Lemon Reef (16 page)

I don't know specifically what she was doing with her mouth or her hands, but I wanted her to keep going. She seemed to know this intuitively, because she did. She kept at me, while whatever the feeling was took hold, with an intensity that caught me by surprise. I was along for a ride. I was fucking her with my fingers harder and faster without intending to, my mouth held on to her, my tongue held steady on her clit. I heard her sounds as my own breath got away from me, squeezing out in gasps. My abdomen, now with a life of its own, my entire body trembling reflexively in rapid succession, a lull, she kept going, another swell followed by ripples to my thighs, and then another. And she was coming at the same time, her whole body shaking, her come suddenly thicker and tangier in my mouth. And then we were both lying still, breathing hard, holding on to each other.

A little dazed from the intensity, I said, “That felt so good! That felt
so good
.” She kissed my clit. I kissed her inner thigh, moist from her secretions and my spit.

I was still holding Del when she suddenly flipped off of me and reached for the radio. “I love this song,” she said, as she turned up the volume. She sat up, her legs spread out in front of her, her arms supporting her weight, her confident nakedness a mere fact between us now. “Come Sail Away” by Styx played on the radio. “Wanna go for a swim?”

I shook my head. “No, not yet.” I rolled onto my side, leaned on my elbow, and played with her small feet and stubby toes.

“What's wrong?” She wiggled the toe I was playing with to get my attention. “Why do you like this song so much?” She looked at me questioningly.

I shrugged my shoulders and said, “It's a great song. I just think it's a really sad song.” I pulled her big toe apart from the smaller one adjacent to it and tried to crack the joint.

“So?” Then, “Ouch!” She yanked her foot to get me to stop.

“It might sound corny,” I started to say.

“You?”
she teased, Styx in the background.

I flashed a sarcastic smile. Then, refusing to be deterred, I said, “You're that captain, Del,” referring to the song. Her mouth tightened; she glared at me. She was already anticipating where I was going and was trying to ward me off. “You are,” I persisted. “And you're trying to get your sisters and brother on board with you. You're trying to carry on for all of you.” No movement, no indication she'd even heard me. “Del, maybe we should tell someone about your mom's drinking, that she hits you guys. Maybe we should ask for help.” Del bit her bottom lip, her expression impassive. I was sure I was pissing her off, but I didn't care. Then Del's chin dropped to her chest. Her soft hair fell forward, hiding her face, and it took me a moment to realize she was crying.

I sat up, kissed the top of her head, leaned my forehead against hers, stroked her hair. She leaned into me, and I put my hand on the back of her neck. “Is it what I said?” Styx was jamming in the background.

Del climbed into my lap and wrapped her legs around me. “All I know,” she said, “is you make me feel really good.” She kissed me, nuzzled my nose and lips with her nose, kissed me more. She pressed her forehead to mine, followed by more kisses, more nuzzles. She watched me, her eyes still red from crying. “Is this what you expected,” she asked, “being with someone for the first time?”

Her question confused me. I looked at her, trying to understand what she was asking me, and in a flash of overwhelming excitement and pleasure I figured it out. Mildly teasing, I said, “Are you losing your virginity today?” Sadly, it hadn't occurred to me what we were doing would mean that to her.

She nodded, and with some uncertainty and maybe a hint of hurt, she said, “Aren't you?”

“Yes.” I said. “It's amazing being with you.” I stared at her. “You're
amazing
.” I tucked her hair behind her ear, kissed her breast, nearly level with my mouth. “Nothing could beat this.” I pushed my fingers into her, watched her face change, thought she was shockingly beautiful. She moved in rhythm with my fingers for a long while until I felt her insides contracting, was aware of her breath on my face tinged with saliva. It covered me like mist, the scent a mixture of her insides and mine. I was watching her face pinch and relax as she came, pushing whatever was going to come out of her mouth back down inside her so she could feel it longer. Listening to her gasp, feeling her tremble, I came again under her.

We sat there in silence, both of us breathing hard, my hand still in her. I noticed the slim shape of her moist inner thigh hugging my hip. She kissed my forehead. “Damn,” she said, returning now to her previous state of lightheartedness. “I was rockin' and rollin'.” I squared our bodies and put my arms around her waist. Del wrapped her arms and legs around me and hugged me tighter. “Oh my God, Jenna.” She turned her face away, as if protecting herself from feeling it too much. “I'm so close to you.” Then she said, “I think they were multiples.” I was focused on the residuals, my melted cunt and tingling body surfaces, the feel of Del's bare, moist skin against my own. She put her face into my neck. I pulled her hair back and kissed her cheek. “Do you?” she persisted, “think they were multiples?” I didn't answer, just wondered what she'd been reading lately. She smiled shyly. “You're beautiful, Jenna.” It was not how I saw myself, which she knew. “You are.” She fondled the necklace she'd given me earlier. “I'm in love with you.”

Exhausted, I fell back onto the blanket. I looked up at her sitting on me. “I'm in love with you, too. Madly.”

*

As we left the sea grapes behind, I caught myself believing we were on our way now to meet up with Del, and I felt desperately excited to see her again. My heart leaped, my hands yearned for her skin. Then I felt Del's autopsy report rolled up in my back pocket, a stark reminder that she was dead, that I would never see her again. A man-of-war lay just beneath the surface of the sand, its tentacles splayed out behind it like dripping vein-blue paint.

Tar Baby was waiting for us at the tunnel entrance. There was hardly an acknowledgment. He gestured to us and we followed him in silence through the tunnel to the bay side. Haulover Bay lay before us, the last of the sunlight sinking behind the trees in the far surround. We found an out-of-the-way picnic table near the water's edge. From where we were standing, we could see sundry critters scampering on and around the slippery rocks.

Tar Baby relit a half-smoked cigarette, pulled his shirt on over his lanky, tanned torso, pushed his wiry hair back from his face. “I can't believe she's dead,” Tar Baby said to Ida, nervously. Ida nodded. “Man, she was so beautiful. What about her kid, Khila, how's she gonna take this? I mean, Del had problems, but she was a real good mother.”

He was speedy, talkative. His still pupils and thick-brown-mucus-lined nostrils answered for his nickname. We stood there quietly, waiting for him to tell what he could. His eyes landed vigilantly on me.

“This is Jenna,” Nicole said. “She's an old family friend.” Gesturing to Katie and Gail, she added, “They're fine, too. Don't worry, it's safe.” Nicole's eyes shifted, she stepped from foot to foot like the ground was hot. Her hands flexed and relaxed apparently outside of her awareness.

In response to Tar Baby's suspicion about us, Gail leaned her weight largely on one leg, crossed her arms, and shot me a just-give-me-an-excuse-to-leave glare. Katie stood beside Gail, calm, curious, quietly amused.

“Here's what I know.” He blew smoke, flicked his ashes. “Tal owed some money on a gambling debt, and they did the drop so he could pay it back. They were using Lemon Reef as the meeting point to make the trade.” He laughed, proudly announced his brown teeth. “Pretty ingenious, really, they just swim”—wiggling his fingers, he did a little performance improvisation—“right under the Coast Guard radars.”

As I tried to understand it, I said, “It was a drug deal?” He nodded. “So, underwater?” I clarified, “An underwater drug deal?” Tar shot Ida a questioning look, as if he was confused by my confusion. “I don't get it,” I said.

Ida said, “Well, it's not obvious, and anyway, I thought they quit that shit after the Thomas kid got killed.” She was sitting on the picnic table, feet planted on the bench. Poised as she was, her long, narrow body and delicate profile had a mannequin-like quality. Her soft red hair glowed against the fading orange sky.

Nicole moved foot to foot, stepped back then forward, pulled both arms in close like a boxer, then pushed out like a push-up against the air. “Just explain it to her,” she said impatiently. She took hold of the purse strap, and I realized rolling it between her fingers was her way of calming down when she was upset.

Tar Baby threw his hair back, patted his board-like stomach, and said, “You decide on a dive spot, set a time, and exchange money for drugs underwater.”

“And then you just carry the drugs out of the water onto the beach?” Gail asked.

Hands out, palms up, he said, “People have their ways.” Tar Baby laughed at his own thought, which he then shared. “We used to carry it out in a bag, put a few pieces of coral in there or a lobster or two. No big deal really.”

I said under my breath, “Ass backward!” Then a little louder so only Katie and Gail could hear, “That's like counting to a thousand to get to a hundred.” They laughed. Tar Baby's eyes fixed on us, the laughter making him nervous. “I'm just saying,” I said louder, addressing Tar Baby directly, “seems like a lot of work for a lot of risk.” He pressed his lips together, narrowed his eyes, and studied me momentarily, as if it hadn't occurred to him that doing drug trades underwater might be stupid. “So,” I asked, “why did they use a boat if the whole point was to swim in?”

Tar Baby shrugged. “Don't ask me.” He wiped his nose. “All I know is I used to go with Tal on these runs, and we
always
swam in. You know, didn't want to call any attention to ourselves. I told Nicole the boat was weird.”

“Maybe Del wasn't healthy enough to do a beach dive,” I said, remembering her physical condition. I pulled the copy of the report from my back pocket and began studying it. “The boat they used belonged to this guy, Sam Kramer. Do you know him?”

Tar Baby nodded. “He's the owner of a bunch of sleazy properties. Tal's his manager—The Collector, they call Tal.”

“His boat is berthed at the Skyline Marina in Coconut Grove,” I said.
The Collector?
It pounded in my head.

“Why go to the trouble of getting a boat to do this dive?” Gail asked me as if the question hadn't already been asked. “If Del wasn't feeling well, just do it with someone else.” She suddenly remembered her supposed disinterest, looked caught, twisted her lips.

“Maybe the boat had the drugs on it.” Tar was feeling around for another cigarette. “Could be it was a lot. A lot of heroin would require a boat.” Katie gave him one of hers, even lit it for him. I watched him watching her.

My cell phone rang. Now Tar Baby was watching me.

The caller said, “How's the heat?”

“Doug!” I was glad to hear his voice.

“She was your first love, huh?” Without waiting for a response, he continued, “Geez, that's too sad. I don't know anything for certain yet. This isn't my area of expertise. But the connection between smoking and diving complications is more tenuous than is stated here.”

I moved away from the group, turned my back to face the ocean.

“Funny,” Doug continued, “you know, carbon monoxide poisoning is getting a lot of attention right now because of the terrorism hype. We just investigated a case of carbon monoxide poisoning in a suspected terrorist incident in Boston. That's why I know the amount of COHb—carboxyhemoglobin, that is—in your friend's blood, twenty percent, is low to be the cause of death. Again, I'm not sure yet, but I think something else contributed to the death. I'll give the report to our toxicology guy in the morning. He'll be able to tell us more.”

The call ended. I dropped my phone to my side and stared at the horizon for a moment to think. I decided I wouldn't mention Doug's comments yet because I didn't want to agitate Nicole with further doubts until we had more information.

Tar Baby said to Nicole, “You think he murdered her?” I took a breath and moved closer. “He killed her on the boat and threw her over?” Tar shot Ida and Nicole a knowing look, said, “What an asshole.”

“No.” I knew from the report. “Del was alive when she went into the water.”

Shaking his head from side to side, he said more to himself, “Sid went to prison and Tal killed her anyway.” Tar Baby laughed oddly. “Who woulda thought?”

“
What?
What do you mean by that?” I knew as I asked it I'd sounded too eager. With paranoid people one must be painstakingly matter-of-fact, or they dash. He dashed by ignoring me. I dropped it, telling myself I'd find another chance to return to this.

A black Jeep had pulled up to the entrance to the parking lot. Tar Baby's eyes pegged Nicole. “Were you followed?”

Gail's face twisted; she clamped her palm to her forehead in a gesture of both disbelief and ridicule. The lot was closed, and when the driver of the car realized he couldn't enter, he backed up, turned around, and left.

“Well,” Tar Baby said to Nicole and Ida, “the thing I came here to tell you. The guys Tal was making the trade with, they say they didn't see no boat anchored on the reef. And Tal was alone.”

Nicole took it in for a moment, then turned to me and said, “So where was my sister?” Her vigilant eyes turned downward, as if they were suddenly the heaviest part of her. “Did she just stay on the boat?” Her pace from foot to foot increased, her face reddened, and I had the impression she was starting to rage.