Tourist Season

"Do you want Skip to die?" Keyes said tonelessly. He'd had about all he could take. "Forty-six, forty-seven ... 'course not ... do you?"

"No." But don't ask me why not, Keyes thought, because the bastard richly deserves it.

"Brian ... don't let anything happen to him."

That was it. On the count of forty-nine he stopped her, slipped a hand behind her head and held her there, in a sitting position. Probably with more firmness than was necessary.

"Just one more!" Je

"Know what he said, Je

"Baloney." She strained against his grip. "He's just bluffing."

Keyes said, "Look here at my clothes—what do you suppose that is?"

"A-l Sauce?"

"It's blood, you bubblehead! Human blood. I knelt in a big warm puddle of it tonight over at police headquarters. You should have been there, the place looked like Beirut."

"Let me go," Je

"So what do you make of all these darned murders?" he said. "Pretty hilarious, huh?"

"Brian, just stop it."

"No, goddammit, look at me!" But she wouldn't.

"Look at these bloodstains and tell me Wiley's a big hero," he said angrily. "Tell me how proud you are, go ahead, Je

She squirmed loose and shot to her feet. Her face was pink and she was breathing hard.

Keyes said, "Je

She shook her head once and spun away, out the door.

"I'm going for pizza," Kara Ly

"Not alone you're not," Keyes said.

"It'll make you chubby," Reed Shivers added. "The only Orange Bowl queen with a mozzarella tummy."

"That's enough, Daddy. I'm hungry."

"Then we'll get it delivered," Keyes said. He picked up the telephone in the game room and stared at it. The phone was made out of an actual bottle of Seagram's; Reed Shivers had ordered it specially from a golf catalog.

"What do you like on your pizza?" Keyes asked.

Kara Ly

"No pizza!" her father said. "Pumpkin, we've got publicity stills tomorrow, remember?"

"Screw it," said Kara Ly

"That's the spirit," Keyes cheered.

"But it's swimsuit,"Shivers pleaded.

"And I'll look sensational, Daddy. Tiny tits and all."

Keyes changed his mind about having the pizzadelivered. Kara Ly

"You ever been to Tony's?" he said. "Great pizza."

"Let's go."

"At least go easy on the cheese," Reed Shivers said, pouting into his pipestem.

They took the MG. It was a chilly night, full of stars. The brisk air whistled through a rusty hole in the floorboard, and the car got cold quickly.

"The heater's busted," Keyes said. "I got an extra sweater in the back."

"I'm okay." Kara Ly

"How far to Tony's?" she asked.

"I've got no idea," Keyes said. "I made it up."

"Oh."

"To get us away from Professor Higgins."

"Daddy's not a bad guy," Kara Ly

Keyes drove north down LeJeune Road. Just for the hell of it, he squared the block at Miracle Mile to make sure they weren't being followed again.

"Is the Pizza Hut okay?"

"Sure," Kara Ly

They got a booth in the corner, away from the jukebox and video games. Keyes ordered a pizza with mushrooms, pepperoni, and anchovies. Kara Ly

With a nod of thanks, she slipped it on over the leotards. Keyes wondered why she was so quiet; it wasn't a hostile silence, or even a sulk. It reminded him of the first few days at the house, when she was sizing him up. Kara Ly

"What's on your mind?" he finally asked.

"I was just wondering about you and Je

"Ancient history."

"Go on."

"Very boring."

"I'll bet."

"And painful."

"Oh." She took a sip of diet cola, a concession to her father. "Didn't mean to pry."

"Forget it," Keyes said. "But do me a favor: no more aerobics classes until after the parade."

"How come?"

"Call it a security precaution."

"For heaven's sake, you're not saying Je

You don't know the half of it, Keyes thought. "Did Je

"Sure. She wished me luck before the pageant—even sent a bouquet of wild sea oats to the dressing room."

"She would have made a great florist."

"Actually she's the one who convinced me to enter the contest. To be honest, I was burned out on the darned things. Besides, I didn't think I had a chance—you should've seen some of the other girls. But Je

"A great florist and a great psychologist," Keyes said. So Je

"She says I look like her, ten years ago."

"Maybe a little," Keyes said. It wasn't the beauty they had in common, so much as the aura—an aura of absolute control. The ability to conquer with a shy glance or the slightest of smiles.

"I hope I look that good when I'm twenty-nine," Kara Ly

"You will."

A waitress brought the pizza, hot and pungent. They attacked it hungrily. Keyes got tomato sauce on both his sleeves. Kara Ly

"Have you had many girlfriends?" she asked.

"Thousands. I was once engaged to half the Rockettes."

"You don't like this subject, do you?"

"Look, I never asked you what it's like to be the Stone Crab queen, with a dozen greaseball contest judges staring up your crotch. I never asked because it seemed personal and none of my business, and I knew you wouldn't want to talk about it."

"You're right. It's awful, that's why."

"It looksawful," Keyes said. "I don't know how you do it."

Kara Ly

"You got my vote."

"I hate it. All of it."

"I know."

"Half the girls get boob jobs and butt tucks," Kara Ly

"What happens to them when there's no more beauty pageants?"

"Two, three years of modeling. A few local TV commercials if you're lucky. Guy once offered me three grand to lie on the hood of a Dodge truck and say: I got my Ram Charger at Cooley Motors.Real Shakespearean television. Daddy had a seizure when I turned it down."

"What do you really want to do, Kara Ly

"Stop world famine, of course."

Keyes laughed. "And after that?"

"See Europe."

Keyes cut another slice of pizza but it surrendered grudgingly. A web of cheese hung elastically from his mouth to the platter.

"What about you, Brian? Your life all mapped out?"

Keyes chewed pensively.

"Someday I'm going to buy a sailboat," he said. "Move down to Islamorada, live off seaweed and lobsters. Let the sun fry me so brown that my hide gets tough as a turtle shell. I think I'd make a helluva good sea turtle—hey, don't look at me like that."

"But you're serious!"

"A turtle's got no natural enemies," Keyes said.