Trap Line - Carl Hiaasen [9]
IF THE GREEN LANTERN had any distinction at all, it was as the only bar in Key West that never claimed to have fueled Ernest Hemingway. The bar was a chintzy dive of plasterboard and shadows in what was supposed to be a nautical motif.
It seemed like every time Albury went in, there was a different parrot harping in a bamboo cage over the cash register. The regulars would sometimes turn the nightly dart games on the birds, when things got loose.
Albury nursed a beer and looked quietly around. “Have you seen Winnebago Tom?” he finally asked a bartender named Pete.
“He was here. Probably out back.”
“Out back” meant upstairs in a supposedly private room reached by a stairway guarded by a tough, tattooed young Cuban. People said he had once been a commando.
Albury gestured toward the stairs with his head. The guard nodded slightly and let him pass without a word. Upstairs, about ten men formed a smoky circle on the linoleum floor, playing poker.
Winnebago Tom leaned nonchalantly against the wall, watching the action with almost scornful disinterest. Albury knew he was the house. Tom was wiry, slick, one of those savvy Key West Cubans whose family had been around so long they had all but forgotten Spanish. Tom worked for the Machine. A linkman, they said.
“Well, hey, bubba.” Tom prised himself off the wall. He gestured toward the knot of men on the floor around a nucleus of dirty ten-and twenty-dollar bills. “Looking for a game?”
“Can we talk?”
Tom shrugged. “These are my friends.”
Albury lit a cigarette to camouflage his dislike. “It’s business,” he said.
“Business!” Tom exclaimed with artificial brightness. “Why didn’t you say so? Why don’t you go down and wait for me in the camper? Help yourself to a drink. I won’t be long.”
Parked behind the bar, Tom’s Winnebago was the most luxurious in all Monroe County. It was cool and quiet, the air conditioner barely audible. It smelled of wood and real leather. Albury counted eight stereo speakers inset into the walls. He poured himself a stiff scotch from one of two dozen bottles in a long cabinet behind the bar. The glass was crystal, Albury noted. Tom liked to boast that his camper had cost fifty thousand dollars.
After fifteen minutes Tom came in, humming “Help Me Make It Through the Night.” He poured himself three ounces of Chivas, drank off half of it with a smack, and smiled at Albury.
“Yessir, business. What can I do for you, Breeze?”
“What do you know about my traps?”
“Orange-and-white. Everybody knows that. Family colors, always have been.”
Albury stood and helped himself to another scotch.
“I heard you lost a few,” Tom ventured.
“A few hundred,” Albury said harshly. “Tom, you lived here your whole life. You know what this kind of thing means. You know the rules.”
“I know there’s a law against cutting traps.”
“You know the rules. Forget the fucking law.”
Tom ran a manicured finger around the edge of his glass until it squeaked.
“You called me two, three days ago,” Albury said.
“Did I?”
Albury slammed down his glass.
“OK, I called you. I’m a businessman. You said no. I said OK. A man can say no,” Tom said. “Even in this town, a man can still say no. I respect you for that, Breeze. Lots of fishermen woulda jumped at the chance for that kind of money. You said no. I respect that. ‘Course, you weren’t hurtin’ then quite as badly as you are now.”
Albury’s eyes flashed. “Three hundred traps.”
Tom whistled unctuously. “Damn! I’m really sorry, Breeze. But why you tellin’ me about this?”
“Because I’m considering whether to kill you.”
Tom laughed thinly. “Oh?”
Albury sat down in a leather chair that swiveled. He toyed with a set of stereo headphones. “That’s right, Tom. If you had anything to do with it.”
“I didn’t, Breeze.”
“It would have taken a boat a day and a half to cut all those traps off,” Albury said. “The real mystery is how they knew