Keeping my mouth firmly under control to keep from drooling, I handed over some bills and said, “You know that couple that just left?”
“Dr. Coffey? Yeah, he comes in here every week on his day off. Always gets the same thing, ham and Swiss on rye. I don’t know how people eat the same thing all the time like that. I like a little variety in my life.”
“You know her too?”
She made a mouth and counted out my change. “Not really. Don’t want to, neither. Frankly, I don’t know what he sees in her.”
She leaned over and put her elbows on the counter, ready to get down to the nitty-gritty. “If you ask me, she’s bad news for him. He seems like a pretty nice guy, but who wants to have a man cut open your chest and mess with your heart when he’s dumb enough to hang out with a junkie like her?”
Personally, I didn’t want anybody cutting open my chest and messing with my heart, no matter who they hung out with, but I could see her point.
I said, “That’s funny, I’ve only heard about her two times, and both times people mentioned that she was a junkie.”
“Well, you can tell just by looking at her, can’t you?”
“You don’t think he uses, too?”
“He don’t seem the type, you know? That’s why it’s so weird that he’s with her. You’d think he’d have better taste. I mean, that woman is pure trash.”
The food-prep person had my sandwich assembled and was slicing it in half. He or she then wrapped it in that gray kind of waxed paper that you never see anyplace except in a deli, giving it a neat fold to keep all the goodies inside. The sandwich went in the bottom of a paper bag, with a dill pickle the size of a man’s dick wrapped and placed on top of it. Two bags of chips went in last. I was ready to leap over the counter and snatch it up, but the counter woman must have had eyes in the back of her head, because the second a stack of napkins was thrown in and the bag was neatly folded down, she went and got it.
“Enjoy,” she said.
I grabbed the giant-size coffee on the counter and headed for the door. “Thanks a lot,” I said. “See you.”
That’s the nice thing about living on the key. It’s small enough that when we say “See you,” we really mean it.
Twenty-Five
I drove half a block to the Crescent Beach parking lot, parked under some live oak trees, and jogged to the steps leading to the main pavilion. Ask anybody who lives on Siesta Key and we’ll proudly tell you that Crescent Beach was entered in the World Sand Challenge in 1987 and named the finest and whitest sand in the world. Heck, we’ll tell you even if you don’t ask. We’ll also tell you the sand is made of ancient quartz crystal, and that even when the temperature is hot enough to make your brain boil, the sand on Crescent Beach is still cool to your feet. Some people claim the beach has healing properties, and that Siesta Key is one of the energy centers of the planet. I don’t know if that’s true, but if you live on the key, even if you have surf at your front door like I do, you get a compulsion every now and then to go to Crescent Beach and scuff your bare feet in the sand.
I climbed the steps with my precious deli sack in one hand and coffee in the other, bypassing the vending machines and snack bar and going to a picnic table under the shade of a soaring roof. I put my coffee and deli bag on the table, swung my legs over the bench, and took a seat facing the ocean. Down on the white sand, broiling tourists were laid out like meat on a grill. A few children were splashing around in the waves while their parents sat under umbrellas and watched them.
Except for a young man at a table about ten feet from me, I had the area to myself. He was swarthy and bearded, in dirty cutoffs and a floppy dress shirt with the cuffs suspiciously buttoned. With a faded bandanna tied over a mop of black curls and his eyes hidden behind dark reflective shades, he looked like a wanted poster for a Middle Eastern terrorist. He was staring out at the water and muttering to himself in the way of people who’ve stopping taking their medication, but he wasn’t speaking English, and I couldn’t tell if his foreign tongue was an actual language or one he’d invented for his personal world. A canvas bag sat on the pavement at his feet, most likely holding books or food or all his worldly possessions. Or a bomb.
I laid out my lunch like a priest preparing Communion. I unwrapped my sandwich and pickle and opened the chips, placing them at exactly the right spots. Placement of food is important. You don’t want the important stuff to be over on the side. The main stuff should be in the upper middle, with accompaniments to the side or slightly below. I’ve been known to rearrange a plate several times before I get the order just right. Eating in the right order is important, too. First a bite of the main stuff, then one of each of the side things in turn. If you take two bites of something in a row, you’ll screw up the whole rhythm. Not that I’m a control freak or anything.
I took a bite of sandwich and closed my eyes, making an mmmmmmm sound, like a baby nursing. There is nothing in the world as good as one of Anna’s turkey and pumpernickel sandwiches with tarragon mayonnaise. If there were a sandwich hall of fame, it would be in it.
A faint breeze moved the shadowed air, and a couple of black gulls sailed in and landed a few feet away to look hopefully at me. Not to be selfish, I left two little corners of bread for the gulls, tossing it as far away from me as I could so they would move away. They went for it with a loud flutter of wings, and didn’t even notice that I also had a brownie. The young man took no notice of me or of the gulls, but continued to look fixedly at the ocean. I was glad he was ignoring me. I much prefer being ignored.
Just as I took the last bite of brownie and was ready to take the last sip of coffee—I plan these things so they work out like that—there was a commotion over in the snack bar area. A security guard trotted past my table to see what was happening, and the young man at the adjoining table got up to walk a few steps away from his table and stare. I half-turned on the bench to look, too, and met the gaze of the bald-headed man who had tried to attack me in the Crab House parking lot. A crowd of people pushed between us, but I was positive it was the same man.
A woman separated herself from a group of passing tourists and walked briskly to the young man’s table, where she swooped down and grabbed his canvas bag and walked away with it. The young man kept staring toward the dustup at the snack bar.
I jumped to my feet and yelled, “Hey!”
The woman broke into a run and disappeared down the steps to the parking lot. The security guard had been swallowed up by the crowd in the snack bar, so I stepped over the bench, ready to chase after the woman.
Without looking toward me, the young man stretched his arm out at shoulder level. His hand was clenched in a fist, with the first two fingers stabbing a stern V. Then he turned and walked rapidly away, going toward the beach.
I stopped and turned my gaze back to my own table. Trying to act as if nothing had happened, I gathered up my lunch refuse and carried it to a trash bin. The young man who seemed out of touch with reality was Paco, and he was telling me to butt the hell out. He had just made a drop in a drug sting, and I had almost ruined it.
Whatever had happened over in the snack bar area had apparently been resolved, and the crowd there began to drift away. The bald-headed man had disappeared, and I was left wondering if I had imagined him. Maybe the stress of everything that had happened was making me see danger where there wasn’t any. Paco was moving along the edge of the shore, most likely headed toward one of the beach accesses where his Harley would be parked.