Tourist Season

She ordered a club soda. Keyes asked for a draft.

"I was kidding about the shirt," Kara Ly

"And my sneakers."

"No, I was serious about the sneakers." She gave his arm a little pinch. Keyes gri

"Why'd you leave the newspaper?" Kara Ly

"You want to join him, it's okay," Keyes said. "I'll sit up at the bar."

"Oh no you won't. Tell me why you quit the newspaper."

Keyes gulped the beer. "Because I made a mistake."

"Everybody makes mistakes."

"Not big ones. Not in that business."

"Oh, come on. How bad could it be?"

"The worst." Keyes set down the mug and leaned forward. "Let me explain something. Your dad's a bigshot lawyer. If he goofs up, he waltzes into court, files a new motion, and fixes it. The client never knows. If a surgeon screws up, he digs a little deeper, adds a few extra stitches, and makes it all right. In most jobs it's like that—there's always a way out. But what I did, I can't fix. It's done forever. Once the paper rolls off the press, that's it. Sure, you can publish a correction or a bloody apology, but there's no guarantee that the right people will see it. Some folks will only remember what you wrote the first time, and if what you wrote was wrong, that's how they'll remember it."

"Did you get fired?"

"I resigned. My boss never knew why."

"You were scared to tell him."

"No, I was scared to hurt him."

Kara Ly

"Do you miss it?"

"Sometimes," he said, "I miss the people. Some of the smartest people I know work in that business. And some of the screwiest. That's what happens when you chase the truth for too long; you finally catch up with it and you're never the same. Screwed up for life." He was thinking of Skip Wiley.

Kara Ly

But then she said: "Tell me about being a private eye."

"One thrill after another: Mr. Keyes, here's two grand. Find out if my wife's sleeping with her psychiatrist. Take some pictures, too."

"Still chasing the truth," said Kara Ly

"Yeah. But it's a cheap grimy truth. Gets in your hair, your clothes. Under your goddamn fingernails. I never felt like this when I was a reporter, honest to God."

"You're pretty unhappy, Brian."

"That makes two of us, Cinderella."

"Why, whatever do you mean? I'm the Orange Bowl queen, remember? I've got a thousand-dollar savings bond, a new wardrobe, a singing coach, and a four-year scholarship." Kara Ly

Keyes laughed too.

The gorilla with the curly blond hair was waving again.

"I think Hercules wants to buy you a drink," Keyes said.

"Yeah, time to go." Kara Ly

"Do me a favor, Brian."

"Sure."

"When we walk out of here, would you hold my hand?"

"Why?"

"Because it's more polite than saying, 'fuck off.' Which is what I'd like really to tell these jerks, but I can't. Not here at Dad's club."

As they rose from the table, Keyes tucked the te

"You're a good sport," Kara Ly

Brian Keyes wasn't listening.

The Seville was parked across the street, in the shade of a banyan tree. A thin dark man in an undershirt sat on the fender, drumming his hands on the side of the car. The man wasn't paying attention; he wasn't doing what he'd been told.

"Get in the car," Keyes said to Kara Ly

Kara Ly

"That's the asshole who stabbed me."

"Brian—"

But he was already gone, strolling across the parking lot. He looked perfectly calm, a te

"Oh no," Kara Ly

Jesus Bernal did not recognize Brian Keyes immediately. He wouldn't have been looking for him, anyway. Jesus Bernal's mission was to scout for cops; Skip Wiley had wanted to know if there were policemen assigned to the girl. So far, Bernal hadn't seen the first patrol car; the lunatic Wiley was wrong again, as usual. Bernal was just about ready to call it quits and cruise back to the warehouse when the te

"Hey, muchacho,remember me?"

Bernal looked hard at the boyish face and, after a moment or two, remembered.

But not fast enough.

Keyes swung the te

The Cuban's head bounced off the Cadillac's bumper. He landed faceup on the pavement, snorkeling his own blood. The undershirt hung in shreds from the hood ornament.

Keyes bent over Jesus Bernal and whacked him again, this time a solid backhand to the throat. The Cuban kicked his legs and made a sound like a garbage disposal.

"Gggrrr

"You should see my serve," said Brian Keyes.

Kara Ly

"God Almighty, you killed him!"

"No such luck. You get hold of the cops?"

"No, the radio—" She was too excited to talk.

"Find a phone booth," Keyes said.

"Brian, he looked ... really ... dead!"

"He wasn't. Not by a long shot. I gotta call Garcia. Find a goddamn phone booth."

She nodded, and kept nodding, like a dashboard puppy. She was scared as hell.

"Was he one ... of ... them?" Kara Ly

Keyes touched her arm, felt her flinch.

"Kara Ly

"It's scary," Kara Ly

"Honest to God, it'll be all right."

When Sergeant Al Garcia's squad finally got to the country club, all they found beneath the banyan tree were radial tire tracks, a syrupy puddle of blood, and several kernels of corn, which turned out to be human teeth. The police searched all night for the Seville. They roared in convoys through Coral Gables and Little Havana, stopping every Cadillac in sight, rousting every poor sap in an undershirt.

Yet the Fuego One Task Force did not find the injured Jesus Bernal, and by eight o'clock the next morning Al Garcia's phone was ringing off the hook. Reed Shivers. The chief. The Orange Bowl chairman. Ricky Bloodworth. The Chamber of Commerce. Even NBC, for Christ's sake.

Garcia carried three Styrofoam cups of black coffee to his office and locked the door behind him. He dialed the Shivers house and Brian Keyes picked up on the first ring.

"He got away," the detective said.

"You don't say."

"Hey, it's not our fault Shirley Temple couldn't figure out the police radio."

"She was scared stiff," Keyes said. "I was on the phone five minutes later. Five lousy minutes."