Saltwater Sin, and Solace

By Sam A. Mackie

Victor Stevens, vacationing in Key West, finds beautiful girls, jail, and then life on a sailboat, cruising the local waters with a captain and his girlfriend who believe in free love. But Victor realizes he has found as much pain as paradise in a world of saltwater and sin.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sam A. Mackie
• Release date: Oct 5, 2016
• ISBN: 9781370978113

Sam A. Mackie

About Sam A. Mackie Sam A. Mackie is a Florida attorney and writer. This is his fifth novel, along with West By West By Key West, Jacks Are Better, Island Soul, and Saltwater, Sin, and Solace.

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Saltwater, Sin, and Solace

By

Sam A. Mackie

Copyright Page

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Other Titles by the Author

Jacks are better

West by West by Key West

Island Soul

Table of Contents

Title Page

Copyright Page

Other Titles by Author

Book One

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Book Two

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Book Three

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

The End

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Book One

Saltwater

Chapter One

Three plainclothes policeman approached the STOP sign at the corner of Fleming Street in the heart of downtown Key West. As if on cue, their three heads looked in unison north, and south, along Duval Street. The sound of juke boxes, traffic, and crowded sidewalks was distant but quietly tumultuous in the still night air, and the neon signs advertising the downtown bars and boutiques shined with pastel and iridescent glare and gaudiness from half a block away. Around them all was quiet, and serene.

The policeman on the left, Carlos Osbaldo Carbuncle Ames, all five feet five of him, hitched his belt over his enormous gut, farted, and spit into the gutter. In the center, Joe Sinclair, a detective fresh from the Monroe County Law Enforcement Academy, nervously fingered the left side of his wispy mustache, and tried to look older than his 29 years. To the right, Harold Metcalf, six feet four inches tall, his head shaved cue-ball bright to disguise his prematurely white hair and middle age, rearranged his shoulder holster under his nylon jacket where the elastic strap was cutting into his back. Although it was 10:00 p.m., the temperature hovered at 78 degrees, the humidity above 90 percent, and all three men were sweaty-hot and uncomfortable.

Carbuncle Ames’s neck glistened with perspiration. He rocked back on his heels like a child's bottom-weighted toy and stepped off the curb with the forward motion, his tremendous gut jiggling and nearly toppling him as he over-adjusted his first step to counterbalance his weight.

Metcalf wiped a hand over his face. What do you think?

Let's do it, Ames replied.

Do what? said Joe Sinclair.

Shut up and follow us, Kid, said Metcalf.

At the opposite corner, Victor Stevens, bent forward under the weight of a canvas-and-leather backpack and bedroll, was unaware of the three men approaching him. When he saw the mem he stepped backward, and aside, to allow them to pass him on the left.

Carbuncle Ames and Metcalf circled him like dogs around a junkyard rat. Joe Sinclair -- his face clouded, a few strands of grey showing among the dark brown lengths of his hair -- shifted his weight nervously from leg to leg at Metcalf’s right shoulder, and a step behind him.

Victor Stevens felt naked in his T-shirt, striped Bermuda shorts, backpack, and sneakers.

What do you want? he said.

What's your name, Punk? snapped Carbuncle Ames, attempting to make his five feet five inches sound like six-feet three, and his 220 pounds look like 300.

Who are you guys?

We’re asking the questions here, Punk.

Yeah, well; I don’t think I’m answering any questions tonight, said Victor, with a confidence he did not feel.

Carbuncle Ames smiled his shark’s smile. Metcalf unzipped his jacket, and felt his pistol tight against the side of his chest.

Now what do we have here, said Metcalf. A wise guy?

Sounds like it to me, said Carbuncle Ames.

Victor had no escape except into the darkness of the alley behind him, or to the right, south along Duval Street. Either way, it was impossible to move quickly with the heavy backpack.

Metcalf undid his jacket zipper the last two inches, and allowed the butt of his pistol to catch the light from the arc lamp on the street corner next to where they stood.

Who the hell are you guys? said Victor.

What's your name, Punk?

I’m not a punk. I’m 30 years’ old.

I said; what’s your name?

It’s Victor. Listen; I don’t have any money, if that’s what you guys are looking for.

That’s not what we’re looking for.

Then let me by. I don't want any trouble.

Victor what? Asshole? Scumbag? said Carbuncle Ames.

Let me by, Victor repeated, as he stepped farther to his right, south, toward Duval Street.

With one stride Metcalf cut across his path, and poked him in the chest with one finger.

You stay right where you are, Bubba, he said, using the corruption of brother and buddy that the Conchs, the native Key Westers, use to mean everything from a fond welcome to the worst kind of invective.

Victor stepped backward again. Who are you?

Metcalf punched Victor’s chest, and Carbuncle Ames gave him a shove and he staggered with the unbalanced backpack weight.

Hey; just talk to the guy, said Joe Sinclair. You don’t have to do all that.

Metcalf and Ames hustled Victor around the corner at Fleming Street, and across to a huge banyan trees standing sentinel in Jackson Square. Victor tripped among the aerial roots, and Ames thrust him into the broad side of the tree. Metcalf laughed harshly, and Ames gave the younger man a quick frisk -- shoulders, underarms, waist, ribs, legs -- tapped his pockets, and felt the sides of his backpack.

He’s clean, said Metcalf.

Like hell he is.

Carbuncle Ames slapped Victor across the mouth with his right hand and frisked him again the hard way -- short-punching and jabbing -- and finished with a backhand to Victor's groin that dropped the younger man to his knees.

What's your name, Punk?

Victor ... Stevens, he said, hoarsely, hands clutched between his legs.

I don't think so, Ames snarled. He knocked Victor’s baseball cap from his head, and lifted him to his feet by a plaited mat of long brown hair. I think it's Faggot. Scumbag. I think it's College Creep Son-of-a-Bitch.

The younger man groaned.

You know the meaning of the word scum-bag; Scum-bag? said Metcalf, his bald head glistening with sweat. It’s a used condom. Are you trying to tell us you’re any better than that?

Joe Sinclair stood on Duval Street, his back turned, dragging heavily on a filter cigarette. He expelled the smoke through his nose in long, white, agitated streams, because he knew what would happen next. He had seen it from his two colleagues before -- and he didn't want to see it again.

Carbuncle grabbed a fistful of hair above each of Victor's ears, and twisted both hands like he was wringing out a towel.

Hey! screamed Victor.

Talk! said Ames, twisting harder.

No!

Really. I think you mean, yes; Scumbag.

Ames twisted harder, and two wads of hair, one from each side of Victor’s head, came away from his scalp.

Okay! Victor screamed. Okay! Okay!

He sat down, groaning, blood dripping down both sides of his head and into his ears. He unlaced his right sneaker, and took a cylinder of aluminum foil from the arch of his sock.

My, my. What do we have here? said Metcalf, smiling.

Carbuncle Ames looked down at Victor Stevens, and smiled. You a pharmacist?

No. Sir.

I didn’t think so. Anything else, Punk? said Ames.

No. I swear. Victor sat back, head aching, tears in his eyes. That’s all of it.

Ames slapped Victor’s face, the sound like a gunshot.

No, I said! That’s it!

Bubba, said Ames; if you’re lyin’ to me, I’ll –-

I swear, said Victor, his voice husky, exhausted. I swear. That’s all of it.

A yellow-orange taxicab lumbered around the corner. The driver touched the brakes, looked intently at the four men, slowed the vehicle to a crawl, and stopped. The driver pushed a button at his armrest, and the passenger-side window glided down.

Anybody need a ride? he asked.

Police business! barked Metcalf. He flashed his gold badge from his left-hand jacket pocket, and jerked his right thumb over his shoulder. Move it. Now!

The driver nodded his head, tramped on the accelerator, and a cloud of white-grey smoke spewed from his exhaust as the vehicle sped past them, its headlights throwing twin cones of glare into the late-night blackness. The driver tapped the brakes at the corner, the tail-lights winked at them, and cab was around the corner and speeding south, down Whitehead Street, the engine whining against the still, humid air.

Joe Sinclair took a final drag from his cigarette, dropped the butt, and crushed it under the heel of his black steel-toed service shoe.

Well? said Harold Metcalf, staring at Sinclair.

Well, what? said Joe Sinclair, his brow furrowed.

Jesus H. Christ, Detective. Call in for transport, said Metcalf, in a smarmy sing-song.

Joe Sinclair unclipped the handheld radio from his belt holder, raised the operator at the police station, and rapidly gave his badge number, location, and code number for the street arrest. In a few moments he saw a patrol car on Whitehead Street, traveling north and well above the speed limit. As it approached them the driver activated the siren and red-blue lights that flashed in dazzling, multicolor sequence, and the vehicle headlights glared repeatedly low-beam-high-beam in a frantic counter-rhythm.

What the fuck is this: DisneyWorld? said Carbuncle Ames, his voice heavy with sarcasm.

I guess, said Metcalf.

He whistled sharply, fingers between his teeth, a flat, shrill burst with a sharp rise at the end of it, and motioned the patrol driver his way.

Chapter Two

Victor Stevens was booked into the city jail at 10:35 p.m., and shoved into a cell with two dozen other arrestees. With no friends and no relatives in town, groin aching, head throbbing and bloody, and a line of cocaine as evidence against him, his prospects were nil. His life on the Island had been idyllic; but now he had found the other side of paradise.

For two weeks he had slept on the beach, in the houses and apartments of strangers, and in the back seat of various unlocked automobiles that he had discovered as he walked the city streets after dark. After the first two days he knew the mornings and afternoons to be hot and uncomfortable; and the nights were only just cooler, with little or no breeze, and his skin radiant with the accumulated day’s heat. He cooled himself by sprinkling water on his head, arms, and legs; and he soaped himself every few hours at the public facilities, stripped to his underwear, where he learned to ignore the sideway glances from the other men as they used the restroom for its normal purposes.

The heat and humidity aside, Victor was mesmerized by the Florida Keys. After graduation, when he left Columbus and the Ohio State University campus a few weeks before, his friends had said; Are you serious? Go to Miami. South Beach. All the restaurants and bars and art deco; you’ll love it. Shit; nobody goes to Key West any more.

But as he hitch-hiked and bummed rides at the rest stops along Interstate 75, and traveled South through Kentucky, Tennessee, Georgia, and deep into the Florida peninsula on the turnpike, he purposely did not stop in Dade County. He even caught a Greyhound Bus in Ft. Lauderdale and paid the fare so that he could travel nonstop through Miami, Homestead, Florida City, and then across Card Sound and into the Florida Keys.

Once there he discovered that the Keys were ... beautiful. Ocean. Beaches. Salt air. And inexplicable magic in the wind as it riffled the palm fronds, swept across the sand and shallows, and, as the diurnal rose, white-capped the Gulf of Mexico and Atlantic Ocean waters from mid-morning into the evening.

Victor had never seen the sun so brilliant that it hurt his eyes to look at the sand, a street, sidewalk, tin roof, or any light-colored object during the mid-day hours. And what it did to his skin was equally amazing. After two days of walking the beach he was burned a tawny crimson. Three days later, with cocoa-butter oil and the Italian-American genes on his mother’s side, he developed a solid, coppery-bronze tan.

Victor had never seen the ocean until, that first day out of Broward County as the bus sped south and west toward the Upper Keys, he had glanced from his port-side bus window toward the Intracoastal Waterway that ran north and south, and connected Card and Barnes Sound below Florida City. There was a thunderstorm raging at the horizon, and, as the bus crested the top of the Card Sound Bridge, the cathedral of grey-heavy clouds at the storm’s center parted, and the sun illuminated the coastal waters and turned the ocean sapphire and aquamarine in mottled patterns. To the horizon, north, the Intracoastal Waterway stretched like a tremendous blue-green serpent; to the south, it threaded among the mangrove islands and twisted its way into Key Largo and Sunset Point, the water sparkling like diamonds and emeralds to his uninitiated eyes.

Jesus, was all Victor could think to repeat, in various tones of wonderment and awe for the next several minutes. And, afterward, So, this is what people come down here to see.

As the bus motored through Tavernier, Islamorada, Marathon, Bahia Honda, Big Pine Key, Ramrod Key, Stock Island, and across the final bridge into Key West, Victor was mesmerized by the dazzling white beaches on the Atlantic Ocean side of the roadway, and the striking contrast between the sea’s choppy, bright, inshore, pastel colors shading to dark blue at the horizon; and the placid, mottled, blue-green-brown Gulf Stream waters, checkered with small mangrove islands, to the north.

Along the sand, too, were every kind and shape of palm tree that he could imagine. In the next few weeks, as he walked the Island (as all the Conchs referred to Key West) and asked questions, he could identify the palms by name: coconut, sawgrass, royal, traveler, Washingtonian, areca, wayfarer, robellini, and sago. He also learned how the Keys had been formed by the mangrove trees’ aerial root structure that trapped silt, detritus, and leaves that, over the centuries, were cemented together with marl to form the land masses that were approachable by boat, connected by Henry Flagler’s railroad, bridged by U.S. 1, and finally accessible by airplane from the mainland and surrounding Caribbean Islands.

Victor disembarked from the Greyhound Bus in the late afternoon, near the Days Inn on the Island side of the Cow Key Bridge. As he stepped across the parking lot’s superheated, springy asphalt and North Roosevelt Boulevard, and over to the wide vacant lot at the Gulf of Mexico side of the Island, the sun punished his eyes. Squinting against the heat and brilliance, he reached into the side pocket of his backpack, found his baseball cap and sunglasses, and snapped them into place.

With his head covered and his eyes no longer being tortured, he was quickly overcome by the Island’s presence. The humidity enveloped him like another layer of clothes. He heard the screech of sea gulls as they dipped, soared, and fed along the shoreline. The Gulf of Mexico lay flat, a milky aquamarine, and ringing the Salt Pond Keys to the north. He smelled the delicate aromas of sea weed, salt water, fish, and marine animals. And he could almost taste the food being cooked in the Holiday Inn restaurant as the aromas were vented high into the air, and, on the afternoon breeze, dispersed by the huge silver duct to his right. Far to the south, cumulus clouds were building with the afternoon diurnal, white at their tops, and fringed with grey.

Suddenly his stomach growled, loud enough to hear. He glanced down North Roosevelt Boulevard, and spied a restaurant at the bend to his right. Lifting his backpack, he retraced his steps across the street and ambled toward the brown and burnt-orange A & W sign. At the counter he ordered a cheeseburger, French fries, and large Coca-Cola. With his backpack and bedroll comfortable across his shoulders, he balanced a corrugated tray with his food and drink, walked outside, and found a vacant umbrella-covered table facing the roadway.

He used the tall ketchup squeeze-container, heavy glass salt and pepper shakers, and a metal paper-napkin dispenser to hold down the cheeseburger and French fry wrappers. He gobbled the food, and slaked his thirst with deep drafts from the large Styrofoam cup, his lips pursed around a thick multi-colored straw that was jammed through the center of the plastic lid. Traffic on the boulevard was light; and, as he finished his meal, and slurped the remains of the Coke, he thought he would probably have difficulty hitch-hiking into town.

He was right; nobody stopped for him. In fact, a city cop slowed his squad car and, with a sharp obscenity yelled through the open passenger-side window and a violent sweep of his right arm, motioned him away from the curb and up and onto the sidewalk. Victor calculated that it was a one-hour, two-mile hike along Roosevelt Boulevard, over the Palm Avenue causeway and Garrison Bight, down Eaton Street, north on Simonton, west on Front Street, past Pirates’ Alley, the Aquarium, and the Chamber of Commerce Building into the heart of downtown.

By the time he arrived there, his T-shirt and Bermuda shorts were soaked. He found a refreshment stand next to the Conch Town Trolley, and bought another large Coca-Cola and downed it in several large gulps, the liquid cold and pungent in his tongue, and his Adams’ apple bobbling like a yo-yo with his effort.

He spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening wandering along Duval Street. He surveyed the shops and boutiques through their store-front windows; and, when the heat and humidity became too onerous, he stepped inside to cool himself in the buildings’ air-conditioned freshness. He ate his evening meal at the El Cacique Restaurant at Duval and Greene Street, and reached Mallory Square at dusk.

Before him the sun was settling just to the south of Christmas Tree Island, the fiery yellow-orange globe shimmering in the evening humidity as though the sun was trying to burn a hole into the western horizon and cool itself in the blue-grey water. Dozens of tourists, Navy personnel, street people, college students, and a handful of the locals had assembled along the cement dock, and the nightly entertainers were well into their routines.

To Victor’s right, three men stood in a loose circle and, surrounded by on-lookers, juggled brightly painted rubber balls (the shortest man, his hair bleached blonde and wearing only a pair of tie-dyed walking shorts), heavy wooden pins (the next tallest man, sporting long pants with a flag pattern of stars and stripes running down each leg, a bright red T-shirt, and multi-hued wig), and fiery batons (the third man was at least six feet seven inches tall, head shaved, chest bare, blue jeans faded and ragged, the baton flames coloring and shadowing the opposite sides of his face in a haunting counter-poise as he flipped and twirled them in the fading light). To Victor’s left, a woman, tattooed from neck to toes and wearing a white string bikini to accent the colors and designs that swirled across and around her body, was walking a cat across a wire strung between two thin poles. She prompted the cat’s back legs with a long stick and, in her left hand, she held a huge green parrot that snarled instructions to the cat and, from time to time, mimicked the woman’s comments to the crowd. In front of Victor a man was selling chicken sandwiches, frozen Hershey and Mounds bars, and peanuts and potato chips from the three openings in the top of a huge stainless steel cart that was fastened to the rear axle of his bicycle.

As Victor enjoyed the circus atmosphere, and shifted his backpack and bedroll to make them more comfortable along his aching shoulders, he was surprised, very surprised, by what happened next.

Chapter Three

What’s your name? said a voice to his right.

He turned his head toward the Voice, and the question, that was followed by another question: Well?

Victor.

Victor. That fits. Mine’s Moira.

Is that where the red hair comes from? he asked.

Moira flipped her head to one side, and her long, fiery tresses swirled and came to rest across her neck. She was wearing an emerald-green bikini, the top strings taut across her sizeable breasts, the two wisps of fabric barely covering her nipples, and the bottom piece a miniature triangle across what would have been her patch, had she not been clean-shaven. The front triangle was held by two green strings that ran up and around the luscious curve of her hips, and tapered to a Y-thong over her lightly freckled buttocks.

Moira. What’s happening here? Is this amateur night?

She shook her head again, her hair waving across and partially covering her face.

No. It’s like this at sunset. Street people, and the rest of us. Every night.

Who is ‘us’?

Us is everybody, she said, sweeping one hand to the crowd.

What does ‘everybody’ do here, except stand around?

Whatever they want.

What do you do here?

Hang out. I just said.

No; I mean, what do you do here, in Key West?

My old man’s a mate on a charter boat, she said, evading the question.

Which boat?

If I told you, would it make any difference?

Maybe. I saw some charter boats on the way into town today. Where the road goes over the water.

The Palm Avenue causeway.

I guess so. Near the Yacht Club.

That’s it. Garrison Bight.

As they talked, she put a hand on his shoulder to emphasize her words. She stood close to him, not bashful about rubbing her breasts into the muscle of his arm.

You’re not a college kid; are you, she said, the words a statement, not a question.

I just graduated from college.

Which one?

Ohio State.

She studied his face.

You’re older.

A little.

Why is that?

I started late. I was in the Army.

She nodded as though she understood his entire life, from birth until this exact point in time.

Let me help you with that backpack.

Before Victor could say anything she was behind him, lifting the straps from his shoulders.

I can get that, he said.

She smiled and, with a strength that surprised him, hefted the backpack and walked across the square to the first row of parked cars. She stopped next to a blue Chevy coupe, reached above the sun visor for the key that she kept there, and opened the trunk. She stowed the backpack next to the spare tire, returned the key to its hiding place, and walked quickly back to him.

Come on, she said.

Her face and hair were dazzling in the rays beaming from the western edge of the horizon. She linked her right arm in his left, and casually escorted him to the edge of the cement pier. They settled themselves on the arms of a huge steel bollard, and gazed toward Archer Key as the red-orange globe’s bottom arc was sinking into the ocean.

What happens now? he asked.

Watch, she said, holding his arm close to her.

As the sun settled more deeply into the rim of the ocean, the entertainers finished their acts. As if on cue, all of the spectators ambled to the edge of the dock in close order, and turned their eyes westward. Some of them started to sing. A few chanted. As she hummed quietly in the humid night air, Moira placed her right hand along the inside of Victor’s thigh, and began to stroke the muscle with her fingers.

How big are you? she asked.

Her mouth was close to his ear, and her hand running up and down the zipper front of his Bermuda shorts.

Are you serious? he said, quietly.

Yes. I need a lot to be satisfied.

I’m ... all right.

Is that all?

No one’s ever complained before.

Good.

She nibbled his left ear lobe, and her hand was making him grow, and feel uncomfortable.

What about your boyfriend? asked Victor.

You mean my old man?

Yeah. The guy. The mate.

I saw him yesterday.

What does that mean?

And I’ll see him again tomorrow.

What about today?

Today I can do what I like. I need more than one man.

A vagrant cloud had wandered into the sun’s path and split fireball’s rays in half: above, the heavens filled with blue-purple rays; below, light streamed grey-white and sparkling across the ocean’s surface.

I know you’re interested, she said.

Her hand was inside his shorts, and Victor looked right, left, and over his shoulder. There were dozens of people around them; but no one seemed to be looking at her, or him.

Hey, stop that, he said.

Tell me you don’t like it.

I’d have to be crazy not to like it. But --

Let’s go, she said. It’s down.

Huh?

The sun.

Oh. Yeah. Okay.

At the western horizon the upper rim of the sun was disappearing into the ocean’s edge. Around them were shouts in every voice range, male and female, from bass to soprano:

Encore!

Beautiful!

Yeah, Man!

Hey!

One more time!

That was awesome!

Moira took Victor’s arm and lifted him from his seat on the bollard. Making a way for them through the crowd, she walked him toward her car, hands around his left biceps, breasts warm and soft along the length of his arm.

I’ll drive, she said.

Victor opened the passenger door for himself, and sat the fabric bench seat. Moira found the key above the sun visor, and placed it into the ignition. She looked at him looking at her, undid the top of her bikini, and let it drop to the seat.

Do you like them? she said, wiggling her shoulders.

Her breasts, firm, suntanned a beautiful brownish-gold, nipples hard and pointed, flowed and jiggled gracefully from side to side with her