The Naked Detective(64)

Waiting for the food, I looked at her. I was so tired that my drooping eyelids started twitching. It occurred to me that we'd just spent the night together. We hadn't done what was usually suggested by the phrase, but it was plenty intimate nevertheless. I'd had time alone with her eyes, her mouth. We'd leaned against each other, our flanks making a hot seam against the misty coolness of the night. I'd seen her yawn and stretch.

Now I watched her eat. I loved the way her loose blouse moved each time she raised her fork. I admired the little muscles in her forearm, which rippled slightly when she used her knife. She pressed her napkin to her lips and I felt their texture once again.

After breakfast I walked her back to her brightly painted trawler. Then, some time after eight, I reclaimed my bike and rode to Bayview Park.

I pulled into the shade of the players' enclosure. Ozzie Kimmel was sitting there, shirtless, in his perennial puke-green bathing suit. He was wrapping gauze around the handle of his racquet, concentrating so hard that his tongue stuck out from the corner of his mouth. He looked up as I approached and, tactful as ever, said, "You look like shit. Where's your stuff? You here to play?"

I told him that I wasn't there to play.

"Not here to play!" he parroted disgustedly. "What is with you, man? Look at you. Fuck has happened to bright-eyed Pete, here at eight and hot to—?"

"Oz," I said. "I need a favor. It's important."

"Important? Uh-oh. Guy starts thinking something's important, you know he's going down the—"

"You know who does the gardening for Sunset Key?"

"You mean Tank Island? That abortion? That pimple on—"

"Oz—who's got the contract for the landscaping?"

He pursed his lips and rubbed his chin. "Why you wanna know?"

"I can't tell you why I want to know."

"Then I can't remember who has the gig."

I said, "Oz, please don't be an asshole."

He said, "I'm an asshole? 'Cause a you I'm getting really shitty tennis lately. When we gonna start playing again?"

"When this is done," I said. "Few more days. I hope."

He pouted, went back to gauzing up his racquet. "Okay," he said, "okay. I'm pretty sure it's Cayo Hueso Landscaping. Eddie Baskin."

"You know him?"

" 'Course I know him. Poor bastard's been rotting here almost as long as I have."

"Take me to meet him."

"Now? I'm here for tennis!"

I just stared at him with tired pleading eyes.

"Awright, awright," he said. "We'll take the cab."

"The cab?"

"It's a workday for me. I'm working—can't you tell? Christ, you don't even remember what days I work."

———

"No way," said Eddie Baskin. "Could cost me the whole damn contract."

We were standing in his backyard at the end of Elgin Lane. The yard was part nursery, part jungle, part alfresco tool-shed. Giant tree trimmers leaned on top of sky-flower shrubs; weed whackers stood like golf clubs in a row. Baskin himself was tall and skinny, but with huge gnarly hands and forearms. He had a ponytail and a torn shirt and some kind of funky coral necklace on a leather string. He also, according to Ozzie, had three trucks, a crew of twelve or so, and most of the town's high-end gardening work. A Key West type—the hippie bum with an embarrassing knack for making money.

"Look," I begged, "we'll be on the island half an hour. Anything goes wrong, I stole the shirts, I stole the tools, this meeting never happened."

"Why should I risk it?" Baskin said. "There's no reason I should risk it."

"Yes, there is. It's real important."

"To you maybe."

"Not just to me. To a lot of people."

"Like who?"

"I can't explain right now."

Baskin lit a cigarette, squinted past smoke at Ozzie. "Oz," he said, "I don't know this guy from Adam. Gimme one good reason I should trust him."

My tennis buddy thought that over; a little longer than was flattering or reassuring. Finally he said, "He's very fair on line calls."

The gardener said, "Line calls?"

"All the times I've played him," Ozzie said, "I've gotten maybe two bad calls."

Over several years and a hundred matches, he remembered two bad calls? What kind of lunatics was I recruiting as my allies?

Baskin took a deep drag, slowly exhaled, and waved away the smoke. He frowned at Ozzie. He frowned at me. Finally he said, "Fuck it. Grab some rakes. Grab some shovels. I'll go inside and get a couple shirts." He headed for the house, looked back across his shoulder. "You get snagged out there, you're on your own."