Duma Key

"None," Wireman said. "The Daughter of the Godfather is the last." He snorted and shook his head. "I have to quit calling her that," he said, more to himself than to me.

"If you say so. What I really wonder about is why the rest of the island isn't developed. Given the never-ending housing and building boom in Florida, that's seemed insane to me from the first day I crossed the bridge."

"You speak like a man with specialized knowledge. What are you in your other life, Edgar?"

"A building contractor."

"And those days are behind you now?"

I could have hedged - I didn't know him well enough to put myself on the line - but I didn't. I'm sure our mutual fit of hysterics had a lot to do with that. "Yes," I said.

"And what are you in this life?"

I sighed and looked away from him. Out at the Gulf, where you could put all your old miseries and watch them disappear without a trace. "Can't tell yet for sure. I've been doing some painting." And waited for him to laugh.

He didn't. "You wouldn't be the first painter to stay at Salm... Big Pink. It has quite an artistic history."

"You're kidding." There was nothing in the house to suggest such a thing.

"Oh yes," he said. "Alexander Calder stayed there. Keith Haring. Marcel Duchamp. All back before beach erosion put the place in danger of falling into the water." He paused. "Salvador Dal ."

"No shucking way!" I cried, then flushed when he cocked his head. For a moment I felt all the old frustrated rage rush in, seeming to clog my head and throat. I can do this, I thought. "Sorry. I had an accident awhile back, and-" Then I stopped.

"Not hard to figure that one out," Wireman said. "In case you didn't notice, you're short a gizmo on the right side, muchacho."

"Yes. And sometimes I get... I don't know... aphasic, I guess."

"Uh- huh. In any case, I tell no lie about Dal . He stayed in your house for three weeks in nineteen eighty-one." Then, with hardly a pause: "I know what you're going through."

"I seriously doubt that." I didn't mean to sound harsh, but that was how it sounded. That was how I felt, actually.

Wireman said nothing for a little while. The torn umbrella flapped. I had time to think, Well this was a potentially interesting friendship that's not going to happen, but when he next spoke, his voice was calm and pleasant. It was as if our little side-trip had never occurred.

"Part of Duma's development problem is simple overgrowth. The sea oats belong, but the rest of that shit has no business growing without irrigation. Somebody better investigate, that's what I think."

"My daughter and I went exploring one day. It looked like outright jungle south of here."

Wireman looked alarmed. "Duma Key Road's no excursion for a guy in your condition. It's in shit shape."

"Tell me about it. What I want to know is how come it isn't four lanes wide with bike-paths on both sides and condos every eight hundred yards."

"Because no one knows who owns the land? How about that, for a start?"

"You serious?"

"Yup. Miss Eastlake has owned from the tip of the island south to Heron's Roost free and clear since 1950. About that there's absolutely no doubt. It was in the wills."

" Wills? Plural?"

"Three of them. All holographic, all witnessed by different people, all different when it comes to Duma Key. All of them, however, make the north end of Duma a no-strings bequest to Elizabeth Eastlake from her father, John. The rest has been in the courts ever since. Sixty years of squabbling that makes Bleak House look like Dick and Jane."

"I thought you said all Miss Eastlake's siblings were dead."

"They are, but she has nieces and nephews and grandnieces and grandnephews. Like Sherwin-Williams Paint, they cover the earth. They're the ones doing the squabbling, but they squabble with each other, not her. Her only mention in the old man's multiple wills had to do with this piece of Duma Key, which was carefully marked off by two surveying companies, one just before World War II and one just after. This is all a matter of public record. And do you know what, amigo?"

I shook my head.

"Miss Eastlake thinks that's exactly what her old man wanted to happen. And, having cast my lawyerly eye over copies of the wills, so do I."

"Who pays the taxes?"

He looked surprised, then laughed. "I enjoy you more and more, vato."

"My other life," I reminded him. I was already liking the sound of that other-life thing.

"Right. Then you'll appreciate this," he said. "It's clever. All three of John Eastlake's last wills and testaments contained identical clauses setting up a trust fund to pay the taxes. The original investment company administering the trust has been absorbed since then - in fact the absorbing company has been absorbed-"

"It's the way America does business," I said.

"It is indeed. In any case, the fund has never been in danger of going broke and the taxes are paid like clockwork every year."

"Money talks, bullshit walks."