American Tropic - By Thomas Sanchez Page 0,7
the pilot. “Damn! It’s what I thought! Can’t believe it!”
The copter’s blades whip the air as the cameraman leans perilously out from the doorway. He aims his lens down and films the naked body of a dead man tied by rope to the buoy’s metal pole.
The downward force of wind from the copter’s blades above the body creates a churning circle in the water around the buoy. The copter pulls up and banks away. The buoy rocks in the watery wake left behind. The mutilated body tied to the pole sways beneath a relentless sun.
The Bounty Bar faces the boat-filled Key West Harbor. The walls are hung with an array of seafaring artifacts, big-game fishing rods and reels and colorful mounted trophy fish caught in their plasticized death leaps. The humid air moves in a rush from ceiling fans spinning over the heads of sport fishermen, shrimpers, real-estate hustlers, deadbeats, lushes, lowlifes, and wide-eyed tourists wearing floral-print shirts.
Commanding the scene from behind the long mahogany bar counter is Zoe. She emanates an effortless sophisticated beauty cut by a savvy aura of understanding the world of men. She moves quickly, with the calculated feline grace of knowing her ability to land securely no matter what situation she is thrown into. She pulls two bottles of beer up from the icy water of the large bright-red cooler and bangs them down on the counter in front of two Bounty Bar regulars, Big Conch and Hard Puppy.
Big Conch’s cocked-up stature comes from the years when he outran Coast Guard cutters in his cocaine-packed cigarette boat across low-tide coral inlets. His face registers the righteousness of an outlaw who cashed out of his scam before being busted and left to rot in a federal slammer. His gray hair is dyed an unnatural blond hue and is slicked back flat against his scalp. Around Big’s neck dangles the circular gold weight of Spanish medallions. His blue-eyed stare is that of a thug feigning a legit life in a new world of real-estate pimps and condo hustlers. He grabs the beer bottle in front of him and ham-fists it to his lips, sucking out the foaming brew.
Next to Big, Hard Puppy takes a slow, cool drink from his bottle. Hard is descended from a line of black Bahamian freemen who were once the property of British Caribbean overlords. He is outfitted in a flashy white silk suit and white alligator shoes, befitting his position as the number-one cash kingpin of illegal dogfighting from Key West to Miami. Around Hard floats in the air the lime scent of aftershave lotion that he slaps onto his sharp-featured face every day to keep away the scent of poverty he grew up with and that he always smells: the stink of unchanged shit in diapers and a drunk stepfather snoring on top of his puked-out, passed-out mother.
Hard and Big straighten up on their stools to get a better view of Zoe behind the bar. They admire her long tanned legs captured by tight white shorts and, above that, a thin strategic halter top offering the right amount of provocative glimpse of her breasts.
Big glances at his gold Rolex as if time is running out, then looks back at Zoe and rattles off at her: “After your divorce is final from Noah, you’re gonna marry me. I’ll be richer than original sin itself when my resort is completed. Bank on that, girl. Big will have you farting through silk panties for the rest of your gorgeous life.”
Zoe plants her elbows on the bar in front of Big; she leans her chin into her cupped hands and defiantly nails Big’s blue eyes with her own big blue eyes. “Everyone knows your Neptune Bay Resort is illegal. You bulldozed tidal lands before the environmental study came in. The ecologists stopped you. You’ll be lucky if they don’t hang you from an endangered gumbo-limbo tree before you make your first dime.”
Hard Puppy snorts his approval of Zoe’s put-down of Big. His platinum-encased teeth shine as he speaks with a singsong Caribbean twang. “Baby doll, you don’t have to be marryin’ me for my monies. Just be givin’ me one hot honey night and we be doin’ the nasty black and white, then Hard’s fortune be yours.”
Zoe spins around from Hard and Big. Her attention goes to a large television behind the bar. On the screen, a basketball game cuts away to a breaking news story. A headline scrolls across the screen, MURDER AT THE