The House That Jack Built

4. This is the man all tattered and torn that kissed the maiden all forlorn…

There were forty-nine hotels and two hundred and sixteen motels listed in the yellow pages of the Calusa telephone directory. On Monday morning, February 8, two people working for the law firm of Summerville & Hope divided the yellow pages between them and began calling all those hotels and motels.

Twenty-four-year-old Andrew Holmes, who’d been graduated from law school in January and who would be taking his bar exams late in July, worked from the motel list. Andrew had a Juris Doctor degree from the University of Michigan; Summerville & Hope was paying him forty thousand dollars a year to work as a so-called “legal assistant.” Moreover, the firm had promised him an immediate raise to fifty thousand a year the moment he was accepted to the bar. If Andrew had chosen to work in New York City, he probably could have started at sixty, seventy thousand bucks. That was because he was an honor grad who’d also been editor of the Law Review. So here he was on a rainy Monday morning in Florida, repeatedly dialing a telephone and asking to speak to Arthur Nelson Hurley, please.

At her receptionist’s desk in the lobby outside, Cynthia Huellen worked the shorter hotel list, interrupting herself only to answer incoming calls. From where Cynthia sat, her splendid legs crossed, she could see through the long lobby windows to the street outside. Rain drilled the sidewalks, ran in the gutters, flooded the roadways. She had never seen so much rain in her life. She had been born and raised in Calusa, and she was now twenty-five years old, and never in her life had she seen such steady, torrential, incessant, interminable, shitty rain. Cynthia was a sun person. Usually, there was not a day that went by that did not find Cynthia sunning on a beach or a boat. But her tan was beginning to fade. She noticed this as she reached for the phone. Looked at her hand holding the phone. The back of it. Her tan was most definitely fading. She consulted the hotel list again, and was beginning to dial the number for the Crescent Edge Beach Club on Sabal Key when an incoming-call light flashed on her panel. She tapped a button.

“Summerville and Hope, good morning,” she said.

“Matthew Hope, please.”

“May I say who’s calling?”

“Hello?” Matthew said.

“Matthew?”

“Yes, Marcie.”

“It’s Marcie.”

“Yes, how are you?”

Marcie Franklin, who — until the middle of last month, at least — had considered Matthew the neatest thing ever; Marcie was thirty-three years old, but she sometimes sounded like a teenager. She had sounded like a teenager when she’d breathlessly revealed that she had just met and fallen madly in love with a sixty-year-old humanities professor at New College in Sarasota, and that this was why, although she’d tremendously enjoyed her brief (December 24 — January 13, but who was counting?) relationship with Matthew, she now felt they had to end it, okay?

Once upon a time, long ago — this past New Year’s Eve, as a matter of fact — Marcie had told him she loved him.

He wasn’t quite sure he’d believed her.

She had also told him he was devastatingly handsome.

That was nice of her, too.

At an even six feet tall and a hundred and eighty pounds, with dark hair and brown eyes, Matthew considered himself an average-looking man in a world more and more populated with spectacularly good-looking men. He went to Nautilus three times a week and most of the workout machines he used were set at ninety pounds. He was a B-level tennis player at best, with a lousy backhand and an even worse serve. He owned a nineteen-foot Grady-White bow-rider named Kicks, which he’d never once taken out into the Gulf. He was thirty-eight years old and slowing down, man, slowing down.

But in Marcie’s eyes…

He’d been faster than a speeding bullet, able to leap tall buildings in a single bound…

In Marcie’s eyes.

Marcie’s emerald-green eyes.

A memory now.

Just as the voice on the phone was almost a memory.

“Matthew,” she said, “the reason I’m calling, Jason doesn’t know about you and me…”

“Jason?”

“My fiancé.”

“Oh.”

He was already her fiancé. Terrific.

“He doesn’t know about us, the relationship we shared, and I was hoping, if you’re going to be at the Poseidon Ball this Saturday night, that you won’t reveal by word or gesture that you and I had known each other in anything more than a casual way. However briefly. Or, even, you know, look at me as if you knew me better than I would like Jason to think you knew me.”

“Marcie, I certainly would never reveal to your fiancé that you and I had known each other intimately.”

“Right. No lingering glances, Matthew, or covert touches, or…”

“I wouldn’t even ask you to dance.”

“I wish you wouldn’t.”

“I wouldn’t.”

“Good. I’m sorry, Matthew, but he’s very jealous.”

“I understand. Thank you for calling, Marcie.”

“And don’t come sit at our table to chat,” Marcie said.

“Would I do that?”

“Because he’s got antennae, Matthew.”

“Is he a cockroach?” Matthew asked.

“I’m telling you he can detect signals.”

“No sitting, no chatting, no looking, no touching, no dancing, I’ve got it,” Matthew said. “I never knew you at all, right?”

“Well, you don’t have to go that far, but…”

“Marcie… I won’t be at the ball.”

“What?”

“I won’t be there, Marcie. You can relax.”

“But you said…”

“No, Marcie. You have nothing to worry about. I’ll be sitting home all by myself this Saturday night, all alone…”

“Oh, stop it, Matthew.”

“Sipping martinis and staring out at the rain…”

“Goodbye, Matthew, I have to run.”

“Goodbye, Marcie,” he said, and hung up.

He sat scowling at the receiver, realizing all at once that he was still extremely angry with her for having dropped him so perfunctorily.

I love you, Matthew Hope, she had said.

New Year’s Eve.

I love you, Matthew Hope.

Bullshit, he thought.

Leona Summerville walked and moved like a panther in heat.

Getting out of her Jaguar in the George Brothers parking lot, she exposed enough leg to attract the attention of four teenage boys trying to load a crated washing machine into the back of a pickup truck. One of the boys shouted, “Hey, Mama!” and another called, “What’s your name, honey?”

Leona smiled.

As she was entering the revolving doors to the department store, a man came through from the other side, and then went around yet another time, following her back into the store. The man stood shaking his head in amazement, hands on his hips, watching Leona as she swiveled her way across the store toward the escalator. As Warren came through the doors, the man turned to him and said, “Mmmm-mmmm,” and still shaking his head, left the store. Warren moved swiftly across the store, stepped onto the escalator while Leona was still on it, glanced upward, and then turned away in embarrassment when he realized he could see her panties under the short skirt she was wearing.

She got off the escalator on the second floor, and he followed her into the lingerie department — what George Brothers here in downtown Calusa called Intimate Apparel, this on a sign with a mauve background and avocado-green script lettering. Leona walked directly under the sign and past a female mannequin wearing a black bra, a black garter belt, a pair of black net stockings, and a pair of black panties cut high on the thigh and unfortunately showing the joining of the mannequin’s legs and torso, which made her look like a reassembled double amputee.

Intimate Apparel.

A great many people had difficulty spelling the word “apparel.” You asked them to spell it without looking at it, they came up with the oddest combinations of p’s and I’s. Not Warren. “Apparel” was a word that had come up frequently while he was typing up reports for the St. Louis PD.; superior officers always wanted to know what kind of damn apparel a person had been wearing.

Leona was wearing a pale blue denim miniskirt with a partially unzipped, big brass zipper on the left thigh. The skirt, together with high-heeled white sandals, gave her a long, barelegged, girlish look. A cutoff white T-shirt made her look like a woman with exuberant breasts and erect nipples, maybe because she wasn’t wearing any bra under it.

Warren may have been wrong about the significance of sudden weight losses or new hair styles or public telephone calls, but he did not think he was wrong about a flimsy T-shirt and no bra on a lady as well put together as Leona Summerville. If this lady was his wife, he would not have let her out of the house dressed this way. Not even if he was with her. Not even if she was handcuffed to his left wrist.

If this lady was not having an affair, Warren would swim the Gulf of Mexico to Corpus Christi, Texas.

Warren was willing to swear a deposition this very moment that this woman was having an affair.

She was looking at a red garter belt now.

Across the store, Warren busied himself fingering the lace on the bottom of a half-slip.

And now she was looking at red net stockings.

Yessir, Warren thought. This lady—

And now she was looking at him.

His heart leaped into his throat.

Eyes meeting his.

Faintly quizzical expression on her face.

He turned away at once.

But she had made him.

Never in his goddamn life, never! Tailing hoods in St. Louis, guys who had radar could smell cops if they were anywhere within a mile’s distance, never! And here, in a backwater little Florida town, he gets made by a housewife who’s fucking around!

Jesus!

“Hello?”

“Yes, is this the Albemarle Motel?”

“It is.”

Lizzie Borden had stayed at the Albemarle Hotel on her visit to London in the year 1890. Andrew Holmes knew such things.

“Is a Mr. Hurley staying with you?”

“Hurley?”

“Arthur Nelson Hurley.”

“Second,” the man on the other end said.

Andrew waited.

Corner of Piccadilly and Albemarle. He was tempted to ask the person at the other end of the line if he knew there’d once been an Albemarle Hotel in London.

“Nobody by that name registered here,” the man said.

“Can you tell me if he might have been registered in the past few days?”

“No,” the man said, and hung up.

There.

Sitting in the gray Ford.

Tall black man built like a basketball player, wearing dark glasses, chino slacks, and a tan cotton sweater with the sleeves shoved up to the elbows. The same man who’d been in the lingerie department. Left the moment she’d looked at him, but here he was again, waiting outside the store.

The rain had let up a little.

Without bothering to open her umbrella, Leona walked swiftly to the Jag, dodging puddles, unlocked the door on the driver’s side, got in, let down the window, threw the umbrella onto the backseat and then started the car.

And listened.

Behind her, two lanes back and three cars over, she heard the Ford starting.

She backed the Jag out of her space, her eyes on the rearview mirror, and then turned into the lane leading to the parking-lot exit on Main Street. She looked into the mirror again. The gray Ford was just turning in behind her.

She made a right turn onto Main Street.

The Ford made a right turn behind her.

Okay, she thought, let’s really check it out.

For the next ten minutes, she led the Ford through a series of lefts and rights through downtown Calusa, and then south on the Tamiami Trail all the way to Manakawa, and then back north to Calusa again. The Ford stayed behind her all the way.

She had read about rapists, even murderers, who followed their victims for days.

She wondered if she should stop the nearest police car. tell the officer she was being followed.

Oddly, she wasn’t frightened.

She was only annoyed.

The dashboard clock read ten minutes to twelve.

She did not need this inconvenience.

She checked her own wristwatch.

She wondered if she should call, cancel.

Instead, she headed west on Bayou Boulevard, the Ford a discreet five cars behind her, and then pulled into the parking lot of the Bayou Professional Building. She looked into the rearview mirror. The Ford was still cruising, searching for a parking space.

It was raining hard again.

The dashboard clock read five minutes to twelve.

She checked her lipstick in the mirror. Freshened it. Blotted it. Tossed the Kleenex into the little plastic trash container.

Three minutes to twelve.

The Ford had found a space. The engine died.

She lighted a cigarette, sat smoking it, watching the clock.

Ground-level office door opening. Black umbrella and white skirts, little white cap, white pantyhose, flat white rubber-soled shoes. Running off into the rain. Little red Toyota. Flurry of skirts, car door slamming behind her. Engine starting. Car moving off. Gone.

Leona put out her cigarette.

The clock read five minutes past noon.

She leaned over the backseat for her umbrella, opened the door and the umbrella almost simultaneously, and stepped out into the rain, skirt riding high on her thighs, long legs flashing.

As she walked rapidly toward the building, she could feel the black man’s eyes on her back.

“Mr. Hope?”

“Yes, Cindy?”

“It’s your wife… your former wife… on six.”

“Thank you. Any luck on those calls?”

“Not yet.”

“Keep trying.”

“I’m down to Magnolia.”

“What?”

“The Magnolia Hotel.”

“Oh. Good. Thank you.”

He stabbed at the 6-button in the base of his phone.

“Hello, Susan,” he said.

“Matthew, how are you?”

“Fine, thanks. And you?”

“Just fine. Will you be going to the Poseidon Ball this Saturday night?”

Good old Susan. Straight for the jugular.

“Why?” he said. “You want to tie my tie for me?”

“Thanks, I did that for too many years,” Susan said.

“Or fasten my cufflinks?”

“That, too,” she said.

“Why did you want to know, honey?”

“Did you just call me ‘honey’?”

“No, you just called me, honey.”

“Matthew…”

Warningly. No time for nonsense. Important matters on her mind.

“Yes, honey, I called you ‘honey,’ ” he said. “Force of habit. Forgive me.”

“Well, please don’t call me ‘honey’ at the ball, okay?”

“Wait, don’t tell me,” he said. “You’ll be there with a very old cockroach and you don’t want me to indicate by word or gesture that you and I ever shared the joys of…”

“Close but no cigar,” Susan said. “He’s twenty-three years old and he…”

“Susan, shame on you.”

“Matthew, please don’t let’s…”

“Twenty-three?”

“Matthew…”

“Sorry. But twenty-three?”

“Yes, and a linebacker for the Tampa Bucs.”

“Gee.”

“Yes. He’s six feet four inches tall, Matthew…”

“Golly.”

“And he weighs two hundred and forty pounds…”

“Well, sure, a linebacker.”

“And he’s very very jealous.”

“Ah.”

“Which is why I called. I don’t want any trouble Saturday night, Matthew…”

“Oh, neither do I!”

“So please don’t ask me to dance…”

“I won’t, I promise.”

“Or chat with me…”

“Or sit with you, or even look at you. Got it, Susan.”

“Matthew, this is not a joke. I’m truly concerned for your well-being.”

“Then maybe I’ll just stay home.”

“Well, I wasn’t about to suggest…”

“Skip the ball entirely.”

“Matthew…”

“Stay home and sip martinis, stare out at the rain. Maybe you could join me. We could try out my new waterbed.”

“You didn’t really buy a waterbed, did you?”

“Come find out, Susan.”

“Don’t tempt me,” she said, and hung up.

“I love you, too,” he said to the dead phone, and put it back on the cradle. It buzzed while his hand was still on the receiver. He picked up again.

“Yes?”

“Mrs. Summerville on five,” Cynthia said.

“For me?”

“That’s who she asked for.”

“All right, I’ll take it.”

He punched the 5-button.

“Hello, Leona.”

“Matthew, I’m sorry to bother you, I know you must be busy…”

“Not at all. What is it?”

“I was wondering if I could see you later today.”

There was a long silence on the line.

“Matthew?”

“Yes. What’s wrong, Leona?”

“I’d rather not discuss it on the phone. I don’t want to come to the office, either. I don’t want Frank to know about this.”

“What is it, Leona?”

He knew what it was. You don’t get a call from a woman you’ve known all these years, your partner’s wife, no less, asking to see you but not at the office because she didn’t want her husband to know about the meeting. Divorce was what it was.

“Can you meet me at Marina Lou’s?” she said.

“Sure.”

“Five o’clock?”

“Sure.”

“We’ll talk then.”

“All right, Leona.”

“Thank you, Matthew,” she said, and hung up.

He put the receiver back on the cradle.

He suddenly felt like crying.

The phone buzzed again.

He picked up the receiver.

“Yes?”

“Mr. Hope, this is Andrew.”

“Yes, Andrew.”

“We’ve got him, Mr. Hope.”

The problem was manifold.

There was no way Matthew could go to the police with this. He could not call Morris Bloom to say he had a man in black staying at a motel here in Calusa, which was no crime, and this man in black had been watching the Parrish house most of the day Saturday, which was also no crime, and this man in black might be the man who’d run away from the Parrish house on the morning of the murder — which was also no crime unless this man in black had actually committed the murder before taking his little run up the beach.

Ho-ho-ho, Bloom would say.

So Matthew called Warren’s office instead, and got his answering machine, and told the machine they’d located Arthur Nelson Hurley, and asked Warren to get back to him as soon as possible, the idea being that he and Warren — an experienced law-enforcement officer — would together visit the motel, thereby lessening the risk inherent in a confrontation with a possible murderer. Warren carried a pistol and he knew how to use it, witness the dead raccoon.

By two-fifteen, Matthew began to get itchy.

He did not want to lose Hurley.

Well, the possibility still existed that he might try breaking into the Parrish house, and they’d get him that way, violation of Section 810.08, Trespass in Structure or Conveyance, a second-degree misdemeanor. In which case Bloom could ask him all sorts of questions, including where he’d been at SEVEN a.m. on the morning of January thirtieth.

But suppose Hurley never went back to that house again. Suppose he’d tipped to the fact that the house was under surveillance…

Well, they still had his address in St. Petersburg, the address supplied by Motor Vehicles. So they could track him down there, Matthew guessed, unless the man was a murderer who might be thinking of leaving the country the day after tomorrow.

Matthew did not want to go to that motel alone.

But he did.

The motel called itself the Calais Beach Castle, though it was twelve miles from the nearest beach.

Despite the continuing rain, the No Vacancy sign was on out front; snowbirds never looked at the weather reports for Florida, they only read them for Michigan or Indiana or Illinois or Ohio or Toronto. If it was snowing up there, they automatically figured the sun was shining down here. There were a dozen or so occupied units in the motel, all set back from the road, all with cars parked in front of them, all with window air-conditioners and little wooden front stoops. A tiny pool sat forlornly in the rain, an inflated rubber dragon floating in it.

The place had a Forties look about it.

Matthew figured it for a Mom-and-Pop dream gone sour — come on, Maude, let’s move to Florida, buy ourselves a little motel down there, live like a king and queen, whattya say? Back then, you couldn’t build hotels or motels on any of Calusa’s beaches, the local zoning regulations were that strict. All the motels — some ten or twenty of them in all — were strung out on U.S. 41, the Tamiami Trail. The few infrequent souls who happened onto the Gulf Coast didn’t mind driving the five, ten, fifteen miles to the beach, depending on location. The beaches were wild and virtually unpopulated in those days; you could swim naked and alone at high noon. The town itself was nothing more than a sleepy little fishing village.

All of that changed in the late Fifties, early Sixties, when Calusa and the West Coast of Florida got discovered. The minute the builders and contractors sniffed money on the prevailing winds, they set about convincing the politicians that tourism would be a good thing. So the zoning regulations changed and the hotels and motels began sprouting like mushrooms on the white sands. Goodbye to the aspirations of all those Mom-and-Pop motels along the Trail. Except for the very height of the season — like now, in February, in the rain — the motels on the mainland were empty, and you couldn’t build a dream on vacant rooms.

Matthew got out of the Karmann Ghia, opened his umbrella, and walked over the muddy driveway to the office. A woman in her late thirties was behind the counter. A little black plastic plaque with the words IRENE McCAULEY, MGR., stamped onto it in white was on the counter alongside a clear plastic holder containing American Express application forms. A newspaper was spread open on the counter. Irene McCauley, if that’s who she was, stood leaning over the newspaper, elbows on the counter, reading the newspaper. She looked up when Matthew came in. She watched him as he closed the umbrella.

“Is the sign busted again?” she asked.

“What?” he said.

“The ‘No Vacancy’ sign,” she said. “It’s sometimes on the blink. If you’re looking for a room, we’re booked solid through the rest of the month.”

“Are you Miss McCauley?” he asked.

“Mrs. McCauley,” she said.

Pity, he thought. She was an extremely good-looking woman. Solemn blue eyes. Shiny brown hair worn almost to her shoulders, bangs on her forehead. Black short shorts and a black halter top. Slender nose, generous mouth. Good breasts. Good legs, too, what he could see of them behind the counter. She realized he was checking her out. Raised her eyebrows. So? her expression said. Everything in the right places? He felt suddenly embarrassed.

“Mr. Hurley is expecting me,” he said. He was lying. “Can you tell me what unit he’s in?”

“Eleven,” she said. “Next to the last one on your right.”

“Thanks,” he said, and opened the door, and opened his umbrella, and stepped out into the rain.

The approach he’d worked out was a simple one:

Mr. Hurley?

Yes?

Matthew Hope. I’m an attorney. Summerville and Hope. I’m representing Ralph Parrish, who’s been charged with the murder of his brother, Jonathan Parrish.

Yes?

So far, so good, everything on the up and up.

Now came the change of pace.

Mr. Hurley, my client has given me your name as a witness to certain events that occurred on the morning of January thirtieth. Before we answer the State Attorney’s demand for notice of alibi. I wonder if I could have a few words with you.

So, okay. Two possible reactions.

Yes, I am that person your client saw running off, and I did witness a murder, but We been afraid to come forward. It wasn’t your client who committed that murder, it was…

Who?

That was the first possible scenario.

Benevolent witness fingers the true murderer. In which case, all of Matthew’s troubles would be things of the past, and so would Parrish’s.

Second scenario.

The dangerous one.

I don’t know what the fuck you’re talking about.

In which case. Mr. Hurley, the possible man in black, was also the possible murderer.

What then?

Sorry to’ve bothered you. sir. and get the hell out of there before Hurley…

Before he what?

Matthew wished Warren Chambers and his gun were here at the Calais Beach Castle.

Head ducked, umbrella tilted against the driving rain like a black shield shunting enemy arrows. Matthew hurried across the courtyard, dodging puddles, leaping across rivulets, and in general doing a fairly good job of broken field running until he stepped shin-deep into a pothole brimming with cold brown water.

“Shit!” he said, and heard someone laugh behind him. and turned to see Irene McCauley standing just outside the office door, hands on her hips, legs fully revealed now and as long and as shapely as he’d suspected they were. Tight black shorts, loose black halter top. legs slightly spread in black backless high-heeled sandals — he suddenly realized what she reminded him of the poster for Damn Yankees, when he was still a kid and the show was playing Chicago. Lola getting whatever Lola wanted by standing spread-legged in what looked like just her underwear and black high heels, give ‘em the leg-and-crotch shot, Gwen.

“That’s a real bad one,” Irene said. “Catches a lot of people. I should have warned you.”

“Better late than never,” he said sourly.

His shoe, his sock, and part of his trouser leg were covered with mud. He looked down at them. He lifted the sodden trouser. Mud on his leg, too, above the sock. He put down his foot. Water squished in his loafer.

“Let me get you a towel,” Irene said, and went back into the office.

He followed her there. He stood outside on the front step, under the umbrella, looking out at the rain, feeling stupid.

“Well, come on in,” she said. “This isn’t a priceless Persian rug.”

It wasn’t a priceless any kind of rug, for that matter. It was only green linoleum, worn through in spots, especially directly in front of the counter and in front of the sofa on the right-angle wall. The screen door clattered shut behind him. He had the sudden feeling — as he sat on the sofa and took off his loafer and his sock, as he accepted a clean white towel from this woman with the solemn blue eyes and the shiny brown hair — that he had lived through all of this before, had sat in a small room that smelled of wet garments and dry heat while the rain fell steadily outside.

“Thank you,” he said.

Their eyes met.

“I should have warned you,” she said again.

He began drying his leg, his foot.

“Let me wring out that sock for you,” she said.

“No, really…”

“No trouble,” she said, and picked it up from where it lay on the floor near his loafer, her hand in sudden closeup, fingernails painted a bright red, hand closing on the blue sock, she moved out of the frame, he raised his eyes. She opened the screen door, stood holding it open with her hip as she wrung out the sock.

Beyond her, rain swept the courtyard.

He had been here before, had lived through these moments before.

“I love rain,” she said suddenly.

The screen door clattered shut again.

“Let me throw this over the heater,” she said.

“I really have to see Mr. Hurley,” he said.

“He won’t be going anywhere in this rain,” she said, and went behind the counter. He watched as she draped the sock over the protective guard of the electric heater. “I’ll have to fill in that hole once the season’s over,” she said. “Come summer, it gets dead as a doornail down here, I’ll have plenty of time to fix it.”

The rain beat steadily on the roof.

A faint trace of steam was already rising from the blue sock.

“Better be careful it doesn’t burn,” she said.

And smiled.

“Are you just visiting Calusa?” she asked. “Or do you live here?”

“I live here.”

Their eyes met again.

“Then maybe you can come help me fill in that hole,” she said. “Come summer.”

Silence.

Except for the rain.

A steamy, wet silence.

And the certain knowledge that he had been in this musty room before. The worn linoleum. The louvered windows. Even the calendar on the wall. The rain. Primarily the rain. Enclosing them. Containing them. Beating on the roof.

“Think you might like to do that?” she said.

“Your husband might want to take care of that,” he said.

“Not likely,” she said.

“No, huh?”

“Seeing as he’s been dead for four years.”

“I’m sorry,” Matthew said.

“Not me.”

Matthew smiled.

“How’s my sock doing?” he asked.

“You seem in a big hurry to see this Hurley,” Irene said.

“I don’t want to miss him.”

“Maybe you ought to consider what else you might be missing.”

She went to the heater, touched the sock. “Still damp,” she said.

“I’ll have to wear it anyway,” he said.

She shrugged, took the sock off the heater, and carried it to where he was sitting on the sofa.

“How long will you be with him?” she asked.

“I don’t know.”

“I’ll be having a drink along around four,” she said. “You’re welcome to join me. If you’re interested.”

“I’m interested,” he said. “But I have another appointment at five.”

“Oh,” she said.

She watched him as he put on the sock.

“You’ve got nice feet,” she said.

“Thank you.”

“I’ve got the ugliest feet in the world,” she said, and fell silent.

He put on his shoe.

“I don’t know your name,” she said.

“Matthew Hope.”

“How do you do. Matthew?”

She extended her hand.

He took it.

“Call me sometime,” she said.

“I will,” he said.

“Whenever,” she said. “I’ll be here.”

“I will,” he said again, and released her hand. He walked to the door, picked up his umbrella, searched for the release catch on it.

“Any other potholes out there?” he asked.

He was smiling.

“There’s one just outside unit number ten, about five yards from the front door. Just skirt wide of it.”

She was smiling, too.

“Thanks.”

“Don’t get lost now,” she said.

“I won’t,” he said.

He snapped open the umbrella and stepped out into the rain. She came to the screen door and stood watching him as he started across the courtyard.

He resisted the temptation to show off for her, dash across the courtyard like a Marine storming a machine-gun nest, stomp heedlessly into the mud, bullets flying everywhere around him. Instead, he proceeded slowly and cautiously, not wanting to step into another tureen of muddy water, wanting only to talk to Hurley now, find out what Hurley had to say.

He approached unit number eleven.

The venetian blinds on the unit’s windows were drawn.

He climbed the low wooden stoop, approached the door, and knocked on it.

“Who is it?” a woman’s voice asked.

In the Computer Room of the Public Safety Building some five miles south and four blocks west. Officer Charles Macklin yanked several sheets of paper from the dot matrix printer. He had not three minutes earlier typed Arthur Nelson Hurley’s name into the computer, and then the letters RS for “Record Search,” and the letters AC for “A Capo” (the technician who’d devised this particular program was Italian), which called for a search as far back as the records went rather than a limited search going back say five, six, seven years, which would have been called for by typing in a numeral when the prompt appeared on the screen. At the next prompt, Charlie had typed in the letters FL for “Florida” instead of US for “Nationwide” because Charlie knew a state-by-state search had to tap into FBI files and that would have taken hours.

Charlie — although he was not at the moment sitting the Parrish house — was nonetheless still moonlighting because here he was doing work for Warren Chambers while collecting a salary from the Calusa PD. Charlie could not figure out why he liked that nigger so much. He just knew that he wanted Chambers to bust whatever it was he was working on. In fact, he couldn’t wait to tell Chambers that he’d run a routine check on Hurley and had fallen into what looked at first glance to be a whole big potful of shit.

Without bothering to tear off the detachable margin strips on the printout, Charlie began reading it. Hurley’s record — a full page of printout — went back some twenty years, to when he was first arrested for assault. His most recent arrest had taken place eight years ago, in Tallahassee; he had been charged with aggravated battery and attempted murder because he’d attacked a man with a broken beer bottle and almost killed him.

Charlie let out a long, low whistle.