Copyright © 2003 Kelly Spitzer. All rights reserved. 

    I’d pulled my new cab—fresh out of the detailer’s shop—up to the curb, saw Zee and Thomas sitting on my front patch of grass, the sprinkler trickling water onto their feet, half the contents of my fridge next to them. "What do you think?" I asked, stepping out.

    Zee jumped up. "This is so exciting. The paint looks so nice and fresh and your name is right there," she said, pointing to Crane, "and your phone number, too. I can’t believe you bought this, Dickie."

    "Hey dude," Thomas said. "Where’s my name?"

    I looked at Thomas. "It’s my company."

    "So? You should’ve put ‘Dickie and Thomas’ Crime Solving Machine.’"

    Before the ice cream truck incident I was a one man operation, running cabs from Homestead, Florida to Key West. But in the process of finding Russell Willow, I got Thomas fired from his job, then he saved my ass, and Zee’s. I owed him, so I hung my keys on his finger and gave him the honor of hauling tourists up and down Ocean Highway.

    "Yeah, right," I said.

    "Okay," Thomas said, "you don’t have to put my name on it. But man, you should seriously consider a catchier phrase. Crane Cabs is lame sounding."

    I turned off the sprinkler, ignoring Thomas. The kid was lucky he was a good driver because he certainly didn’t qualify for the job on brains alone.

    "Are you going to take us for a ride, Dickie? You should. I want to check out all your options, see if you have cruise control and all that good stuff," Zee said. "I’m just on my lunch hour so I don’t have much time, but maybe you could drop me off at the shelter."

    "Maybe you could pack a lunch instead of running down here and eating all my food."

    "Come on, Dickie, you know I can’t eat in that place. The animals whine and the smell of their cages... and your house is closer than mine."   

    "Fine. Whatever. Get in my cab. I’ll take you back to work."

    "Far out, dude." Thomas sprung from the lawn.

    "Not you, moron. You got to keep business running, in your own car."

    Zee clapped her hands and ran for the front seat. "You have to stay for a few minutes and meet Chester and Chelsey, the breeding cats from the Hemingway House. The museum brought them and their kittens in to encourage more people to come and adopt. You know, since they’re descendants of Hemingway’s six-toed cat and they’re famous and all."

    I agreed after Zee said please for seven minutes straight, and at the shelter, I scratched the kittens under the chin then held daddy Chester for a few minutes before getting a call from the manager at the Northside Marina. A drunk idiot had fixed himself to the dock, and the manager was willing to pay his fare for me to take him anywhere I wanted. My first run in two weeks. A new car, a new paint job, and a plastered client. I could already smell the puke simmering on my leather seats.

    At the marina, I stopped at the office to collect my fee. The guy gave me a twenty and pointed toward the courtesy dock. "That’s him there. He’s been here for a couple of hours. He don’t own a boat here and no one seems to know him. I don’t care what you do with him. Just get him out of my marina."

    "Well, I just got a new cab so I’m tempted to drop him off down the street. Minimizes the chance of him getting rid of that booze in there," I said pointing at the Ford Taurus.

    "I don’t want him wandering back here."

    "And I don’t want to smell him in my cab for weeks to come."

    The guy stared at me, then finally reached into his pocket. "Here’s another ten. Make sure he doesn’t find his way back."

    I nodded, stuck the ten in my pocket. I don’t normally con people out of their money, but it wasn’t my responsibility to keep the local marinas clean. The guy should’ve called the cops. I would’ve suggested it to him, but I wanted the extra cash. Two way radios would be handy.

    I walked down to the courtesy dock and yelled at my rider from a few feet away. "Hey, you want a ride somewhere?"

    He looked at me through slitted eyes. "I’m doin’ great."

    "You want a ride?" I asked again. "We could go get a drink or something."

    He clapped his hands. "That’s what I wanna hear."

    I led the guy up to my cab and locked him in the backseat. "Where to?"

    "The drink." He laughed. "To drink."

    "Where do you live, buddy?"

    "Over there." He pointed at the sky. Swell, I thought, but figured he was drunk enough that he wouldn’t remember any of it in the morning, so I decided for him: Largo Market. I needed milk and toilet paper anyway.

    On the way to Largo Market he told me about a stocky guy with white hair and beard that had a six-toed cat.

    "Older man?" I asked.

    "Yep."

    "Look like he’d been out in the sun too much? Like he’d been out fishing and his face had gotten tanned and wind burned?"

    "Yep. Do you know that guy? ‘Cause I’d sure like a cat with six toes. I offered him money for it even," he said. "But he wouldn’t give it up. Said it was his prize."

    I rolled my eyes. Anyone in the Keys would know that the man he’d just described was Ernest Hemingway, who, sixty years or more ago, when he was still alive, received a six-toed cat from a ship captain. His home, the Hemingway House in Key West, was turned into a museum with a cat population of sixty. The guy was drunk enough; he was hallucinating.

    I pulled my cab into a slot at the market and gave the guy a dollar to get rid of him. After running inside for a few necessities, I drove back home. Smack in the middle of the floor, sat Zee.

    "Didn’t I just drop you off at work?"

    Zee looked up at me, her eyes wide as pie.

    "Yes," she whispered. Just one word. Zee didn’t talk in one word sentences. She didn’t even talk in five word sentences. Something was wrong.

    "Did you get fired?" I asked.

    Zee shook her head. "He’s gone, Dickie."

    "Who?"

    "Chester."

    "The cat?"

    Zee just nodded, then flopped backwards, laid her head on the floor and sighed. "I was playing with one of the kittens and when I went to put her back I noticed Chester’s cage was unlatched and then I realized he was gone."

    That feeling came over me, the one where your body goes still because your muscles freeze and tiny pricks of ice spike through your spine. Had I latched Chester’s cage when I left? I couldn’t remember. I couldn’t say yes.

    "I looked everywhere, Dickie, all over the shelter and outside. I even showed his picture around the neighborhood but no one’s seen him. I’m doomed, Dickie, doomed." She drummed her head on the floor to the rhythm of a high pitched whine.

    "You have to call the museum, tell them what happened," I said.

    "No way, Dickie. I could lose my job, the only job I’ve ever had where they don’t make me wear shoes. You know how I feel about leather, Dickie, and I’d embarrass the shelter and then where would I be?"

    "I’ll take the blame. It might even be my fault. I was playing with Chester before I left..."

    "Forget it, Dickie. The museum is our biggest supporter and I’m not going to risk losing them, no way, no how. They aren’t picking up the cats for another two days and I’m gonna find him before that and they’ll never even know."

    I pinched my forehead and peered at Zee. "Come on," I said. "They might offer a reward. A cash prize even."

    The chill settled back in my bones as the word prize slipped from my lips. And then I remembered the drunk, and the guy he’d seen with a six-toed cat. He’d called the cat his prize...

    "I’ll be back later. There’s someone I have to see."

    "Wait, Dickie. You can’t leave me here alone. I’m too worried, I’m too freaked out. Take me with you, Dickie, please." Zee tried to grab my ankle as I walked past her on my way out the door.

    In my cab, I turned up the air conditioning and sped off, back toward the Northside Marina.

***

    The first disaster is always the worse. Partly because it catches you off guard, wrenching you from one reality to another. The second you expect. You watch and wait and when it comes you nod your head, even smile a bit because you know soon it will be over and that what awaits you—the third time around—is never as brutal.

    That Tuesday afternoon, as I turned into the marina for a second time, I laughed, said of course, it always happens like this, in threes, then told myself that a missing cat wasn’t as bad as a kidnaped Zee. Life would go forward, smooth out, be normal again. Only one more mess to go...

***

    The marina wasn’t far from the animal shelter, and I figured the cat could have wandered down there, attracted to the smell of dead fish simmering in the Florida sun, and gotten picked up by the Hemingway look-alike spotted by my drunk passenger. I shrugged. Stranger things had happened...and not that long ago.

    "I’m looking for someone," I said to the same man who forked over thirty bucks to me not more than an hour ago.

    "That right."

    "An older man. White hair, white beard. Looks like Hemingway."

    "Good luck."

    I stuck my hand in my pocket, felt my wallet and knew karma had caught up to me. "He own a boat here?" I asked, pulling out a ten.

    The guy took the corner, slid it across the counter and held it up to the light. "This don’t look like no Ben Franklin to me."

    "You’re kidding, right?"

    "Well, does it look like one to you?"

    I yanked another ten out of my wallet and said, "No, but this is all I’m giving you."

    With a pinch of his fingers, the man snatched the ten. "Yeah, we got a guy like that who rents a slip here."

    So the drunk wasn’t hallucinating. Now all I had to do was find this prize of his, this six-toed cat, and see if it was Chester. "Which boat is his?"

    The guy stacked his hands on his hips. "I’m not telling you that. Could lose my job."

    "Can I get his name?"

    "Nope."

    "Not even for a real Ben Franklin?"

    "Not even for two."

    In my head, I swore at the guy, called him every sick thing I could think of, while he stood there, his face damp with sweat, and looked at me steady.

    "I’ll just wait around then," I said.

    "Suit yourself." He picked up a magazine—some Monster Car journal—and flipped open the cover.

    I went back to my cab, opened the windows and stuck a tape in the deck. Hours rolled by, but only two people had walked down the docks, and neither looked like Hemingway. My legs were cramped, my knees aching, my customers being driven around by a kid with bleach blond bangs.

    Thinking of Thomas, I knew I had a way out. I pressed speed dial two on my cell phone—Zee claimed number one—and got him on the phone. "I need you at the Northside Marina in five minutes," I said.

    "Cool. What’s the deal, man?"

    "I need you to keep an eye out for someone."

    "Like spying?"

    I paused, thought about who I was talking to and said, "exactly."

    "Sweet," Thomas said.

    Three minutes later, Thomas pulled up close. He jumped out of the cab, his eyes roving like flies on a window. "Who we looking for?"

    I explained the situation, told Thomas to keep an eye out for a Hemingway look-alike who possibly had a cat with him. "If he shows up, call me immediately. And Thomas? Don’t let him out of your sight."

    Not more than an hour later, while I waited at home with a sobbing Zee, Thomas showed up.

    "What are doing?" I asked. "You’re supposed to be looking, uh, spying on someone."

    "So yo, I found him." Thomas grinned. His cerulean eyes shone against the dusky inside of the living room.

    "You found him?"

    "Found who? Dickie, what’s going on? What is he talking about?" Zee asked.

    "Nothing," I told her, then turned to Thomas. "Where is he? You were supposed to call me, remember?"

    Thomas smacked his forehead. "Dude. I forgot. But hey, I found him. Score, huh?"

    "What about the..."

    "The...what?"

    I grabbed Thomas by the arm and led him into the kitchen. Zee continued to yell from the couch. "The cat?" I whispered.

    "I heard that," Zee called. She ran to the kitchen and grabbed me by the arm. "Did you find him, Dickie? Did you? Where is he, where’s Chester?"

    With a sigh, I placed my hand on her shoulder and looked at Thomas. "Well?"

    "Who’s this Chester, man?"

    "The cat," Zee and I yelled in unison.

    "Well I don’t know about any cat, but I found that guy, that Hemingway guy."

    "Shit, Thomas," I said, reminded him that the entire purpose of the spy mission was to find the Hemingway House’s missing cat. He scratched his head, finally said oh yeah, huh, then sorry, dude before finally telling us that the Hemingway look-alike was carrying a case, all wrapped up so no one could see inside.

    That night I stayed up until three a.m., thinking about the guy and his cloaked case, Chester, and how to get him back. Time was running out for Zee to pretend that nothing had happened. And she counted on me to make sure no one ever found out. Finally, as I drifted into that state between dream and wake, where what is real and what is not is never certain, I decided I had to confront our alleged cat-naper.

    The next morning I walked the dock, watching sunlight filter through breaking waves, and waited for our suspect to appear. A fifty foot sailboat rocked in the breeze, the water lapping at the vessels name: Papa. I laughed. Must be one old boat, I thought, but looking closer realized it wasn’t. And then it hit me. Papa was Hemingway’s nickname.

    I walked closer, looking for fur, kibble, anything that would indicate animal on board. Nothing. No sounds came from inside, and I was about to declare it deserted until the hatch slid back and up popped a man with flowing white hair and a peppered beard.

    "Can I help you?" he asked. Roasted coffee smell drifted past him and mixed with the briny air.

    "I work for the marina," I said. "Residents have reported a cat living here and, as you know, animals are not allowed at Northside."

    The guy squinted at me. "Since when? I never heard that rule. And I’ve never seen you here before, either."

    "I’m new. So, do you have a cat on board, Sir?"

    After several minutes of silence, the Hemingway look-alike turned, slid half-way down the hatch.

    "Wait," I yelled. "I’m not really from the marina."

    He popped his head up.

    "My friend Zee works for the animal shelter, and yesterday a cat went missing from there. A special cat. It belongs to the Hemingway House. We’ve heard that it ended up here."

    Laughter erupted from the man’s belly. "What? You mean this cat?" he said, and pulled Chester up by his neck skin and dangled him over the boat’s railing.

    I ran alongside the boat, my hands outstretched. "Please, Sir. My friend could lose her job."

    "That's too bad for your friend now, isn't it? Nobody's getting this cat from me. Not until I get what I deserve."

    With mouth agape, I stared at "Papa" until the marina woke. People, towels in hand, wandered up to the office to shower. Motors kicked on, and the smells of breakfast rose from cabins. And I stood there, knowing that Chester was only feet away, in the bowels of a sailboat captained by a Hemingway fanatic.

***

    The problem with second disasters is you never know how to handle them. First disasters are almost always tragedies, things beyond your power. All you can do is deal with the aftermath. But number twos require smarts, skills, an action plan you control. And if you screw up? Well, it’s all on you. Everything depended on me. Zee, her job, the fate of Chester and his kittens, the Hemingway House. And so, as I stood beside that sailboat, I thought hard about how to set things right, or at least not screw them up anymore.

***

    Upstairs in the marina was a restaurant and bar. From the dock, I could see through the windows. Several people sat at tables, sipping from mugs and looking out across the ocean. With any luck, I thought, there’d be someone up there drinking. As a cab driver, I knew drunks would tell you just about anything, and anything was what I needed.

    I took a stool across from the bartender, told him I just wanted coffee.

    He looked up. "With whiskey or Irish cream?"

    "Just plain," I said.

    He glanced at me, motioned the waitress over and gave her my request. She filled a mug and placed it in front of me. I took a sip, looked down the bar at a guy hunched over a shot glass. "How long has he been here?"

    "Too long," the bartender said, then yelled, "Hey, Ted. Go back to your boat."

    "Does he live here at Northside?"

    "In the bar most the time, but yeah, that’s his troller down there." He pointed out the window, at a boat bigger than my house.

    I slid down a few stools, told Ted I was in the market for a boat, and asked him what he suggested. Eventually I got around to asking about sailboats. "I’m interested in one like "Papa" down there. I tried to talk to its owner, but he wasn’t interested in entertaining my questions," I said.

    Ted snorted. "Don’t bother with that old grouch. He’s got a chip on his shoulder."

    The old grouch turned out to be Stan Duncan, a man who, according to Ted and the bartender, had a long history with the Hemingway House and its proprietors.

    "Stan enters the Hemingway look-alike contest every year," Ted said. "He hasn’t placed once, and one year, old Stan declared the event rigged and demanded an investigation. All he did was get laughed at, but every damn year since then that geezer’s gotten up there and competed. He’ll be there tonight, too."

    "He still goes around saying he’s going to get what’s owed him," the bartender said, shaking his head. "Everyone just keeps their distance. I would too, if I were you."

    I took the last swig of my coffee, thanked them for the story, and left. As I drove back home, a plan began cooking in my brain.

    For the rest of the day, Thomas and I convinced our customers to make an appearance at Sloppy Joe’s, the Key West bar named after Hemingway’s close friend, and vote for Stan in the annual Hemingway look-alike contest. They agreed, and that night, while Thomas and Zee waited at the Northside Marina, I drove down to Key West and crowded into a corner at the back of the bar.

    The sponsors from the museum called each contestant, who appeared from behind a drawn curtain and waved at the crowd. When Stan appeared on stage a chorus of cheers—all from my customers, the rest of the crowd remained silent—erupted and gained volume until everyone in the bar was stomping their feet, clapping and screaming. Stan stood on stage, arms across his chest, frowning. And then a smile broke through.

***

    "So where are you going to go, Dickie? Someplace warm, or to the mountains, maybe camping?" Zee asked. She sat cross-legged on the floor of the animal shelter with Chester in her lap. After Stan received his rightful prize, he returned the cat, and we all promised that no one needed to know how Stan stole Chester while Zee stood several feet away.

    "I’m not sure," I said. "But I have to get out of town before anything else can go wrong."

    "You deserve the best vacation in the world, Dickie. No, the universe. You found Chester and we rescued him and the museum will never know that I lost him."

    "You didn’t lose him. I didn’t even lose him. He was stolen," I reminded her. "And don’t forget, Stan won’t go seeking revenge any longer now that he has his prize."

    Zee stood, put Chester back in his cage and locked it. "I know where you should go, Dickie. It’s the best idea ever. Dickie, you should go to Hollywood."

    "Dude," Thomas said. "That’s far out. You should definitely go to Hollywood, man."

    I looked around the white cement walls of the shelter, at the cats peering out at us from behind silver bars, and the dogs who rested their heads on their paws and let out soft moans of boredom. "Good idea," I said. "That way, when number three catches up to me, I can act like it’s got the wrong person."

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