I turned around to make my way back to the house. I didn't want to intrude on the reconciliation that was going on in the shrubbery. A big yellow tabby started pacing along beside me on the walk.
When I reached the verandah, Luke was there talking fishing with Frank and George. They would be headed out on the charter boat in a couple of days, along with Phil Thompson, of course. Jennie was going along, too; according to Frank she enjoyed deep-sea fishing. She was the only one of the women who planned to make the trip.
I poked my head into the bookstore and gift shop. The ladies still seemed to be enjoying themselves, so I didn't interrupt. My itinerary called for us to stay here at the Hemingway House until twelve-thirty or so, then head deeper into Old Town for lunch and a little more shopping, then take the Conch Tour Train which would give the tourists a good overview of the entire island.
Since everything seemed to be under control for the moment, I figured it was a good time for me to relax a little. I found a wicker chair on the verandah and sat down. I hadn't been there more than a minute when the big yellow tabby that had been following me around earlier sauntered up and jumped into my lap.
"Well, hello," I said. He turned around, and his long, fuzzy tail brushed across my face. I was glad I wasn't allergic to cats, or I would have been sneezing by then. Since the cat was in my lap, demanding attention, I rubbed his ears.
Matt and Aimee came around the corner of the house, and when Aimee saw me she said, "Hey, no fair! I didn't get to play with the kitties."
"It was his idea, not mine," I said. "You're right, though, I wouldn't want to get in trouble." I took hold of the cat and set him on the ground. "Go ahead, shoo."
He looked up at me like was mortally offended, then after a second stalked off, tail held high.
I stood up and said to the young couple, "Y'all havin' a good time so far?"
"It's been wonderful," Aimee said. "Key West is so . . . so picturesque!"
"And hot," Matt added. He wiped sweat off his forehead. Actually, both of them were pretty red-faced, and I thought once again that they'd probably been making out. Youth isn't always wasted on the young.
And speaking of making out . . . Walter and Ronnie came up the walk from the gardens, smiling and holding hands now. That was a complete turnaround from the way they'd been acting earlier.
Matt noticed that, too, raising an eyebrow in surprise. "Hey, Walter," he said. "You want to tell us some more about Hemingway?"
"Of course," Walter said, apparently not realizing that Matt was teasing him a little. Beside Matt, Aimee hung on to his arm and stifled a giggle. Walter went on, "What do you want to know?"
"Well, ol' Ernest was sort of a player, wasn't he?"
Walter shook his head. "I don't know what you mean."
"Didn't he have a girlfriend in Paris while he and his wife were living here in Key West? I think I read something about that."
"Oh, you mean Martha Gellhorn. Well, it's true that he was carrying on with Martha while he was still married to Pauline. But he was a great artist, and they don't really have to follow the same rules as the rest of us. Hemingway had to follow his muse."
"Sounds like he was following something else," Matt said with a grin.
Aimee laughed and said, "You're terrible."
"No, I'm thinking of becoming a writer. That way I can have me a girlfriend on the side, too."
Aimee punched him on the arm, but she was still laughing. "Now you really are terrible!"
Walter frowned and said, "Wait a minute. Are you making fun of Hemingway?"
"Aw, not really," Matt said. "It's just that the whole thing . . . well, it's kind of a joke, isn't it? Big, tough writer, the whole manly man thing, and he picks on people and cheats on his wife and takes himself so dang seriously . . . I mean, you've got to admit, by this time it's all sort of a joke."
"A joke," Walter repeated, and I didn't like the way his face was getting red as he said it. "If you think Hemingway was a joke, then why are you even here?"
Ronnie put a hand on his arm and said, "Now, Walter, don't get all worked up."
He shook her off and took a step toward Matt. "Really," he went on, "why did you even bother?"
"Hey, take it easy, man. I didn't mean to offend you. I mean, I know ol' Ernie's your guy. Aimee and me, we mainly came for the resort, but we thought we'd take in some of the sights while we're here, too."
"You shouldn't make fun of things you don't understand. Things that you're not smart enough to understand."
Matt frowned and said, "Hey."
"Walter, please – " Ronnie began.
Aimee was getting mad, too. She said, "You can't talk to my husband like that."
Matt was a good ten years younger, about the same height as Walter, but a lot more athletic. You wouldn't think he'd have any trouble handling somebody like Walter in a fight, but I remembered what Walter had done to that Hemingway lookalike in Sloppy Joe's the night before.
Anyway, I didn't want a fight on one of my tours. I moved quickly and got between them, making my voice firm yet friendly as I said, "Hey, folks, it's too hot here for anybody to get all worked up. Why don't we just call a truce? Aimee, have you been to the gift shop yet?"
She was still glaring at Walter, but she took the opportunity for a way out of this confrontation. She said, "No, I haven't," and tugged at Matt's arm. "Come on. I want to take a look in there."
"Okay, okay." He let her turn him away from Walter. They headed toward the gift shop, and that probably would have been the end of it if Matt hadn't said loud enough for the rest of us to hear him, "Big tough guy and he does a gutless thing like blowing his head off with a shotgun. Big ol' coward's more like it."
Walter started after him, and from the look on his face I knew there was going to be trouble. I grabbed one arm, and Ronnie grabbed the other.
"Wait, Walter, please don't," she said.
We managed to stop him. We hung on to him until Matt and Aimee disappeared into the gift shop. Then we let go and he sort of shook loose from us at the same time. He glared at me, but he said, "I don't blame you for interceding, Ms. Dickinson. Naturally you don't want trouble on one of your tours." The look he gave Ronnie was even angrier as he went on, "But you . . . don't ever interfere with me again."
She blinked, clearly hurt. "But Walter," she said, "I . . . I was just trying to help – "
"I don't need your help," he snapped. He stalked off, and since he was heading toward the front of the estate, away from the gift shop where Matt was, I let him go without trying to stop him.
Ronnie stared after him, her face a mixture of surprise and resentment, and after a moment she burst out, "That ass hat!"
That was a pretty good description of Walter Harvick, I thought.
"I'm sorry that happened, Ms. Scanlon . . . Ronnie," I said. "Walter seems a mite . . . high-strung."
"That's putting it mildly," she said, still glowering. "Last night at the resort, after we . . . after . . . well, he practically kicked me out of his room. He said that we were done, that he didn't have time for anything as . . . as trivial as any sort of relationship with me! He was here on important business, he said, not just to get . . . well . . ."
I held my hands up to stop her. I'd already heard more than I really wanted to.
"Sometimes it's hard to figure out what a fella really wants," I said. "Most of the time they don't know themselves."
"Oh, he knows. He won't talk about it, but he knows. And that doesn't make him any less of an ass hat."
She was right about that, too.
I was trying to figure out what to tell her to make her feel better about things, when around at the front of the house, somebody started yelling. Two somebodies, in fact.
And my heart sank when I realized that one of them was Walter Harvick.
Chapter 6
"Now what?" I muttered to myself as I took off around the house in a hurry. Ronnie trotted along beside me.
"He's gotten somebody
else mad at him," she said. "He can be so nice, and then he's just mean."
From what I had seen so far, that summed up Walter, all right.
As we came around the corner, I spotted Walter standing on the verandah with a big, white-bearded man. They were jawing at each other with such ferocity that the other tourists scattered around the yard were regarding them nervously.
I recognized the bearded man as the Hemingway lookalike Walter had clashed with at Sloppy Joe's. I didn't know what he was doing here, but I wasn't really surprised to see him. Big, white-bearded guys in fishing caps were all over Key West. This one also wore cargo shorts and a brightly flowered shirt.
"I just don't understand why they would hire a fraud like you," Walter was saying as Ronnie and I approached.
"I'm not a fraud, blast it," the other man thundered right back at him. "I look just like Hemingway, and I know more about him than you do!"
I knew that was a challenge that Walter would never let pass, and sure enough he shouted back, "I've forgotten more about Hemingway than you'll ever know! I even know what happened on Bedford Key!"
That seemed to throw the bearded man for a loop. He frowned and said, "I never even heard of – "
"Ah-ha!" Walter crowed. "You see what I'm talking about!"
"Walter," Ronnie began, but then she stopped. Maybe she was remembering how he'd spoken to her just a few minutes earlier.
I pressed on. "Walter, you don't want to waste your time here arguin'," I said. "Come on, you can show me around. I'll listen to whatever you want to tell me."
Walter flapped a dismissive hand at the bearded man and said with a sneer, "Why don't you let this so-called tour guide show you around?"
Well, that explained what the bearded man was doing here, anyway. I knew that the Hemingway House had a number of different tour guides, and it didn't surprise me that at least one of them came from the hordes of would-be Hemingways.
"I'm fully qualified – " this one started to say.
"Yes, to be a beach bum," Walter interrupted.
"All right, that's enough," I said, and I was pretty mad myself by now. "Walter, you come with me."
"You can't tell me what to do," he objected.
"I'll refund your money and you can get back to Miami on your own if you don't behave yourself," I said, and right then, I meant every word of it, although the concept of refunding money definitely went against the grain.
I thought he was going to argue with me, but then he shrugged.
"Grace under pressure," he said.
"That's right. Now come on."
I took his arm and led him away from the bearded man. Rollie, that was the fella's name. I remembered it now from what the bouncers in Sloppy Joe's had said.
Ronnie tagged along, looking nervous and irritated at the same time, as I led Walter over to a wrought iron bench and sat him down. I motioned for Ronnie to sit down beside him and said, "Now, the two of you talk about something pleasant. You got that, Walter? No bein' a jerk."
"You think I'm a jerk?" He sounded genuinely surprised.
"I think you're actin' like one part of the time. Now be nice."
"Okay, okay," he muttered as he looked down at the flagstone walk. I couldn't tell if he genuinely chastened or not, but I was going to hope.
I pointed a finger at Walter, then moved it back and forth between him and Ronnie. "You two gonna be all right?"
"Yeah, sure." He even looked over at Ronnie and went on, "I'm sorry. I guess I, uh, don't really know how to act around women."
That was an understatement, I thought.
Ronnie was more inclined to forgiveness, though. She said, "That's all right, Walter. As long as you do like Ms. Dickinson says and behave yourself, we'll be fine."
He nodded and even summoned up a smile. "Thanks."
With the two of them seemingly settled on the bench for a while, I told them we'd be leaving for lunch in Old Town in another half-hour or so, then went looking for the bearded man. I found him inside the house, talking to one of the other tour guides. I heard enough to know that he was complaining about Walter.
When he turned to me, I said, "I'm sorry, Mister . . .?"
"Cranston," he said. "Rollie Cranston. I remember you from last night in Sloppy Joes." He might still be mad at Walter, but he gave me a grin anyway. "I never forget a good-looking redhead."
"Well, I appreciate that, but I wanted to apologize on behalf of my client. I'm the director of the tour that Walter belongs to."
"I'll bet that guy didn't send you in here, did he?" Cranston asked. "I know the type. Never wrong about anything. Can't even conceive of it."
"Well . . ."
"Don't worry about it," he said with a wave of a big hand. "I've dealt with visitors like him before. We get lots of Hemingway buffs here."
"I'll bet you do," I told him. "I'm glad you're takin' it so well."
"We're paid to get along with the tourists." He grinned again. "But if you really want to make it up to me, I'm in Sloppy Joe's 'most every night. You could stop by and have a drink with me. I'd consider it square if you'd do that. We'd call the whole matter closed."
I stopped wearing my wedding ring when I got divorced, so by now I was used to middle-aged guys hitting on me. Most of the time I didn't take offense at it. Sometimes I even liked it. But Rollie Cranston wasn't my type.
Still, he was just talking about one drink in a crowded nightspot. What could it hurt?
"Sure," I said.
* * *
After chatting with Rollie for a few more minutes, I went to start rounding up the members of the group. Ronnie was still sitting with Walter on the bench. Walter looked like he had calmed down considerably. The other women, along with Matt Altman, were still in the gift shop, and I found Luke, George Matheson, and Frank Cleburne standing by the swimming pool discussing pool filters. Feeling a little like I was herding a flock of chickens, I gathered them up and herded them away from the Hemingway House and back toward the center of Old Town.
There were plenty of places to eat, ranging from national chains like the Hard Rock Café to obscure little hole-in-the-wall diners. I'd gotten a recommendation for a restaurant called The Red Top, for its Spanish-style red tile roof, and found it without much trouble. It was busy but not packed, which told me that the food was good but that so far it had escaped becoming trendy. Most of the customers, in fact, looked more like locals than tourists.
"All right, we're all gonna be on our best behavior," I told the group as we paused just inside the door.
"Was that directed at me?" Walter asked.
"Nope, I'm not singlin' out anybody," I told him . . . although to be honest, I probably was more worried about him than any of the others. If Matt wanted to take it as a hint not to tease Walter anymore, though, that was fine with me.
The cuisine was Cuban, mostly beef and assorted seafood dishes, served with black beans and rice, and I thought it was very good. Everybody else seemed to think so as well. I got the impression that everybody was pleasantly stuffed as we left.
After eating that much, it felt good to walk. We strolled up Duval, taking in all the colorful shops and businesses and the even more colorful swarms of people. The sidewalks got even more crowded when we reached Front Street, near Mallory Square where all the cruise ships docked. That was where we caught the Conch Tour Train.
Despite its name, it wasn't really a train. The "engine" that pulled the open cars with bench seats was made to look like a locomotive but actually ran on tires, as did the passenger cars. From it we got good looks at the waterfront, the Harry Truman House, the Key West Lighthouse, the Flagler Railroad Museum, the fascinating architecture of the old houses, and some of the most beautiful beaches in the world. The next day we would be taking the Key West Trolley Tour, which would allow us to get on and off and explore those sights at our leisure. The trip on the Conch Train was more just to get everybody oriented. I didn't want anybody getting separated from the group and getting lost, altho
ugh Key West was small enough that I didn't think it would be that hard to find them again.
After we got off the Conch Train at the Front Street station, I told everyone, "We'll walk back to the van now and head for the resort. You've gotten a good look at the island, so you'll be on your own for the rest of the afternoon and for supper tonight. I'm told that the resort has an excellent dining room, but there are also regular shuttles from there to Old Town, so if you want to try one of the restaurants or cafés we saw today, that's fine, too. You might also want to take in the sunset celebration in Mallory Square. There's always a lot going on there."
I got a few nods, but not very enthusiastic ones. We had walked enough so that everybody was a little tired and sweaty. We had reached the time of day when, in this climate, folks wanted to take a nice cool shower and then stretch out for a nap before the evening's festivities. To tell you the truth, that sounded pretty darned good to me, too.
Walter Harvick had been on his best behavior during the afternoon. I noticed that he and Matt stayed as far apart as they could, and we didn't run into anybody else Walter could argue with. That was a relief.
The trip back to the Bradenton Beach Resort was uneventful. When we got there, everyone headed for their rooms. I would have, too, but Tom Bradenton came into the lobby just as I was about to go up the stairs. He smiled at me, and I paused.
"How was your day, Ms. Dickinson?" he asked.
"Delilah," I reminded him. He was a little more formally dressed now, which meant he had on jeans and a polo shirt and had on sandals instead of being barefoot. He still didn't look like a guy who owned a luxury resort.
"Well, then, Delilah," he said, "did your group have fun today?"
"Yeah, for the most part, I think they did."
"Uh-oh," he said, his smile disappearing. "What does that 'for the most part' mean?"
I hesitated before answering. I like to keep what happens on a tour private. The old "what happens in Vegas" concept. But Tom was so blasted likeable and seemed genuinely concerned, so I said, "One of my clients seems to have a habit of rubbing people the wrong way. Nothing major, you understand, just a little irritating."
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