Chance

CHAPTER 25

When Hawk and I came into my room, I thought the air-conditioned stillness hinted at the memory of Susan's perfume, but maybe it was nostalgia. The message light was flashing on my phone.

"A Mr. Ventura called, please call him in his room."

Hawk smiled and shot me with his forefinger.

Julius had several rooms in another wing, without a view of the volcano. I wondered if he knew he was not A list. Hard to be sure.

There might be people closer to the volcano than I, who thought I wasn't A list. His suite was bigger than mine, though it was smaller than Delaware. A fat guy named Steve, whom I knew slightly, let us into the living room. He was in his shirtsleeves and had a Glock 9mm on his right hip. There were four other men in the living room, all in shirtsleeves, all with guns. One of them was Jackie, Shirley's driver. I nodded at him. He nodded back. A pump shotgun lay across a hassock near the couch. The remnants of lunch littered the coffee table and the bar top, and spilled off the rollaway room service table. A bottle of red wine stood on an end table.

"Julius was looking for us," I said.

Hawk stepped to the side of the doorway and leaned on the wall again. There was nothing specific about the way he leaned but somehow it projected menace.

"He's in with the missus," Steve said.

"She's pretty shook up about Shirley."

"Probably is," I said.

"Can you let him know we're here?"

Steve went into one of the bedrooms, and stayed a moment. The four men in the room looked at Hawk and at me. No one said anything. Steve came out of the bedroom.

"Julius says come in."

Hawk and I went past him into the room. There was an old woman dressed in black lying on the bed with her shoes on. The shoes were black. Julius sat on the bed beside her. There was a plastic ice bucket full of water on the bedside table. Julius wet a face cloth in the ice bucket and wrung it out and wiped his wife's face with it. Her face, even refreshed with the cold water, was pale, and her eyes were puffy. She had thick eyebrows and a thick prominent nose. Her hands rested on her stomach below her bosom and her thick fingers were moving rosary beads through them, though she gave no outward sign of prayer.

"She don't want me to leave her," Julius said.

"Here is fine," I said.

The woman opened her eyes and looked at Hawk and me, without much focus.

"I don't know you," she said.

Ventura said softly, "They work for me, Iris."

"The colored man, too?"

"Yes."

"Did you know Shirley?" she said.

"Yes," I said.

"She's dead, you know."

"I know," I said.

"I'm sorry."

"Did you know her?" she said to Hawk.

"Yes, Ma'am," Hawk said.

"I'm sorry for your loss."

"Yes," she said.

"It is a loss."

We were quiet. The old woman closed her eyes again and in a moment tears began to seep from under the lids. Sitting beside her, Julius wiped her face again with the wet face cloth Then he put the cloth back into the ice water and picked up her hand and held it and patted it with his other hand.

"We come to bring her home," Julius said to me.

"You know who did it?"

His voice was a deep slow rumble, like a subway train passing far below the surface.

"No," I said.

"Hawk?"

"No," Hawk said.

"You know where Anthony Meeker is?"

"Yes," I said.

"Tell Stevie," Julius said.

"Then go home."

"Can we talk?" I said.

"Nothing to talk about," Julius said.

"Yeah, there is."

"No," Julius said.

"I don't know if it was him actually put his hands on her. But he ran off on her. She wouldn't have been out here, he hadn't run off on her. She wouldn't be gone."

He slowly patted his wife's hand as he spoke.

"Did you know he has some kind of game going with Marty Anaheim?"

"He did, he didn't, don't matter. That's business, this is blood.

You understand anything?"

"You don't know the game between him and Marty?" I said.

The old woman on the bed opened her eyes. Her voice scraped harshly out between her thin bluish lips.

"Don't talk business, my daughter's in the morgue."

"No, Iris," Julius said.

"No business."

"Only business is killing him," she said.

"Yes," Julius said, still holding her hand, still patting it.

I looked at Hawk. He shook his head. I nodded.

"We'll find him anyway," Julius said.

"Save us a little time, you tell Stevie."

"Sure," I said.

"I'll pay you through today," Julius said.

"Tell Stevie, he'll give you cash."

"Sure."

"No more business, Julius," Iris said.

"Kill him."

He reached across and closed her eyes gently with his fingertips.

"Try to sleep," he said.

Hawk and I left the room. In the living room I spoke to Steve.

He took $100 bills from a suitcase in the closet and gave some to me. I folded it once and put the money in my pants pocket without counting it, and we left.