Duma Key(207)

"Guess I ain't the only zorro in this boat."

"I'll end up with over eighty million bucks in liquid assets. Plus various keepsakes from the house. Including Miss Eastlake's Sweet Owen cookie-tin. Think she was trying to tell me something with that, 'chacho?"

I thought of Elizabeth popping various china figures into the tin and then insisting Wireman throw it in the goldfish pond. Of course she had been trying to tell him something.

"The rels got the north end of Duma Key, development value... well, sky's the limit. Ninety million?"

"Or so they think."

"Yes," he agreed, turning somber. "So they think." We sat in silence for a little while. He took the cylinder from me. I could see my face in its side, but distorted by the curve. I didn't mind looking at it that way, but I very rarely look at myself in a mirror anymore. It's not that I've aged; I don't care for the Freemantle fellow's eyes these days. They have seen too much.

"How's your wife and daughter?"

"Pam's out in California with her mother. Melinda's back in France. She stayed with Pam for awhile after Illy's funeral, but then she went back. I think it was the right call. She's getting on with it."

"What about you, Edgar? Are you getting on with it?"

"I don't know. Didn't Scott Fitzgerald say there are no second acts in American life?"

"Yep, but he was a washed-up drunk when he said it." Wireman put the cylinder at his feet and leaned forward. "Listen to me, Edgar, and listen good. There are actually five acts, and not just in American lives in every life that's fully lived. Same as in every Shakespearian play, tragedy and comedy alike. Because that's what our lives are made up of comedy and tragedy."

"For me, the yuks have been in short supply just lately," I said.

"Yeah," he agreed, "but Act Three has potential. I'm in Mexico now. Told you, right? Beautiful little mountain town called Tamazunchale."

I gave it a try.

"You like the way it rolls off your tongue. Wireman can see that you do."

I smiled. "It do have a certain ring to it."

"There's this rundown hotel for sale there, and I'm thinking about buying it. It'd take three years of losses to put that kind of operation on a paying basis, but I've got a fat money-belt these days. I could use a partner who knows something about building and maintenance, though. Of course, if you're still concentrating on matters artistic..."

"I think you know better."

"Then what do you say? Let us marry our fortunes together."

"Simon and Garfunkel, 1969," I said. "Or thereabouts. I don't know, Wireman. I can't decide now. I do have one more picture to paint."

"Indeed you do. Just how big is this storm going to be?"

"Dunno. But Channel 6 is gonna love it."

"Plenty of warning, though, right? Property damage is fine, but no one gets killed."

"No one gets killed," I agreed, hoping this would be true, but once that phantom limb was given free rein, all bets were off. That's why my second career had to end. But there would be this one final picture, because I meant to be fully avenged. And not just for Illy; for Perse's other victims, as well.

"Do you hear from Jack?" Wireman asked.

"Just about every week. He's going to FSU in Tallahassee in the fall. My treat. In the meantime, he and his Mom are moving down the coast to Port Charlotte."

"Was that also your treat?"

"Actually... yes." Since Jack's father died of Crohn's Disease, he and his mother had had a bit of a tough skate.

"And your idea?"

"Right again."

"So you think Port Charlotte's going to be far enough south to be safe."

"I think so."

"And north? What about Tampa?"

"Rain- showers at most. It's going to be a small storm. Small but powerful."

"A tight little Alice. Like the one in 1927."

"Yes."

We sat looking at each other, and the girls cruised by again in their sportabout, laughing louder and waving more enthusiastically than before. Sweet bird of youth, flying on afternoon wine coolers. We saluted them.

When they were gone, Wireman said: "Miss Eastlake's surviving relatives are never going to have to worry about getting building permits for their new property, are they?"

"I don't think so, no."

He thought it over, then nodded. "Good. Send the whole island to Davy Jones's locker. Works for me." He picked up the silver cylinder, turned his attention to the little orange flag over the fissure that splits the middle of Lake Phalen, then looked back at me. "Want to say any final words, muchacho?"

"Yes," I said, "but not many."

"Get em ready, then." Wireman turned on his knees and held the silver cylinder out. The sun sparkled on it for what I hoped would be the final time in at least a thousand years... but I had an idea Perse was good at finding her way to the surface. That she had done it before, and would again. Even from Minnesota, she would somehow find the caldo.

I said the words I'd been holding in my mind. "Sleep forever."

Wireman's fingers opened. There was a small splash. We leaned over the side of the boat and watched the silver cylinder slide smoothly out of sight with one final glimmer of sunlight to mark its descent.