Fallen Honor: A Jesse McDermitt Novel (Caribbean Adventure Series Book 7) (11 page)

“Sure,” Michal replied.

Coral shoved him down onto the small couch and said, “Good. Get to work and roll us up a nice fatty and I’ll be right back.”

When Coral disappeared down the hall, Michal opened the bag and held it to his nose, breathing deeply of the pungent aroma. Working quickly, he rolled two nice-sized joints, judging from the smell that her stash wasn’t the greatest weed in the world. He liked weed better than coke. It seemed to work directly with his natural tendency to take things as they came, where coke did the opposite.

He heard a toilet flush and water running into a basin. A moment later Coral came back into the room. He noticed that she’d removed her sandals. She smiled when she saw he’d rolled two instead of one.

Without a word, Coral picked up one of the joints. Straightening, she lit it and inhaled deeply, arching her back, her small breasts straining at the light fabric as she tossed the lighter in Michal’s lap.

Picking it up, Michal lit the other joint and took a long drag. As he leaned back on the love seat, closing his eyes, he could feel the effects of the herb spread quickly through his body and decided he had been premature in his assumption. The heat began in his face, spreading around to the back of his head, the way really good weed does. The sensation passed throughout his body to his fingers and toes, then settled in his groin.

When he opened his eyes again, Coral stood before him. She bent over and placed her joint in a big porcelain ashtray resembling a sea turtle. When she stood back up, the lamp over her shoulder highlighted the short locks of hair from behind, causing them to look like flickering yellow flames. It also made her body completely visible under the thin, lightweight dress.

He’d felt how narrow her waist was when he had an arm around her earlier. Backlit as she was now, he could see the swell and curve of her hips, tapering upwards to the tiniest waist he’d ever seen on a grown woman.

With both hands, Coral reached up and hooked the straps of the little yellow dress with her thumbs, pulling them slowly down and over her tanned shoulders. When she released them, the dress fell gently, exposing her breasts before stopping at her waist, the straps hanging on her elbows.

Michal exhaled, his mouth hanging open. Her firm little breasts were as tan as the rest of her body. The warming effect in his groin turned up a notch as Michal blinked in disbelief.

Coral smiled at him and lowered her arms slowly until finally the dress flowed across her hips, falling into a pile around her feet. She slowly stepped out of it and came around the table. She took his smoldering joint and placed it with hers in the ashtray.

Michal’s brain seemed to quit functioning at that point. When Coral took his hand, he felt the same electric rush in her touch as he’d felt earlier, and the heat in his groin grew instantly to an inferno. Rising, he stared in amazement at her perfect little body. Her dark, luxurious tan was all over and she had a tiny triangle of light blond pubic hair.

Coral lowered her head slightly to the left and did the thing with her hair again. Lifting her head a little, she looked at Michal from the corners of her hooded eyes.

“Now we can unwind. Get your clothes off.”

T
he old bus slowly pulled to the curb in the sweltering heat, kicking up dust and belching smoke, as Will Byers stood on the side of the road with his thumb out. He’d chosen this spot wisely. There was a small spot on the shoulder that the bus pulled into. He was far enough from the start of what looked like a really long bridge for someone to pull over and give him a ride. He hadn’t figured on a city bus.

As Byers approached it, he smelled the distinct odor of weed, the aroma mixed with the fumes from the bus’s exhaust. Along the side of the bus were the words Lower Keys Bus Service.

The smell of the weed got stronger as he approached the bus’s door, which suddenly opened. The sound of rock music blared from inside and a hazy cloud of blue-gray smoke drifted up from the open door, stark against the cerulean sky.

Byers looked up at the bus driver. “How much to Key West?”

“Four bucks, man,” the driver responded. “From anywhere, to anywhere, between Marathon and Key West.”

Byers climbed onto the bus and was hit fully by the overpowering tang of the heavy smoke as the driver started the bus moving forward. Byers pulled a ten from his wallet and offered it to the driver, who pointed to a cash box and a sign on it.
No change made. Ever.

Cramming the ten in the box, Byers figured it was still a good price, ten bucks for a forty-mile ride. He moved back along the rows of seats as the bus bounced back onto the highway, an air horn from a big motorhome blasting behind them. At least three people were openly smoking joints on the bus. One was a long-haired guy in a black T-shirt sitting on the wide seat in the very back. Byers plopped down in the seat next to the lavatory, leaving an empty spot between him and the dude smoking the joint. His T-shirt had a
Hog’s Breath Saloon
logo stenciled on the shirt pocket.

Not an iron-on
, Byers thought and made him to be a bar worker, and the T-shirt was his uniform. The guy took a long hit from his joint and held it for a few seconds before blowing it out slowly and offering the joint to Byers.

“Welcome aboard the Magic Bus, man.”

Taking the joint, Byers nodded to the stranger beside him. “Thanks, man. It’s really okay to smoke weed on the bus down here?”

“This is the afternoon run and everyone’s headed to work. It’s cool. So long as we do it while crossing the Seven Mile, Brad don’t give a shit, man. Brad’s the driver. I’m Keith.”

Taking a toke on the guy’s joint, Byers inhaled deeply. It was good, but weed didn’t do much for him anymore. He handed the joint back and exhaled the smoke toward the ceiling, where it mingled with that of several other smokers. Byers noted that quite a few more people had lit up, now that they were on the long bridge.

“Byers,” he said by way of introduction.

“Like the rum, man. Cool.”

Sharing the joint back and forth until there was just a tiny roach left, Keith put it out on his tongue, placed it in a small tin with several others and lit a second joint.

When it was gone, they still had a couple of miles of bridge left. Byers offered the guy a hit from the little coke vial. The dude nodded enthusiastically, tapping his knees with his hands in time to the music blasting on the bus’s stereo.

Using the little spoon attached to the cap, Byers offered it to his new friend. Keith took it, holding it just below one nostril with a practiced hand. Pressing the other nostril with his index finger, Keith snorted the fine white powder and handed the spoon back.

Byers did the same, finishing it just as they came off the bridge onto Big Pine Key and he screwed the little cap back on.

The driver turned the radio off and shouted over his shoulder, “Put ’em out, gang.” Without waiting for a response, he turned the stereo back on, but at a much lower level. Half the people on the bus lowered their windows and the haze quickly disappeared.

The bus slowed, the driver very familiar with the laws on Big Pine Key, and though his passengers might be stoned to the gills, he wasn’t. The little window beside him, directed right at his face, let just enough air in, so even a contact buzz was unlikely.

An hour later, the bus came across the bridge from Bahia Honda onto Stock Island. Keith had told Byers about the only motel in the Lower Keys that charged less than a hundred a night, and this was the stop for Byers to get off.

“Stop by
Hog’s Breath
for a drink once you get settled in, man. Plenty more weed where that came from, but not much else on the island lately.” That information piqued Byers interest. “That motel’s right down that road.” Keith pointed across the highway from where the bus had stopped as Byers got up from his seat.

The road was hot and dusty as Byers shuffled along the crushed-shell shoulder, the only sound coming from an occasional passing car on the highway and the near-constant buzzing of cicadas. Finally Byers walked into the lobby of the cut-rate motel to check in. The clerk didn’t even ask for his ID. Byers held his breath as the old dude swiped the stolen credit card.

A moment later, the clerk shoved a pen and a little slip of paper under the glass. Byers made a scribble that looked like the name on the card and slid it back under the glass.

Pointing out the lobby to the left, the old guy said, “Room eight.” Then he slid a key under the glass and turned back to his TV.

Entering the room, Byers looked around and turned the A/C on high. It sputtered and coughed to life, belching out slightly cooler air. Pulling a small baggie from his pocket, he stashed his crack under the mattress, noting he was down to less than a quarter ounce. Reaching down into the front of his pants, he removed a tightly sealed plastic bag and stashed it with the crack.

Reassessing what Keith had said on the bus, Byers pulled the little vial from his pocket and retrieved both bags from under the mattress. Sitting on the edge of the bed, he placed the two small bags on the nightstand and opened them. He took a pack of cigarettes from his shirt pocket and lit one, then removed the cellophane from the pack.

For later tonight
, Byers thought, putting four small rocks of the crack into the cellophane and rolling it up. Scooping the little vial into the other baggie, he filled it with coke. Though he rarely used it, he felt that he might be able to score big-time, from what Keith had said, and was definitely going to go to this
Hog’s Breath
place later.

The coke in the baggie wasn’t the eight ball he’d bought from the coke dealer on the bus. He’d scored a half pound in Orlando just the week before. For over a year now, he’d been able to buy big in a town with plenty and sell small in a town with little, living off the profits, always moving around from town to town.

He’d had to leave Mouse-town in a hurry, though. Not that he owned much, but he couldn’t even get back in his apartment there. The manager had changed the lock and said he could get in to get his stuff when the back rent was paid. The month of back rent was more than he owned, so he’d simply shrugged and left.

Byers hid the two baggies back under the mattress. He’d sold Keith about a gram for a hundred bucks. Keith had had to borrow part of it from several friends on the bus. Byers knew exactly what he wanted to spend the hundred bucks on.

Knowing he smelled pretty bad, but not realizing how bad until now, he emptied his pockets on the small dresser and removed his belt. Turning on the water in the shower, he stepped into it fully clothed.

It wasn’t the first time Byers had washed the smell from his clothes and body at the same time. Once he’d lathered his shirt and jeans, then rinsed the soap out really well, he pulled his clothes off and wrung the water out, hanging them on the towel rack. He then paid special attention to cleaning his threadbare shorts. They were dirty and stained, but he could get the smell out, at least.

The rubbing caused him to become aroused and he felt himself getting harder. Looking down, he cursed himself for the millionth time, knowing that even though his dick was fully erect, it barely made a bump in his shorts.

Oh well
, he thought.
Hookers don’t get paid by the inch.

The clothes were still wet when he put them back on, but he didn’t care, knowing they’d be dry from the sun before he got back to the bus stop. Keith had told him the county had a number of busses that ran back and forth from Marathon to Key West, and one would stop there again in about an hour. It was only Brad’s bus that you could smoke on, he’d cautioned. And then only when crossing that long bridge.

It hadn’t been quite an hour, Byers guessed, since he’d gotten off the bus, so he walked back up the street toward the main road. The old man from the office was standing outside smoking a cigarette and Byers angled toward him.

“Hey, man, know where a guy can find a little female company for a price?”

“I look like a fucking pimp to you?” the old man hissed, a scowl on his creased and leathery face. “You’ll find just about anything on Duval Street.”

The heat hit Byers from all sides, even coming up from the blacktop, as he walked the short distance to US-1, then dashed across between cars. Taking a seat on a bench with no shade, he noted that his clothes were nearly dry, except around his crotch, which was starting to chafe a little. The overbearing heat lay heavy and still on the little island, except when an occasional car sped by, stirring the thick, humid air.