The Rich and the Dead by Nelson DeMille

Author:Nelson DeMille [DeMille, Nelson]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9780446574891
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Published: 2011-05-01T21:00:00+00:00

THE ITINERARY

BY ROBERTA ISLEIB

Detective Jack Meigs knew he’d hate Key West the moment he was greeted off the plane by a taxi driver with a parrot on his shoulder. He hadn’t wanted to take a vacation at all, and he certainly hadn’t wanted to come to Florida, which he associated with elderly people pretending they weren’t declining. But his boss insisted, and then his sister surprised him with a nonrefundable ticket: he was screwed. A psychologist had once told him that it took a year for grief to lift and that making major life changes during this time only complicated the process, which was why he’d gone to work directly from the funeral and every day in the three months since. There was no vacation from the facts: his wife Alice was dead, and she wasn’t coming back.

The driver packed him into a cab that smelled like a zoo and lurched away from the curb. Then the bird let loose a stream of shit that splattered off his newspapered roost and onto Meigs’s polished black leather loafers. The cabbie hooted with laughter.

“That means good luck, man,” he said, gunning the motor and grinning like a monkey in the rearview mirror. “Mango doesn’t do that for just anybody.”

The parrot screamed during the entire ten-minute ride to Meigs’s hotel, and the driver never shut up, either. Would everyone connected with this damn town want to give him a travelogue?

“I’m takin’ you down our main street, give you the flavor,” the cabbie said as he turned off Truman Avenue onto bustling Duval Street. He veered around a stumbling bum and a covey of fat, sun-crisped cruise ship escapees carrying plastic cups of beer. Were open containers legal in this town?

“Hemingway got soused here every afternoon after writing.” The cabbie pointed to a shabby-looking bar, drinkers spilling out onto the sidewalk. “And Jimmy Buffett wrote ‘Woman Goin’ Crazy on Caroline Street’ right down there in Margaritaville.” He pointed to yet another bar, lit by palm trees and flamingos in flashing neon, also crammed with boozers.

The whole scene was a police officer’s nightmare.

The cab driver swerved onto Caroline Street and pulled over in front of Notre Paradis, the bed-and-breakfast that Meigs’s sister had chosen for him. A thin man wearing a tight white shirt and copper sparkles on his glasses bounded off the front porch to greet him.

“I’m Laurent, your host. This is your first trip to Key West? You’re going to love it!” He struck a theatrical pose and then paused to look Meigs over—his khakis with the worn cuffs and pockets, the gray turtleneck on which he’d spilled his Coke during the turbulence from Miami to Key West. Laurent lowered his voice to a whisper and winked. “Yes, there is a lot of money in this town. But there’s plenty to enjoy without piles of cash, too.”

After unpacking, Meigs changed his shirt and went to explore Duval Street on foot. Laurent had dismissed his protests and insisted this was a must-see; had actually

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