Trap Line - Carl Hiaasen [72]
Laurie burrowed into his shoulder. The Conch Train clattered by, canary-colored boxcars loaded with children and tourists, lobster-skinned, bandoliered with Nikons. The driver was giving an animated monologue on the Hemingway House.
“Breeze, what happened to Ricky?” Laurie’s words were muffled in the folds of his jacket.
“A couple of the Cubans busted his arm.”
“Why?” she cried. “What for? He’s a boy.”
“He’s my son. They wanted to get back at me.”
“God,” Laurie sat up and fished in her purse for a Kleenex. Her eyes were moist, her voice tiny. “I spent an hour with him today. He’s a strong kid, thank God.”
“I’ve got to settle this. Then I’ll be leaving Key West.” Albury took her hand. “I won’t be able to stay.”
“Breeze, I won’t be able to go.”
He had seen the look before, not often, but enough to know it. This time he felt nothing but tired.
“Things are starting to happen, honey. Bobby’s getting a group together. Businessmen, shop owners, professionals. They’re going after the core of all this. Bobby says they’re going to work with the Governor’s office, the federal people, anybody who needs help down here. Eventually, I think they’re going to clean up the island. Think of it, Breeze.”
“You and Bobby gonna clean it up, huh?”
“It all started when Beeker got beat up and that cop just stood there, watching—”
“I remember,” Albury said. Laurie and Bobby, lovers. A soft touch and a fair-weather faggot. Why not? They were hopeless reformers, both of them. Maybe Laurie needed someone like that; together they could Save the Whales.
“You wouldn’t consider going with me?” Albury asked.
“Breeze, I love this place. It’s gorgeous. You … well, you’ve been here too long. You walk down Duval Street and all you see are the hustlers, bikers, and bums—”
“And who do you see? Mother Teresa? A dozen budding Picassos, maybe? Poppa’s ghost?”
“Breeze!”
Albury sighed. “You knew I was ready to get out.”
“And now I don’t blame you,” Laurie said gently, “but I can’t go. I think what Bobby’s doing is exciting. I know you don’t; you think it’s fanciful and naive.”
“Nothing will ever change here,” Albury said. “Nothing ever has.”
“You’ve been poisoned by the place,” she said. “You’ll never be able to see it, but it will change, honey. It will go on and change without you.”
Albury sat quietly for a time, his hand resting on her knee. Then he laughed.
“It’ll have to, Laurie, I’m through with the Rock. But maybe before I go, I can come up with a little present for you and Bobby.”
“What, Breeze?”
They talked across the car for fifteen minutes; Laurie got out a notebook and scribbled seriously. Albury, the knit cap pulled down to his eyebrows, hunkered down in the car seat, explaining everything slowly and twice.
“Can he marshall the troops today?” Albury asked finally.
“For something like this? You bet.”
“Good. Now, I gotta go before somebody recognizes me in this car.”
“Breeze, why can’t you tell me what’s happened?”
“Not yet, Laurie.”
“I saw Christine Manning.”
“Me, too,” he said quickly. “Ran into her at the hospital when I was up with Ricky.”
“Oh.” Laurie smiled fondly and touched his cheek. “You’ve been out on the boat, haven’t you? I can always tell, Breeze. Your face is shining, burnished.”
“It’s the summer sun off the water.”
“More than that,” she said, tidying herself for the walk to the Cowrie and fighting back words. “It’s more than just the goddamn sun, Captain Albury.”
IT WAS FIVE MINUTES to two in the afternoon when Drake Boone, Jr., sauntered into his office, a tall young woman on his arm. His timing could not have been worse.
“Long lunch?” asked Christine Manning, rising from a pillowy chair in the lobby.
“Did you have an appointment?” Boone demanded.
Suzanne, his secretary, wore a vaguely helpless expression. “I thought your afternoon was clear, Mr. Boone,” she said, thumbing with mock concentration through the day’s mail.
“Drake, you’d better ask your friend to leave us alone,” said Christine, as if it