0 comments/  21083 views/  2 favorites

Death in Key West Ch. 01

By: sr71plt



"I could die on an airplane that small."

"So that's why I find you at the airport bar," I said and then laughed. "I suppose we all need a good excuse to get liquored up, Gary. The running joke of you being afraid of flying is as good as any to start drinking this early in the day."

I had stumbled on Gary Meltzer in the Coaches' Corner bar in Atlanta's Hatfield airport as I was walking past to the departure gate. I was transferring here from my LaGuardia flight to a flight to Miami and then onward on a puddle jumper hop down to Key West. It turned out Meltzer was waiting for the same flight. I had been surprised to find the senior Drug Enforcement Agency agent going my way. It had been years since I'd seen him, strangely enough at another bar, in Washington, D.C., where I was the one who got too drunk.

"Funny that you'd mention drinking too much, Clint." He was giving me a sloppy grin. "Other than that one really bad habit you have, the great NYPD homicide detective Clint Folsom has a rock-solid reputation."

"We all make mistakes while under the influence," I answered. "That's why I'm surprised to see you drinking. Especially seeing that you say you're going down to the Keys on business. Got a hot lead?"

I wanted to change the subject from that Washington bar encounter—especially as it related to that one really bad habit I had. I'd been particularly vulnerable in those months after my partner and lover, Brad Roberts, had been brutally murdered in New York when we were close to closing a homicide case. I didn't usually drink that hard. But I'd gone out on the town with Gary Meltzer when I was down in D.C. testifying on breaking up the international smuggling ring that had been connected to our murder case. And how was I to know that Meltzer swung that way and I'd wind up under him in his bed at the end of my "feel sorry for myself" drink fest?

"Yeah, a hot lead indeed. I think one session with a tycoon with a fancy yacht down in Key West's Margaretville, and I'll have all the answers I need to conclude a big bust. Where are you staying in the keys? Maybe we could—"

"Just seeing an old friend. Another one of those tycoons with a fancy yacht in the keys. But, yes, maybe we could—"

"Don't look yet," Meltzer said under his breath, suddenly getting very secretive, "But there's an odd couple over there—over your right shoulder—looking you up and down real well. You sure you're not traveling on business, buddy?"

"No," I answered. "Just visiting an old family friend—a very special friend." I was actually relieved that Meltzer had interrupted me. I was perhaps too quick on the uptake—I couldn't even remember now whether Meltzer was a good cocksman. I had been too far gone when he'd fucked me to fully appreciate what was happening. He certainly looked good sitting here in his "obviously a government agent" suit, but I just couldn't remember. And guys were always telling me I was too quick on the give. I couldn't help it, though. I loved cock. I tried—usually quite successfully—not to let my nymphomania interfere with my cop duties, but it wasn't a condition I either denied or shied away from anymore. And, increasingly, I'm glad to say, people I encountered didn't have a problem with it.

"Oh, never mind," Meltzer was saying. "I guess I'm too keyed up. They're leaving now. I'm obviously not liquored up enough to face this plane ride to Miami. And I don't know how the hell I'm going to manage the kiddy car jump down to the Keys from there. They really do need to put in a longer runway at Key West."

"If they put in a long enough runway to satisfy your need for plane size, we'd probably be taxiing in from Havana," I said with a chuckle. Meltzer's fear of flying was legendary—not least because his job required him to do a lot of it.

Feeling I'd given it enough time since he'd looked in that direction, I turned my head to look for the couple he was talking about. Although I only saw them from the back side as they were sauntering off to the same departure gate we were staying close to, I had to agree that they made an odd couple. The guy was tall, strapping movie stunt man material, looking close enough to the stereotype of most of the star hunks of the day to be matched up with a bit of make-up and agile and strong enough to take all of the bumps the star's insurance agency wanted to avoid for the principal. And mincing along beside him was a petite oriental woman, with a swept-up mass of black hair held together with those long knitting-needle types of hair pins. I wondered how she'd gotten them through airport security, but if they'd cleared her when the lines were anywhere as long as they were when I went through at LaGuardia, the security personnel were so harried looking for banned bottles of designer water that they could easily miss the obvious.

"I'd . . . I'd like to see you in Key West, Clint, when I can get the time off. Really. I'll be staying at the Days Inn on Roosevelt."

"Only the best for a senior DEA agent, right?" I said, and then I laughed. If I were going there on business rather than visiting my first lover, the man who had watched me grow and seduced me as soon as I'd turned eighteen and whose deflowering I still couldn't forget, I knew I'd be booked at even more of a minimum-amenities motel than the Days Inn.

"Yeah, not exactly the Crowne Plaza La Concha to be sure. But I've stayed there before, and I can attest that the beds don't squeak under stress."

"Strong bed frames, you say?" I couldn't help but grin at the image. "Got right into the Key West culture, did you, the last time you were down there?"

"You betcha," Meltzer responded, matching me grin for grin.

"Been down there often of late?"

"There and Lakeland too. It's been a long investigation," he answered. "But the size of the potential haul has made it all worthwhile—not to mention the opportunities to get out of D.C. regularly."

Our flight was being called, and I broke off my unexpected visit with Meltzer with some hope of a hookup in the next couple of days if we didn't find a convenient place to meet on the airplane. He asked me for some way to contact me, not wanting to trust that I'd contact him at the Days Inn, I guess, so I wrote Theo's ship-to-shore number on the back of my official calling card, which also had my cell phone number on it. He slipped it into his pocket without looking at it, because the ticket agents were now becoming a little insistent in getting people on board the flight to Miami.

I was making use of frequent flyer miles and had a seat in business class, whereas the DEA budget being particularly strapped at the moment, Meltzer was sitting back in steerage, so I lost contact with him when he moved on toward the back after we got on. Business class was pretty deserted. There was no one sitting next to me. Already sitting across the aisle from me, though, was the movie-type guy Meltzer had drawn my attention to. There was no one sitting with him, though, either, and I wondered momentarily where his little oriental honey was.

The guy was definitely the friendly type, though, and showed interest in me even before the doors shut, chattering at me from across the aisle and making small talk and the sort of assessing look I'd seen so often in the types of bars I liked to go to to unwind. I was such a slut in that way. I did like one-night stands and often brought guys home from those bars. When I established I was a homicide cop and they still wanted to come home with me, I reasoned I was pretty safe in having them in my apartment—I just kept my gun well hidden while they were working on me with their gun.

As soon as the doors closed, I gave thought to going back to tourist class and seeing if I could find Meltzer. The flight wasn't all that long, and I supposed I could give up the amenities of business class for a discussion with a rarely seen friend—or better yet, I was thinking, maybe the flash of a badge or two would get Meltzer up beside me in business class. But before I could rise, the friendly guy was moving across the aisle and introducing himself as Derek Dominick, who, indeed, worked in the movies—and who was interested in getting to know me better. He didn't take long in letting me know how much better he wanted to know me—it was a phenomenon I had long given up on trying to figure out; dominant tops gravitated to me like I was a magnet of some sort.

I'd had sex on a plane before, but rarely in the middle of the day and in the business class seats, with stewardesses tromping back and forth frequently. The movie guy showed me how he could cover my lap with a blanket and turn toward me and give me a hand job under the blanket without being too obvious about what was going on. But at some point the stewardesses weren't asking us if we wanted anything and were averting their eyes when they went by, so I figure they had a good idea what was being dealt.

Derek was very good with his hand. He was a real hunk, and he knew just how to grip my cock and press his thumb into my slit so that I'd moan softly for him. When a stewardess had gone past us, he'd lean in and take my lips with his and start off in a gentle kiss that got hard and possessive before he let me up for air. He kept murmuring in a rich baritone how he'd like to get me alone and what he'd like to do to me.

Although the positioning was awkward, I did manage briefly to explore what he had between his legs, which set me trembling, and I ran my hand up under the hem of his shirt and ascertained that he was all hard muscle. His handwork on my cock had me on edge all of the way from Atlanta to Miami, and I took off on a short trip to paradise as the plane was touching down.

We had established that we both were headed toward Key West, although Derek wasn't going there straight away—he said he was on a movie location in Lakeland, in central Florida, although he lived in Key West. And Derek made quite clear that he would like to explore sex with me further if I was in Key West when he got back there. Then he deplaned as soon as the door to the throughway opened, leaving me to readjust myself before I inserted my well-used body in the flow from the back. I left the plane with little time to transfer to the smaller terminal for the hop to Key West.

Only when I was leaving, trying, unsuccessfully, to catch sight of Meltzer, did I remember having given a contact number to Meltzer—and realized that the movie hunk had neither asked me for a contact number in Key West nor given me any means of tracking him down again either. I regretted slightly and briefly that I probably never would see him again—and seeing him in the altogether and finding out what other lovemaking techniques he had in his repertoire were pleasures I very much had been looking forward to.

I had figured I'd be spending my time with Theo while I was in the Keys, but I'd already picked up two fine offers while flying down there to mix in some varied encounters—assuming I happened upon the movie hunk in a Duval Street leather bar—so, my vacation was looking quite fine. And even if I didn't see the movie guy again, I knew from experience that there were a lot of interesting guys available in Key West. It was what the place was famous for.

When I got to the small terminal and the thirty-seater jet-prop was being opened for boarding, I was surprised to find that Gary Meltzer wasn't there. He'd said something about maybe renting a car and driving down rather than taking the plane, but I thought he had been kidding about that. But then I forgot about his absence. I couldn't see any reason why a hulking DEA agent should be afraid of flying in a puddle jumper, but it was his life, and that was his reputation. I turned to trying to remember how good he was in bed—and just not being able to relive that experience. I hadn't been that drunk in years. I no longer tried to drown my sorrows of losing the man I loved so deeply in a vat of gin.

I looked around at my travel companions for the short, cramped flight—several pairs of young, good-looking men, obviously enraptured with each other and going down to Key West for the free and easy ambiance and the opportunity to let their feelings toward each other show without getting dirty looks. A family of four, bickering but obviously excited at the adventure they were facing; an elderly couple, probably nearing the bottom of their "to see before we die" travel adventure list; a young, effeminate Chinese man who sat quietly, not looking up from his lap; a couple of guys in naval uniforms, evidently heading for duty in the naval annex at the southernmost tip of the United States, from which we monitored life in blockaded Cuba by various electronic means; and a couple of giggly college girls, off to ogle the beefcake on the Key West beaches.

But still no Gary Meltzer.

I rose as they gave us a gate call, but at the tail end of that announcement, I heard my name called and I swerved back toward the rostrum right as I was about to hand my ticket to the stewardess for boarding. 

Death in Key West Ch. 02



"Yes, I recognize that."

Until this point, I had been truly confused why I had been called out of the departure line on the flight from Miami to Key West and ushered into this windowless room down a nondescript corridor behind the scenes back at the main terminal building. But now that I saw my business card and the metallic blue knitting needle, it all fell sickeningly in place. I didn't even need to take the dried blood on the business card into account. I was a homicide detective after all.

"Yes, it's my business card," I answered. I picked it up, doing so before the flustered security official could prevent that, and turned it over just to be sure. Yes, it had Theo's ship-to-shore number on the back in my handwriting. I knew it would, but I had to be sure. "It will, of course, have my prints on it," I said. "I confirm it's one I gave out just a couple of hours ago. May I ask how—?"

"I can't say . . . I'm not the one . . . please, we'll have to wait just a bit longer before we get into that, Mr. Folsom."

"Detective Folsom," I responded. Might as well keep it clear that we were all family here. I felt bad for the guy. He obviously was in over his head. Just an airport security guy. I was sure he almost never had to deal in death; certainly not in murder. And I was three steps ahead of him here. I knew now why Gary Meltzer hadn't made the Key West flight—and why I hadn't seen him get off the Miami flight. He was dead, murdered during the flight. And the knitting needle, last seen by me in the hair of an oriental woman walking away from us at the airport bar, meant that I knew more than the security guy did.

"I have a flight to make. Or at least I did. I'm expected in Key West. I'll have to make a call. May I—?"

"I . . . we would really prefer that you didn't make any calls just now, Mr. . . . Detective Folsom. I really have no authority except to ask you to remain here for the moment. There will be later flights to Key West. You were going there on police business?" The security guy's trembling voice not only signaled his embarrassment and consternation but also sounded like he was unsure whether he really could hold me here, whether he might be impeding higher-priority police work.

I did what I could to relieve him. I felt for the guy, who was sweating profusely, even though the air conditioning in the room was cranked up high. "No, I'm on vacation. Not official travel."

"Ah then," the security guy said, and the noticeable release of tension in his body made me happy I'd let him off the hook. It wasn't his fault a DEA agent was murdered on one of his arriving airplanes. I couldn't even be sure that he knew Meltzer had been a DEA agent.

"Look, I can see where this is going," I said. "Gary Meltzer is an old friend of mine. He's a DEA agent; I'm an NYPD homicide cop. We found ourselves in the boarding area for the same flight from Atlanta, and we were both headed to Key West. I gave him that card just a couple of hours ago—so he'd know how to contact me in Key West. But I haven't seen him since. I was in business class and he was back in coach. Can you just tell me if he's—?"

The security official held his arms out in front of him as if to ward off the very words I was about to speak, and it was at that point that he was saved.

"Hello, Clint. I always seem to be dropping in on you in compromising positions, don't I?"

Hearing her voice was a shock. I had no idea that Sylvia Browne had moved to Miami homicide. I knew she'd left New York some time ago, but I had no idea where she'd gone. This most certainly was one of those "old home week" days for me.

And there was no doubt she was Miami homicide—and well up on the totem pole. She'd entered the room like she owned the place, a shiny badge hanging from her belt, and the airport security official virtually melted into the floor out of relief that someone was here he could dump the problem on.

"That's OK, Mr. Fuentes," she said smoothly. "Thanks for your help. I can take it from here. You'll see to helping my techs, won't you?"

She stared hard at me for the few seconds Mr. Fuentes needed to bow and scrape in relief and clear the room, and then, her voice still biting, she said, "We seem to be destined to meet in unpleasant circumstances, don't we, Clint?"

We were alone now, so I saw no reason to cover my response. "Neither was of my doing, Sylvia. I had no idea that you and Peter were seeing each other, and Peter initiated it—his relationship with me. And today's encounter with Gary Meltzer was completely coincidental. He's dead, isn't he?"

"Yes."

"Murdered during the flight from Atlanta to Miami?"

"Yes," she answered again, but this time her eyebrows went up.

"Just deduction, Sylvia," I answered. "I've seen this knitting needle before. The murder weapon, I assume?"

She just gave me a curt little nod of acquiescence. She was still staring at me hard.

"There was nothing in my brief conversations that would indicate Meltzer thought he was in any danger, Sylvia. But I saw that knitting needle being used as a hairpin by an oriental woman, who I only saw from the back, when Meltzer and I were sitting at a bar in the Atlanta airport. Meltzer actually drew my attention to her because he thought she was showing too much interest in me. Seems possible now that it was Meltzer she was showing interest in."

That's when it hit me that the woman had been in the company of the movie guy, Derek Dominick, who had come on to me so strongly and completely during the flight into Miami. And I felt a little deflated, because I could now see that his attention was focused on keeping me from going looking for Meltzer—and that it was no accident that he hadn't given me contact information. I doubted if he was in the movies at all—or that his name was Derek Dominick. I suddenly was seeing this as at least partially my case and starting the wheels to grind on how I was going to pursue it.

"Did you know that Gary Meltzer was a senior DEA agent?" I asked.

"Yes. He was carrying credentials. He still had his wallet with money and credit cards in it; it doesn't look like a robbery. We're already in contact with DEA Washington," Sylvia said. "They are on their way and weren't very forthcoming. I wouldn't be surprised if the FBI came along with them."

I could tell that bothered Sylvia plenty. And I could see where it would. I'd had the Feds snarf up my cases from under my nose before myself. I had no grudge against Sylvia. She thought—wrongly—that she had one against me. But Sylvia was a good cop, and I saw no reason not to help her.

"Well, if I tell you what little I know—which should at least give you some leads and probably is more than DEA will tell you before they close down your investigation—will you let me take the next flight to Key West?"

Her eyes narrowed and she was thinking hard, but she slid into in the chair across from me at the table, so I knew we were reaching some common ground. "Depends," she said. "What can you tell me?"

"Meltzer was on his way to Key West. He said he was close to making a big-time drug bust and rolling up a narcotics king pin down there. Chances are good that's why he's dead. And chances are even better that DEA won't give you even that much information."

"Granted," she said, and I saw the tension go out of her body, if only a fraction. "Is there more?"

"Check out who was in seat 3C on the Atlanta to Miami flight," I said. "I have a strong hunch—nothing that I'll say anything further on—that you'll find an accomplice to Meltzer's murderess if you can pin that guy down. A beach boy blond, hulky, hunky type. Movie stuntman type. I was sitting across the aisle from him, and I saw him in the company of the woman owning that knitting needle back in the Atlanta terminal."

"Just your type, was he?" Sylvia said with a bitter edge to her voice. "Maybe someone who distracted you so you wouldn't go back and check on Meltzer while he was being offed?"

Sylvia wasn't anything if not quick on the uptake. And it would be painful for her to hear the all of it, so I didn't answer that question.

"OK. You can go on to Key West, and I'll do what I can not to sic DEA or FBI on you—God knows I'll enjoy having something they don't know when they stonewall me. But make sure I know where you are. And don't leave Florida without telling me, OK?"

"Fine with me," I said, "The back of that business card gives you the number where I'll be. And the front gives you my cell phone number. Now, can I use my phone to call down there and let them know I'm not on the expected flight."

"OK," Sylvia said in a weary voice. She stood and moved to the door and opened it. But before she stepped through it, she turned and said in the same hard voice she'd entered the room with, "I'd say it was nice seeing you again, Clint. But it wasn't." And then she was gone.

Sylvia Browne was gone now, but the bitterness that she left in her wake was still suffocating. I felt sorry. But I didn't feel guilty. And it was that lack of guilt that Sylvia probably could never understand or accept. There was no question she was justified in her hurt and shock at having come home days early from a police procedures conference out of state and finding her husband in bed with me—but beyond that, nothing was my fault. Peter Blair had pursued me and had done so when I was new to the NYPD, new to the homicide job and vulnerable to all the horrors of meaningless death around me—wanting to choose and celebrate life instead. And Peter, the senior detective, ever solicitous of how I was doing, how I felt, was there to give me a steady hand and to be my friend—my special friend.

And he had finally won me and we'd had a brief, but torrid affair. He had a great body and a soothing personality and a cock that mastered me and made me feel alive and wanted. But it had been an accident that had found me in his apartment that night. I was coming by to pick him up for a late-night movie and then a tryst in a hotel, and I'd been caught in a downpour between my car and his door and he'd made me come in to dry off and change clothes. And the first thing I knew, we were in his bed and I was on my belly and he was straddling my hips and fucking me fast and deep.

And Sylvia walked in on us.

But none of that was my fault—except maybe the part that I didn't, even then, stop giving in to Peter whenever he laid his hand on my belly and whispered that he wanted me. Peter and Sylvia had kept their marriage secret. They could not have both worked homicide in New York side by side as husband and wife. Sylvia had every right to be bitter and angry. But at Peter Blair, not at me.

And not long after the blowup—the last time I'd seen Sylvia before she had walked into the airport security room just now—Peter Blair had moved to a cushy rural sheriff's job in a rich county in Virginia just south of Washington, D.C., and Sylvia had disappeared altogether—obviously having ended up working Miami homicide.

It hadn't been my fault—and I didn't feel guilty about it—but if I could help Sylvia Browne keep control of and solve this murder case, I would do so. And maybe, just maybe, I'd see if I could track down this Derek Dominick, or whoever he was, myself. That part of this puzzle was personal now.



Death in Key West Ch. 03



I had caught the last flight of the day from Miami to Key West. The plane was a small, two-jet prop thirty-four-seater island hopper with cramped headroom and narrow seats. The airport security guy, now all smiles and service, the embarrassment of having had to detain a New York detective needing to be smoothed over, drove me straight out to the plane, so I was the first one on and had my pick of seats. I took a window seat just forward of the wing, as I'd never flown into to Key West before and wanted to get the layout of the island from the air. It was late afternoon, but there were just a few clouds scuttling across the sky at a higher altitude than we were flying.

As I was settling in, the rest of the passengers bustled onto the plane and scrambled for seats Chinese fire drill style, and I wound up seatmating with the evident "giver" of one of the male couples traveling down to Key West for the freedom of showing their affection in public, forcing the apparently "taker" of the two to settle in the seat across the aisle from us.

My seatmate was a well-scrubbed and well-turned-out outgoing college jock named Steve who assessed me pretty quickly and came on all friendly and interested from the time we were taxiing out for takeoff. He had his hand on my thigh and was giving me "that" look and asking where I was staying in Key West. He was quite a hunk, and I could tell he was packing a good hard, but as I was turned to him, I could also see that the guy he was with, who was more the nervous filly type, was having a fit of jealously across the aisle from us. I didn't want to cause any trouble between them, especially at the start of their vacation together, although I wouldn't have minded a tumble with a robust college football player. So I told him I was a police detective going down to the keys on assignment, and when he instinctively recoiled from me at this news, I turned to the window and became engrossed in following the U.S. 1 intercoastal highway down the spine of the keys.

The thin ribbon of roadway against the azure blue of the Gulf Stream waters was mesmerizing, and I started to drift off. It was something Steve had just said to me, combined with where I was headed, that determined where my mind wandered. Upon first seeing me, he asked me if I was in the movies—but then got a confused look. He started to say, "You remind me of the actor—," and then it occurred to him in midsentence that I couldn't be that movie actor, because I was far too young. It was a litany I heard often, because "that movie actor" was my father—and my mother was a leading lady of the past as well. They were OK for parents considering the demands of their work and the narcissistic tendencies of all actors, but they were heavy baggage for me. I rarely made the connection for people, however, as I had purposely moved as far away from that sheltering life as I could. I'd figured being a New York cop was about as far away from being a vested member of the Hollywood elite as I could get.

I used my legal name, which few would connect to the name the studio had anointed my father with. I couldn't do much about the physical resemblance between my father and me, though—and I didn't regret that it made me familiar and attractive to people I wanted to be attracted to. I wasn't any less narcissistic than my parents were—I just liked having men make love to me more than having a camera do it.

Steve's connection into my past merged with memories of what was bringing me to the keys to begin with. It wasn't business. An old family friend had invited me down—from out of the blue. I hadn't seen the movie producer Theo Kline in years. He was from my past—from my upbringing in Hollywood, when my parents were at the height of their box office draw and Theo was the go-to producer of the sophisticated romantic comedies my parents specialized in. What I mainly remembered Theo for, though, was, first, that he paid attention to me that my parents didn't, and, second—undoubtedly related to the first—that he was the one who had introduced me to male-on-male sex. He had been in my family's life from my earliest memory, and he had always been extra-special attentive to me. My parents had sheltered me as much as possible from the Hollywood life. But they had let Theo through the barriers of privacy they had set up, and they often were just too busy for me. Theo had waited patiently to take advantage of that. And Theo had gotten exactly what he wanted.

I can't help but believe he had planned it all and sketched it out like a movie script. It was the summer between high school and when my parents sent me back to the East Coast for college. My mother was off in Europe filming and my dad was preparing for a movie set in the high timber. Theo Kline was producing the movie, and he had suggested that my father and the movie's young heartthrob supporting actor go up with him to his mountain cabin in the mountains to the east of Los Angeles to toughen their bodies up for the shirtless movie shots and to take instruction in lumberjacking so they would look half way convincing to the male moviegoers while the female ones (and some male ones too) were admiring their washboard stomachs. Lumberjacking was the center of the film they were doing, a drama in which the young hunk supporting actor was toughened up in life and the ways of honor by the solid and wise leading man, played by my father.

Gordon Fields. That had been the name of the young actor who was sending all of the teenage girl movie goers atwitter in those days—and most of their mothers as well. My father could also still melt hearts, so the box office returns of this movie were assured, even though the content itself was forgettable. These were the fairly early days of men baring their chests in movies, not to speak of their butts as well, and much of what was happening that summer was in building the chests of these two men through their instruction in working in the high timber, so that the brief flashes of hard-muscle beefcake would boost ticket sales.

Theo had hired me to be his assistant that summer. He was trying to convince my parents to let me start appearing in movies as well—and in those days I was undecided enough about what I wanted to do that I was willing to give it a try. I, in fact, had a background nonspeaking part in this film, and I was embarrassed in the squad room years later when someone took a still from the film of me, shirtless and all asweat with an ax in my hand, and posted on my work locker.

I also had a crush on Theo. He had been especially nice to me through my teen years. And I wasn't completely stupid. I had some idea—well, as I got educated in the ways of the world, more than "some" idea—what Theo was interested in. But I couldn't think of any reason why I might not be interested in it too. I also wanted to take advantage of the opportunity to bring some better definition to my own muscles. And that summer did wonders for me in that department.

My parents had not been pleased by Theo's offer, but they didn't have any better idea what to do with me that summer. My mother was on location above the snowline in Scandinavia filming one of those "deeply symbolic and meaningful" Bergmanesque films using bleak snow scapes as a metaphor for a barren, unfulfilled marriage, and my mother didn't think there was anything for a young man like me to do in that setting. And my father was going to spend the summer in the mountains. So, by accepting Theo's offer of employment, I would at least be where my father could keep an eye on me, and I could get plenty of healthy exercise.

But it didn't work out that way—with the exception of the exercise part. I don't know what Theo did to get my father called back to Los Angeles for that first of several unforgettable weekends, but the night he and Gordon Fields came creeping into my bedroom, it was just the three of us. Just me, an eighteen-year-old, naïve, impressionable, puppy love, impetuous young man alone in the woods with a master manipulator and the summer's sexiest movie man.

Both Theo and Gordon, without directly stating it, had gotten me in high heat for them just in conversations during the previous two weeks—they were both masters of this. Once alone with me in the cabin in the dark, after awakening me from sleep that Saturday night and to desire with the wandering of their hands and lips on my nubile body, Theo sat back in a lounge chair near the bed and worked his hard cock with his hand while he gave direction to Gordon, as the young actor worked his way down my body with his lips and opened his mouth over my throbbing cock. Following this, his hand coaxed my thighs apart and cupped and gently squeezed my balls. I was whimpering and sighing and moaning and came rather quickly in the exotic and overpowering experience of my first masterful blow job, doubly impassioned by the deep, rich voice of the powerful movie producer voicing what the young actor would then be doing to my body.

I arched my back and moaned when Theo told Gordon to spread my legs and go down between them and start tonguing my hole. I whimpered in fear and anticipation when he started talking of what he was going to be invading my channel with and how gloriously filling I would find it. I wanted to object, to break away and escape, but the pleasure was just too intense, and the young actor's body was just too beautiful.

I was on my back on the edge of the bed and Gordon was standing between my spread thighs, leaning over and sucking on my taut nipples. He raised his head and smiled at me—the smile that sent women all over the world into a swoon. His fingers, which had been working inside my channel, were spreading my entrance, and I could feel his bulb at my hole. I was terrified, but I wanted him.

That was when I heard Theo's voice cutting through the darkness. Husky, thick as molasses. I could sense the lust in him.

"Move aside now, Gordon," he whispered in a hoarse, insistent voice. "I've waited for years for this moment."

Gordon's face withdrew, to be replaced with Theo's. And it was Theo's dick slowly entering me, plowing into virgin territory. And I cried out and moved my hips in rhythm with his as he moved deeper inside me. And I realized that I had been waiting for this for years too.

After Theo had filled and stretched and worked me in my first taking and ballooned out his condom deep inside me, he slowly withdrew from me while taking my lips in his. Then he stepped back away from me and pulled Gordon back into my line of vision.

"Now you," he said.

Gordon took my hips in his hands and turned me onto my belly, and I felt the insistent hardness of him thrusting strongly into me and swiftly and at length vigorously pumping as I groaned and begged him to slow down—but no, to do it just like that. Faster and harder and deeper.

Later, after I had been fucked to exhaustion, Gordon pulled me up from the bed and settled me in the chair, and then he fucked Theo on the bed, while Theo watched me, giving me "that" look that told me we would be doing this at every opportunity. And I couldn't think of a single reason to object to that idea.

"So, any chance we can meet while we're both in Key West?"

"Excuse me?" I said, startled. I only then realized that I had been in another world. My face was turned toward the window, and I could see Key West looming in front and below us now, but I'd been in another world altogether. Where I had been in the other world had made me hard. And Steve was turned toward me and sitting up in his seat, blocking the view from across the aisle. And he had his hand cupped over my erection. Obviously he had thought over my being a cop and had decided that didn't mean much to him in Key West if it didn't bother me. And he had decided not to worry if his high-strung partner was in a snit over his flirting either.

"I've been here before. There's a good bar where guys like us go. There are several good bars, actually." Steve was grinning at me, and his fist was squeezing my engorged dick through the material of my trousers. And I was letting him do it. "But there's a really good one. It's The Bourbon Street Pub on Duval. Me and Petey will be there most evenings. It's got a thing called the Pile that you'd never believe."

"The Bourbon Street Pub. And the Pile, whatever that is," I said as I held my hand over his in my lap for long enough so that he'd know there was no bad feelings over his come on. "Maybe. Where I'm staying is a boat," I said. "And I don't know if I'll have any free time. But I'll think about it."

"Yeah, think real good about it," Steve said, giving me "that" look real hard. "I give good fuck."

"I'll bet you do, Steve," I said. "But I think you'd be wise to give your Petey some attention now, or your time in Key West may be frostier than you had planned." Then I moved his hand back into his own lap and turned my attention to the window in time to see the plane descend in a steep approach to what looked more like a postage stamp than a landing field.

As the plane taxied up to the small terminal, my gaze swept the fences by the parking lot—and my gut and my memories gave a little jolt. Standing there beside a hulking guy in a chauffeur's uniform was an older, but no less handsome Gordon Fields. Theo had said he had a surprise for me—what he said was that he had a surprise and a concern to share with me. I had no idea what the concern was, but there was little mystery now that the surprise was Gordon Fields. Gordon was still box office at the movies, but now playing the mature leading man roles that my father was playing that summer I lost my virginity.

Before Steve moved out into the aisle of the plane, he turned and gave me a small slip of paper with "Bourbon Street Pub, Duval Street," written on it. "So you won't forget," he said, giving me "that" look. "I'd really like to get it on with you."

I pulled out my wallet and showed him I was tucking the paper away. He was well worth getting it on with if it proved convenient. I gave his boyfriend a smile too, and, in surprise, he involuntarily gave a little smile back. 



Death in Key West Ch. 04



I shouldn't have been surprised to see Gordon Fields standing next to the vintage Bentley when our plane floated down onto the tarmac at the Key West International Airport, but I was. It hit me then that I hadn't really given any thought to Theo Kline's invitation to visit him in Key West or to where life had taken him in the nearly two decades since that summer of my eighteenth year when he and Gordon had methodically and fully initiated me into a life of loving to take men's cocks. Of course Gordon was still with Theo. Gordon had been in nearly every one of the films I'd seen that Theo had produced. Theo told me he was in Florida to film; if I'd been thinking, I would have assumed Gordon was here too. I guess I was just amazed that their relationship had lasted this long—but then maybe it had just turned into strictly a business relationship.

Gordon still looked good—but now more "good" in the dapper leading man image that had been my father's roles when I first met Gordon. Gone was his "take me as I am" rebel persona with the curled lip and wicked, demanding cock. And I couldn't help but wonder as the plane rolled up to its arrival pad what he would be like in bed now. I briefly hoped that I would find out, but it wasn't long before I learned that wasn't to be.

As we deplaned and I promised once more to maybe hook up with the hunky college athlete who had been my seatmate from Miami, I saw that Gordon had walked out onto the tarmac and was standing close to the plane along with several others near a pile of suitcases Customs was individually matching a last time to passengers on the return flight to Miami.

"Hello, chum," Gordon said in a breezy tone as I hit the bottom of the stairs from the plane. "You're certainly looking good."

"And you too, Gordon," I answered. "What is this, though? Are you leaving as I'm arriving?"

"Yes, Theo is sending me away—and no, I don't think it's because he wants you all to himself. He's sending me back to the West Coast to check up on a few things on the current film."

"I'm sorry to hear that," I responded. "I would have—"

"I would have too," Gordon broke in, and then he laughed. The other outgoing passengers were all within earshot and were taking guarded looks at both of us—no doubt recognizing Gordon as a film star, and, from looks I was used to receiving, trying to place me in memories of films as well. "But I have no idea why I need to go. Such matters can be handled by phone—and always have been before. Clint, could you watch out for Theo, please? I feel like I'm in a Julius Caesar play—I don't know what's going on, but I'm afraid for him."

I started to pursue this point, remembering that Theo had said he had a concern to share with me—which I now thought maybe was the real reason for the invitation he had extended—but Customs was seeking Gordon's attention in pointing out his bag. And the flight attendants were also obviously anxious to be loaded quickly and back up in the air for the return flight to Miami.

Still, I would have kept Gordon aside long enough to ask him what he meant by the fear he had expressed—he certainly looked a lot more worried than I'd ever seen him appear in that summer of my sexual awakening—but I was being hailed as well by the oversized black hunk in a chauffeur's costume I'd seen standing next to Theo's Bentley.

"Mr. Folsom? Clint Folsom?" he was calling out as he marched toward us, and I felt Gordon slipping away from me, as if the chauffeur was some sort of dark cloud scuttling across the sky toward us.

"Yes, that's me." I answered, half turning toward the approaching man. I turned back, but Gordon was already being hustled up the stairs and into the plane.

"I'm Mr. Kline's man," the chauffeur said. And my first wicked thought was, yes, of course you are. Theo always liked to have exotic and masterful men around him. And I had sensed some tension between Gordon and this chauffeur, which could be explained if Gordon had to share Theo's attentions with someone else Gordon couldn't dominate.

"Could you point out your bags for me, please?" he asked. "I'll put them in the car with the others and have you out to Final Cut in no time."

The others? I hadn't noticed any others on the flight who I'd think were headed for Theo's for the weekend. But then I laughed. Theo loved to gather a hodge-podge of people around him; I shouldn't be surprised to see any of the people on the flight—including my forward seatmate or maybe even the elderly couple—among the guests on the Final Cut this week.

And the thought of the Final Cut made me smile. I had fallen in love with Theo's huge 1920s fantail yacht from the first cruise I'd taken in it as a child off San Diego's Hotel Coronado when my parents were filming there. Everything about the ship spoke of gentility and sophisticated money. And Theo made no bones about it being his most precious possession—his highest achievement, the Final Cut on the life he had carved for himself in movies.

Theo had been full of wisdom to pass on to me in those days. I only later realized that most of it had been a bunch of crap designed to impress and part of a long-running campaign to make me. I do remember one afternoon on the fantail of the Final Cut as we cruised off Catalina Island, he told me to always look for the connections.

"Most everything is connected to everything else, Clint," he said as he stooped down to the deck to see what I was engaged in. I was still young enough to be doing the connect-the-dots puzzles in the Ellery Queen magazine I avidly read because of my love for sleuthing. "Always look for the connections. If there's a mystery there, you can usually solve it by looking for the connections between the known points."

This was a bunch of barf, I know—and even thought so at the time. But Theo was paying attention to me when my parents didn't have the time and patience for me, so I nodded my head as if I'd been given the secret to life.

As I grew up and my love for sleuthing and need to put as much distance between me and the Hollywood life as possible led me to become a New York homicide detective, though, whenever I went out to a crime scene, I had those words of Theo's at the back of my mind. And damned if I didn't find it easier solving cases by doing just what he advised—taking a good look at the known points in the case and looking for the connections. If and where connections were found, they invariably led me not only to the killer but to the motive as well.

These flashes of thoughts shooting from my mind upon encountering Gordon and hearing the familiar name of Theo's yacht occupied me while I was walking across the heat-steamed tarmac to the parking area, four steps behind the oversized chauffeur, who was handling my heavy suitcase like it was a lunchbox. When I got to the front seat of the Bentley, I was surprised yet again to see the small Chinese young man from the flight sitting in the backseat. I had little time to feed this surprise, though, because, more surprising, sitting next to him was his near identical reflection in female form—and my eyes went directly to her elaborate pile of hair and to what were sticking out of it: two long, metallic blue knitting needle type pins. My thoughts raced back to the last time I had seen anything like them, which was on the table in the security room of the Miami airport—being identified as the weapon in the murder of my DEA acquaintance, Gary Meltzer.

The unexpected connection flipped my detective antenna on, and I felt myself tensing up and constructing a wary shield of heightened awareness.

* * * *

"Hello, I am The Rose," the porcelain doll with the questionable hairpins said in a sultry voice, as she extended a tiny hand with cobalt-blue-lacquered three-inch nails across the seat back.

And, of course, she was. Now that I could see her overly painted mask of a face up close, I recognized her as the star by that name of the vastly popular medieval and mystical Chinese Kung Fu movies that were all the rage in the States a few years earlier.

"I am appearing in Joe Blum's movie we are filming here," she said in further explanation. "And so is my brother, Tung Chun-fai, here. We just call him Sam."

The young Chinese guy who had been on the flight from Miami with me and who now seemed to be withdrawing into the shadows of the Bentley's backseat in stark contrast his sister's leaning in toward me just grunted quietly in acknowledgment of the introduction.

"And you are—?" The Rose continued as she gave my face a searching look and allowed one of her heavily penciled and finely shaped eyebrows to raise. "You do look familiar. Are you in films too?"

"No, but I'm from a film family. That's how I know Theo," I said, all of my senses on overdrive. There was no reason for me not to go this extra mile in explanation. These were movie folks, and it wouldn't take her long to make the connections to who I resembled. If she didn't figure it out, there would be plenty of people on the film set who would be happy to tell her. Above all, however, I felt I needed to establish a reason for being here other than that I was a cop. My first thought here was to self-preservation—and not just protecting myself. Who knew what might happen to Theo if he was bringing a policeman into a pit of vipers.

"Ah, yes, now I see the strong resemblance," The Rose said, and, apparently satisfied, she sank back into her seat and started a low conversation with her brother in Mandarin. I'd never before wished I'd taken that language, but I sure was sorry I couldn't understand what they were saying now without them realizing I understood.

As the chauffeur, Jerome, drove in light traffic in a snaking pattern from the airport, on one end of the key, to the marina off Mallory Square, at the other end of the key, I caught him turning his head occasionally and giving me "that" look. So, it was as I supposed. He was more to Theo than just his "fetch and carry." And he knew what I had been to Theo as well. I felt myself warm to the possibilities and it wasn't all caused by the perpetual sun at the southernmost point of the United States.

"Don't worry, I'll have you there in a jiff," he said as we swung right onto the cross-island First Street.

"I know; I've been here before," I answered. I well knew that it didn't take long to get from one place to another on Key West. Those connections again. I momentarily worried about The Rose and her blue metallic knitting needles lurking behind me in the Bentley's passenger compartment.

"I usually take it very slow," he said, and he was grinning. My thought for my safety made me comprehend only the grin, though.

"Excuse me?" I asked.

"I said I usually take it very slow . . . in case you wondered. Mr. Kline, he told me you—"

"Yes, yes, I bet you do," I interrupted. My cheeks were burning, and I felt a stirring below my belt. In that summer with Theo and Gordon, I'd learned that I melted at a slow and deep fuck—and Theo and Gordon had caught on to my extra arousal to that as well. "I see we're here," I continued. "But I don't see the Final Curtain."

"She's there, out over by that cruise ship," Jerome answered. "She's too big to bring into the dock."

"Where? Where?" I asked. I was anxious to see the polished-wood fantail yacht I had so loved as a child. Half the reason I had come when invited was for the chance to sail on her again. It wasn't all because of Theo and his magnificent cock. And right now I needed the connection with something solid, something I could believe it—some place I'd felt safe.

"There, that sleek white cruiser just over there," Jerome said. "See, it's written on her stern. Her name: Final Curtain II. We'll have to go out there by water taxi."

"Oh," I said, deflated now. Theo had replaced the boat. I should have known he wouldn't keep a yacht as old as the original Final Curtain as his fortunes progressed. He always was more flash than sentimentality.

I groused all the way out to the sleek and admittedly gorgeous Final Curtain II, as upset with myself that I was being so childish at the disappointment I wouldn't be on the vessel of my childhood as in being denied cruising on the yacht of my dreams again.

The water taxi's second mate was all thumbs in getting us lashed up to the side of the ship, and the Final Curtain II's crew wasn't much better at getting the ladder to us. In fact, they seemed pretty clumsy for crew members of a multimillion-dollar yacht. I wondered where Theo had gotten them. The two I could see looked like South Americans—mean ones. For several minutes we were nudged up against the side of the ship, and I was staring into a porthole of the Final Curtain II's below decks and getting yet another surprise for the day.

I was looking into the interior of a plush stateroom as if through a television tube, where, on a queen-sized bed, two naked, well-muscled men were furiously fucking. The top was being rough and was slapping the bottom around as he pistoned the bottom with his cock. The bottom was struggling, trying to get out from underneath the onslaught—almost as if he wasn't a bottom by choice—but the top was too strong and brutal for him. I had no idea who the bottom might be, but I clearly recognized the top. It was Derek Dominick. The movie guy on the flight from Atlanta to Miami, the guy who said he was en route to Lakeland, which was a long way north of here, in the center of the Florida mainland. The guy who had kept me occupied with a hand job in business class while my DEA friend, Gary Meltzer, was being murdered back in tourist. He'd really had to move out to get to Key West before I did. But then he wasn't held up by airport security in Miami for a couple of hours like I was.

Connections. There were coincidences, yes, but here I sat in a water taxi with a woman who very well might have been the murderess of an old acquaintance I'd just happened upon in the Atlanta airport, while I watched a man being fucked hard by someone who I'd seen in company with that murderess and who told me he was headed a few hundred miles away from here. Connections, yes. Coincidence, I didn't think so.

I barely made it to my assigned stateroom, having received directions to "get comfortable" and attend Theo and his other guests for drinks and a buffet on the fantail, when I flipped open my cell phone and called Miami.

"Sylvia, it's Clint Folsom down in Key West," I said as soon as I got through all of the gates to Sylvia Browne, the Miami homicide detective who was investigating Gary Meltzer's murder. "Hey, I'm on Theo Kline's yacht off Mallory Square, and I've found the two suspicious people I saw in the Atlanta airport and Meltzer pointed out to me are aboard. He'd told me he was pursuing a case down here. I believe in connections more than coincidences. I had no idea there was a connection to Theo Kline, but there must be. Can you come down here?"

"You are where?" Sylvia almost screamed down the line. "On Theo Kline's yacht? Theo Kline, the movie producer? The yacht named Final Curtain II? And you really had no idea what was going down?"

"Yes . . . no. Yes, I'm on Theo's boat. He's an old family friend. He invited me down here. But no, I have no fuckin' idea what's happening in relation to Meltzer down here. That's why I called you. That's—"

"Get off the boat," Browne yelled down the line. "Just get off the damn boat. Yes, I'm coming down. Check in with the police department down there and tell them where I can find you. But get off that boat now!"

"OK," I said and flipped off the phone. But I knew it was too late even before I went over and looked out the picture window in my first-deck stateroom. We were under way. The only place I seemed to be going was out to sea.



Death in Key West Ch. 05



"Would you have accepted my invitation if I'd said I no longer had Final Curtain?"

"Of course I would have," I responded to Theo Kline when he'd pulled me over to a corner of the covered deck area at the stern of his new yacht. He gave me a hard look, though, and I'm not sure I convinced even myself with the bravado of that response.

He started to speak, but then the music blared so loud and a bikini-clad Rose bumped into his arm, so he drew me into the lounge. There were so many bodies under the awning on that fantail that I wondered—if only briefly—where all these folks would sleep. Knowing Theo, though, I realized that they'd be doubling up, and in some cases tripling up—and that, these being movie folks, some of them probably wouldn't sleep at all. We'd have to scrape them off the floor and ceiling of the lounge in the morning after a binge on pills, liquor, and sex in the comfort of international waters beyond the three-mile limit of U.S. law.

That's what the ship's captain, a swarthy and somewhat menacing looking South American by the name of Diego Alarcon, said when I accosted him on the way from my stateroom to the fantail, having been summoned by my host, Theo Kline. I'd asked him why we were steaming out to sea so soon after my arrival, and he'd answered that most of the guests were aboard and we were going out to international waters to embark the last guest. We were so close to the blockaded Cuban coast that my mind began to race on just what sort of business Theo had gotten himself into.

"I knew how much you loved that old yacht as a boy, son, and I needed to get you here," Theo was saying. "I loved the old Final Curtain too, but it's all about appearances, Clint. You should know that. You were born to the Hollywood culture. You should know that it's all about image and that reality is just an illusion in Tinseltown. I had boldly declared that Final Curtain symbolized me. But I outlived that statement. I reached a point where having an eighty-year old yacht was thrown in my face. People started saying my movies were old fashioned too, that I'd lost the edge, become passé."

I laughed at that—out loud. It was ridiculous to think of Theo Kline as passé. He was still larger than life and as handsome a devil as the plastic surgeons, beauticians, and personal trainers could manage. Yes, I could believe this was all an illusion of some sort he was pulling by still being at the peak of a dog-eat-dog career at his age. But he didn't look his age. And I could hardly wait to get him in the sack and find out if his continued reputation for sexual prowess was now an illusion too—including whether youth had exaggerated my remembrance of the legendary size of his cock when it was hard. Perhaps that was the whole of why I accepted his invitation: to determine for myself if he could still get it up and use it as masterfully as he had done that summer of my deflowering. Perhaps it didn't have anything to do with seeing the yacht of my youthful dreams again at all.

Theo wasn't noticing that I had clicked out on his rant. When I snapped back into the present, he was still holding forth. "The yacht had to go. And as soon as I bought this baby—with all of it's twenty-first-century bells and whistles, suddenly my movies were hailed as cutting edge again. It's all appearances and illusion, son, how often have I told you that?"

"Too often, probably," I said, with a grin. But, in fact, this rant of Theo's was yet another pet phrase of his that had helped me in my work before—and, for some reason, when he brought it up, I thought I probably should be giving it more thought in the present circumstance. But Theo had said something else that disturbed me and led me to my next question.

"What do you mean you invited me here because you needed me here? And why did you really send Gordon away today? Did you think I wouldn't want to stay with Gordon here?"

"Oh, god, no," Theo answered. "I love Gordon. It's true he isn't my only lover; but he never was. He's always understood I need variety. But no one has been with me as long as Gordon has. He's special to me. I needed him to . . . I'm afraid. Clint, I wanted you to—"

But before Theo could say anything further, the door to the fantail deck flew open, and several men, speaking in boisterous tones and decibels tumbled in.

"There you are, Theo," one of them called out jovially. "You're needed on deck for the arrival scene."

"Just a minute; I'll be there in a minute." Theo turned to me, and said, "Tomorrow. I'll give it one last chance tonight, but if there is to be no change, we'll speak of this tomorrow. You're my last resort to keeping this from bringing all of these false facades down. And if you can't help me, I'll have to . . . but I just don't want to think about having to take that step."

I would have asked him to say something now, to give me some connection to hang onto and to start unraveling this mystery I'd fallen into, but Theo was headed for the door, and I heard the sound of a noisy motor external to Final Curtain II, which, at last, had come to a standstill. We must have reached international waters, I thought. And that thought was followed by both a tensing and a release. Maybe now it would all begin to fit into place.

I got out onto the deck in time to see a small seaplane floating down to the low-swelling waves of the Gulf of Mexico waters and skimming the surface of the water briefly to come to a picture-perfect stop not 200 feet from the side of the Final Curtain II. A motor launch, with two men aboard—one of them appearing to be the chauffeur, Theo's "man," Jerome, and the other the menacing looking ship's captain—was putting out to the plane. The door of the plane opened, and a handsome, well-turned-out man unfolded himself through the door and crouched on the wing. As the motor launch reached him, the man pulled a stuffed duffel bag through the door of the plane and, with sweeping gestures, handed it to Jerome, as the ship's captain handed a smaller bundle back to the plane's pilot. The pilot then reentered the plane and quickly began to taxi across the low swells of the waves again and took off into the sky.

"What—?" I whispered to Theo.

"Shhh," he whispered back. "The sound's on." That's when he pointed toward the bow of the boat and up to the next deck—and across the water to where a second motor launch of the Final Curtain II was riding the waves. I saw the movie cameras trained variously on the departing seaplane and on the returning motor launch, and what was happening dawned on me when I heard the word "Cut!" from the deck above. I remembered the sound of the voice from my youth. So, the great movie director, Joe Blum, is on this yacht as well, I thought. And he'd just directed a scene for a movie.

"Who—?" I started to ask Theo.

"Just wait. Eddie Lund. He'll be back. He's probably the best actor I've landed since your dad," Theo answered. "He takes the parts now that Gordon used to take." And, sure enough, the seaplane had done a loop around and was coming in for another skimming water landing parallel to the Final Curtain II.

The last guest had arrived, and Theo told me it was now time for me to meet the entire cast and senior film crew over the buffet that the ship's crew was now laying out in the lounge. I was particularly interested in meeting up with Derek Dominick again—if, indeed, that was his name. I wondered if he'd be surprised to see me.

* * * *

During the fantail buffet, Theo took me on the round of introductions of his motley little band. Joe Blum, the director, I already knew. He was flanked by a boyish looking script girl named Melda and the senior cameraman, Kurt.

"Bet you're surprised to see me," the tubby little egomaniac, Blum, had said. "You walkin' out on the offer of Hollywood and becomin' a high and mighty cop and all that."

"Yes, Mr. Blum, I did think it would be a couple of years at least," I answered, trying to keep the judgmentalism out of my voice. Joe Blum had blown away his fourth wife in Los Angeles three years earlier while in a haze of booze and drugs, and I hadn't really kept track of the progress of the investigation after the first year of TV gossip coverage, but I had assumed—wrongly apparently—that they must have gotten past the sentencing stage by now.

"Lawyers I got, both you and me will be long dead before I see the inside of any cell," he said, and the grin on his face made me clinch my fists and try my best to keep the hatred out of mine. And in that moment, I hoped that he was half right and that he'd get "his" earlier than later.

"And Joe's son, Aaron," Theo said as he smoothly turned me from further confrontation with the Hollywood director I'd been able to see right through even in my youth. "Aaron's my assistant," Theo added.

And with that at least one mystery of this ship was pinned down. Aaron was the reluctant taker I'd seen through the porthole earlier getting the business from Derek Dominick. And a very lucky Aaron it was—as he had gotten his looks and physique from one of Joe Blum's trophy wives rather than from the dumpy director. Aaron was quite a dreamboat, and from the way Theo put his hand on the young man's arm during the introduction, I had no doubt that Aaron had replaced Gordon Fields in Theo's love life. I'd thought it was Jerome, but if he and Jerome were having it on, it was quite evident that Theo was making room for Aaron Blum as well. As Theo was more of a taker than a giver except for barely legal teens like I was when he took me, I understood now why Aaron had been so reluctant under Dominick's assault below decks. I made a mental note of asking Aaron about Dominick at the first opportunity, because I didn't see the latter among the small group voraciously attacking the buffet.

But before I had the chance to broach that subject, Theo had moved me on to a reintroduction to the Chinese twins, Tung Chun-fai aka Sam and the lovely paint-plastered Rose, The Rose having changed to green metallic hair needles.

"You've seen Clara in the Han Ding movies, I'm sure," Theo was saying. "Clara Rose, she is, although she uses the stage name of The Rose. Pretty memorable."

"Yep, very memorable," I murmured in agreement. I'd never forget seeing the backside of the person who had sunk that knitting needle into Gary Meltzer's heart on the flight to Miami.

"She's put the zing in the picture we're filming out here," I can tell you that. "We'll clean up on this one."

I wanted to talk a little more about this zing—and not about the zing in the movie, but the floatplane pilot and actor in the current film, Eddie Lund, was pushing into the group now, and although Theo took the opportunity to introduce him to me, Lund's gaze slid quickly off of me and onto the zingy little Clara Rose, so I immediately gauged how he was swinging. Which was all right with me, because Aaron Blum was eating me up with his eyes, and Aaron's father, Joe, was viewing that with dismay and disapproval. So, I decided there was quite enough sexual tension in the air already. I rather enjoyed the thought of giving Joe Blum grief by giving his son a ride or two.

Theo must have sensed my spiteful mood, because he gave me that slitted-eyes "it's time" look and invited me to get the grand tour of the yacht. As we left the group in the fantail and moved into the lounge, Theo's "man," Jerome emerged from the shadows and followed behind us.

As we were leaving, Aaron Blum called out, "Will we be seeing your Mr. Folsom later this evening?"

And Theo turned and growled, "Don't worry, Aaron. You'll get your turn."

The last I heard as we entered the interior passage off the lounge and headed toward the front of the yacht was the disgusted grunt of Joe Blum and the tinkly laughter of The Rose.

* * * *

The tour of the yacht was short and incomplete and led quickly to Theo Kline's massive, luxurious stateroom.

"It's been a long time, Clint," Theo murmured, as he pulled away from the gentle kiss he gave me as we entered the stateroom, followed by Jerome, who entered also and shut and locked the door and then turned and leaned his back against it.

"Do you mind . . . for old time's sake," Theo whispered in an already-lust-filled voice. He was gesturing to the hulky Jerome.

"No, not at all. I don't mind at all," I answered in a voice that was as hoarse and thick with arousal as Theo's was.

Theo sat, naked, and pulling on his massive cock, in a lounge chair near the bed as Jerome slowly stripped me and then himself and, laying me gently on my back on the bed, came between my spread legs and began making slow, languid love to me with his tongue and his hands, moving from my head, down my chest and up into my pits. And then he knelt between my legs and sucked my cock and balls. When I was melting and moaning he began tonguing my entrance to preparation as Theo sat and watched us with hooded eyes and slow-pumping hand.

"Now," Theo said. And that single word jolted me to the depths. The memory of it and what always came after it. I was panting for it even while the black heavily muscled bulk of Jerome rose up between my legs and made room for the approach of Theo.

I cried out in ecstasy as I widened my stance and willed my channel to open to receive Theo's thick rod as it slowly filled and moved deep inside me. And then he was pumping me hard and fast in remembered consuming rhythm as virile and strong and compelling as he ever had done. And I clutched at Theo's Zeus-thick, but muscled waist with my hands and began moving my hips with the pistoning of his pelvis and giving in and giving up and giving out, wildly moving with the fuck and letting myself go. My whole being concentrating on how it had been that first summer and how completely and well Theo had mastered me in the fuck.

I came twice in the time it took Theo to blossom out the condom deep inside me and then, with a grunt, he rolled away from me and motioned to Jerome and gave me a questioning look. I nodded ascent as I always had with Gordon back there in the wooded hills above Los Angeles, and the black monster grinned and turned me on my stomach. I clutched the satin bedspread with my fists and moaned and groaned as Jerome slow fucked me from the rear to paradise.

As always before, my eyes were locked on Theo's as his "man" moved slowly deep inside me, and Theo, slow-pumping himself to another ejaculation, sat smiling that little smile of his, his eyes hooded, enjoying this part of the ritual as much as he had his own mining of my channel.

And, as with Gordon in years past, when I left, quietly pulling my clothes on and unlocking and passing through the door, I turned to see Jerome making love to Theo on Theo's bed. And I knew they would be at it into the early hours of the next morning.

I only had a few moments to regret the pleasure Theo and Jerome would have through the night as I stumbled back toward the stairs to go down to my own stateroom, unable yet to straighten my legs after having taken two ass-splitting cocks. At the other end of the corridor, beyond the gangway I saw Joe Blum entering a cabin. He had a hand on the butt of each one of the Chinese twins and looked like he was shoveling them into his stateroom. I heard a grunt behind me, from the doorway to the lounge. I turned my head and spied the pilot Eddie Lund, sending sparks of a venomous stare beyond me and toward the disappearing movie director.

None of this was my concern and it brought back eyebrow-raising memories of overdramatic movie colony days, so I turned back and slipped down the gangway to the guest suites on the next deck down. As I approached my cabin door, I found Aaron Blum lounging against it, with a champagne bottle and two glasses—and "that" look that I knew so well.

"Still have time and interest for entertaining?" he asked in a mocking voice. He knew exactly where I had been and what I'd been doing. There was no need for subterfuge of any kind.

"Is that champagne for me?" I asked. I had been buttoning up my shirt as I approached, but now I undid the button I'd been working on again and ran my hand in and fingered one of my nipples in full view of Theo's yummy assistant.

Aaron's eyes slitted. "Yes, it's for you. And so much more. If you want it."

He took me, hard and furious, on the plush carpeting just inside the door, both of us like rutting animals, enjoying our youth and exuberance—and our deep experience in enjoying and giving enjoyment to another. We were both stripped before we hit the floor, and I opened my thighs to him and rolled up my hips to take his long, strong slide inside me. And then I wrapped my legs around his butt as he buried his teeth on one of my nipples, and I started a pelvis rolling movement that he quickly matched to a harmony of grunting and moaning and crying out to a near simultaneous explosion of ejaculate.

I would have accepted him anyway, but I wanted to suck more out of him than just his fountaining of semen—I wanted to find out who Derek Dominick was and where he was; he hadn't been among the movie folks at the fantail buffet. All the time I was squeezing Aaron Blum's throbbing dick with my channel milking him of cum, I was thinking of my dead lover friend, Gary Meltzer, who deserved to be avenged for the life Derek Dominick had helped take from him. I would find out about Dominick from Aaron one way or the other.

But I didn't get a chance. After that first fuck, while we were both recovering and feeling for our heartbeats to return to normal, Aaron poured me a flute of champagne and then poured some of it down my chest and began licking me down as he leaned over me in the bed. He was entering me slowly with his cock again when the world began to spin and I was hazing out.

When I woke, it was light again, and I heard the sound of harbor life beyond the window and more arresting sounds of a commotion in the corridor outside. It was probably the latter that had roused me out of my stupor. I was alone. I barely had time to make my way to the window to confirm that the yacht once more was sitting just off Key West's Mallory Square marina, when the door of my stateroom was thrown open and a swarm of ominous men clad in navy blue and bulked up with Kevlar vests tumbled into the room. Before I could even start to remember where I'd left my own gun, all of the intruders were fanned around my stateroom and pointing their handguns at me.



Death in Key West Ch. 06



"You might want to put some clothes on," Sylvia Browne said with a bite in her voice, but I could tell from her sloppy grin that she wasn't all that put off with what she could see. "I seem to be finding you with your pants down quite often, don't I?"

It wasn't your usual encounter. I was groggy and had tumbled backward onto the mussed-up bed, sending a champagne flute bouncing to the floor off the nightstand. And I was as naked as I had been last night when I passed out with Aaron Blum's cock pumping inside me. For her part, the Miami homicide detective who had answered my distress call of the previous day was standing in a crouched ready-to-pounce stance, her Berretta held out to her side in both fists, and at least four government agents fanned out around her. My stateroom was pretty big, but waking up to this scene made me feel like I was in a crowded bad dream.

"Thought I told you to get off the boat yesterday," Sylvia growled again into the silence. I hadn't had the presence of mind yet to answer her initial, provocatively posed question.

"Couldn't," I said, "The Final Curtain II was already moving out to sea when I called you. They did some filming with a float plane out there."

"It's OK, guys," Sylvia then said, "He's a cop too. He's the one who called me before I called you and asked if I could come along on the raid."

All five of them—the identically attired G-men and the female Miami cop—loosened their stance, and I felt the tension and testosterone flowing back out of the room.

"Why don't you all keep going and see who you can raise on this tub," Sylvia suggested.

When they were gone, I asked the obvious question.

"They're DEA—and a couple of FBI agents too," Sylvia answered. "You got yourself plop inside a massive drug-smuggling bust. They've been working on it for months between them. They say that's what Gary Meltzer was working on too. That's why I told you to get off the ship. Too many connections between you and Meltzer and this ship; I can't see how you managed not to get popped off before now. Somebody must love you."

"I can't believe that Theo Kline would be involved in anything like this," I answered stubbornly, putting emphasis on my words by pulling up my zipper at that exact point.

"Kline? Do you think Kline is behind this?"

I looked at Browne with what must have been an idiotic expression. And then it hit me that she hadn't made the leap from her declaration that one of the drug smugglers must love me and Theo Kline. "This is his boat," I said, somewhat lamely.

"It's Joe Blum the DEA has been pursuing," Browne answered. She reached over and helped me button the buttons on my shirt. I was still groggy enough that I couldn't get them aligned. She let her fingers linger just a bit longer than they needed to, and I recognized the unspoken invitation. As gorgeous as she was in all her redheaded splendor, though, I just couldn't muster the interest. I was what I was.

"The FBI has been on his tail too. He'd taken the body of that woman he shot in California across the state line. The FBI's been all abuzz in frustration that they can't seem to get him pinned down on that case. It's open and shut. Anywhere but Los Angeles and he'd be swinging from the yardarm already."

"Oh," I said with relief. And as I said it, I sort of stumbled into her, which she misinterpreted and raised her face for a kiss. I clumsily pulled away from her, though, and plopped down on the bed.

"Are you OK?" she asked, covering her embarrassment as well as she could.

"Groggy," I answered. "Everything's a little hazy and red tinted."

Browne picked up the champagne flute and sniffed it and made a face. "Bet you were drugged. Someone wanted you out last night. What did the ship do out on the water yesterday, and how did it get back here today? And where's this float plane you were talking about?"

I raised my hand. "Whoa. I'll take the first part, but, if you are right about the champagne, I was zonked for anything that happened between late last night and when you and your buddies burst in here and disturbed my beauty sleep."

Sylvia took a handkerchief out of her pocket and wrapped it around the champagne flout, backed up to a lounge chair, and sat down, waiting for me to talk to her.

"We went out to sea so they could shoot a scene for their movie. We had to go where no land was in sight and the water was calm enough to film the float plane coming down. Nothing sinister; just filming a movie."

"What did the plane do when it came down?" Sylvia asked.

And I told her how the pilot came out onto the wing and a motor launch went out to the plane and they exchanged packages.

"Did they tell you what the movie was about?" Sylvia asked. She had that "wait for the punch line" look on her face.

"Oh," I answered when the light switched on. "Theo told me the movie was about running drugs from Colombia into the United States. Yes, yes, I see. The perfect cover for running drugs from Colombia into the States."

"Precisely," Sylvia answered, very satisfied with showing a New York cop just how dumb he was.

"The plane was flown by Eddie Lund, the actor. I suppose he needn't have known he was transporting real drugs. But we were still out there, having a buffet . . . and stuff . . . when I blacked out. So I don't know when we got back to Key West or what happened to the float plane. You might ask Eddie."

"I'm asking you," Sylvia said, "because thus far you are the only one we've found on this tub. Were you alone when you blacked out? There are two champagne glasses here."

I started to answer when one of the squared-out guys in blue reappeared and glowered at me and split up the party. "You wanna come up a deck," he said gruffly, "and tell us about the dead guy in the cabin above this one, Mr. NYPD homicide detective?"

* * * *

I knew Theo's stateroom was the one above my head, and I prayed it wasn't him who was dead all the time I was climbing the stairs. The rest of the yacht had a deserted feel to it, and I was mighty glad I'd called Sylvia Browne in for help. Otherwise I knew I'd be in a really tough spot here. Even without knowing who the dead guy was, I could smell "frame-up" from a mile away.

It wasn't Theo. Jerome was naked and lying on his back at the foot of the bed and had a ruby-red extra eye that didn't belong there.

"Where's Theo?" I asked dumbly. "This is Theo Kline's stateroom. That's his bodyguard and gofer lying on the floor there. Any sign of Theo?"

"No sign of anyone else but you," the agent who had brought me into the room said. One of the other agents had remained with the body while Sylvia and I were being fetched.

"Found the captain and crew and some guys who say they were part of the film crew," a third agent said, as he entered the cabin at that point. "They were locked in cabins below—the captain and his sailors in his cabin, the boat's service crew in another one, and the film crew in a third. They all said that the actor who flew the seaplane and the Chinese man and woman all had guns and herded them into their cabins and locked them in. Said they did it out on the high seas and someone sailed the boat back into the harbor after they heard the seaplane take off again. They said it's been quiet for hours before they heard us come aboard."

As the agent was finishing this report, another one came in to announce that the yacht was clear—no one else was here. And there was no sign of the drugs they expected to find.

"I'll send this champagne glass off for analysis," Sylvia said. "Detective Folsom apparently was drugged and is being set up for responsibility for some of this. He was spaced out when we found him, and analysis of this glass will hopefully tell us what he was drugged with."

After that, I became sort of a nonentity in the search of the boat and further interrogation of the captain and crew. When I was out of Theo's cabin again while they started dusting for prints—and mine had been taken to subtract from the others found—I pulled Sylvia aside.

"Thanks for jumping in and taking me off the suspect list," I said.

"You aren't off it yet, doll. So, you'd better stay around for a while. I don't think you can stay on the yacht. They'll be taking this tub apart. Is there someplace on Key West you can stay where we can find you?"

"Yeah, probably the Days Inn, I said. There should be a room available there. I'll call you if I settle someplace else."

Sylvia looked hard at me, but I didn't explain the ghoulishness. It was low season on Key West. I figured the Days Inn hadn't been able to fill the reservation no show of the recently departed Gary Meltzer. It was just the first possibility that entered my mind. And the Days Inn was a nice enough place to come home to down here.

While Sylvia watched me packing my things—no doubt more interested in what I was taking away than in my bikini briefs—I posed my own question. "You'll keep me in the loop on this, I hope. Theo Kline is an old family friend. I'm worried about him."

"You'll hear what I hear, doll. These DEA and FBI guys aren't all that talkative. But they know I have a chunk of this with the Meltzer murder, and they know you and I have history—and aren't at all sure that you don't have more to give than you have given. You keep me informed, and I'll pass on anything I can dig up."

"That's a deal, Sylvia. You're a good sort. Thanks for watching my back."

The look Sylvia gave me told me that she was willing to watch more than my back, and I tried to give her a warm smile in return. I didn't want to lose her good will. But that's just as far as I wanted to take that possibility.

"So, it's the Days Inn then, unless I let you know otherwise. I'll walk on up there if your buddies can give me a boat ride back to Mallory Square."

"See you," Sylvia said. I turned away quickly because I didn't want to see the expression on her face when she said that.

The G-men were escorting the ship and film crew into the yacht's lounge when I was being led to the motor launch. I looked around the Final Curtain II, happy now that the memories of what happened here in the last day weren't directly connected with the happier memories I had of the yacht's predecessor.

Only while the launch was cutting the waves en route back to the Mallory Street dock did I have time to think of the masterful black Theo's "man," Jerome, and mourn his violent death. I hoped he had served Theo well in those last moments and that Theo hadn't met a similar fate. I would not allow myself to think that Theo would have willingly had any part in Jerome's death, let alone the drug smuggling operation. But at the moment there were just too many unknowns about Theo and his whereabouts. He was just a dot sitting out there with no connections that I could see to anything else—at least not to any dots that I wanted to see connected. Jerome, Jerome, I mused. You were one terrific fuck.

I couldn't help it, my thoughts went to how filling and masterful his cock had been. How slowly and sensuously he had taken me, how I had felt gently encased in his hard ebony arms. How searching and smooth his lips and tongue had been. I felt myself going into heat and looked over at the young G-man sitting in the launch with me. He was giving me "that" look, but this would be too much—too dangerous—for me to contemplate. No, this evening I'd go out on Duval Street and find relief—and maybe be able to forget, at least for an hour or two, the complexities of what I had fallen into.



Death in Key West Ch. 07



"Damn," I exclaimed as I let myself in to a second-floor room at the Days Inn off a balcony overlooking an atrium pool. In the embarrassment and the rush to get out from underneath the suspicion of the DEA and FBI guys, I'd completely forgotten what I should have told Sylvia Browne.

I tossed my bag down on a luggage rack and lowered myself onto the bed and flipped open my cell phone. I was exhausted, still feeling the effects of the Mickey I'd been slipped, and overheated from the trudge cross town on Duval only to discover that the Days Inn was at the northwest corner of the key not far from the airport—about as far away from Duval as you could go without getting your feet wet. The place I'd been thinking of when Meltzer mentioned the Days Inn obviously wasn't where I'd thought it was. I rented a moped then and gave my feet a rest for the remainder of the trip.

Luckily I hadn't had much trouble getting a room once I'd gotten here. No one had bothered to cancel Gary Meltzer's reservation, and the assistant manager on duty was a little huffy when I mentioned the name. But he got all apologetic and cooperative when I said Meltzer had been murdered and flipped out my badge and said I was working the case and would take his reservation for at least a night or two if they had a room.

"Sylvia, it's me," I breathed into the phone. "Got settled here at the Days Inn on Roosevelt, at the airport end of the key. I hadn't remembered it was way the hell as far away from everything here as it could be. But maybe that's a good thing."

"I promise not to tell the FBI where you are unless they waterboard me," Sylvia answered.

"Very funny," I said, "but I called you because I forgot to ask if there was a blond, athletic guy in his late twenties among the boat or ship crew who might have gone by the name of Derek Dominick. He's the guy I told you about—one of the ones I think might be connected with Meltzer killing. He wasn't partying topside with Kline's guests, so I thought he might have been with one of the crews."

"No, nobody by that description is in the group we found," Sylvia said, "I'll let the FBI guys know they should look for him. But I'm glad you called. We're trying to unravel a mystery about the crew. A barkeep at a dive off Mallory Square insists some of the crewmen from the yacht were in his place, tearing it up pretty well, last night. But all of the ship's crew let loose this morning matched the records of who was included in the crew, and the crew all said they were locked up all night. So, someone's lying about that."

"Or the whole ship's crew is," I answered. "So, are the agents grilling them about that? Did the captain vouch for them?"

"Nope, they let everyone go already, and they've disappeared. The agents are trying to run them to ground again."

"The captain too?—I think his name is Alarcon."

"Yep, he's gone too. I bet half the crew are illegals, and he doesn't want to be questioned about that anymore than they want to be identified. Oh, and another thing, Clint. They found the float plane."

"Where? Anyone with it?"

"If you look out your window, you might see it," Sylvia said. "It's tied up at the marina over by your motel. Convenient to the airport. And we found out that the movie company owned a Cessna 182 that was kept at the airport and that it took off this morning—several people aboard, but no one at the airport counted. Key West is woefully laid back about these things."

"Flight plan?" I asked.

"Yeah, for Biloxi, but, you know, a plane like that could be headed almost anywhere. The FBI has a nationwide callout for it. We'll find it sooner or later. Eddie Lund signed on as the pilot. No real surprise there."

Sooner or later I thought, as I flipped off the phone and laid my head back on the pillow. Everything works out sooner or later. I started to doze off; I could hear Theo's voice saying "look for the connections" and "everything isn't what it seems." But before I could form a serious thought, I was asleep.

I dreamt of Jerome fucking me while Theo watched and whispered directions, and I woke up in the twilight with a hard on. And all I could think of was that I needed to get up to Duval Street and get drunk and laid and put all of this out of my mind. I was the kind who did better by clearing my mind of everything and letting my brain chew on a problem by itself. When successful, I'd have sudden flashes of insight. All the time I was doing something else, my brain would be processing everything and coming up with those connections Theo nagged me about.

I got up and went into the bathroom and cleaned myself out well and showered. After drying myself off with a threadbare towel well past its "use by" date, I pulled on a pair of faded, soft, well-worked jeans cutoffs—no underwear—and a muscle T and sandals. I stripped my wallet down to the essentials—some cash, the hotel door card, and my most expendable credit card, and slipped that along with several condoms and the keys to the moped in my pocket and I was good to go. 

I caught a quick meal at a burger joint nearby and was off tooling down North Roosevelt toward Duval on the moped. When stripping my wallet, I came across the slip of paper with the name of the Bourbon Street Pub on it that the college jock hunk on the flight from Miami had given me, so I had at least the start of a destination in my mind.

The Bourbon Street Pub was right on Duval, and the crowd around its entrance left no doubt that it was a gay bar. I got enough cat calls and offers as I pushed my way through the crowd and entered the dimly lit bar area that I knew I wouldn't be lonely tonight unless I wanted to be. It was noisy and crowded. Soft-core porn films were flashing on screens on all four walls, and the shadows on three sides of the room enveloped booths offering some semblance of privacy, although I could see from the undulating bodies there that all forms of pleasure were being explored from smoking weed to blowing cocks and even more intimate pursuits. 

That's what I loved about Key West. Anything goes there; no need for inhibitions. One of the deep-side walls was fronted its entire length with a long bar, and along this at intervals were shiny metal poles running up from the bar top to the high ceiling, and barely legal young men in thong bikinis were playing the poles to something close to the beat of the loud, heavy-metal music.

I had saddled up to the bar and taken charge of a mug of beer long before I heard his voice.

"You came."

I turned at the sound of his rich baritone. "Hi. It's Steve, isn't it? You recommended this place, so I thought I'd come and check it out."

"Came to play or just to look?"

I knew what I'd come for, and I saw no reason to mince words. This was Key West. "I'm lonely tonight. I came to drink and get fucked," I answered.

"Any particular order?"

"I'm not particular. You mentioned something about a 'pile.'"

"You want to see it—with me?"

"Sure," I answered breezily. He was young and hard-bodied and handsome. And here. "Where's your boyfriend, though? Won't he mind?"

"He knows I cruise," Steve said. "He's still working the Saloon 1 stage. We're down here because he has a singing gig over the spring break at school. I'll catch up with him later. Come on, I'll show you the Pile."

The Pile proved to be well worth the trip. Steve led me down a dark hall at the back of the main bar and down a flight of stairs that twisted around so that we entered a darkened room under the main bar. The music from above permeated down to this space and reverberated off the concrete walls. At first the room appeared to be pitch black, but as we entered I could see that the total darkness had just been a momentary break in flashes of rod-shaped neon-like colors of several different shades—blues and greens and yellows and oranges and purples moving around before my eyes near ground level.

Steve was standing close behind me, and after we took a couple of steps into the darkness, he was encircling my waist with his strong arms. As I leaned back into him, his mouth went to the hollow of my neck and I sighed, ready to put all of the worries of the day behind me. I could feel his stiff cock pressing at the small of my back, and I gauged it to be more than enough to take care of my needs. I turned my face to his and we kissed. I felt a growl of want move up from deep inside the college jock and he was trembling.

"You are so, so very nice," he was whispering. "I want you so bad. Let's move up to the rail."

The rail, I thought. I couldn't see any rail. But when I turned my face forward again, I found that my eyes were adjusting to the dark and that now I could see the rail. Slowly, I began to see that the room was large and square but that there was a circular room set inside it. The room was divided from the larger room by metal-framed floor-to-ceiling glass panels. And there was a padded railing encircling this room at knee height—and another one running around at a bit higher than shoulder height.

My eyes adjusted further and I laughed in surprise and awe. It immediately dawned on me that the moving neon-colored rods were condoms—their color picked up because the room was being bathed in black light—and that inside the glass-walled room and around the sides at the padded railings were fucking bodies, making good use of the neon condoms. And what was in the center of the glassed-in room was, indeed a pile—a pile of young, virile, naked bodies of men fucking indiscriminately and vigorously.

Steve pushed me gently into the room and up against the rail. He pulled my T over my head and my cutoffs down and off my legs. As he moved my wrists and ankles outward, I discovered there were padded wrist restraints along the upper railings and padded cups to insert knees in along the lower rail. In a few seconds I was spread and bound to the upper railing at my wrists and was pressing my knees into wide spread cups on the lower rail. Steve leaned down and wrapped bindings around my knees, and then I was effectively held in place and place for fucking.

I watched Steve select a glowing, blue condom from the tray of a passing attendant, and then Steve showed me what he'd learned in college about preparing and fucking another man, I moaned and sighed and grunted as I watched the writhing swarm of young, hard, copulating bodies on the Pile in the circular room beyond the glass-paneled walls.

After he had opened me up with his tongue, Steve stood behind me, rubbing the underside of his hard cock across my entrance within the folds of my buttocks and breathed heavily in my ear.

"Tell me that you want it," he said. "Last chance."

"Yes, yes!" I cried out over the din of the booming rhythm from above our heads and the sounds of many men in deep rut.

And I cried out again as he slowly slid up into me and, standing stock still and, with his hands grabbing my waist on each side, began to move me up and down on the length of his shaft in ever-quickening movements. I lost myself in a deep, stretching fuck that washed all of my cares and worries away.

I opened my eyes to see before me a Cheshire cat-like full set of grinning teeth before my eyes. It took me a second to realize that it was a black guy in a dark room, not an illusion. He leaned into me and I moved my lips to his and he gave me a full-tongued kiss. His lips moved down to my nipples and then he was crouching inside the rail in front of me and giving me soft, languid head.

"Do you mind?" Steve whispered in my ear. He was still plowing my channel in slow, long strokes.

"No, not at all," I murmured.

"You really mean that?" he asked in a low, hoarse voice.

"Yes. You got any friends here who want to help?"

"Let's move this to one of the rooms," he whispered after a moment of silence. His voice was husky and breathy and I felt his condom fill out inside me at the mere of thought of what I was volunteering for.

We had passed doors off the hallway on our way back from the bar area, and I soon found myself being guided through one of these doors, into a black-walled room with only a vinyl cube in the center of the room, which provided several different positions giving a whole sports team of Steve's hunky friends maximum access to my channel, as I moaned and sighed the playing out of one of my favorite fantasies—giving it all to multiple partners.

Afterward Steve proved he could drink me under the table as well. In fact, I lathered up so well that I couldn't decide if what I saw when we emerged from the Bourbon Street Pub was an apparition or a bothersome reality. As I turned this way and that, trying to remember in my stupor where I'd left the moped, I saw her mincing down Duval toward Mallory Square—the petite China doll, complete with bouffant black hairdo, with two metallic long hairpins extending out of it like chop sticks in a bowl of noodles. I started to take out in her direction, but Steve grasped my arm and said he saw my moped right where the rack for them was, and when I looked up Duval again, she was gone.

I have no idea how we made it to Steve's room, but I'm pretty sure I wasn't driving—or at least I sincerely hope I wasn't. When I woke the next morning, I was laying on one side of Steve and his boyfriend was laying on his other side on a double bed in a seedy little gay guest hotel off Fogarty Avenue, and I was struggling to remember how Steve had managed to take us both at intervals throughout the night. And I wondered if my smile was as broad as the one on Steve's purring-in-his-sleep boyfriend.



Death in Key West Ch. 08



I saw him, standing there, looking forlorn, against the balcony railing outside my door as I rolled up to the Days Inn motel after my night sharing the college jock Steve with his suddenly very friendly boyfriend, the college freshman who sang a strong high tenor note when Steve was thrusting deep inside him. Gordon Fields, my original threesome partner with Theo Kline, the man I'd only briefly seen again after two decades in passing at the Key West airport, where Kline was sending him on a mission back to Hollywood, looked like he didn't know what to do next—that his only mission was to find me and that he had no idea where to go from there if I wasn't at the motel.

His eyes lit up when he saw me getting off my moped, and he straightened up from his slouch against the railing and met me at the head of the stairs up to the second level. "Thank god you're back," he blurted out. "They've found the plane. I've just come from the police station—I had to fly back as soon as I heard; just as I thought, there was no real reason for Theo to have sent me back to Hollywood. I'm sure he knew something was up and he just wanted to get me out of harm's way. Damn fool; I would have stuck with him no matter what."

"Well, maybe that's exactly why he sent you away, Gordon. You must mean that much to him," I responded wearily.

Gordon continued on. "And that woman detective Sylvia Browne said I could—"

"Come inside, Gordon," I said as I walked past him and slipped my key card into the door slot. "I may not want to hear this standing out here on the balcony." I had a sudden feeling of dread. I knew it was Theo. Why would Gordon have come otherwise? I didn't want to hear—but then, at the same time, I wanted to know the worst.

"Is it Theo?" I asked when we were in the room. Gordon was still standing, but I had sunk down onto the bed—exhausted now, the unexpected presence of Gordon and the jolt of reality draining the cloud nine I had been on from the night under the young, hard body of the college jock.

"No, no sign of Theo yet," Gordon said.

I'd had no idea how tensed up I'd been in the last three minutes. Yesterday and last night and now this release of tension drained me, and I collapsed back onto the bed. Gordon sat down next to and leaned over me immediately.

"Clint, Clint, are you all right?" His voice was full of concern, and he wrapped his arms around me and lifted my chest up from the bed. He was rocking me back and forth, and I would have shown him I was fine sooner, but I was enjoying the intimacy—for some reason I sought the intimacy at this point.

"Yes, yes. It's OK. I'm OK. Just the thought that Theo—"

"Hush, hush," Gordon whispered, "I know. I felt the same. I had to find you and tell you. We've heard nothing from him, but at least . . . oh, god, Clint, it's been so long. You're still so—"

The tone of concern in Gordon's voice had turned husky, and I lifted my face to his and took his lips with mine, not needing to hear anything else now—having other needs, the memories of that summer with him and Theo flooding into my mind.

He ran a hand under my T and stroked my chest and nipples and my belly. And I sighed for him and moaned. Then he pulled my T over my head and pulled me up onto the bed and kissed me on the lips again and then started working his way down my body—burying his face in the hollow of my neck and then in my pits. His hands were working under the waistband of my cutoffs, and after finding and stroking my cock hard and cupping and squeezing my balls, he stripped off my cutoffs. Meanwhile he was worrying my nipples with his teeth and then my navel, and eventually he moved to swallowing my cock and bringing me to a boil and a fountaining in a long-remembered melting technique.

I was turned onto my back in the center of the bed, and his face was between my butt cheeks, seeking and finding and opening and wetting. And then I held onto the slats of the headboard for dear life, as he thrust deep inside me and rode me and rode me and rode me.

Sometime later, when I had recovered from his lovemaking and we were laying there, arm in arm, both exhausted but mellow in our homecoming reunion, I had the presence of mind to return to pressing reality.

"The plane. You were going to tell me about the plane," I murmured.

"Crashed," Gordon whispered, his voice still husky from answered lust. "They think there was a bomb on board from the way the bystanders described the crash. No survivors."

"Who?"

"Eddie Lund was the pilot, of course. The passengers they've identified were the Chinese actress, Clara Rose, and Joe and Aaron Blum."

"When was this crash?" I asked sharply, all attention now. I sat up in bed and reached for my cutoffs.

"Yesterday afternoon. Witnesses saw it come down, so they can pinpoint the time."

"That can't be . . . or was it all an illusion?"

"What? What illusion?" Gordon asked.

"I saw Clara Rose last night . . . or I thought I did. On Duval Street. Only saw her from the back, but it sure looked like her. Not too many with that hairdo and those hairpins walking around Key West."

"Well, it couldn't have been The Rose," Gordon said. "She was long dead by that time." He was stroking the small of my back languidly with his fingers, and I could tell he wanted to fuck again.

I lay there in silence. What was it Theo always said? Connections. No, not that. Things not always being what they seemed. He was always talking about movies and the illusions movie people created to convince their audience that they were seeing something they weren't.

"Gordon," I said, breaking into my silence. "No, no, don't do that. Serious talk here. For Theo." Gordon's hand had moved to my belly and was drifting down. "What were the guests on Theo's yacht doing on the movie set? I mean what were their functions?"

Gordon gave me a funny look, but then he dutifully answered. "Joe Blum was directing—Theo was producing, of course. Joe's son, Aaron, was Theo's new boy toy, but technically he was Theo's assistant. Eddie Lund and The Rose were the principal actors. Jerome was Theo's man everything. He also did some of the bit acting in the film. Kurt was in charge of the camera work; Melda took care of the scripts."

"And the ship's captain?" I asked. "He was in the scene I saw being filmed the other day. He was on a motorboat with Jerome."

"Diego Alarcon? The Colombian? Yeah, he covered some of the bit parts as well."

"What about a Derek Dominick? I ran across him in Miami, where he said he was in films, and then I saw him on the Final Curtain II—but not on the deck with the guests. I saw him below decks."

"Derek Dominick? No, I don't think so. I don't know who that is, and I know everyone working on the film."

But when I described Dominick to Gordon and suggested that he might have given me a false name, Gordon gave that some thought and said, "That could have been Jake Holt. Sounds like him from the description, and I wouldn't put it past him to give you a fake name too—and to pump up what he did in the film. He's just a cameraman. A pretty good one, but a nasty piece of work. He was Joe Blum's good deeds for publicity project; had done time. Joe insisted Theo sign him on for this movie."

"That sounds like him," I said. I didn't tell Gordon I suspected this Jake guy of having been involved in Gary Meltzer's death on the Atlanta-to-Miami flight.

But I'd saved the one that concerned me the most to last. "And how about Clara Rose's brother—Sam? I don't remember his Chinese name. What was his role in the film?"

"Ah, yes, Tung Chun-fai. He has always been The Rose's stunt double. All of that flashy Kung Fu stuff she did in those Chinese films? That was really Sam, made up to look like her. They're twins and have the same build. The switch was quite easy."

"Of course," I said, "Things are not always what they seem to be."

"What?" Gordon asked. He had his hand underneath the waistband of my cutoffs now and what he was doing down there was weakening my resolve.

"Oh, just something Theo often said to me—something I've found quite useful in my work. And you said neither this Jake guy nor Sam were found in the wreckage of the plane? Ohhhh, god. Again. Do that ag . . . ohhh, god."

"Nope," Gordon said in a dreamy voice that let me know he was just about finished talking—at least for a while. "The Cessna 182's a four-passenger plane. Eddie, The Rose, and the two Blums. Found and making up a full complement."

"And where did they find this plane? Do you know?"

"Come on, enough talk for now," Gordon growled. "I want you again."

"Just this—and then you will have earned a reward." I was too much on edge myself now to deny him much longer. "Try to remember. The plane was manifested for Biloxi. Is that where it went down?"

"No. Somewhere north of Fort Myer, I think. North up through Florida. Near a place called Babcock."

That cooled my ardor real fast—if only for a moment. I pulled away from Gordon and bounded off the bed, headed for my briefcase.

"Hey! You said."

"Just a minute," I answered. "Hold it for just a minute, and then I'll make it worth your while."

I rummaged around in the briefcase and came up with a map of Florida. "Aha!" I exclaimed when I'd found Babcock. "In Miami, the Jake guy told me he was going over to Lakeland, although I found he came on down to Key West instead—really made tracks to get here before me. Is there any place connected to the movie company over in Lakeland that he might be going?"

"Yeah, sure," Gordon answered. "Some of the filming is up in Lakeland. And that's where the props and equipment warehouse is—and the scenery back lot."

"OK, then I'm off to Lakeland. Babcock is in the direct air path from here to Lakeland. I have a hunch I need to get to Lakeland."

"Theo?" Gordon asked.

"Maybe. I sort of hope not. But I'll see."

"No, we'll see. You won't mind if I come along, will you?" Gordon asked.

"Better not. It could be dangerous. It's down to police work now."

"And do you know where you're going when you get to Lakeland?" Gordon asked. "I've been there; have you? How much time can you give to finding the warehouse?"

"Good point," I said. "So, I guess it's going to be 'we' who are going to Lakeland. Still as good a shot as you were twenty years ago?"

"Come back to bed and I'll show you how good a shot I am," Gordon said. And then he laughed a lusty laugh.

"OK, you're on," I answered. "But after we're done, you have to remind me to call Sylvia Browne. I think I can name the killers she's after now—and they aren't among the cast of characters who are known to have already bitten the dust."

By the time I'd finished that speech I was back on the bed, and, to Gordon's surprise—and delight—I was taking charge. I pushed him onto his back and straddled his hips with my thighs. Impaling myself on his luscious cock, I began showing him how well I could ride.



Death in Key West Ch. 09



"So, what do we do now?"

Gordon and I were both a bit out of breath. It was almost dark and we'd been trotting around the large industrial estate for some time. Gordon had been trying to get his bearings with limited success and with the excuse he'd always been driven into the movie warehouses in Lakeland before and had never paid all that much attention to where he was being taken. He obviously didn't know the way to the warehouse as well as he thought—or had claimed—although he'd gotten us to the right section of the industrial compound. I knew Sylvia Browne and the other cops wouldn't have an easy time to find it either, unless she had the presence of mind to wake up someone with a plat of what companies had which warehouses back here.

Gordon assured me he'd recognize the studio's portion of the lot—that there even would be a "Lion Productions" sign on the closest warehouse to the parking strip. That was one of Theo's nondescript company names. He hadn't wanted a bunch of people showing interest in the movies he was making out of here, Gordon said.

And then we'd found it. Not just the Lion Production logo but, sitting under it, Theo's Bentley. I'd last seen that on the dock at Mallory Square when I'd been boated out to the Final Curtain II.

"Don't know what you want to do, but I'm going in," I said. It had always been my intention to get to Theo before the police did. With that end in mind, we'd gone to the Key West airport and chartered a plane and pilot and I'd only called Sylvia Browne when we were ready for takeoff.

"On the trail of your Meltzer killers, Sylvia," I'd said as soon as she answered.

"Hold it," She responded—as I knew she would. "Stay right there; I'm coming over. I assume you're at the motel."

"No, actually, we've already taken off," I answered. "Headed there—to Lakeland—in a chartered plane." We hadn't taken off yet, but it was convenient that Browne think I was too far gone for her to call back.

"OK. When you get to the Lakeland airport, stay put," she said. She obviously hadn't liked it that I was moving out on my own, but there wasn't much she could do about it at this point. "What do you know about the killers?"

"It was Sam, Clara Rose's brother—tricked out to look female. That's who did Meltzer. And a guy named Jake Holt helped. Part of the film crew. The guy I thought was named Derek Dominick. I think he has a record; you can track that down. They're still out there and on the run, and I figure they've gone to Lakeland; probably taken the drug haul there. Theo Kline's movie productions has a lot in a Lakeland industrial park. The plane Eddie Lund was piloting crashed between here and there."

"How will you know where to go once you get to Lakeland?" Sylvia pressed.

"I've got Gordon Fields with me. He's been there and will give you directions when we get to the airport."

"OK. Great work. Thanks, Clint. But you stay at the airport when you get there," Sylvia had demanded. "This is out of your jurisdiction, and these guys are desperate, if they're there. That plane didn't fall out of the sky on its own. They discovered it was taken down by explosives. Somebody in this is beginning to cut his losses and narrow down those getting a cut. Don't want you to be one of the losses."

I had held my breath until she signed off. I was counting on her not knowing there were two airports in Lakeland. She'd assume we were landing at the Lakeland Linder Regional Airport southwest of there, when we were actually flying into the smaller South Lakeland Airport nearly five more miles further south. I wanted to get a lead on the local cops Sylvia would be calling in for help. I didn't think she'd bother to check our flight plan, so I could make it all seem like a simple misunderstanding of where we were to connect—and I'd be covered by the paper having us cleared for the smaller airport.

If Theo was in Lakeland, I had to get to him before the cops did. I had no idea where he fit into all this, but I had to have time to pin him down on that and to get him any possible edge and help I could within the spirit of the law. If he was dirty, so be it; but if he'd been a dupe, he'd need someone on his side. That would be me and Gordon. We needed to get to him first.

The sight of Theo's Bentley parked in the gloom, so out of place in a scruffy warehouse district, had gripped me so hard that my first impulse was to start running toward the movie lot.

"We can't just barge in, can we?" Gordon asked. "I mean shouldn't we wait for the police? Shouldn't there have been police waiting for us at the airport?"

"Beats me, Gordon," I responded. I, of course, hadn't told him of my passive misdirection. "Here, I'll call them now." And I proceeded to do so, fluffing over the airport miscue by claiming—reasonably—that I had no idea there were two airports near Lakeland and that if they'd checked our flight plan they'd know where we were landing, giving them the directions to the warehouse area, and saying there was reason to think the suspects we were looking for were here—Theo's Bentley didn't drive itself up here from Key West.

Then I turned to Gordon. He was a civilian and I couldn't take care of him and do a safe search entrance into the warehouses at the same time. I'd needed him to get me to the right place. From here, he'd only be a burden. And if I found Theo, having Gordon there would eat precious time in verbal exchanges if I had to extricate Theo from the situation. "The police are on their way," I whispered. "We didn't land at the airport they expected. They'll never find us in this maze, though—so you need to go back to the entrance and bring them in." This had the elegance of being true—a legitimate reason to get Gordon out of the way.

"But—"

"No buts, Gordon. We don't have time for this. Just do it. It gets them back here faster. Go."

I waited until Gordon was well out of sight, and then I turned and took a step toward the warehouse entrance. The big sliding door was a bit ajar and there was the soft glow of a low-level light shining through from the interior.

At the sound of the lone echoing gunshot, I started into a run.

It took a while, but I finally found him, lying in a small pool of blood, at the back of the warehouse space under a hanging light with a dim bulb and near a half-closed wooden packing crate. The packing crate was stuffed with clear plastic bags full of a white powder. Sam, the Chinese female impersonator murderer, was clutching his chest with one hand and moaning and holding a gun in the other hand with a loose grip. I'd been drawn here by the sound of shoe scuffings, so I approached warily, knowing Sam and I weren't alone, wondering just who was out there—and whether they were fleeing from me or stalking me.

I kicked the gun away before I knelt down beside Sam. He was in his male role now, but there were still traces of pancake makeup and eyeliner on his clinched-up face. He clearly was in pain, and the deep growl and rattling coming from inside him told me he was pretty far gone.

"Who—?" I started to ask.

"Jake," he gasped. "He told me the others—Clara and the others—weren't coming. And why. He'd set a bomb on the plane. I pulled a gun on him, and he nailed me."

"Nailed you?" I asked, confused.

"Nail gun. He was closing the crate. I tried to shoot him for what he'd done to Clara. He was quicker." Sam waved weakly and unnecessarily at the crate containing what most likely was the drug haul I'd seen taken off the float plane out to sea beyond Key West. The irony of the artifice of the movies covering the reality. I still had no idea, though, how they'd gotten the drugs off the Final Curtain II.

"Theo?" I asked roughly. "Where's Theo?" I had no sympathy to give to this young man. He'd killed my friend, Gary Meltzer. He was getting off easy if he died here.

Sam gave a dry laugh that turned into a wet gurgle. "Theo. Gone."

"Gone? Gone where?"

"Overboard. The day you arrived. Before we came back into Key West. Out at sea."

I felt bile rising up from inside me. I was shocked and sick. It was so sudden, so final. Theo gone.

"Why?" I cried out. "Who?"

"He found out. We knew he was suspicious but couldn't figure it out—and then he came to the fantail and accosted us—but we were ready to do it anyway. He'd brought you—a cop—on board. We pushed him over—all of us were in on it—and then Jake went and silenced Jerome. Aaron was taking care of you. All a setup."

Sam was growing weaker now, a dribble of blood appeared on his lips, foretelling the bleeding inside where it should not have been. But I wasn't finished with him yet.

Shaking him, I demanded an answer. "You couldn't all be in charge of this. Who? Who was giving the orders? Who decided Theo had to die? Blum? Was it Joe Blum?"

I had to bring my ear close to his lips to get the answer. "The Colombian," he whispered.

And at that I yelped in pain and blacked out from the blow to the back of my head.

Now I knew why a barkeep in Key West had said the ships crew from Final Curtain II were tearing up his bar the night that were supposedly locked up on the yacht. And I also knew how the drugs had gotten off the Final Curtain II.



Death in Key West Ch. 10



Conclusion

I came to with pain at both ends. I was coming around because I was having my face slapped hard—and I couldn't seem to be able to reach out to ward off the blows. That was because my hands were tied together at the wrists and my arms were drawn over my head and attached to a hook behind me. The pain on the other end was because I was naked and Jake Holt, aka Derek Dominick, was standing between my spread thighs and already had his dick up my channel and was beginning to pump hard.

"Ah, awake, are we?" he said with a sneer. "You don't mind if we have a little farewell fuck, do you? I meant it when I said I wanted to get more intimate with you—and you won't have all that long to care one way or the other."

I struggled, but he had me trussed up very well and my mouth was gagged with some sort of oily rag that was sending pungent fumes up my nostrils and digging at my sinus walls. The back of my head was throbbing from where I'd been clubbed, and both my arms and legs were already beginning to cramp from the awkward positions they were restrained in.

We were near the corrugated iron ceiling of the warehouse, on some sort of mezzanine that jutted over the warehouse floor. The area we were in had medical office equipment strewn around, no doubt props for some past or future Theo Kline production—although Theo was dead now; there would be no more Theo Kline productions. My mind was wandering off—a defense mechanism—but I was near hysteria. I needed to pull myself back. I dug my fingernails into the palms of my already-numb hands—trying to shock myself back into focus. I didn't have to hold out forever; just until Gordon could guide the police here.

Jake had somehow dragged me up a metal staircase onto the overhead mezzanine—no doubt with a lot of bumping against railings for my part, because I felt bruised all over. He had found a medical examination table with foot stirrups and all, and I was lying on my back on this with my arms bound above me, a cinched-off strap around my torso and under my pecs that held me to the padded surface of the table, and my feet in stirrups that held my legs up and spread out from the end of the table.

Jake was having the time of his life mining the inside of my channel with his cock, taking me rough and deep. In other circumstances, I would have thoroughly enjoyed this, because he was a master of the fuck and was finding every sensitive nook and cranny that I knew existed in my love canal—and then some I'd never been aware of before now.

He either was pantless or they were down around his knees, but he was still wearing his sport shirt, spread open, revealing a well-developed chest and washboard stomach. I couldn't see his cock, but I certainly could feel it, and he was mining me at such a depth that I knew it was quite presentable. His shirt was torn at his left shoulder and there was drying blood at the edges of the tear. He was favoring that arm as he maintained a pounding rhythm of his pelvis and pinched and prodded my chest with his other hand when he wasn't slapping me on the face or the butt cheeks. Sam had gotten a piece of him when he'd managed to fire off the shot I'd heard.

The space up here was cramped and the fumes from the rag in my mouth were nauseating. I was near to passing out again. But I couldn't let myself do that. This was a man who had helped in the murder of a friend and former lover and also in the murder of the man who had opened my whole world of man-to-man sex up for me. I couldn't just pass out and let him off me too and then get away before the cops arrived and assumed Sam was the only one they sought. I had to rally whatever energy I could to do something—anything to hold him off until the cavalry arrived.

It was cramped up here on the mezzanine, and the ceiling seemed so low that a claustrophobe would be in a panic. Well, there was every reason for me to be in a panic too. And the adrenaline from panic could be mustered to both sharpen the survival instinct and coalesce strength. There was little room behind Holt to the railing overlooking the warehouse floor below, and the railing appeared to be of wood and not all the sturdy.

My body was beginning to go with the fuck. My hips were moving with Holt's pelvis, and I relaxed my core, opening even more to him and giving him a moan of aroused pleasure that he must have interpreted in his narcissism as me falling under his power and wanting more of what he was giving, because he seemed to relax too and become absorbed in the pumping of his cock inside me. This was good. If nothing else, I could draw out the time by making him enjoy the fuck too much to bring it to a fast close.

I let everything become relaxed except for my right leg. I was working my foot in the stirrup, trying to figure out how I could get it untangled there. Just as I managed that, we simultaneously heard the gathering sounds of commotion on the warehouse floor below. I knew that it marked the arrival of the posse, guided by Gordon Fields.

Holt, who had no reason to believe I hadn't come alone, was slower to react than I was. He tensed up and half turned toward his right and the sounds coming from below. And that's when I heaved my right leg up and out of the stirrup, raised the knee to my chest, and then sent the heel of my foot into his sternum with as much force as I could muster.

I had caught Holt completely by surprise, and I heard the "oooff" of released air and the cry of pain as he was propelled directly backward, into the wooden railing, which gave way with a sharp crack. And then Holt disappeared out into the abyss, and I heard his short, cutoff scream as his body hit the concrete floor below with a sickening thud accompanied by cries of the rescue party getting out of the way as well as they could.

What drama there was in this was over in a trice. Seconds thereafter, I heard scrambling on a metal staircase, and the grinning face of Sylvia Browne was looming over me, and she was being her usual sarcastic self.

"As I've said before, we really, really must stop meeting like this, Clint."

* * * *

I stood at the dock at the Mallory Square marina and stared out into the water and saw, well, nothing really—at least not what I had expected to see.

"I don't know where it went," a flabbergasted Key West police detective standing beside me said.

All Gordon Fields could say from the other side of me was "Oh, shit."

It hadn't taken much for me to convince Sylvia Browne and the Lakeland police that they didn't need me around the Lion Production warehouse any longer. The last of their suspects were dead—and they took at face value my explanation that Sam had told me that Theo Kline was also two days dead and feeding the fish half way to Cuba from Key West. So, they'd let Gordon and me return directly to Key West. It had helped that we had a charter plane and pilot waiting for us for the return trip, and I'd only rented them for the day.

I intended to tell Sylvia the rest of the story, but I wanted my crack at him first. I had unfinished business. I thought I owed it to both Meltzer and Theo Kline to be there at the end.

"I think I know where the Final Curtain II is," I said. The detective turned to me and gave me a quizzical look. It certainly wasn't at anchor where the police had impounded it off the city marina in Key West. "You never tracked down the yacht's crew, did you?" I added.

"No. So?"

"Soooo, Amigo," I said. "My bet is that Final Curtain II is halfway back to Baranquilla, Colombia, with the missing ship's crew under Captain Diego Alarcon—the Colombian—the mastermind of this little drug-running business."

I laughed at the irony of it. Things aren't always as they appear and look for the connections, Theo had always told me. There he'd been the whole time. The ship's captain, quietly taking a background position and sailing under the bright stars that were the movie folks, Theo's top-deck guests. And all the time he was orchestrating it all.

Unfinished business. He'd beaten us this time. But I had patience. Theo had told me that too. Just have patience, Clint. They'll come to you. I increasingly had to have faith in Theo's little sayings.