Bright Futures

3

The problem was immediately clear after we talked to Ronnie Gerall across a table in the visitors’ room in the county jail. I got the impression that he worked at being independent, superior, and unlikable, but I could have been wrong. He could simply and naturally be what my uncle called a Merdu, which roughly translated from the Italian means “dickhead.”

Ronnie was about six feet tall and had the build of an athlete, the drawn-back, almost blond hair of a teen movie idol, blue eyes, and a look of total boredom. He could easily have passed for twenty-one, which I was sure he did when it suited him.

It had started badly. Gerall had been ushered in. He wore a loose-fitting orange jail suit and a look that said, “Look at what those jerks sent me.” He didn’t offer his hand to Ames and me or ask or say anything at first; he just sat in the wooden chair with his right leg extended and half turned as if he planned to escape at the first sign of ennui.

Ames and I took seats. The full-bellied, uniformed guard, who looked almost as bored as Ronnie Gerall, stood with his back to the door, arms folded. The room was large enough that the guard wouldn’t hear us if we whispered. Ronnie had no intention of whispering.

“Greg Legerman told me you were coming,” he said.

That required no answer so I just kept sitting and watching him.

“Please do me a favor before we have anything that resembles conversation,” he said.

“Yes.”

“Would you mind taking off that dopey baseball cap.”

“Yes, I would.”

“I watched you and an old man drive up on a motor scooter,” he said, ignoring my answer.

“And…?”

“You can’t afford a car?”

“Don’t want the responsibility,” I said.

“How did Greg Legerman find you?” he asked shaking his head and looking first at Ames and then at me.

“Luck,” I said.

We sat in silence for about a minute, during which he found his fingernails fascinating and the palms of his hands, particularly the right one, profound.

“I did not kill Philip Horvecki,” he said, looking up.

“Tell us what happened.”

“Why not? I’ve got time. It was Thursday night. He called, said he would meet with me. Horvecki said he wanted to talk.”

“You sure it was Horvecki?” I asked.

“Old men all sound alike, either like sick hummingbirds or gravel pits. This was gravel pits. Pure Horvecki.”

He looked at Ames, who could have been number five on Mount Rushmore.

“Go on,” I prompted.

“I went to his house.”

“Right away?”

“Yes.”

“You told someone you were going?”

“No. Can I go on?”

“Yes.”

“I rang the bell. No answer. I tried the door. Open.” I went in. The place is a nightmare. Black wood, black tile floors, white walls. Even the paintings are almost all black and white. No wonder someone killed him.”

“I don’t think you should say that,” I said.

“You don’t think so?” Ronnie said with a smile.

“He doesn’t think so,” said Ames. “And you’d best heed what Mr. Fonesca tells you.”

“Or what, old man?”

“Or I reach across this table and slap you three or four times. And you won’t stop me, because even though I just warned you, you won’t be able to,” said Ames, eyes fixed on Ronnie Gerall’s face.

“He’ll do it, too,” I said.

“Then he’ll be in here with me,” said Ronnie.

“Is that where you want him? Respect means a great deal to Mr. McKinney.”

The uniformed guard slouched a little more. He wasn’t interested in what we had to say.

“You found Horvecki,” I said.

“On the floor in the hallway. Definitely dead. Lots of blood on his face and shirt. Mouth open. I thought I saw someone in an open doorway on the right. Then I saw someone go out the window.”

“And you followed him,” said Ames.

“No. I mean yes. I went out the front door looking for him. Whoever it was was gone.”

“You saw nobody?” I asked.

“No… wait. There was a man in a pickup truck, but it wasn’t the one who was in the house. The guy in the pickup was there when I got to Horvecki’s. I thought he was waiting for somebody.”

“Could he have seen the man who jumped out of the window?” I asked.

“Could have? He would have had to,” said Ronnie.

“Can you describe the man or the truck?” I asked.

“It was a small pickup, not old, not new. Guy in the truck had on a baseball cap. Couldn’t see his face. I think he was black. Maybe. Couldn’t tell you how… Wait, I had the feeling he wasn’t an old guy like Stokes over here.”

Ames did not take kindly to the remark, but he held his tongue.

“And I don’t know how tall he was,” Ronnie went on. “He never got out of the truck. I only saw him for a few seconds.”

“Did he look at you?” I asked.

“Yes.”

“We’ll find him,” I said.

I must not have filled the room with my infectious optimism, because Ronnie said, “You don’t believe me.”

“No matter if we believe you,” said Ames. “It matters if we find him.”

“What did you do after you went outside and didn’t see him?” I asked.

“I went back in the house to be sure Horvecki was dead. Before I could call 911, I heard the door to the house open. Then a voice saying, ‘Throw your gun toward the door and stand up slowly with your hands high and your palms showing.’

“I did. I was read my rights and arrested.”

“Did you tell them about the person in the doorway and the man in the truck?” I asked.

“I did. They didn’t believe me, either. I’m glad Horvecki’s dead, but I didn’t kill him.”

“You have a lawyer?” I asked.

“You’re not a lawyer?”

“No,” I said.

“Goddamn it!” he shouted loud enough to make the guard almost slump to the floor. “I’ll kill Greg when I get my hands on him.”

“You really know the right things to say,” I said.

“What the hell are you then?”

“A process server,” I said. “And someone who finds missing people.”

“Who the fuck is missing here?”

“The person who shot Philip Horvecki,” said Ames, “provided that person is not you.”

“And,” I added, “whoever might have been standing in the open doorway when you went into Horvecki’s house.”

“Guard, get these two out of here,” said Ronnie. Then he turned to me and said, “I’ll get my own lawyer.”

“Suits me,” said Ames rising.

I got up, too. The guard was alert now.

We got to the door. Then Ronnie Gerall said, “Wait.”

I turned as the guard moved toward the prisoner.

“I think the person in the doorway was a woman.”

“Horvecki’s daughter?” I asked.

He shrugged. “I don’t know.”

“Whoever it was might have seen the person who went through the window kill Horvecki,” I said.

“Or might have been the person who killed Horvecki,” said Ames.

“I’ve got no money, but I don’t want a public defender,” Ronnie said. It sounded like a challenge.

“I’ll see what I can do,” I said.

Ames and I went past the guard and into the corridor.

“He’s scared,” Ames said.

“He’s scared,” I agreed as we walked toward the thick metal door.

“Full of hate,” Ames said.

“Full of hate,” I agreed.

“You gonna help him?” Ames asked as we got to the door.

“It’s why I get the big bucks,” I said.

“Philip Horvecki,” I said.

There were twenty-two wooden steps leading up to the three rooms under a pitched roof into which I had moved. This was on Laurel, around the corner and about half a block from the departed Dairy Queen. The steps had once been white. The railing, which shook if you put a hand on it, had once been green. I couldn’t call it an apartment. You had to move carefully under the ceiling or you would bump your head. The first room was a big, blank square with a bathroom across from the front door. The second room, about the size of a prison cell, looked as if it had originally been installed by indifferent Seminoles and recently painted white by someone who wanted to set the record for speed painting. There was a third room, a little bigger than one of Superman’s phone booths. With luck you might be able to get a rocking chair into it.

The walls of the big room were white painted plaster board under which the smell of sad and ancient wood managed to persist. The big and little rooms were connected by a varnished wooden door. There were no overhead lights, but Flo Zink, who had found the place, had not only painted it but put two bright floor lamps in each room. I had met Flo shortly after I came to Sarasota. I had found her husband, Gus, who was dying from too many diseases to count. Gus had been kidnapped to keep him from voting on a land issue in the City Council. Ames and I had gotten him to the meeting, where his last act on earth was to cast the deciding vote. He left Flo with enough money to sustain five widows comfortably for a lifetime. Flo felt responsible for me. Finding my new home was just one of the ways she had shown it over the last four years.

There were three small windows in the big room and one in each of the other two rooms. Ames had already moved the air conditioner from my last place overlooking the defunct DQ to a window in the big room. It was already clear that the air conditioner wouldn’t be able to adequately cool one room let alone two or three. There was more space than I needed.

As Augustine had said, my boxes and furniture had been moved. My meager furniture looked sad and frightened in these rooms.

The first thing Victor Woo had done was put up my Stig Dalstrom prints, including a recent painting Flo had given to me as a house warming present. Victor had pinned the Dalstroms to the wall in about the same places they had been in my former space.

“Philip Horvecki,” I repeated into the cell phone which I now reluctantly owned.

The phone was another house warming present. It was from Adele, who was just about to become a freshman at New College in Sarasota. She could have gotten into dozens of colleges, but she wanted to continue to live with her baby, Catherine, in Flo’s house. No dorm experience for Adele, but she wouldn’t regret it. Adele’s father had sold her to a pimp when she was fourteen. Getting her away from Dad and pimp had had its complications, but when Flo took her in, Adele blossomed, turned her life around, became an A student in high school, and was now going to college. There had been one major speed bump in the path. Adele had gotten pregnant by an older man who was now doing time in prison for murder. Adele had named the baby Catherine in honor of my dead wife.

“Horvecki. Did he have a criminal record?” I asked.

“I’ll check,” said Viviase. “The county might have something. If that doesn’t work, I’ve got another place you can look.”

I had walked back out to get better reception.

Victor Woo had followed me out and sat next to me on the top step. The Serita sisters, friends of Flo, lived in the bottom two floors of the brightly painted white and green wooden house. They owned the building, so I’d be paying rent to them, the same rent I had been paying behind the DQ.

From my seat on the top step, I could look past the freshly painted house across the street and into a yard where the edge of a screen-enclosed pool was visible. I stared at the water of the pool flecked with light from the setting sun and decided that I needed a shower.

“Check with Sergeant Yoder in the Sheriff’s Office,” added Viviase.

“Thanks,” I said.

The sun seemed to be dropping quickly now. I heard something below.

“Fonesca, you are one hard dog to find.”

It was Darrell Caton, which usually meant it must be Saturday, but I knew it wasn’t Saturday. Darrell was the fourteen-year-old that Sally Porovsky had conned me into being a big brother for. She was a county children and family services social worker I had been seeing socially and seeking in ways I didn’t understand.

Darrell was lean and black, wearing baggy jeans and a T-shirt that had something printed on the front. I couldn’t make out the word from twenty-two steps up.

“It’s not Saturday,” I called.

“I know that,” said Viviase on the phone. “You losing it, Fonesca?”

“Darrell just showed up,” I said.

“It’s not Saturday,” said Viviase, who knew of my weekly commitment to Darrell.

“I know,” I said.

Darrell had grown in the time he had been trailing me once a week. He looked forward to being with me because, as he said, “Man, something’s always happening with you. Guns, dead people, and shit. You are an education, Fonesca.”

I did not want to be an education, but I had grown used to seeing Darrell.

Darrell started up the steps. Victor started to move over so Darrell could sit.

“One more question,” I said into the phone.

“Yeah.”

“Why are you helping me?”

The pause was long. He was considering telling me something.

“He may not be guilty, and it’s not really my case, but if you’re looking into it…”

Darrell was almost in front of me now. He had bounded up the steps. He wasn’t panting. I remember once, when I was fourteen, lying in my bed and praying to God to let me live through Saturday because I had a soccer game on Saturday. We lost the game to Lane Tech, and I missed an easy goal. God did let me live, but it didn’t look as if he were about to do the same for Darrell.

I could now clearly see what was printed on the front of Darrell’s T-shirt. It read, in black block letters, “Pope John Paul II Girl’s Volleyball Team Kicks Ass.”

There was a crack in the air, a sudden sharp pinging sound from somewhere on the side of the house with the pool. Darrell lifted his head toward the sky as if he were startled by the sudden appearance of a UFO. Then he arched his back, groped over his left shoulder blade as if he had a sudden itch.

He was about to tumble backward down the stairs.

I dropped the phone and reached for him. His right hand almost touched mine and he bent over backward. Victor Woo was up, behind Darrell now, stopping his fall, setting him gently on the small landing in front of my door. Victor was holding the rickety handrail and taking the steps two at a time.

I knelt next to Darrell and groped for the phone.

“Fonesca, what the hell is going on?” asked Viviase.

“Someone shot Darrell. Send an ambulance.”

Victor hit the ground running like a sprinter. If he was lucky, he would catch up with the shooter. If he wasn’t lucky, he would catch up with the shooter. Victor was armed with nothing.

“I’m on the way,” Viviase said and ended the connection.

Darrell was groaning. A good sign.

“What the fuck, Fonesca? Oh. I like the action, but I don’t want to be the victim. You know what I’m saying?”

I rolled him gently onto his side.

“This isn’t for real,” he whimpered. “Why’d anyone want to shoot me?”

“I think they were trying to shoot me,” I said. “You got in the way.”

“I took a bullet for you?”

“Yes, but I’m guessing it was a pellet, not a bullet.”

“Hurts like a bullet.”

“You’ve been shot before?”

“Hell no,” he said and then gasped. “Life’s funnier than shit. You know what I’m saying? My mother’s going to be all over your ass, Fonesca. Jesus, it hurts. Am I going to die?”

“Yes, but so am I. You’re not going to die for a while.”

“You know how to make Christmas come early, don’t you Fonesca?”

“Ambulance is on the way,” I said.

“You ever been shot at, Fonesca?”

“Yes.”

“When?”

“A few times.”

“Last time?”

“This morning.” An actor took that pellet in the eye.

There was no doubt where the pellet had entered Darrell, just below the left shoulder blade. The hole was small, the T-shirt was definitely ruined. There was blood dripping from the wound, but it didn’t look as if anything vital had been hit.

Police headquarters was, at maximum, a five-minute drive from where Darrell lay bleeding. Viviase made it in three, and somewhere in the distance an ambulance siren cut through the twilight.