They were sitting out on the screened-in porch of Louis’s cottage. Landeta was sprawled in an old wicker chair, his feet propped up on a table, a paper plate in his lap. Louis sat hunched, elbows on knees, an empty Heineken dangling from his fingers. It had been too hot to eat inside. A wisp of a breeze was coming across the low dunes, barely strong enough to stir the sea oats. The water out in the gulf was as flat as a mirror. Pierre’s fan whirred away in the doorway and Issy was stretched out on the cement floor, trying to get her belly cooled.
“Fuck, it’s hot,” Landeta said, setting the paper plate aside.
“It’s August,” Louis said. “You want another dog?”
Landeta shook his head. “Got any dessert?” he asked.
“Stale Ho Hos.”
“I’ll pass.”
They were quiet. Louis was looking out at the gulf. The sky was starting to turn pink. He got up and went to the refrigerator, returning with a fresh Heineken for himself and another Diet Coke for Landeta.
“C’mon,” Louis said. “Let’s take a walk.”
Landeta followed Louis out the screen door, and across the sandy yard.
“We going to the beach?” Landeta asked.
“Yeah. It’ll be cooler down there.”
They headed up over a small dune. Landeta stopped in the sea oats, his face turned toward the water to catch the small breeze.
“Damn, that feels good.”
Louis took a drink of his beer. “Mel, I need to ask you a question.”
“This sounds serious.”
“Who the hell is Rocky King?”
Landeta laughed. “He was an NYPD detective on television in the fifties.”
“Super-cop kind of guy?”
“On the contrary. Rocky had no brilliant ideas or special powers and wasn’t even particularly smart.”
“So?”
“He was a stubborn sonofabitch who just tracked down clues, followed leads, and stayed on the case until he figured it out.”
They walked a little further then Landeta stopped and sat down on the sand. Louis dropped down next to him, kicking off his flip-flops.
Louis gazed out at the water. There were no islands to be seen on this side of Captiva. No clumps of green. Just the pure, flat, blue-green expanse of the gulf, fading away to the horizon.
“I saw Roberto today,” Louis said.
“How was he?” Landeta asked.
“Not good. He was with a DCF woman. He said he wanted to go home. And that it was all my fault he couldn’t.”
“Look, they’ll find him a good home. A year from now, he’ll have a foster family, a puppy, and they’ll all be eating Happy Meals together. The kid will be playing Nintendo with his friends instead of sitting in a bone pile talking to ghosts.”
Louis picked at the label on the Heineken. It wasn’t going to be that easy, but he knew there was no way Landeta could understand that.
“You got any kids?” Louis asked.
“Couldn’t get a woman to hang around long enough.” Landeta was looking out at the water and sky. “You?”
Louis took a drink, resting the bottle on his knee. “I almost had one. Knew a girl in college. I got her pregnant.”
Landeta popped the top on his can of Diet Coke. When he didn’t say anything, Louis went on.
“I told her all kinds of crap. Like it wasn’t mine, I wanted to finish school, I couldn’t deal with it.”
“In other words, you were a shit-head.”
“Yeah.”
“What happened to her?”
“She left school and got an abortion.”
Landeta took a long drink of his Diet Coke. “You sure?”
Louis kept his eyes on the gulf. Sure? Hell, he had never thought about it before. There was no reason to think Kyla hadn’t done what she told him she was going to do.
“Shit,” he said under his breath.
“What?”
“Like I really needed to be thinking about that possibility right now.”
Landeta didn’t answer. He set the can of Diet Coke in the sand and took off his glasses. His eyes were closed and he was leaning back on his elbows, his face upturned to catch the faint breeze.
“Is this why you called me?” he asked without looking at Louis.
“I called you to invite you to dinner, that’s all.”
Landeta let out a low chuckle.
“What’s so funny?” Louis asked.
“Man, you love living on your little island, don’t you?”
Louis didn’t answer. He looked back out at the water.
“What was her name?” Landeta asked.
“Kyla.” Louis took a drink of beer. “I fucked it up,” he said softly, shaking his head.
Landeta was quiet. Louis finished off his beer quickly and looked out at the pink and orange sky. The silence grew, and so did Louis’s need to fill it.