Vengeance

9

My hand was shaking but I reached for the drapes.

“No,” she said. “Just turn on the light.”

It wasn’t Beryl Tree’s voice. My hand was shaking a little less when I flicked the switch and the overhead tinkled on.

The resemblance to Beryl Tree disappeared. She was much younger, much better looking, and her dark green dress was much more stylish than anything Beryl Tree had worn in her life.

“You know who I am?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

There was a floppy sun hat and a pair of sunglasses on my desk. The blood had been cleaned up. I moved behind my desk and sat looking at Melanie Sebastian. I knew two reasons why Carl Sebastian might want her back. She was as beautiful in person as she was in her photographs and the painting in his apartment. She also had a mellow voice that promised the possibility of music.

She closed the folder in her lap and handed it to me.

“You read in the dark?” I asked.

“There was enough light if I tilted it just a bit toward the window.”

“And?”

“When I picked it up, I thought it was about me,” she said. “Then I found the one about me. It wasn’t very interesting so I went back to this one on Adele Tree.”

“And this one is interesting?”

“And… there are really people like her father out there,” she said. “You really think he-he sexually abused her?”

“Yes.”

“The world can be a truly awful place,” she said.

“Worse than that,” I said. “It can be a low level of hell. Beryl Tree is dead, murdered right where you’re sitting, probably by her husband. And Adele has been sold by her father to a high-class pimp named John Pirannes. You’ve heard of him?”

“No,” she said. “You’re joking.”

“No.”

“Why are you telling me all this?”

“You were reading the file. You seem interested.”

“There are too many Beryl Trees. Too many Adeles. And far, far too many Dwight Handfords,” she said. “I’ve seen them. I’ve… is Adele strong? Can she…?”

“She’s strong. Why are you here?”

“My husband is looking for me. He hired you to find me. You talked to one of my friends, who told me. I don’t want you to find me, not yet. When the time comes…”

“Not yet? You’re going to let me find you?”

“When I’m ready,” she said.

“Look, all I’m interested in is telling you your husband wants to talk to you, try to make things right,” I said.

“I need a few days,” she said. “I’ve spent a lifetime taking care of people. At least that’s how it feels to me. I’ve taken care of my mother and father, children like Adele, my husband. I don’t think many people can be saved and I certainly don’t think I’m the person to save them. I don’t know if you can understand or if I’m making myself clear.”

“I understand,” I said. “But you won’t talk to your husband at this point?”

“I’ll make that decision in a few days,” she said. “I’m not ready. I just want some time for myself. I… Go find Adele Tree. When you do, then come looking for me. If you’re good, you’ll find me. I have a feeling you’re good. I’ve left a trail.”

“So,” I said. “This is a rich lady’s game with her husband and the dope he hired to find you.”

“No,” she said earnestly. “This is no game and I don’t think you’re stupid.”

She meant it. I could tell that she meant it. I could feel it. I had questions.

“Just tell me-”

“No,” she said, still sitting. “I can do a much better job of hiding than I’m doing now if I wish to. I can leave Florida. I’ll stay if you promise to give me a few days.”

“Is my promise worth anything to you?”

“Yes,” she said. “Yes.”

“Okay. I promise. You have Caroline Wilkerson’s driver’s license. Did she give it to you?”

“No, I took it when she was busy. Anything else?”

“Not now. What now?”

“Now I get up and step into the other room,” she said, rising. She was tall. “When I’m in there, you open the drapes, stand there as if you’re thinking and then you take the files on me and Adele and leave, locking the door behind you.”

“It’s broken,” I said.

She was in the other room now. I was way beyond caring about-how my cubbyhole and bed looked to this beautiful, rich runaway.

“Then just go. Stay away at least an hour.”

“You think someone is following you,” I said, moving to the window.

“No, Mr. Fonesca,” she said. “Someone is following you.”

Folders under my arm, I went back out into the sun and down the stairs, trying not to look around for whoever might be following me. The most logical explanation was that either the lovely Mrs. Sebastian had lost her mind or she was into some very heavy duty drugs. How could she know if I were being followed? And why would anyone want to follow me? Dwight? He knew where to find me, and if he had killed Beryl he probably wouldn’t be within three or four miles of the DQ.

I didn’t see anyone, didn’t see any suspicious cars with tinted windows. I wanted to talk to Dave, but it had been clear that Melanie Sebastian wanted me to get some distance between me and my office.

I got in the car and drove to the Walgreen on Bahia Vista and 41. I made two calls. The first was to Sally. She wasn’t in the office. I got her voice mail and said I’d get back to her soon. The police had copied my file on Adele. They might find Sally the way I had. I thought it would be better if the news of Beryl Tree’s murder came from me. I was trying to protect Sally Porovsky, though it wasn’t really my responsibility. I didn’t think about it.

Then I called Carl Sebastian.

“Carl Sebastian,” he said.

“Lewis Fonesca,” I said.

“You found her?”

“No, but I’m getting close. Maybe another two days, three at the most.”

“She’s still in the area?”

“Yes.”

“You’re sure?”

“Positive,” I said.

“Find her as fast as you can,” he said. “Find her by tomorrow and I double your fee.”

“It’ll take at least two days,” I said.

He sighed.

“Two days then.”

“Possibly three.”

He hung up.

I made another call.

“Texas Bar and Grill,” came Ed Fairing’s voice in the Texas drawl he had picked up from the movies.

“It’s Fonesca,” I said. “Ames there?”

“I’ll get him.”

“Can you spare him for an hour or two?”

“He’s his own man,” said Ed.

About a minute later Ames answered the phone.

“Yes.”

“Ames, did you clean up my office this morning?”

“Yes. Watched the police leave, came in, went.”

“You see a woman outside or inside my office? Beautiful woman?”

“No.”

“Beryl Tree’s dead.”

Silence.

“Ames?”

“Here,” he said.

“She was killed in my office.”

“It was her blood then, her blood I cleaned up? How’d she die?”

“I don’t think you want to know.”

“I want to know, Lewis.”

“Tire iron. I think I know where her daughter is. I think I’m going to go get her. You want to come?”

“I do,” he said.

“Might want to bring a weapon,” I said.

“I mean to,” he said. “She with the person who killed Ms. Tree?”

“I don’t know.”

“I hope so,” he said.

“I’ll be there in ten minutes.”

“I’ll be out in front.”

There were three people in shawls in my dream. Ann Horowitz was one. I had a feeling Ames McKinney was another.

“Ames was waiting in front of the Texas. He was wearing a slicker over his denims and flannel shirt. It didn’t look like rain and it wasn’t cold, but I knew there was a very deep pocket inside the slicker, probably deep enough for a short or sawed-off shotgun.

Ames climbed in and closed the door.

“I plan to shoot him if it’s the one who killed Ms. Tree,” he said. “Thought I’d just tell you up front.”

“I appreciate it,” I said, “but I can’t take you with me if that’s the only choice you have.”

I was on the way down Fruitville to 41.

“I’ll hold off then,” he said.

That was the end of our conversation. I considered turning on the radio and decided against it. I made a right turn off of 41, drove past high-rises and over the bridge to Bird Key, and then kept going to St. Armand’s Circle. The circle was alive with tourists. I swerved to avoid hitting a horse-drawn tourist carriage and then headed toward Longboat Key, over another bridge and down Gulf of Mexico Drive, the only road on the eleven-mile-long island.

Longboat is money. Resorts and high-rise beach condos on my left, very private home developments on my right. Wealthy French and Germans lived here in the winter. Movie stars had million-dollar retreats, and John Pirannes and others like him quietly sold damaged people, tainted land, and decaying schemes of wealth.

I pulled up to the guard gate at the Beach Tides Resort, rolled down my window and smiled.

“Mr. Pirannes is expecting us,” I said.

The guard was old, but he wasn’t stupid. He looked at Ames, who was staring ahead, and went into his glassed-in hut to call. He was back out in about thirty seconds.

“No answer,” he said. “Sorry.”

“I just have a-”

“Sorry,” the guard said as if he were truly sorry.

I backed up, turned around and went back out on Gulf of Mexico Drive, where I did what I should have done in the first place. I drove to the small shopping mall a quarter of a mile down, pulled in and parked. Not much was open, but there were other cars. Ames and I walked back to the Beach Tides Resort, hoping a cop wouldn’t stop us and ask questions. We kept close to the trees and found an opening in the shrubs we could get through. Security at the resort was fine as long as you tried to get through the front gate, but few of the resorts had fences or walls all the way around them.

My guess was that security was better at night, but I saw no signs of cameras in the trees. The Beach Tides Resort was badly in need of a security consultant.

We moved around a small pond where a white heron was dozing. A few dozen yards past a barbecue pit we hit the beach. I took off my shirt, slung it over my shoulder, and sauntered down the shore with Ames at my side.

“You’re a big retired movie star,” I said, waving at a trio of kids building a castle of white sand. “A cowboy like John Wayne.”

“All the same to you,” he said. “I’ll think Buck Jones.”

The three kids stopped building and looked at Ames. A jogger in bare feet, red swimsuit and a white T-shirt with Betty Boop reclining on his chest glanced at us as he passed and left footprints in the sand. I laughed as if Ames had just said something hilarious. Ames just looked forward. I was beginning to think that bringing Ames along was not such a good idea. In fact, my coming at all was probably not a good idea, but all I could think of was the fourteen-year-old girl whose picture was in my wallet, her dead mother, her father who had sold her, and John Pirannes who had bought her.

When we came up behind the Beach Tides on the beach, we walked around the pool, where a single old man treaded water, nodding at us as we passed.

We tried three buildings, checking names in the lobby, avoiding the security people who rode around on little golf carts. In the third building, we found a J. Pirannes and I pushed the button.

No answer.

I pushed again. This time a girl answered and said.

“Hello.”

“John Pirannes, please,” I said.

“He can’t come to the phone,” she said.

“Why?”

“I think he’s dead,” she said.

“Adele?”

“Yes.”

“Adele, push the button and let me in,” I said.

“Button?”

“On the phone, near the door, somewhere.”

“Who are you, the police?”

“Good guess,” I said. “The door.”

I heard her put down the phone and waited, phone in hand, watching the driveway outside for the golf-cart patrol. Then, a buzz. I hung up the phone and went into the lobby. Pirannes’s apartment was on the sixteenth floor. We were up and running down the corridor in about twenty seconds. Ames was almost keeping up with me in spite of the slicker, the shotgun and the more than thirty years I had on him. The door to Pirannes’s apartment was locked. I knocked. I. knocked again.

“Who is it?” Adele asked.

“You just talked to me on the phone. Open the door, Adele.”

“I don’t know,” she said.

“I’m a friend of your mother,” I said.

“My mother’s dead,” she said, sounding very much like the child she really was.

“I know,” I said. “Who told you?”

“Mr. P. Someone called him. Then he told me. Why would someone want to kill my mother?”

She was crying now.

“I think it’d be a good idea if we talked about it inside.”

“I can shoot the door open,” Ames said evenly.

“A little noisy,” I said.

“May be the best we can do,” said Ames.

“Adele,” I tried again, hoping the neighbors weren’t listening. “Pirannes is dead?”

“Yes,” she said. “I think so.”

“We’ll take care of it,” I said.

“We?” she asked.

“Me and another friend of your mother. My name’s Lew Fonesca. My friend, your mother’s friend too, is Ames McKinney. Look, I know Sally Porovsky. We’re friends.”

The pause was long. Without looking around to see if anyone was watching, Ames pulled the shotgun from under his coat and leveled it at the door.

“I’ll make a hole. You reach in and open the door if it doesn’t pop,” he said.

Before he could fire, the door opened.

Adele stepped back when she saw the gun aiming in her general direction. She covered her face and whimpered.

“It’s all right,” I said. “Ames isn’t going to shoot you.”

The girl in the middle of the all-white room-furni-ture, carpeting, walls-was a thin, frightened mess wearing a red mesh dress too old and too tight for her. She was barefoot. Her blond hair was all over the place and it looked as if she had been playing Dress-up and Makeup. Her lipstick was smeared. Her mascara was a dark splotch over her left eye and a running mess on her right.

Ames put his shotgun at his side.

“I’m so cold,” she said.

The room was warm, but Adele was shivering. Ames stepped toward her and she backed up with a little whimper, her hands up to try to counter the attack she knew was coming.

Ames took off his slicker and draped it over the girl’s shoulders.

“Help any?” he asked.

She took her hands away from her face and said, “Yes. I think so.”

“Where’s Pirannes?” I asked.

She pointed a red-painted finger toward a chair, a white chair facing the window.

“I turned him around,” she said. “I really didn’t look. I saw the blood and…”

Ames led the girl to a sofa and sat her down. I moved to the chair Adele had pointed to and touched the back. It spun around. I found myself looking down at a well-dressed man with dark hair and a graying mustache. He was looking up at me surprised. He had a hole in his head. The white chair was covered in blood.

I stood looking down at the corpse, knowing I should do something, that I should pick up the phone and call the police, ask for Detective Ed Vivaise and tell him the truth. Maybe he’d believe me. I wouldn’t if I were the cop and he was the process server who had found his second murder victim in less than twenty-four hours.

“Ain’t him,” Ames said behind me.

“What?”

“Ain’t Pirannes,” he said. “When I went up on the murder charge, I met Pirannes. We had the same lawyer.”

“Adele,” I called.

She was shivering on the couch, Ames’s slicker pulled tightly around her for comfort.

“Adele, you said Pirannes was dead.”

“He is,” she said, a shrill touch creeping into the fear. “Just look at him.”

“I think you better look at him,” I said.

“No,” she said. “I can’t.”

“It’s not Pirannes,” I said.

“It is,” she screamed.

“It ain’t, girl,” Ames said.

Adele got up and moved toward us. Ames went to help her.

“Spiltz,” she said, looking at the corpse.

“Spiltz?” I asked.

“I thought it was… I mean I heard the gun, saw the blood. I turned the chair without looking at him and then I… I just sat there till you called. What is he doing here? Where’s Mr. P.?”

“How long ago did you hear the shot?”

“I don’t know.”

“Where were you?”

“In the bedroom,” she said, pointing behind her.

“Doorbell rang. He told me to stay in bed. I… He went out. They talked a little. I wanted to take a bath or watch TV or something but I was afraid he’d come back and…”

“And?”

“Pirannes and whoever it was argued.”

“Two men,” she said.

“You recognize any of the voices?”

“For sure?”

“For sure.”

“None but Mr. P. for sure. Maybe him,” she said, waving at the dead man without looking at him. “He was here yesterday night.”

“And the other man?”

She shook her head no.

“Was it your father?” I asked.

“Don’t know,” she said. “I wanted him to come. He wouldn’t have come without seeing me.”

She was crying now.

“I wanted him to come, say he made a mistake, take me back. I’ll say it. I hoped it was my father. I hoped he killed Mr. P., but… Can I smoke?”

It was a bad time to give a lecture on the evils of tobacco.

“Sure,” I said.

She went to a table near the front door, lifted the cover on a white wooden box and took out a cigarette. She placed it between her lips and started to look around for a lighter or match.

“There’s one here. Got to be,” she said, running frantically from table to table, back through the door she had indicated was the bedroom. She came out again, sighed, took the cigarette from her lips and dropped it on the sofa.

“I don’t feel so good,” she said.

“What did he do to you?”

“Mr. P. gave me some stuff. Made me feel good. I thought I knew what he wanted but I wasn’t even close. I was hoping he was dead, wishing it. You know what I mean?”

“You know this guy’s first name?”

“Tony, I think,” she said. “Tony Spiltz. I’ve got a good memory. I don’t feel so good.”

“Can you clean yourself up?” I asked.

“I don’t know,” she said.

“Do your best and do it fast,” I said.

“I don’t want to be alone,” she said.

“I’ll go with you,” Ames said, putting a hand on her shoulder.

He led her back and through the door to the bedroom. I stood looking down at Tony Spiltz and wondered what had happened. Where did Pirannes go? Why did he go? Was he with Dwight Handford? Had someone called the police?

Spiltz had no answers. I looked for the gun that had killed him. I did it carefully and wondered what, if anything, Ames or I had touched. No gun.

When Adele emerged ten minutes later, she looked like a fourteen-year-old girl. No, she looked even younger without makeup, with her hair combed out and in a pair of tight jeans and a loose-fitting black sweater that probably belonged to John Pirannes.

“Let’s go,” I said.

“I’ll need the slicker, child,” Ames said.

“I’m not so cold now,” she said, handing him the slicker.

He didn’t put it on. He wrapped it around the shotgun and put it over his arm. We left, Adele between us, and I closed the door with my shirt. It probably wasn’t necessary, but some young cop or security guard might be very smart.

We didn’t meet anyone till the elevator stopped at the thirteenth floor. An old couple wearing robes and carrying towels got on with a small boy in a bathing suit carrying an inflated yellow plastic duck.

The old couple looked at us. The woman looked with concern at Adele.

“You all right?” she asked.

“Fine, ma’am,” Adele answered.

The woman looked at me and Ames. Adele moved close to Ames, who put his arm around her. This seemed to satisfy the woman.

“Did you notice what floor we got on from?” said the thin old man, with a knowing grin. “Thirteen. Most buildings don’t have a thirteen. Actually, they do, but it’s fourteen, if you understand.”

“I do,” I said.

“We live on thirteen,” he said. “We even pay less for our place because people don’t want to live on thirteen. But if they’re on fourteen, they’re on thirteen.”

“Sol,” the old woman warned.

The little boy made a popping sound with his lips and moved the plastic duck around as if it were an airplane. We came to the lobby and the elevator doors opened. The old couple and the boy went left. We went through the front door.

To our right, where the guard gate was, beyond a stand of bushes and short palm trees, a light was flashing. My guess was that it was a police car. I didn’t need a guess about where they might be going, though I wondered who had called them.

We moved right around the building and headed for the beach.

The old man was still in the pool alone. The beach was crowded. We hurried but didn’t run. Only the joggers were running, and we didn’t look like joggers. We found our way back past barbecue pit and pond. The heron was gone.

We pushed through the first line of bushes and stayed back behind the front stand of flowers and trees as we moved toward the mail. We made it in a few long minutes and got in the Geo.

“Where are we going?” Adele asked from the backseat, where Ames sat at her side, an arm around her shoulder.

“I’m thinking about it,” I said.

I couldn’t take her to Flo. Handford knew about Flo, had called Beryl there. She couldn’t go to the Texas, and she sure as hell couldn’t come to my place.

“He should have taken me back,” Adele said behind me as I drove well within the speed limit past the entrance to Mote Marine Laboratory to the left.

“He maybe should have just fuckin’ left me with Tilly,” she said. “Tilly isn’t all that bad. He’s not like Mr. P. I never met anybody like Mr. P.”

When we got back to the mainland, I pulled into the parking lot at the Denny’s a few doors north on the Trail. I had a phone call to make and I wanted to get a good look at the ’98 blue Buick that had followed me from the parking lot on the beach.