“You’re not going to drive back to Lauderdale tonight, are you?” Johnny said, getting out of the car.
“I’ll find a rest stop,” Clete said.
“You don’t want to get arrested in Key West, Mr. Clete.” Johnny was leaning down, the car door still open, the breeze puffing his shirt on his wide shoulders. There was an unnatural shine in his eyes. “I get weirded out sometimes at night. You know that expression ‘the night has a thousand eyes’? That’s the way I feel.”
“We’ll sit on the dock,” Clete said.
The motel had been built on the southernmost tip of the key. The water was dark green under the moon, a small boat bumping against a piling beneath the dock. Johnny and Clete sat down in a pair of recliners. Clete felt two hundred years old. He offered the Champale bottle to Johnny. “No, thanks,” Johnny said.
“You’re not big on alcohol?”
“Not much.”
“It’s better if a guy can do without it.”
“So why don’t you?” Johnny said.
“I never think about it. That’s what happens when you’re on the juice most of your life. You don’t think about it.”
Johnny sniffed and pulled his cuffs down on his wrists. “It’s getting cold.”
“Want to tell me why you’re putting up with your uncle’s bullshit?”
“About Isolde?”
“Yeah, what do you think I’m talking about?”
Johnny flinched as though someone had touched him with a hot cigarette. “You don’t know how it is at my uncle Mark’s house.”
“I’ll take a wild guess. He’s a prick?”
Johnny picked at his nails and rubbed his nose with his wrist. “I think something happened when I was real little. Something I’m not supposed to remember. I have dreams about it. In the dream, I run away so I don’t see something that’s in a room with a closed door.”
“Marcel LaForchette told Dave Robicheaux a story about your uncle sitting in front of his desk while the power was out. There were lights flashing on his face.”
“Marcel said that?”
“According to Dave. Your uncle’s in a cult or he’s got magical powers or something?”
“Marcel better be careful.”
“Or?” Clete asked.
Johnny looked at the waves. “I got to go inside.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I catch colds easy.”
“You’re going to give up your girlfriend to a man like your uncle? You don’t seem like that kind of kid.”
“I’m not a kid.” Johnny stood up, his shirt flattening in the wind. A wave full of bioluminescent organisms that lit like green fireflies slid into the pilings. “We’re not in the place you think we are, Mr. Clete. It’s not the date you think it is, either.”
“Run that by me again?”
“What I said. You don’t have any idea what you’re involved in.”
“In my next life, I’m coming back as a swizzle stick so I won’t have to listen to this kind of stuff anymore.”
“It’s not funny,” Johnny said.
Clete stood up and corked the Champale bottle and dropped it on the chair. He thought he saw, three hundred yards to the south, a large wood boat with two masts and many oars. He wiped at his eyes and looked again. The boat was gone. “I’m going to head back to Fort Lauderdale,” he said.
“I meant it when I said watch out for the cops in Key West.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Clete said. “I got to tell you something about your girlfriend. If I don’t, I’ll resent myself in the morning.”
“Say it.”
“I fathered a daughter out of wedlock. Her mother was a stripper and a junkie. I never learned what happened to my daughter. A pimp is probably banging her now or a guy is shooting her up or giving her AIDS or herpes. You can’t walk off from an innocent girl like Isolde and expect her to land on her feet. Now clean up your act.”
“I can’t handle this, Mr. Clete.”
“Evidently not,” Clete said. “I’ll see you around, kid. I hope you have a good life. Right now you’re genuinely pissing me off.”
Clete walked to his car, the dock tilting as though he were aboard a ship dipping into waves higher than the gunwales.
He made it to Seven Mile Bridge, then pulled onto the shoulder, zoned and shit-blown, a stench rising from his armpits even with the air conditioner on. Voices in his head were arguing with each other, his ears whirring with noises like malarial mosquitoes. Twice Florida Highway Patrol cruisers had gone flying past him, buffeting his rental, their lights flashing. He knew he would be immediately arrested if he were stopped. He also knew the only way to downshift the situation was to park the rental, pull the keys, get in the backseat, drop the keys on the floor, and go to sleep. No reasonable cop would take him in.
But back there on the dock, Johnny’s biggest problem had been on full display. What do you do? Tell the kid not to sweat it, mainlining skag is groovy and the Abyss is probably a blast?
Clete swung off the shoulder, bounced over a divider, scraping the steel frame on the concrete, and headed back for the motel.
Chapter Eleven
The young clerk at the night desk looked at the badge in Clete’s hand. “That says you’re a private investigator.”
“Right,” Clete said.
“I can’t give out a room number unless you’re a real cop.”
“Thanks for the compliment. Walk me to the room.”
“I can’t do that, either.”
“Call the room.”
The clerk punched in a number on the console of his phone. “No answer,” he said.
“Call 911 and ask for an ambulance.”
“What for?”
“There’s a medical emergency in that room.”
“What if the guest is just asleep?”
“We’ll tell the ambulance to beat it. If there’s any charge, they can bill the motel. Your boss won’t mind.”
The clerk walked Clete to a room at the back of the motel and tapped on the door. When there was no answer, he stuck the key in the lock and twisted the knob and let the door swing open. The television was on, the sound off. Johnny was sitting in a chair, silhouetted against the screen, head on one shoulder. Clete stepped between Johnny and the clerk. “I’ll take it from here,” he said.
“Is he all right?”
“I’ll tell you if he’s not.” He put a ten-dollar bill in the clerk’s shirt pocket. “Thanks for your help.”
After the clerk was gone, Clete shook Johnny by the shoulder. His eyes were half lidded and his mouth hung open. A syringe and the rubber tubing he’d used for a tourniquet lay on the carpet. His skin was pale blue, as though it had been refrigerated.
Clete shook him again, harder. “Wake up,” he said.
Johnny’s head sagged forward. Clete went to the phone. “No,” Johnny said.
Clete replaced the receiver. “Look at me,” he said.
Johnny raised his head and tried to speak. His words were in slow motion and seemed to break like bubbles on his lips.
“How many times a day you shoot up?” Clete said.
Johnny didn’t reply. Clete made sure the curtains were secure, then clicked on the overhead light. He pulled up Johnny’s sleeves and turned up his forearms.
“You’re a pincushion, kid,” he said.
“Not a kid,” Johnny said. “Need to sleep now.”
“Where’s your stash?”
Johnny closed and opened his eyes. “I don’t have any.”
“I’m calling for an ambulance. I need to flush your stash.”
Johnny bent over, then tried to roll himself out of the chair but obviously didn’t have the strength. “Narcan,” he said.