AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Johnny flinched as though someone had touched him with a hot cigarette. “You don’t know how it is at my uncle Mark’s house.”
“I’ll take a wild guess. He’s a prick?”
Johnny picked at his nails and rubbed his nose with his wrist. “I think something happened when I was real little. Something I’m not supposed to remember. I have dreams about it. In the dream, I run away so I don’t see something that’s in a room with a closed door.”
“Marcel LaForchette told Dave Robicheaux a story about your uncle sitting in front of his desk while the power was out. There were lights flashing on his face.”
“Marcel said that?”
“According to Dave. Your uncle’s in a cult or he’s got magical powers or something?”
“Marcel better be careful.”
“Or?” Clete asked.
Johnny looked at the waves. “I got to go inside.”
“What’s wrong?”
“I catch colds easy.”
“You’re going to give up your girlfriend to a man like your uncle? You don’t seem like that kind of kid.”
“I’m not a kid.” Johnny stood up, his shirt flattening in the wind. A wave full of bioluminescent organisms that lit like green fireflies slid into the pilings. “We’re not in the place you think we are, Mr. Clete. It’s not the date you think it is, either.”
“Run that by me again?”
“What I said. You don’t have any idea what you’re involved in.”
“In my next life, I’m coming back as a swizzle stick so I won’t have to listen to this kind of stuff anymore.”
“It’s not funny,” Johnny said.
Clete stood up and corked the Champale bottle and dropped it on the chair. He thought he saw, three hundred yards to the south, a large wood boat with two masts and many oars. He wiped at his eyes and looked again. The boat was gone. “I’m going to head back to Fort Lauderdale,” he said.
“I meant it when I said watch out for the cops in Key West.”
“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Clete said. “I got to tell you something about your girlfriend. If I don’t, I’ll resent myself in the morning.”
“Say it.”
“I fathered a daughter out of wedlock. Her mother was a stripper and a junkie. I never learned what happened to my daughter. A pimp is probably banging her now or a guy is shooting her up or giving her AIDS or herpes. You can’t walk off from an innocent girl like Isolde and expect her to land on her feet. Now clean up your act.”
“I can’t handle this, Mr. Clete.”
“Evidently not,” Clete said. “I’ll see you around, kid. I hope you have a good life. Right now you’re genuinely pissing me off.”
Clete walked to his car, the dock tilting as though he were aboard a ship dipping into waves higher than the gunwales.
* * *
HE MADE IT to Seven Mile Bridge, then pulled onto the shoulder, zoned and shit-blown, a stench rising from his armpits even with the air conditioner on. Voices
in his head were arguing with each other, his ears whirring with noises like malarial mosquitoes. Twice Florida Highway Patrol cruisers had gone flying past him, buffeting his rental, their lights flashing. He knew he would be immediately arrested if he were stopped. He also knew the only way to downshift the situation was to park the rental, pull the keys, get in the backseat, drop the keys on the floor, and go to sleep. No reasonable cop would take him in.
But back there on the dock, Johnny’s biggest problem had been on full display. What do you do? Tell the kid not to sweat it, mainlining skag is groovy and the Abyss is probably a blast?
Clete swung off the shoulder, bounced over a divider, scraping the steel frame on the concrete, and headed back for the motel.
