Rescue

onto Stock Island , a desolate spot that I remembered Whit Tidyman mentioning as the site of a detention facility. Then over a final, short bridge and I’d reached Key West itself.
    I wasn’t quite prepared for what I first saw. I had an image of Key West as kind of a small village at the end of the chain of islands. In fact, it’s a pretty big island itself, with large hotels and wide perimeter highways. After some accidental turns and glances at my map, I maneuvered the Sunbird down narrower streets and got a parking space near a graveyard that seemed at the edge of the downtown district, which looked a little more like what I expected. Wooden cottages, the facades having upper stories hanging over lower ones like beetlebrowed faces, the latticework painted in pastels. Plenty of flowering trees, though palms and bougainvilleas were the only ones I could identify. The graveyard had stone monuments and mostly flat slabs, many cracked and crooked as though frost-heaved, which I couldn’t understand.
    I came upon a main foot-traffic drag called Duval Street, whose principal establishments seemed to be T-shirt shops and bars, many of the latter on the second floor, people sitting at outdoor tables or just leaning out windows or over railings, Watching the parade of humanity go by. I walked up to a Panhandler whose sign read, WHY LIE? I JUST WANT ANOTHER BEER.
    I said, “You know a bar called the Far Horizon?“
    “No problem. Three blocks down, on the right. And you have yourself a fine sunset, now.“
    “Sunset?“ I said, laying a five into his hand.
    “Hey, man! Thanks. Wait a minute, you never seen sunset here?“
    “No.“
    “Be sure you do, over by Mallory Square.“
    “And where’s that?“
    “Another three blocks past your bar.“
    “Thanks.“
    He fluttered the five at me. “No problem.“
    The Far Horizon turned out to be a street-level joint with a couple of taps and a blender that had every color of the rainbow coating its clear plastic sides. A half-dozen patrons, in pairs, leaned elbows on the bar tended by a woman in her forties with a blue ribbon in her hair like a prize poodle. I walked up to her.
    “Mack around?“
    She looked at me blankly. “Mack who?“
    “Mack Olsen. A friend of mine from Mercy named Dawna Adair asked me to look him up.“
    She smiled. “Mack’s not on till eight tonight.“
    “That be a good time to catch him?“
    “Between then and ten. After that, it gets pretty hairy around here.“
    “Thanks.“
    “Who should I say is looking for him?“
    “Just tell him Dawna’s friend, John.“
    “John. You have a good night.“
    “Thanks. I’ll try.“
    Wandering farther up the street, I started paying more attention to the people around me. Some tourists, but mostly folks with long hair, often my age. More than a few black-leather bikers and clean-cut college kids and deeply tanned yachters. Gay couples strolled hand-in-hand, cars cruised by slowly, everybody carrying open containers of booze, the cops on foot patrol smiling and joshing with the people as they passed. No problem.
    There was a lot of laughing and jeering coming from a bar called Sloppy Joe’s. A sign by the door imposed a two-dollar cover charge, but the management didn’t seem to mind people just sticking their heads in the open windows to listen, so I joined them for a minute.
    The place was packed, a guitarist up on stage wearing the outfit of baseball cap, shirt, and jeans that the Beach Boys affected in their later years. A banner above his head had the name PAT DAILEY on it, young guys in red with SECURITY on their backs located around the stage. Dailey’s act seemed to consist of one part cheerleading, one part ranting monologue, and two parts bawdy songs, the crowd joining in for choruses of “I’d Have to Be Drunk to Do That,“ “I Could Be Your Father,“ and so on. I stayed long enough to decide the man wasn’t just a good guitarist but also a genius at involving the audience, trading insults with them and threatening to leave the stage, the crowd erupting after each threat with a not-quite-spontaneous refrain of “Stay, Just a Little Bit Longer.“ He would.
    Getting hungry, I moved toward where the panhandler had told me Mallory Square was. I found it, but my watch told me it was a bit early for sunset, my stomach adding that the long drive counseled an early dinner. I found a place on Front Street called the Hog’s Breath Saloon (motto: “Hog’s Breath is Better than No