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your honeymoon. But you may want to check out early if that oil comes this way.”
    “Thank you,” said Theo as they pulled forward.
    Jack massaged away an oncoming headache as he drove. “Theo, you just lied to a state trooper.”
    “I know.”
    “I’m going to kill you.”
    “No, you’re not.”
    “I know,” said Jack as they entered the Keys. “Bitch.”
    T hey reached the southernmost city in the continental United States at dinnertime and headed straight to Rick’s Key West Café on Duval Street. The owner, Rick Cavas, was out. The hostess had “no idea” where Rick was or when he would return. Jack and Theo took an outside table and killed the waiting time with a plate of “ con fuego ” chicken wings and a cold pitcher of beer.
    Overnight, Key West had become ground zero for the American response to the impending oil disaster—a quirky coincidence, since it was also mile marker zero of U.S. Highway 1. Duval Street, the main drag in the Key West tourist district, was known for its art galleries and antique shops housed in renovated Victorian-style buildings. But day trippers and cruise-ship passengers really flocked there for the offering of reef-diving excursions, deep-sea fishing charters, bicycle rentals, overpriced junk jewelry, and—the really big sellers—enough T-shirts to clothe a Third World country and an assortment of sex toys worthy of Fifty Shades of Grey. Crucial to the lively mix were dozens of open-air bars and cafés where local bands and musicians from all over the Caribbean created a mélange of rock, salsa, and calypso. Jack took note of the usual attractions, but they were clearly secondary to a much bigger phenomenon. Duval and its cross streets had become media central.
    Every major news organization had pounced on the oil-spill story and literally staked out ground. Mallory Square, a public gathering spot on the wharf where musicians, jugglers, and portrait artists turned sunsets into a festival every day of the year, had been overtaken by a temporary but monstrous two-story shelter for reporters and crews. No national news show was without its own Duval Street café for live broadcasts, roundtable discussions, and immediate “man on the street” audience participation. Environmentalists marched down Duval, posters and banners in hand, fighting to save the ocean, shoreline, and wildlife. On every street corner stood a television reporter, microphone in hand, interviewing tourists, locals, and business owners. The must-get story of the day was the firsthand account from someone in the commercial fishing or tourist industries. It was the perfect mix of drama and journalism, personal and angry pleas to the U.S. government to do something to avert a potential death blow to the Florida economy.
    They were about to order a second plate of wings when Theo got a text message.
    “Rick says to meet him at the marina,” he told Jack.
    “He owns a bar and a boat?”
    “He has a charter fishing business on the side.”
    “I want his life.”
    “No, you want my life. I own two bars and borrow your boat.”
    The marina was a short walk from the café, and even on overcrowded sidewalks, they got there in five minutes. It was a good thing they’d left the car behind, because the parking lot was transforming into a staging area for cleanup equipment. Volunteers filled sandbags by the shovelful. Teams of handymen assembled floating booms to contain the oil. Cases of dish soap—the waterfowl-cleanser of choice in the Deepwater Horizon spill—were being unloaded from the back of pickup trucks. A palpable sense of urgency coursed through the marina, at times bubbling up into disagreements over containment strategies or arguments over salvage priorities.
    Rick stepped off the stern of his fishing boat and greeted them on the pier, giving Theo a bear hug and a friendly slap on the back. It seemed like a lot of love from a “friend of a friend,” but then he gave Jack the same big hug and