Envy Mass Market

“Envy” Prologue

Key West, Florida, 1988

Saltines and sardines. Staples of his diet. Add a chunk of rat cheese and a Kosher dill spear and you had yourself the four basic food groups. There simply wasn’t any finer fare.

That was the unshakable opinion of Hatch Walker, who had a sun-baked, wind-scoured visage that only a mother gargoyle could love. As he munched his supper, eyes that had blinked against the sting of countless squalls squinted narrowly on the horizon.

He was on the lookout for the lightning flashes that would signal an approaching storm. There was still no sign of it here onshore, but it was out there somewhere, gathering energy, sucking moisture up from the sea that it would send back to earth in the form of wind-driven rain.

But later. Above the harbor, a quarter moon hung in a clear sky. Stars defied the neon glare on the ground. But Hatch wasn’t fooled. He could feel impending meteorological change in his bones before the barometer dropped. He could smell a storm even before clouds appeared or a sail caught the first strong gust of wind. His weather forecasts were rarely wrong. There’d be rain before dawn.

His nicotine-stained teeth crunched into his pickle, and he savored the garlicky brine, which he chased with a bite of cheese. It just didn’t get any better. He couldn’t figure out folks who were willing to pay a week’s wages on a meal that wouldn’t fill a thimble, when they could eat just as good—and to his mind a hell of a lot better—on a buck and a half. Tops.

Of course, they were paying for more than the groceries. They were financing the parking valets, and the starched white tablecloths, and the waiters with rings in their ears and cobs up their butts, who acted like you were putting them out if you asked them to fetch you an extra helping of bread. They were paying for the fancy French name slapped on a filet of fish that used to be called the catch-of-the-day. He’d seen pretentious outfits like that in ports all over the world. A few had even cropped up here in Key West, and those he scorned most of all.

This being a weeknight, the streets were relatively quiet. Tourist season was on the wane. Thank the good Lord for small favors, Hatch thought as he swigged at his can of Pepsi and belched around a harrumph of scorn for tourists in general and those who flocked to Key West in particular.

They descended by the thousands each year, slathered in sunscreen that smelled like monkey barf, toting camera equipment, and dragging along whining kids who’d rather be up in Orlando being dazzled by Disney’s man-made marvels than watching one of the most spectacular sunsets on the planet.

Hatch had nothing but contempt for these fools who worked themselves into early coronaries for fifty weeks a year so that for the remaining two they could work doubly hard at having a good time. Even more bewildering to him was that they were willing to pay out their soft, pale asses for the privilege.

Unfortunately, his livelihood depended on them. And for Hatch that represented a moral dilemma. He despised the tourists’ invasion, but he couldn’t have made a living without it.

Walker’s Marine Charters and Rentals got a share of the money the vacationers spent during their noisy occupation of his town. He equipped them with scuba and snorkeling gear, leased them boats, and took them on deep-sea fishing expeditions so they could return to shore and have their grinning, sunburned mugs photographed with a noble fish, who was probably more affronted by the asinine picture-taking than by being caught.

Business wasn’t exactly thriving tonight, but the trade-out was that it was quiet. Peaceful, you might say. And that wasn’t a bad thing. Not by a long shot. Not compared to life aboard merchant ships, where quarters were noisy and cramped and privacy was nonexistent. He’d had a bellyful of that, thank you. Give Hatch Walker solitude and quiet anytime.

The water in the marina was as still as a lake. Shore lights were mirrored on the surface with hardly a waver. Occasionally a mast would creak aboard a sailboat or he’d hear a telephone ringing on one of the yachts. Sometimes a note or two of music or several beats of percussion would waft from one of the waterfront nightclubs. Traffic created an incessant swish. Otherwise it was quiet, and, even though it meant a lean week financially speaking, Hatch preferred it this way.

Tonight he might have closed up shop and gone home early, except for that one boat he had out. He’d leased the twenty-five-footer to some kids, if you could rightly call twenty-somethings kids. Compared to him they were. Two men, one woman, which in Hatch’s estimation was a volatile combination under any circumstances.

The kids were tan and lean, attractive and self-assured to the point of cockiness. Hatch figured that between the three of them they probably hadn’t done an honest day’s work in their lives. They were locals, or at least permanent transplants. He’d seen them around.

They were already half lit when they boarded the craft just before sunset, and they’d carried a couple of ice chests on board with them. Heavy as anchors, by the way they were lugging them. Odds were good that those chests contained bottles of booze. They had no fishing gear. They were going offshore strictly for a few hours of drinking and debauchery or his name wasn’t Hatch Walker. He had debated whether or not to lease a craft to them, but his near-empty till served to persuade him that they were not flat-out drunk.

He’d sternly ordered them not to drink while operating his boat. They flashed him smiles as insincere as a diamond dealer’s and assured him that such wasn’t their intention. One bowed at the waist and could barely contain his laughter over what he must have considered a lecture from a grizzled old fart. The other saluted him crisply and said, “Aye, aye, sir!”

As Hatch helped the young woman into the boat, he hoped to hell she knew what she was in for. But he figured she did. He’d seen her around, too. Lots of times. With lots of men. An eye patch would have covered more skin than her bikini bottom, and Hatch would have no right to call himself a man if he hadn’t noticed that she might just as well not have bothered wearing the top.

And she didn’t for long.

Before they were even out of the marina, one of the men snatched off her top and waved it above his head like a victory banner. Her attempts to get it back turned into a game of slap-and-tickle.