smug self-satisfaction about him that rubbed me the wrong way. He acted like he didn't know how close he had come to going to jail, or at least getting tossed out into Duval Street.
"If you'd like, I could show you how to do that little trick . . ." he offered.
"No thanks," I said quickly. I'll flirt with a client if it's necessary to smooth over some trouble, but I draw the line at letting one of them paw me in the guise of showing me self-defense methods, which I was confident Harvick had in mind. "Let's get a drink instead."
"All right." We arrived at the bar, and Harvick told the bartender he wanted a rum punch. I still had most of my bottle of water, so I held it up to show the bartender I was fine. He was the same one who'd suggested that he was able to show me and Luke around. He looked at Harvick, looked at me, and gave me a little shake of his head to let me know he thought I'd had much better options available, if only I'd taken him up on his offer.
George and Kerry Matheson were still there, and Matheson asked, "Everything all right now?"
"Fine," I told him. "Just a little misunderstanding."
"There was no misunderstanding about it," Harvick said. "I told a fellow he didn't look anything like Ernest Hemingway, and he didn't."
"I've seen several men in here who look like Hemingway," Kerry said. "I think it's adorable."
Harvick grimaced slightly, but he didn't say anything. I was glad of that. I didn't want him insulting Kerry so that her husband would feel like he had to stick up for her. I could only head off so much trouble in one night.
The bartender handed Harvick his rum punch and collected for it. While Harvick was sipping the drink, a woman came up on his other side and said, "My God, Walter, I heard that you were in a fight. Are you all right?"
"I'm fine," he told her. "It wasn't really much of an altercation."
"Well, thank goodness for that!" she said. "That would be a terrible way to start off a tour, by getting in a brawl!"
I said that Walter Harvick wasn't the sort to attract much attention from women, but maybe I was wrong about that. This one was certainly paying attention to him. She was one of my clients, too. It took me a second to come up with her name: Veronica Scanlon. Ronnie, she had said she preferred to be called.
She was in her thirties and nice-looking, although her lips were a little too thin and her nose a little too sharp for her to be considered pretty. She had long, light brown hair that usually seemed to be a little disheveled. I had no idea what she did for a living. She hadn't volunteered that information during our brief conversation at the hotel in Miami, before we all boarded the van for Key West. She was one of my singles, though, so I guess it was natural that she might gravitate toward the only eligible man in the bunch. The other two singles were elderly widows originally from New York who had moved to Florida with their husbands, both of whom had promptly passed away.
"We moved to Florida, we're at least going to see some of the sights," as one of them had told me earlier in the day.
Ronnie Scanlon was still talking to Harvick. I took that as my opportunity to gently disengage from him. I saw a booth open up, grabbed Luke by the arm, and steered him into it before somebody else could get there first.
It was still loud there, but maybe a little less so. Luke and I sat on opposite sides of the booth, and I leaned forward to ask, "You think we can get through the rest of the night and get this bunch back to the hotel without any more trouble?"
"I hope so. People seem to think that just because they're away from home, they can go nuts and act any way they want to."
"That's why folks go on vacation, Luke," I told him. "If they didn't feel that way, we'd be out of business."
"I guess you're right. So what do people like you and me do for vacations?"
"Go home, put our feet up, heave a big sigh of relief, and enjoy the peace and quiet," I said.
It was something to look forward to, and after three days in Key West, I figured I would be ready for it.
Chapter 3
About eleven o'clock, Luke and I left Sloppy Joe's and went back to the parking lot where we'd left the van. I knew from experience that some of the clients might not be the late-night revelers they thought they were. They could have gotten tired and returned to the van early. As soon as everybody showed up, even if it wasn't eleven-thirty yet, we would leave Old Town and head back to the hotel.
When we reached the parking lot, we found Doris Horton and Julia Dunn waiting there for us. Those were the two widowed transplants to Florida.
"That place got too loud for us, Ms. Dickinson," Doris told me. "We did a little window-shopping instead."
"There are a lot of art and antique shops around here," Julia added. "We can come back when they're open, can't we?"
"Of course," I told them. "We'll have some time set aside for shopping each of the next two days, and on the third day you're free to do whatever you like."
"I'm going to spend money, that's what I like," Julia said.
I gave Luke a glance, knowing that he'd understand what I meant by it. You'd like to think that tourist destinations like Key West would be almost free of crime, but that's not always the case. One of Luke's jobs was to keep an eye on some of our older clients who might be more likely to be robbery victims. He gave me a little nod in return, letting me know he knew what I meant.
The Mathesons were the next to arrive, then Phil and Sheila Thompson. Phil taught algebra in a North Carolina high school, while Sheila taught English in the same little town's junior high. They had been saving up for this trip for several years. Phil, stern and crewcut, looked like retired military, which was exactly what he was. Sheila was the Hemingway buff. Phil had come along because he planned to do some deep-sea fishing while they were here and already had trips booked for the next two days. He was going to skip the sight-seeing and shopping entirely. On the third day, Luke was taking several of the clients out on a fishing charter while the others had the day free. Phil would be going along on that trip, too. Personally, I couldn't see coming all the way to Key West and spending the whole trip fishing, but that was his decision.
The other two couples, Frank and Jennie Cleburne and Matt and Aimee Altman, showed up a few minutes before eleven-thirty. The Cleburnes were
in their thirties, and I didn't know what either of them did for a living. The Altmans were younger, mid-twenties, probably, and from the way they acted, I guessed they hadn't been married for very long. This might have even been their honeymoon, although I didn't get the sense they were quite that newly married. A delayed honeymoon, maybe.
That left Walter Harvick and Ronnie Scanlon. I could see the front of Sloppy Joe's from where we were, and I hadn't noticed either of them coming out of the place while we were waiting. That didn't mean they hadn't slipped out while I wasn't looking, but my hunch was that they were still inside. When it got to be eleven-forty and there was still no sign of them, I told Luke, "I'm gonna go look for them."
"Why don't you just call them?" he asked.
"You heard how much noise there is in there," I said, nodding toward Sloppy Joe's. "They might not hear a phone ring, and if they're in the middle of a crowd, they might not even feel it vibrate."
"I can go look," he offered.
"No, you stay here with the van and our other clients," I told him. "This shouldn't take long."
There was a steady stream of people in and out of the two front doors. A flood of multi-colored neon from the big SLOPPY JOE'S BAR sign on the front of the building washed down over the sidewalk. I walked past the signs promising entertainment, piña coladas, draft beer, and cocktails, past the sign that warned, "Shoes and Shirt Required" – I was all right on both of those scores – and under a painted "Welcome to Sloppy Joe's". The other door had "Hemingway's Favorite Bar" painted on the wall above it. Signs over both doors declared that you had to have a driver's license or state-issued ID to come inside.
I showed the guy at the door my Georgia driver's license and plunged into the crowd again. I got groped a few times, but I told myself it was accidental. The place was so packed that if you actually tried to get fresh with somebody, you might wind up groping something you didn't want to.
There was a tiny open area in front of the bar, though. Not really open, but occupied by only two people: Walter Harvick and Ronnie Scanlon. People were giving them room because they were dancing, the sort of frantic gyrations I hadn't seen since I'd watched a bunch of frugging, boogalooing teenagers on American Bandstand when I was a kid.
They seemed to be having fun, so I hated to interrupt them. The rest of my clients were tired and ready to go back to the hotel so they could turn in, though. Matt and Aimee Altman may not have been all that tired, but they were ready to turn in, anyway, if you get my drift.
But I waited until the song was over and Walter and Ronnie almost collapsed in each other's arms. They were both sweaty and out of breath.
"That was great, you two," I said as I moved in, "but we have to go now."
"Already?" Walter asked. "We can get back to the hotel by ourselves, you know. I know the town very well."
"I'm sure you do," I told him, "but since it's our first night in Key West and all, I'd really like to keep everybody together and make sure everything goes smoothly."
"I am kind of tired, Walter," Ronnie said. She smiled. "And a little tipsy, too. I think we should go back."
"Whatever you say," he told her. He put his arm around her shoulders and kissed her on the side of the head. "Whatever my girl wants."
So this was a budding romance now. Well, that was fine. It happened pretty often on tours. Most of them were just quick flings, I suspected, but I like to think that some of them developed into something lasting, although I didn't really know if that had happened on any of my tours.
I took Walter's other arm and maneuvered them toward the exit. Along the way we passed the bouncers who had stepped in earlier during the brief altercation. Walter gave them that smug look, and I'd swear that one of the big bruisers growled at him. Walter just sailed on past, unintimidated. I wanted to tell him not to be a jackass. Pressure points or no pressure points, those bouncers wouldn't have had any trouble tossing him out on his ear.
Walter and Ronnie both swayed a little from too much to drink, but I got them back to the van. Luke helped them in. When he closed the side door, he asked me, "Ready to go?"
"You bet," I told him.
It didn't take long to drive south along Duval to the ocean, although there was still quite a bit of traffic even this late at night. For a small island, Key West seemed to have a lot of cars.
When we reached the Bradenton Beach Resort, I was struck once again by how pretty the place was. Lights burned in a number of the palm trees that were scattered around the property, casting a soft yellow glow over the lawns and flower beds that surrounded the guest cottages.
The centerpiece of the resort was the sprawling, three-story, frame house that had once stood alone on this part of the island, back in the 1840s when the chief industry on Key West had been salvaging cargo from ships that had wrecked on the reefs in the vicinity. In my research on the island I had found out that at one time Key West had a pretty shady reputation, because "wreckers" would use lights to lure ships onto the reefs.
One of those wreckers was an Englishman named Bradenton, who had made a fortune through foul means or fair, and when he turned respectable he had built what was then the finest mansion on Key West, on a large piece of land with a beautiful lawn that sloped gently down to a broad white sandy beach.
Over the years the Bradenton family had fallen on hard times, until in the 1930s, as tourism was starting to boom in the Florida Keys, Claude Bradenton had hit upon the idea of turning the mansion into a hotel and building cottages around it to house even more guests. Since then the Bradentons had lured tourists just like their ancestors had lured ships, only the tourists didn't come to a bad end the way those unfortunate vessels did.
The resort had a pool for those who didn't want to swim in the ocean, a couple of tennis courts, a sauna and a workout room, even a small stable where horses could be rented for sunset rides along the beach. The thing that kept the place from being unaffordable was the age of the main house and the cottages. The rooms were comfortably furnished but a little small, and they lacked some of the luxuries that modern travelers had come to expect, like spa tubs and microwaves and wet bars. Some of the rooms in the main house even shared bathrooms. The atmosphere was quaint and charming, though, and the resort seemed to do plenty of business.
The Mathesons, the Cleburnes, and the Altmans had all opted for cottages, which were more expensive than rooms in the main house. The Thompsons were staying in the house, as were Walter Harvick, Ronnie Scanlon, Doris Horton, and Julia Dunn. Luke and I each had a room in the house, as well.
Luke parked the van in the gravel lot at the western edge of the property. As everyone climbed out, I reminded them that we would be leaving for the Hemingway House at ten o'clock the next morning. The plan was to take one of the guided tours of the house, then spend the rest of the morning exploring it on our own before having lunch and moving on to the other attractions in Old Town.
The couples staying in cottages scattered along paths paved with crushed shells. The rest of us headed for the main house. The short ride appeared to have sobered up Walter and Ronnie, at least a little. They seemed steadier on their feet, anyway.
The doors to the main house were locked at midnight, I recalled. Guests coming in after that had to be let in by a member of the staff. Someone was on duty all night to handle that, but still it was little annoying. I checked my phone as we went up the steps to the broad verandah that encircled the house. Ten minutes after twelve. We probably would have been there before midnight if I hadn't had to go back into Sloppy Joe's to retrieve Walter and Ronnie, I thought.
There was a button beside the double doors of the main entrance with a sign that said to press it for admittance. Luke did so, and about thirty seconds later a man appeared on the other side of the fancy old doors to unlock them and let us into the small, elegant lobby, which had been formed by knocking out the wall between the foyer and the parlor in the house's original floor plan.
"Evening," the man said as he opened the doo
rs for us. I didn't recall seeing him around the place when we'd checked in earlier. As a member of the resort staff, he wasn't too conscientious about his appearance, either. He was wearing a pair of faded jeans and a pullover shirt with the sleeves cut out of it. And he was barefooted, which took me by surprise. He looked a lot more like a handyman than a concierge or a desk clerk. He went on, "Y'all have fun in town tonight?"
His voice was a soft drawl. I figured he was a Conch (pronounced "Conk", and don't try to say it any other way), somebody who had been born and raised on the island and whose family had probably been here for generations. His arms were muscular and tanned evenly all the way up to his shoulders, telling me it had probably been quite a while since he'd worn a shirt with sleeves in it. His hair was a faded blond, and the effects of sun and wind on his face made it hard to judge his age, but I put him somewhere between forty and fifty.
"Yes, we had a fine time, thanks," I said as I led my clients inside. As they headed for the stairs – there was an elevator, to comply with federal law, but it was small and tucked away, so it was easier to take the stairs – I told them again, "Gather here in the lobby a little before ten tomorrow morning."
I got waves of acknowledgment from Doris and Julia, and from Sheila Thompson as well. Walter had his arm around Ronnie's waist, and she was giggling. Those two were only going to need one room tonight, I thought, and I didn't know whether to think more power to 'em or hope that it wouldn't complicate things and lead to trouble.
"You sound like you're the mother hen to this bunch of chicks," the man who had let us in said.
"I'm in charge of the tour," I told him, pausing at the bottom of the stairs with Luke while the others all went up to their rooms.
"That would make you Delilah Dickinson," he said. I was a little surprised he knew my name.
"That's right. This is my associate, Luke Edwards." I usually didn't mention that Luke was also my son-in-law. He preferred it that way. I don't think he wanted folks to know that he worked for his mother-in-law.
For Whom The Funeral Bell Tolls Page 2