Duma Key

I shook my head, not taking my eyes off it. I didn't worry about broken mirrors or crossing black cats' paths, but I'm very much a believer in... well, maybe not love at first sight, that's a little too Rhett-and-Scarlett for me, but instant attraction? Sure. It's the way I felt about Pam the first time I met her, on a double date (she was with the other guy). And it's the way I felt about Big Pink from the very first.

She stood on pilings with her chin jutting over the high-tide line. There was a NO TRESPASSING sign slanting askew on an old gray stick beside the driveway, but I guessed that didn't apply to me. "Once you sign the lease, you have it for a year," Sandy told me. "Even if it's sold, the owner can't kick you out until your time is up."

Jack drove slowly up to the back door... only with its face hanging over the Gulf of Mexico, that was the only door. "I'm surprised they were ever allowed to build this far out," he said. "I suppose they did things different in the old days." To him the old days probably meant the nineteen-eighties. "There's your car. Hope it's okay."

The car drawn up on the square of cracked pavement to the right of the house was the sort of anonymous American mid-size the rental companies specialize in. I hadn't driven since the day Mrs. Fevereau hit Gandalf, and barely gave it a glance. I was more interested in the boxy pink elephant I'd rented. "Aren't there ordinances about building too close to the Gulf of Mexico?"

"Now, sure, but not when this place went up. From a practical standpoint, it's all about beach erosion. I doubt if this place hung out that way when it was built."

He was undoubtedly right. I thought I could see at least six feet of the pilings supporting the screened porch - the so-called Florida room. Unless those pilings were sunk sixty feet into the underlying bedrock, eventually the place was going into the Gulf of Mexico. It was only a matter of time.

As I was thinking it, Jack Cantori was saying it. Then he grinned. "Don't worry, though; I'm sure you'll get plenty of warning. You'll hear it groaning."

"Like the House of Usher," I said.

His grin widened. "But it's probably good for another five years or so. Otherwise it'd be condemned."

"Don't be so sure," I said. Jack had reversed to the driveway door, so the trunk would be easy to unload. Not a lot in there; three suitcases, one garment bag, a steel hardcase with my laptop inside, and a knapsack containing some primitive art supplies - mostly pads and colored pencils. I traveled light when I left my other life. I figured what I'd need most in my new one was my checkbook and my American Express card.

"What do you mean?" he asked.

"Someone who could afford to build here in the first place could probably talk a couple of B-and-C inspectors around."

"B- and-C? What's that?"

For a moment I couldn't tell him. I could see what I meant: men in white shirts and ties, wearing yellow hi-impact plastic hardhats on their heads and carrying clipboards in their hands. I could even see the pens in their shirt pockets, and the plastic pocket-protectors to which they were clipped. The devil's in the details, right? But I couldn't think of what B-and-C stood for, although I knew it as well as my own name. And instantly I was furious. Instantly it seemed that making my left hand into a fist and driving it sideways into the unprotected Adam's apple of the young man sitting beside me was the most reasonable thing in the world. Almost imperative. Because it was his question that had hung me up.

"Mr. Freemantle?"

"Just a sec," I said, and thought: I can do this.

I thought of Don Field, the guy who had inspected at least half of my buildings in the nineties (or so it seemed), and my mind did its crosspatch thing. I realized I'd been sitting bolt upright, my hands clenched in my lap. I could see why the kid had sounded concerned. I looked like a man having a gastric episode. Or a heart attack.

"Sorry," I said. "I had an accident. Banged my head. Sometimes my mind stutters."

"Don't worry about it," Jack said. "No biggie."

"B- and-C is Building and Code. Basically they're the guys who decide if your building is going to fall down or not."

"You talking about bribes?" My new young employee looked glum. "Well, I'm sure it happens, especially down here. Money talks."

"Don't be so cynical. Sometimes it's just a matter of friendship. Your builders, your contractors, your building-code inspectors, even your OSHA guys... they usually drink in the same bars, and they all went to the same schools." I laughed. "Reform schools, in some cases."

Jack said, "They condemned a couple beach houses at the north end of Casey Key when the erosion there sped up. One of em actually did fall into the drink."

"Well, as you say, I'll probably hear it groaning, and it looks safe enough for the time being. Let's get my stuff inside."