was ready. The sun was going down.
“The light is beautiful here,” Stone said.
“Always,” Annika replied.
“What brought you to Key West?”
“A job in the ER here. I was a late finisher from med school—
Johns Hopkins—and by the time I finished my internship and residency, I was already thirty-five. I had had enough of cold winters, so when I got the Key West offer I jumped at it.”
“Were you born in this country? I think I detect a slight accent.”
“No. I was born in Stockholm. My parents moved to Miami when I finished college, and I came with them and applied to Johns Hopkins.”
“Do you prefer the United States to Sweden?”
“Yes, I think so. At any rate, I never think about moving back to Sweden. I do miss some of the Swedish attitudes.”
“Attitudes about what?”
“Sex, mainly. Americans have so many hang-ups about sex. Things are simpler in Sweden.”
“I’ve heard that, but I haven’t encountered it.”
“You have now. For instance, what would you say if I told you that I find you attractive, and that after dinner I would like to take you back to my house and make love to you?”
“Are we speaking hypothetically?”
“Not necessarily.”
“I would be flattered and pleased,” Stone said.
“Then you have a Swedish attitude,” she said. Then there was some sort of scuffle at the bar, and Stone turned to see a man take a swing at another. The swinger was a compact, muscular man with blood in his eye; the one scrambling to his feet was Charley Boggs.
Two men came running down the stairs from the main restaurant and pulled the fighters apart. There was some discussion, which Stone couldn’t hear, then Charley Boggs stalked away from the deck and out of the restaurant, while the shorter man returned to his table and his drink.
“Why are you so interested in this argument?” Annika asked.
“I’m sorry, I’m a great deal more interested in you, but I know one of the men.”
“Which one?”
“The one who got thrown out. His name is Charley Boggs, and the local police suspect him of being a drug dealer.”
“And why are you acquainted with a drug dealer?” she asked, not unreasonably.
“I’ve met him only once; he’s apparently an associate of a man I’m trying to find.”
“Do you want to follow him?”
“No, I want to have dinner with you, then take you back to your house and make love to you.”
She smiled. “Thank you, I would prefer that, too. Who is the man you’re looking for, and why?”
“His name is Evan Keating, and I need to get his signature on some legal documents.”
“Are you a lawyer?”
“Yes, in New York.”
“Does your work often bring you into contact with drug dealers?”
“No. Keating’s father wants to sell the family business, and they need the agreement of the young man. The company is a client of a law firm I’m associated with.”
“Well, if you are sent to Key West on business, then you lead an interesting life,” she said.
“Sometimes it’s interesting; sometimes it’s too interesting.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean it’s interesting if I meet someone like you during the course of my business, and it’s too interesting if I’m knocked unconscious outside a restaurant.”
She smiled. “Well, you are the first man I’ve ever met when he was lying face down on a sidewalk.”
“Did you see whoever hit me?”
“No. I turned a corner, and there you were. A car was driving away.”
“What kind of car?”
“A white convertible with a man and a woman inside.”
“That would have been Evan Keating and his girlfriend, Gigi Jones.”
“The man you’re looking for?”
“Yes. I had approached him at the bar in the Marquesa and asked to speak with him. He suggested we go outside.”
“Isn’t that what American men do when they wish to fi ght? Go outside?”
Stone laughed. “Sometimes. I wasn’t expecting a fight on that occasion, though.”
“She must have hit you with something heavy,” Annika said.
“Why do you think the girl hit me?”
“She was with the man. Was there any other man present?”
“No.”
“Then it must have been the girl. You should not turn your back on strange women.”
“That’s good advice,” Stone admitted. They were called to their table, where they ordered another mojito and dinner.
AFTER DINNER , they returned to Annika’s house, as previously discussed, and she led him upstairs to her bedroom. She undressed and hung up her clothes, and Stone draped his over a chair. She pulled the bedcover off the bed and onto the fl oor.
“You’re very beautiful,” Stone said.
“You’re beautiful, too,” she said. “I think we will be good lovers together.”
They lay on the bed and came into each other’s arms. “First, we will do the missionary position,” Annika said, pulling him on top of her. “I love that name. Then we will rest and we will do it a different way.”
“All right,” Stone said. “Should we discuss which way now?”
“You are laughing at me,” she said, taking his penis in her hand and sliding it inside her. She did not need a lubricant.
“Only a little,” Stone said. “And suddenly I can’t remember why.”
“Good,” she said. “You must think only of now.”
She was right, he decided.
13
STONE WA S WAKENED by a buzzing noise that he did not immediately recognize. It took him a moment to see that his cell phone, vibrating, was doing a little dance on the glass top of Annika’s dressing table. He gently removed Annika’s blonde head from his shoulder, tiptoed naked across the room and picked up the phone. “Yes?” he whispered.
“Where the hell are you?” Dino asked. “As if I didn’t know.”
“I’m at Annika’s. What do you want?”
“That figures. This whole thing is blowing wide open, and you’re in the sack with a blonde.”
“What do you mean, it’s blowing wide open?”
“I mean that Charley Boggs was found floating face down in Garrison Bight this morning, not far from his houseboat, dead as a mackerel.”
“I saw him get into a fight last night at Louie’s Backyard. He lost.”
“Was he alive after the fi ght?”
