Duma Key

"Not bad." It was the truth. " Et tu, Brute? "

"I'm all right, thanks." But he looked tired; his left eye was still red and drippy. "This won't take five minutes."

Elizabeth was almost completely AWOL. When I offered her the sippy cup, she took a little and then turned her head away. Her face looked ancient and bewildered in the unforgiving winterlight. I thought that we made quite a trio: the senile woman, the ex-lawyer with the slug in his brain, and the amputee ex-contractor. All with battle-scars on the right side of our heads. On TV, Candy Brown's lawyer - now ex-lawyer, I guess - was calling for a full investigation. Elizabeth perhaps spoke for all of Sarasota County on this issue by closing her eyes, slumping down against the restraining strap so that her considerable breastworks pushed up, and going to sleep.

Wireman came back in with eggs enough for both of us, and I ate with surprising gusto. Elizabeth began to snore. One thing was certain; if she had sleep apnea, she wouldn't die young.

"Missed a spot on your ear, muchacho, " Wireman said, and tapped the lobe of his own with his fork.

"Huh?"

"Paint. On your buggerlug."

"Yeah," I said. "I'll be scrubbing it off everywhere for a couple of days. I splashed it around pretty good."

"What were you painting in the middle of the night?"

"I don't want to talk about it right now."

He shrugged and nodded. "You're getting that artist thang going. That groove."

"Don't start with me."

"Matters have come to a sad pass when I offer respect and you hear sarcasm."

"Sorry."

He waved it away. "Eat your huevos. Grow up big and strong like Wireman."

I ate my huevos. Elizabeth snored. The TV chattered. Now it was Tina Garibaldi's aunt in the electronic center ring, a girl not much older than my daughter Melinda. She was saying that God had decided the State of Florida would be too slow and had punished "that monster" Himself. I thought, Got a point there, muchacha, only it wasn't God.

"Turn that shit-carnival off," I said.

He killed the tube, then turned to me attentively.

"Maybe you were right about the artist thang. I've decided to show my stuff at the Scoto, if that guy Nannuzzi still wants to show it."

Wireman smiled and patted his hands together softly, so as not to wake Elizabeth. "Excellent! Edgar seeks the bubble reputation! And why not? Just why the hell not?"

"I don't seek the bubble anything," I said, wondering if that were completely true. "But if they offer me a contract, would you come out of retirement long enough to look it over?"

His smile faded. "I will if I'm around, but I don't know how long I'll be around." He saw the look on my face and raised his hand. "I ain't tuning up the Dead March yet, but ask yourself this, mi amigo: am I still the right man to take care of Miss Eastlake? In my current condition?"

And because that was a can of worms I didn't want to open - not this morning - I asked, "How did you get the job in the first place?"

"Does it matter?"

"It might," I said.

I was thinking of how I'd started my time on Duma Key with one assumption - that I had chosen the place - and had since come to believe that maybe it had chosen me. I had even wondered, usually lying in bed and listening to the shells whisper, if my accident had really been an accident. Of course it had been, must have been, but it was still easy to see similarities between mine and Julia Wireman's. I got the crane; she got the Public Works truck. But of course there are people - functioning human beings in most respects - who will tell you they've seen the face of Christ on a taco.

"Well," he said, "if you expect another long story, you can forget it. It takes a lot to story me out, but for the time being, the well's almost dry." He looked at Elizabeth moodily. And perhaps with a shade of envy. "I didn't sleep very well last night."

"Short version, then."

He shrugged. His febrile good cheer had disappeared like the foam on top of a glass of beer. His big shoulders were slumped forward, giving his chest a caved-in look.

"After Jack Fineham 'furloughed' me, I decided Tampa was reasonably close to Disney World. Only when I got there, I was bored titless."

"Sure you were," I said.

"I also felt that some atonement was in order. I didn't want to go to Darfur or to New Orleans and work storefront pro bono, although that crossed my mind. I felt like maybe the little balls with the lottery numbers on them were still bouncing somewhere and one more was waiting to go up the pipe. The last number."

"Yeah," I said. A cold finger touched the base of my neck. Very lightly. "One more number. I know the feeling."