Free Gumbo Limbo by Tom Corcoran Page A

spooked me even to consider the risk. “Back then I was just like I am now. Not rich, but comfortable. Happy making money snapping pictures.”
    Jesse scowled, but accepted my explanation, for the moment. I switched off the coffee machine and palmed the canisters that held the crime-scene film and the film I’d shot at Spence’s place. We hustled into the chill rain.
    I squeezed myself into the Sunbird’s passenger-side seat and immediately wished that I’d risked riding the cycle, or called a taxi. It was obvious that the convertible top had been left down day and night, in all weather, for years. Mold had captured the interior, had slimed every surface. The carpet reeked of rot, wet dogs, and cat spray. The vinyl upholstery exuded sour smells of age. The underside of the cloth top dripped sticky cobwebs, heavy spores, dead leaves. The chromed plastic glove-box insignia had cracked and pitted.
    The dank surroundings matched Spence’s mood. “This Pontiac doesn’t like rainy weather,” he said.
    “Me, too.” But beggars can’t be choosers. I tried to ignore the funk and froze in place, fearing that quick movements or a sneeze might unleash a fog of biological bullets.
    Jesse drove to Eaton under a spatter of raindrops, then turned toward North Roosevelt. Low clouds scraped the tops of taller trees. A frigate bird led us across the Garrison Bight bridge, above the charter-boat docks. A bad day for the fishing business. Determined joggers in Day-Glo shorts fought the wind that had put everything in motion: hair, clothing, fronds, skittering trash and leaves, torn awnings, tree limbs, telltales in sailboat riggings. Mangrove shrubs under the U.S. 1 bridges tossed in whipping gusts. A day to rename the island “Five Thousand Flags Over Marl.” Along the monotonous fast-food gauntlet: black-and-red Texaco flags, diver-down and hemp flags, pirate and POW/MIA flags, cigarette banners, Florida and Conch Republic flags, yellow
Formula Shell flags, American flags around a used-car lot, “ATM Inside,” and “Abierto” flags, Canadian, Brazilian, German, and British flags that pandered blatantly to tourists.
    “Can I ask how Zack got hooked up with your friends?”
    Spence slowed behind a smoky moped. “I’ll have to think about that for a while. I’m not trying to be evasive. I’m not sure I remember.”
    I wanted Spence to exercise his memory without pressure. I switched directions. “Who else was in on this?”
    He winced.
    “Look, I’ll ask questions all over town until I find Zack. I’m going to ask about Buzz Burch’s partners. You tell me names right now, my inquiries stay low-key.”
    Spence understood. “You remember a guy from Virginia named Ernie Makksy? Nicknamed Tazzy Gucci?”
    “Vaguely.” I remembered the name, and that the man had been addicted to fancy shoes. I recalled someone bitching about him late at night in a bar years ago, complaining that Makksy had worn hard-soled loafers aboard a sailboat, that the shoes had scarred the yacht’s teak decks. He’d also had a reputation for hanging out in bars beyond the ciry’s four A.M. dosing time, handing out cocaine after the doors had been locked, hosting private parties, and taking his pick of the women drawn by free drugs. My memory couldn’t bring up Tazzy Gucci’s face.
    “You remember Cool Auguie?”
    “Sure.” A barfly and skirt chaser of the first order, Scotty “Cool” Auguie was known in the seventies for his sense of adventure, especially on boats, and his upbeat nature. He’d never been able to shake his college nickname. I recalled once hearing a group of women comparing notes on his stamina, his fascination with salad oil during sex. He’d once single-handed a sailboat across the Atlantic so he could collect a sizable delivery fee and not have to split it with a crew.
    I’d always suspected that Buzz Burch had moved some marijuana
into the country. It was easy to believe that Tazzy Gucci had played the game, too. But