Key West (3 page)

“View, please. I like the wind.”

And she didn’t like even a suggestion of being somewhere intimate with him.

He led the way to a ringside table onto the street. They sat down facing each other, but not looking at each other. Chris peered across the street, at the bars and shops they faced, and sensed Sonnie doing the same. Somewhere a door or window slammed. Palm crowns chattered together, and their trunks were swaying black wands against an even blacker sky.

“Lemonade.” Roy was beside them, setting a tall glass in front of Sonnie. “Bourbon.” Chris’s drink was exchanged.

“Enjoy.”

Sonnie made lines on the side of her sweating glass. Droplets fell into fine grains of coral sand that had blown onto the table. She said, “You play well.”

“I used to.” He used to do a lot of things well.

“Sounded good to me.”

“How long have you been in Key West?” He was still a good boor.

“Not long. Couple of weeks.”

“Why did you come?”

“Unfinished business.”

He hadn’t expected an answer like that. “Sounds serious.”

“Ιt is. It is to me.”

Maybe he didn’t want to knοw more. Or maybe he did want to knοw because he was naturally curious. He sure as hell didn’t want to get involved.

‘‘I lived here before. For three years. I...I left last winter.”

“Why?”

She looked startled. “Because we…I had some problems.”

“Uh-huh.” He nodded, kept on nodding. Where was he supposed to go from here? He’d like to slip out of the back door and down to the two-room guest house he now called home.

“Roy said he thought you could help me,” she said in a rush. “He said you’re a detective and—”

“Whoa.” Chris held up one hand, and used the other to take his glass to his lips. He sucked a mouthful of bourbon, more to buy thinking time than because he was thirsty. Not that thirsty had much to do with drinking bourbon.

Sonnie whatever-her-name-was had gotten enthusiastic enough to lean across the table. Her lips remained parted. When she flushed a little she was pretty in a doleful way.

Α scar in front of her left ear continued past her jaw to her neck. There was a fairly new pinkness to it. It wasn’t pretty.

“I used to be a detective,” he told her, and sent his oh-so busy brother a glare. “I retired.”

“Retired?” Her fair brows fashioned a frown. “You’re not old enough to retire.”

“Thirty-six is way past old enough to retire from—” He whistled tunelessly. He’d almost said he was old enough to retire from hell, but she didn’t need to know anything personal about him.

“I’m sorry.” Her voice was small now. “I guess I misunderstood Roy. Not his fault. I tend to misunderstand a lot of things.” She gave a laugh that was nothing but a puff of air.

“Blame Roy. I do whenever I can. He likes it. Gives him something to feel indignant about.”

She wasn’t finding him funny.

“Hey, don’t look so beaten,” Chris said. “You should be glad. Who wants to hang out with detectives? Slime of the earth.”

“I need some help,” she said very quietly.

Chris was grateful she didn’t follow the statement up with one of her deep looks.

“Don’t we all?” he said, and felt like the heel he was.

Sonnie nodded slowly. A heart-shaped gold locket, very small and fine and hanging from a thin chain, settled in the hollow of her neck. She was all shadows and air and...softness.

She was soft, and gentle, and whipped enough to keep on talking to a tough, unapproachable man who had already caused more than enough pain in other people’s lives. “Look, I’m sorry, okay? Forgive me for being rude—or rough, or whatever I am.”

“I don’t care how rough and rude you are. Roy told me you’re a detective. Α private detective. You take οn cases for people. Investigate things. He said you’re very good at what you do when you want to be.” Her eyes did that thing again, damn it. “When he got me to agree to talk to you, I didn’t want to. I was embarrassed. Now I see you aren’t interested in more cases. ‘Retired,’ is your way of saying it. Because I already bore you. That’s because you can pick and choose, isn’t it?”

“Well—”

“Yes, well,
I’m
a good case. And I want you to take me on because it’s not going to be easy. D’you understand?”

“No.” No, he surely didn’t understand.

“Something awful happened to me. I don’t know how, but I do know when. And I think there’s a why, too. And I don’t just mean it happened because things happen. It could have been...I just don’t know if I should accept the story I was told about it all. There could be something else.”

Chris pushed aside his bοurbοn. “That, ma’am, is as clear as mud. I’m sorry for your trouble. I wish you luck finding some peace. But I’m not your knight on a charger.”

“Are you a private investigator?”

Hell and damnation, he’d get Roy for this.

“You are. That’s what you do here in Key West. You find things out. You tracked down that man who said his boy had been kidnapped. It turned out the father had locked his own son up at home all the time, and—”

“I don’t talk about old cases.”

“You aren’t retired, are you?”

He made himself smile and knew the result wasn’t inviting. “Why would you want to hire someone who doesn’t want to be hired?”

When the lady’s stubborn streak surfaced, she looked different, alive. “I want to know why you’ve decided—without even finding out what I need—that I’m too boring to waste your valuable time on.”

Rather than start to relax, he felt the tension tighten. “You aren’t boring. You’re just…You’re inconvenient.” Wow, he was refining his insult skills to new heights.

“Okay.” She was giving up. Her fine-boned hands curled on the scarred top of the many-times-lacquered table. “You’ve got enough work already. I understand.”

He hadn’t taken a case in a month. “Yeah. Sorry.”

“Don’t worry about it. I’m the one who’s sorry. I shouldn’t have pushed myself on you like that.”

Shit.
“You didn’t push. You’re worried is all. I understand.”

 “It’s not fair to expect strangers to care about your problems. I can handle it. I don’t know what came over me.”

His
brother
was what came over her. She wasn’t wearing a wedding ring.

Why would he care? He didn’t. Just the old observation habit. “Don’t beat yourself up if you don’t have to, Sonnie. Life will do it to you without any help. Feel that wind?”

“Uh-huh.” Her hair flipped across her face and she pushed it back. “Funny how storms here make you excited, even while you’re scared.”

He looked at her again.
Refined.
That was the word. She looked refined and fit in around here about as well as any lady would. But she wasn’t cool, this one. Nope, her words, the little things she said, gave her away. There was some fire behind the delicate exterior. Not that he cared about those things anymore.

“Don’t let me keep you,” she said.

“You aren’t.”

She wore the collar of her white shirt turned up. When she turned her head, a point brushed her sharp chin. There wasn’t a whole lot of her in that shirt, but what there was might be very nice. He hadn’t had a chance to study the rest of her before they sat down. The limp was something he’d like to know about.

“Why did you say you were retired? Really, I mean?”

“I am. I did. Ι thought you were talking about something else. When I was on the force. I used to be. Up north. I didn’t retire; I quit.” End of topic, and that was more than he’d said to anyone in the months since he’d arrived on Roy’s doorstep.

Sonnie Giacano was staring at him. Not a comfortable experience.

He tried a real smile. “Felt like a change of pace.”

She looked at his mouth.

Chris watched her face. “Sometimes you need to accept that it’s time to move on.” That wouldn’t earn him a place among the great philosophers.

“You’re hurting, aren’t you?”

“What?”
Hurting?
How did you tell a woman who was obviously feeling something she didn’t like, that you’d quit feeling anything at all? “Nο, I’m not hurting.”

“Right.”

“I’m not hurting, Sonnie.”

“This is a strange conversation, isn’t it? Between strangers, I mean.”

He considered. “Not so strange, given the reason we’re here.”

“If you love someone, you’ll do anything. You’ll lie to yourself. You’ll lie to other people—just to give yourself an excuse to keep on believing in the other person.”

Α lot of thoughts came to him. Not one would make it past his tongue.

“When you run out of excuses, the darkness opens up at your feet. You walk on the edge of a hole. Then maybe you have to get away. Maybe you have someone else you’ve got to put first.”

“Is this code for your being in some sort of man trouble?”

She shook her head once and looked up at him. “There aren’t any men in my life. Not anymore. This conversation feels too personal.”

“Trouble is always personal.” She was an enigma. If he didn’t know how dangerous caring about someone could be, he’d care about Sonnie’s problems. It was way too dangerous.

“You don’t have too many cases, do you?”

He didn’t answer.

“It’s me. You’re one of those people who can only work with things that interest them. I respect that.”

“You’re interesting.”

They both studied the buildings across the street again. “Duval Street,” she said quietly, “where the bars hardly ever close—except for the Rusty Nail.”

Roy and Bo believed in as close to a regular schedule as they could grab. “That’s right,” Chris said.

“Why did you quit? Really?”

“I was a lousy detective.”

Her incredulous laugh annoyed him.

“That’s not what I hear,” she said. “Why are you so hard on yourself?”

If he’d needed a therapist he’d have found one a long time ago. “I’m not hard on myself. I’m a realist. I hope you find someone who can really help you, because you’re nice. Very nice. And you deserve better than me. I’m washed-up. Used up. I’m working at getting my own shit together.” Offending ladies wasn’t a favorite pastime, but she’d hit too many nerves he wanted permanently dead. “I’m no good anymore. To anyone.” Least of all himself. He considered finishing his drink. He didn’t want it.

“Can I do something to help you?” she asked, her voice so low he only just caught the words.

Pity.
“Save the help for yourself,” he said, and stood up. “I hope you find someone to take on your case. To tell the truth, I’ve kind of priced myself out of the general marketplace. You might even say I’ve become too dangerous to afford.”

Three

The night whined.

Wet grit whipped against Sonnie’s bare ankles and stung. Despite the rain Duval was crowded, and it was late enough for drunks to rule.

Chris Talon had offered to bring her home. Offered while he looked at a space somewhere above her right shoulder—probably longing for her to leave. Leave the Rusty Nail, and leave him alone.

He’d get his wish. She’d leave him alone. But she would continue to work for Bo and Roy because the job got her out and gave her an opportunity to gather information on what was going on around the island, and because she’d accomplish nothing if she stayed at the house and stewed.

Somewhere on the island there was someone who knew something; there had to be. It could be some small detail that didn’t seem to mean anything to them, but to Sonnie it might be the key to the door she’d been unable to as much as crack.

Chris Talon thought she couldn’t afford him.

She could have argued that point but hadn’t felt like it. Lack of enthusiasm oozed from his every pore. She didn’t need help from a man whose disinterest was that obvious.

He didn’t even know what her problem was.

She
wasn’t sure what her problem was. But she knew she had one, and if she couldn’t get it resolved, she’d never be able to put the pieces of her life back together. She wasn’t sure she could anyway—too much had happened that couldn’t be reversed—but she had to try.

“Too dangerous to afford.”

Why? He hadn’t been referring to money at all, had he? He’d been a detective somewhere up north, he said. And he’d retired—quit—at thirty-four or thirty-five. Old enough, he’d said. But there’d been something else, something he wasn’t talking about.

Chris Talon was hiding out. Of course he was; that was why he gave an impression that he needed a solid barrier between himself and any intruder-even a harmless one, like one crippled and not very impressive woman.
Used up. Worn-out.
Or whatever he’d said to discourage her. It all amounted to his having something to hide—just like she did.

Maybe she didn’t want help from someone with baggage. But maybe that was just what she did want—a man who, no matter how hard he protested, had his own reasons for needing to find new focus.

Sonnie checked her uneven stride and looked back. Shadows punctuated garish light. She’d known Roy and Bo only a short time, but she trusted them. Roy wouldn’t suggest his brother could help her if he’d thought it was a bad idea.

This was what being absolutely alone felt like. And the feeling should be an old friend by now.

She continued on to Truman Avenue. The street was a hodgepodge of nineteenth-century wedding-cake mansions—most of them converted into boardinghouses—and tiny, three-room clapboard houses that had once belonged to cigar makers.

The house Sonnie’s father bought for her when she’d convinced him she intended to marry Frank Giacano had two stories. In front, a balcony ran the length of the second story. On the ground floor a veranda wrapped around the entire house. A pretty place with old-island charm. Bob Keith hadn’t understood his daughter’s choice in husbands, or Frank’s complete lack of interest in the house, other than wanting his name on the title. But Sonnie’s dad had gone along anyway and presented her with the deed. Frank’s name had not been on that deed.

Sonnie’s sister Billy had brought home Frank and his brother Romano. Billy had shown great promise as a tennis player in the junior leagues. And she might have gone far as an adult if she’d been able to control some of her habits. As it was she’d hung on for several years, occasionally qualifying, but always going down to an early round defeat. She met the Giacanos on the circuit. The family liked Frank’s brother, Romano, who had originally dated Sonnie. They did not like Frank.