Clownfish Blues Read online

  Lottery officials lowered the microphone for the diminutive winner: “I’m buying a speedboat.”

  Right after an old woman and a poodle named Bubbles set out to sea, the big numbers began ascending again. Lines spilled out of the convenience stores, and regular customers couldn’t buy their Red Bull and vitamin water. TV crews forgot there was other news.

  As they say, Miami is the capital of the Latin world, and local newscasts were picked up throughout Central and South America. Just below the isthmus of Panama, a satellite dish rose from the rooftop of a jungle chalet high up the side of a mountain. Inside, a group of men sat around a dining table. On the wall was a bank of video screens from a dozen security cameras. A larger screen showed a reporter interviewing hopeful people in Florida.

  “It rolled over again,” said one of the men at the table, sipping a glass of French wine. He looked out the window at a nearby plateau that had been cleared for a private airstrip. “When should we go?”

  The man at the head of the table raised a fork with a thick chunk of prime steak from Argentina. “Wait until it rolls one more time.”

  Armed guards marched past the windows outside. The men resumed dining without discussion . . .

  . . . Back in Miami, billboard workers climbed down from ladders and drove up the street to their next sign. This time it was a neighborhood so bleak that even the convenience stores had cleared out.

  One of those abandoned buildings sat boarded up, overgrown with weeds and loitering. The gas pumps were now just concrete oval bases. An old man with a brown paper bag sat on a citrus crate. He removed his socks, turned them inside out, and put them back on.

  Surrounding the shuttered store were vacant lots of broken liquor bottles, condoms, vials and RC Cola cans. A Miami police car was parked in the middle of one such lot, pointed at the street. The car remained motionless for hours. No need to even patrol. Along this stretch of Biscayne Boulevard, crime had delivery service.

  The reason for the particular placement of the police car was across the street: a feckless rectangular building of beige bricks, where the only window facing the street was a long horizontal slit filled with neon signs for beer brands.

  The Sawgrass Lounge, established 1949.

  Back then, it was a happening place. Sterling martini shakers, coat and ties, marble-top horseshoe bar. Today, it was still happening, just in another direction.

  More people were outside the lounge than in. Mingling, exchanging esoteric handshakes, whispering in ears. It was like a casting call for Starsky & Hutch street villains, the kind that end up being chased by the cops and always get caught after running down a dead-end alley and tackled trying to climb a chain-link fence. The gang outside the Sawgrass was not in mint condition. More bandages than the general population. Half had just slept something off, and the rest were trying to come down. Some milled out front, and others conspired in an alley: “We have to do something about that chain-link fence.” But they all had one thing in common: keeping an eye on the police car across the street.

  Several miles away, a black Suburban with tinted windows cruised south on Biscayne. A man in the backseat wore headphones and adjusted dials on an expensive-looking piece of electronics with a green oscilloscope. “Raise your arms up. I need to run this under your shirt.”

  “What is it?” asked Reevis.

  “Lapel mike. But we need to clamp it backward so it can’t be seen.” The sound man snapped it in place. “This tiny transmitter goes in your pants pocket, but make sure the wires aren’t hanging out.”

  Reevis grew more skeptical by the minute. “I’ve been with you guys three hours now, and you still won’t tell me about the story I’m supposed to be working on. You just kept filming me walking through the middle of the newsroom at the cable station. Must have been at least twenty times. Necktie on, tie off, jacket over the shoulder, sometimes running, sometimes yelling ahead to someone who wasn’t there to ‘hold the elevator,’ which also wasn’t there. It’s a one-floor building.”

  “Trust us,” Nigel said from the front seat. “Capturing reality is an art.”

  “Will you just tell me what I’m supposed to be investigating?”

  “In due time,” said Nigel. “I’ve found it’s best to wait until the last moment to let my performers in on the key elements. That way we catch a fresh reaction from you just as you’re thrown into peril.”

  “Peril?”

  “Nothing to worry about.” The sound man twisted a knob. “We’ve done this a million times. Taken every precaution to eliminate the peril. That gives us a safety margin to provoke peril.”

  Reevis sighed and stared at the ceiling.

  Nigel grabbed the dashboard and leaned closer to the windshield. “Slow down. We’re coming up on it now.” Then he turned to Reevis. “Here’s the story. Cold case. Woman went missing four years ago without a trace, body never found. We couldn’t have asked for a better crime to kick off the series.”

  “Why’s that?” asked Reevis.

  “Police came up with three equal murder suspects,” said Nigel. “That’s essential for a classic whodunit. In this case it’s the husband, a short-order cook who was seeing her on the side, and the semi-employed landscaper found driving her car after she went missing. All extremely suspicious and guilty-acting.”

  Reevis got out his notebook. “How were they acting guilty?”

  “They haven’t yet,” said Nigel. “But they will when we surprise them with our camera. Their eyes always give them away.”

  “That’s out of context,” said Reevis. “You can make anyone look guilty that way.”

  “I told you we know what we’re doing.”

  “No,” said Reevis. “I mean it’s not ethical.”

  “Glad you brought that up,” said Nigel. “Ethics are our top priority! That’s why we save the footage and only air the ‘guilty eyes’ shots of the people we decide are guilty.”

  Reevis took a deep breath. “Back up and tell me more about the missing woman’s car.”

  Nigel flipped open a briefcase on his lap and held up a document. “Police located it at three a.m. with a Dominican behind the wheel after it was pulled over for a broken taillight. Real suspicious type. Kept changing his story. First he said he was partying with the woman and that she had lent it to him. Then after they discovered a trunk full of blood, he changed his story and said he found it abandoned outside this sketchy bar with the keys still in the ignition.”

  Reevis continued scribbling in his pad. “Did the police ever charge him?”

  “He was the prime suspect for the first week,” said Nigel. “Then suddenly the cops ruled him out and started looking at the boyfriend. Don’t you find that suspicious? I think we should pump up the angle of police corruption.”

  “Slow down,” said Reevis. “I haven’t even started looking into this. Let me go through all the official files.”

  Nigel shook his head. “No good for TV.” He handed Reevis a sheet of paper.

  “What’s this?”

  “The script of how you’re going to break the case wide open!”

  The reporter handed it back. “My editor said I didn’t have to change how I worked—that I could investigate cases the way they taught me in journalism school.”

  “And that’s exactly what we were hoping you’d say!” Nigel exclaimed. “We want you to bring integrity and respect to the show. We promise to let you investigate as you see fit.”

  “Doesn’t sound like it.”

  “This is a different medium.” Nigel snipped the end off a large Honduran cigar. “Sometimes we have to start filming with the conclusion and do the investigating later.”

  “Why?”

  “Lighting.” Nigel puffed the cigar.

  “You can’t be serious.”

  “All we’re asking is that you work with us,” said Nigel. “The only hard piece of evidence is the car, so we’ll start there and pick up the trail. Go into the lounge and see if you can find anyone who re
members anything. The car, the Dominican, the woman. This is a real regulars’ place, same people on the same stools for years. Someone in there has answers.”

  “Okay, now it’s finally beginning to sound like legitimate journalism.” Reevis nodded. “I can do that.”

  “We knew you were our man.” A tinted window rolled down. A large, high-def video camera pointed out the window, followed by puffs of cigar smoke.

  The Suburban pulled into an empty lot at an abandoned convenience store and parked next to a police car. The loitering crowd on the opposite sidewalk stopped and stared in unison at the huge lens aimed at them. Some shouted at the SUV. Rude hand gestures.

  Nigel turned around again. “Here’s the deal: I called ahead to the lounge, and they said they didn’t want anything to do with TV or interviews. So you’re going to lead the way, and we’ll come in right behind you with the camera and lights, guns a-blazing until they throw us out.”

  “That’s not journalism,” said Reevis. “What about getting answers to a cold case?”

  “Later,” said Nigel.

  “Lighting,” said the cameraman, lacing up running shoes. “We need a quick strike.”

  “Stop!” said Reevis. “Everyone just stop! Forget the lighting and peril. I know this turf, and that is not the kind of place you want to barge into with a TV camera.”

  “Sure it is,” said Nigel. “The footage can’t miss. Just look at the joint.”

  “Yes, look at it,” said Reevis. “This isn’t the lounge at the Hyatt, where security guards professionally ask you to leave. It’s not that we’ll be thrown out, but how we’ll be thrown out.”

  “There’s a police car right next to us,” said Nigel. “What can go wrong?”

  The police officers received a domestic disturbance call and drove away.

  “I propose a wild new concept,” said Reevis. “Let me go in alone without all the camera lights and see if I can talk to them politely.”

  “They were quite adamant on the phone, screaming in fact. ‘No goddamn reporters!’” said Nigel. “But we need footage, even if it’s just getting tossed out. Especially if it’s just getting tossed out.”

  “I do this for a living,” said Reevis. “I might even be able to persuade them to allow your camera in there. What’s the harm in letting me try?”

  “Except the footage won’t be fresh, in the moment.”

  “But your camera won’t get destroyed.”

  Nigel thought a moment and formed a cynical smile. “This could work even better. We’ll stay parked here and film you going in. Then we’ll film ourselves in the car—which we’ll refer to as Mobile Command Central—listening while you capture salty dialogue on your hidden microphone.”

  “I can’t do that,” said Reevis.

  “Sure you can,” said Nigel. “Nobody will see it, especially in the dark.”

  “You’re not understanding,” said Reevis. “Florida is a two-party consent state for recording conversations. We’ll be committing a felony.”

  Nigel quickly looked it up on his smartphone. “He’s right about the statute. And we would never, ever want to break the law . . . Okay, Reevis, we’ll defer to your expertise. But we still need to get something on camera later.”

  “Great.”

  “Hold on,” said the sound man, reaching in a bag. “Here’s your gun.”

  “Put that stupid thing away,” said Reevis. He departed the SUV.

  The camera poked back out the window as the young reporter headed for the lounge’s entrance. The sound man reached for a knob.

  “What are you doing?” asked Nigel.

  “Killing his microphone.”

  “No,” said Nigel. “Leave it on.”

  Three Hundred Miles North

  U.S. Highway 98 is the scenic route along the coast of the Florida Panhandle. You might call it the hurricane-fodder coast. But when the Gulf of Mexico isn’t whipping havoc ashore, it is a pleasing panorama of gentle waves, sea oats, and sugar-white dunes rolling for miles like God’s own sand trap. Stilt houses are tastefully spread out along the beach so as not to block the view. Then it’s blocked: condos, mega-hotels, spring breakers and garish neon wedding-cake buildings so mammoth that it’s hard to fathom they primarily sell beachwear and boogie boards.

  But let’s back up. There’s a stretch along 98 that remains one of the state’s few unpopulated coasts, from Alligator Harbor westward to Carrabelle, past St. George Sound and over the bridge and oyster boats at Apalachicola. If one has a leisurely schedule, there’s a side spur called Route 30 that goes all the way through Indian Pass and down to the point at Cape San Blas. It juts out so precariously into the gulf that four lighthouses have been built over the years, and four are not there.

  The last light, commissioned in 1885, was a skeletal iron structure surrounding a metal cylinder that contained a spiral staircase rising ninety-six feet to the lantern. Erosion did what it does best, and the light was deactivated in 1996. In a rare Florida success story of preservation, citizens rallied to rescue the historic landmark, and since 2014 it stands safely in retirement at a public park farther up the coast. What’s left at Cape San Blas is a pristine point of beach, water all around, quiet wind, the occasional gull, all joining to create a natural retreat of sorts that nurtures spiritual peace in the undisturbed tranquillity.

  A ’64 Corvette skidded into the sand. “Where the fuck did the lighthouse go?”

  Coleman screamed as his head bounced back from the windshield.

  Serge ran up and down the beach, yelling and grabbing his temples in panic.

  Coleman fell out of the car.

  Serge jumped back in the Corvette and backed out, running over Coleman’s big toe.

  Another scream.

  “Coleman! Where are you?”

  “Down here.”

  Serge hit the brakes and stood up in the convertible. “What are you doing in the sand?”

  “Lying down.”

  “Get back in! I miscalculated that we had a leisurely enough schedule to take the side spur!”

  Coleman limped toward the passenger door.

  “Why are you walking like that?”

  “My toe suddenly started hurting. It can be fixed with beer.”

  The silver Stingray blazed northwest up the coast until reaching the modest downtown of Port St. Joe. A camera aimed out the driver’s side as they passed the historic art deco Port Theatre. Click, click, click . . .

  “Oh my God! What’s that on the horizon?”

  Brakes squealed. A forehead met the windshield a second time. “Ahhhhhh!” Coleman wiped beer off his face. “That mysterious thing happened again.”

  “In your case, seat belts are mysterious.” Serge chugged coffee as he whipped the sports car down Marina Drive toward a small park on the shore.

  “I thought we were behind schedule,” said Coleman.

  “It’s the San Blas lighthouse.” Click, click, click. “What’s that doing here? . . . Something strange is going on.” Chug, chug, chug. “I’ll inquire later . . . Onward . . .”

  The Corvette navigated worn streets in a small neighborhood before pulling up in front of a white gingerbread cottage from the 1920s. The porch railing and sturdy roofing joists suggested an expert woodworker with a name like Horatio who was banished from a whaling ship after a second mate went missing during a heated card game off Nantucket.

  Serge banged on the door with a brass knocker. Coleman cracked a can of Colt 45.

  Shuffling inside. A redheaded young man in a bathrobe answered the door eating a bowl of Froot Loops. “What do you want?”

  Serge briefly flashed an official-looking document. “Is this the residence of Maybelline Coot?”

  “She’s not feeling well. Get out of here.” The door began closing.

  A foot stopped it.

  “We’re not here to see Aunt May,” said Serge. “We’ve come to have a word with Preston Jacobs, which would be you.”

  Preston squeezed the door o
n the foot. “I’m busy.”

  Serge just grinned. “Right now is a very convenient time for you. Otherwise, your schedule will become amazingly busy. Actually it already has.”

  A delicate voice from the back of the cottage. “Is someone here?”

  “Just a salesman,” yelled Preston. “He’s leaving. Watch your TV show.”

  “What’s he want?”

  “Nothing . . .” A sneer through the crack in the door. “Move your foot or I’ll break it!”

  Serge didn’t move it.

  Preston put his weight into the door, which left him leaning the wrong way. He was stunned at the speed and force that Serge generated. The young man tumbled backward, and then all three of them were inside.

  Coleman giggled. “He looks funny with Froot Loops in his hair.”

  “It’s about to become a laugh riot.”

  Preston leaped up and wiped milk off his face. “You’re both dead if you don’t get out of here right now!”

  “Is he selling anything I might want? . . .”

  “Yes!” Serge yelled toward the back bedroom.

  “That’s it!” said Preston. “I gave you fair warning!” He cocked his fist back . . .

  Three minutes later.

  “Aunt May?”

  “Do I know you?”

  Serge grabbed a quilted chair from the vanity and pulled it to the side of the bed. “My name is Serge, and I’m a friend of Lou Ellen’s. Also Willard and Jasper.”

  “You know my family?”

  Serge held two fingers tightly together. “We’re like this.”

  “I miss them.” She made a melancholy face. “Why haven’t they come to see me? Preston said he’s been calling and calling them.”

  Serge gently placed his right hand on bony fingers. “All that’s changed now. Something happened and there was, uh, a disruption in phone service.”

  “Is everyone okay?”

  “Healthy as could be.” Serge patted the hand again and stood up. “And they’ll be here before you know it.”

  “That’s nice.” She strained to look out her bedroom door. “Did you see the salesman? What was he here for?”

  Serge exposed gleaming teeth. “Insurance! Preston just decided he needs a lot of it.”