Vengeance

10

Adele sat across from Ames in the booth at Denny’s. Ames had left his “hog leg” in the car. Adele ordered a cheeseburger special, chili and a strawberry shake. She wasn’t trembling, but there was a vacant look about her while she waited for her food.

Denny’s was crowded. The waitress was in a hurry. I ordered a bowl of chowder, and Ames wanted nothing but coffee.

When we had first seated Adele in the booth, Ames and I had stood away for a moment. I had told him we were being followed. He said he knew.

We got lucky in our Choice of booths. Through the window you could see the parking lot and the Buick. Its engine was off, but no one emerged. Ames nodded toward the window to let me know he would keep an eye on the car, whose windows were darkly tinted.

I made my phone call and went back to the booth to tell Adele what we had to do. My chowder was waiting, complete with a small basket of crackers. Adele was alternating between chili and burger, washing them down with the shake. She didn’t seem to be getting any great joy from the feast.

“What kind of car does your father drive?” I asked, crumbling crackers into the white chowder.

“Dwight has a pickup with a tow winch,” she said. “No car.”

“Dwight?” I asked.

“Always call him Dwight,” she said, her mouth full. “Since I was… before he went away when I was a kid, and now.”

I didn’t pursue this conversational line, but went on with, “What kind of car does Pirannes drive?”

She stopped chewing and looked through the window into the parking lot. She was a bright kid.

“Big, black,” she said. “I think it’s a Lincoln or something.”

“Tilly, what does he drive?”

She put down her sandwich. There was a touch of ketchup on her upper lip.

“What’s this about?” she asked.

“Being careful,” I said. “If any of them show up, I want to know about it as early as I can.”

“You know Tilly?” she asked.

“I met him-last night.”

She nodded, took another bite and looked at Ames, who pointed to his upper lip and then at Adele. She got the message and used her napkin.

“Tilly drives a sort of sky-blue Jap car with one of those black canvas-like tops. Looks like a convertible but it ain’t… isn’t. It’s not all that new. He got it used. Looks good. He keeps it clean. Tilly is not a big-money dealer on the North Trail, if you know what I mean.”

“He and your father get along?” I asked, working on my chowder.

“I guess,” she said. “You know something? I don’t feel much like talking or thinking.”

I nodded in understanding and said,

“Then you can listen. I just called Sally Porovsky.”

Adele took on the look of a trapped cat. Her hands were on the table. She was ready to get up and run, but since she was smart, she knew better under the circumstances.

“I told her I found you,” I said. “She knows about your father, about Pirannes. I didn’t tell her about the dead man, Spiltz. I don’t want to put her on the spot. If you want to tell her, fine.”

“My mother’s really dead?” she said, trying to think something through.

“Yes,” I said.

“Then I don’t have to go away. I can live with my father.”

“Adele,” I said. “Your father is a violent, abusive child molester. He abused you. He beat me up. He sold you to a pimp and he probably killed your mother.”

“You don’t mean ‘abused,’” she said. “You mean he screwed me.”

“Did he?”

The wary cat looked at me and Ames.

“No way,” she said, shaking her head. “He’s good to me.”

“He sold you,” I repeated as the waitress reappeared and said, “Anything else?”

“Pie,” said Ames. “Apple if it’s fresh. Nothing if it’s not.”

Adele and I were eye to eye. The waitress didn’t know what was going on and didn’t much care. She moved away from the booth.

“I didn’t say he did,” Adele said, playing who-blinks-first.

“Tilly says he did,” I said.

She shook her head.

“You figure Tilly’s going to tell that to a cop or a judge or a social worker? You think anyone would believe him?”

There was no reason to go on with this. I would leave that to Sally. Back in Chicago, I was on a case in which a dying black drug dealer, a kid a few years older than Adele, had been stabbed six times in the stomach. He was in a hospital emergency room when I saw him. He was dying and he knew it. The cop I was with asked the kid who had knifed him. He said it was his best friend, his street partner, but he wouldn’t give a statement against him.

“Him and me,” he said. “We was always tight. He was good to me, like, you know, a brother. He was real good to me till he killed me.”

The waitress came back with Ames’s apple pie.

“Fresh enough?” she asked.

“It’ll do,” he said, reaching for the fork.

“I’m real happy to hear that,” said the waitress, putting our check on the table and moving away.

Adele started to eat again, her eyes down. She was either thinking hard or working hard at not thinking.

Ames nudged me. I looked at him and he nodded toward the window.

The door of the Buick was opening.

A man I recognized stepped out. It was my guardian angel, the short, tough-looking bulky little man with less hair than I had, the one who had saved me from a hospital-size beating, or worse.

He didn’t look in our direction and Ames and I looked away before he caught me.

“What’re you two doing?” Adele asked, looking out the window.

“Ever see that man before?” I asked, still working on my chowder. “Man closing the door on that blue Buick?”

“No,” said Adele. “Wait. Is he coming in here to get me or something?”

“No,” I said. “I’m just being careful.”

“Fucking paranoid,” she said.

“I’d appreciate your watching your language when you’re in my presence,” Ames said.

“Who the…?” Adele began and then found Ames looking at her, fork holding a piece of pie.

Adele shrugged and pushed her plate away. Ames finished his pie. The bulky short man came into Denny’s and headed for the men’s room without glancing our way. He almost waddled.

I considered following him into the men’s room, asking him what was going on, what did he want, who did he know, but I dropped the idea. He wouldn’t tell me and I owed him one. There was also no long-term point in getting out and running while he was occupied. He knew where to find me. There was, however, a short-term reason for losing him: Adele.

“Let’s go,” I said. “Now, fast.”

I dropped a twenty on the table, a too-generous tip.

Ames put down his fork and Adele slid slowly out of her side of the booth.

“The guy in the Buick,” she said.

I didn’t answer. We moved toward the door.

“He’s after me,” she said, looking toward the men’s room.

Ames touched her arm, guided her quickly toward the door. Adele was shaking again. When we got in the car, Ames sat in the back with Adele while I drove. “I didn’t believe you,” she said.

“About what?”

“About my mother being dead. You were just trying to get me to say something bad about Dwight.”

“No, little lady,” said Ames. “Your mom’s dead.”

In the rearview mirror I could see Adele looking up at him and seeing the truth. Her mouth was open. The first cry was more of a scream, and then the tears came. Ames put his arms around her. She leaned against his chest, her fists clenched. Her right hand went up and for a second it looked as if her thumb was searching for her mouth. It stopped short and her fist rubbed against her cheek.

She didn’t stop crying until we pulled up in front of Sally’s office building.

Sally was waiting downstairs in front of the glass doors. Her arms were folded across her chest. She was wearing a very businesslike black skirt and a matching black jacket over a white blouse.

“I’m not telling her,” Adele said as I pulled up in front of Sally. “About the dead guy.”

“Up to you,” I said, getting out of the car.

Adele got out too, but Ames stayed where he was. Before she moved toward Sally, Adele looked at Ames. He looked back at her. There was something going on, some understanding, maybe some respect on her part.

“Adele,” Sally said, stepping forward, her arms now at her side.

“Sally,” Adele said cautiously.

“I can use a small hug,” Sally said, looking at me. “Or a big one.”

Adele moved to Sally and put her arms around her.

“I’ve got to go,” I said.

Sally nodded and met my eyes.

“I’ll call you later.”

“Do that,” she said, one arm now around Adele, who was crying again.

As she led the girl through the glass door and into the building, I got back in the car.

“She’ll run,” said Ames. “If they don’t lock her up, she’ll run to him.”

“I know,” I said, driving forward.

“What if he wasn’t there to run to?” asked Ames.

“That’s what I was thinking,” I said. “He killed Beryl. He has a record.”

“I was thinkin’ somethin’ faster, surer,” he said as we drove north on Tuttle.

“You can think it,” I said, “but don’t do anything more than think it. You know where I’m going now?”

“Yes,” he said.

“If you come with me, we do it my way,” I said.

“Till your way doesn’t work anymore.”

I looked at him. He didn’t look at me. He seemed to be admiring the trees and houses and, particularly, a concrete mailbox shaped like a manatee.

Sally had told me Dwight Handford worked out of a Texaco station on University Parkway, east of I-75. It was easy to find. It was a self-service place with a double-bay garage and two tow trucks. A good-looking blonde in shorts was pumping gas at one station. The others were empty.

We parked in front of the station, got out of the Geo and stepped inside. There was no one at the cash register, but there were two men working on cars beyond an open door that led to the garage. The hood of one car, a Mazda, was up. A heavyset man with a mop of white hair was leaning deep into the open mouth of the Mazda. He was wearing overalls. The heavyset man was talking to a kid in similar overalls. The older man’s voice echoed within the Mazda.

“Here, see this, right here. Leak.”

“I see,” said the kid, leaning forward.

The kid was skinny. Grease spotted his overalls.

“We’ll have to take the whole damn thing out,” said the heavyset man, easing back out from under the hood. “I told him it might happen. ‘Shit happens,’ I told him. You know what I mean, Arch?”

“I know what you mean,” the kid said. “Shit happens.”

The big man patted the kid on the back once and said,

“You’ll learn something with this one.”

The big man started to clean his hands with a cloth. He looked away from the Mazda at us.

“What can I do for you?” he asked.

“Dwight Handford,” I said.

“Don’t know the man.”

“Dwight Prescott.”

The big man gritted his teeth, looked away and said,

“He’s not here.”

“When will he be here?” I asked.

“Never,” he said. “If he shows up, I go for my gun and the phone. Son of a bitch should be locked up again.”

“You fired him?”

“Two days ago,” said the big man. “Who are you?”

“Friends of his wife,” I said.

The big man looked at Ames and then back at me.

“He’s married?”

“He was till yesterday,” I said. “She’s dead.”

“He kill her?”

Arch was fascinated by the conversation. He stood listening, mouth slightly open.

“Between you, me, Arch and my friend here, I’d say it was a good bet.”

“Violent bastard,” said the big man.

“Why did you fire him?”

“I told him to do something, go out on a call. He said he had somewhere he had to be. I was tied up with a hurry-up. Arch was off. I told Dwight to go. He started lipping off, came into my space. I had a wrench in my hand and more than a belly full of that son of a bitch.”

“You knew he had done time?” I asked.

“I did more hard time than he did, but that was some time back and for armed robbery. I’ve raised a family since. A friend asked me to give Prescott a chance. I did. He blew it.”

“You know where he is now?” I asked.

“No,” he said. “Don’t want to know. I’ve got a home address for him.”

“In Sarasota?”

“Yeah,” he said.

“I’ll take it, but I think it’s not where he really lives,” I said. “Did he ever say anything about his daughter?”

“Daughter?” asked the big man, looking at Arch.

“Adele,” said Arch.

“Yes,” I said.

“Adele is his daughter?” asked the big man.

“I figured,” said Arch.

“You didn’t tell me,” said the big man. “He had her with him two or three times. I figured she was his girlfriend, a little young, but

… the way he-”

“She’s fourteen,” I said. “Just barely.”

The big man looked at the stained cloth in his hand.

“My oldest is fifteen,” he said. “I got a late start. If old Dwight comes around, I just might go for the wrench.”

I handed him my card and said, “If he comes back and survives, I’d appreciate your giving me a call.”

“You a private detective?” he asked.

“Process server,” I said.

“You’ve got papers on Handford?”

I smiled and held out my hand.

“Fonesca,” I said.

“Lopez,” he answered, taking my hand.

Ames and I left. Dwight Handford Prescott, I thought, was developing a long pregame lineup of people who wanted him to disappear.

I considered going back to my office, but I wasn’t sure what or who might be waiting for me there.

Instead I went to the Texas Bar and Grill. It was late afternoon. There were only a few people having beers, maybe a bowl of chili here and there. The television over the bar faced toward the tables. There was a baseball game going on. It wasn’t baseball season. It looked like the rerun of a game between St. Louis and Chicago. People didn’t get tired of seeing Mark McGwire and Sammy Sosa hitting home runs. It beat the news hands down.

Ames disappeared behind the bar and headed for his room.

Ed Fairing brought me a beer. I took it and moved to the telephone at the end of the bar. I called the DQ. Dave answered.

“It’s me,” I said.

“Lewis,” he said. “Business has been brisk. So have the inquiries about you and the visitors to your door. Some of the most recent visitors were the police. It’s a good day to be out on the water. There are times when I… forget it. And my suggestion is that you don’t come back here for a while. You know a guy with an Italian face, no offense, who looks like photographs of Tony Galento and drives a late-model Buick, blue?”

“I know who you mean.”

“He pulled in about half hour ago, bought a root-beer float then parked across the street in the acupuncture-and-dance-studio parking lot,” said Dave. “He finished the float and threw the container out the window. Then he sat there about twenty minutes and took off. I’m going to have to go there and pick up his mess. Can’t leave a Dairy Queen container littering a parking lot. And you wonder why I prefer the sea to land.”

“He ask about me?”

“No,” Dave said.

“If he comes back and asks, tell him… nothing.”

“That’s what I’ll tell him. Hold on. A lady with two kids is waiting for dinner.”

He was gone about two minutes.

Mark McGwire hit a home run. High-fives all around the field as he rounded third and headed for home with a big grin.

“Back,” said Dave. “I’m thinking of selling out. Or maybe I’ll hire Dawn full-time and semi-retire. I’m beginning to think I don’t like many grown-up people. You are an exception. Don’t ask me why. Can I ask a question?”

“Sure,” I said, taking a slow drink of beer.

“Who was the litterer across the street?”

“My guardian angel,” I said.

“Angels come in a variety of sizes, shapes and colors these days,” he said. “Some can fit on the head of a pin. Others can tuck the universe in their ears, though why they would want to do it I don’t know. Old Testament is filled with angels, warrior angels.”

“I’ve got to find a guy,” I said.

“We talking about a bad guy?”

“Very bad. Name’s John Pirannes. Ever hear of him?”

“I have,” said Dave.

“Know where he might be found or know anybody who knows where he might be found?”

“I understand he has a place at the Beach Tides on Longboat.”

“I have it on good authority that he has vacated the premises, at least for now.”

A thin black guy in a threadbare sports jacket sat down next to me. He nodded in greeting. His name, the only one I knew, was Snickers. Snickers had a sweet tooth and connections. Snickers was reasonably adept at breaking and entering.

“He has a boat docked at the Sunnyside Condos across Gulf of Mexico Drive and almost at the north tip of the Key,” said Dave. “I’ve seen him there. Big boat, can’t miss it. Sleeps who knows how many. Called the Fair Maiden.”

“Keep it to yourself,” I said.

“Lewis, it’s no big secret except from the cops,” he said. “Oh, I read that John Marshall article. I think I’ll pick up a biography of Marshall. I’ve got to go now. Customers.”

“Thanks, Dave.”

“Captain Pirannes is a good man to avoid,” he said. “Take care.”

He hung up and so did I.

“Snickers,” I said. “How’s it going?”

“Fine. Hell, not so fine. You want to buy me a beer or three?”

“Sure.”

Snickers was bobbing up and down to some inner music. He looked up at the television screen.

“Sosa’s the man,” he said.

I motioned to Ed to set up a beer for Snickers, who, considering the candy he consumed, must have been blessed with perfect genes. His teeth were even and white.

“He’s the man,” I said.

“Hey, that’s right. You’re from Chicago. So, what’s been going with you?”

“Well,” I said, getting halfway through my beer, “a tow-truck driver beat me up, a client was murdered in my office, I rescued a kid who had been sold to a pimp by her father, and I discovered a dead guy with a bullet in his head in an apartment on Longboat.”

Ed placed the beer in front of Snickers, who looked at me to see why I thought this was funny. But I was paying, so he smiled and shook his head.

“You know a pimp named Tilly?” I asked.

Snickers put down his beer and nodded knowingly.

After talking to Snickers and watching McGwire pop another home run, I dropped a five on the bar and left. Hell, it was going on Carl Sebastian’s bill.

I considered flipping a coin or playing a game to determine which of the two not-very-bright moves I was going to make. I didn’t consider taking Ames with me. Ames looked a little like Jefferson on Rushmore, but there was a determination behind that face of stone that shouldn’t be there in a man who had access to guns and had killed another man.

No, I was on my own. It was either that or forget the whole thing and go to the police. Detective Etienne Vivaise, otherwise known as Ed, seemed not the greater of two evils but the one unlikely to get me anywhere except in trouble.

If the next five plates I saw were from Florida, I would head for Longboat and the Fair Maiden. If I spotted an out-of-state, I’d go to the address I had for Dwight Handford.

Ann Horowitz asked me every other session or so if I was having feelings of self-destruction. I always told her I wasn’t and she answered,

“Not consciously.”

At the moment, I wanted to face Pirannes and Handford for what they had done to Adele and probably to Beryl. I wanted to know why creatures like this walked the earth. I wanted to argue with God and say, “I don’t know why you do what you do, but you’ll get no praise from me till you accept the guilt you should feel for what you’ve done.”

I was finally feeling angry about something. I was feeling grimly determined about a whole lot of somethings.

I counted license plates and found out where I was going-at least where I was going right now.