Mike Jastrzebski - Key Lime Blues

I considered the implications while glancing up and down the street to make sure we were still alone. “So finish telling me why you decided to take the diamonds to a con man like Elvis.”

“You’re being an asshole again, Darling.” Destiny stopped and turned toward me. Her face was grim and I suspected her eyes were shooting death rays in my direction.

I placed a hand on her arm and urged her forward. “I’m sorry,” I said in an effort to keep the peace. “If you’ll tell me why you chose Elvis, I’ll be good.” I was anxious to keep her moving, and curious about why she’d done what she had.

“One time after I went to see Elvis, he got sort of chatty. Guys tend to get nervous and over-talkative with me. Anyway, he told me about some of his other clients. He mentioned one guy he sees who’s a mobster up in Miami and another who’s a drug dealer. There are also a couple of politicians who come down to see him from Tallahassee on a regular basis. I figured the mobster could tell Elvis where to go to sell a few diamonds.”

The pitch of Destiny’s voice, the click of her heels on the sidewalk, and Key West itself was beginning to wear on my psyche. I’m sure when Nick flew to Key West he expected it would be a simple job, like I’d expected when I agreed to help my mother. Now Nick was dead and I was being plunged deeper into a situation I wanted no part of. I had no idea who had killed Nick. I didn’t even know if his death had anything to do with the case.

To top it off, I’d been threatened, almost shot, and come close to being emasculated by a beautiful stripper on a dark street in the middle of the night.

Once again I was overwhelmed by the temptation to leave Destiny to her own devices, but I knew Bob was pissed enough to come after me anyway. I also was awash with the same sick feeling I’d felt when I screwed up with Celine. At this point I was pretty sure that if I didn’t help her, Destiny was going to end up dead too. I found it ironic. Despite my resolve, here I was right back where I swore I’d never go again. Paradise was turning into a jokester’s version of hell, and I wasn’t happy about it.

“If Elvis knows he’s dealing with a mobster or a drug dealer,” I asked, “why doesn’t he go to the police about them? It would be the responsible thing for him to do.”

“Don’t be silly. He’s like a priest. When someone tells him something it’s in confidence. I’d never discuss anything with him if I thought he’d blab everything we talked about to someone else. He’d be run right out of business.”

“He’s a psychic,” I reminded her. “Not a priest. Not a counselor. Not a psychiatrist. Most people would consider him a con man. If he’s legit he’d go to the cops with this information. Besides, he must not think it’s important to keep things confidential. I mean think about it- he told you about the mobster and the drug dealer and the politicians.”

“But he never used any names, Wes. And you don’t know him so you have no right to criticize. Elvis is a professional and behaves like one.”

“Well Bob’s a professional too,” I reminded her. “The thing is-professionals in his field kill people for a living. Focus on staying alive, will you? If we want to keep breathing, we need to return those diamonds to Frankie-sooner rather than later. In fact, I think we should go see Elvis tonight. I don’t care what time it is.”

Destiny shook her head. “We’ll have to wait for morning. Elvis has-let me think-he called it noctiphobia.”

“As in nocturnal?” I asked. “You trying to tell me he’s afraid of the night?”

“I am. He locks up the house at six o’clock and doesn’t open the door until the sun comes up.”

“And this doesn’t strike you as being a little odd?”

She tilted her head back, looked up at the dark sky, and appeared lost in thought. She might be nuts, but she was also gorgeous, so I stood there watching her and waiting. After several moments of silence, she spoke. “I’m not afraid of the dark, but because Elvis is, it doesn’t make him crazy does it? And I think all of us fear germs a little.” She let out a sigh and looked in my direction, waiting for me to agree with her.

“Fearing germs or even the dark is not very unusual,” I admitted. “Obsessing over those things is an illness.”

“So what if he’s a little strange?” she said. “He’s got a real gift and he has never been wrong in any of the prophecies he’s made for me.”

I stared into her blue eyes. They reminded me of a cat I’d owned when I was a child. She wore the same look the cat possessed while playing with a catnip toy, wild and uncontrolled.

“Okay,” I said. I didn’t want to argue with her anymore, so I changed the subject. “Let’s find a place to stay. Any hotels or motels you can think of where they might have a vacancy?”

“At this time of the year? I kind of doubt it.”

“We’ve passed half a dozen small rooming houses with vacancy signs on them,” I pointed out.

“Those places aren’t like the big hotels. It’s four in the morning. It’s not like they have someone on duty twenty-four hours a day.” She stopped, reached into her purse and pulled out a cell phone. “I’ll call Tanya. Maybe we can crash at her place for the night.”

She hit a single button and waited. “Her phone is ringing now.”

All I could think of at the moment was how tired I was, and how surprised I was when I realized Destiny’s phone was still working. I would have thought after the way she’d been slamming her purse around all night, anything inside would have been reduced to rubble.

I looked up and down the street, then wandered away from Destiny and sat down on an open piece of curb. While I waited, I reached up and caressed my temples. Across the street the fronds of a small palm tree danced in the shadows and the early morning breeze carried the scent of the ocean inland. For the first time since leaving the bar I began to relax, and my headache had almost disappeared by the time Destiny got off the phone.

She walked over and stood next to me. “We’re all set. Tanya said come on over. She said we could use the spare room.”

“What did she say when you told her I was with you?”

She sat down next to me on the curb, stretched her long legs out into the street and took a deep breath. I watched her breasts rise and fall, and rubbed my fingers a little more furiously along the side of my head.

“Dammit. I forgot to tell her. I said we were in a jam and needed a place to crash for a couple of hours. I’m sure she thinks it’s me and Billy. It won’t make a big difference to Tanya. I’ll explain it all to her when we get to her house.”

Standing up I thought, this should be interesting. I stretched my back, and reached out my hand to Destiny. She took it, and while she scrambled to her feet I looked around and saw the headlights of a car turn onto the street a couple of blocks down. The car was creeping toward us and although it could have been a lost tourist, I was afraid Bob had found us.

Without a second thought I grabbed Destiny’s wrist and dragged her along while I dove behind a nearby van. When I thrust her up against the van she began to hit at me with flailing fists.

“What do you think you’re doing?” she asked.

I put my lips close to her ear and said, “Shut up. There’s a car coming. It might be Bob.”

She stopped struggling and, when the car approached, I pressed her against the ground where we tried to hide in the shadow of the van.

The car moved down the street, stopping every few houses as if the driver was looking for an address, or perhaps us. When it stopped in front of our hiding place, I reached behind my back and pulled the gun from my shorts.