“What are you talking about?” said Danny — all at once, he was a chaos of emotions. Confusion, dark thoughts, his heart soaring with unexpected hope. “You always wanted Gina. We talked about it a million times.”
“Yeah, but you know me: I want everything in skirts that’s not a Scotsman. And that’s the other thing. Let’s face it: Gina’s a mommy waiting to happen. I’m not ready to go there. That’s always been more your thing than mine.”
Danny had to admit that was true. Ellis was the lover-boy, he was more the family-man type. “So — what? — you’re dumping her?”
“Already did,” said Ellis — and he drained half of the half of his beer that was left. “I told her right out, too. ‘Danny’s the one who’s right for you.’ I said it to her just like that, those words.”
“Hey, if Gina wanted me, she’d…” But Danny glanced at his friend halfway through the sentence and the sentence died on his lips. What was that look on Ellis’s face? That sickly look, his eyes all eager, his mouth all quirked up like that — what was that?
“I mean, this is good, right?” Ellis said. “I mean, this is what you want. We’re good here — blood brothers like always — right?”
“Well… sure,” Danny said. He was trying to keep his imagination from going haywire with all these nutso dark thoughts of his. Still, he couldn’t help asking, “Hey, did anyone, like… say anything to you? About me — or Gina? You know what I mean? Did anyone, you know — give you a hard time about it or anything?”
It seemed to Danny there was a pause then, a strange beat of silence during which Ellis, with his wild stare and his twitching mouth, was about to burst out with some unbelievable news. But he didn’t burst out with anything. He laughed his cynical Ellis laugh. He looked down at the tabletop. He said, “Don’t be an idiot. I’m telling you, I screwed up. It happens. We’re good, right? I mean, we’re good, Danny. Aren’t we?”
Gina had a studio on the West Side. Her parents helped her pay for it so she wouldn’t have to live in a bad neighborhood. The next day, Saturday, Danny set out, meaning to walk over there. Somehow, though, he drifted north. Before he even knew it, he found himself up near the museum. He found himself outside the elegant stone townhouse where Mary lived with her parents and with Tunny.
He passed by slowly, looking up at the large windows. He could see the chandelier in there, burning above the foyer. When he reached the corner, he went around the block and passed by the townhouse again.
He didn’t know what to think anymore, what to believe. He did know, and then he didn’t. He did believe and then he told himself it was ridiculous. After a while, he couldn’t think straight about it. He went around the block yet again, passed the townhouse yet again. As he walked, he slipped into a daydream. In his daydream, he charged angrily up to the front door. He rang the bell firmly. Inside, he looked Tunny right in his smirking face and demanded to see Mary’s father. When Mary’s father came down the sweeping staircase — wearing one of those fine, silvery suits Danny had seen crime bosses wear on TV — Danny stepped up to him and looked him in the eye.
He did not imagine himself yelling at the man or pointing his finger or talking tough in any way. That was too unrealistic even to daydream. Instead, he was reasonable. He said, “Look, sir, I want to be clear with you. Please — don’t do anything for me, okay? I did you a good turn. Now you can do me a good turn by leaving me alone, leaving my friends alone and the people I work with.”
“Sure, kid, sure,” the older man said in his daydream. “Whatever you say.”
“No offense or anything,” Danny told him. “I helped your daughter because it was right and — it’s all ruined if something wrong comes out of it. I don’t want to scare anyone or hurt anyone. I just want to live my life and do what’s right. That’s all.”
By the time Danny reached this point in his daydream, he had moved away from the townhouse. He was still working the daydream over, refining it, as he crossed the park towards Gina’s place.
They sat on her sofa side by side, close but not touching, shy in spite of all the time they’d spent together, all the working and the jokes.
“I feel pretty stupid,” Gina said. She said it with a laugh, but her eyes grew watery.
“No, no,” said Danny. “Ellis is a nice guy, he just…”
“…figured I’d make a good one-night stand. Or one-week stand or whatever.”
“No, no. He likes you. He really does. He’s told me that a million times. He’s just… not ready to make a commitment yet, that’s all. It’s not you, Gina. Really.”
She turned her face to him, her pert, pretty face. She gave him a crooked smile. “You’re a nice guy, Danny. Really. You are.”
The thing about Gina’s eyes was you could see through them right into her. You could see how tender-hearted she was and vulnerable. She didn’t try to hide it. Danny could fashion whole imagined lifetimes out of that look she was giving him right now. He imagined how he would protect her and keep her from the harsh things of the world so that she wouldn’t become harsh herself and would be able to give him that look forever, even when they were old.
“All right, pity party’s over,” she said suddenly. She reached over and clapped her hand down on top of his. “Let’s talk about how well you’re doing. Division Manager. At your age. I mean, how awesome is that? I’m so glad for you, Danny. Things are going so well for you.”
Danny turned his hand so that he could take hold of Gina’s. Their fingers intertwined. Her hand was warm and the warmth seemed to travel from her up his arm and all through him.
“And they’re just going to get better and better,” she said, with her tender eyes on him and her warm hand squeezing his. “I can feel it.”
Danny looked at her with all his love. “I can feel it too,” he said.
Murder in Key West
by Michael Haskins
Copyright © 2007 by Michael Haskins
A former reporter living on Key West, and now the public information officer for that city, Michael Haskins launches his fiction career with a vivid story set in Key West. EQMM has just learned that some characters in this story also appear in the novel Mr. Haskins recently completed. The book has won the Florida Noir Seminar’s novel contest.
Tony Whyte’s once sparkling blue eyes were lifeless and stared into oblivion; his frozen expression suggested no fear or pain, not even surprise, and his Key West tan had turned ashen. Both hands clutched an old sword blade that had been forced through his chest and impaled him to the boat chair where he died. A small pirate flag hung from its handle.
A puddle of congealed blood sloshed like Jell-O under the chair as the luxurious fifty-foot trawler rocked in its slip. The teak-paneled main cabin appeared neat, only Tony looked out of place, while the sweet stickiness of blood, mixed with the sourness of death, fouled the cabin’s air.
I searched for a pulse in his neck, but knew I wouldn’t find one. Tony was as cold as granite from a Quincy quarry and almost as hard.
Classical music played from the trawler’s satellite radio. I looked at the radio’s screen and Bach, Cello Suite No. 6 in D Major by Pablo Casals scrolled across it. The music was counterpoint to the cacophony of sounds coming from the Key West Old Town marina outside Schooner Wharf Bar: a mixture of bar patrons’ happiness, captains barking orders to crews, tourists shrieking excitement, boat engines revving, and traffic.
I walked outside to breathe the salty air. Too many people had seen me on the boat, so I couldn’t walk away. Not that I wanted to. Tony was a guy I had worked with years ago on a newspaper in Puerto Rico. We had taken different roads in life, but two months ago, our paths crossed again in Key West, Florida, my home.