a GED,” I said.
Have you ever seen a lighthouse lonely against dark seas and skies? Standing on a spit of sand or stone, lancing oceans and seas, gutting clouds, slicing fog? A majestic version of human engineering, a bastion against the absolute worst nature throws? Were lighthouses music, grown men would cry more frequently.
“Turn right,” Gonzáles directed, indicating with his right pointy finger.
Perceptively, the wind decreased. We drove down a lane lined with giant banyan trees along both sides. The resultant canopy made it even darker. The wind funneled through from behind us, west to east, and scooted my truck along faster.
“Where we going?” I asked.
“The Inn. Surely the bridge will be closed. Might even wash out.”
“We haven’t checked out yet.” The way it looked, we’d be here a few more days.
The governor’s face scrunched up as he stared at banyan limbs whipping about us. “I grew up on the island, and I’ve never seen a storm come on so quickly.” He rubbed a misted spot off the side window. “If that high pressure system is stalled just to the north of us, this storm will sit here for a while.”
“Meteorology comes naturally to some people,” I said, making my smile disarming. “Too bad talking about the weather’s become a cliché.”
“Not at all,” he said. “I listen to NOAA weather radio every morning.”
A flying object shot into my line of sight, just for a second at the end of a wiper arc, and I braced against the seat.
The truck shook and we heard the metallic clang even over the storm sounds. I held the wheel hard, trying not to overcompensate and worrying about the new metallic green paint-job.
Tapes leaned forward. “Left front quarter-panel.”
The GT was driving without malfunction. “Damn. I hate body work.”
Tapes gave me that look.
“Okay, okay.” I shook my head. Tapes usually fixed body damage and I worked on the engine and accessories.
Gonzáles directed us left and right and a couple turns I wasn’t altogether sure about, and there was the José Gaspar Inn. I recalled that in addition to being a lawyer, he had family money. I guess the grand old hotel was part of that.
I drove through the turnaround under the flapping canopy and we dropped him off.
“Thanks,” he said without any sense of closure.
We went and parked the truck, selecting what I thought would be a safe location. Knowing Gonzáles owed us for the ride, I didn’t mind driving over his lawn and parking on the lee side of the big, sprawling inn. The GT nestled alongside the east wing up against a giant gardenia bush which was whipping around like a gutted snake.
Something had hit the roof and ripped the CB antenna off. The CB was inop anyway, and I hadn’t fixed it since modern cell phones came upon the scene.
With a minimum amount of guilt, I hoped that intriguing woman named Mary Lynn was stuck here, too. Tapes says I fall in love at the drop of a hat. But the fact is I’m seldom attracted at first sight. And once I was old enough to figure life out, I’ve tried not to let the fact that a woman is very attractive sway me to favor her. Sure. But this woman’s high forehead and arched eyebrows spoke of quick intelligence. Her two-color piercing eyes got my attention like a red flag to El Toro Diablo and her legs made my gut contract like a tropical disease. Then the specter of Rebecca in Tallahassee cast a great shadow over the cold, desolate land that was my love life.
Henry Beauchamps Gonzáles was probably dead before we reached the side door.
Tapes retrieved his twenty-five-foot Lufkin Unilok tape measure from the glove compartment and, battling the increasing wind, I got our wet weather gear from the cross-body Trukbox in the pickup’s bed. I believe in the Boy Scout motto or, more specifically, the Seven P Principle: Proper Prior Planning Prevents Piss Poor Performance.
It didn’t help the governor a bit.
2: MONDAY, 7:00 A.M.
We came in the east wing door of the Inn, along the high-ceilinged hall, arguing as usual.
“I think John Wayne’s Alamo movie was best,” I said, picking up the conversation we were in the middle of when the governor joined us.
Tapes snorted. “With Frankie Avalon in it?”
I had nothing against Frankie, but he’d never won any Oscars, or Grammys for that matter. “The Walt Disney one had Buddy Ebsen in it,” I pointed out.
“It also had Mike Fink and the other Davy Crockett stuff John Wayne conveniently left out.” Tapes slung water off his brow.
I couldn’t argue that, so I said, “I can’t argue that. But how about this: Richard Boone was in the Duke’s version.”
We passed rooms on each side, the doors topped by old-fashioned transoms. Seemingly as an afterthought, somebody had installed fire-sprinklers and the assorted PVC and hardware right on the high ceiling of the passageway. The José Gaspar Inn was built sometime around the twenties and echoed that style. Old-timey carpeting in the corridors, high ceilings, big rooms with giant paddle fans. Bogart in Latin America, sitting there smoking and drinking, overhead fan moving slowly. Atmosphere. This hotel had four wings laid out on the cardinal points.
We’d checked in yesterday evening and had a ground floor room; since it wasn’t tourist season or tarpon tournament time, the sallow-faced manager who’d assigned us the room had told me that all the guests were staying downstairs along this east wing hall. And the permanent residents, like himself—and, I guess, Governor Gonzáles—lived on the third and top floor.
“That’s not fair,” Tapes said, “nobody can top Richard Boone.”
“See, I told you so,” I said, and somebody screamed.
I just knew it was a female-in-terror scream like you hear in the movies.
Wrong.
We hustled down the corridor and in the middle where the wings adjoin and the grand staircase zigzags up to the third floor, we found the governor—make that the late governor—and a man standing over him.
The man had screamed. He was a dapper little man wearing a white short-sleeved shirt and a bow tie.
He whimpered lower this time, evoking the memory of his louder scream.
Tapes and I skidded to a stop.
“Uh oh,” I said.
Tapes said nothing.
Henry Beauchamps Gonzáles had been a living, thriving human being not minutes ago sharing human concerns with us. Like “rapidly dissipated” and the weather.
Still dressed in his wet jogging outfit, he lay there at the foot of the stairwell very dead. His neck was askew.
“He told us he was no meteorologist,” I said, the words
