Matt Royal Mystery - 03 - Blood Island (18 page)

"That's a lot of coincidences," he said.

"I don't put much faith in coincidences."

"Nah. Neither do I."

"Have you ever heard of an evangelist named Robert William
Simmermon?"

"No. Who is he?"

"I'm not sure. Clyde Varn told me he left Peggy and her friends at an
arena in Sarasota. Simmermon was preaching there at the time. Later, he
came to Key West."

"One more coincidence," Galls said.

"Let me show you something." I picked up a pencil from the detective's desk and drew a reasonably accurate picture of the cross in the circle of flowers I'd seen on Sister Amy's breast and at the front door of the
spa. I passed it over to him. "Does this mean anything to you?"

He looked at it for a moment. "No, I don't think I've ever seen it.
What is it?"

I told him where I'd seen it.

"You mean," he said, "that you just went into that whorehouse and
asked the first girl you came to if she knew Peggy?"

"Yeah. It wasn't the smartest thing I've ever done. But, I wanted to see
if I'd get a reaction."

"And did you?"

"Oh, yeah." I told him what had happened, but left out the part about
my shooting one of my pursuers. I didn't think he'd like that I was shooting up his town and stealing kids' bicycles.

"I outran them," I said.

"This is a strange town in many ways, Matt. We've got a lot of odd
people, and some of them are just bone-deep bad. But most of the people
who live here are decent law-abiding folks. My job is keeping the bad guys
from taking over from the good guys. I need to know which you are. Good
guy or bad guy?"

"I'm on your side, Paul. But if I get pushed, I push back. Like they
taught us at Bragg."

"They taught us about war, Matt. Key West isn't a war zone. Not yet,
anyway."

Galls offered me lunch and a ride back to Old Town. I declined both. I
didn't want anybody to see me eating with a cop or getting out of a police
cruiser. He called a cab, and I had it drop me a couple of blocks from the
yacht basin at Garrison Bight. I didn't think anybody was looking for me,
but I wanted to stay as inconspicuous as possible.

It was almost two in the afternoon, and I was hungry. I found a diner
on Roosevelt Avenue that seemed to cater to the captains and crews of
Charter Boat Row. I sat at the counter and ate a burger and fries. I finished,
paid my tab, and walked out onto the street.

A black Lincoln Town Car sat idling at the curb. As I left the building, a large man in a dark suit got out of the front seat and approached me.
I stopped. Wary, not expecting this.

"Mr. Royal," the man said. "Please come with me." He motioned to
the car.

It took a moment for me to realize I'd been called by my real name.
As far as I knew, no one in Key West, except Paul Galls, knew who I was.
I started to deny that my name was Royal, when he opened his coat to
show me a holstered pistol.

My gun was still in my pocket, but I couldn't imagine a shootout on
a sunny street across from a busy marina. There were people all around,
and someone would get hit. Galls was right. Key West shouldn't be a war
zone.

The man smiled. "Cracker Dix sent me," he said.

Relief spread through me as my body relaxed. The adrenaline rush
was subsiding, the bunched muscles loosening.

The man opened the back door and I slid into the car. An older man with receding gray hair was sitting on the other side of the back seat. His
face showed the scars of a long-ago battle with acne. He was swarthy, and
had a mouth full of large white teeth. He was dressed casually. He held out
his hand. I took it.

"I'm Oscar Mendosa," he said. "I've been looking for you."

"How did you find me?"

"Cracker told me you might be using the name Ben Joyce. He also
e-mailed us a picture of you." He held out a picture of me taken by Cracker
on a recent fishing trip to Boca Ciega Bay.

Mendosa continued. "When you bought the diving gear this morning, Ben Joyce's name popped up in our computers. We talked to the
young man at the dive shop, and he told us you were coming back this
evening. I've had men here all day, and when one saw you go into the diner,
he called me."

"Why were you looking for me?"

"I owe Cracker a great deal. If I can repay part of that debt by helping his friend, I'd like to do so."

"I appreciate it, Mr. Mendosa, but I don't really need any help."

"I think you do. Somebody is trying to kill you."

"Who?"

"I'm not sure. Somebody has put a bounty on you."

"A bounty? What are you talking about?"

"Pictures of you are circulating around town, and the word is that
whoever calls a certain phone number with your whereabouts will get a
thousand dollar reward. There are men in this town who would sell their
mothers for a grand."

He held out another photo, a grainy black-and-white print. This one
was taken of me at the whorehouse the evening before. I was standing in
the entry hall talking to the receptionist. A security camera.

"Do you know who's behind this?" I asked.

"No. The phone number goes to an answering machine that tells the
caller to leave his name and number and someone will get in touch. I left
a number, and got a callback inside of ten minutes. I played dumb and
hung up."

"Are you familiar with the Heaven Can't Wait Spa?"

"Oh, yes." He chuckled. "The religious whorehouse."

"Who owns it?"

"No idea. Our business does not deal in whores, so I never cared to
find out. I've just heard stories about the place."

"I appreciate your bringing this to my attention, Mr. Mendosa. I'll
be careful."

"I can give you some men to back you up."

"That's very kind, but I've got a lot to do in the next couple of days,
and I have to do it alone."

He reached into his pocket and extracted a business card. He handed
it to me. It had nothing on it but a phone number.

"This number," he said, "is answered twenty-four hours a day. Call
it if you need anything."

"Thank you."

We shook hands, and I got out of the car. It glided silently into traffic and was gone.

It was mid-afternoon, and hot. The breeze off the water was negligible.
Spring was beginning to turn into summer, and soon the days would all be
hot and humid.

A few of the charter boats had returned from the day's fishing. A
small group of tourists, a family perhaps, with too much red skin, was
standing on the dock behind a moored boat. One of them, a teenaged boy,
held a string of fish in his hands. The captain was taking their picture as
they stood with goofy grins next to a sign advertising his services. A young
man wearing only cutoffs was washing down the boat. A half dozen pelicans floated in the basin, waiting for the fish scraps they knew would be
coming from the cleaning tables. Cars and trucks rumbled by on Roosevelt
Avenue, leaving the smell of exhaust hovering over the docks.

I looked at the scene, picturing what the camera would catch, that
instant in time when the family was together, happiness evident in their
grins. The photograph would also hold the image of the boy cleaning the
boat, and probably the pelicans lazing in the sun.

I wondered about that picture, about what would happen to it after
it was admired and put away. Maybe one day an old man would pull it
from a drawer, gaze at it, and remember when he was a teenager holding
a string of fish, happy to be with his parents, now long dead. Would he
wonder about the life lived by the boy washing the boat? Would he put
the picture back in the drawer, never to be seen again? Life is fleeting, and
when we near the end, we grab our memories and hold onto them with a
ferocity that eluded us at the time of their creation.

I had a lot of time to kill. I couldn't do anything before dark, and I didn't want to go back to my room. If people were looking for me, they
might have located the rooming house.

I stopped in a souvenir shop on Palm Avenue and bought a khakicolored baseball cap with a sailfish and the words "Key West" embroidered on the front. I wore it out of the shop, keeping the bill low on my
eyes. My dark sunglasses would help cover my face, and I didn't think a casual observer would recognize me.

I decided to visit the cemetery where the monument to the battleship Maine was located. The fabled ship, whose demise gave an excuse
for the Spanish-American War, had sailed from Key West on its fateful
journey to Havana Harbor. Many of its sailors were buried in this last piece
of America they experienced.

I was walking idly down Angela Street when I saw a familiar figure
cross the road in the next block. It was Michelle Browne, the lady who
had introduced herself in Sarasota as the Reverend Robert William Simmermon's assistant. She was wearing a beige skirt, dark blue blouse, and
sensible white pumps. Her auburn hair was in a ponytail, and her bracelets
glinted in the sun.

She was walking at a fast clip, as if she were on an errand. I decided
to follow her. I held back a half block and ambled along, looking at the
houses that lined the street, trying for inconspicuousness.

She walked the four blocks to the Key West Bight and entered a
waterfront restaurant. I followed, motioning to the hostess that I would
take a seat at the bar. Michelle joined a man sitting at a table by the open
deck overlooking the harbor. He stood as she approached. He was about
six feet tall, slender, with white hair and a red face that looked as if he had
spent too much time in the sun. The Reverend Simmermon, in the flesh.
He was a lot younger than I'd guessed. Early thirties, probably. The white
hair made him look older, but his features were that of a younger man.

The wall behind the bar was mirrored. I could sit facing forward and
have a reflected view of Michelle and her companion. I ordered a draft
beer and sipped it while watching my quarry.

They were sitting at the table sipping wine, talking quietly. Occasionally, one or the other would gesture or smile. The meeting and conversation had the look of two old friends enjoying the afternoon. After about ten minutes, Michelle sat back in her chair, a look of chagrin on her
face. Then she moved in close, elbows on the table, her face a mask of
anger, words coming fast. Simmermon tried to take her hand, but she
jerked it back. He made a placating gesture, tried a smile, reached for her
again.

Michelle stood, her napkin falling off her lap onto the floor. She said
something I couldn't hear and walked out the front door. Simmermon
stood, dropped some bills on the table, and left the restaurant.

I followed, hoping to get him alone. He walked quickly to the dock
in front of the restaurant. There was a go-fast boat, similar to the ones I had
seen moored at Blood Island, tied to a piling, its big engines idling. A large
man wearing shorts, a white T-shirt, and a dark tan was untying the line as
the evangelist clambered down into it and sat in the passenger seat. The
other man took the helm seat, touched the throttles, and the boat pulled
away from the dock, heading out of the basin.

I turned and ran for the street, hoping to catch sight of Michelle. As
I rounded the corner of the restaurant onto Margaret Street, I saw her turning onto Eaton Street. I followed at a fast walk, catching up to her as she
turned onto Simonton, and then quickly made another turn off the main
thoroughfare. I knew where she was going.

I hung back now, letting her go. When I got to the next corner and
looked down the side street, she was out of sight. In the middle of the block
sat the Victorian mansion that housed the Heaven Can't Wait Spa.