Vengeance

11

Sunnyside Condominiums was on Gulf of Mexico Drive on the bay side of the key about five minutes north of the Beach Tides Resort, where Ames and I had rescued Adele and left a corpse.

There was no gate and there were no guards. The Sunnyside apartments were protected only, by a tall, tight hedge of flowering bushes. The parking lot was crushed shell and just a few steps to the right past the bushes. There were about a dozen cars parked on the lot. There was room for two dozen more.

From Gulf of Mexico Drive, it was impossible to tell how big the Sunnyside was. Once I was inside and walking along the narrow concrete path that curled around the two-story buildings and past a trio of tennis courts, I realized that there were at least a dozen buildings.

I had no trouble finding the docked boats. I just veered toward the bay. I had no trouble finding the Fair Maiden. I just looked for the largest boat. I know nothing of boats. They were a passion of Dave’s. He turned boats into vessels of philosophical speculation as he mixed Blizzards and served burgers and fries. He told tales of the open sea that he felt brought him near a sense of a supreme power.

When I was on a boat, I thought only of how soon the voyage, even an hour into Lake Michigan or on the bay, would be over. I longed for the land. I couldn’t live on a key. The possibility of being trapped on an island when a hurricane went wild filled me with dread. That didn’t, however, stop me from admiring the isolation that a boat promised.

I thought of this as I moved out on the narrow wooden dock toward the Fair Maiden. It was a deep thought. The thought on the surface was images, images of the frightened runaway, images of Beryl Tree. There was right and wrong, and sometimes they were clear.

I stopped at the end of the dock and looked at the clean broad deck in front of me. There was a tower with a steering wheel on my left. The tower was surrounded by glass or see-through plastic and a blue metal roof. There was also a closed door at the base of the tower on the deck. I guessed the length of the power boat at about fifty feet. My second guess was that it could probably take John Pirannes very far away very quickly.

There was a table on the deck with two places set for lunch. A bottle of wine chilled in a silver cooler on the white-clothed table. Another bottle of Perrier water sat ready next to two thin-stemmed glasses.

I stood, waited. Someone was below the deck. I could hear voices.

I closed my eyes. A breeze.

There is in some men a natural ability to kill. My grandfather, my father’s father, had told tales of the gangs in Rome, of the intimidation before the first war and the killing of Nazi sympathizers during and after the second war. He had already left the old country, but most of his family had stayed. They wrote. There were tales of cousins, uncles, distant bandits with the name Fonesca or DeFabrio or Tronzini who carried guns and knives in their belts and needed no reason beyond honor to use them.

I was not born with the ability to kill. I had never developed it. Even standing in front of the Fair Maiden I didn’t want a gun. I realized when I heard the voice that I wasn’t sure what I wanted, but that I would know when I found it.

“Can I help you?” came the voice.

I opened my eyes. A man stood on the deck, legs apart. He had stepped out of an ad in one of the Vanity Fair magazines in my allergist’s office. He was wearing white slacks, white deck shoes and a black shirt with a little white anchor over his heart. His hair was white and blowing with the breeze. His legs were apart, his hands folded in front of him. I knew who he was.

“Permission to come aboard,” I said, remembering The Caine Mutiny and trying to inject a hint of sarcasm into my request.

Pirannes looked at me as if I were some kind of lunatic.

“Manny,” Pirannes called calmly toward the door through which he had no doubt come.

A man in a white sweat suit came on deck. He was a big man, sun-brown and unsmiling. He was dark haired, well shaven and definitely Hispanic. Manny stood in front of the door, hands behind his back. I wondered if he had something in those hidden hands.

“I know you,” said Pirannes, running his tongue over his lower lip, trying to remember.

“The Y,” I said. “I work out there most mornings. You show up with Manny. We’ve said hello a few times.”

Pirannes smiled, a problem solved. He looked at Manny, who looked at me and said nothing.

“I remember,” said Pirannes.

His voice was mellow, his grammar nearly perfect. If he had a lisp, I didn’t hear it.

“Can I come on board?” I asked again.

“Why?”

“To talk,” I said.

“Talk about what? Who are you?”

He was smiling amiably.

“Adele Tree,” I said.

The smile was gone.

“Dwight Handford,” I went on.

Manny took a step toward me.

“Tony Spiltz.”

Manny took another step toward me.

“Tilly the Pimp.”

Manny leaped onto the dock. There was nothing behind his back but thick, dark callused hands. He patted me down, even into my crotch and with a finger in my shoes. Then he turned and shook his head no to let Pirannes know I wasn’t armed.

“What’s your name?”

“Lew Fonesca,” I said.

“What’s your business?”

“I was hired by Beryl Tree to find her daughter.”

“She’s dead,” said Pirannes.

“I’m still working for her,” I said.

“You know who I am. You know about Tony Spiltz and you come here like this? Are you a lunatic, Fonesca? Are you suicidal?”

“Maybe both,” I said. “If Manny will move out of the way, I’ll come on board the Guida Merchant. ”

“Okay. We’ll play games for a few minutes. Come on. You have lunch?”

“No,” I said as Manny stepped to the side, let me pass and step down on the deck in front of Pirannes.

“You want something? I’m having shrimp in the shell, a fresh French baguette.”

“Water,” I said.

Pirannes motioned to table and I sat while Manny, on the dock, looked down at me and folded his hands in front of him. Then Pirannes pulled a small, flat cellular phone from his pocket, hit some buttons and looked at me as he said,

“We’re going to have a late lunch. Come in an hour. No, make that an hour and a half. I’ll have Manny put a deck chair on the dock in case we have to take the Maiden out for a while. Wear your floppy hat. Bring your sunglasses. Sunscreen, and bring a book… Shrimp, tarragon chicken salad, sorbet… raspberry or lemon.”

He pushed a button and put the phone back in his pocket. Then he sat across from me and poured us both a glass of mineral water.

“Now,” he said. “What do you want?”

“I’ve got Adele,” I said.

He didn’t blink. He whipped out the phone again and hit a single button. He said nothing, and then hung up and looked at me.

“Who answered my phone?” he asked, picking up his water.

“Probably the police,” I said.

“What’s going on, Lewis?”

“John, I don’t want to play games,” I said.

He leaned toward me and whispered, “Lewis, you don’t look like the kind of man who can threaten me.”

“I’m a little crazy,” I said. “Remember the question you asked me? My therapist thinks I’m suicidal. A suicidal lunatic on a mission can be a dangerous thing no matter what he looks like.”

“True,” he said, holding his glass of water up so the sun hit it.

We watched the light hit the bubbles for a few seconds and I said,

“You leave Adele alone. And you keep her name out of what went on in your apartment.”

“What went on,” he repeated. “What are you talking about, Fonesca? What are the fucking police doing in my apartment? No, wait. She tried to kill herself.”

“No,” I said.

“Then…?”

“Spiltz,” I said.

“Spiltz what?”

“He’s dead. Big surprise, huh?”

Pirannes sat back.

“No,” he said. “Tony Spiltz had enemies but-”

“And you don’t know he was killed in your apartment?”

“No,” said Pirannes. “Give me a second here.”

He sat thinking, looked at Manny, whose head moved ever so slightly, indicating, I think, that he hadn’t shot Spiltz.

“Okay, Fonesca, here’s the way it is,” Pirannes said. “I know you’re not carrying a wire and I know who lives in every condo facing this dock. No one’s listening to us. I’m still taking a little chance, but you are definitely beginning to irk me.”

“I’m sorry about that, John.”

He shrugged.

“It happens in my business. I gave Dwight Handford, who is, by the way, a piece of diuretic mongrel shit, good money to get the girl. And don’t bother telling me you can’t buy and sell people. I do it. Lots of others do it. Now think about it. What’s her life like if she stays with Dwight or Tilly?”

“What’s it like with you?”

He laughed.

“Her life with me can be goddamn good. Listen, I give her a great apartment she shares with a couple of other girls, maid service, great food. Clothes. Walk to the beach. No one hits her. I don’t let her have drugs or drink anything stronger than a little wine. I keep her in shape till she gets too old.”

“Then you send her back to Tilly or Dwight,” I said.

“You don’t get it, Fonesca. It’s not that simple. Life’s not that simple. Where have you been living, aboard the Enterprise? When Adele retires, which I hope is a long time away, she’ll have more money than you’ll ever have and I’ll get her a straight job, hostess at a restaurant, something like that, far away from here. I have connections. If she wants to go to school while she’s with me, that can be worked out. My clients are top-drawer people, high level. No one is going to hurt her. Whatever crap she’s already been through with Dwight and Tilly, this will be heaven. I’ve got a doctor who checks out the girls, takes care of them. I guarantee my girls are disease free, guarantee.”

“You’re a saint, John,” I said.

“You are a stupid wiseass,” he said, shaking his head. “So you keep her. Then what? She goes to a foster home? She’ll run away. She goes back to Dwight, which is a distinct possibility because if I can’t get to her, I bankroll good old Dwight and get him the best lawyer in the state. The judge will not only give her back to her loving dad, but he’ll probably get a Father of the Year award. And then he’ll give her back to me, with the same visiting privileges he has now. You want another scenario? Fine, you can adopt her. You don’t like me. You don’t like Dwight. You adopt her, keep her from running away. You prepared to be pop to Adele, Lewis?”

“You killed Tony Spiltz,” I said.

“How?”

“Shot him in the head. Last night Tony and Dwight came to the apartment while you were in bed with Adele. You came out, argued. You shot Spiltz. Then you and Dwight ran off, leaving Adele with Tony’s body.”

“That’s a stupid story,” said Pirannes. “Look, I’m hungry and I’m starting to get a migraine. I have migraines. My mother had them. My two sisters have them. You’re giving me a migraine. I’ve got a lunch appointment and I have to call my lawyer about Tony getting killed in my place. The truth is, Lewis, I wasn’t home last night. I left Adele with Tony to watch her, maybe, you know, teach her a few things. Tony was a gentle guy with a lot of experience.”

“Adele says otherwise about what happened,” I said.

“Adele’s trying to protect her father, you simpleminded asshole. Handford probably came to my place last night looking for money, wanting to spend time with his kid, who knows. Tony said no. Dwight brought a gun or took Tony’s and… you know the rest. I’m getting hungry. Maybe that’s why I’m getting a migraine.”

He took out one of those plastic one-week pill containers, popped open one of the compartments, removed a large white pill and swallowed it with a Perrier chaser.

“You leave Adele alone,” I repeated.

“You are getting boring, Fonesca. And you don’t listen. Adele is a smart sixteen-year-old who knows the world better than you do.”

“She’s barely fourteen and she doesn’t know much of anything,” I said.

“Fourteen?” he said.

“Change things?” I asked.

“For the better, Lewis. For the better. I’ve got clients who’ll be very happy to get the news. They trust me, know I wouldn’t lie about something like that. You’ve brought me good news, Lewis. Walk away and I’ll forgive you your trespasses. As far as I’m concerned, when the cops find me, I’ve got an all-night alibi and I’ve never heard of Adele. As far as I know, Tony was in the apartment all alone last night. He must have let one of his friends in. They had a fight, and… You like that story?”

“Stay away from Adele,” I said again.

Pirannes got up, rubbed his forehead gently with the fingertips of his right hand and said,

“You like to swim?”

“No.”

“I do. There’s a drawer of swimming suits below. Pick one out that fits you and then come up. I’ll take the Fair Maiden out a few hundred yards. We’ll have something to eat and you’ll have a nice swim. You do swim, don’t you?”

“A little.”

“Good, because it would be very unfortunate if we were a few hundred yards out there,” he said, pointing beyond the rising waves, “and you couldn’t make it back to the boat or the shore. Manny, help Mr. Fonesca find a swimming suit. You’ll like it, Lewis. Water temperature is eighty-one degrees.”

Manny was on the deck now, reaching for the rope that had us moored to a pile on the dock. There was probably an anchor too. I’m not fast. I’m not slow, but I didn’t think I could get past Manny. Diving into the water wouldn’t do me much good either. I had lied to Pirannes. I really couldn’t swim at all.

I reached for the bottle of champagne. My plan was to whack Pirannes and take my chances, which were not very good, with Manny. I looked at Pirannes, who had figured out my plan and nodded his head to show me I was making a mistake.

I had already made my mistake. Pirannes’s plan was simple. He didn’t even have to be involved. He could put my clothes on the shore with a towel and let the police assume I had swum out too far and drowned. Ames wouldn’t believe it. Dave wouldn’t believe it. Flo wouldn’t believe it and I didn’t think Sally would believe it, but that didn’t do me much good. I had not underestimated John Pirannes. I had not estimated him at all. I was looking at a man who killed people who annoyed him.

“This doesn’t give me pleasure,” said Pirannes as Manny unwrapped the loose rope around a piece of metal shaped like a Y that was screwed into the deck.

I must admit it didn’t look as if Pirannes was particularly happy. He checked his watch as Manny moved to the rear of the boat toward the anchor. If I were going to run, this was the time. Pirannes stepped in front of me. Maybe I could take him. Maybe I couldn’t. He could certainly keep me busy till Manny made it across the few yards across the deck.

I think I was the first one to see the man coming. He was walking down the dock toward us, hands at his side. There was a little waddle and a little swagger to his step.

Pirannes spotted him and said, “Manny.”

Manny looked up from where he was turning a winch to pull up the anchor. He saw my guardian angel.

“Don’t do something very stupid,” whispered Pirannes. “He’s probably going to one of the other boats. If he’s here to talk to me, you stay seated and stay quiet. The best you can do is get you and our visitor killed.”

He kept coming, straight, eyes ahead, steady pace.

Manny moved across the deck to face the dock. When it was clear to all of us that the stocky bald man was not going to another boat, Pirannes shouted, “Can I help you?”

The angel said nothing, just kept coming. Manny jumped on the deck over the two-foot gap created when he had pulled in the rope. He stood facing the approaching man. Manny was four or five inches taller than my angel. Manny had muscle. Angel looked as if he had eaten far too much lasagna. It was no contest. When the smaller man kept coming, Manny’s arms came up, one palm open, the other in a fist.

The smaller man didn’t even pause. He came faster, leaned over and plowed his head into Manny’s stomach. Manny groaned but didn’t go down. Angel stepped to the side and shoved Manny off the dock and into the water. Then he jumped for the deck of the boat, almost missed and moved toward Pirannes, who didn’t back down.

“What do you want?” Pirannes asked.

The man didn’t answer. He grasped Pirannes in a bear hug, lifted him off the deck, walked to the bay side of the boat and threw the society pimp into the water.

Then he turned to me and said,

“Let’s go.”

Manny was wading heavily toward the shore. Pirannes was swearing at us. I followed the man up the dock and back to the parking lot.

When we stopped at my Geo, he was breathing heavily. His Buick was parked right next to me.

“How did you find me?”

“I know the places you go,” he said, almost bored. “You don’t come back to your office. I check around, saw your car parked near that bar. I followed.”

“Thanks,” I said.

“Do your job,” he said.

“Which job?”

“Find her,” he said.

“I found her.”

“No,” he said. “Not the kid. Mrs. Sebastian. Find her. Do your job.”

“Who are you?” I asked as he turned his back and opened his car door.

“Just do your job,” he repeated.

He got in the car, leaned over, opened his window and said,

“Get in your car and get the hell out of here.”

I got in my car and got the hell out of there.

I drove off the key and wondered how much I could count on the little man with the big body. He had probably saved my life for the second time. Was he working for Sebastian? Himself? Someone else? And why was he following me?

I decided to put off looking for Dwight for a while. I wasn’t sure I could keep counting on my angel. I’d need backup when I found Dwight and I’d also need a plan-which, I had to admit, was more than I really had when I went looking for John Pirannes.

Had Dwight killed Tony Spiltz? He came to Pirannes’s apartment to be with Adele. Maybe Tony said no. They fought. Dwight had a gun or took Spiltz’s. It was over. He told Adele the story she fed me and Ames. She would do anything for Daddy.

I went back toward my office, waving at Dave, who was framed in the DQ window. He waved back and shouted, “Your friend is pulling into the lot across the street.”

“I know,” I shouted back and headed up the stairs and into my office-home. There was no one waiting, dead or alive. No one had taken the place apart.

I picked up the phone and dialed Harvey the computer whiz.

“What’ve you got, Harv?”

“Our lady is getting careless,” he said. “She’s using her credit cards.”

“Where?”

“Mostly in Bradenton, once in a gift shop on Anna Maria. Lady has a ton of cash. Is she trying to get caught?”

“I think so,” I said. “Keep looking till she lets you find her.”

“I prefer tracking to being led,” Harvey said, his zeal definitely gone.

“Stay with it, Harvey.”

That done, I decided to hurry the search. I still had a killer to find and a kid to protect from the thing she called her father. I picked up the phone again and called the office of Geoffrey Green. His secretary said he was in but that he was with a patient. I said I would call back.

I went down to the Geo and drove to Palm Avenue. The blue Buick was right behind me, not trying to hide anymore. I found a parking space near a gallery. I didn’t see where Angel parked.

The receptionist looked up at me with a smite and a hint of recognition.

“Yes, sir?” she said.

There were no patients waiting.

“I’ve got to see Dr. Green,” I said.

“If this is an emergency, I can take your name and number and-”

“Now,” I said.

“He has a patient in his office for ten more minutes,” she said. “If you’ll tell me what this is about, I’ll let him know before his next patient arrives and maybe-”

“No maybe,” I said calmly. “I’ll sit here ten minutes and then he’ll see me. Tell him it’s Lewis Fonesca. Tell him I’m here about Melanie Sebastian. Tell him there’s a full moon tonight and I’m feeling its power. Tell him I love him. Tell him whatever you have to tell him, but don’t forget to tell him that I’m coming in to talk to him in…” I looked at my watch and said, “Nine minutes.”

“I’ll tell him,” she said. “Please have a seat.”

I sat. What I really wanted to do was go back to my little room with a stack of videotapes. I wanted to watch Bette Davis, Joan Crawford, Cary Grant, Kirk Douglas, John Wayne and Errol Flynn while I ate a pizza. I wanted the search for Melanie Sebastian to be over. I wanted Dwight Handford to disappear. I wanted Adele to be a kid again and live somewhere safe. I wanted to have soft-shelled crabs with Sally Porovsky and talk about her childhood.

I sat. I waited.