"Those are the ugliest guppies I ever saw," Garcia said.
"They're catfish," Keyes said. "They eat up the slime."
"Well, they're doing a helluva job. It looks like somebody pissed in this aquarium."
"Anything's possible," Keyes muttered. He lay on the sofa, the newspaper spread across his chest. Garcia picked it up and pointed to the article about Mitch Klein.
"Did you do this, Brian?"
"I got mad. Klein went to see Ernesto yesterday and told him the case was locked. Told him he didn't have a chance. Told him to plead guilty or they were going to charbroil him. Ernesto wanted to fight the charges but Klein told him to quit while he was ahead. Ernesto was going nuts in jail, all the queers chasing him. He had that incredible tattoo on his joint. The one I told you about."
"Fidel Castro."
"Yeah," Keyes said. "Well, some maniac tried to bite it off one night in the shower. Thought if he chomped off Ernesto's dick, it would kill the real Fidel in Havana. Witchcraft, he said. Somehow Ernesto got away from the guy, but he was scared out of his mind. He said he'd do anything to get out of jail. So when Klein told him he'd better plan on twenty-five to life, I guess Ernesto figured he was better off dead."
"But Brian—"
"Why didn't that cocksucker Klein talk to me before he went over to the jail? That case wasn't locked, no way. You know I'm right, Al."
"All I know," the detective said, "is that we'll never know. You gotta calm down, brother."
Keyes closed his eyes. "Maybe I'm just mad at myself. I should have told Klein about El Fuegoas soon as I saw the second letter. But how was I to know the sonofabitch was in such a hurry to dump the case? Whoever heard of pleading your man five days after the goddamn crime?"
"He thought it was a loser," Garcia said. "He was just trying to expedite things."
Keyes sat up angrily, looking ragged.
"Expedite things, huh? Well, he expedited his client right into the morgue."
Garcia shrugged. "You hungry?"
"I thought you were here to arrest me."
"Naw. Klein's making noises about pressing charges. Assault with a deadly cocktail fork, something like that. Fortunately for you, nobody at the state attorney's office likes the little prick, so he's having trouble getting a warrant. He'd probably forget all about it if you'd pay his hospital bill. Can't be much—what's six little sutures on the tongue?"
Keyes smiled for the first time. "I suppose it's the least I could do."
"Make him an offer," Garcia advised. "If you're lucky, you might not even have to say you're sorry."
"What about the Harper case?"
"You read the paper. It's closed, man. Nothing I can do."
"But what about Bellamy and the other Fuegoletter?"
"Talk to Missing Persons," Garcia said dryly, "and they'll call it a probable accidental drowning. And they'll say, 'What letter?'"
The detective lumbered around the office, poking at books and files, flipping through notebooks, taking up time. Keyes could tell that something was bugging him.
"For what it's worth," Garcia said finally, "I agree with you. There's more to the Harper murder than the late great Ernesto Cabal. I bitched and moaned about keeping the case open, but I got outvoted."
"What're they afraid of?"
"It's the start of the season," Garcia said. "Snowbirds on the wing, tourist dollars, my friend. What's everyone so afraid of? Empty hotel rooms, that's what. A gang of homicidal kidnappers is not exactly a PR man's dream, is it? The boys at the Chamber of Commerce would rather drink Drano than read El Fuegoheadlines. Not now, Brian, not during the season."
"So that leaves me the Lone Ranger," said Keyes.
"I'll do what I can," Garcia said, "quietly."
"Great. Can you get the state to pay my fee?" The detective laughed.
"No, Kemosabe, but I got you a present. An honest-to-God clue. Remember the tag on the Cadillac at Pauly's Bar?"
"Sure," Keyes said. "GATOR 2."
"Well, guess who it comes back to."
"The legendary Viceroy Wilson!"
"Nope. The Seminole Nation of Florida, Incorporated."
"Swell," Keyes said, flopping back on the couch. "That's some swell clue, Tonto."
Cab Mulcahy arrived at work early, canceled two appointments, and asked his secretary to please hold all calls, except one. For the next three hours Mulcahy sat in his office and eyed the telephone. He loosened his necktie and pretended to work on some correspondence, but finally he just closed the drapes (to shield himself from the rest of the newsroom) and sat down in a corner chair. Through the window, Biscayne Bay was radiant with a sailboat regatta; Hobies skimmed and sliced fierce circles, leaping each other's wakes, orange and lemon sails snapping in the warm morning breeze. It was a gorgeous race under an infinite blue sky, but Cab Mulcahy paid no attention. It was one of the darkest days of his career. Ricky Bloodworth's column had turned out just as half-baked, unfocused, and banal as Mulcahy knew it would be. Yet he had thrown away twenty-two years of integrity and printed it anyway.
Why?
To flush Skip Wiley from his hideout.
It had seemed like a good plan. No sense blaming Keyes.
But what had Mulcahy done? He'd unleashed a monster, that's what. He glanced again at the phone. Where the hell was Wiley? How could he sit still while a jerk like Bloodworth came after his job?
Mulcahy pondered one plausible explanation: Skip Wiley was dead. That alone would account for this silence. Perhaps a robber had snatched him from his car on the expressway and killed him. It was not a pleasant scenario, but it certainly answered the big question. Mulcahy figured that death was the only thing that would slow Wiley down on a day like today. The more Cab Mulcahy thought about this possibility, the more he was ashamed of his ambivalence.
He could hear the phone ringing every few minutes outside the door, at his secretary's desk. Readers, he thought, furious readers. How could he tell them, yes, he agreed, Bloodworth's writing was disgraceful. Yes, it's a bloody travesty. Yes, he's a congenital twit and we've got no business publishing crap like that.
Much as he wanted to, Mulcahy could never say all that, because journalism was not the issue here.
There was a firm, well-rehearsed knock on the door. Before Mulcahy could get up, Ricky Bloodworth stuck his head in the room.
"I hate it when you do that," Mulcahy said.
"Sorry." Bloodworth handed him a stack of columns. "Thought you might want to take a gander at these."
"Fine. Go away now."
"Sure, Mr. Mulcahy. Are you feeling okay?"
"A little tired, that's all. Please shut the door behind you."
"Any one of those could run tomorrow," Bloodworth said. "They're sort of timeless."
"I'll keep that in mind."
Mulcahy sagged behind his desk and scanned the columns. With each sentence he grew queasier. Bloodworth had generously penciled his own headline ideas at the top of each piece:
"Abortion: What's the Big Deal?"
"Capital Punishment: Is the Chair Tough Enough?"
"Vietnam: Time to Try Again?"
Mulcahy was aghast. He buzzed his secretary.
"Seventy-seven calls about today's column," she reported. "Only three persons seemed to like it, and one of them thought it was satire."
"Has anyone phoned," Mulcahy asked, "who remotely soundedlike Mr. Wiley?"
"I'm afraid not."
Mulcahy's stomach was on fire; the coffee was going down like brake fluid. He opened the curtains and balefully scouted the newsroom. Ricky Bloodworth was back at his desk, earnestly interviewing two husky men in red fez hats. Mulcahy felt on the verge of panic.
"Get me Brian Keyes," he told his secretary. Enough was enough—he'd given Keyes his lousy twenty-four hours. Now it was time to find Skip Wiley, dead or alive.