Rescue

and cartridges of any predecessors’ prints and loaded six, being careful to wipe the bullets again as I slid them into tiie cylinder. I wrapped the towel around the gun and went down to the Pontiac. Locking the covered weapon in the trunk, I decided to leave the canvas top down and drove south to a break in the median. Crossing over to the northbound lanes, I passed the Church’s offices at normal speed. Lights were on and cars still there.
    I continued north onto Key Largo, turning left about halfway through and stopping for dinner at a place on the bay side. It was expensive-looking, with a white-stone parking lot and planted rows of banyanlike trees, Christmas lights strung >n the branches. I walked through a narrow corridor of tropical garden with an incongruous pay phone moored to a post. Past an indoor restaurant was an open-walled, roofed-over outside bar.
    From the bar area, the place fell away to a concrete slip bolding a twenty-foot-wide, sixty-foot-long boat. The sides of the slip were broad enough to be dance floors, which is exactly how a few brave souls were using them, moving awkwardly to a string band’s reggae beat though it felt too early to be dancing, even on vacation. Every time the band finished a song, the tourists seated at tables under umbrellas applauded politely, as polite tourists will, their way of saying they sure appreciate your effort, but it would be just fine, too, if you took a break and didn’t come back for a couple of hours.
    I sat at the bar on a low-backed stool. The bartender, a tall, pretty blond woman with a prominent engagement ring and wedding band, asked what I’d have.
    “You have splits of chardonnay?“
    “Half bottles?“
    “Yes.“
    “No, but the house stuff by the glass is Fetzer and isn’t bad.“
    “Let me try that, then. And a dinner menu, please.“
    She poured a generous six ounces of wine from a 1.5 liter bottle, put the menu in front of me, and took off for a while. It didn’t take long to understand why.
    Across the bar from me were two couples— Chicago area, from “dah Bears“ routine the men were going through. Then they switched over to debating liqueurs.
    Husband Number One: “Drambuie’s the class of that crowd, no question.“
    Husband Number Two: “You kidding? You ever had B & B?“
    Wife Number One chipped in with, “Or how about that real nice scotch, Courvoisier?“
    H-1 turned to her. “That’s not scotch, for chrissake.“
    W-1: “It’s not?“
    H-1: “Hell, no. It’s whiskey.“
    As I sipped my wine, I wasn’t sure I could take any more of them than the bartender could.
    When she returned, I ordered a small Caesar salad and a grouper dish. Then H-1 asked her if she could find the Chicago/Atlanta game on the television mounted over her head and toward the restaurant.
    She said, “The Cubs and the Braves are playing tonight?“
    “Baseball?“ H-1 looked stricken, turning first to his buddy for support, then back to her. “Blondie, I don’t wanta watch no baseball. I wanta watch the Bulls against the Hawks on WGN. That’s Channel 39 down here.“
    “I’m sorry, sir. I didn’t think it was basketball season yet.“
    “It isn’t. They’re supposed to be doing a replay of a game with Michael against Dominique.“
    The bartender just said, “Oh,“ but there was a world of scorn under it. Using a remote device beside the cash register, she brought the TV up and on to 39 in green fluorescence on the lower right part of the screen. Sure enough, opening tip-off.
    H-1: “There, see what I told you?“
    H-2: “C’mon, Scotty, shoot the ball. What do you think he passed it to you for?“
    W-1: “Which one’s Scotty?“
    The Caesar salad came out with some warm rolls in a little covered basket. The salad was good, the rolls great.
    As the game progressed, H-1 zoned out on it while H-2 maintained a steady patter on basketball and whatever else seemed to occur to him, W-l occasionally asking a stupid question and W-2 just staring into her frothy pink drink.
    When my grouper arrived, done Lorenzo-style with crab-meat and peppered rice, I asked the bartender where the locals hung out. Leaning on her elbows, she said softly, “What, you don’t think those folks are natives?“
    I smiled. “Primitive, but not natives.“
    Good smile back. “Well, when my husband and I can get a sitter, we go over to ocean side.“ As I started eating, she named three places, with approximate mile markers. I liked the way she’d