"So, the Ortegas ..." I prompted.
Ozzie reached into his bag and came out with a shredded piece of orange towel. He wiped his neck and lint stuck to his skin. "Right. Came over from Cuba, what?—five, six generations ago. Cigar makers. Stayed on when the industry moved to Tampa. Married with some of the old wrecking families, got political. I think one of the Ortegas was mayor during the thirties. Not that being mayor of this shithole is any great distinction. Buncha fuckin' clowns. Remember the one who water-skied to Cuba? Or how 'bout that midget that was indicted half the time?"
"So anyway, Lefty Ortega—"
"Didn't he just die?"
"Dying's what I heard."
"Dying, dead." Ozzie shrugged off the fine distinction. "He's a prick. Pissy guy trying to act important."
"Is he?"
"Is he what? Important? What the fuck's important in the Keys? Is anything important in the Keys? Papaya truck wanders across the center line and takes out a family of four—is that important? Douchebag from Indiana loses control of his Jet Ski and runs over his wife—is that important? Two lesbians from Windy City—"
"Ozzie, what about Lefty Ortega?"
"Right. That scumbag. Has a bar—"
"That much I know."
"—and controls a lot of real estate. Commercial. I heard he doesn't do leases, only partnerships. So he owns a piece of lots of businesses."
"What kind of businesses?"
He rummaged deeper in his bag and came out with a shirt. It had a faded iguana on it and big holes ringed with yellow in the armpits. Pulling it over his head, he said, "What kinda businesses stay in business in this fuckin' town? T-shirts. Kitschy souvenirs for idiots. Liquor stores."
"All legit?"
Ozzie snorted. "Fuck's legit? Pot, no; tequila, yes? Cubans, yes; Haitians, no? I mean, who the fuck decides—"
I jumped in to forestall another tirade. "I heard he owns the cops."
"The cops!" said Ozzie, managing to invest the word with a detestation that had been fermenting half a lifetime. "Now we're talking assholes. Corrupt or just plain dumb? Remember the one got caught suckin' pussy in the squad car?"
"You think Ortega owns them?"
Ozzie looked at me almost with pity. "Man, are you naive? There's six, eight guys control this town. The guys with the real estate, the tour concessions, the gambling boats. They get what they want. The cops are there to help.... Why you so curious all of a sudden?"
I didn't answer. I made a point of getting busy packing up my stuff. It was around eleven-thirty and the courts were emptying. Old doubles players with bent backs and bandaged knees hobbling home for chicken salad in an avocado. I dropped my racquets into my bike basket. "Same time Saturday?" I said, and headed off across the park.
5
Riding home, I was thinking: Why do people get sucked into things that they know, down deep, won't make them happy?
Things like golf. Or volunteering for committees. Or moving to Los Angeles. What is the strange insidious pressure that, every day, persuades large numbers of people to leap headlong into crap like that? Is it just that people are so easily bamboozled? Maybe it's the awful fear of being bored, the belief that being bored is somehow shameful. Better to do anything, however dumb, however trivial, than just sit there, quietly and still.
Me, I sort of like being bored, though I admit it's an acquired taste, and difficult to justify to people who live north of, say, Mile Marker 10. Being bored is like drinking tea the exact same temperature as your mouth. You're getting something from it, though it's easy not to notice. And at least, when you're bored, you're not pretending something matters when it doesn't. At least you're not being had.
These thoughts, of course, were a way of assuring myself I would get sucked no deeper into the death of Kenny Lukens. Why should I? I'd met the guy exactly once. His life had zilch to do with mine. I owed him nothing. So I rode home, looking forward to, even craving, a boring afternoon. A good long soak in the hot tub. A bowl of pasta and a glass of Sangiovese. Some empty time in which to recover from my shock of the morning and my drubbing on the tennis court.
I climbed off my bike, locked it to the same palm I always lock it to. Went up the porch steps and into the house. Dropped my racquets and stripped, bachelor style, directly into the washing machine. Grabbed a towel and headed out the back.
I skirted the pool and was two steps from the hot tub when I saw them.
I didn't want to see them, but there they were: Kenny's tits, still perched pink and gleaming on the apron of the tub, uncanny, accusing, like the severed body parts of a medieval martyr. I tried not to look at the tits. I thought of flinging them like small humped Frisbees over the fence and into a neighbor's yard. I couldn't do it. I stepped over them and into the hot tub.