Free Bone Island Mambo by Tom Corcoran Page A

said okay.
    Marnie hugged us both. I’d have offered to drive her home, but she was sober, rejuvenated, more lifelike than she’d been on arriving.
    We waited until the sound of the Jeep faded up Fleming. Teresa said, “Can we name this soap
The Mother of Sibling Collisions?”
    “Thank you for sharing dinner. Thank you for cooking in the first place. Thank you for including Marnie.”
    Later, in bed, Teresa said, “Does she drop in like that when I’m not here?”
    “She’s a friend. Do you think I’d tell her not to?”
    Teresa didn’t answer for almost a minute. Then she said, “I wish I had more friends like yours.”

6
    Teresa had flipped on the air purifier before we went to sleep.
    I’ve never believed that the filter would help me dodge throat-clogging mites and airborne disease. Never counted on its adding a dozen drooling days to the back end of my life. But its hum shielded me from Key West’s ambient racket. It masked two A.M . motorcycles on Fleming. I rarely heard the trash tracks or school buses, or electric saws at the crack of dawn.
    I hadn’t felt Teresa slide out of bed, hadn’t heard her leave the house. I woke to an audible pressure drop, a weird silence. No hum indoors, no noise outside. No electric saws. Frequent power failures were part of the island’s charm.
    I sat up, checked the battery-powered clock. I needed to make a call.
    Key West residents discovered the truth about electrically dependent phones during storms in the late 1990s. Cell phones covered them until their batteries died. Then they were out of luck. I’d kept my vintage, basic-black rotary-style when I’d installed two cordless units years ago. I’d adapted a snap plug to its cord. I hoped Duffy Lee Hall had found the same foresight.
    He answered on the second ring. “Good morning, AlexRutledge. You call this early for only one reason. How many rolls?”
    “Caller I.D. in a power failure?”
    “I lose power, Alex, I’m out of business. I’ve got a four-outlet Back-UPS in the darkroom. My Yamaha generator kicks in automatically. A special switch separates me from city power, so I don’t pump juice to the outside wires.”
    An arsonist had burned Duffy Lee’s commercial work space six months earlier. An attempt to destroy evidence photos. The negatives had survived. Duffy Lee had been compensated for his loss. He’d used the money to build a darkroom in his home. I depended so much on Hall’s talents, if he ever went out of business, I’d consider doing the same.
    I said, “Can we do four rolls by noon?”
    “I read the paper. I figured you might’ve gotten called. Bring ’em on.” He faked a cough to announce a tongue-in-cheek remark: “I’ll add my usual rush charge, fifty percent.”
    “It’ll bump your county taxes in the long run.”
    “Maybe they’ll rebuild the electrical grid.”
    I hung up and the phone rang.
    Chicken Neck Liska, from a cellular: “What time?”
    “I told him noon. Why is the high sheriff calling, instead of a detective?”
    “Tell him eleven-thirty. I’ll see you at eleven-forty. El Siboney, corner of Margaret and—”
    “I know.”
    “La Lechonera used to—”
    “I know,” I said.
    “. . . with all the pig statues out front.”
    “I didn’t know you ate there.”
    “Monday, Wednesday, and Friday.”
    I made the kind of mistake I’d make only before coffee. I began to make coffee. I’d already poured the first scoop of Bustelo when I looked at the coffee maker’s plug in the socket. I put away the coffee, went to get dressed. I looked at the living room ceiling fans and wondered why theyweren’t turning. Two minutes later I made my third pre-coffee error. I was almost out of the yard on the motorcycle when I thought about the mess on the streets, everyone driving to work. I could make it to Hall’s with no traffic signals, but I wasn’t sure where I’d need to go after that I parked the Kawasaki, stuck my helmet on the porch, and unlocked the