Vengeance

5

Gus Zink had died more than a year ago. Natural causes. I understand the distinction between murder, manslaughter and accident and natural causes- breakdown of the body, invasion by disease. But it all seems natural in a screwy kind of way. Murder is natural. Usually wrong, but natural.

Gus had come to Sarasota with his wife, Flo, more than a decade ago. He was retired, had money, got elected to the city council as an independent, made enemies and had gone out swinging.

During his campaigns, necessary public talks, lunches, dinners and various appearances, Gus had done his best to make excuses for the absence of his wife. She was ill or she was touring Europe or visiting one of her brothers or sisters in Alaska, Montana, California or Vermont. The Zinks had no children.

Just before he died, Gus, already more than just sick, was kidnapped to keep him from a key council vote on where to put a branch library. There was big money on the line, big enough to make some landowners and contractors want to insure the location.

I had been hired by the city’s only black councilman to find Gus Zink. I had found him. Gus started to fail fast after that last council meeting. He and Flo had gone north, to Vermont, where Gus had been raised. When he died, Flo came back to their house in Sarasota. The house was on the bay but on the mainland, not one of the Keys.

Flo Zink answered the door, a familiar glass of amber liquid in her hand. She looked at me, grinned, winked at Ames, who nodded, and turned her attention to Beryl Tree. A woman sang plaintively inside the house. I recognized the voice and the song. It was Patsy Cline.

Flo was in her late sixties. She was dressed in a black silver-studded skirt and vest over a blue denim shirt. She wore boots and looked as if she were on her way to do some line dancing. She was a barrel of a woman, with too much makeup, large earrings, and the distinctly vacant look of a heavy drinker. Even through her generously applied perfume there was a smell of scotch, probably good scotch. Flo, I had learned from personal experience, held her alcohol well, but once in a while there was a scotch overdose and the well-rounded widow Zink turned honest and foul-mouthed.

“I’m Flo,” she said to Beryl Tree. “Come on in and let’s get friendly. You can tell me your story. I’ll tell you mine.”

Flo put her free arm around Beryl and guided her into the house. Ames and I followed.

Flo led us into the living room with a view of the bay. The furniture around the room looked as if it belonged on the set of a Clint Eastwood western. Wood, old brown leather, a rough-hewn table made from a thick slice of redwood, and animal skins for rugs. Two paintings on the wall were authentic Remingtons- galloping cowboys, Indians riding bareback.

Flo moved to the double-speakered stereo against the wall and turned Patsy Cline down but not off.

“What are we drinking?” asked Flo. “I know Lew is beer, which I don’t consider drinking, and McKinney here is straight whiskey, which he doesn’t drink till the sun goes down, so he’s having…?”

“You have Dr Pepper?” asked Ames.

“I have every drink known to man or beast,” said Flo, holding up her glass to take a drink and purse her heavily painted lips. “Dr Pepper is coming up. And you, Ms. Tree?”

“Beryl,” she said. “Just water.”

“Suit yourself, my dear,” said Flo. “And have a seat. I’ll put your bag in your room.”

Flo pointed to a leather chair with arms made from the antlers of something from the far north. Beryl sat.

“Something to eat?”

“We ate at the Texas,” I said.

“That phony cowboy, Fairing, makes a decent bowl of chili. I’ll give the son of a bitch that.”

Flo picked up the small suitcase and left us in the living room listening to Patsy Cline sing about how much her lover was hurting her.

Flo wasn’t gone long. When she returned, she was carrying a tray with four drinks in tall glasses. The ice in the glasses clinked as she put the tray on the low redwood table.

“This is my special,” Flo said. “You can drink Dr Pepper, beer and water and any other piss you want at the Texas. At Flo Zink’s you go with the special when the sun sinks its ass into the water, which is what it will be doing in about ten minutes. Now, if you want to sit and hold it while the ice melts and the sun disappears, you go right ahead, McKinney.”

We all took a glass.

“Here’s to getting through the shit,” said Flo, holding out her glass in a toast.

I knew Flo’s special. We drank. Ames didn’t make a sound and his weathered face didn’t change. Beryl Tree choked and caught her breath.

“You get used to it,” said Flo.

“I like it,” said Beryl, taking another sip.

“I’m gonna love this woman,” Flo said to me and Ames.

I took a drink, steeling myself from the memory of the last time I had a special. It burned and tasted like sweet molten plastic. Flo was almost finished with her drink.

“I’ve got to go,” I said after forcing down another small sip.

Beryl continued to drink. Maybe she needed it.

“She’ll be safe here,” said Flo. “At least from everybody but me.”

I was familiar with Flo’s arsenal of weapons. They hung on wall racks or were displayed in cabinets in her gun room. I knew some of the guns were loaded. I didn’t know which ones.

I turned to go.

“You’ll find Adele,” said Beryl, fortified with Flo’s special, which seethed its way quickly into the nervous system.

“I’ll find her,” I said. “I’ll call you in the morning.”

“Not too early,” said Flo. “We’re going to be talking most of the fuckin’ night. Sorry about my language, Beryl.”

“I’m a waitress in a truck stop,” Beryl said. “I don’t think you could come up with anything I haven’t heard every day for the last twenty years.”

“I can try,” said Flo, smiling sweetly.

I dropped Ames back at the Texas and asked him to see if he could get any leads on Adele or Dwight. He nodded, got out and went inside. I headed back to that which passed as home.

It wasn’t too late. The DQ parking lot was busy but not full. I parked toward the back of the lot, locked the Metro and headed toward the concrete stairs.

I didn’t see him standing back in the shadows of the building and bushes near the stairway. But I did hear him when my hand touched the railing.

“Where is she?” came the voice from the dark. It was a raspy voice, the voice of a man who might have played an outlaw or a tough sheriff on an old radio show. Or maybe Flo and Ed Fairing had just put me in a western mood.

I stopped and looked toward the voice.

He came out of the shadows. He was big. Boots, badly faded jeans, a short-sleeved button-down white shirt with green stripes. His hair was dark, long, tied back in a small ponytail. My first impression was that he was good-looking and dangerous. Some women, maybe a lot of women, liked that. Most men didn’t.

There was nothing in his hands but his fists were clenched tight.

I didn’t have to guess who he was.

“Where’s Adele?” I asked.

Dwight Handford was no more than three yards away and closing in slowly. I was on the second step. I turned to face him. With me standing on the second step our eyes were almost dead even. Even in the dim light I could see that his eyes were blue-gray and dancing.

“You’re a dago, right?” he said.

“And you’re a redneck,” I answered.

“That sort of sets up how we’re gonna have this conversation,” he said. He had closed the distance between us to less than a yard. “Dagos understand violence.”

“And rednecks know how to come up with it,” I said.

“I’m not stupid, dago,” he said.

“Can we switch to wop?” I asked.

“Suit yourself,” he said with a smile. “I’m planning to hurt you just enough to let you know I’m serious.

Then you’re gonna tell me where Beryl is. I’m gonna go see her and be sure she leaves town. You’re gonna stop looking for Adele and asking questions.”

“How did you find out I was looking for you?” I asked.

“You asked a lot of people,” he said, inches from my face now. “Where is she?”

“Are you willing to kill me over this?” I asked.

“Maybe, I’ve… maybe.”

“I’m not telling you,” I said.

He searched my eyes.

“You’re not scared,” he said.

“No.”

“Why the hell not?”

“You wouldn’t understand,” I said. “I’m not sure myself. Sometimes I think I came here to sit down in a chair, watch old videos, eat at the DQ and die.”

“You’re a crazy son of a bitch,” said Handford.

“I don’t know. I’ve thought about it. I don’t think so. But you may be right. I think it’s a lot more complicated than that.”

“We’ll see,” he said, slamming his right fist into my stomach. I started to sink, grabbed the railing. Whatever was in my stomach wanted out. He’d missed the rib cage.

“Where is Beryl?” he asked. “I’m not an unreasonable man. I just want to be left alone. I want Adele to be left alone. She’s mine and I fully intend to keep her and take care of her.”

“You’ve done a great job so far,” I said, sinking back on the steps and letting go of the rail so I could clutch my stomach. “You’ve got her out selling herself on the Trail.”

He stood over me, hands on his hips, and shook his head.

“It’s all fuckin’ simple for you,” he said. “You don’t know shit, do you?”

I nodded. I really didn’t feel much like talking.

“Then I’ll tell,” he went on. “It’s all about stayin’ alive and doing what you feel like doin’ without getting caught. You live. You die and there ain’t no God watchin’. You understand?”

I nodded again.

“Just because cowards like you say there’s somethin’ wrong with what I do, don’t make it wrong. It’s horse shit. If God didn’t want me doing what I do, he’d have nailed my ass to the shit house wall long time ago.”

“I’m glad I’m being beaten by a brillant, if maniac philosopher,” I said, gasping at the end.

“Wop,” he said, “for the last time, where is Beryl? Answer me fast. Answer me true or you’re goin’ to the hospital or worse. You read Studs Lonigan?”

“No,” I gasped.

“What I’m gonna do to you is in that book. Look for it if you live out the night.”

I came up as quickly as I could and rammed my head into his face. He staggered back with a groan and I sank back down on the steps. I had intended to run for the DQ, but my legs weren’t on my side. Handford moved back toward me. It didn’t take much imagination to know what was about to happen.

But it didn’t happen.

A man came out from behind my car. Dwight Handford paused. The man took a few steps toward us. He was built like a wrestler, a short round wrestler. He was almost bald and he looked bored. He wore slacks, a sports jacket and a white shirt with no tie.

“Walk away,” Handford said to the man.

The man in the sports jacket moved closer.

“This is between my wop friend and me,” Handford said. “A matter of filial responsibility. I heard that word on television. You like that word, wop? Filial.”

Handford’s nose was bleeding, badly. He didn’t bother to hold it or try to stop the bleeding.

“I’m Italian too,” said the new man. “And I don’t like people calling me names.”

“Walk,” Handford said between his teeth.

“You walk,” said the man. “You walk or I blow your goddamn head off.”

There was a gun in his hand now.

“Who the hell are you?” Handford asked.

“I’m a man with a fuckin’ big gun in my hand,” the man said. “And if you think I won’t shoot your pissant balls off, take another step toward Fonesca. Or better yet, take one toward me. The way I figure it you got only one way to go and that’s back into the fuckin’ night.”

“You won’t shoot,” Handford repeated, but he didn’t move.

“It would mess things up,” the man said, “but shit, I can make it work. I don’t feel like talking anymore. Get the hell out of here, fix your fuckin’ nose or die. Those are your choices and I’m real bored here.”

Handford looked at me. The look said we were going to meet again. Then Handford looked at the man with the gun. It was the same look.

“Next time I see you,” said Handford, pointing a finger at the man, “you may not have that gun.”

“Hey,” said the man. “If I don’t you’re in real god-damn trouble ’cause I’ll break your neck. Hey, I don’t need a show here. Move out.”

Handford moved back into the bushes. I could hear him rustling away. I watched the darkness for a few seconds and then turned toward the man with the gun. He was gone.

I groaned my way up the steps, used the rusting handrail and made it to my office. I went inside and locked the door behind me. Light came through the window from the DQ and cars on 301. I leaned my back against the door and tested the spot just below the ribs where Handford had punched me. I was reasonably sure nothing was broken or ruptured. It wasn’t that kind of pain.

There was a chance Handford would come back that night. I didn’t think so, but you never know. I didn’t have a gun but I did have a tire iron in my closet. I had rescued it from my Toyota when it died. The tire iron would remain dose to me, and my reasonably sturdy office chair would go under the doorknob. I couldn’t count on my guardian angel in a sports coat to return.

I closed the drapes, turned on the lamp on my desk and looked at the air conditioner in the window. It was humming and doing its best to kick out air. Ames had done something to it, but the air coming in was still almost as warm as the night.

I got the tire iron from the closet, brought it back to my desk, reached for the telephone and the folder Carl Sebastian had given me. It was almost nine. It felt like a washed-out midnight. I made my call. An answering machine kicked in with a male voice repeating the number and politely asking me to leave a message.

“My name is Lew Fonesca. I’m working for Carl Sebastian. I’d like to speak to Caroline Wilkerson. When she-”

“This is Caroline Wilkerson,” she said, picking up the phone.

Her voice was light, cultured.

“I’d like to talk to you about Melanie Sebastian,” I said.

“Are you all right, Mr…?”

“Fonesca,” I said. “Aside from suffering from depression and having recently been punched in the stomach by a very big man, I’m fine.”

“Have you been drinking?” she asked.

“No,” I said. “Forgive me. I’m a little under the weather and the moon is full.”

“You have been drinking,” she said with irritation.

“No. I’m sober and I’m looking for Melanie Sebastian. Mr. Sebastian suggested that I talk to you.”

The pause at her end was long. I tried not to gasp from the pain as I waited.

“Cafe Kaldi, tomorrow morning at nine,” she said.

“Sounds fine,” I said, fairly sure that I would be in no condition to work out at the Y.

“And Mr. Fonesca, please leave your sense of humor, if that’s what it is, at home.”

“I’ll do that, Mrs. Wilkerson,” I said.

We hung up.

I thought of Sally Porovsky at her desk brushing back her hair, adjusting her glasses. I didn’t want to think about Sally Porovsky. I had her card. I had her phone number. I thought about calling her and making an excuse and forgetting about seeing her tomorrow for dinner. I pulled the card from my wallet, looked at it, put it down on the desk and knew I was going to go through with it. I made a few notes in my file on Adele. There was a lot to write. I kept it simple.

I watched an old tape of The Prince and the Pauper. The tire iron lay next to my bed. A bottle of Advil kept it company. I wondered what happened to the Mauch twins who starred in the movie. I wondered, but not enough to find out.

I wondered about my guardian angel. Who had sent him to protect me? Why? I heard my grandfather’s mandolin. He was playing “Darktown Strutter’s Ball,” one of his favorites.

When the twins stopped smiling at the end of the movie, I leaned back and fell asleep. One of my recurrent dreams came deep but with a new twist. My wife’s car was driving in the right-hand lane. Night. She was heading home. The water of Lake Michigan off to her left. I was there. Standing in the median strip, watching her come toward me. A pickup truck suddenly appeared, red, fast, hit her hard crushing her car a few feet in front of me. The pickup sped past. The driver was Dwight Handford. He was smiling at me like the Mauch Twins.