Gumbo Limbo (20 page)
The huge man squeezed my head in both hands and lifted me as if I were a papier-mâché dummy. A six-pack of carving knives whirled in my lower back. The glass particles in my right cheek moved in circles of pain as he flexed his hands. My arms flopped at my sides, limp, weirdly detached. If I’d had food in my stomach, it would have found daylight. For an instant I feared that, if I lived, Teresa Barga would not patiently wait for me to heal. She’d find someone more fun, less damaged, less likely to step in such shit. Just as quickly, the thought of her gave me a reason not to succumb.
This would have to be fast. I reached up and grabbed the man’s wrists for leverage. My brain said, kick him in the balls. Brilliant idea. Perfect timing. My legs said no dice. I couldn’t will them to move. I opened my mouth as wide as I could and flapped my tongue at him—a bizarre greeting I’d seen in a David Lynch film about New Orleans. The black man looked puzzled. Neither of my legs would move. The man’s breath smelled like
ant-poison granules. I felt his fingers loosen. End of chance: he was dropping me, and I couldn’t hold myself up. I would be down and he would stamp me like a rodeo bull. I roared with pain and frustration, howled smack in his face. My right knee nailed his groin. He dropped me, then fell and rolled away, a half-turn. I attempted a sky diver’s rolling, collapsing landing. Pain nailed me. I wound up flat on my back. Glass shards, again. A massive arm swung down. His softball-sized fist buried itself in my abdomen.
ant-poison granules. I felt his fingers loosen. End of chance: he was dropping me, and I couldn’t hold myself up. I would be down and he would stamp me like a rodeo bull. I roared with pain and frustration, howled smack in his face. My right knee nailed his groin. He dropped me, then fell and rolled away, a half-turn. I attempted a sky diver’s rolling, collapsing landing. Pain nailed me. I wound up flat on my back. Glass shards, again. A massive arm swung down. His softball-sized fist buried itself in my abdomen.
Back to splatted honeydew. The warm yellow sunlight changed to colors of piss and blood.
A
cluttered metal desk. Scattered catalogs, crumpled tax notices, loose invoices, dirty ashtrays. The garbage of a bankrupt hillbilly slop chute. Also on the desk, my mini-zoom and a stack of photographs. Jesse Spence held the pictures so I could see them. The grab shot he’d taken of me: I looked like a bad boy being hustled to the whipping shed. Three versions of the Muffin du Jour/Ray Best/Samantha Burch picture, Tazzy Gucci’s office memento at Imperial Limo and Vending. Small, but decent focus in all of them. Then three similar views of my fractured window frame on Dredgers Lane.
cluttered metal desk. Scattered catalogs, crumpled tax notices, loose invoices, dirty ashtrays. The garbage of a bankrupt hillbilly slop chute. Also on the desk, my mini-zoom and a stack of photographs. Jesse Spence held the pictures so I could see them. The grab shot he’d taken of me: I looked like a bad boy being hustled to the whipping shed. Three versions of the Muffin du Jour/Ray Best/Samantha Burch picture, Tazzy Gucci’s office memento at Imperial Limo and Vending. Small, but decent focus in all of them. Then three similar views of my fractured window frame on Dredgers Lane.
“If the One-Hour had fucked up your film, you’d be dead meat.” Spence let his mild Southern accent slip through. He also made a point of exhibiting no emotion. “Auguie would’ve let our man do his thing with you. Fortay was pissed, getting looped in the balls like that.”
I took pleasure in the fact that I’d connected. “Fortay?”
“His real name.” Spence spelled it for me.
“Tell Fortay it was my body’s reaction to pending death.”
“So, benefit-of-the-doubt, fundamentally nice guy that I am, that picture of Burch’s daughter backed up your riff about not knowing who she was. Then, the window damage—obviously, your house—okay, maybe a neighbor shot somebody trying to Watergate you.”
Spence sat in a squat red vinyl-covered chair that the health authorities would condemn on principle. We were in a twelveby-fifteen room with no windows. No sign of Scotty Auguie or the man who’d tossed me around like a rag dummy. The stench—old smoke and urinal deodorizers—and the lack of oxygen placed me still inside the ex-roadhouse. A dirt-caked fluorescent light hung on two skinny chains from the cobwebbed ceiling. I lay flat on my back on the slide alley of an old shuffleboard machine, the kind you played in bars by aiming a steel puck at trip wires below top-hinged bowling pins, picked up splits by caroming the puck off side rails. When you connected for points, the machine generated intoxicating cash register sounds.
I felt decidedly cashed out and caromed. The constant ringing in my ears throbbed—the shaky rhythm of my pulse. Cockroach excrement and what I hoped were coffee splatters streaked the wall near my head. Someone with a flowery feminine cursive had penciled six times on the wall the words “Chop a tulip.” Impossible to decipher.
I had other challenges. My indecisive body couldn’t tell me if I needed to barf, take a dump, sever my head at the neck, shop for a wheelchair, or just plain die. I wasn’t twenty-two anymore. I couldn’t hope for a movieland one-day recovery. Spence reached into a small paper bag and pulled out a plastic dispenser. Icy Hot Chill Stick, topical relief for muscle pain. I wanted to ingest the whole thing at once. I hurt too much to reach for it.
Spence tossed the Icy Hot onto the metal desk. He took a plastic bubble pack out of the bag—tweezers—then crumpled the bag and chucked it into a doorless ice maker stuffed with file folders. “I made a few calls. I located Cool Auguie in St. Barth’s. He’d heard from Cahill and was already planning to fly into the country, so he detoured and we met in Tallahassee. Hold still.”
Spence came at my face with the tweezers. I felt sharp pain as he removed a glass silver. “Right away we determine Scotty
didn’t leak it, and no way I told anyone. So we went through our old defense lawyer to check with Buzzy Burch in prison. Buzzy said he’d never told a soul, but he’d heard some shit inside, that somebody’d pegged Tazzy as a target. Hold it.” Another yank, just below my eye. Pain zigged through my face. “He’d also heard from Samantha, that Zack had told her some weird shit had gone down in New Orleans. Hold still.” He was harvesting the whole damned Budweiser bottle. “So we’ve been watching Tazzy, from an apartment near the limo place, taking turns, day and night, peeping out the goddamned window. This afternoon, the garage door goes up, the limo pulls in, you get out of the car. We say, ‘No shit,’ and Tazzy hustles you into his office door. Confirmation of everything I’d suspected. Cool went ballistic …”
didn’t leak it, and no way I told anyone. So we went through our old defense lawyer to check with Buzzy Burch in prison. Buzzy said he’d never told a soul, but he’d heard some shit inside, that somebody’d pegged Tazzy as a target. Hold it.” Another yank, just below my eye. Pain zigged through my face. “He’d also heard from Samantha, that Zack had told her some weird shit had gone down in New Orleans. Hold still.” He was harvesting the whole damned Budweiser bottle. “So we’ve been watching Tazzy, from an apartment near the limo place, taking turns, day and night, peeping out the goddamned window. This afternoon, the garage door goes up, the limo pulls in, you get out of the car. We say, ‘No shit,’ and Tazzy hustles you into his office door. Confirmation of everything I’d suspected. Cool went ballistic …”
“ … and you think I’m one of the bad guys.”
“Sure.”
“I’m right where I was when you drove away from the emergency room. Trying to keep Cahill from getting fucked up …”
“ … like you are, right now. Hold still.”
I barely felt that one; it must have been a skinny silver. I wanted to sleep. I also wanted to know why Tazzy Gucci had asked me to fly to New Orleans. He probably knew from the start that he wasn’t going to help me. What could he have gained from my presence, or learned from what I said?
“Why am I alive?”
“I’m walking out of here with Cool, knowing Fortay’s going to hurt you. I think, one, you’re going to get what you deserve. Two, I say to myself, all these years, Rutledge has been a straight dealer, never a player, never a fuck-around. Maybe he’s just stupid, caught in the middle. So I tell Cool Auguie to shut his mouth a couple minutes and drive to a One-Hour Photo. Riding in the car, I work it like eleventh-grade geometry, one step at a time, facts only.”
“Starting with your trashed apartment.”
“Starting with you walking into Mangoes when I was expecting Cahill. Big fuckin’ red flag. You had no business there.” He pulled another sliver and put the tweezers on the desk. “Then you’re curious about Badass Joe Blow, whatever his name, Omar Boudreau. Red flag
dos.
Like, you’re there where you’re not supposed to be, you’re eyeballing the joint for threats. Then Cahill never shows, and I go home and my place is a Bosnian war zone.”
dos.
Like, you’re there where you’re not supposed to be, you’re eyeballing the joint for threats. Then Cahill never shows, and I go home and my place is a Bosnian war zone.”
“You called me for photos.”
Spence stood and paced around behind the desk, fiddled with a calendar dated February 1996, a picture of a poufy auburnhaired country lovely with outsized breasts pouring out of her hitch-up overalls. He turned and crossed his arms and leaned against the wall. “You’re the only link to whatever bad shit’s going down. Right away, you smell. So I get you over to snap pictures and you almost caught on. I didn’t really need pictures. I just wanted to see how you’d act, if you’d say something to give me a scope on this dicked-up mud bath. I really liked that touch you gave it, suggesting I call the police to verify my insurance claim. You knew I’d never call the police for anything. Ex-cons do everything possible to fly under their radar. Then you borrow my phone and you suddenly know the name and life story of Omar ‘Joe Blow’ Boudreau.
“So I came to your house the next morning. The way you talked, I knew you were trying to throw off suspicions. You tell me about Zack’s call from Sloppy’s, his lunch meeting. Then you talk about meeting a woman at Louie’s the night before who knew about the agreement but no details. Then you say you don’t mind not being rich. You’re happy making short money snapping pictures. I think, this has got to be bullshit. Then you talk to somebody on the phone. You say Cahill’s name, you hang up, you claim it was Detective Liska. Triple bullshit. Red flags galore. We drive to Publix in the rain so you can drop off film. You see this mystery woman at the bus stop, I see your head whip
around. I caught a look, too. The biggest red flag of all. Big as a Moscow parade. Lunch, Monday, you in Mangoes looking for Zack, and she was sitting by the waiters’ station.”
around. I caught a look, too. The biggest red flag of all. Big as a Moscow parade. Lunch, Monday, you in Mangoes looking for Zack, and she was sitting by the waiters’ station.”
The logic had lost me in the weeds. “Watching me or the guy now dead?”
“She was facing Angela Street, staring at tourists. But she could see the whole patio. I noticed her, alone, ripe for the pickins.”
Had she been there to cover Zack’s back—during the meeting with Jesse that never happened—or watching for intruders like Boudreau? Or fingering Boudreau for the hit? Or had she been there
with
Omar Boudreau?
with
Omar Boudreau?
I looked again at the roach crap stuck to the plaster, the splash-pattern stains. “What makes you think I didn’t know her then?”
“Oh, I figured you did. So we find out she’s been shot, you ask me to take you to the hospital. You let me wait in the car.”
“I’m the bad guy.”
“Sure as hell. And jammin’ your case to the detective.”
“Back to the beginning. Why am I alive?”
“The geometry stumbled. Your story about meeting her at Louie’s could have been true.”
“I got my own doubt about it being just by chance. Nothing else has been a coincidence lately.”
“Good guess. I remembered one more thing, unfortunately after Scotty and I left you with Fortay. I remembered why you went to Louie’s.”
For the comfort of alcohol. “To meet Sam Wheeler.”
“And you got his message on my bugged phone. Because you asked me to join you. You offered to buy me a drink. Whoever worked the tap knew you were going to Louie’s.”
“And I got picked up by Abby Womack.”
“Which might not have happened if I’d been with you.”
“That makes Abby the bad guy.”
“That it does.”
New rules. “Does Abby Womack know Samantha Burch?”
Spence sat again in the rank red chair. He nodded, slowly. “If she was privy to the agreement, she could’ve known that Buzzy had a kid.”
I needed to call Olivia as well as Sam. I wanted to freeze time in Key West until I could get back and sort out the crap. “Did you kill Chloe Tucker?”
“Shit, no.”
“You might want to fax an alibi.” I explained how Liska had followed up Marshall Hofl’s flip remark about the kicked-apart apartment, then linked Spence’s criminal record and the downtown rumor that Jesse and Chloe had been doing the deed.
“I’m embarrassed anyone even knows I tapped it. She’s so goddamned street. It’s too bad she’s dead, but there was every known reason in the world for it to happen. None of them are mine.”
“I still can’t get over one thing,” I added. “They ruined that photograph of the shrimp boats.”
Spence looked at the dingy office walls. “A Laessig original. I also lost a Bibby watercolor—a five-by-eight of the Pierce Brothers Grocery that used to be at Fleming and Elizabeth—and a Jerry Miller pen-and-ink of Yaccarino’s Overseas Fruit Market, that old wood shack at Truman and Grinnell. Hell, think about it. The grocery’s gone, the fruit market’s a restaurant patio, and the Key West shrimp boats have all moved to Stock Island. My own Museum of Island History. Now it’s a pile of crap. Trashed art.”
My turn for self-pity. “I got a trashed spine.”
“Can you travel?”
Spence helped me off the shuffieboard alley. It hurt to stand. I lifted my shirt to armpit level while he swabbed Icy Hot on my lower back, around my cracked ribs. “All we got is aspirin and Absolut,” he said.
“Sounds like a lethal combination. I’ll take it.”
He steadied me as we walked from the windowless room. No wonder it had no windows. The whole bar had no windows. I hadn’t noticed the three dim bulbs that lit the place, probably the only ones not pilfered by departing tenants. Fortay sat on the floor near the door, back against the wall, Walkman earphones fixed in his ears, a Bud bottle balanced on his knee. Scotty “Cool” Auguie sat mid-room in a red vinyl chair, his feet propped on an upright beer case, his pistol on his lap, reading a paperback of
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
. He threw me a cold stare.
A Pirate Looks at Fifty
. He threw me a cold stare.
I said, “Thanks for not using that popgun.”
“You think I’d go away for shooting a fucknut like you?”
“I don’t know what you’d do.”
“Did our Outward Bound boost your character and inner self-worth?”
“You used to be a nasty prick. Good to see your years in prison gave you such a friendly, positive—”
“Cut the shit,” barked Spence. “Let’s get out of this dump.”
Outside, darkness. A Chrysler four-door next to Fortay’s Monte Carlo, which now looked like any other Chevrolet with fancy wheels. The door locks snapped open. A man who could have been Fortay’s twin sat in the driver’s seat. Cool Auguie and Fortay joined him in the car. The Monte Carlo left quickly, spraying gravel.
I said, “Where does all this leave Tazzy Gucci?”
“Tazzy’s lucky he’s undamaged. Cool wanted to give him a Middle Eastern reprimand. Cut off his right hand, cook it up in a gumbo, make him eat it. He may still do it. Right now, Tazzy’s fate’s in limbo.”
“Funny choice of words. What the hell time is it?”
“One A.M.”
“Jesus.”
“You had a nap.” Spence helped me into the Chrysler’s backseat, then slowly drove out of the saloon’s rutted parking lot.
My beneficent captors, in a moment of poetic nonsense, had decided that I would return to Key West by departing Pensacola rather than New Orleans. This move, of course, for my own safety, after their employee had splintered my back, turned my brain into a mush melon. Jesse Spence would deliver me to Pensacola, then continue to Tallahassee, where his lawyer would contact the Key West Police Department and provide an alibi for the time of the Chloe Tucker murder.
The decision to avoid the New Orleans airport failed to foresee the washboard ride through Mississippi on Interstate 10. Road ripples modulated my wrenched back and aching head. I kept closing my eyes and seeing elongated streams of cockroach shit on red velvet curtains. Even lane changes put tears in my eyes. In Pascagoula, Spence pulled off the highway to buy pain pills. He hit up a trucker for an unlabeled bottle. My mood improved.
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