Duma Key

"It's not that good, I'm afraid, but it's still good. This is something all of Sarasota can celebrate. Candy Brown, amigo. The guards who do the morning count found him dead in his cell."

For a moment that itch flashed down my right arm, and it was red.

"What are they saying?" I heard myself asking. "Suicide?"

"Don't know, but either way - suicide or natural causes - he saved the state of Florida a lot of money and the parents the grief of a trial. Come on over and blow a noisemaker with me, what do you say?"

"Just let me get dressed," I said. "And wash." I looked at my left arm. It was splattered with many colors. "I was up late."

"Painting?"

"No, banging Pamela Anderson."

"Your fantasy life is sadly deprived, Edgar. I banged the Venus de Milo last night, and she had arms. Don't be too long. How do you like your huevos?"

"Oh. Scrambled. I'll be half an hour."

"That's fine. I must say you don't sound very thrilled with my news bulletin."

"I'm still trying to wake up. On the whole, I'd have to say I'm very glad he's dead."

"Take a number and get in line," he said, and hung up.

xiii

Because the remote was broken, I had to tune the TV manually, an antique skill but one I found I still possessed. On 6, All Tina, All the Time had been replaced by a new show: All Candy, All the Time. I turned the volume up to an earsplitting level and listened while I scrubbed the paint off.

George "Candy" Brown appeared to have died in his sleep. A guard who was interviewed said, "The guy was the loudest snorer we ever had - we used to joke that the inmates would have killed him just for that, if he'd been in gen-pop." A doctor said that sounded like sleep apnea and opined that Brown might have died from a resulting complication. He said such deaths in adults were uncommon but far from unheard-of.

Sleep apnea sounded like a good call to me, but I thought I had been the complication. With most of the paint washed off, I climbed the stairs to Little Pink for a look at my version of The Picture in the long light of morning. I didn't think it would be as good as I'd believed when I staggered downstairs to eat an entire box of cereal - it couldn't be, considering how fast I'd worked.

Only it was. There was Tina, dressed in jeans and a clean pink tee-shirt, with her pack on her back. There was Candy Brown, also dressed in jeans, with his hand upon her wrist. Her eyes were turned up to his and her mouth was slightly open, as if to ask a question - What do you want, mister? being the most likely. His eyes were looking down at her, and they were full of dark intent, but the rest of his face showed nothing at all, because the rest of his face wasn't there. I hadn't painted his mouth and nose.

Below the eyes, my version of Candy Brown was a perfect blank.

10 - The Bubble Reputation

i

I got on the plane that brought me to Florida wearing a heavy duffle coat, and I wore it that morning when I limped down the beach from Big Pink to El Palacio de Asesinos. It was cold, with a stiff wind blowing in from the Gulf, where the water looked like broken steel under an empty sky. If I had known that was to be the last cold day I'd ever experience on Duma Key, I might have relished it... but probably not. I had lost my knack for suffering the cold gladly.

In any case, I hardly knew where I was. I had my canvas collection pouch slung over my shoulder, because carrying it when I was on the beach was now second nature, but I never put a single shell or bit of flotsam in it. I just plodded along, swinging my bad leg without really feeling it, listening to the wind whistle past my ears without really hearing it, and watching the peeps scurry in and out of the surf without really seeing them.

I thought: I killed him just as surely as I killed Monica Goldstein's dog. I know that sounds like bullshit, but -

Only it didn't sound like bullshit. It wasn't bullshit.

I had stopped his breath.

ii

There was a glassed-in sunporch on the south side of El Palacio. It looked toward the tangles of tropical overgrowth in one direction and out at the metallic blue of the Gulf in the other. Elizabeth was seated there in her wheelchair, with a breakfast tray attached to the arms. For the first time since I'd met her, she was strapped in. The tray, littered with curds of scrambled egg and pieces of toast, looked like the aftermath of a toddler's meal. Wireman had even been feeding her juice from a sippy cup. The small table-model television in the corner was tuned to Channel 6. It was still All Candy, All of the Time. He was dead and Channel 6 was beating off on the body. He undoubtedly deserved no better, but it was still gruesome.

"I think she's finished," Wireman said, "but maybe you'd sit with her while I scramble you a couple and burn the toast."

"Happy to, but you don't have to go to any trouble on my part. I worked late and had a bite afterward." A bite. Sure. I'd spied the empty mixing bowl in the kitchen sink on my way out.

"It's no trouble. How's your leg this morning?"