Tropical Freeze Read online

  “Yes, sir. It’s a nightmare getting anything done anymore.”

  Benny said, “Now, it so happens I know a man at Department of Transportation. He’s a bureaucrat as bad as the next one. But he’s still a good ol’ boy and a friend of mine. And I think he could be persuaded to help here.”

  “Could you let me pay you something for your trouble?”

  Benny brought his eyes up and looked Mr. Boilini over.

  “Boilini, I’m no doctor, but to me, you look like you got lotsa years left.” Benny took a sip of his drink. He put it down and said, “Think of it, every three minutes your new stoplight blinks and another guy’s walking out with a fifth of Jim Beam. Add that up over a lifetime, you know, and that’s a chunk of change. So if you were to try to pay me what that stoplight’s worth to you, well, I don’t think you could get together that kind of cash, now could you?”

  “No, sir.”

  Benny said, “And anyway, Charlie, I’m one of the last of the red-hot altruists. I don’t want your money. I’m motivated by the higher virtues. Quid pro quo. Things of this nature.”

  Boilini nodded, cocking his head slightly for the punch line.

  Benny tugged on his earring again, staring down at his White Russian. He said, “Like, I understand you’re big in the Rotary Club down here, the Masons, these civic organizations.”

  “Yes, sir, I’m involved in a good many community activities.”

  Benny said nothing, waiting for Boilini to catch on. Looking at him, almost counting the seconds out loud.

  “Oh,” Boilini said finally. “I’d be happy to propose your membership in some local clubs. It’d be my pleasure, Mr. Cousins.”

  Mr. Boilini offered his hand, and Benny shook it without taking much of a grip. Bringing his face around finally to give Boilini a look at his bullshittiest smile.

  “How’m I doing?” Benny asked Gaeton when Boilini had left.

  “Well, you shouldn’t get them on their knees. Treat them so smug.” Gaeton took a sip of his beer. “Conchs are proud.”

  “What? That? On his knees?” He squinted at Gaeton. “Hey, Mr. Manners, when I get somebody on their knees, they don’t get up. They don’t walk away.” He leaned across the table toward him, getting a sizzle in his voice.

  Gaeton said, “These people, they’ve been dealing with Bubbas and payoffs for a hundred years. You want to have some impact down here, you’re going to have to be a little less of a smartass.”

  “Gaeton Richards’s charm school.”

  Gaeton said nothing.

  Benny drew out an envelope from his inside front pocket. He passed it over to Gaeton. Gaeton looked at it for a moment, then picked it up and opened it. Seven cashier’s checks. Five thousand apiece. They were made out to two past mayors of Key West. Three former county commissioners. A judge. The owner of a plumbing and construction company in Marathon. Gaeton had given Benny their names last week when he’d asked who the oldest families in the Keys were. The Conch aristocracy, he’d called them.

  Gaeton slid the envelope back and said, “Yeah? So?”

  “I want you to deliver these,” Benny said. “Campaign contributions.”

  “These people aren’t running for anything,” Gaeton said.

  “I know that,” Benny said. “But I am.”

  Gaeton put the envelope in his shirt pocket.

  Benny said, “And tomorrow sometime, take that Porsche back up to Miami, to the place you got it from.”

  “Why?”

  “Claude’s leaving town, and he decided he doesn’t want it after all. OK? And don’t always be questioning me, hot rod. I got my reasons for things. Just do what the fuck I tell you, OK?”

  “Whatever you say, Mr. Cousins.”

  A slender man approached their table from the parking lot exit. He had a close-cropped beard. His clothes nicely creased. He glanced around, noted Benny’s men; a light of disdain came and went in his eyes.

  “Benny,” Gaeton said, “this is Ralph Marris. Mayor Ralph Marris of Key West. Ralph, Benny. Benny, Ralph.”

  “Mayor Marris?” Benny said. “Here, have a seat.” Benny patted the red leather upholstery beside him. He scooted over, shooting Gaeton a look. You’re so hot for sincere. Here’s sincere.

  Ozzie Hardison was in the Tropical Freeze ice cream truck parked in a gravel lot about fifty feet from the front of the Green Turtle Restaurant. He was watching through his binoculars Darcy’s blond boyfriend talking to some short, bald guy. He’d followed the guy from the trailer park about two hours ago. The guy’d been in there all that time talking to a string of people.

  From this range Ozzie could hit this asshole, bang, shatter-slump, and be out of there in no time. Get home, put a notch in the rifle, and then wander over and maybe put a notch or two in the weatherlady.

  This dingleberry boyfriend of hers was a lifeguard. It’s what he called them cause of all that blond hair, the dark tan, and how they looked at you, like they were sitting up in their white chair. They talked to you like cops did; only these guys had to be a little more polite. ’Cause they didn’t carry guns.

  Ozzie put down the binoculars, slid the door open to the refrigerated part of the truck, and ducked in there. He opened the ice cream box and pulled out the .22 rifle. It had a cheapo sight on it and was generally a piece of Monkey Ward shit. But it was all he had, and it’d do just fine.

  He was moving kind of slow, not scared really, considering how long he’d waited for this kind of situation. He was savoring this, chewing it slow. The air had a certain tang to it for the first time in a long time.

  Then shit! Something whacked on the side of the truck and Ozzie jumped and banged his head on an overhead cooler.

  Standing at the service window was a fat woman in a yellow muumuu. She was wearing a scarf over her curlers. And peering in at Ozzie, the wind out there whipping her scarf around.

  “Hey, I see you in there.”

  Ozzie set the .22 in the slot between two of the coolers, rubbed his head.

  “Hey! You in business or what?”

  The fat lady had a fat kid wearing a baseball hat and a T-shirt and shorts. Ugly as her. Looked like the bulldog family taking themselves out for a walk.

  “I’m going to tell Papa John about this. Ignoring paying customers this way.”

  Ozzie threw open the window. The wind rushed in and nearly knocked him back.

  “Whatta you want, you got to break my window for? Huh? Huh? Say it, you fat old whale.”

  She moved up close, got her face in the window. She had bad skin, whiskers coming out of a mole on her chin, chili breath. Ozzie felt around back there for the rifle. Got it by the barrel. Maybe do her first, then the lifeguard.

  Her whole ugly face filling up the window. Jesus, some poor shriveled-up son of a bitch had shot a load into that woman once. Imagine that. Her kid squawked behind her.

  “I want a nutty-buddy. A nutty-buddy.”

  “Elton wants a nutty-buddy,” she said, mean and slow, as if she were reading Ozzie’s mind.

  Ozzie had the .22 just below the counter, holding it by the stock. His other hand dropped out of sight, fit into the trigger guard.

  “And Elton’s momma wants four marijuana cigarettes and two Fudgsicles.”

  “It’s after midnight, for christsakes,” Ozzie said. “I’m off work. The freezers are all locked up.”

  “Papa John’s gonna have your ass,” the woman said.

  “I want my nutty-buddy now.” Elton was there behind her, having the sugar conniptions.

  “Say please,” Ozzie said.

  “You do it, and you don’t get no please and thank you, either.” She used her mother voice on him. Playing dirty.

  “Shit,” Ozzie said. He banged the butt of the .22 down. Then leaned it against the cooler, and got her her ice cream and her four joints, put them in a brown sack, and brought them to the window. She had her money spread out on the counter.

  Ozzie watched as Elton went to work on his nutty-buddy
, walking back over to the apartments. The fat woman peeled one of her Fudgsicle wrappers off and wadded it and flicked it at the open window. The wind caught it and took it at thirty miles an hour up the road. Ozzie slammed the window shut. Then he remembered the fucking lifeguard.

  Not at the table anymore. The waitress was clearing things. Ozzie swept the binoculars around the lot, found a group of guys getting into a brown Mercedes. Four of them leaving and one staying behind. The Mercedes pulled away. The one staying behind turned finally so the parking lot light hit his face. Bingo, bango, bongo.

  Ozzie waited till the Mercedes was out on U.S. 1 and he was sure nobody else was in the lot. And he switched on the roof top speakers, cranked them up loud. “See how they run, see how they run. They all ran after the farmer’s wife, she cut off their tails with a carving knife, did you ever see such a sight in your life, as three blind mice.” It was a scratchy tape, sounded like Richard Nixon singing it, but it got the lifeguard’s attention.

  A big wallop of thunder came just as the guy turned, and stared at Ozzie. Some rain began to ding the roof.

  Ozzie got his face ready. Trying to adjust to this new situation, meeting this guy up close and personal. Actually, this was better than the .22. The .22 was chickenshit. The hands-on approach was always better.

  Ozzie slid his hand down beneath the service window for his sawed-off Louisville slugger. He got it and reached into the cooler and took out a nutty-buddy, carried it and the bat up to the cab, keeping the slugger hidden behind his right leg. Then, standing in the doorway, he called out to the lifeguard. Said, “Hey, mister, I got something for you.”

  Gaeton approached the rusty ice cream truck. On its side palm trees waving, flamingos in flight, papa john’s tropical freeze stenciled on the service window. “They all ran after the farmer’s wife.” He was reaching into his windbreaker for the .357 when he saw who it was. That redneck Ozzie Hardison standing in the doorway, a big smile, saying, hi there, partner. And Ozzie reached out to hand him what looked like an ice cream bar. Gaeton nodded his head no. Ozzie said, “You don’t like sweets?” And Ozzie fumbled with the ice cream, juggled it in Gaeton’s direction, and lost control. And as Gaeton bent quickly to catch the thing, he saw in his peripheral sight the billy club coming down.

  Then the gravel was rising to meet him. The numb thud, the flash of a blue light. She cut off their tails with a carving knife. Gaeton listened to the echo of that as he drifted away into the airless dark.

  Benny Cousins opened the door to the bedroom, stuck his head in, asked if Claude was decent.

  Claude said nothing. He was lying on the bed, dressed.

  “Well, it’s my house,” Benny said. “I guess I can come and go where I want.”

  Benny sat in a leather wingback beside the bed, locked his fingers together in front of him, then put them behind his head.

  “So tell me,” Benny said, “I want to hear why you got such a case of the hots for Palm Beach. That particular house.”

  “It is a villa,” Claude Hespier said, “not merely a house.”

  “Yeah, whatever. So what’s the fucking attraction for a guy like you, live in a place like that, in Palm Beach?” Benny smiled.

  Claude was wearing a yellow shirt with blue hula girls, white sailcloth pants. He was barefoot. Benny was still in his pastel outfit, packing his little double-barreled .32 Intratec. The thing fit right in his back pocket, no bigger than a chunky wallet. You just never knew when you were going to need artillery, walking around in the Islamorada moonlight, just him, Claude, and a nice ocean breeze. All the boys off for the night.

  Claude puffed up the pillow against the headboard and leaned back against it.

  He said, “I have already discussed my wishes with you when I first made contact.”

  “Refresh my memory,” Benny said. “I like to double-check. Remind myself what makes you guys tick.”

  “Villa Luna,” Claude said, and took a breath through his nose, “is Miss Tracy Seagrave’s mansion. It has remained closed since her death. Now, since the dispute over her estate has been settled, I want to purchase the property. I want to live there.”

  Something about the way he breathed, or maybe it was the puffiness and shape of his lips, something about him pissed the hell out of Benny. That Caribbean way he had of enunciating instead of talking. Third world hoity-toity.

  “You want to live in her house, what? To dig some of her leftover muff hair out of the drains.”

  “Don’t mock me,” Claude said.

  “Yeah, well, everyone has their little quirks. I got mine, you got yours. I’m sure Tracy Seagrave even had hers.”

  Claude said, “It is important that we act on this investment immediately. There could be other interested parties.”

  “Right, right,” said Benny. “Oh, and hey, tell me something else. What the hell was that shit with the Porsche kid yesterday, tying him up like that, offering him to the alligators?”

  “The boy insulted me,” Claude said. He was examining the palm of his right hand.

  “He insulted you.” Benny smiled. “How’d he do that?”

  “He called me a Negro,” said Claude. He picked at a callus.

  Benny said, “And you’re not a Negro?”

  Claude raised his eyes and met Benny’s. Benny was smiling.

  Benny said, “Hey, I don’t care how you slice it, Cheez Whiz, you got a very definite dose of the dark meat.”

  Claude brought his feet to the floor. He stood up.

  “Claude, baby,” Benny said, “I got nothing against darkies. No shit. I don’t have a prejudiced corpuscle in my body. If this is a sensitive topic for you, we’ll just drop it.”

  Claude slowly shifted his weight off the balls of his feet. He blinked, took a full breath.

  “Good,” Benny said. “Now, hey, since you’re up already, what say we grab some air? Continue our chat. We give awful good moonlight down here in the Florida Keys.”

  Benny turned his back to Claude, opened the door.

  He said, “I could show you my prize royal palms. The suckers set me back five thousand apiece. Can you believe that? For trees?”

  He held the door open for Claude. The albino watching Benny very carefully. Benny just smiled. This was the part he liked. The moonlight walk. Put his arm around their shoulder, get them started on all the evil shit they’d pulled over the years, and let his blood percolate listening to it.

  As they walked down the stairway, Benny said, “I’d like to hear all the gory details about your criminal past, Claude. And don’t be shy and hold things back, man, ’cause I got to know exactly what it is you’ve done if I’m going to be successful at undoing it.”

  9

  For about the hundredth time that Sunday morning, Ozzie took a look out the window of his concrete-block stilt house at the shed where the lifeguard was his prisoner.

  It’d been raining all night, thundering and lightning, and there was water pooled up on the cement slab that the aluminum shed was mounted on. The guy was probably damp in there. Probably getting a little wrinkly while he waited for Ozzie to figure out what the fuck to do with him. Then build up the nerve to do it.

  He turned back to Bonnie.

  “How’s this sound?” Ozzie tore the notebook paper off the pad and waited till Bonnie looked over, giving him her not-this-again eye roll. He cleared his throat and sang, “I love you more than my flip-flops, my Colt 45, and my old coon dog. I’m sorry I busted your lip last night, it’ll never happen, aaa-gain.”

  “Sounds like the same old shit,” Bonnie Drake said. She took a hit from her Budweiser and brought the clippers back to her toes. Snipping them into sharp little points, like he’d heard water polo players did. So far that was one weapon she hadn’t used on him.

  Ozzie Hardison wadded the page up and threw it at the refrigerator.

  “What do I know?” Bonnie said. “I never heard one line of that hick music I liked. What the hell you asking me for my opinion anyway?”
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  “Who else am I going to ask? Think I should call up the president, stop some bozo on the street? What?”

  “Get an agent or something. I don’t know anything about the music business. I don’t even listen to that shit. Hell, you could be Kris Kristofferson for all I know.”

  “I don’t want to be Kris Kristofferson.”

  “Yeah, well, whoever it is then. Whoever it is you want to be.”

  “You know who it is.” Ozzie stood up from the dinette table and walked over to the wad of paper, stepped on it, and made a flat little circle out of it.

  Bonnie put on her prissy grin and said, “Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash, Johnny Cash.”

  “Go ahead,” Ozzie said. “Say something sarcastic.”

  “You should call yourself Ozzie MasterCard. Mr. Plastic Cash.” She made her wheezy whiskey laugh.

  Ozzie stroked his stomach, staring at her, sitting there in her green tube top, her hair greasy, her panties pulled up into her crotch so the hair sprouted out the legs. She was listening to her bitchy channel today, getting the word from the gods of smartass and ballbusting.

  “You been watching ‘Donahue’ again?” he asked her.

  She glared at him.

  “What was it this time? How to have an orgasm with a sack of carrots?”

  He could see the muscles in her forehead working. He’d never seen anybody with fucking muscles in her forehead before.

  “How to give your man a vasectomy in his sleep? Huh? What?”

  She threw the clippers at him sidearm. Dinged him hard in the neck. And they ricocheted off and hit the fretboard of his six-string leaning against the bottom cupboard.

  “Why don’t you read your stupid songs to the weatherlady? She’s so smart. She’s so beautiful and rich. Why don’t you bother her with that shit you write?”

  “Leave her out of it,” Ozzie said.

  “Your girl friend. Jesus, what a dickbrain you are.”

  “Stop it, Bonnie. I’m warning you now, you stop talking to me that way.”

  Bonnie went on filing at her nails, didn’t even look up, saying, “She doesn’t know you exist, boy, and if she did, she’d laugh right in your face. And you, you’re writing her love songs, mooning around about her.”