Vengeance

14

John Detchon sat behind the reception desk at the Children’s Services office. He looked up from a pile of papers he was sorting and smiled.

“The sad detective is back,” he said.

“I’m not a detective, John.”

“Indulge me in my fantasy,” he said. “I’m trapped behind this desk eight hours a day. I need to bring home tales of corruption and intrigue to my roommates.”

“I’m a detective, John. I carry a derringer in a tiny holster near my crotch. I’ve been shot five times and killed four people. I may not look tough but I turn into a raging revenge-seeking monster when provoked.”

John grinned.

“Beautiful,” he said. “Beautiful. I don’t believe a word of it, but it’s beautiful. I didn’t think you had an imagination.”

“I’m learning;” I said.

“Can we cut the crap and get on with our business,” Flo said.

“And you,” John said, “must be Mr. Fonesca’s mother.”

Flo went tight.

“Listen, sissy,” she said. “I’m broad-minded, but I don’t take shit on a silver spoon from anyone, especially sissy boys.”

“Sissy? God, the last person who called me that was my grandfather when I was six.”

“I’ve got better words,” she said.

“Flo, don’t blow this,” I said.

She shrugged, nodded to show that she was under control and said,

“Sorry.”

“Apology accepted,” said John. “I like your sweater.”

“Thanks,” said Flo.

“Miss Flo,” said John. “The word of choice is ‘gay.’”

“I know,” said Flo.

“Sally is expecting you,” he said. “Go right up. You know the way.”

We got on the elevator. The doors closed.

“He’s okay,” she said, looking at the door. “I’m just fucking nervous.”

“Flo, if you have to, say ‘freaking.’”

“Can’t,” she said. “It’s a PG-rated coward’s word. Let’s get on with this.”

Sally stood as we approached. There was a woman with her. The woman was in her fifties, a little off in her color combinations and in need of a good hairbrush. She looked frazzled. Sally smiled at me. I liked the smile. She didn’t look like a woman who had shot a man this morning, but she might be smiling about it. I didn’t know her well enough yet.

“This is Florence Zink,” I said.

The two women stepped forward to shake Flo’s hand.

“And this,” said Sally, “is Edna Stockbridge. She’ll talk to Mrs. Zink in my supervisor’s office. She’s at a conference.”

“This way,” said Edna Stockbridge, motioning to Flo.

Flo followed, after looking at me. There was warning in my look. I hoped she read that warning.

When they were gone I sat in the chair next to Sally.

“She’ll be fine,” Sally said. “And we need foster homes so badly that she’d have to be an ax murderer to be rejected. She’s rich. She wants to deal with Adele. What more can we ask for? All she has to do is convince Edna that she can handle Adele.”

“She can handle Adele,” I said. “Dwight Handford.”

I watched her face for a sign. I didn’t see one as she said,

“I talked to our lawyer this morning. She thinks there’s a fifty-fifty chance at best of keeping Adele from him. The power of a mistaken belief that children should be with their parents whenever possible combined with the likelihood of a really expensive lawyer representing Handford make fifty-fifty look optimistic.”

“Handford’s dead,” I said.

“What?”

“Dead.”

“Really? When? Where?”

“His house. The real one in Palmetto. You want to know how he died?”

“Not really,” she said, taking a deep breath. “I’m trying to deal with the fact that I suddenly feel relieved and I don’t feel guilty.”

“Why should you feel guilty?” I asked.

She looked at me. It was a very serious look.

“Because a man is dead and and I’m troubled because I don’t care. Why else would I feel guilty?”

“He was murdered,” I said flatly.

“I’m not surprised, though death in an alcoholic stupor or a bar fight wouldn’t surprise me either. I’ve got to think about what this means to Adele, how to tell her. I’ll have to call our lawyer. Sometimes death is good news.”

“You wanted him dead,” I said. “You said you could kill him.”

She was silent. Her mouth opened slightly.

“Lewis, you think I killed him?”

“It’s possible,” I said.

“I didn’t.”

“You’re offender. I’m sorry.”

“No, I’m not offended. I guess it’s a reasonable question. Do I need an alibi? When did he die?”

“My guess is early this morning, very early.”

“I was home with the kids.”

“When did they get up?”

“About eight,” she said.

“You could have gone out, killed Handford and gotten back before they got up.”

“I could have, but I didn’t. Lewis, are you trying to back away from me, from-for want of a better word at the moment-our friendship?”

“No. I’m asking you questions the police might ask you, maybe today, maybe tomorrow. There’s a smart detective named Vivaise who-”

I stopped in midsentence. I had another suspect. Ed Vivaise had a daughter. He had said something about the benefit to the world of Dwight Handford’s death.

“Too many suspects,” I said, leaning back. “The only way I’m ahead of the police is that I can eliminate me from the list. Are we still going out Saturday?”

“We’re still going out,” she said, touching my arm. “You pick a place to eat. I pick the movie.”

“Thanks,” I said. “I’m sorry.”

“For what? Being honest with me? Now the hard part of my day,” she said. “The downside of Dwight Handford’s death. I’m the one who’ll have to tell Adele her father’s dead and I have no idea how she’ll react.

I think I’ll do it now. I don’t want to carry it around all day.”

“Let me know how she takes it,” I said.

“I will. Saturday. That was interesting,” she said. “Being a suspect. Am I clear now?”

“Yes,” I said, but I lied.

Flo had to stay with Edna, get papers filled out. Edna would drive her home. She came out of the supervisor’s office and told me this. She was nervous and glowing. They were hurrying the process.

I told Sally what Harvey had told me about the Buga-Buga-Boo virus. She made a note to E-mail everyone in her computer address-book to warn them. I left.

I was sure Handford had murdered Beryl, but I wasn’t too sure about who had killed Tony Spiltz and Dwight Handford. The loss mankind would suffer due to their deaths was nonexistent.

My vote went to John Pirannes. Had a fight with Spiltz, who was doing his part to train Adele. Pirannes wanted Handford out of the way because he was probably a witness to the Spiltz murder and because he was a loose blunderbuss, ready to explode, dangerous. Pirannes probably knew Dwight had killed Beryl. My vote definitely went to John Pirannes.

That should have closed the file for me, but it didn’t.

I had to know for sure. I knew why I had to know.

My wife had been killed by a drunken hit-and-run driver. The driver hadn’t been found. There was no closure. I needed closure, certainty, in my life. I’d talk about it with Ann Horowitz as soon as I could.

The blue Buick followed me back to the DQ parking lot. I went to see Dave, who leaned out the window.

“How’s business?” I asked.

“Slow,” he said. “Rain always makes it slow. I don’t mind. You went to see Pirannes?”

“Yes,” I said.

“You survived. Congratulations. The Fair Maiden pulled out this morning, headed who knows where,” said Dave.

“Doesn’t surprise me.”

“You want a burger, Blizzard?”

“Had a big salad for lunch. Diet Coke.”

Dave nodded over my left shoulder. I turned and found myself facing two policemen. Their car was in the lot a few feet away.

“Lewis Fonesca?” one cop said.

Both cops were young. There was a thin one with a smooth face and a heavyset one with an amber mustache.

“Yes,” I said.

“Would you come with us, please? Detective Vivaise would like to talk to you.”

“Do I have a choice?”

“No, sir,” said the thin cop.

I knew better than to ask if I could drive my rented Geo. I climbed into the backseat of the police car. Until recently, the Sarasota police car insignia on the door was a picture of the statue of Michelangelo’s David. A copy of the statue stood in the courtyard gardens of the Ringling Museums. A copy of a copy had graced the doors and hallways and official vehicles of the city. Many of these tributes to distant art still remained. I don’t know much about art but, I liked the Ringling, the polished dark wood floors, the old-worldliness of the galleries of ornately framed paintings Ringling had collected in his European travels. I had been told by someone who should know that the paintings on display were the worst of the great masters-Rembrandt, Titian, that whole gang.

“You ever go to the Ringling Museum?” I asked the young thin cop at my side as we drove.

“When I was a kid, once,” he said.

“You?” I asked the driver.

“No,” he said. “My wife has.”

“She like it?”

“Said she did.”

I considered asking Vivaise about the Ringling Museum, but when I stepped into his office he was seated and patting his desk with his left hand.

“Dwight Handford is dead,” he said.

I sat across from him.

“Not sorry to hear that,” I said.

“I’m not either, but it’s my problem.”

“Where did he die?” I asked.

“You know damn well he died in his house in Palmetto.”

“Why would I know?”

“Don’t wear me out,” he said.

He had stopped drumming.

“A neighbor saw two men going into Handford’s house this morning. Tall man with a yellow raincoat and a short bald man. They came in a little white car and left in it a few minutes after they went in. Sound familiar?”

“Anything else?”

“Manatee medical examiner is looking at the body. At this point all he’s sure of is that Handford is dead and that he died sometime last night or early this morning, very early, before you and your friend were there.”

“And?”

“You’re going to play games with me, aren’t you, Fonesca? Handford was murdered. Shot. Between you, me and the painters out there if they’re listening at the door, I say the world’s a little better place today. Fonesca, did you kill him?”

“You mean did I drive out to Palmetto in the middle of the night, kill him and then drive back in the morning, discover the body and not report it?”

“Did you kill him?” Vivaise repeated.

“No, did you?”

“Not funny,” he said.

“Not meant to be. You have the weapons, the reason. The same reason I’d have. You’re happy he’s dead.”

“My guess is a lot of people are happy he’s dead,” Vivaise said.

“Why is it your case if it happened in Palmetto?”

“Because I think Handford murdered his wife and probably murdered Tony Spiltz, who died within the jurisdiction of the Sarasota Police Department, died in my county. And the Palmetto police are happy to give it to me as long as I keep them informed.”

“Pirannes’s boat pulled out this morning,” I said.

“I know. We’re looking for him.”

“What now?”

“You feel like confessing?”

“To what?” I said.

He threw up his hands.

“To anything. A plot to kill the President. Crossing Proctor against the lights. I’ll take what I can get. Have you been to confession recently?”

“I’m not a Catholic,” I said. “Episcopalian, very lapsed.”

“Do you know who killed Handford or Spiltz?” he asked.

“I’m working on it. Let’s pin it on Pirannes. If he didn’t do the murders, I’m sure he did others we know not of. He gave me reason to believe.”

“That the way the police think in Chicago?” he asked.

“That’s the way,” I said. “But I’m not a cop.”

“You’re not even a private investigator,” he said, beginning to steam. “You’re are a goddamn little process server with a big nose that gets into places where it shouldn’t be.”

“I agree,” I said.

“Get out, Fonesca,” he said, both hands on the table. “I know where to find you.”

“What happened to those two guys last night? The black guys in handcuffs?”

“You are a piece of work, Fonesca,” he said with a grin almost as sad as mine.

“I can’t help it,” I said.

“They got off,” he said. “They’re car thieves, but we didn’t have enough to keep them without a confession. They didn’t confess. They went home. That’s the way it usually is.”

“Another question?” I asked.

“Why not?” Vivaise said.

“Have you ever been to the Ringling Museum?”

“You are nuts, Fonesca.”

“Maybe, but I’m taking a sort of survey.”

“I’ve been to the museum. My wife and I have taken the kids. We’re museum members. I like it there. It’s peaceful, old. It’s a refuge, a garden of sanity, a sanctuary from the mad chaotic world outside, the world where people like you drive the streets and ask crazy questions. You satisfied with my answer?”

“Yes,” I said.

“Get out, Lewis,” he said calmly. “I sort of like you, but that can change quickly.”

I got out. The two young cops who had brought me here were waiting outside Vivaise’s door watching the painters, talking to them, laughing. They offered to take me home. I told them I’d walk.

I went down Main Street past the YMCA. I hadn’t been there for five days. I longed for that bicycle ride and workout. I wanted my routine back. I wanted my loneliness back. I looked at the people beyond the glass on the exercise machines. I thought, waited for an epiphany. None came. I walked back to 301 and headed south toward home.

When I passed the Crisp Dollar Bill across from the DQ, it hit me. It hit me hard. It was the only thing that made sense. I didn’t like the sense it made.

The blue Buick was parked in the DQ lot. The blue angel was sitting at one of the tables eating what looked like the deluxe burger. He had probably seen the cops pick me up and had decided it wasn’t a good idea to follow a police car. He was waiting for me.

I didn’t want him with me where I was going, so I went into the Crisp Dollar Bill. It took my eyes a few long seconds to adjust to the darkness. There was no music. I had lived across from the bar for more than two years and had never been in it before. It wasn’t as big as I thought it would be, just a line of wooden tables to the right and a long bar with stools on the left. There were no booths. One man sat alone at a table. He was a silent solitary drinker, his eyes fixed in the past. He was wearing a colorful Hawaiian shirt and I guessed his age at fifty.

There were two people at the bar, talking quietly. One was a woman who looked as if she were a retiree from the North Trail. The man wore a rumpled suit and had his back to me.

I went to the bar and ordered a Budweiser from the lean, long-haired bartender, who might have been any age between forty and sixty. He gave me a friendly smile and wink and said, “Coming up.”

No music. I liked that. I never understood why, when you got in someone’s car or went to their home to talk, they turned on music.

The television over the bar was off and the place was dark. I liked it here. I wondered if it was like this at night. I didn’t think so. Late afternoon was the time to come to the Crisp Dollar Bill. I’d remember that.

“Phone?” I asked when the bartender came back with my beer.

“Back there by the john,” he said. “Need change?”

I checked. I had a handful of quarters and other change in my pocket.

“No,” I said.

“Give me a nod if you want your bill or another Bud,” he said.

“There’s no music,” I said.

“Music-free bar,” he said. “Watch a football game once in a while. Sundays, Monday night. Quiet most nights.”

He moved down the bar toward the man and the woman. The bartender knew I needed space. He was one hell of a good bartender.

I made my call and went back to finish my beer.

Ten minutes later, my glass empty, I paid my bill and left a good tip.

I went out the door and looked over at the DQ. The blue angel had finished his burger. He was probably back in his Buick watching the parking lot and my door. I walked back to Main Street and stood in front of the Main Street Book Store across from the Hollywood Twenty movie theaters.

Ames pulled up on his motor scooter a few minutes later. He was wearing his blue zipper jacket and a helmet. I moved to the scooter and he handed me a helmet. It was a duplicate of his, green.

I had told him on the phone where we were going. I hadn’t told him why. It was too noisy on the scooter to carry on a conversation. I waited till he had parked in the lot on Longboat Key, about fifteen minutes later. Ames locked the scooter and ran a chain through a hole at the rear of both helmets. He locked the chain to the scooter with a padlock he kept in his pocket and we began to walk as I explained.

“We go in the same way?” he asked.

“Worked before,” I said. “This time we do a better job.”

There were two long-necked white birds in the pond beyond the bushes that surrounded the Beach Tides Resort. One of them looked at us as we moved.

We didn’t go to the beach this time. We didn’t have to search for the building. We knew where it was. We watched for security guards in their golf carts, didn’t see any and moved to the rear of the building where John Pirannes had an apartment.

There was no one in sight. We could hear the voices of people at the pool and beach, but their possible view of us and ours of them was blocked by a hill, a bed of red flowers and tropical trees.

“Here,” I said. “Right?”

We were standing in a plot of tall grass. Ames looked up at the building.

“Yes,” he said.

“A lot to look through,” I said.

“Seems so,” said Ames.

We bent and started to go through the grass with our hands. In twenty minutes of looking, I managed to find a golf ball, a soggy eyeglass case and an ant hill. I got two bites on my hand. My stomach was feeling better, but far from healed. Bending was not easy.

“Nothing,” I said, looking at Ames.

“Still light,” he said, looking at the sky.

Fifteen minutes later Ames found it, about fifteen yards from the building, next to a short palm tree, in plain sight. He pointed to it and I took the plastic zippered bag from my pocket.

I lifted the gun by the barrel and carefully dropped it into the bag.

Half an hour later we were back downtown. I was constantly thanking Ames, but I did it again.

“Anytime,” he said as I got off the scooter and handed him the green helmet. “I owe you.”

“You’ve paid me back,” I said.

“I like you,” he said.

“I like you too, Ames,” I said.

He looked at me, gray eyes serious.

“We’re friends,” he said. “I haven’t had more than three real friends in my life.”

“Friends,” I said.

He drove away. A crowd of people waiting in line at the movie theater for the early-bird show looked at him as he shot into traffic.

I walked to the DQ, got a Diet Coke to go from Dawn and went to my office, moving past the blue Buick.

My window was boarded up. I went in, locked the door, turned on the light, put the bag with the gun on my desk and sat down. I was pretty sure what it could tell me. I didn’t need a lab report.

I made a call and set up an appointment.

Then I put the bag with the gun under my dresser and lay on my bed. The sound of traffic on 301 put me to sleep. I didn’t dream. At least I don’t remember dreaming.

I woke up to the sound of people arguing.

Moist and groggy, I rolled over, got on my knees and reached under the dresser to convince myself I hadn’t dreamed the day. The gun was there, inside the bag. I moved to the window near my television set, pushed the drapes aside and saw a couple in their twenties standing in the parking lot of the DQ. They were arguing.

The woman, bedraggled, probably pretty beneath defeat, was carrying a child about a year old in her arm. The child had a pacifier in its mouth. The child was looking at what I assumed was its father, who was pointing a finger at the woman as he shouted. The young man’s neck was stretched in anger, tendons taut. He was wearing a baseball uniform sans cap.

I moved away from the window and checked my watch. I had to hurry.

Five minutes later I was in my car. The gun was tucked under my seat. Angel was close behind. We didn’t have far to go. I wasn’t sure where the room I was going to might be, so I just parked on the street, locked it and went in. I left the gun behind. I knew there was a metal detector in the building.

Sally was waiting in the lobby.

“What is this, Lew?”

“I’m not sure,” I said. “I’m pretty sure. I don’t think you should know. Not yet. Maybe never.”

“Susan thinks you might be a little crazy,” she said. “My daughter likes you but-”

“Ten-year-old girls have a sense of things like that,” I said. “She may be right. Don’t trust people who say ‘Trust me,’ but, Sally, I’m asking you to trust me.”

She sighed, checked her wristwatch and said, “All right. Let’s go.”

We went through the metal detector and signed in at the desk. We had an appointment. Sally was known at the Juvenile Security Center. If I could have gotten in without her, I would have.

“You told Adele that Dwight is dead?”

“I came to see you right after you left my office,” said Sally. “She didn’t know how to react. She just stood there for a while. Then she cried for a bit while I held her. When the crying stopped, she gave a deep sigh like she was letting go of something. I think she’s relieved and isn’t ready to admit it to herself. She may never be.”

“And Flo? You told her about Flo?”

“I told her. She agreed. I don’t think she can take it all in yet.”

I followed Sally to an elevator. We went up three floors and were met by a woman in uniform who was waiting for us. She led us down the hall to a room with a sofa and some chairs. There was a single window. It was covered by metal meshing.

We stood while the woman went away and returned in about three minutes with Adele.

The girl looked smaller than I had remembered. In fact, she didn’t look like the same girl at all. Her face was pink and fresh. Her hair was combed out, hanging back and touching her shoulders. She wore a sleeveless summer dress, green with little white flowers. She looked at least a year younger than fourteen. It was her eyes that looked forty.

She looked at me and then at Sally, who stepped to her and gave her a hug.

Adele ticked a smile, a very small, cautious one.

“Remember me?” I asked.

“Sure,” she said. “Denny’s. What you want?”

“To talk to you,” I said.

“‘Bout what?”

“Sally, can I talk to Adele alone for five minutes?”

I could feel the word “Why?” forming inside of Sally.

“Something you don’t think I would want to hear?”

I nodded.

Sally looked at Adele. Adele was looking at me warily.

“Adele,” Sally began, “if you…”

“It’s okay,” Adele said. “Nothing he can say can make things worse than they are and I might as well have it all in one day.”

“Five minutes,” said Sally. “I’ll be right outside the door.”

Sally left, closing the door behind us. I walked to the steel-meshed window and looked down. There was a drive-in spot for trash pickup. Two large green Dumpsters sat waiting. One was bulging with garbage. Fat green plastic bags looked as if they were creeping out.

“Let’s sit,” I said.

“I like standing.”

She moved to the wall, put her back against it and folded her arms. I moved about five feet from her and put my back against the same wall.

“I know who killed Tony Spiltz,” I said.

“Mr. P.,” she said.

“You,” I answered.

She shook her head and said, “You are somethin’. My mom and dad get murdered. I get thrown in here and you come… You are sick. I’ve seen ’em sick. But you are really sick.”

“I can prove it,” I said.

“You can’t, because I didn’t.”

“I’ve got the gun,” I said. “Found it below Pirannes’s balcony, near a palm tree. Took Ames and me about half an hour, but we found it.”

She shook her head no.

“Smith and Wesson thirty-eight. Silver barrel.”

“I don’t know nothing about guns,” she said, looking at the ceiling.

“You didn’t have to. You just pulled the trigger. I’ve got the gun in my car. It has your fingerprints on it. When I leave here, Sally will stay so you can remain in this room. You walk to the window, look down. I’ll be parked right in front of the Dumpsters. I’ll hold up the gun.”

“I didn’t shoot him,” she said weakly.

“Your story was terrible,” I said. “You’re a smart girl. You could have done better. You could have done all kinds of things. You could have wiped your prints off the gun.”

“You think I wanted to get caught?” she said, turning to me with a look, a typical teen look, that said, Are you nuts?

“I think so. I can make up a story to fit, but it would be faster if you just told me what happened. I’m not out to get you, Adele. I’m out to help you.”

“No,” she said, back to the wall again, arms folded, eyes looking up at the ceiling.

“Okay. Pirannes wasn’t in the apartment with you. Spiltz was. Just you and Spiltz. He was there to keep an eye on you. You weren’t exactly a volunteer. Spiltz went after you. You got his gun, shot him, panicked and didn’t know what to do. You threw the gun over the balcony, managed to get Spiltz’s body into the chair and then you cleaned up the blood where you shot him.”

“No,” she said.

Tears were coming. She fought them back.

“I’ve got the gun. It has your prints. The police, if they know the story, can find the spot you killed him. There’ll be blood traces.”

“I shot him in bed,” she said, her eyes closed. “I wrapped him in the sheets and blankets and dragged him into the living room so there’d be no blood and so it’d be easier to move him. There’s a washer and dryer down four, five doors down. I washed the sheets and blankets, dried ‘em and put ’em back in the cabinet. Then I put new sheets and a new blanket on.”

“He had to have a holster,” I said. “Ames and I didn’t find one.”

“I figured a holster would be too easy to find. Reason I took it off him was I… I thought if he was wearing one when he was found dead, the cops might wonder where the gun was that went in it. I figured if he didn’t have a gun or holster, the cops would figure whoever shot him came and went with his own gun. I rolled the holster up neat and put it in one of Mr. Pirannes’s drawers.”

“That was smart,” I said. “No gun. No connection. Police would think the holster was Pirannes’s. Holsters aren’t registered and they’re not illegal. It might even suggest that a gun might have been in it and it might have been the gun Pirannes used on Spiltz. You really think it out that far?”

“No,” she said, eyes still closed. “I just…”

“It’s full of little holes, but it’s pretty good.”

“I was gonna go back when it was safe, find the gun, bury it fast, but I’m here and you got there first. What’s gonna happen to me?”

“I’m working that out,” I said.

“He was gonna rape me,” she said so softly I could hardly hear. “No one ever did it to me without saying I was willing. Nobody, not my dad, not Tilly, not any man. You won’t understand the difference. A man wouldn’t. Most women wouldn’t.”

“Maybe I’m the exception,” I said.

She looked at me.

“Our five minutes are just about up,” I went on as I checked my watch. “The gun disappears. You stick to your story. The only one who knows it’s not true is Pirannes. The police won’t believe him if they catch him. The problem is that Pirannes has probably figured out that you killed Spiltz.”

“He’ll come for me,” she said. “He’ll kill me.”

“No. I’ll get Sally to keep you in here a couple of more days. I’ll find Pirannes and convince him you didn’t kill Spiltz.”

“How you gonna do that?”

“You’re not the only one who can tell stories,” I said.

“And me?” she asked, turning to me again and pointing to herself. The question came out in a thin, plaintive whine like the air escaping from a balloon.

“You? You get out, go live with Flo Zink and live happily ever after,” I said.

“I’ll give it a try,” she said. “I’ll try. I really will.”

“You’ll make it,” I said with a certainty I didn’t feel.

“You don’t have to show me the gun,” she said. “I believe you.”

The door opened and Sally came in. She looked at Adele, who was looking down at the floor, her arms folded. Then she looked at me.

“You all right, Adele?” Sally asked.

“I’ll be fine. Sally, can I stay here a few days, just a few days? I’ve got some thinking to do, things to work out about my dad, stuff. I gotta get used to going to live with that lady.”

“I think that can be arranged,” Sally said.

“I’ve got to go,” I said.

Sally looked at me with questions in her eyes, questions I might never answer. Then she turned and moved to comfort Adele.