Metro Girl (Alex Barnaby 1)

Knowing the roads got him a couple points. “Okay,” I said, “but don’t expect to always drive.”

Hooker took the bridge out of South Beach, and I kept my eyes on the road behind us, watching to see that we weren’t followed. Hard to do while we were in the multilane tangle of roads going through the city. Easy to do once we got out of the greater Miami area and traffic thinned.

Florida is flat, flat, flat. As far as I can see, the highest point in Florida could very well be a sanitary landfill. You don’t notice the flatness so much when you’re in a city like Miami. The planted palms, the flashy buildings, the waterways, the beautiful people, the expensive cars, and international influences add interest to the cityscape. As you leave the city and Route 1 dips south to Florida City and Key Largo, the tedium of the landscape becomes painfully apparent. The natural vegetation is scrubby, and the towns of south Dade County are small and unmemorable, hardly noticed in the relentless stream of strip malls lining the road.

The Mini engine hummed in my head and the concrete moving toward me was hypnotic. Thank God Hooker was driving because I was barely able to keep my eyes open. It turns out Hooker is unflappable in traffic and tireless on the open road. Not much of a surprise since he is, after all, NASCAR Guy.

I became more alert when we got to the bridge to Key Largo. Florida has never held much interest for me…with the exception of the Keys. The Keys conjured images of Ernest Hemingway. And the ecosystem was unique and as foreign to downtown Baltimore as I could possibly get. I know all this because I watch the Travel Channel.

We passed through Largo and began skimming along on bridges that felt inches above the water, hopping key to key. Plantation Key, Islamorada, Fiesta Key. The sun was setting and the sky was washed in Day-Glo flamingo pink broken by magenta slashes of cloud. The roadsides were cluttered with fried-food shacks, real-estate offices, Froggy’s Gym, some chain restaurants, gift shops specializing in trinkets made from shells imported from Taiwan, gas stations, and convenience stores tucked into small strip malls.

We motored through Marathon, over the Seven Mile Bridge, through Little Torch Key. It was dark when we got to Key West. It was a weekend, and Key West was packed with tourists. The tourists clogged the sidewalks and streets. Lots of overweight men in brown socks and sandals and baggy khaki shorts. Lots of overweight women wearing T-shirts that advertised bars, bait shops, their status as grandmothers, ice cream, motorcycles, Key West, and beer. Restaurants were lit, their tables spilling onto sidewalks. Shops were open selling local art and Jimmy Buffet everything. Vendors hawked T-shirts. Ernest Hemingway look-alikes offered themselves up on street corners. Ten dollars and you can have your picture taken with Ernest Hemingway.

“I thought it would be a little more…island,” I said.

“Honey, this is island. If Ernest was alive today, he’d be living in South Beach doing the clubs.”

“I don’t see a lot of hotels. Are we going to be able to get a room?”

“I know a guy, Richard Vana, who has a house here. We can crash there overnight.”

Hooker turned down a side street, away from the crush of tourists. He drove two blocks and pulled into a driveway. We were in a pocket of small elaborate Victorian houses and plantation-shuttered island bungalows that were lost in shadow, tucked back from the narrow street behind tiny yards filled with exotic flowering bushes and trees.

I took my bag and followed Hooker to the house. It was a single-story bungalow. Hard to see the color in the dark, but it looked like it might be yellow with white trim. The air was heavy with the scent of night-blooming jasmine and roses. No lights on inside the house.

“It looks like your friend isn’t home,” I said to Hooker.

“He’s never here. A couple weeks out of the year. I called before we left Miami and asked if we could use his house.” Hooker ran his hand above the doorjamb and came up with a key. “One of the advantages to driving NASCAR. You meet a lot of interesting people. This guy has a boat I can borrow, too…if we need a boat.” Hooker opened the door and switched on the foyer light.

The house wasn’t big, but it was comfy. Furniture was rattan and overstuffed. Colors were crimson, yellow, and white. Floors were cherry.

“There are two guest bedrooms down the hall to the right,” Hooker said. “Take whichever one you want. They’re both pretty much the same.” He dropped his bag, wandered into the kitchen, and stuck his head in the refrigerator. “We’ve got Corona and Cristal champagne and diet cola. I’m going for the Corona. What would you like?”

“Corona. Looks like you know your way around the house.”

“Yeah. I probably spend more time here than Rich. I like the Keys.”

“Do you like it better here than South Beach?”

He took a long pull on his Corona. “Not better. I guess it depends on my mood. If I had a house here it wouldn’t be Key West. It would be on one of the quieter Keys to the north. I like the fishing. I’m not crazy about the hordes of tourists. There are a lot of NASCAR fans here, and once I get recognized on the street I have to worry about a mob scene. I don’t get much attention in South Beach. I’m low on the celebrity watch list there.”

“Richard Vana sounds familiar.”

Hooker slouched onto the couch in front of the television and remoted it on. “He’s a baseball player. Houston.”

My cell phone chirped, and I had a moment of terror, debating answering, worried it was my mother. But then I thought it could also be Bill, and I wouldn’t want to miss that call.

It turned out it wasn’t my mother, and it wasn’t Bill. It was Rosa.

“Where are you?” Rosa asked. “I have to see you. I went back to talk to Felicia. And we asked around the neighborhood. Does anybody know anything? And they tell us to go to crazy Armond. Armond came to this country when they opened the prisons in Cuba and sent those people here to Miami. Armond says he was in the prison with Maria’s father, and Armond says Juan would sometimes talk about the diving. And then he showed me on a map where Juan would like to dive.”

“Can you tell me?”

“I have no names. The names aren’t the same. But I have this little map Armond drew for us. I need to give you the map.”

“Hooker and I are in Key West.”

“What are you doing in Key West? Never mind. We’ll bring you the map. We’ll leave here early in the morning. Make sure you have your phone