Rescue

waitress had suggested just the appetizer portion.
    The egret had reached the far end of the decking when my amberjack was ready. It was a fillet, browned on the surface from the smoking, cut into sections about a finger’s width and length. I tried one. Excellent, and not quite like anything else I’d ever tasted.
    I was working on the green salad as the foursome behind me settled up with our waitress. Suddenly I heard and felt a whooping of wings, and the egret, all three feet of him, was landing on the empty table to my left. He had black legs and black, splayed toes, the plumes draping off his back so very long and detailed they seemed to have been pasted on from another species. The bird turned its head this way and that, almost sniffing the air as it watched me. This close, I could see a greenish mask across its eyes, the bill six inches long.
    Then the bird jumped onto my table. Remembering Greenspan’s comment about the pelican skull, I didn’t move as the egret struck with its head like a snake at my plate. A cross section of amberjack in its bill, the big bird paused long enough to eye me, then whooped off and across the canal to the opposite shore.
    The man behind me said, “I’ve been all over this world of ours, and that’s one of the five oddest things I’ve ever seen, you can believe it.“
    My waitress said, “Would you like a new meal?“
    “No, thanks.“
    “You sure? No telling where that beak’s been.“
    “Really, it’s okay.“
    I finished my lunch, even savoring it a bit more after the egret than before, thinking Key West wasn’t the only place down here that would take me a while to learn.

    Following Mack’s directions faithfully, I still got a little turned around in Miami , probably from some road construction that looked as though it might have been done since the last time he’d been up there. It was almost three when I found the apartment house, twenty stories of white brick and aquamarine panels overlooking part of the intracoastal waterway. I was a little surprised when the sign at the semicircular drive advertised it as a condominium complex.
    Leaving the Pontiac in a visitor’s space, I walked into the lobby. Security consisted of a man about fifty in a white uniform shirt. The potbelly was visible and the wheeze audible when he stood from behind a high-front desk. “Help you?’
    Mack had said to ask for the apartment by number, so I did.
    The guard looked me up and down, nodded, and picked up a telephone, hitting what I figured to be three buttons on a console out of sight behind his desk, probably next to a couple of television monitors. After the time it takes for two rings, he said, “Expecting somebody?... Yeah...Okay.“
    The guard replaced the receiver. “You can go on up. Elevators are over there.“
    I walked across the lobby to them as a video camera swung with my walk. Inside, I pressed the floor I wanted, another camera’s lens peeking at me through a small hole in the car’s ceiling.
    When the doors opened, there were two signs, one pointing left with twelve hyphenated units listed, its twin to the right. I walked right, a door opening for me before I had to knock.
    Mack Olsen had used the word “stunning,“ and it fit. The woman looking out at me had the most radiant violet eyes I’ve ever seen. They were set the right distance apart in a heart-shaped face framed by crow-black hair in bangs and two exotic flips at the front of her neck. The lips seemed to swell, especially when she shook her head for effect. Zoe was somewhere between twenty-five and forty, skin tone a shade darker than tan against a sheer white blouse and red pantaloon pants with tassels, like a harem dancer’s.
    “Yes?“
    It sounded stupid in my head, but I said, “Mack Olsen told me he’d arranged an appointment.“
    The eyelids closed over the violet, not a blink but a slow-motion sequence as her left hand, with violet nails, just brushed at the hairs on the top of my right wrist. “I’m glad he did. My name’s Zoe, sugar.“
    “John.“
    She didn’t laugh at the pun on the term for a customer. Or maybe she just didn’t notice that sort of thing anymore. “Come on in, John.“
    The living room of the condo was tastefully decorated but tad an arid quality to it, like it had been the model for brokers showing the units. Lots of pastel leather and brass-on-glass, tall windows giving a partial water view, wall-to-wall carpeting deep enough to sink into and gray