the velvet bag and feels its weight. “What’s inside?”
“Rare in de natures. Royal jelly from de Brazilian queen bee.”
“This is my last chance before my wife becomes my ex-wife.” Noah pockets the bag. “I can’t thank you enough.”
“No needs de thanks, only de belief. But de magics don’ works ’less yo gives up dat demon rum in a bottle yo suckin’ on all de day long like a starvin’ babies pulled from de mommies’ teet. Alcohol bees de magics-killer. Dat demon goin’ pull you all de ways down into de hells.”
The outdoor food market is crowded with island locals and tourists jostling one another between open-air stalls piled with vivid mounds of tropical fruits and vegetables. Noah stops before one of the stalls and chooses from the exotic selection of purple plantain bananas, brown tamarind, yellow egg-fruit, orange loquat, blue-speckled mangoes, and green sweetsop. He moves on to a stall with a palm-thatched roof, protecting it from the overhead sun, where fresh sea fare is sprawled across iced trays. He studies the wet display of octopus, crab, horse conch, tuna, shark, dolphinfish, grouper, stingray, and snapper. He pokes a finger against an open-mouthed black grouper, then jabs a fat red snapper.
The stall’s monger, gripping a curved-blade gutting knife in his hand and wearing a white rubber apron streaked with fish blood, suspiciously watches Noah poking the fish. The monger shouts with gruff irritation: “Why you pokin’ that snapper? You gonna eat it … or you gonna make love to it?”
“Both.”
“Then, buddy, that’s not the one for you.” The monger looks over the colorful fish arrayed on the iced trays. He slaps the bright scales of a yellowfin tuna. “Here’s the one. She’s got a firm body and clear eyes.”
“I’ll take her.”
On the Gulf side of Key West, known as Land’s End, where once shrimping, fishing, and turtling boats were docked years before, are anchored tourist sunset cruise and glass-bottom boats, elaborate yachts, and fancy sailboats. Facing this leisure-time fleet is an open-sided restaurant serving buckets of peel-your-own shrimp and platters of shell-shucked gritty oysters. At the edge of the farthest dock is a long wooden shed where shark bodies by the hundreds were once piled before being reduced to fillet slabs, severed fins, and skins. The shed is now filled with a selection of souvenir postcards, T-shirts, seashell necklaces, suntan lotion, and plastic sandals. To the side of the shed is a concrete saltwater holding pen. The deep-water pen is the last of the turtle kraals constructed in the 1890s, where captured turtles were dumped by the boatload from docked schooners to be slaughtered for steaks, soup, combs, and toothbrush handles.
At the top edge of the concrete pen, Luz stands staring down into the water. She watches trapped snook and barracuda kept as a tourist attraction. The fish dart back and forth in silver flashes, searching for a way out.
The Chief comes up behind Luz and stands alongside her. He hands over a thick manila envelope. “Here it is, promised I’d get it. I’ve got pull with the boys in a state-of-the-art Miami lab. Told them it was for an important case when I sent the blood samples. They fast-tracked it through.”
“I suppose I should say thanks, but I don’t know what it says.” Luz takes the envelope. “Have you read it?”
“I wouldn’t know how to read it—too technical, cutting-edge DNA-predisposition genetic stuff. Only a few labs in the country can do this. It’s what you wanted.”
“You don’t have such a happy face. Did they tell you what it says?”
“Of course they told me.” The Chief looks down at the circling fish in the water. “I don’t know how I’d react if I got this news. Jump off a bridge maybe, stay at home twenty-four/seven with my family, go up on a mountaintop to meditate, or shoot heroin.”
Luz scrapes her fingernails across the thick envelope, cutting into the paper.
The Chief looks back at her. “I hate to say this, but, because of how the testing worked out, you should quit the force.”
“Never.”
“Go home and be with Carmen and Joan.”
“No, they would know why I was there, just sitting around the house. It’s better if life goes on, and they are strong with that. It’s too much for them to bear after what happened to Nina. They couldn’t go through it. They’d be crushed.”
“Given this new information, I could ask for your resignation. This can jeopardize your job performance. You’re still fit now, but any day that could change.”
“I won’t quit