It was early dusk when we stepped outside the Leaf Shed. The sky was yellow in the west; the last vague purple shadows were stretching toward oblivion on the sidewalk. Palms were softly rustling, and the air seemed strangely mottled, as if light and dark were different-colored marbles being stirred.
"Raul's?" I suggested.
"My favorite," Maggie said, and we climbed onto our bikes.
Suffering back in Jersey all those grim and dreary years, this exact scenario had been a fantasy of mine: heading out for cocktails on a fat-tire, one-speed bicycle. The velvety light, the caressing air; the engaging and exotic woman who was not like everybody else—all this was amazingly close to what I'd daydreamed. In the fantasy, though, my mood was never quite so tangled, my simple, aimless habits never so assaulted by sudden complications. Life, sometimes, is too rich for its own damn good.
Anyway, Raul's was one of those Key West places where you go through the door and, almost instantly, you're back outside again—in this case, on a trellised patio hung with bougainvillea and presided over by an ancient mahogany tree with scarred and mottled bark. We found a table in a corner and I ordered a bottle of Viognier. Good aperitif, Viognier. Not sweet but it tastes like peaches.
We clinked glasses and I told Maggie that I'd been to Redmond's Boatyard earlier that day. She seemed surprised.
"I thought you weren't getting any more involved," she said.
"That's what I thought too." I drummed fingers on the table. I knew what I had to say next but I didn't want to say it. "Ortega died right after I talked to him."
Maggie almost met my eyes, not quite. "I saw it in the paper."
"I got him real worked up. Agitated. Panting. The monitor—"
Maggie touched my arm then. Her hand was very cool. "You're not saying it's your fault? Look, he was a bad man and he had a terrible disease."
I appreciated that and I liked having her touch me. There was a sulky silence and I sort of drew it out. But finally I said, "Ortega dead—that means we'll probably never know a goddamn thing about what happened to Kenny. Nothing. That bother you?"
She took her hand off my arm. I still felt where her fingers had been. "Doesn't change anything," she said. "But—"
"But it stinks. It's incomplete. I guess that's why I had to go to the boatyard."
The waiter came and poured more wine. I was extremely grateful.
"I saw his boat," I said.
"Dream Chaser," Maggie said wistfully. Could those two wrenching words be said in any other way?
"Spoke to the new owner. Andrus."
"Nice guy, huh? Happy. Gentle."
"He'd seen the guys in snorkels too," I said. "Saw them pulling up on Jet Skis. Remembered zilch except the snorkels."
We drank some wine and briefly looked around the place. At the bar there were a couple of big- haired tourist women getting plastered. A local guy with a parrot was trying to pick them up. He didn't seem to notice that the bird was crapping down his shoulder.
"But here's what I can't figure out," I said. "How did they know Kenny was back? I mean, how long was he in town?"
To my great surprise, Maggie shrugged. "I'm not really sure. Not more than a day or two, I think."
"You think?"
Her face got a little bit confused. "Yeah, I think. What's the problem?"
"But he was staying with you, right?" This was not intended as an accusation, though in my own ears it sounded sort of harsh.
"He didn't stay with me. He stayed at a guest house downtown."
Now my face got confused. "But wait a second. I thought you and Kenny ... I mean, I thought the two of you were ..."
"Lovers?"
The word hung in the air. I couldn't answer it. I didn't have to.
"Jesus, Pete. You think it all comes down to sex?"
I might have blushed at that, because the truth was that's exactly what I thought.
"I told you Kenny wasn't gay," said Maggie. "I never said he was my lover. We were buddies. We went for walks. We shopped for clothes. Friends. Is that so hard to grasp?"
I should have been embarrassed. I was embarrassed. But since we're being honest here, let me admit I was also happy and relieved. Relieved not to have a rival, even one who was a dead transvestite. I know, I know—this was churlish and irrational. But come on—does anyone really believe that people are reasonable? Jealousy, desire— things like that are hardwired into parts of the brain way too ancient to explain or justify.
"Okay," I said. "I'm sorry for assuming. So let's back up a step. Kenny stayed at a guest house. You know which one he stayed at?"
The lissome yoga teacher didn't answer the question. To my surprise and titillation, she was now the one who kept the conversation mired in sex. "Me and Kenny lovers?" She exhaled quickly with just a hint of rueful laugh. "I mean, I liked him a great deal, but he was a little too strange to be my lover."