Tomlinson smiled at the Cuban slang and checked Mallory Square. Yes . . . a redhead and a blonde he recognized—possibly several familiar faces jumbled back there in memory. Over the years, he’d dropped anchor in bedrooms from Duval to Cudjoe Key, but women always looked so different wearing clothes instead of body paint. He replied, “Those whom Key West does not kill, it enlightens. That’s why we’re not turning back.”

It was more strange talk from this odd pitcher who didn’t throw hard enough to break glass but had a pretty good curve. Figueroa liked him anyway, trusted the man’s kindness and sophisticated manner. Felt comfortable enough to speak up when he didn’t understand. “You mean ‘kill’ as in putas who rob? Or these island women, they exhaust a man’s pinga?”

“Count on it,” Tomlinson replied. “It’s happened to better sailors than us. That’s why I know when to pull anchor and haul ass to saner harbors.” He stood to ready the mainsail. The shipping channel, busy with traffic and sunset pirate vessels, required an engine. Once clear of Kingfish Shoals, however, they would be free if there was wind . . . But, damn it, there was no wind. The low-pressure system had left a vacuum of calm that would make them a puppet of the Gulf Stream . . . until morning at least, according to the VHF under the helm, which he knelt to turn louder.

“But they’re callin’ your name, brother.”

“Yeah? Think back to your Greek tragedies—‘Beware the Sirens on the rocks’ and all that. Odysseus dropped anchor and Circe, plus some other witch goddesses, drugged him, screwed the man blind, and kept him and his shipmates captives for a year.”

Figueroa’s eyes were fixed on Mallory Square. “They’re witches?”

“Circe? Hell, yeah. Spellbinders, they all are.”

“If Circe’s the one I’m looking at, sometimes a year don’t seem so long.”

Tomlinson replied, “Hush a minute,” and listened to NOAA weather’s monotone: seas outside the reef three feet or less until morning, when a high-pressure band increases wind slightly to . . .

Figgy didn’t attempt to translate those foreign words. Still waving at the eager gringas, he endured a sense of loss unknown since his first month in Havana’s prison psychiatric ward. “Brother, isn’t there some way?”

Tomlinson muttered, “Damn. Apparently not,” and switched off the VHF.

Figgy suggested, “How about I swim to shore? Allow me, oh . . . just two hours. Shine a light and I will swim back. I don’t doubt what you say about those witches, but I have never experienced this tragedy you fear.”

Tomlinson slouched behind the wheel. “The weather gods usually ignore NOAA’s doom-and-gloom bullshit when No Más goes to sea. Apparently, my vibe’s out of kilter.” He looked at the horizon, a turquoise glaze to Cuba, then at his new shipmate. “Mind rolling a skinny—my Spanish seems to be fading.” Then: “What was that last thing you said?”

•   •   •

OVER MARGARITAS at Louie’s Backyard, Tomlinson had to lie. “Cerci in Cuban means ‘a beautiful, sensual woman.’ Women, in your case. See? It’s not that my amigo can’t remember names.” Explained this to three German nurses who had intercepted them after No Más was illegally anchored off Dog Beach, where their dinghy was tied—an Avon inflatable that had rocketed them to shore and was visible from their table near the tiki bar.

Next, a question about the shortstop’s shoes. “Baseball spikes, we call them,” Tomlinson explained. He signaled the bartender, indicated their empty pitcher, and called, “I think we’re prepared to sail again.”

Figgy disappeared after that with one of the Cercis who was infatuated with the rhythm of his name: Figueroa Casanova. Kept repeating it like lyrics to a song, which was okay. It warmed the long silences at a table where only Tomlinson spoke English.

Twenty minutes later, Figgy and Cerci reappeared from somewhere beneath the deck, both a little woozy.

“Mission accomplished,” Tomlinson whispered. “Now, let’s hit the dinghy and get under way.”

Figueroa tapped his wrist as if he owned a watch. “You promised two hours. It is hardly dark yet. Oh”—he stole a look under the table—“thanks, my brother. Next time, I carry that with me.”

The briefcase, he meant. He’d insisted they bring the thing, a last-minute fire drill that had tumbled Tomlinson into the water, but this was not the first time he’d used soggy bills to buy drinks.

On Thomas Street, they popped into Blue Heaven, the outdoor seating fragrant with frangipani and scrawny, scratching chickens. In response to the hungry look Figgy awarded the fattest hen, their server warned, “Don’t you dare—they’re protected.” That hastened them on to Margaritaville and another frosty pitcher in tribute to a generous man. By then, a fourth Cerci had hinted she was seducible—this one from the Wolverine State, a stunning Ph.D. candidate who played rugby and had the scars to prove it. “I’ve got a room at the La Concha,” she said into Tomlinson’s ear. “Just me. Bring the Krauts, if you want, but no more than two, and no less than three.”

Talk about cryptic. On a napkin was her room number, and an addendum: “Love the name Cerci. Much cooler than the name I’ve been using.”

Hmm. Tomlinson was aware that women journeyed to Key West eager to try what was unthinkable back home, yet he fretted for the coed’s innocence, and all the innocents who had run amok on the rocks of Bone Key. What to do?

He thought back. Long ago, he had earned his doctorate with a dissertation that became an international best seller: One Fathom Above Sea Level. A “fathom” being six feet—the distance between earth and one man’s eyes. A line he’d written offered guidance: When torn between doing what is morally right or the chance for a few hours of fun, never decide until morning.

After that, the streets of Key West assumed their normal spatial focus, which is to say fuzzy . . . not unlike embedding marbles in one’s eye sockets and watching the babysitter swim naked at nap time.

Cerci, the one from Berlin, had listened patiently to this tale of boyhood emergence, but Cerci, the Wolverine Ph.D., had bigger adventures in mind. “Eat this,” she said.

Tomlinson considered the pill she squeezed into his palm. “Mescaline?”

“Think of it as a time capsule.” A sharp, perceptive smile while she continued: “I knew it was you. I’ve read your book at least ten times, and the last chapter still makes me cry.” A slight sniffle, then a brighter smile. “Mind if I snap a selfie to send a few friends?”

Her phone was on the nightstand, two topless fräuleins away.

Flash . . . Flash . . . Flash-Flash. Blinding, but the strobe helped the mescaline unfurl gently throughout Tomlinson’s brain. Time to show some real American know-how and put his back into the task at hand.

He did.

Yes . . . this corn-fed Cerci was the real McCoy, a true spellbinder. Yet, some passage of time later, on Duval Street, Tomlinson experienced a disturbing moment of clarity when a bear-sized man shouldered him off the sidewalk and muttered what sounded like a threat in Russian. Then again, at the corner of Southard and Margaret, when Figgy, standing shirtless, briefcase in hand, froze as he stared into the darkness of trees, where there were tiny columned mansions and row after row of stones.

“What’s wrong?”

“Brother, we being followed. You see him?”

Tomlinson mustered his motor control and did a slow turn. “Hey . . . where’d our Cercis go? I’ve become very fond of that spunky little Wolverine.”

“It because of him, brother. The witches, they all ran.”

“What? That damn trollop . . . she used me like a hood ornament. Shit . . .” He searched his pockets, shorts still wet for some reason—oh yeah, they’d crashed Pier House Beach for a swim, but his dripping billfold had survived. His iPhone present, too, but iffy. “Well, she’s no thief. I’ll give her that much.”