The La Concha was a tall, pink Holiday Inn of open spaces and gaudy tropical plants. I’d had no problem making reservations, ostensibly because the tourist season did not begin until the third week of December. But as I left my car in the half-empty parking lot and walked into the somewhat deserted lobby, I couldn’t help but think about what Marino had said. Never in my life had I seen so many same-sex couples, and it was patently clear that running deep beneath the robust health of this tiny offshore island was a mother lode of disease. Wherever I looked, it seemed, I saw men dying. I had no phobia of catching hepatitis or AIDS, having learned long ago to cope with the theoretical danger of disease endemic to my work. Nor was I bothered by homosexuals. The older I got, the more I was of the opinion that love can be experienced in many different ways. There is no right or wrong way to love, only in how it is expressed.”
As the desk clerk returned my credit card, I asked him to steer me in the general direction of the elevators, and I foggily headed up to my room on the fifth floor. Stripping down to my underwear, I crawled in bed, where I slept for the next fourteen hours.
The following day was just as glorious as the one before, and I was outfitted like any other tourist, except for the loaded Ruger in my pocketbook. My self-imposed mission was to search this island of some thirty thousand people and find two men known to me only as PJ and Walt. I knew from the letters Beryl had written in late August that they were her friends and lived in the rooming house where she had stayed. I had not the slightest clue as to the location or name of this rooming house, and it was my prayer that someone at Louie’s could tell me.
I walked, a map that I had bought in the hotel gift shop in hand. Following Duval, I passed rows of shops and restaurants with balustraded balconies that brought to mind New Orleans’s French Quarter. I passed sidewalk art displays and boutiques selling exotic plants, silks, and Perugina chocolates, then waited at a crossing to watch the bright yellow cars of the Conch Tour Train rattle by. I began to understand why Beryl Madison had not wanted to leave Key West. With each step I took, Frankie’s threatening presence began to fade. By the time I turned left on South Street, he was as remote as Richmond’s raw December weather.
Louie’s was a white-frame restaurant that had once been a house, on the corner of Vernon and Waddell. Its hardwood floors were spotless, its pale-peach linen-covered tables impeccably set and arranged with exquisite fresh flowers. I followed my host through the air-conditioned dining room, to be seated on the porch where I was dazzled by the variegated blues of water meeting sky, and palms and hanging baskets of blooming plants stir-
ring in air perfumed by the sea. The Atlantic Ocean was nearly under my feet, a bright spattering of sailboats anchored a short swim away. Ordering a rum and tonic, I thought of Beryl’s letters and wondered if I were sitting where she had written them.
Most of the tables were occupied. I felt removed from the crowd, my table in a corner against the railing. To my left were four steps leading down to a wide deck, where a small group of young men and women were lounging in bathing suits near a chikee bar. I watched a sinewy Latin boy in a yellow bikini flick a cigarette butt into the water, then get up and languidly stretch. He padded off to buy another round of beers from the bearded bartender, who moved about with the ennui of one tired of his job and no longer young.
Long after I finished my salad and bowl of conch chowder, the group of young people finally clambered down back steps and waded noisily out into the water. Soon they were swimming in the direction of the anchored boats. I paid my bill and approached the bartender. He was leaning back in a chair beneath his thatched canopy, reading a novel.